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LOL I wasn't counting minute buffs as a valid reason for needing +8. IMO, hitting max dex for 1 min/day isn't something "you have to worry about".Have you considered mithril parade armor? It seems like it would solve a lot of your uncertainty. ^_^I'm sorry, I must be discombobulated after glancing at that confusing political thread that just popped up - what would the advantage of parade armor be other than a circumstantial skill bonus?
Am I to understand that you can tack these new augmentations on AFTER the suit's already been made/purchased? That would make it all easier....As to cost... SO? By the time you have to worry about max dex of +8, the extra 1000gp is money well spent.
I actually hit the +8 DEX kind of early...
Elf with a 20, Alchemist DEX Mutagen up's it to 24, Reduce Person extract adds a size bump to the DEX and I'm at the +8 at 1st level... (and a +9 to hit with my bombs!)
The Mutagen is 10 min per level, and I often start the combat with a Reduce Person extract (I got 3 extracts at 1st level... but I could also just use a wand of it if it comes to that). Not that the Armor selection was a problem, it didn't get real bad until about 5th level when my Mutagen was lasting almost an hour and I had picked up a Belt of DEX... at that point 1000 gp is still a lot of money (but doable) and my DEX is 28 before I drink/cast the Reduce Person... but by then it is for any combat where I can get a round to buff.
The Toaster: Oh, you CAN run into a problem earlier, but I question WHY you've run into a problem that early. What possible reason could you have for needing/wanting a dex of 28 when targeting touch AC? And how did your dex jump by +4 [if it's the belt, that's 16000gp].
And if you can afford a belt of dex, you had money for the armor which was my point. The extra 1000gp wasn't what stopped you from getting it and you can afford the armor BEFORE the belt.
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Some of the reasons to boost my DEX... in order of importance (just my opinion)
A) INIT - a desire to go first. I want to get in the first shot. - or maybe the first "RUN AWAY"! lol.
B) AC - a better DEX makes my AC better [not my Flat Footed AC, but see (A) above]
C) I've got a rank in Disable Device, and Slight of Hand - which are a DEX skills, so ... yeah, better skills. (Acrobatics? Stealth? reduce person gives a big boost to Stealth)
D) Shooting into a Melee. Target's AC goes up for Cover (+4) and without Percise Shot I suffer a -4... so my +9 may often translate to a +1.
(The 28 DEX above was a typo. It should have been a 26 (+8) ... my bad, sorry! The belt I got at 4th/5th level was a +2 Dex belt, not a +4)
The Toaster:Seems like dex overload IMO. You get diminishing returns after a while.
a) You hit double digits, you're likely going first without adding a few more points. It's also easier to get by feat, as a single feat gets you as much as 8 points of dex does and a trait equals 4 points of dex.
b) When you go full steam right out of the bat, you quickly leave normal armors in the dust. Much like init, a dex of 26 and a dex of 20 + a physical armor +3AC gets you the same AC. For the 4000 the belt cost, you could have spent half and had a higher AC and had half more to buy a darkwood buckler for another +1 AC. You actually LOST AC focusing so much on dex.
c) Bonus to skills is nice but it's like init, diminishing returns. Disable device isn't super useful unless you're the primary trap guy with trapfinding. Sleight of hand is of dubious use in the best of times, stealth/acrobatics is useful but specific spells do it better. True skill spell actually covers all skills if you're interested in a skill booster that covers all the skills.
d) we're talking about touch AC and getting precise shot is something you can get by 3rd at the latest. secondly, you're not that likely to throw into melee unless you don't mind splash damaging your party.
So
Touch AC easy to hit and gets easier to hit as you level.
AC is balances with armor/shield AC [plus magic bonus]
initiative returns drop quickly past a point. A difference between a bonus of 10, 15 or 20 are mostly meaningless if they all let you go first.
Skills: once skill points + training + stat hits the DC's you use, it's not useful to add more to the rolls. And that only matters if it's skills you actually use. The only time I've ever used sleight of hand was on a character that had a special rule for using it: otherwise it just sits on the sheet.
PS: We're getting off topic here so this should be it for this debate.
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Different play styles I think.
the order I normally select feats for my Alchemists would be
Splash Weapon Mastery, Percise Bombs, Point Blank Shot, Percise Shot....
SWM for all the wonderful things it does (range, extra sq. of damage, adjust miss locations)
Percise Bombs so I can splash around friends (and adjust the shape of my splash areas)
PBS to get Percise Shot.... but by then I'm into 7th level and I begin to loose interest in my PCs about then.
And Percise Shot to remove penility before I take Fast Bombs/Rapid Shot...
But like I said, different play styles...
Oh! And I normally do take the Trait Warrior of Old to bump the INIT by 2.
(I do often take Cryptbraker or Trapbreaker Archtype so I am often the primary trap monkey...)
The Toaster was my FIRST Alchemist - with my latest ones I actually do cut the DEX back some - mainly to boost INT. But that's another story....
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WHO CARES
I do.
Because: shiny!
Game rules wise...yeah it's both metal and non metal according to two different books.
How do you figure? According to the rules, it is metal armor, period. The only reason it can be made out of darkleaf cloth is because the darkleaf cloth entry specifically calls it out. It's an exception to the normal rule and doesn't give you license to make it out of other non-metal materials (at least those with an impact on game mechanics) unless those special materials also call t out as an exception. It's also still metal armor, for the purposes of the game's special material rules.
It doesn't have the same stats though. It still has arcane spell failure.