As the subject line says, is there any way to improve the Dex Cap on armor?
It used to be that Mithral Armor would have a higher Dex Cap. I am not seeing that in the rules for special materials. I also didn't find anything in the runes that made me think it ever increased. Given the attribute boosts, a +4 Dex Cap on Leather Armor will quickly be exceeded by certain types of characters.
Two types of armor that used to be excellent for high Dex characters no longer seem worthwhile. Neither Celestial Armor nor Elven Chain override the normal Dex Cap for their armor types.
Am I missing a rule someplace? I was really expecting to be able to get armor with a higher Dex Cap. It really looks like a high Dex character is better off with Leather or Explorer's Clothes to start and Bracers of Armor at the high level.
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Nope. Nor is there likely to ever be one.
A loincloth probably doesn't have a DEX cap.
Anyway, it takes a *lot* of work to get more than +5 with DEX. You can't have more than +4 at 1st level, and you'll need four attribute boosts to get that to +6. Unless there's some wonky feat I haven't seen.
A loincloth probably doesn't have a DEX cap.
Anyway, it takes a *lot* of work to get more than +5 with DEX. You can't have more than +4 at 1st level, and you'll need four attribute boosts to get that to +6. Unless there's some wonky feat I haven't seen.
Being naked is the only way at the moment. Anything that gives armor bonus has dex cap, even the spell Mage Armor.
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Normal clothing exists and has no Dex Cap. It can also not be enchanted in any way.
There's no way to increases the Dex cap on a specific kind of armor. Nor will there be, in all likelihood. I guess technically, something like that for Light or Medium armor that increased it by 1 wouldn't be unbalancing, so that might happen, but that's as far as it would go.
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The devs are determined that Heavy armor gets a total possible armor bonus of +6 (including dex), and everything else, every possible combination, seems to limit to AC bonus to +5 (including dex). Even bracers of armor limit your dex to AC at 5.
You could go without any armor providing items, at have a +7 dex using the Apex item, but you wouldn't be able to add any of the runes. That ultimately puts you 1 behind in terms of max AC (which wouldn't be so bad) but you miss out on the ability to add +3 to your saves, which is a bigger deal IMO.
I don't expect them to ever do anything to allow you to increase the max dex to armor.
Edit: This is actually a big complaint I've made about armor and dexterous characters. Better "armor" proficiency is actually worthless if you intended to invest in dex, which most characters can afford to do. Out of 6 stats, it's unlikely you can't afford to increase dex. Int it basically worthless if you aren't an int based class. Strength is basically worthless if you aren't a melee martial build. Charisma isn't necessary if you're not going for a charisma skill or have charisma based class abilities.
I honestly feel like they could have grouped armor into only two categories of light and heavy and just moved all the medium armor options into light. Mechanically there's basically no need or real benefit to medium armor.