1) the lighter armors are great for archer/finesse builds with easier STR requirement and less Bulk.
2) anybody boosting DEX at all can easily equal Bulwark, and later exceed, but not limited to only damage Saves.
3) (any) plate is limited to armor spec resistance/slashing, which isn't the most common damage type for monsters.
i consider composite resistance/piercing a more widely relevant type, both for melee monsters and archery and some melee weapons.
if a heavy chain were available, it would be attractive as resistance vs ALL physical type crits (spikey damage less healable).
(you can use armored skirt on medium chain mail to gain 2 more armor spec resistance, but same ac cap as medium, 1 lower than heavy)
So I view Heavy Plate (Bulwark) as really just temporarily advantageous, and bandaid for those with no DEX. If you are using mental stats for casting stat or archetype requirement that can be crucial, but most martials will be able to boost DEX at least moderately to start, and reach 16+ DEX at least by 10th (and many might prefer e.g. +2 to all Reflex as soon as they have 14 DEX vs +3 only to damage saves).
Note there is archetypes (sentinel) whose feats further boost bulwark, increasing it's value to +4 and applying vs all saves, but it still isn't better than what you can do with DEX, and uses feats.
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1) the lighter armors are great for archer/finesse builds with easier STR requirement and less Bulk.
2) anybody boosting DEX at all can easily equal Bulwark, and later exceed, but not limited to only damage Saves.
3) (any) plate is limited to armor spec resistance/slashing, which isn't the most common damage type for monsters.
i consider composite resistance/piercing a more widely relevant type, both for melee monsters and archery and some melee weapons.
if a heavy chain were available, it would be attractive as resistance vs ALL physical type crits (spikey damage less healable).
(you can use armored skirt on medium chain mail to gain 2 more armor spec resistance, but same ac cap as medium, 1 lower than heavy)So I view Heavy Plate (Bulwark) as really just temporarily advantageous, and bandaid for those with no DEX. If you are using mental stats for casting stat or archetype requirement that can be crucial, but most martials will be able to boost DEX at least moderately to start, and reach 16+ DEX at least by 10th (and many might prefer e.g. +2 to all Reflex as soon as they have 14 DEX vs +3 only to damage saves).
Note there is archetypes (sentinel) whose feats further boost bulwark, increasing it's value to +4 and applying vs all saves, but it still isn't better than what you can do with DEX, and uses feats.
More bulwark options would be a good idea.
Its not a complete replacement for DEX. But its not too bad. I do think the plus 1 AC from heavy armour is very worthwhile until high level. Certainly over a minor resistance that you may never get.
Sacking DEX is not a powergaming choice because its so easy to cover it with the increases that you get. But it can be a fun choice, that enables you to do something with a more interesting ability score that is not core to your build. That is something around INT or CHA for a STR based martial character.