Light Armor Is Best for Rogues

Having light armor is must for the rogue class and sometimes for those mixed wizard types. I mean any class can benefit from it actually considering how light weight it. It keeps you from having reduced speed. It is, however, especially beneficial to thieves, bards, and other 3.5 dnd classes requiring a lot of dexterity.

Adventure Example of a Difficult Situation

Ok, so let us say for example you end up in a situation or tons of enemies are approaching from the southern part of the dungeon and there is absolutely no way out. You are particularly screwed. Yes, absolutely. No doors, no windows, and only a dead end. Ok, screw it. You have one door fine. It is made of metal with a lock that is near impossible to pick. Now, you look yourself over and you see you are rogue that is wearing plate mail. Why? I have not a got clue. Maybe you just like wearing full plate mail.

So, you have these choices presented to you. Hide in shadows, climb the wall, pick the lock, beg for mercy, fight for your life, or take off your armor.

Taking Your Armor Off In Battle

Taking off your armor may be the most likely choice, but if the enemies get a higher roll for initiative and you are dealing with roll penalties due to it being heavy armor you might as well forget it. This is especially true if the enemies get a high initiative roll two times in a row. Let’s say you get the opportunity to get the armor off before they get there. The go the next round kick your butt while you are in your underwear. Great job buddy.

The Final Decision Made

Ok, so let’s be realistic here. You are not going climb walls either because there is obviously a ceiling the way. You could beg for mercy as they hack at you, but they might say ok you are free to go after you have already turned into a corpse.

So it all narrows down to hide in shadows or picking the lock. Yes, they have a higher chance of working – if only you properly prepared yourself. So let’s say you use a skill check for hide in shadows. This check is a combination of your skill rank + ability modifier + additional modifiers + the die roll.

Ok, here is what you got going on for your thief character. He is a human thief who has a dexterity of a crappy 10 (he didn’t do his daily runs), skill rank of 4 and -6 armor check penalty. There are no ability modifiers because a dexterity of ten is
set at 0. So you make your die roll on a twenty sided die and get a 10 on the die roll. The dungeon master checks his difficulty challenge number to see if you pass or not (The dc is suppose to be a 12). Basically you just failed. Sorry for the disappointment. This will explain why. Your die roll which is a 10 plus your rank of 4 plus your lack of doing your daily runs (a zero) minus the armor check penalty equals eight. You were suppose to get above a twelve.

Results of Passing the Die Roll

So the point of this is? Well, the point is if you were wearing leather armor or just regular clothing during your exploration in a dungeon full of blood thirsty monsters, you would have passed the roll with a fourteen. Bam! Yes, not only would you have passed that roll you would have survived to be able pick the lock with a passing roll also.

Guess what was behind the door… You guessed a chest full of gold and silver that could have been yours. It even had rare magic items in it. Oh well. Maybe next time you will be better prepared with the right equipment.

What you wear is very important in dungeons and dragons. Just remember to prepare appropriately for each class as they all have their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to what gear they use.

Give Me Your Input

Just remember to leave any feedback in my comments sections below or any ideas you may have about what is the correct equipment to use in various scenarios.

Your Fellow Gamer
Jakob