Fighter Vagabond AC missing?

[AlwaysALighthouse]

Hello,

I am a pure level 4 Fighter with the Vagabond background. However, I do not believe that I am correctly receiving the additional AC.

The Light Armor Bonus states:

Light armor bonus
Adds armor bonus to leather, studded leather and chain shirt armor pieces worn. Total arnor bonus is calculated:

+2/+3/+4 on level 1/5/8 respectively.

As 4 levels pure Fighter I have an AC of 19. This is calculated from:

10 [Base] + 3 [DEX 16] + 4 [Chain Shirt] + 2 [Heavy Shield] = 19

As you can see, the additional +2 from this background is not being calculated and should be 21.

At first I thought it was simply not showing up on the character sheet, but whilst fighting Hook Horrors I was being hit on 20s (not critical hit rolls, but d20 13 + 7).

[Talir]

You are missing some modifiers there.

Per the perk you would have:

+2 AC because of level 4.
-2 AC because of your chain shirt (-4 + 2).
-1 AC due to your 16 Dexterity (modifier of +3).

Giving a grand total of -1 AC, not the +2 AC you believe you would have on your armor. The perk doesn't apply any negative or zero bonuses.

The whole light armor description says:

Light armor bonus
 Adds armor bonus to leather, studded leather and chain shirt armor pieces worn. Total arnor bonus is calculated:

 +2/+3/+4 on level 1/5/8 respectively.
 - Armor AC on the item.
 +2 that negates penalty for leather armor.
 - Dexterity modifier above 2.

 Resulting in total max 16 AC at level 1, 17 AC at level 5 and 18 AC at level 8 regardless of armor worn.

You are not going to see any bonuses to your chain shirt armor until level 8.

[AlwaysALighthouse]

Okay, thanks. The description isn't exactly clear that there are additional netative modifiers (At least, to myself and the several guys who have been looking at it the last couple of days). It mostly reads that you get the flat +AC bonuses.

That being said, I can't see where this background would then be worthwhile? It seems that you're going to want to take the lowest AC armour (in order not to get the penalties that outweigh the bonuses), but then if you do, you'll be wanting to take higher Dexterity to make use of the low AC armour's high Dex modifier... which then also outweigh the bonus.

[Talir]

There has been others who have voiced confusion about the background as well. I've tried to explain it as best as I can every time, hopefully these posts will also contribute to further clarification.

The point of Vagabond is to give fighters the possibility of fighting in leather or chain shirt armor on nearly even ground as their more armored counterparts, without forcing them to invest heavily in dexterity to pull it off. Higher dexterity will contribute to higher reflexes and thus also better use of the level 8 feat Evasion. It's a quirky background. On high enough level or at even enough dexterity, it will not matter whether you are using leather, studded leather or chain shirt; as the total AC gotten would be the same. Leaving you with the options to choose the armor you like best.

[AlwaysALighthouse]

Thanks, but it seems that the biggest pay off is with Leather Armour, as with the other two you get capped out at +6AC. That's even after 8 levels of investment, which I understand is quite difficult to pull off on the sever, and seems like a pretty poor return compared to using Medium or Heavy Armour.

[Talir]

Anyway, there's no bug here.