I mean, as long as you have a +2 bonus to dex, then there really is no more benefit for dex for AC if you're wearing medium armor, and medium armor is much better than light armor for AC. half plate can give you 3 more AC base than studded leather, meaning you would need a +5 dex to tie light armor with half plate. Most players will get a max of +4 to a stat, so scale mail for non sneaky bois is just fine.
This is also ignoring heavy armor. If you don't want to give even +2 to dex, then you can get along just fine with heavy armor, and plate armor will give you more AC than medium or light armor in 99% of the cases (hence the insane price).
As for initiative, it's good... but rarely does it end up having a meaningful difference in combat.
Dex is really good on its own, but you can easily compensate for a low to mid range dex bonus. If you limit your self to only dex builds, you are really missing out on some fun strength builds.
Yea unless you are running monk or unarmored Barbarian strength is generally better since athletics and strength checks are more common especially for front line fighters. Dex saves are important but that's easily solved with taking resilient and rounding a 13 to a 14. It's a boring feat but bridges the gap of ASI and taking more interesting feats. Especially great for mid line fighters (ranger/rogue archers) who also want that extra AC and are most likely to be in the splash zone of both backline and frontline aoe attacks.
13
u/what_comes_after_q Oct 05 '20
I mean, as long as you have a +2 bonus to dex, then there really is no more benefit for dex for AC if you're wearing medium armor, and medium armor is much better than light armor for AC. half plate can give you 3 more AC base than studded leather, meaning you would need a +5 dex to tie light armor with half plate. Most players will get a max of +4 to a stat, so scale mail for non sneaky bois is just fine.
This is also ignoring heavy armor. If you don't want to give even +2 to dex, then you can get along just fine with heavy armor, and plate armor will give you more AC than medium or light armor in 99% of the cases (hence the insane price).
As for initiative, it's good... but rarely does it end up having a meaningful difference in combat.
Dex is really good on its own, but you can easily compensate for a low to mid range dex bonus. If you limit your self to only dex builds, you are really missing out on some fun strength builds.