Medium armor mastery; minor buff to make the feat more atractive to more characters:

[mellored]

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, I would have...


*If you have 8 or less dexterity and are not in heavy armor, you gain a +3 bonus to AC, stealth, and acrobatics. If your dexterity is between 9 and 13 you gain a +2 bonus. If your dexterity is 14 to 17 you gain a +1 bonus. You gain no bonus if your dexterity is 18 or higher.

 

[Quartz]

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, I would have...


*If you have 8 or less dexterity and are not in heavy armor, you gain a +3 bonus to AC, stealth, and acrobatics. If your dexterity is between 9 and 13 you gain a +2 bonus. If your dexterity is 14 to 17 you gain a +1 bonus. You gain no bonus if your dexterity is 18 or higher.

That's far too complex, and if I wanted something like that, I'd just take Resilient: Dex instead or find myself a magic item that gave me Dex 19.

How would MAM and the proposed alternatives interact with Mithral Full Plate?

 

[Shiroiken]

I understand that 16 dex may be expensive, but is this really a necessary change?

Most Paladins I've seen don't care about stealth, so they are perfectly happy going for full plate and taking the disadvantage.

Most strength fighters are the same, and the dex based fighter is going to have a Dex 16

Barbarians generally either focus on things other than AC, or go for the unarmored defense, so the barbarian that cares enough about the stealth and AC is already going to have a higher dex.

That's a big thing I think, in my experience, most characters that care that much about stealth are going to have higher Dex scores.

Rangers probably are majority dex builds because of how good archery is for them.

There is nothing wrong with changing it, but it just seems the people who want this feat have a build that includes a higher dex most of the time, so I don't see the need.

Very few characters wear Medium Armor IME. Dex based characters will only use it as a stop gap (until they have a high enough Dex) and Str based characters will only use it if they don't have Heavy Armor Proficiency. Druids, Clerics and Barbarians seem to be the primary users, since only some Clerics get Heavy Armor Proficiency and Unarmored Defense makes the Barbarian MAD (pun intended). Most Druids are Moon Circle, so their normal AC is of minimal concern.

The base feat is a failure because you either have to have a 16 Dex before you take the feat (meaning you were wasting your Dex Mod for AC) or you don't get all the benefit until your next ASI/Feat (usually 4 levels higher). The +1 AC instead of increasing the Max Dex Bonus makes the Feat useful right off the bat. It still probably won't be taken that often (ASI is much better for most Druids, Clerics, and Barbarians), but it's a step in the right direction.

Making it a half-feat, allowing for +1 Str or Dex instead of changing the Max Dex Bonus to +1 AC might encourage Light Armor users to switch to Medium Armor, assuming they already have proficiency and an odd Str or Dex. Don't know how much of a difference it will make though.

 

[Quartz]

Isn't MAM particularly useful for Dwarves since they automatically get proficiency in Medium Armour?