Rogues, Heavy Armor, and Weapons

[Caliber]

Man, 4E is definitely . Suffice to say, I like it a lot!

So I think I'm pretty settled on playing a Rogue as my first character. As a friend of mine commented, I always like playing the "dex-monkey".

That said, looking at the new rules, I find myself thinking again and again of spending two feats to get a Scalemail trained Rogue. Is this that suboptimal a build? It seems that, while a high Dex and Leather armor may be able to make up the difference towards the high-end Heroic tier/low-end Paragon tier, as soon as you start getting Masterwork armor, Scalemail is going to blow any Leather you can get out of the water. Any thoughts?

Secondly, many posters (me included) assumed there would be a feat to allow Rogue abilities to be used with Heavy Blades, or other weapon categories, but this seems to be missing from the rules as they stand. Anyone think an analogous feat will be showing up later (perhaps in Martial Power or DDI?) or would this be inherently broken, somehow?

Thanks!

 

[Ginnel]

If your going to be boosting dex each level go for leather or even hide, if your character concept is a rogue in scale go for that.

Just do some simple math with the feats and stat boosts and I think light armor and maxxed dex is actually better AC than plate even at the highest level.

On the second question with the rogues sneak attack there is no need for him to be doing that kind of damage with even bigger weapons, If you want a heavier weapon go for the short sword and lose out on a +1 to hit just keep in mind that +1 to hit is significant in this edition

 

[Family]

The best scale gives a +9 AC bonus over the best leather.
Starting with 20 dex (+5) that goes up to 28 (+9) if all bonuses go into it. If added to the rogue's AC the AC becomes the same as the rogue in scale.
This also has the benefit of freeing those 2 feets back to spend elsewhere.

 

[outsider]

If you do the math, a character that starts with 18 dex(or int), increases that attribute every time an attribute increase comes up, and wears Hide armor breaks even with a character in Scale armor at level 30. Plate pulls out 1 ac ahead of both scale and 18 starting dex hide, but it has movement and skill penalties(if you take armor specialization in either hide or scale, you have no penalties). 20 starting dex hide actually breaks even with plate, without the penalties.

 

[Ginnel]

I was counting the demigod path for a plus 2 dex bonus as well

stat starting at 20 can give you a +10 bonus overall

On a side note I've just been playing with AC's and think I've workd out the max AC available without a power being activated or full defence just your normal walking about AC

10 from stat either dex or int
12 from +6 elderhide with the hide mastery feat
2 from heavy shield (the shield mastery feat does not stack with the armor mastery feat as far as i know)
1 AC from the pit fighter class Power
15 from half level bonus

making you a respectable and nicely even 40 AC at 30th level

With probably the least AC being a non maximised warlock with a niceish score in int would top out at
10 for leather armor
15 for level
+ whatever stat bonus lets say +4 at minimum
to give a total of AC 29 so thats a difference of 11 from a fully maxxed out dex/int monkey with a shield and specially spent feats to a very unfocused caster with no feats spent on AC.

with a non maxed out non shield using cleric/warlord at AC 33 in the uber magic chain. I think it works out quite well, and of course its not much of a biggie for that warlock to put a feat into wearing chain to give him a plus 4 AC bonus if his dex/int is going to be low