Technically, the hint that you should stop somewhere in the lighter armors is pretty evident in the way the Armor skills are designed for rogues. Just because you choose to wear plate doesn't mean you should reap the benefits of rogues who choose to use lighter armor. That puts us right back to square one. Not to mention that lighter armor has quite a few benefits of its own.

You aren't being penalized for wearing plate armor. As a rogue, you are penalizing yourself by wearing it in the first place.

-Marstreforn-
Icemule Trace Guru
Halfling Guru

Standard Issue Disclaimer of not being involved in Armor Specialization, these are things I remember from before my name was all red and pretty, and my insights from wearing some heavy armor in real life, etc.

Ever tried sneaking around in plate armor in real life? It doesn't happen. Even chain mail, muffled, is still pretty darn loud all things considered. Brigandine? A coat-of-plates design that was common all through Europe is noisy as all get out. I keep a coat-of-plates to show students in the shop who are interested, and even sandwiched between two layers of leather and riveted in place, the metal still clanks like crazy.

So what to do with lots of rogues from GS3 who had to move up to heavy plate to survive at high levels? Penalties for stealth in higher AsG armors wouldn't make anyone happy. So Stealth was left alone, and instead incentives were created to get people down into lighter armors that made more sense for sneaking. Plate class armors offer a LOT of protection, both in terms of DF vs. plate and the extra CvA, which is offset by being more difficult to maneuver in.

The Armor Specializations and Combat Maneuvers related to lighter armor (Duck and Weave, Slippery Mind, Evasion Mastery) were designed to be the carrot for lighter armor. You're giving up some of that solid chunk of metal plate protection to get extra defensive capabilities in other areas. That might be straight DS gained from Dodging in lighter armor, or finding it easier to maneuver, a bonus to Stealth, or the flat out extra chance to evade an attack. They were all designed with lighter armor in mind, offering far greater benefits to lighter armors as the heavier armors already had benefits in place.

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GemStone IV will be up shortly!
Sorry guys, my bad :(

The way hiding works in GS is also completely unrealistic. So is lockpicking. Not much that's very roguey is particularly realistic, even in a world where magic exists, and rogues wear MBP and plate because that's how GS worked well for rogues for a very long time, and it continues to work just fine.

I don't necessarily think that heavy armor needs to be better for rogues (it is really expensive for though, 1,000 PTPs for the double ranks. That's a lot for not much benefit) - but it is disconcerting to see GMs (even if you don't work directly on armor mechanics) saying that heavy armor should be worse for rogues...

Comparing a MBP rogue to <any casting profession>, can you honestly say we get to eat all of the ice cream?

And I don't think that you're going to run out and knock down Coase's door and demand he nerf armored evasion or anything, but you did say that you wouldn't be surprised to see it go 'the other way' (meaning get less useful to plate armor) and given that it's already at it's absolute lowest benefit per rank, the only way it could get less useful is to be totally useless on plate.

I'll happily admit that there's some totally overpowered stuff in GS, but rogues in plate isn't it. I don't think we're underpowered necessarily, though I do wish we could get more out of 2.5m post cap experience. It's also possible that since so many things involving armor AP have completely hidden formulas that it's hard for us to recognize the benefits. I'm at the first level of overtraining benefit for my armor, and the visible benefit was about 8 DS. I know that I'm also better against standard maneuver attacks, but I have absolutely no grasp on how much better.

I think the biggest flaw in this discussion, is the fact that everyone is pointing at heavy armor.

Interestingly enough, my original viewpoint was more from a brig standpoint. I was tossing around the idea of wearing brig, and overtraining armor use, and realized that it might be kind of interesting, if armored evasion and evade mastery factored in the extra armor use training. But when I found out it doesn't, it merely proved to me that I am better off in my full plate armor, than switching to light armor.

Yes, in other words, I would actually switch to LIGHT ARMOR if it worked the way I thought it did. Even if it did work that way (Every 50 ranks overtraining, counting as -1 AG in all maneuver based equations.), it STILL wouldn't be worth overtraining in armor, if you wore plate - The benefits would be too negligible for the cost. It would benefit chain somewhat more, but it would ESPECIALLY benefit brig. Why is everyone pointing at plate, as if that would benefit the most? The benefit is far less compared to what you'd see in brig, for the point investement.

So yeah, the system as it is now, is not enough to encourage me to get out of my full plate armor, which is exactly what you are claiming it is designed to encourage.

<<<<In the end, it's a game. It's suppose to be fun. But that doesn't mean you get to eat all the ice cream. Sometimes you just have to pick a flavor and enjoy the ride.>>>>

Mixed metaphor aside, this nugget of wisdom could make everyone an awful lot happier. :)

As an aside, I've found that if you set aside what you "know" about mechanics and just do what seems logical, nine times out of ten it will work and be perfectly viable. Like rogues in light armor. Rangers too, for that matter. Sure, you can always choose to go for the plate armor and hack and slash like a warrior. But if that's your conception of your character, why not just play a warrior?

I think we get too hung up on mechanics and forget to imagine what our characters are actually doing in the world. Generally speaking (though there are exceptions) sensible RP choices for a character are rewarded mechanically, even if such choices are not popular or widely understood. Sometimes it seems like there's more going on underneath the hood of the game than we really know.

~ Heathyr and friends

Thanks! I'm just going to observe now, however.

There are people on staff with more knowledge about these sort of things (because they coded it!) and I would hate to say the wrong thing on their behalf. I am a team player, after all, and I have to respect those boundaries. I'm not sure how much information they actually want you guys to know about how things work, and why they work that way.

It isn't my place to divulge that information, and I'm going to stop before I say something that would be best left to a GM who has been around far longer than myself.

Thanks for understanding. I always enjoy a constructive conversation.

-Marstreforn-
Icemule Trace Guru
Halfling Guru

A rogue cant triple in armor. If you want to discuss outlandish possibilities as a reason to not focus on obvious issues thats fine. But dont expect to get anywhere. Best case scenerio for a rogue is to fully cap, fully double, and somehow gather and wear 40 ranks of enhancive armor use to drop down to brig.