Characters should not start out with only light or medium armors, and then find magical versions of those before even finding decent mid-tier Heavy Armor. Last time I played (patch 2), the only heavy armor I found was Ring Mail, which is worse than what level 1 characters are supposed to start out with. My level 4 fighter with 8 dex should have access to splint mail AT LEAST.
The only heavy armour better than the Ring Mail is the Chain Mail sold by the Zhentarim trader in the Selune temple. So a fighter with 8 Dex has to limp along with Chain Shirt till he gets to the ruins to find his Ring Mail, which is slightly better, but not good at all. And then he'd still have to drag himself all the way to the temple in order to buy the Chainmail that should have been with him at character creation in the first place. And there are no enchanted heavy armour in the game, so the Chainmail that should have been in his starter kit is actually the end game gear in EA.
This has skewed Fighter builds in EA away from heavy armoured builds towards medium armoured ones.
