Yep, it took me embarrassingly way too long to notice that his default armour gives disadvantage on stealth. I think I only really looked at its properties properly after I saw something posted here.

Absolutely agree that Astarion’s starting armour should be made suitable for a rogue. Just making it leather rather than padded leather is surely feasible enough.

"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"