Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Astarion's armor gives disadvantage on stealth

1) Many players new to DND will not understand or notice this.
2) He's got cool armor...bugs me to put him in plain leather armor.

Yeah, I hear you. One one level I get it, since his armor is clearly meant to evoke some sort of fancy formal wear, and it seems likely that he was abducted at some kind of formal event, so from a story and worldbuilidng angle, it's neat. But on the other hand, it really is a pity to have to remove your rogue's unique armor to allow him to be effective as a rogue.

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.

Are you saying that Astarion basic armor should become regular 10AC clothing instead of armor?
If so i 100% agree!

Nobody will ever convince me that nobles, who have acess to all luxury and comfortable materials would willingly decide to made their formal clothing out of stinky and tough leather. :-/

It drives me nuts the way he doesn't seem to have disadvantage against Tav's perception check when he pulls a dagger.

*

It always gets under my skin when I watch youtubers playing the game who don't know about the limitations of his armor. I wish more of them read the details and played accordingly.

Maybe not stinky and tough leather, but I don’t see why a noble who appreciated a bit of protection from adventurers with stakes wouldn’t wear a well made leather jerkin with a toughened breastplate and a bit of fancy embroidery and lace. Not that Astarion is necessarily mixing in noble circles any more, though that’s probably not relevant to get into here.

I mean, I’d prefer regular clothing to armour that gives disadvantage on stealth, but again there’d be incentive to swap it straight out for boring, normal looking leather. My preference is for Astarion to have appropriate starting gear for a rogue, ie leather armour, that he can wear for a level or two, that nevertheless looks cool and unique.

Bcs by his own words he was kidnapped when he was "seducing young noble on ball" ?

I would agree if he would be on this adventure purposefully ...
But noone of us is.

More accurate to say he was a noble during baulders gate 2. Now he is a vampire who was forced to feed of rats, so he is not really rolling around in gold. Most likely that armour he stole of a guard he killed when he escaped Raphael / gale. [read my post on steam forums about Raphael being gale if your curious].

So it makes sense that his armour would give him disadvantage. Proper stealth gear is highly expensive, and rarely made of leather at all. Normally cloth with very specific weave of chain mail that was imbedded in double layer of very thick fur to remove sound via sound isolation. Likewise my impression of Astarion is that he lost all his gold anyway.

Nope. Makes no sense. He was a noble 200 years before the game. That's 100 years prior to BG1. He was a vampire spawn for 200 years prowling dark streets at night and preying on whoever Cazador had him prey on. Stealthing in noble attire is dumb.

Frankly, I still think allowing any characters to keep any gear is weird. We are teleported into coffins, essentially as prisoners WITH all our gear? It makes more sense to me if the mind flayers magically stripped us of all but our skivvies and our starter equipment is what we find in the nautiloid. Having a shield on my back in a narrow pod is strange to me. Also, this idea removes any issues with Shadowheart's armor, Astarion's armor, etc.

But then... One could assume that Astarion may have acquired said padded armor on the nautiloid after killing a noble. You never know.

Can you support that theory somehow?
As far as i know he never ever mentioned any prowling ... quite the oposite actualy!
Remember him saying "night usualy means filled taverns" or "seducing young Noble at ball" ...

Using https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Predator_Type_(VTM) as guidance ...
It seems like his predatory type would be either Scene King or Syren ... rather than Alleycat.

Wich would solve our curent problem with Nobles wearing padded armor instead regular clothing ... how exactly?

I do wish it was either leather armor or clothing instead. Padded armor in 5e is so useless for no good reason. In general really dislike the linear progression of armor 5e has, tbh.

I do agree with the armor progression of 5e. Some armor is literally only good if you have nothing else to choose from.


When you connect with Astarion, it mentions that you see through his eyes, prowling dark streets at night.

As for him robbing a noble of their padded armor, I just meant that while he was on the ship, he may have stumbled upon a noble who was wearing the armor he starts with. In order to take on the role of a noble, and because he had no better armor, he COULD have killed the noble and stolen the armor. I was just coming up with some way that they could explain why he has that armor.

There are many reasons why he could be wearing padded leather. I get the potential RP aspects...and this is an RPG, so I concede those.
From a practical point of view, to put artwork into something that a reasonable player is going to dump/sell immediately seems a waste.
Also seems like a self-inflicted wound when trying to woo new players who expect to stealth with their new cool rogue only to find him failing a lot because they don't notice the penalty on his armor.

I don't think Jack the Ripper needed to be very stealthy. Also note, Astarion has never fed on anyone prior to the game, or so we're led to believe (I don't think he's lying)
I've been assuming that Astarion is still part of the noble scene, and whatever skullduggery he does for Cazador is more the schmoozing variety.

As for playability, if stealth worked a way that having disadvantage really mattered, I could see it being a noob-trap, but as it is, typically either you're never going to make a check, or you're going to fail.

It matters. Astarion can stealth through vision cones, but not with disadvantage.

That's not been my experience, I'll have to give it another pass

Keep an eye on the lighting conditions. You'll want it to be at least partially obscured to sneak through a vision cone. And a decent stealth score, of course.

And since my point was that i dont really see any reason any noble would make padded armor, instead wearing comfortable clothings ...
It doesnt really matter if it was Astarions, or from some Hugo the Third ... who Astarion either killed, or robed ... it still dont make sense to me that thing even exists in the first place.

The point stands unchanged >
Noble clothing should be a clothing, not an armor ... no matter who wears it.

I mean come on, in order to make him effective we have to change his clothing imediately anyway ...
And 10AC is easier spoted than tiny writing "disadvantage on Stealth rolls" ... wich some new players may not even know what means ... i didnt when i started this game.

I actually tested this out yesterday in the dank crypt. Astarion Stealthed when the skeleton with the scimitar ran RIGHT past him. I had him in leather. Astarion is a boss Stealth person now. I kid you not, the skeleton went within 5 feet of him on Astarion's right. The roll was made and Astarion succeeded. And other scribes put him in their vision cones and he still hid. So Stealth is definitely working.

As for Hugi the Third, nobles are fickle creatures. You never know what kind of things they'll do. Someone has to wear fancy padded armor at some point. Right?

Here's actually the irony of this topic about Astarion's armor. It's absolutely silly that padded armor causes disadvantage to stealth and leather does not. Here's a comment someone had left previously on a different forum, and I think it's very true:

Dungeons and Dragons is quite known for “not understanding armor”, most of their armor types don’t make sense.

Why is leather armor stealthy, but padded armor is not? Leather tends to be more noisy. Gambison, which I’m assuming is what “padded armor” is supposed to represent, is quite silent. A leather jacket, not so much.


I have always kinda thought it weird that leather is silent but padded not so much so. Ever move around in anything leather? Yeah. Makes a LOT of noise. Padded armor is like wearing a lot of clothes, layers upon layers. So, it's kinda like wearing something dog trainers wear when their teaching dogs to attack, only not quite so thick. You may not be nimble but you might prevent blades from running you through.