dex bonus? ac?

[graardor]

I think i have a fair understanding that dex gives you a bonus called armour class that is an alternitive to wearing heavy armour, or something like that.

but me being a ranger, I'm using this chain mail armour and it says near the dex bonus

"dex bonus: 4-caps your dex bonus to ac"

and its written in yellow, is this something bad that could be fixed by wearing a different armour? or is this something good?

[Sogrin]

I think i have a fair understanding that dex gives you a bonus called armour class that is an alternitive to wearing heavy armour, or something like that.

but me being a ranger, I'm using this chain mail armour and it says near the dex bonus

"dex bonus: 4-caps your dex bonus to ac"

and its written in yellow, is this something bad that could be fixed by wearing a different armour? or is this something good?

not quite.

Armour Class is the target an enemy needs to reach to hit you. this is comprised of (but not limited to) Armour, Dodge, shield bonuses. the Dex modifier is added as a dodge bonus (which is the only bonus that stacks with itself. there is a minot nuance with DDO, but that does not impact this part)

what your seeing is the Max dex bonus rule being applied. when wearing armour, this can sometime limit how much of your dex bonus apply's to your armour class.

in your example, lets say you have 20 dex, which gives you a +5 modifier. When wearing a chain shirt, due to the armour, you are limited to a +4 modifier from dex to your armour. As such, you are not getting your full dexterity bonus to Armour Class.

This can be fixed by wearing lighter armour.

However, unless you are building a character which relies on a very large Armour class to function (fighter/paladin tanks. Ranger 'exploiter' builds), the fact that your not getting your max dex bonus to Armour Class is not something you really need to worry about.