Padded armor or Leather for a stealth character?

[ElCabong]

I'm working the agility line, for the third time as I decided to try slightly different builds. I've always chosen leather but I looted some padded gloves better than I could make and noticed they're quieter and have no movement penalty.

 

Is it any good though when you're getting beat up on by an unfortunate carrier of a dreadful disease.

[Synvastian]

well it provides I think a max of 7 armor per piece, and your perks add onto that, if you're going for being as quiet as possible and you have good exit strats, I think its viable except horde nights and trap rooms with no escapes

[theFlu]

I don't remember the values for leather, but I think it's in the neigborhood of "10 or below". That would be (10-7)x5=15 armor points of difference. From a 100 health, that's also 15 hit points.. which is one or two hits at around that 50% reduction you'll land on. (assuming normal difficulty levels, depending on the enemy etc)

 

Even for tight spaces, if you can utilize it properly, you can quite likely avoid an extra hit or two with the mobility bonus. Of course, that's mostly about your skills and habits; If you tend to tank things with your face, then you'll have to decide for the noise and general usability of the run speed.

 

Personally I don't use leather, I usually do upgrade to military armor as fast as I can get customized fittings for them. Not mandatory in any sense though, the difference isn't really going to save you anyway. Just looks nicer tbh

[alphaniner]

One thing to keep in mind WRT armor and stealth, the noise reducing mods were confirmed broken in A18.1 and that hasn't been fixed AFAICT.

 

Also, the fittings mods seem to be half-broken as they don't appear to reduce the Stamina/S penalty. Ironically these were the first two armor mods I ever installed...

[Scyris]

What about military armor? has same speed/noise/stamina drain as leather, but more armor can have up to 12 or so base a piece. Honestly in vanilla early game i'd just use padded until military, padded armor is 40% reduction and 0 penalties at all. Should be enough for a stealth build at the start and by the time it isin't you'll most likely have some military armor pieces. With the +2 armor mods military armor can hit 70% damage reduction. Steel however can hit 80% I think or higher, but 70% still is good for armor that with the perk will not really encumber you at all.