Maybe I am remembering something from 3.5 (and likely remembering it wrong) but I THOUGHT that you could not wear magic armor AND a magic item in the chest/body slot (possibly just one of those).
I cannot seem to find a rule that states that though (possibly because I am not looking hard enough?) so if someone could just confirm or disaffirm that I would be MOST appreciative :)
Armor is its own slot, separate from chest and body. They do not interfere with each other. (Check the list of slots in the Magic Items section of the PRD for reference.)
that is SO cool. Thanks.
I saw the items slots section, but it didn't relate to armor (probably because they aren't related) and now I end up thinking: Wow, Arcane spellcasters REALLY miss out :( they basically have 1 less magic item (though spell casting failure is probably negligible with certain armors, etc.)
What about Clerics buffing the hell outta a fighter?
Wizards have (slightly) better buffs.
Yup, arcane casters can use the slot at no penalty if they're determined.
_Ozy_, Bracers of Armor does not stack with armor. You cannot gain the armor's special abilities if you are not using the armor's AC component.
Example:
+5 Bracers of Armor and +1 Haramaki of Fortification = +5 Bracers of Armor (no Fortification).
Why animated shield? Just get a Mithral Buckler.
Considering the many other ways of pulling the bonus armor plus property armor trick, that's rather lame. I shall happily ignore that restriction.
Considering the many other ways of pulling the bonus armor plus property armor trick, that's rather lame. I shall happily ignore that restriction.
Other than getting some of them on a shield how would it be done?
Considering the many other ways of pulling the bonus armor plus property armor trick, that's rather lame. I shall happily ignore that restriction.Other than getting some of them on a shield how would it be done?
Armored kilt plus some other armor is the main one. I thought there were others, but I was thinking of dual-shielding rather than armor.
If you are not using the AC from armor then you should not be gaining the special abilities from that armor. While this is not spelled out in RAW it is pretty clearly RAI.
If you are not using the AC from armor then you should not be gaining the special abilities from that armor. While this is not spelled out in RAW it is pretty clearly RAI.
it's not quite that simple. Take bracers or armor that grant an AC of 1. Put on chain shirt. Normally you'd use the chain but against incorporeal the bracers are the highest AC. You are using both as they are both the highest, just in different situations.
graystone, you are just reinforcing my point. Against Incorporeal you are using the Bracers. Against non-incorporeal you are using the Chain Shirt.
Thus, whatever you have on the Bracers applies to the Incorporeal creature but not the other creature.
Of course, this is a forgiving reading of the text where the GM is allowing the "highest AC" item to be determined by the situation.
If the GM is not forgiving when reading the text or is hyper-literal about it then the Bracers would not work in your example due to the higher AC bonus of the Chain Shirt. The text states that only the higher AC bonus functions and does not state that it is dependent upon the situation.
Note: I allow the highest AC to be determined by the situation and I have yet to run into a GM that does not but such a GM may be technically correct.
But if you allow the situational armor situation to allow both to work, both armors are active. For instance, lets say the bracers have a passive ability and so does the chain shirt. You're attacked by a ghost and hit with both a incorporeal touch and a ghost touched weapon. Since both armor bonuses where used, wouldn't both passive abilities work?
In essence, if you have force type armor, it's always active as it provides a defense over your actual armor. The only other way is abilities flashing on and off depending on who's attacking.
No, you wouldn't. You would have one set of bonuses that works against one thing and another set of bonuses that works against another thing.
Of course, if that is too confusing the GM could just go with the hyper-literal bit where only the highest AC bonus works, period.
No, you wouldn't. You would have one set of bonuses that works against one thing and another set of bonuses that works against another thing.
Of course, if that is too confusing the GM could just go with the hyper-literal bit where only the highest AC bonus works, period.
Some abilities aren't "set of bonuses that works against one thing". Does wild armor pop out when the bracers work? Does shadow flicker on and off? Trapwarding? i can keep going on, but lots of armor abilities aren't ties to a defense vs the monster that attacked you.
I agree, not all of them are. But what the effects of each are would have to be determined on a case by case basis.
For example, Lets assume you have +1 Leather Wild Armor (+3AC) and +4 Bracers of Armor. Well, that is easy to determine, the Bracers of Armor do not function due to the Polymorph rules.
For other abilities such as Trapwarding they may be equally easy to determine.
Lets say you have +4 Bracers of Armor and +1 Chain Shirt of Trapwarding. The liberal reading would indicate that the Chain Shirt functions unless you are attacked by an incorporeal creature.
If we reverse that to +4 Bracers of Armor of Trapwarding and a +1 Breastplate then the liberal reading would indicate that the Breastplate functions unless you are attacked by an incorporeal creature. Since the Trapwarding would only function while you are actively attacked by the incorporeal creature it would be pretty pointless.
You do not need to approach this from the perspective of which armor abilities are defensive. Just approach it from 'which armor abilities would actually be useful while attacked by an incorporeal creature'. Anything else is pointless.
Reminder, the strict reading is that the weaker Bracers of Armor never operates if the physical armor is stronger.
If you are not using the AC from armor then you should not be gaining the special abilities from that armor. While this is not spelled out in RAW it is pretty clearly RAI.If it were RAI then it wouldn't be explicitly called out for the bracers of armor and not for anything else.
Lets be clear about what we are discussing. There are not that many instances of two different AC bonuses being simultaneously worn.
Mage Armor (and any spells based off of this spell) + Armor
Bracers of Armor + Armor
From this we have that one says and the other does not. But we also have the general design principle that you can only have one of "X" (with whatever riders) functioning at a time.
From this it is pretty reasonable to conclude that the Bracers of Armor + Armor situation is the RAI. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps a FAQ question should be created.
+1 Leather Wild Armor (+3AC) and +4 Bracers of Armor: Couldn't the bracers be put on after changing shape? Some animals have wrist slots and mage hand+two worlds + natural spell can let you put them on.
What part of the polymorph rules are you talking about?
+4 Bracers of Armor of Trapwarding and a +1 Breastplate: Wouldn't both have to be active to check though? That's the sticking point for me.
strict reading: Question. What if both grant the same armor bonus? It only says what happens if one is higher. Wouldn't that mean that they both keep working?
graystone,
When you cast a polymorph spell that changes you into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type, all of your gear melds into your body. Items that provide constant bonuses and do not need to be activated continue to function while melded in this way
Yes, you could in theory put on Bracers of Armor after the polymorph effect (if the creature has wrist slots). The end result would be the same as if you were wearing +1 Leather Armor and +4 Bracers of Armor (the Bracers would function, the Leather would not).
+4 Bracers of Armor of Trapwarding and +1 Breastplate =
strict: only Breastplate functions
permissive: Bracers function only against attacks by an incorporeal creature since the AC in that situation is higher than the Breastplate.
As for a tie, typically that should be resolved by the wearer.
_Ozy_,
Blood Armor: This spell does not provide an armor bonus. It provides an enhancement bonus to any armor you are wearing.
"Oracle Armor Revelations": Could you be more specific?
Psionic Inertial Armor: This is not a Paizo product.
Force Ward/Force Armor: This increases existing armors if the other armor has a greater effect. It is not relevant to this discussion.
Robe of the Archmagi: Yes, this provides an Armor bonus and is subject to this debate.
Penitent's Robes: Yes, this provides an Armor bonus and is subject to this debate.
Shield Spell + Shield (does not have to be buckler): Yes, this provides a Shield bonus and is subject to this debate.
Animated Shield + Other Shield: Nope, this will not work as both take up your shield slot. You cannot benefit from two shields as you have only one shield slot.
So where does that leave us? Two Robes (one mythic), Mage Armor, and the spell Shield.
Ie: my statement still holds, there are not that many instances.
In general the rules prevent you from benefiting from something twice. No specific rule has been made for this case but it flies in the face of the general rules and the pricing of armor and shields.
Any attempt to gain special abilities from an armor shield when you are not actually benefitting from the AC function is probably an attempt to bypass cost restrictions. Any GM should ban this even if it is not against the rules directly.
Lets put it a different way, would any reasonable GM allow the player to get Heavy (+5) Fortification for 36,000gp and +5 Plate (25,000 for magic) for a total of 61,000gp instead of paying the proper 100,000gp? I dont think so.
The rules were not designed with the intent for people to bypass this sort of thing and people's attempt to sidestep the rules like this is, frankly, abusive. You may as well just hand the player 39,000gp for nothing.
so here is a question, if the intent is to only have once source of armour special abilitys then what about shields and armour? or in the one case i can think of, dual wielding shields.
if i gave diffrent abilitys to 2 difrent shiuelds both with the same ac bonus, why should i not get the bonuses of both? i dont think thats broken at all personally
edit: also to comment on the above you can only gain the ac benifit from one shield at a time as like bonuses dont stack but you can certainly wield 2 shields one in each hand, ive looked into and built a character that dual wields shields as his weapons, ac on him is pretty silly low level
A_psychic_rat, the rules prevent you from dual wielding magic shields. This is a fact that most dual wielding builds overlook. You only have one magic shield slot (CRB p459).
As for Armor and Shields, that is intended. What is not intended is Armor+Armor and Shield+Shield which is what people seem to be trying to do in this thread.
Edit: Yes, you can use two shields (as weapons) but you cannot benefit from two magic shields. This is clearly in the rules on CRB p459. Again, most shield builds have been overlooking this rule. It came as quite a surprise to a shield build thread a bit ago.
ill conciede that you cant benifit from 2 magic shields at the same time, like bonuses not stacking and all that, but i would argue that you could enchant 2 and use them as weapons no problem, as you point out, RAI is that you dont have Armour + armour or shield + shield. as long as only one of them is truly a shield and the other is mearly wielded as a weapon and enchanted as a weapon it should be cool.
edit: id even go so far as to say you choose every round which shield is your magic shield your using, but you cant swap between rounds
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I can agree with Guass, but at the same time I'm a bit hesistant. It doesn't make too much sense that your +1 Determination haramaki stops working because you have mage armor on and a ghost hit you. Or if a your fire resistant light shield didn't give you any fire resistence because your using defensive fighting while having the Two Weapon defense feat?
RAW wise, the only time we don't get to gain specials abilities from a lower AC bonus item is the interactions involving bracers of armor, since that rule is found there.
RAI wise, I can see it both ways, and reasons for both ways, but I have to lean towards allowing the extras from both AC sources to function, so long as they don't occupy the same magic slot.
Hence in my games:
Robe of the Magi plus armor is fine.
Determination Haramaki with mage armor is fine.
+5 bracers of armor + determination Haramaki is not.
FrodoOf9Fingers, in your game I would expect people to cheese out multiple special abilities on as many different items that they can figure works together thereby avoiding price increases.
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I don't know if this is relevant, but you can explicitly gain the better AC bonus from one set of armour and the magical effects of another thanks to the Armoured Coat(my favourite armour as it is easy to don, can be combined with other armour, and it looks hella rad)
Although you also have to wear everything else on top of it for some reason which may look silly. >.>
This sturdy leather coat is reinforced with metal plates sewn into the lining. An armored coat is more cumbersome than light armor but less effective than most medium armors. The advantage of it is that a person can don it or remove it as a move action (there is no "don hastily" option for an armored coat). If worn over other armor, use the better AC bonus and worse value in all other categories; an armored coat has no effect if worn with heavy armor. The only magic effects that apply are those of armor, clothing, or items worn on top.
So you can gain the "Magic Effects" of an armoured coat while gaining the AC bonus of the armour below(preferably Mithral Hellknight Plate combined with an enchanted Armoured Coat and an Armoured Kilt to give you AC +10, and all the enchantments on the Armoured Coat as heavy armour))
What's nice with the coat is how quick it can be removed. it's super easy to get a new set of armor abilities by taking it off.
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FrodoOf9Fingers, in your game I would expect people to cheese out multiple special abilities on as many different items that they can figure works together thereby avoiding price increases.
I'm not sure if the terminology is "Cheese", but in some cases, the AC is already a unwanted side effect.
Take for example the robe of the archmage on a Magi wearing heavy armor. Under my interpretation, having the AC bonus on those robes simply increase the cost of the item, which is fair. In your games, the AC bonus completely ruins that magi's ability to use the item.
FrodoOf9Fingers, The discussion is about Armor or Shield special abilities and not unrelated special abilities. Please do not take me out of context.
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FrodoOf9Fingers, The discussion is about Armor or Shield special abilities and not unrelated special abilities. Please do not take me out of context.
FrodoOf9Fingers, in your game I would expect people to cheese out multiple special abilities on as many different items that they can figure works together thereby avoiding price increases.
Robe of the Archmagi: Yes, this provides an Armor bonus and is subject to this debate.
I apologize if I misunderstood you, though I hope you can understand why I misunderstood you.
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On further inspection, I don't find many of the corner cases where this applies to be cheesy. Mage armor + regular armor seems fine, use mage armor's AC bonus with the enchants of the other armor. Same with the shield spell.
Why? Because of spells like greater magic weapon. A caster can, as a once a day buff per weapon, reduce the price of a +10 weapon to that of a +6. Same with Magic Vestment. Some classes, such as the magus, allow that+5 from a spell to be a wide range of useful enchantments on weapons. Spell casters saving money when it comes to magical equipment is not new. Heck, in DnD 3.5 (Not that 3.5 has any real bearing on the conversation) this was taken even further with classes such as abjurant champion.
The ruling found with bracers of armor is very specific to that item, and I believe the reason for that is that the developers didn't want non-armor classes to have an item that was just as good as armor. Bracers of armor have been around since CRB, same as mage armor, shield, GMW, GMV, etc... So why not any relevant text in those places?
For those of you too lazy (like myself many times) to look up bracers of armor:
Bracers of armor and ordinary armor do not stack. If the wearer receives a larger armor bonus from another source, the bracers of armor cease functioning and do not grant their armor bonus or their armor special abilities. If the bracers of armor grant a larger armor bonus, the other source of armor ceases functioning.