D&D 5E Draconic Resilience & Mage Armor

misalo1 · Oct 23, 2014

Draconic Resilience & Mage Armor... Would a sorcerer with the draconic bloodline gain anything from the mage armor spell?

MerricB · Oct 23, 2014

No.

Both set the base AC of the character; neither provide a modifier to the AC, so they don't stack.

I wrote a little bit about AC in 5e on my blog, which might help clarify things.

Cheers!

Tormyr · Oct 23, 2014

This has come up before, and I think the answer is, "no." Mage Armor doesn't add 3 to AC. It sets AC to 13+dex. I imagine that draconic bloodline is similar in that it sets AC instead of adding to it.

tragicjones · Oct 23, 2014

For reference, this is discussed on p. 14 in the PHB: "Some spells and class features give you a different way to calculate your AC. If you have multiple features that give you different ways to calculate your AC, you choose which one to use." So a Sorcerer with Draconic Resilience would not benefit at all from Mage Armor.

misalo1 · Oct 23, 2014

Thanks...

Sword of Spirit · Oct 24, 2014

Keep in mind that the value of the class feature is better than being able to cast mage armor at will, since it isn't going to vanish if hit with a dispel magic. With sorcerers having so few spell slots, getting the effects of a 1st level spell for free is already a great feature without needing to stack.

zicar · Oct 24, 2014

tragicjones said:
For reference, this is discussed on p. 14 in the PHB: "Some spells and class features give you a different way to calculate your AC. If you have multiple features that give you different ways to calculate your AC, you choose which one to use." So a Sorcerer with Draconic Resilience would not benefit at all from Mage Armor.

So, a shield would not stack with Mage Armor but would it with Draconic Resilience?