D&D General Reasons to prefer magical armor to more effective non-magical one

[mhd]

What are some good reasons, house rules, fluff etc, to prefer e.g. a leather armor +1 to studded leather or even more protective ones? Or +1 scale from the dawn of the Orc Wars vis-a-vis that boring new fangled field plate just developed?
(Beyond the regular encumbrance, check penalty or thief skill rules of the various editions.)

Half weight? Invent armor maintenance rules and then circumvent then with magic armor? Something that interacts with weapons of a lower plus?

 

[DemoMonkey]

Add the magic bonus to appropriate Charisma checks.

Magic armour looks awesome!

 

[billd91]

In 5e, magical metal armor is immune to rust monsters - unlike non-magical metal armors that may offer a better AC. That may not give you a solid reason to stick with leather armor over better armor, but it might convince you to stick with a +1 chain shirt rather than go to non-magical plate armor.

 

[Mort]

In 5e, magical metal armor is immune to rust monsters - unlike non-magical metal armors that may offer a better AC. That may not give you a solid reason to stick with leather armor over better armor, but it might convince you to stick with a +1 chain shirt rather than go to non-magical plate armor.

What an annoying change!

I suspect if I use rust monsters again - that's being ignored. The whole point of the rust monster is to have a high level party cower in fear over something so relatively silly and non-threatening!

 

[embee]

What an annoying change!

I suspect if I use rust monsters again - that's being ignored. The whole point of the rust monster is to have a high level party cower in fear over something so relatively silly and non-threatening!

Hear hear! I second this motion!

 

[aco175]

I do not give out that much magical armor. Some light and maybe +1 medium, but I also tend to give out other powers to make them worth having. Some minor things may be that it self-mends and always stays polished. The armor may grant advantage to sneak checks or even heal something 1/day. I also like armors that allow you to sleep in it and/or can be teleported onto you.

There are also elven chain, adamantine, and mithral armor that have cool side properties.

 

[ninjayeti]

I am a big believer in having magic items that are not JUST +1 anything. They should all have some additional (preferably unique) properties.

So instead of just +1 leather, maybe have it be +1 Leather of Climbing (advantage on athletics checks to climb); +1 Leather of Evasion (+2 to Dex saves); +1 Leather of Catfall (resistance to falling damage), etc. Give it something beyond being magically as good as studded leather.

 

[Rabulias]

In 5e, magical metal armor is immune to rust monsters - unlike non-magical metal armors that may offer a better AC. That may not give you a solid reason to stick with leather armor over better armor, but it might convince you to stick with a +1 chain shirt rather than go to non-magical plate armor.

What an annoying change!

I suspect if I use rust monsters again - that's being ignored. The whole point of the rust monster is to have a high level party cower in fear over something so relatively silly and non-threatening!

That's when you homebrew up some dire rust monsters that can rust magical metal. In fact they prefer it.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Ever since the early 80's and playing AD&D, magic armor has always meant lighter weight and less encumbering than the non-magical equivalent. This also meant less restriction on the Dex modifier. And of course, to the Elven and Half-Elven PCs, magical Elven Chainmail was the holy grail of armor.

 

[Stalker0]

If we are considering “core”, there is no good reason. I would never enchant padded armor over stuffed leather, the only difference is cost and weight, the weight difference is too low and the cost is neglige compared to the enchantment.

in terms of fluff, you could say that every so often a normal armor hit with a magic weapon gains some magic, and enough times it becomes magic. So in that case no one “made” the padded +1 it just happened to get enhanced by random circumstance.