Great weapon fighter is a "trap"? Forked Thread: I don't optimize.

[MwaO]

Non-magical shields do not take up a magic item slot yes. Non-magical shields do however, take up the space on your arm that the bracer goes. And wearing the shield means you cannot strap the shield on, the bracer gets in the way.

Could you point to a page number where they might say something remotely like that? Page 224 in Players Handbook on how item slots work says the exact opposite - that you can, in fact, specifically wear a magical bracers and magical shield at the same time as the example. The problem being that only the magical item you put on first will work. This is not fluff text, these are the actual item slot rules.

As the shield is not a magic item, you don't care if its magical powers work or not...

Its the same reason you cannot wear magical or non-magical cloth under plate mail and expect to benefit from boots of striding and springing(even if you are technically "wearing light armor"), or expect to get the enhancement bonus from the cloth and the armor bonus of the plate. (I.E. trade a few points of AC for the enhancements you can put on cloth, but not plate)

Not at all the same thing. You can't wear two helmets at once(again, from PHB page 224), so no two sets of armor. You can wear a shield and a bracer at the same time, that's not a physical limitation.

Not to mention, neither of those would work well for other mechanical reasons.

 

[Cadfan]

If you have something to say in my face, just say it out loud and not beat about the bush. List those issues out 1 by 1 and I will do my best to answer them.

Heh, to be honest, I wasn't talking about you and don't actually know who you are.

 

[Goumindong]

Are you seriously saying I can't be wearing 3 nonmagical rings, put on a 4th (magical) ring, and none of them work?

No, only two of them work as per the item slot rules. You get to choose. He is saying he can use a shield and bracers at the same time. He cannot, he gets to choose. Non magical rings have no benefit so it doesn't matter whether or not you stack up on them.

Page 224 is my reference. Right after it says (and this is not rules text, but example text), that you can put on a bracer and shield it says that you only can benefit from ONE of them. So you can either benefit from the bracer or you can benefit from the shield, but not benefot from both.

Furthermore there is absolutely nothing preventing you from putting two sets of armor on, especially when one is cloth. Nothing is preventing you from putting two helmets on if one of them fits over the other. Nothing prevents you from putting on a helmet and goggles. The text only prevents the one you put on second from having any mechanical effect on the game.

But you can only benefit from one at a time, and the one you benefit from is the one you put on first, that is pretty explicit.

That is, if that example text is taken as rule text rather than example text.

The rules state, and I quote:

Pg 224.
"Practically speaking, you can wear bracers and carry a shield at the same time. You benefit from the item you put on first; any other item you put on doesn't function for you until you take off the first item."

Note, they do not say "you can use bracers and a shield at the same time". And it does say that you only benefit from the item you put on first.

Note: The rules do not say "you gain no benefit from the magical properties" or "you gain no magical benefit", it makes no distinction. You simply gain no benefit and get no function.

 

[Danceofmasks]

From the magic item slot, yes.
So whichever item you aren't benefiting from, you aren't benefiting from its magical properties.

For the record, I do think you can wear magical cloth under nonmagical plate.
You get to use the cloth's daily power, but if you're relying on the plate for AC, you only get (unenhanced) 8.

 

[Goumindong]

From the magic item slot, yes.
So whichever item you aren't benefiting from, you aren't benefiting from its magical properties.

For the record, I do think you can wear magical cloth under nonmagical plate.
You get to use the cloth's daily power, but if you're relying on the plate for AC, you only get (unenhanced) 8.

No, you either get the cloths ability and AC or the plates AC. The argument you are relying on to say that you can use the non-magical shield and magical bracers would also support that you can gain the plates AC, the cloths enhancement bonus(since its a flat out bonus to AC and not a bonus to the item) on top of that AC, and the cloths ability.

You cannot use both, its an abuse of the system.

 

[FadedC]

Note: The rules do not say "you gain no benefit from the magical properties" or "you gain no magical benefit", it makes no distinction. You simply gain no benefit and get no function.

Hmm......you make an interesting point related the RAW. However I have a difficult time beliving it's the RAI that putting on a non magical bracer would prevent you from blocking attacks with your non magical shield.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Hmm ... it does look like you get the enhancement from cloth under plate.

The sentence preceeding that says you can only benefit from one magic item you put in the slot.
Earlier, the purpose of slots is to provide a practical limitation to the number of magic items you can use.

The use of magic bracers requires the magic arms slot.
The use of a magic shield requires the magic arms slot.
The use of a nonmagical shield requires the use of the shield arm and hand.

There's no overlap here.

 

[MwaO]

Hmm......you make an interesting point related the RAW. However I have a difficult time beliving it's the RAI that putting on a non magical bracer would prevent you from blocking attacks with your non magical shield.

The RAW is in a section about how magic item slots work, not how ordinary items work. Every time they say the word 'item' they mean 'magical item'

 

[MrGrenadine]

Amen and amen!

This is D&D, a pen-and-paper roleplaying game run by a live, intelligent Dungeon Master. Furthermore, the system itself is not that tough, and if the DM runs encounters according to the guidelines in the DMG, just about any party of mismatched, goofy-specced characters can still be victorious and do fine.

It's NOT end-game raiding or hardcore competitive PvP in an MMORPG.

Only in extreme situations like that is any kind of "optimizing" ever needed, for any RPG, tabletop or computer. No edition of D&D has ever needed players to optimize to succeed. No single-player D&D computer game has ever needed the player to optimize to succeed. It's just not that difficult.

It doesn't matter whether you optimize or not, because any decent DM will adjust and tailor their campaign as needed to suit the party.

Make a character, play the game, have fun. Leave "builds" and number-crunching to online PvPers and MMO raiders, who actually need to employ such powergaming to succeed.

QFT. A thousand times, QFT.
Bravo.

MrG

 

[Goumindong]

Hmm......you make an interesting point related the RAW. However I have a difficult time beliving it's the RAI that putting on a non magical bracer would prevent you from blocking attacks with your non magical shield.

It would not. Why would it? The rules are in place to prevent rules abuse by stacking multiple items, be they mundane or not. Its the same reason you cannot "wield" a dagger in your off hand and benefit from both two weapon fighting and a light shield even if a light shield lets you hold a weapon.

Hmm ... it does look like you get the enhancement from cloth under plate.

The sentence preceeding that says you can only benefit from one magic item you put in the slot.
Earlier, the purpose of slots is to provide a practical limitation to the number of magic items you can use.

The use of magic bracers requires the magic arms slot.
The use of a magic shield requires the magic arms slot.
The use of a nonmagical shield requires the use of the shield arm and hand.

There's no overlap here.

Except its the clarifying text and not the basic text that say all items. And bracers require the use of your shield arm.

The preceding text is very similar to the text in front of say "shifting". Where it says you don't provoke OA. But really the specific rule is that you don't provoke OA when you shift out of an adjacent square.

Its the same for this. While it is quite true that you can't use two magic items in the same slot, the specific rule is any item, not just magic items. You can wear them(unless something prevents you from doing so), you just don't get any benefit form one of them.