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

[MrGrenadine]

The problem is when people say "Oh, I'm a roleplayer, I won't optimize or ask for advice" and the system punishes them. I've seen a lot of these people end up frustrated because, D&D being designed as it was in 3.x, the beguiler 3/warlock 1 ends up being able to do all of nothing against the encounters in the module. It's not fun for him, and it doesn't make him an inherently better roleplayer than the people whose builds actually work. "Play What You Want To Play" is fine as far as it goes, but as it happens sometimes what you want to play isn't what looks like the thing you want to play on your first glance over the rulebooks. (e.g. "I want to play a big strong tough guy! I should take Toughness and Great Fortitude!")

This is a DM problem. Whether the adventure is purchased or home brewed its the responsibility of the DM to know his or her players and characters, and tweak the adventure so everyone has fun and feels useful.

That's one of the reasons we love playing D&D with live folks, right? Because the system is inherently and limitlessly fluid?

MrG

 

[Danceofmasks]

But bracers do not require the use of your shield arm.
Shield arm != arms slot.

 

[Yaezakura]

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'

Heh. I like how people like to assume the exact wording works in their favor in some places, and is obviously talking about something else entirely in other places.

Let's just face facts. An item takes up an item slot, whether it's magical or not. You cannot wear magic Cloth underneath your mundane Plate and expect to get the enhancement bonus, as this is clear and blatant abuse of the rules. You are allowed one item in the Body slot, and that is that.

Similarly, a shield takes up your Arm slot, magic or not. Even if you can physically wear bracers and carry a shield at the same time, they get in each other's way. You only get the benefit of one of them. To attempt to do anything else is as blatent an abuse of rules as trying to wearing magical Cloth beneath your mundane Plate armor and expecting to get the bonuses.

 

[Danceofmasks]

What do you mean, face facts?
The only item slots are slots for magic.
Bracers and shields occupy the same slot if they are magical.

 

[Yaezakura]

What do you mean, face facts?
The only item slots are slots for magic.
Bracers and shields occupy the same slot if they are magical.

Ah. So I can carry a normal longsword and a magical one in the same hand and hit with both every attack? I mean, the normal longsword doesn't use up your Weapon/Implement slot, apparently.

Heck, why not where a suit of mundane AND magical plate armor? The mundane one doesn't use up the slot, so you can have massive AC!

 

[Goumindong]

Ah. So I can carry a normal longsword and a magical one in the same hand and hit with both every attack? I mean, the normal longsword doesn't use up your Weapon/Implement slot, apparently.

Heck, why not where a suit of mundane AND magical plate armor? The mundane one doesn't use up the slot, so you can have massive AC!

That doesn't work because they are both armor bonuses.

The real problem is wielding a shield, holding a dagger in that hand, and gaining the two weapon bonus to damage with your main hand and other such ridiculousness. Or as already stated, wearing plate armor over cloth armor and getting the abilities and enhancements of the cloth with the base AC of the Plate. But still getting bonuses due to wearing light armor(since you are indeed wearing light armor) AND heavy armor specialization bonuses. Heck, you even get to add your dex or intelligence to AC since when wearing heavy armor you don't add anything, but when wearing light armor you do. (so you both don't add and add and such end up adding).

Holy Molle a fighter who puts on mundane cloth under his scalemail gains his dex or int bonus to AC and can use the much cheaper boots of striding or striding and springing. Ha ha, whoops!

No, the rules simply do not state that this is the way it works, and rulings that state that this is the way it works are just plain wonky. The rules state very clearly in their clarifying and specific text that when using an item, any item, that occupies the same "slot" you can only gain the benefit from one of the two, whether or not that benefit is mundane or not.

If you're using bracers and getting a benefit from them, you cannot use a shield. You must take the bracers off before using the shield.

 

[amysrevenge]

Hmm, the idea of a charge fighter sounds pretty good. A heroic tier, take power attack, powerful charge, and the bracers of mighty striking.

Working on one, warforged, going for the Warforged Juggernaut paragon path which includes more charging goodness.

 

[FadedC]

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.

Well your argument is that it has nothing to do with magical properties, that it's just that putting on a bracer innately negates a shield regardless of if there is any magic involved or not. This would mean that putting on a non magical bracer would negate your shield just as much as putting a magical bracer on would.

Benefitting from 2 items at once is irrelevent, because by either interpetation of the rules you could only benefit from one magical property, and the bracer propoerties are not obviously better then the shield ones.

 

[Goumindong]

Well your argument is that it has nothing to do with magical properties, that it's just that putting on a bracer innately negates a shield regardless of if there is any magic involved or not. This would mean that putting on a non magical bracer would negate your shield just as much as putting a magical bracer on would.

Benefitting from 2 items at once is irrelevent, because by either interpetation of the rules you could only benefit from one magical property, and the bracer propoerties are not obviously better then the shield ones.

My argument is nothing of the sort. My argument is that you can only use one item in any slot at a time, my argument is not that using bracers negates the shield. You are perfectly able to use the shield, OR use the bracers. But you cannot use the shield AND the bracers. To change from using the shield to the bracers you need to take the shield off and put the bracers on first. To change to using the shield you need to put the shield on first. As per RAW

Now, the other part of this is that non-magical bracers give no benefit, and so it wouldn't matter if you put them on or not, you would still qualify as "receiving no benefit from the item" and so could still use the shield since you were only receiving benefit from a single item. Why could use use the shield? Because you are receiving no benefit from the non-magical bracers. Its the same as saying that you put a feather in your cap. Mechanically it makes no difference at all.

Mechanically it DOES make a difference, because people cannot use bracers and a shield at the same time it limits shield users to magical shields. It means they cannot get both the personal protection of bracers of defense(mechanically superior to all self shield protection for the most part), and the +1-3 AC from a shield.

It means that people in heavy armor cannot gain their int bonus to defense(otherwise they just wear cloth, are now wearing light armor, and so add their int/dex bonus to defense), or benefit from boots of striding and springing(same as above)

It means that people using light shields cannot gain two weapon fighting benefits.

It means that you have to make trade offs for that mundane or magical item you want to strap to yourself just because

edit: Bucklers died in in the conversion from 3.5 to 4e for a reason.

 

[NorthSaber]

On-topic: I think many two-handed weapons are cool, and I think reach is underappreciated. I find that a reach weapon gives you more options and strategies in actual battle that can be put into numbers and percentages for optimization purposes. I do think that the sword family is a bit problematic, and that bastard sword is a bit too good.

One more thing to remember about two-handed weapons is that they often fall into two weapon categories, opening up more power and feat options than one-handed weapons.

Off-topic: I think that people are getting confused when we're talking about worn items, wielded items, and magic item slots. You can wear ten cloaks if you want, nothing in the rules prohibits that. If some of them happen to be magical, then the first such cloak takes up the magic item slot, and further magical cloaks have no effect (magic-wise).

You can wield a light shield and hold a weapon in the same hand, but you can't wield them both (if I have understood things correctly). In order to benefit from the weapon's enchantments, or to use the weapon for an attack power, you need to be able to wield it.

Similarly, you can have magical bracers (which take up the magic item slot) and a normal shield (which is the item you wield with your left hand). You're not wielding the bracers, and the shield doesn't take up the magic item slot, so there's no conflict.

This is surely RAI, but I'm sure someone could read RAW otherwise, and clarification would be good. One of the basic guidelines I use myself is that if the rules would lead to physical impossibilities (or absurdities), I choose the interpretation which doesn't result in such folly. The bracers do not impede your use of the shield, and it would be downright silly to lose the shield's mundane bonuses just because you're using a magical trinket on your wrist.