D&D 5E A single +1 armor for a level 10 party

[Storyteller Hero]

I came to this thread expecting a clown car attempt to fit everyone in the party into the same suit of armor.

Ah well.

*wanders back to the cave*

 

[delericho]

Not just the AL. The official hardcovers, even the 'stingy' ones like Tomb of Annihilation, hand out way, waaaay more magical items than the DMG and Xanathar's assumes.

IIRC, that was largely true of the 1st Ed adventures as well - the amount of treasure to be found was generally higher than the levels suggested by the DMG treasure tables.

 

[CTurbo]

I do give out more items than the books would suggest. My group's campaigns tend to end around level 10-11. Last group tended to have 4-5 items each with all but one of them having +1 items. I think the fighter got +2 weapon on the last adventure. I also give out a few minor items like a mug that fills with beer a few times a day or a bedroll that floats off the ground a few inches. These do not count towards the limit the PCs had. I did give out a suit of +1 chain armor that the cleric took, but the fighter at the time already had basic plats and shield for an AC20. When I gave out a ring of protection I thought the mage may get it, but the fighter got it and made him even tougher to hit.

So that guy with the already highest AC took the Ring of Protection??? There is a word for that kind of player....

 

[Kevtron]

slightly off topic but: If a +1 armor is this powerful/important. How powerful/important is +1 dex for AC? My first character (rogue) will be hitting level 4 soonish in our first campaign, and I was thinking about going for a feat (Fade Away) instead of 2 dex. I know that 2 dex is pretty important, but didn't think it was that important.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So that guy with the already highest AC took the Ring of Protection??? There is a word for that kind of player....

Its quite likely that it was a party decision. Reducing the chance for a character that is rarely attacked to be hit by maybe 10%, or reduce the chance of a character that is attacked often to be hit by 30%.

Giving the ring to the Fighter was overall a pretty good move in terms of party resource use.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

slightly off topic but: If a +1 armor is this powerful/important. How powerful/important is +1 dex for AC? My first character (rogue) will be hitting level 4 soonish in our first campaign, and I was thinking about going for a feat (Fade Away) instead of 2 dex. I know that 2 dex is pretty important, but didn't think it was that important.

Much of the reason that +1 armour is regarded as powerful is that it increases the 'max AC' of a character.
Once you hit Dex 20, or get full plate and Shield etc, there is no way to boost your AC further outside of temporary (usually concentration) spells.

(Note that generally people are thinking of 'best armour in category' when considering magic armour. +1 chain mail is much less unbalancing than +1 full plate for example.)

 

[delericho]

slightly off topic but: If a +1 armor is this powerful/important. How powerful/important is +1 dex for AC? My first character (rogue) will be hitting level 4 soonish in our first campaign, and I was thinking about going for a feat (Fade Away) instead of 2 dex. I know that 2 dex is pretty important, but didn't think it was that important.

It's pretty much exactly as you say: it's important but not that important. Perhaps more important, the game assumes players will seek to maximise their character's abilities using anything in the PHB, but it assumes they won't have magic items.

Where it potentially gets to be a problem is if the PC has the maximum AC from Dex and his armour and then adds the ring of protection (or magic armour, or whatever).

 

[The Old Crow]

Its quite likely that it was a party decision. Reducing the chance for a character that is rarely attacked to be hit by maybe 10%, or reduce the chance of a character that is attacked often to be hit by 30%.

Giving the ring to the Fighter was overall a pretty good move in terms of party resource use.

Not to mention that the ring also gives +1 to all saves, something a Fighter is not going to get from good armor.

 

[aco175]

It was the party decision, I thought as the DM that they would give it to one with a lower AC. That taught me about not giving out magic armor. The 22AC was ok and it worked fine, but I was not giving him magic plate. He had the other +1 AC from the fighter style.

 

[CapnZapp]

Looking at the table at the bottom of page 135 in Xanathar's we get the suggestion that a party of level 10 characters should have a total of 1 rare major item.

Since a +1 armor is a rare major item, this gives a total of 1 armor for the whole party. Or none if they have a a weapon +2, (or most rings, staffs or wands).

Did I miss or miss-read something?

Are you playing with those guidelines?

Hard to know if you consider this a bad or good thing...

Assuming you're asking because it poses a problem to you, you should know that those guidelines are pretty much ignored by every official adventure published so far...

And no, not "of course they are - XGE was published afterwards". My point is that WotC is going "do as I say not as I do" here.

So feel free to ignore this (and everything in XGE) if it helps you.