Bracers of Armor obsolete?

[KarinsDad]

You don't think the PHB2 has some good options? BoED, IMO, is a horribly balanced book, and is more of a munchkin's dream. It's the only book I wholly disallow.

PHB2 is the epitome of the "bigger, badder, better" syndrome.

At least many of the benefits of BoED require the PC to be played not only good, but extremely good, and those benefits can be taken away if the PC does evil actions.

With PHB2, it just flat out breaks the gaming concepts.

As examples:

1) Melee Weapon Mastery as a single feat is more powerful than Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization combined and it does not require Fighter 8, just Fighter 4 and BAB 8. Ditto for Ranged Weapon Mastery.

2) Duskblades. Full BAB, two good saves, D8 hit points, many cool abilities, and arcane buff and damage spells.

3) Metamagic Specialist allows Sorcerers to spontaneously cast Quicken Spells (if they take the Quicken Spell feat) 4 or more times per day. This is huge since Sorcerers can already be metamagic specialists. Compare this to the Sudden Quicken feat which has 6 feat prereqs (hence, Sorcerers cannot get it at all until 15th or 18th level unless they have a special PrC) and can only be done once per day. Granted, the feat does not increase the spell level, but the fact that Sorcerers can spontaneously Quicken compared to everyone else only being able to Quicken by preparing spells (shy of a metamagic rod or Sudden Quicken) and this is real huge.

So, Sorcerers can start Quickening spells at 9th level 4 or more times per day with one feat whereas previously, they could only do it once per day by taking 7 specific feats by 15th level. This totally changes the balance of power between Sorcerers and other classes with a single feat.


PHB2 has some good concepts in it like affiliations, but many of the classes and feats introduced by it are borderline if not flat out broken. IMO.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

My personal opinion is that the mithral chain shirt is already pretty cheesy. The chain shirt itself is pretty damn full of minmaxy goodness already, and that is before adding the mithral property.

Of the PCs in my party that actually wear armor at all, I believe that 5 of 6 wear magical mithral chain shirt.

Vive la difference?!?

"Cleverly" layering on an oddball enchantment is not improving my opinion regarding the situation.

 

[Graf]

Bracers of armor are traditional DnD gear.

But so is the wizard in “elvin chain”. So now you can spend some gp and get a slightly better version of elvin chain.
End of the world it’s not.

 

[Jack Simth]

A mithral chain shirt with the Twilight property (-10% ASF, from BoED and reprinted in PHBII) would have 0% ASF, right? So for 5.25k (+1 mithral Twilight chain shirt), you have an item that grants a +5 armor bonus and can be freely worn by arcane casters. That's the equivalent of bracers of armor that cost 25k.

Am I missing something, or should every arcane caster be wearing a chain shirt rather than bracers of armor?

Well, not every arcane caster - one who started with, say, a 15 Dex bonus, wears +6 Gauntlets of Dexterity, and read a +3 Manual of Quickness of Action would have a Dex bonus of +7; a Mithral Chain Shirt would have a max dex of +6. And the Dex applies to touch AC.

 

[Benimoto]

That is a good point. So the really the main reasons for bracers of armor would be:

1) Incorporeal touch attacks (my str 6 wizard is deathly afraid of shadows)
2) You might want to wear a robe
3) Twilight armor isn't available, and your wizard has Craft Wonderous Item

Not very good reasons, considering the cost. Of course I kind of like the idea of wizards wearing elven chain anyways.

 

[mikebr99]

3) Metamagic Specialist allows Sorcerers to spontaneously cast Quicken Spells (if they take the Quicken Spell feat) 4 or more times per day. This is huge since Sorcerers can already be metamagic specialists. Compare this to the Sudden Quicken feat which has 6 feat prereqs (hence, Sorcerers cannot get it at all until 15th or 18th level unless they have a special PrC) and can only be done once per day. Granted, the feat does not increase the spell level, but the fact that Sorcerers can spontaneously Quicken compared to everyone else only being able to Quicken by preparing spells (shy of a metamagic rod or Sudden Quicken) and this is real huge.

So, Sorcerers can start Quickening spells at 9th level 4 or more times per day with one feat whereas previously, they could only do it once per day by taking 7 specific feats by 15th level. This totally changes the balance of power between Sorcerers and other classes with a single feat.

Sorry for the hyjack, OP...

I don't know, KD... I personally think this addition to the Sorcerer was a great idea. And they still have to pay the spell slot for quickening... so they are only quickening 0-level spells at 9th level. Wizards would have been doing this since 7th level.

And it means that Scorcers have another stat that isn't for dumping... YMMV

Mike

 

[Mistwell]

Guys, given your arcane casters already have a very low level spell that lasts basically all day long (or at least all of your typical adventuring day) that provides and equal or better armor bonus as it is, as a force armor, why does it matter?

I mean, is enchanted mithral chain shirt with twilight actually worth more to you than the spell mage armor and greater mage armor (or is that improved mage armor)? I'd rather use that money on a different wand, and cast the low level spell.

 

[two]

In core, for years now, wizards could use the infamous (?) mithral buckler +5.

Similarly, no ASF or anything else, and proficiency is not required.

Nice cheap way to get +6 shield bonus.

Looks like the new cheese just adds twilight chain shirt to the mix.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't KD... I personally think this addition to the Sorcerer was a great idea. And they still have to pay the spell slot for quickening... so they are only quickening 0-level spells at 9th level. Wizards would have been doing this since 7th level.

And Metamagic Specialists could not quicken 0th level spells at 8th level for what reason?

And, they can still do it more often per day than the 7th (or even 8th) level Wizard, over a larger spell selection than the Wizard (i.e. the Wizard is limited to which 0th level spell(s) he Quickened today, the Sorcerer can do it for any of his 0th level spells), or not at all.

0th level spells are not the issue. It's 1st through 5th level spells that make it potent.

But, the Spontaneous aspect of two spells per round is what is huge.

And it means that Scorcers have another stat that isn't for dumping... YMMV

I have no idea what you mean by this dumping comment.

But, we just have different opinions on what great ideas are. Sorcerers are, quite frankly, the most powerful core arcane casters due to spontaneous metamagic and more spells per day than any other caster. The main limiting factor outside of number of spells known was that all other core casters (except Bards) could get two spells off in a single round whereas Sorcerers could not. With the introduction of Metamagic Rods and Swift/Immediate spells, this has eroded somewhat, but both of these are costly options (one in cash and the other in eating into Known Spells). However, giving Sorcerers two spontaneous spells per round anytime he wants (4 times per day) for most of his lower level spells with a single feat and with no magic items erodes that balance a lot further.

Spontaneous casting is potent. Spontaneous Metamagic casting is even more potent. But, both of these pale besides the ability to cast two spontaneous (where one of them can be metamagicked in other ways) spells per round. In fact, Metamagic Specialist allows a Sorcerer to cast two spontaneous metamagicked spells per round where both of them can be metamagicked in multiple ways.

Granted, it is only 4+ times per day, but when compared with Sudden Quicken at 1 feat instead of 7, it's totally broke. The same designers did not make these two rules. One set of designers realized the real potential of spontaneous Quicken and the others did not.

 

[kerbarian]

Granted, it is only 4+ times per day, but when compared with Sudden Quicken at 1 feat instead of 7, it's totally broke. The same designers did not make these two rules. One set of designers realized the real potential of spontaneous Quicken and the others did not.

Actually, I believe it's only 1+ times per day. The wording is 3/day + Int modifier, minimum 1. I read that as the total is a minimum of 1/day. So a Sorcerer with int 6 would only be able to use the improved metamagic 1/day, but a sorcerer with int 4 would still be able to do 1/day (even though the total would normally be 0).