CB Design Issue

[abyssaldeath]

Now that I am home I checked my character builder. I equiped a shield that gave me resist fire 5 and the Iron Armband of Power. The CB only added the IAoP. You still get the bonus to AC, but that is a mundane effect and not affected by the armslot restiction.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Ultimately, the whole shield thing is wierd because one naturally makes the assumption that shields are in your hand but actually fill the arm slot for magic items. Its not an intuitive leap and its further muddied by two different types of shields.

Basically, you "wear" a shield on your arm, but wearing it prevents you from using that hand for wielding a weapon or implement. The way the CB (and 4e in general) works is that you have your main hand and off hand available. If you have a shield, that "fills" one hand. So you can't wield a greatsword with a shield strapped to your arm. Neither can you wield a short sword or a wand in both hands with a shield strapped to your arm.

So, magic or no, a shield will prevent a hand from being used to wield a weapon.

On the other hand, a bracer doesn't prevent a shield from being strapped over it. Instead two "overlapping" magical effects will interfere with each other.

For magic items, there are a number of slots. Arm, hand (gloves), fingers (rings), held objects (weapons/implements), etc. You can hold two different items, you can have a single ring on each hand, one "pair" of hand items, and a "pair" of arm items. While a shield counts as an off handed item when "wielded" as getting the benefit of it prevents you from using that hand to wield another held item. However, they felt the need to prevent using magic shields as an "extra" slot. So, if you have a magic shield, it counts against a magic slot (held item is 'technically' a slot, but in some cases, like a two handed weapon, you are using both hands on the same item) and arm makes the most sense.

My "any armor" comment is basically this:

There are some arm slot items that anyone can use, whether they have no shield, a light shield or a heavy shield. These are basically the bracer types. Other effects only go onto shields (and some only onto some types of shields). These magical effects are more specialized because certain builds (like people that wield two handed weapons or aren't proficient in shield use, etc) can't use.

 

[Markn]

Now that I am home I checked my character builder. I equiped a shield that gave me resist fire 5 and the Iron Armband of Power. The CB only added the IAoP. You still get the bonus to AC, but that is a mundane effect and not affected by the armslot restiction.

Good to know. I wonder if they fixed that since I last looked at it, which was about a month or two ago. Still, it is highly likely tha someone will make the mistake of activating a power (encounter or daily) from the shield not realizing that they can't. Unless of course they fixed that too!

 

[Markn]

Basically, you "wear" a shield on your arm, but wearing it prevents you from using that hand for wielding a weapon or implement. The way the CB (and 4e in general) works is that you have your main hand and off hand available. If you have a shield, that "fills" one hand. So you can't wield a greatsword with a shield strapped to your arm. Neither can you wield a short sword or a wand in both hands with a shield strapped to your arm.

So, magic or no, a shield will prevent a hand from being used to wield a weapon.

On the other hand, a bracer doesn't prevent a shield from being strapped over it. Instead two "overlapping" magical effects will interfere with each other.

For magic items, there are a number of slots. Arm, hand (gloves), fingers (rings), held objects (weapons/implements), etc. You can hold two different items, you can have a single ring on each hand, one "pair" of hand items, and a "pair" of arm items. While a shield counts as an off handed item when "wielded" as getting the benefit of it prevents you from using that hand to wield another held item. However, they felt the need to prevent using magic shields as an "extra" slot. So, if you have a magic shield, it counts against a magic slot (held item is 'technically' a slot, but in some cases, like a two handed weapon, you are using both hands on the same item) and arm makes the most sense.

My "any armor" comment is basically this:

There are some arm slot items that anyone can use, whether they have no shield, a light shield or a heavy shield. These are basically the bracer types. Other effects only go onto shields (and some only onto some types of shields). These magical effects are more specialized because certain builds (like people that wield two handed weapons or aren't proficient in shield use, etc) can't use.

OK, that makes sense. RWIW, we've always played this way, but the description of shields was always difficult to sort out in my mind for some reason. We had the item slot figured out but when a player asked about a non magical shield and magical bracers my mind couldn't come to a conclusion on that. Makes sense now.

Still think the CB should be improved upon as its easy to make mistakes with shields...

 

[abyssaldeath]

Good to know. I wonder if they fixed that since I last looked at it, which was about a month or two ago. Still, it is highly likely tha someone will make the mistake of activating a power (encounter or daily) from the shield not realizing that they can't. Unless of course they fixed that too!

It still adds the item power card, but you can hide that. They do need to add an option so that you can change which item you want to be active. Right now if you have a magic shield and an armband only the armband is active.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It still adds the item power card, but you can hide that. They do need to add an option so that you can change which item you want to be active. Right now if you have a magic shield and an armband only the armband is active.

Actually if you think about it this is correct. The first item you equip into a slot works, but whatever item you equip after that which requires the same slot fails to work. Since a shield would have to be put on after you put on your bracers, you can't possibly have magical versions of both equipped and have the shield function. If you want to make the shield function you would have to remove the shield, take off the bracers and put the shield back on. Probably not something you'll want to do in a combat situation.

Just a note: Its dangerous to make too many generalizations about item slots. Only certain particular items go into slots and the rules are actually pretty specific about slot item interactions, but not very particular about other things which aren't actually slots. So you have hands, arms, head, neck, and feet slots. There are no other slots. "held items" don't follow the slot rules, neither does armor, and neither do rings. Held items simply take one or both of your main and off hands and since they all work only when wielded they're restricted by that. Rings have their own rule which is slightly different from the slots rule.

Armor has no rule at all and thus no stacking limitations and by RAW you can stack as much armor on yourself as you care to though its enhancement bonuses won't stack due to general bonus stacking limits. Naturally the DM may question which sorts of armor you can physically wear at the same time, though its pretty hard to argue you can't wear cloth under other armor types. I doubt this is RAI, but it is doable by RAW.

The upshot is, don't bandy around the term "slot" too freely, it can easily trip you up.

 

[DracoSuave]

RAW you can't do something completely unfeasibly retarded such as wearing two sets of armor at the same time.

It specifically says so. Tho not with that language.

Nonsense is specifically called out and disallowed.