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Message: <blockquote data-quote="auburn2" data-source="post: 8245362" data-attributes="member: 6855259">No, you have the math backwards.  The number of items you can use in your hand is extremely limited, the number of items you can attune to is irrelevant for the majority of games.Bracers are one of FOUR magic items you can attune to, a shield is one of TWO items you can have in your hands (three if you have the mage hand cantrip).  Further, there are a lot of magic items that don't  count against that 4-item attune limit, while every single weapon, every shield and a heck of a lot of other items, both magical and not, account against the number of items you can carry in your hands.I have regularly had 1st level characters who ran out of hands, I have never had a character below 11th level that ran out of attunement slots.   When a player can wield a shield in addition to three other items in their hands, then at that point this argument will have merit.An 8th level Monk should have an AC of 17.  8th level is about when a character should be able to afford Plate.  In 5 years of playing 5E I have never had a 6th-level character that could afford plate and most of those were official campaigns, so we had the proper amount of loot.  As a matter of fact both times our party got bracers of defense we got them BEFORE characters could afford plate.Your second example illustrates my point - a fighter could attune to an item to get the same AC as a Monk who attunes to BOD.  The fighter has to overcome the other negatives of plate (disadvantage on stealth, minimum strength score) so he is worse off than a Monk, but he has the same AC WITH ATTUNEMENTYou need a free hand to cast spells, to grapple ect.  You also can not open doors and then draw your weapon and then attack in one turn.  If you open a door, that is interacting with the environment and RAW counts as your interact with an object.  You would then need to use an action to interact with a 2nd object (drawing your weapon) and would not be able to take the attack action.Now if you are not playing by the rules, then certainly having a hand free is not as big a deal.The fighter could if he has a 18 strength.  Most classes, and to be honest even most fighters can't though.But only 2 of them can use heavy armor (which is the other part to your arguement) and most of those that can use heavy armor still can't use plate.Not RAW, this is covered in sage advice.  A player with a properly prepared shield can can cast a spell with a shield in one hand and a weapon in the other  ONLY when the spell has BOTH a material and a somatic component.  If a spell has no material component but does have a somatic component the cleric "needs to put the mace or the shield away, because that spell doesn’t have a material component but does have a somatic component."  [URL unfurl="true"]https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/SA_Compendium.pdf[/URL]Again if you are not playing RAW then having your hands full (literally) is not as big a deal.Yes and taking a feat instead of an ASI to get there.A better way to put it is it gives you the same benefit of studded leather WITHOUT WEARING ANY ARMOR.  Why would  you wear studded when you could get the same AC without it?  The only Rogues that wouldn't wear it are those with medium armor proficiency, magic studded leather or four items they want to attune to.  That is some of them certainly.  Maybe a plurality.As for Warlocks, same arguement as above except bracers also work with mage armor which would be a full 3 points better than studded leather.I believe bladesingers are as common as PCs that use shields period, not just at my table.  I don't know that but I think it to be true.Not for most characters.  To start with the vast majority, well over 80% of all characters do not have 4 attunement items they need to attune to.   In that case there is no reason not to wear BOD.  Heck even the fighter in plate with a shield would wear them if he had them because his AC woudl be better if caught in bed, while not wearing armor.Basically, unless you actually have 4 attunement items, and all four are better than BOD, any character period will ALWAYS be better off wearing BOD.  The same is not true for a shield.  Aside from the fact many can't use it, many others would be worse if they tried.Shield proficiency is never trivial.  It requires a feat or a class.  Unless he uses an action to sheath it, a player can only sheath a sword on a turn he did not draw it or pick it up on.As noted earlier, bracers are useable by every character.  A fighter in plate and carrying a shield can attune to and use bracers of defense, he just does not get the armor bonus while wearing the armor or with the shield donned.  Whenever those two things are not the case, he gets the bonus to AC.The only character that can't use BOD are those already attuned to 4 items.Also as noted earlier BOD are better than studded leather, because you don't have to wear armor to have a 12 AC.  The only cost to a BOD for the super majority of characters are the 1-pound weight.  That is hardly a "massive" price tag and as a matter of fact the studded leather you noted has literally 13 times the price the pay.Like I said before even with attunement is a no-brainer for the  majority of characters  of characters of every single class already.  If it had no attunement it would be a no-brainer for literraly every single character playing the game.Ok to start with that is only true for a fighter with 18+ strength, so  that is far from all of them.  Second you have two legendary items, a very rare item and three rare items.No character of ANY level should have the collection of magic items you posted for the fighter.  A 20th level character should have 1 legendary, 1 very rare, 2 rare and 2 uncommon permanent magic items (plus a bunch of limited use items).  The Monk you posted actually had items consistent what a 20th-level character should have (1 legendary, 4 rare).  Redo your Fighter AC using more reasonable magic items, or better yet the same formula you used for the Monk (1L, 4R) and see how their AC compares.There is nothing that breaks the game by keeping them attunement.</blockquote>

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