Dastana from Arms & Equipment Guide

[SWAGMAN]

Ok, so dastana provide an armor bonus that stacks with padded, leather, or chain shirts, and any shield worn. So, my question is, can you wear them without foundation armor? Can they be enchanted as shields? It seems too powerful to have enchanted dastana and an enchanted shield. What have all you DMs out there been allowing in regards to dastana?

 

[Pax]

The best way to handle them is (under the guise of an update to v3.5), say that they ARE a shield, and be done with it. ^_^

Otherwise ... simply don't allow them to be enchanted.

 

[Steverooo]

Yes. You can have (Light) Armor, Shield, and Dastana... and Enhancement Bonuses on all three... The penalties are, weight for all three, and Enhancement Bonus costs on all three. Since Dastana can only be used with Light Armor (the three listed, plus, I believe, Studded Leather, unless I remember incorrectly), it isn't really a big deal.

Treating Dastana as a Shield doesn't work, IMHO. Shields require a proficiency that Rogues don't have, and can also give a +2 bonus, whereas Datana give only +1. In other words, shields are better.

Only Rangers, Rogues, low-level Monks with no WIS Bonus, and Wizards or Sorcerors will be interested in these devices, anyway. Maybe Bards. To require shield proficiency to use them (as a mere +1) pretty much removes their reason for being...

Bracers of Armor become more interesting, though... Aren't Bracers just Dastana? ;-)

 

[Pax]

To allow a +5 Dastana to stack with a +5 chain shirt and a +5 shield, is what's (IMO) wrong. That's potentially +22 to armor class; the heavy armor guys just can't keep up with that, for any price (the best woudl be +5 shield and +5 dendritic armor, for +21 armor class - now consider, the guy in the chain shirt with dastana probably has a dexterity bonus to write home about ... likely making for a 5-point (or more) difference in potential AC).

 

[Stormrunner]

Dastana and chahar-aina("four mirror armor", basically an early form of breastplate consisting of separate metal plates strapped to the front, back, and sides of the chest) both are essentially "upgrades" to the base armor; leather+dastana = leather+studs, chainshirt+chahar-aina=breastplate, etc. (Both come from Oriental Adventures, and are probably only appropriate to an Oriental or African campaign, or similar setting where "partial armor" is a cultural commonplace.) As such, while I would allow them to be enchanted, I would rule that the bonuses do NOT stack with the underlying armor - so leather+1 with dastana+2 is functionally equivalent to studded leather+2. Alternatively, you could invoke the "rule of 5" and say that the armor+dastana bonuses can't total more than +5 (so leather+4 and dastana+4=studded leather+5, not studded+8). Whether special abilities stack should probably be handled on a case-by-case basis. I'd allow Dastana of Blinding Light to stack, frex, but probably not Light Fortification.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I don't have the book with me, but they have to be either a shield or an armor, which means they would not stack any enhancement bonus to AC if you were already wearing another armor and shield. It would be like wearing armor and Gauntlets of Armor. Since they would be taking up the gauntlet/glove slot on someone, I don't see a problem letting them be enhanced, nor letting them be used alone. You would have a real hard time saying that they couldn't be enhanced at all, since in 3E you can have +1 toenail clipers.

If you are worried about them, either don't allow them, or turn them into a Masterwork enhancement to a base light armor. The AC is simply upgraded by one, and add a round to don/get out of the armor.

 

[Darklone]

Don't use them or everyone will have them. It's that easy.

 

[Pax]

And really, the biggest problem is when a creative player gets (say) a ghost touch chain shirt +5 and dastana +1 of [insert laundry list of special abilities here], to save money on the market price modifier they'd have if theyw ere to buy all that stuff on one, single piece of armor.

 

[Wolf72]

this is 3.0, but I think the same ruling could still be used.

the Sage did a Q/A on OA and ruled that dastana's and chaihar-ana's enhancement bonus did not stack, it overlapped ... so the best bonus is what mattered.

+3 leather (+5 AC)

+2 shield (+3 AC)

+2 Dastana (+3 AC)

would net you +9 AC: +5 from armor, +3 from shield, +1 (normal AC bonus) from dastana. if the dastana had the better bonus, it would have superceded the shield.

same goes for resistances, only the most powerful applies if there are similar abilities.

Otherwise it could be enchanted just other armors/shield.