Do people really allow the Dastana in their games?

[Rel]

I had a player send me an e-mail asking if his character could purchase a Dastana as listed in the Arms and Equipment Guide. My first inclination was to say sure. But the more I thought about it the more wrong the whole thing seemed in terms of game balance. Here's a quote from the e-mail I sent him:

See, the problem that I foresee is that the Dastana introduces a seperate brand of armor that provides a bonus to AC that stacks with Armor and Shield already. And if it can be made Masterwork then the next logical question is "can it be made magical?" Because if it can then suddenly things start to get really wacky. You would never opt to upgrade your armor or shield to +1 until you had bought a Masterwork Dastana. And you would never opt to upgrade your armor or shield to +2 until your Masterwork Dastana was upgraded to +1 and so on. In the long run this would hugely change the dynamics of how armor works.



As it stands (even without allowing a Masterwork Dastana) Medium Armor becomes completely useless. Why would you ever wear a Breastplate (the best Medium armor there is) at +5 AC, -4 ACP and requiring the Medium Armor feat and slowing your speed to 20' (for a Medium sized PC) when you could wear a Chain Shirt and Dastana for a +5 AC, -3 ACP requiring only the Light Armor feat and keeping your full speed. And it doesn't even cost more money.



It gets worse if you add magic. +1 Chain Shirt, +1 Large Shield and +1 Dastana gives you a +10 to AC with a -2 ACP, requires Light Armor proficency and allows full speed. +1 Full Plate and a +1 Large Shield gives you +12 to AC but with a -6 ACP, requires Heavy Armor proficiency and you move like a snail. Plus, with a max Dex bonus of 1, the guy in the Full Plate probably has a worse AC than the light fighter does. And because Full Plate costs 1,500 GP, he probably paid just about the same amount of money for it.

For the record, the player was fine with my decision and said that he'd have probably ruled the same way as GM, but felt that he had to ask.

So where do you guys come down on this? Is there something I'm missing?

 

[BSF]

Rel,
I think my conversation with a player would have gone almost exactly the way yours did. Allowing it does seem to change the nature of armor. That isn't always a bad thing, but it is a big change for a campaign and one that the DM needs to keep in mind through the campaign.

 

[hazmat]

What exactly is a Dastana?

It's unnecessary to have a another type of AC bonus. What were they thinking?

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Thing is, the dastana was designed for a game without sheilds (first appearing in OA, IIRC). I'd rule that they overlap with shields.

 

[Crothian]

Exactly, they took an item that was made under a certainy assumption (no shields) and add it back in without realizing that they needed to have something of a balanceing factor back in for it. Not all options are going to work we ll together and this is an example of that.

 

[strongbow]

I believe that OA, where Dastana were converted to 3.0 first before A&E, stated that the magical enhancment bonus from Dastana and from armor don't stack. So a character wearing a +5 Dastana and a +5 Mithril Chain Shirt would get 10 AC ( 5 enhancment, 1 dastana, 4 from the Chain Shirt).

The same applies to the Chai-raina (I'm sure I mangled the spelling). However, the magical armor properties do stack, so typically what you see is characters getting +5 mithril chain shirts with +1 dastana of fortification and +1 chai-raina of [insert other cool armor properties here].

Personally, I prefer allowing bracers to have armor properties, per the A&E sidebar, instead of allowing the C+D combo. There are a few reasons for this, including that you let monks pick up some additional protection that compensates for their typical lack of a magic item slot (the shield). Since Arcane casters can get mithril bucklers for 0 arcane spell failure, they aren't so bad off as the monk.

You better be prepared for an arcane caster getting a +1 Twilight (Book of Exalted Deeds) Mithril Chain Shirt, Chai-raina, and Dastana, along with Bracers of who knows what.

In my brother's high level game the abundance of items with armor properties on them got pretty obscene, but you make the call for your campaign, as different DMs like different levels of power. Yeah, it hurts to make a decision for game balance and retroactively take something away from a player, but you can give something back by allowing magical bracers to hold armor properties, which makes the bracer slot worth filling with something good.

My 2 coppers. Someone with an OA book handy can quote the page number about magical enhancment stacking.

 

[Rel]

I figured that there must be some setting-specific element of the armor system that made these seem less insane.

The group I've got now is a very "AC dominant" crowd with 2 or 3 of them topping 20 even at 2nd level. No need to make it even easier.

Thanks for all the feedback. Further opinions are of course welcome.

 

[Sejs]

I just treat a pair of dastana as a buckler, personally.

 

[Rel]

I just treat a pair of dastana as a buckler, personally.

That would be perfectly fine. I just have an issue with them being treated as a separate type of armor that stacks with all others.

 

[ksbsnowowl]

Thing is, the dastana was designed for a game without sheilds (first appearing in OA, IIRC).

That's not true. From OA, page 75

Dastana: These large metal bracers can be worn in addition to some other types of armor to provide an additional armor bonus that stacks with both the foundation armor and any shield worn.. A character can wear dastana with padded, leather, or chain shirt armor. A character needs Armor Proficiency (light) to wear dastana without penalty.

Emphasis mine.

The description of Chahar-Aina is almost exactly the same, differing in that it requires Armor Proficiency (medium) to be worn properly.

Now, specifically in the Rokugan campaign setting, shields are not available, but Table 5-8 on page 75 lists this:

Player's Handbook Armor Availabe in Other Oriental Adventures Campaigns
Banded mail
Chainmail
Chain shirt
Hide.....
....Shields (all)....

So, it's obvious that the designers did intend that Dastana and shields could coexist in the same campaign.

Edit: Also, on page 122, Table 8-4 Random Shield Types, notice that under the Rokugan heading it lists Tessen as an existing shield type in Rokugan, ergo, the designers did intend dastana to coexist with shields.

I believe that OA... stated that the magical enhancment bonus from Dastana and from armor don't stack.

It says nothing of the sort.