Do people really allow the Dastana in their games?

As for enhancing a Dastana, those who said the enhancement bonus would not stack with that of the armour are correct. To wit, the Dastana provides an armour bonus to AC that stacks with the armour's armour bonus to AC (and the shield's shield bonus) but a magical Dastana would also provide an enhancement bonus to the character's armour bonus to AC (because the dastana bonus is typed as an additional armour bonus). However, a suit of magical armour also gives an enhancement bonus to your armour bonus to AC, which won't stack. Alternatively, since the dastana is basically just a new added portion of the armour and not a distinct suit of armour, you could rule that it can't be enhanced by Craft Magic Arms and Armour (in which case it would be considered a Wondrous Item that doesn't take up a usual body slot).
 

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If you are going to piecemeal out all the diff pieces of armor and say that bracers (dastana) provide +1 that's cool, but I just can't see only using one piecemeal that stacks.

You could have full plate, which already has bracers built in, and add a dastana over the top of it for extra...come on. Put on your thinking cap.

Also, how is it handeled in OA?
 

ksbsnowowl said:
Sure, because it won't. I could do much worse things with 25000 gp per foe. ...
I really don't see it as a problem.


You are saying you could do worse with 25k...which implies that it is bad.

I'm just saying, IMC, adding +6AC would make a big difference, or +2 for that matter.

I chimed in because I think that a lot of DMs decide that additions are not unbalancing, yet only seem to add the addition to player chars instead of the whole setting. Often, building foes with the same options that players have quickly makes them TPK. If your party always dominates, that's unbalanced.

.02
 

werk said:
You are saying you could do worse with 25k...which implies that it is bad.
No, it implies that it is no where near being 'bad,' as it is better (from a PC's perspective) to face someone with dastana than to face someone with a more deadly allocation of funds.
Rystil Arden said:
As for enhancing a Dastana, those who said the enhancement bonus would not stack with that of the armour are correct. To wit, the Dastana provides an armour bonus to AC that stacks with the armour's armour bonus to AC (and the shield's shield bonus) but a magical Dastana would also provide an enhancement bonus to the character's armour bonus to AC (because the dastana bonus is typed as an additional armour bonus). However, a suit of magical armour also gives an enhancement bonus to your armour bonus to AC, which won't stack.
An interesting argument. Not one I currently agree with, but I'll think it over more later. My initial rebuttal would be that enhancement bonuses do not provide an 'enhancement bonus' to AC, they merely enhance already existing armor bonuses to AC, and since
the Dastana provides an armour bonus to AC that stacks with the armour's armour bonus to AC
then the enhanced dastana would stack, because it is merely increasing the AC bonus that already stacks.

Alternatively, since the dastana is basically just a new added portion of the armour and not a distinct suit of armour, you could rule that it can't be enhanced by Craft Magic Arms and Armour.
Except that page 122 of OA clearly lists dastana as a randomly generated type of magical armor.
 

werk said:
You could have full plate, which already has bracers built in, and add a dastana over the top of it for extra...come on. Put on your thinking cap.

You can't do this. Dastanas can only be used with certain armors, the heaviest of which is a chain shirt and none of which come with built-in arm protection.
 

An interesting argument. Not one I currently agree with, but I'll think it over more later. My initial rebuttal would be that enhancement bonuses do not provide an 'enhancement bonus' to AC, they merely enhance already existing armor bonuses to AC, and since

Actually, neither of these is correct, but the latter one (your rebuttal) is closer to being correct and closer to what I said. I think what's confusing you is that fact that the word Armour is used too much, so let's pretend that Armour and Dastanas gave a Rystil bonus to Armour Class (just to keep away the confusion). Now Armour and Dastanas both give a Rystil bonus, so normally those two bonuses wouldn't stack, but they do stack because of the special clause saying that they do. So now my total Rystil bonus is (Armour's Rystil bonus +1). Now, I find a +4 dastana which gives a +4 enhancement bonus to my Rystil bonus, and I have masterwork chain shirt. So now my Rystil bonus to AC is (+4 from Chain Shirt, +1 from Dastana + 4 enhancement). Now I pick up a +2 suit of armour. Let's look at what the Rystil bonus is: (+4 from Chain Shirt, +1 from Dastana, +4 enhancement, +2 enhancement). Uh oh! I have two enhancement bonuses to my Rystil bonus so they don't stack.

I hope my example helped because I will admit that it is confusing because the Armour is used too many times.
 

Kelleris said:
You can't do this. Dastanas can only be used with certain armors, the heaviest of which is a chain shirt and none of which come with built-in arm protection.

well...that's a lot different then. ;)
 

Rystil Arden said:
Let's look at what the Rystil bonus is: (+4 from Chain Shirt, +1 from Dastana, +4 enhancement, +2 enhancement). Uh oh! I have two enhancement bonuses to my Rystil bonus so they don't stack.
That interpretation is absolutly wrong. A +5 chain shirt does not provide a +4 armor bonus and a +5 enhancement bonus; it provides a +9 armor bonus.

If your interpretation were correct, then one could not benefit magically from a +2 large shield and a +2 suit of chainmail. According to your interpretation, those two would provide a +5 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus, a +2 enhancement bonus, and a +2 ehancement bonus. That is not, however, how it works.

"But it's different because the enhanced shield is providing a shield bonus, not an armor bonus," you might say..... But remember that OA was published in 3.0, when there was no such thing as a shield bonus; shields provided an armor bonus that stacked with the armor bonus from a suit of armor. Despite a magically enhanced shield and a magically enhanced suit of armor both being magically enhanced armors, with each providing an armor bonus, both fully stacked and were fully functional. The dastana is no different.
 

ksbsnowowl said:
That interpretation is absolutly wrong. A +5 chain shirt does not provide a +4 armor bonus and a +5 enhancement bonus; it provides a +9 armor bonus.

If your interpretation were correct, then one could not benefit magically from a +2 large shield and a +2 suit of chainmail. According to your interpretation, those two would provide a +5 armor bonus, a +2 shield bonus, a +2 enhancement bonus, and a +2 ehancement bonus. That is not, however, how it works.

"But it's different because the enhanced shield is providing a shield bonus, not an armor bonus," you might say..... But remember that OA was published in 3.0, when there was no such thing as a shield bonus; shields provided an armor bonus that stacked with the armor bonus from a suit of armor. Despite a magically enhanced shield and a magically enhanced suit of armor both being magically enhanced armors, with each providing an armor bonus, both fully stacked and were fully functional. The dastana is no different.
Nope, you understood my analogy wrong again and attacked a straw man (by the way, you are right that the straw man you attacked is wrong). Remember the Rystil bonus is the Armour bonus to Armour Class and the Shiled bonus is different. In the analogy above, the Rysil (also called Armour) Bonus is (+4 Chain Shirt, +1 Dastana +4 enhancement) and the Shield Bonus (assuming a +2 tower shield) would be (+4 Tower Shield, +2 enhancement). Total bonus from Rystil bonus and Shield bonus is +15.

By the way, allowing the enhancement bonuses from dastanas to stack is ludicrously overpowered. You seem to think it costs more money, but this wrong. Give me starting gold for a character above 3rd-level and I can make him save money and get more AC if he uses an enhanced dastana over any build that doesn't use dastanas (using only the items, no spellcasting or such).
 

Rystil Arden said:
Nope, you understood my analogy wrong again and attacked a straw man (by the way, you are right that the straw man you attacked is wrong). Remember the Rystil bonus is the Armour bonus to Armour Class and the Shiled bonus is different.

Technically, however, an enhancement on a dastana should stack with an enhancement to armor. Why?

Because of the way enhancement bonuses work.

You have a suit of armor which provides a +2 armor bonus to AC.
You have a dastana which provides a +2 armor bonus to AC, which stacks with that from armor.
Together, these provide a +4 armor bonus to AC.

If you enhance the suit of armor to +1, it now provides a (+2 +1) +3 armor bonus to AC.
If you enhance to dastana to +1, it now provides a (+2 +1) +3 armor bonus to AC, which stacks with that from armor.
Together, these provide a +6 armor bonus to AC.

It stacks because of the exact same rationale that allows enhancements to shields in 3.0 to stack with enhancements to armor in 3.0. Both are enhanced separately, both provide armor bonuses which stack with each other, and therefore the enhancements stack with each other.
 

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