D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[Voadam]

My theory for the lack of cloaks of protection in modules is space. You could only wear one cloak, so too many protection cloaks would be wasted. People were going to want cloaks of the manta or cloaks of elven kind. Rings on the other hand were one per hand, so you could have an interesting ring and a protection ring. And everyone likes more defense.

I haven't checked but I would expect they are rarer on the random item generation charts as well being on one of the multiple 1e miscellaneous item subtables compared with the single rings table.

Plus they were not in B/X like rings of protection +1 were so no Keep on the Borderlands early loot for a bunch.

 

[Maxperson]

I would choose the Cloak of Displacement for my character, in fact in the past I had.

In a 5e game I played in I had always wanted to play a Bladesinger. I picked elf, because I'm a traditionalist at heart with race specific prestige classes like Bladesinger. We roll stats and rolling straight down I ended up with a 16 int and 18 dex, which after racials became 17 and 20. At 4th I picked up a feat I wanted that gave me +1 to int, and by then I had a ring of protection. When in bladesong, my AC with mage armor was 23 + the shield spell handy. Then I got ahold of a cloak of displacement...

I was practically untouchable.

 

[James Gasik]

Couldn't one's character give their extra (unneeded) magic items to henchmen or trade them with other PCs? I know I & others with whom I gamed did.


I would choose the Cloak of Displacement for my character, in fact in the past I had.

They're both really good, is all I'm saying.

 

[Maxperson]

I haven't checked but I would expect they are rarer on the random item generation charts as well being on one of the multiple 1e miscellaneous item subtables compared with the single rings table.

Plus they were not in B/X like rings of protection +1 were so no Keep on the Borderlands early loot for a bunch.

Given the number of rings on that list, I strongly suspect that they placed items and didn't roll all of the magic items randomly.

 

[James Gasik]

So after a run through Storm King's Thunder when the DM was allowed to roll on random tables in AL at certain points, we ended up with an Eldritch Knight with magic plate, magic shield, a Staff of Power, and a cloak of protection with something like 26 AC plus shield (Warcaster to allow spellcasting, naturally) and the DM just sort of gave up when even the Fire Giants had to roll nat 20's to land a hit.

 

[Azzy]

In a 5e game I played in I had always wanted to play a Bladesinger. I picked elf, because I'm a traditionalist at heart with race specific prestige classes like Bladesinger. We roll stats and rolling straight down I ended up with a 16 int and 18 dex, which after racials became 17 and 20. At 4th I picked up a feat I wanted that gave me +1 to int, and by then I had a ring of protection. When in bladesong, my AC with mage armor was 23 + the shield spell handy. Then I got ahold of a cloak of displacement...

I was practically untouchable.

 

[Maxperson]

So after a run through Storm King's Thunder when the DM was allowed to roll on random tables in AL at certain points, we ended up with an Eldritch Knight with magic plate, magic shield, a Staff of Power, and a cloak of protection with something like 26 AC plus shield (Warcaster to allow spellcasting, naturally) and the DM just sort of gave up when even the Fire Giants had to roll nat 20's to land a hit.

Giants were the only things to have a chance at hitting my Bladesinger, and they rolled at disadvantage. Muahahahaha!

 

[James Gasik]

View attachment 416692

Yeah pretty much. He actually wanted to trade in his +1 plate for adamantine armor, but couldn't find a way to get any.

 

[Zardnaar]

Couldn't one's character give their extra (unneeded) magic items to henchmen or trade them with other PCs? I know I & others with whom I gamed did.


I would choose the Cloak of Displacement for my character, in fact in the past I had.

You dan. You also get more xp ditching them.

 

[ECMO3]

In a 5e game I played in I had always wanted to play a Bladesinger. I picked elf, because I'm a traditionalist at heart with race specific prestige classes like Bladesinger. We roll stats and rolling straight down I ended up with a 16 int and 18 dex, which after racials became 17 and 20. At 4th I picked up a feat I wanted that gave me +1 to int, and by then I had a ring of protection. When in bladesong, my AC with mage armor was 23 + the shield spell handy. Then I got ahold of a cloak of displacement...

I was practically untouchable.

All three of my bladesingers were nigh untouchable. I did not have a cloak of Displacement on any of them (I did have Bracers of Defense on two of them), but I used Blur and Protection from Evil and Good quite often.