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

[Maxperson]

I'd make the same ruling. Same reason you can't wear two suits of magic armour and have them both function.

Cloaks are worn separate from clothing. They are not worn in the same spot as robes the same way two suits of armor are.

 

[Voadam]

I also remember there being a cap at -10 by RAW. I've always ignored it, but then anything better is very rare anyway.

If you can find a 1e reference to it I would be interested. I don’t remember such a limitation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

raises hand

Actually, worse than that. I TRIED to account for the spread of the maxed out Delayed Blast Fireball, but didn’t account for the extreme speed of the target. It closed with the party before the DBF went off.

Our was actually the MU player thinking they were clever. We saw a hallway that appeared to be lined with small holes ala the intro scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc. The hallways went about 30 or 40 feet and turned left (out of sight). The player thought the hallway would keep going when it turned, so he launched the fireball as a way to burn out all darts or spears in the wall and burn away any poison they might have had.

Well, 10 feet around the corner was a stone door. It didn't keep going. Area was calculated...

 

[James Gasik]

I think it basically came about because the matrices stop at -10, even though the rules tell you that you can extend them. Interestingly, the "AC 10" limit makes no sense, given that a low Dexterity could make your unarmored AC higher than that, and I remember a Dragon article about giant amoebas with ACs above 10, lol.

2e encoded it, but even then, we found ways to virtually improve AC beyond that by imposing attack roll penalties (Prayer, Paladin aura, the Blur spell, etc. etc.. The fact that monsters rarely had bonuses to hit beyond the Thac0 granted by their Hit Dice made this pretty rough to challenge high level PC's. And some monsters were inexplicably nerfed, like the 70 HD Tarrasque (should be Thac0 -13) had only a Thac0 of...5?!

Not with dragons though, dragons were cheaters, lol. A 17 HD Great Wyrm Red has a Thac0 of -12 thanks to it's "draconic combat modifier", lol.

 

[billd91]

I think it basically came about because the matrices stop at -10, even though the rules tell you that you can extend them. Interestingly, the "AC 10" limit makes no sense, given that a low Dexterity could make your unarmored AC higher than that, and I remember a Dragon article about giant amoebas with ACs above 10, lol.

2e encoded it, but even then, we found ways to virtually improve AC beyond that by imposing attack roll penalties (Prayer, Paladin aura, the Blur spell, etc. etc.. The fact that monsters rarely had bonuses to hit beyond the Thac0 granted by their Hit Dice made this pretty rough to challenge high level PC's. And some monsters were inexplicably nerfed, like the 70 HD Tarrasque (should be Thac0 -13) had only a Thac0 of...5?!

Not with dragons though, dragons were cheaters, lol. A 17 HD Great Wyrm Red has a Thac0 of -12 thanks to it's "draconic combat modifier", lol.

I don't think it's a question of it "not making sense" as much as there's a floor given to a clumsy PC's misery. AC worse than 10 is reserved for curses, by the 1e rule.

And the dragons might not be considered cheaters if you're strict about the text about magic armors. ACs can't be made better than -10 by magic item (specifically shield and armor) bonuses - but the dragon's AC is all natural, baby.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'd make the same ruling. Same reason you can't wear two suits of magic armour and have them both function.

But wearing a robe with a cape is perfectly reasonable IRL--Cardinal Richelieu typically depicted doing so:

Wearing two suits of armor, otoh -- well, of course layering armor was a real thing, but in D&D terms that's probably all considered a single 'set' of armor.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But wearing a robe with a cape is perfectly reasonable IRL--Cardinal Richelieu typically depicted doing so:
View attachment 416755
Wearing two suits of armor, otoh -- well, of course layering armor was a real thing, but in D&D terms that's probably all considered a single 'set' of armor.

 

[James Gasik]

But wearing a robe with a cape is perfectly reasonable IRL--Cardinal Richelieu typically depicted doing so:
View attachment 416755
Wearing two suits of armor, otoh -- well, of course layering armor was a real thing, but in D&D terms that's probably all considered a single 'set' of armor.

The only way I could see wearing two suits of armor is with Elven chain, which, based on Bilbo's mithril chain shirt, is so thin and lightweight you can wear it under your clothes. Which means I can't imagine why you couldn't wear it under a gambeson (and thus under more armor) for extra protection.

Obviously, though, it would be busted to allow. Not so in the case of robes and cloaks, which do very different things. Heck, you can even wear a robe over armor (an NPC in Vale of the Mage does that, if memory serves, using his Robe of Blending and carrying a staff to fool people into thinking he's a Wizard, not a Fighter).

 

[Lanefan]

Cloaks are worn separate from clothing. They are not worn in the same spot as robes the same way two suits of armor are.

To me a robe and a cloak (and a cape) are the same thing - a long garment worn over the shoulders outside all other clothing.

 

[Lanefan]

The only way I could see wearing two suits of armor is with Elven chain, which, based on Bilbo's mithril chain shirt, is so thin and lightweight you can wear it under your clothes. Which means I can't imagine why you couldn't wear it under a gambeson (and thus under more armor) for extra protection.

Obviously, though, it would be busted to allow. Not so in the case of robes and cloaks, which do very different things. Heck, you can even wear a robe over armor (an NPC in Vale of the Mage does that, if memory serves, using his Robe of Blending and carrying a staff to fool people into thinking he's a Wizard, not a Fighter).

I'm fine with wearing a magic robe-cloak-cape over armour and having them both function.

But if you're wearing more than one magic robe-cloak-cape together, the way I rule is that only the outermost one's enchantments work.