Mage Robes

[Rystil Arden]

Even if the RAW allows it, bracers of armor should never be able to have other abilities. Well I suppose if you know that your game will never go epic, it would be fine. (If this is true of your game, read no further)

Once the game gets to epic levels, bracers of armor start to outstrip other armors in raw bonus, making it tempting for for 40th level fighters to sport bracers rather than full plate. Allowing bracers to have other abilities would make regular armor totally obsolete. Rather than ban mages from kool armor special abilities (because what mage wouldn't like to have Greater Fortification?), my solution is to ban Bracers of Armor and Rings of Force Shield; instead I allow Bracers of Shielding (+1 to +5) and Robes of Armor (+1 to +5) that can both have regular armor/shield abilities. It allows arcane casters to have better AC but also at greater cost.

Don't forget, Bracers of Armour also cost a ton more than other armours do to get to the same bonus (pricewise they are effectively +0 AC armour with only the enhancement on it, up to a total of 8 instead of 5), and they never outstrip other armour in AC bonus for the same price until you have characters running around with 32 Dex or more. Bracers of Armour +8 with Heavy Fort cost 169,000 Gold and they give +8 AC. Heavy Fort Full Plate +1 costs 37,000 gold and gives +9 AC.

 

[EricNoah]

Some very constructive points and suggestions -- thank you! I will continue mulling it all over.