Stacking that AC bonus high.

[pikafunk]

Browsing through the item creation chart on pg 285 DMG.

What is to stop someone from say making a ring with an ac luck bonus, another ring with an ac insight bonus, and then add on a heafty natural armor bonus from an amulet.

This seems much more effective than dealing with the quadratic curve that a single AC bonus brings past +3.

Is there somthing im missing or do you guys think it would work?

 

[Orm]

You´re wasting item slots.

 

[Darklone]

Orm is right. Additionally, not all spellcasters may have access to the resources needed to make items with these different kinds of bonuses (Divine/Arcane stuff).

And at levels where making a lot of different small items becomes an option because you have the money, your slots are probably already pretty occupied.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

What is to stop someone from say making a ring with an ac luck bonus, another ring with an ac insight bonus, and then add on a heafty natural armor bonus from an amulet.

First of all, one of those ring slots is usually already taken up by an AC item, the deflection bonus to AC granted by a Ring of Protection. As for the other ring slot, technically there is no "luck bonus to AC" ring in the game. So the first fact to "stop someone from say making a ring with an ac luck bonus" is DM permission. Personally, I'd allow it. I see no reason not to, sinc the PC will be expending resources to have a higher AC that could have been spent gaining other abilities. But a DM would be perfectly within their rights to simply rule that such an item does not exist in their game. And it wouldn't be Rule 0. Rule 0 would be allowing the item.

 

[dcollins]

Browsing through the item creation chart on pg 285 DMG.

What is to stop someone from say making a ring with an ac luck bonus, another ring with an ac insight bonus, and then add on a heafty natural armor bonus from an amulet.

Allowing that would be all House Rules. (In particular, "Variant: New Magic Items" from DMG p. 214.) The chart you refer to isn't a set of rules for players, it's guidelines for DMs when they want to introduce a new magic item type.

I wrote this page on my website a while ago called "Can I Make a New Magic Item?". Part of what I wrote was that "a great many D&D players express an honest bewilderment at why the multiple item-creation feats exist in D&D, when they can just specify their own items." Your post is yet another fine example of that phenomenon.

In one way, you are correct. If a player can specify any ability in any item, by picking off that chart, then it is absolutely most cost-effective to add one of each bonus type at a time, just like you say. The only way to avoid this is if the DM says he's sticking to the books as written, and by default only allows selection of the permanent items defined in the rulebooks.

http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndfaq3.html

 

[Darklone]

Yet another thingie. If you have a +1 deflection, +1 luck, +1 sacred and whatever else +1 bonus, then your buff spells are weakened. E.g. casting a Protection from Evil would only yield a +1 benefit, barkskin would be 1 weaker and so on.

 

[Nail]

a differing view

Allowing that would be all House Rules.

Or not. There is, of course, another way to view that topic.

But, to your question: Sure, a spell-caster with the correct feat and spell list could make such an item. For example, you could make a "Vest of Ultimate Protection", which might have several bonuses to AC (Armor, Natural Armor, Deflection, Luck, etc.), all of which would stack. With one vest, you'd not be wasting any slots.

A while ago I posted on such an item: Monk's Robe of Celestial Armor

However, this sort of item would cost more than separate, slotted items. If we assume these powers (bonuses to AC) are not "similar" (as defined in the DMG magic item creation section), the price of all but the most costly bonus is multiplied by 1.5.

Sticking to DMG only items, you can still pick up a high AC by piling on the different bonuses....but you already knew that. The fighter in our party (12th level) has a AC 38....and (reading over the boards) that's not particularly good. Tell that to the poor monsters with attack bonuses of only +20!

 

[Vrecknidj]

But, to your question: Sure, a spell-caster with the correct feat and spell list could make such an item. For example, you could make a "Vest of Ultimate Protection", which might have several bonuses to AC (Armor, Natural Armor, Deflection, Luck, etc.), all of which would stack. With one vest, you'd not be wasting any slots.

And, as every DM knows, the biggest advantage to this, is that when the lich of evil spookiness casts his anti-vest spell, the player loses all that gold and all those AC bonuses with one spell.



Dave

 

[Nail]

And, as every DM knows, the biggest advantage to this, is that when the lich of evil spookiness casts his anti-vest spell, the player loses all that gold and all those AC bonuses with one spell.

MDj, anyone?

...However: I've not often seen Mord's Disjunction in play...and I've never seen a magic item targeted by a Dispel Magic, although we all know it can be done.

One of the big disadvantages of this sort of magic item is its cost, plain and simple. That's the balancing factor; a factor (IMHO) that works well. Secondary disadvantages include:

• buff spells from friends overlap, not stack.
• more easily stolen, damaged, or MDj'ed.
• angers some ENWorld posters

 

[Darklone]

Targeting magic items with low caster level Dispels is one very evil trick many DMs are too nice to use.