Armors + Rings/Cloaks of Protection etc.

VikingR

[SPOILERS ON ITEMS, JUST IN CASE]




Hello folks,

I just found the Plate +3 in Durlag's tower. It turned out to be useless for my party though as both my main characters AC remained lower due to wearing a field plate + the guardian ring + 2 + balduran's helmet. The same goes for Dorn with his Ankheg Plate + a Ring of the Princes.

The simple reason behind this seems to be that you cannot equip a "magical" armour with other protective magical items. I don't really understand the rule behind this though. Wearing a magical shield or helmet does not cause any problems when I try to put the armour on. Cloaks and Rings do not work however.

Could anyone briefly explain how this rule works? I've never really thought about it in my countless playthoughs of the game.

Thanks!

Luigirules

It looks like you understand the rule just fine. You're not allowed to wear rings/necklaces/cloaks of protection with magical armour. You can also only wear one of them at a time.

atcDave

Yeah I often don't need that armor by the time I get to it.

Different types of magical protection do not stack. In PNP you can physically wear whatever you want, but only the highest plus applies. In BG it simply won't let you wear redundant protection. Magic armor and shields work together; and Bracers of Defense and Ring/Cloak of protection work together. BG even lets the Bracers work with a shield (not every DM i've played with allows that).
It's been that way since 1E.

mjs

note the "of protection" part of that comment. other items that provide AC bonuses (claw of kazgoroth for example) are allowed to stack with magical armour and rings etc. I mostly prefer to have non-magical armour with a ring/cloak/amulet or protection due to the extra saving throws you get from that too. however on the other hand if it's built into magical armour it frees an extra slot up for another ring. this is why the improved cloak +2 in ToB is amazing!

jcdenton11

@Luigirules Mjs makes a good point. My lvl 5 barb only has -1 AC but with the cloak of displacement, a good helm, and boots that provide an AC bonus to projectiles, my ac vs missles is -15 and my saves are buffed as well. It is annoying not being able to utilize the rings and amulets, but they are not neccessarily the best options, depending on class. I can blitz archers with impunity, while my cleric tanks melee mobs and even Kivan has a pretty solid AC with Ankehg armor.

Spells and potions are likely your best bet for lowering AC for tough battles.

Rhyme

My first D&D game was Neverwinter Nights (the old multiplayer one on AOL), and it allowed magical armor to stack with "of protection" equipment. I got very accustomed to having an AC of -10 on my Ranger/Mage using a combination of Plate Mail+3, Ring+2, Cloak of Displacement, Shield+3 (and 18 Dexterity). Baldur's Gate was a bit of a shock for me, because the level cap was lower, the powerful equipment wasn't as readily available/farmable, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to combine a +1 ring with a +1 armor.

I'm always torn about patching it. On the one hand, it irks me to ignore most magical armors. On the other hand, I feel like patching it messes with game balance. So for now, I'm letting myself be irked.

If I had more characters that couldn't wear armor, I probably wouldn't have this problem.

atcDave

I never played the old NWN, but I did play the Gold Box games and I don't remember them having such a malfunction. Obviously, any game engine (or DM) can modify the rules however they want, but by the book, Protection devices and armor do not stack.

One of the nice things about a 15+ dexterity, is that does always get added in, no matter what else you're wearing.

Erg

Despite the general rule, i.e. cloaks/rings/amulets should not stack with magical armours, there are few exceptions like the "Cloak of Balduran" in BGEE or the "Cloak of the Sewers" in BG2.

Also the Ankheg armour was considered magical in vanilla BG1, so it wouldn't stack with cloaks/rings/amulets.

The full list of objects that do not stack together is in ITEMEXCL.2DA

CamDawg

Rhyme said:

My first D&D game was Neverwinter Nights (the old multiplayer one on AOL), and it allowed magical armor to stack with "of protection" equipment. I got very accustomed to having an AC of -10 on my Ranger/Mage using a combination of Plate Mail+3, Ring+2, Cloak of Displacement, Shield+3 (and 18 Dexterity). Baldur's Gate was a bit of a shock for me, because the level cap was lower, the powerful equipment wasn't as readily available/farmable, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to combine a +1 ring with a +1 armor.

I'm always torn about patching it. On the one hand, it irks me to ignore most magical armors. On the other hand, I feel like patching it messes with game balance. So for now, I'm letting myself be irked.

If I had more characters that couldn't wear armor, I probably wouldn't have this problem.

Well, NWN was 3e and I'm not up to speed on my 3e stacking rules. In 2e, you could wear multiple items together but only get the AC bonus from the higher--so if you wore plate +3 with a RoP +1 and an Amulet +2, you'd get a total of only +3 to AC but you'd still get the save bonuses from the jewelry.

The Multiple Protection Items tweak from BG2 Tweaks works on BGEE and provides two alternatives--allow unlimited stacking, or a PnP option which tries to emulate the above (you only get AC from your armor or one of your protection items).

Erg

@CamDawg

I'm trying to learn more about item properties. Maybe you can answer this:

if the file ITEMEXCL.2DA controls whether items stack or not, what the magical flag on the armour is for?

Thanks in advance

atcDave

CamDawg said:

Rhyme said:

My first D&D game was Neverwinter Nights (the old multiplayer one on AOL), and it allowed magical armor to stack with "of protection" equipment. I got very accustomed to having an AC of -10 on my Ranger/Mage using a combination of Plate Mail+3, Ring+2, Cloak of Displacement, Shield+3 (and 18 Dexterity). Baldur's Gate was a bit of a shock for me, because the level cap was lower, the powerful equipment wasn't as readily available/farmable, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to combine a +1 ring with a +1 armor.

I'm always torn about patching it. On the one hand, it irks me to ignore most magical armors. On the other hand, I feel like patching it messes with game balance. So for now, I'm letting myself be irked.

If I had more characters that couldn't wear armor, I probably wouldn't have this problem.

Well, NWN was 3e and I'm not up to speed on my 3e stacking rules. In 2e, you could wear multiple items together but only get the AC bonus from the higher--so if you wore plate +3 with a RoP +1 and an Amulet +2, you'd get a total of only +3 to AC but you'd still get the save bonuses from the jewelry.

The Multiple Protection Items tweak from BG2 Tweaks works on BGEE and provides two alternatives--allow unlimited stacking, or a PnP option which tries to emulate the above (you only get AC from your armor or one of your protection items).

He was talking about the old AOL Neverwinter Nights. It was a derivative of the Gold Box engine from the 1980s. And definitely 2E.

Rhyme

CamDawg said:

Well, NWN was 3e and I'm not up to speed on my 3e stacking rules. In 2e, you could wear multiple items together but only get the AC bonus from the higher--so if you wore plate +3 with a RoP +1 and an Amulet +2, you'd get a total of only +3 to AC but you'd still get the save bonuses from the jewelry.

The Multiple Protection Items tweak from BG2 Tweaks works on BGEE and provides two alternatives--allow unlimited stacking, or a PnP option which tries to emulate the above (you only get AC from your armor or one of your protection items).

The NWN I'm talking about was one of the Gold Box games. It was hosted by AOL back in the early 90s.

But I just ran the math again, and I think it was working exactly as you stated. Plate+3 should be AC0, with 4 for Dex, 4 for shield, and 2 for CoD. That's my -10. But it did give you a save bonus for having that RoP+2 equipped.

If the tweak pack lets me emulate that, I'll happily install it. Thanks for the heads up.

valky

Erg said:

if the file ITEMEXCL.2DA controls whether items stack or not, what the magical flag on the armour is for?

That's a good question :P
The only current use is a sub-module of BG2-tweaks for BGEE as well: "Breakable Nonmagical Armor, Helms, and Shields"

As far as I know, that's by default in BG2 but not BGEE/tutu. If you don't have magical armor equiped at the end of that stupid dungeon, you are doing something wrong :>

But'd be nice to get it clarified.

Rhyme said:

If the tweak pack lets me emulate that, I'll happily install it. Thanks for the heads up.

You just have to have the item in your inventory - if installed -, if you then click the pocket-icon for your character you should be able to select/activate the ring/cloak or amulet and it creates a copy with only the saving throws active. The 'old' item will be removed and vice versa. This new item can be worn with magical armor...
Only tried this option so far, the other is a bit to cheesy.

moopy

@VikingR

Put the +3 Plate on your main character, and move the +2 guardian ring to another character.

The +AC bonuses on armor and on rings are the same bonus so you can't stack them, but that doesn't make higher + armor useless, it frees up those rings for other people.

lDanielHolm

CamDawg said:

Rhyme said:

My first D&D game was Neverwinter Nights (the old multiplayer one on AOL), and it allowed magical armor to stack with "of protection" equipment. I got very accustomed to having an AC of -10 on my Ranger/Mage using a combination of Plate Mail+3, Ring+2, Cloak of Displacement, Shield+3 (and 18 Dexterity). Baldur's Gate was a bit of a shock for me, because the level cap was lower, the powerful equipment wasn't as readily available/farmable, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to combine a +1 ring with a +1 armor.

I'm always torn about patching it. On the one hand, it irks me to ignore most magical armors. On the other hand, I feel like patching it messes with game balance. So for now, I'm letting myself be irked.

If I had more characters that couldn't wear armor, I probably wouldn't have this problem.

Well, NWN was 3e and I'm not up to speed on my 3e stacking rules. In 2e, you could wear multiple items together but only get the AC bonus from the higher--so if you wore plate +3 with a RoP +1 and an Amulet +2, you'd get a total of only +3 to AC but you'd still get the save bonuses from the jewelry.

The Multiple Protection Items tweak from BG2 Tweaks works on BGEE and provides two alternatives--allow unlimited stacking, or a PnP option which tries to emulate the above (you only get AC from your armor or one of your protection items).

3E stacking rules are pretty simple (though still more complex than 2E). Bonuses of the same type or from the same source don't stack. A ring of protection, for example, adds a deflection bonus, whereas an amulet of natural armor adds a natural armor bonus (which, as an exception, stacks with itself). Enhancement bonuses to armor and shields, though, are increases of the item's natural AC bonus. So you could wear a ring of protection +2 (+2 AC), a full plate +1 (+9 AC), an amulet of natural armor +2 (+2 AC) and a large steel shield +1 (+3 AC). and have all the different bonuses stack. However, casting the shield spell on top of that (which grants a +4 shield bonus to AC) only adds the difference between the spell and the shield, as they don't stack.

CamDawg

Erg said:

@CamDawg

I'm trying to learn more about item properties. Maybe you can answer this:

if the file ITEMEXCL.2DA controls whether items stack or not, what the magical flag on the armour is for?

Thanks in advance

The magical flag is used by weapons for to determine if it can hit certain creatures (e.g. vampiric wolves), but for non-weapons the flag is more or less useless. A handful of scripting commands distinguish between magical and non-magical equipment, like DestroyAllDestructableEquipment() (used by Nizidramanii'yt) but that's about it. It's also why you often see enchantment levels omitted for non-weapons.

atcDave said:

He was talking about the old AOL Neverwinter Nights. It was a derivative of the Gold Box engine from the 1980s. And definitely 2E.

Ah, got it. Never mind then!

TJ_Hooker

lDanielHolm said:

CamDawg said:

Rhyme said:

My first D&D game was Neverwinter Nights (the old multiplayer one on AOL), and it allowed magical armor to stack with "of protection" equipment. I got very accustomed to having an AC of -10 on my Ranger/Mage using a combination of Plate Mail+3, Ring+2, Cloak of Displacement, Shield+3 (and 18 Dexterity). Baldur's Gate was a bit of a shock for me, because the level cap was lower, the powerful equipment wasn't as readily available/farmable, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to combine a +1 ring with a +1 armor.

I'm always torn about patching it. On the one hand, it irks me to ignore most magical armors. On the other hand, I feel like patching it messes with game balance. So for now, I'm letting myself be irked.

If I had more characters that couldn't wear armor, I probably wouldn't have this problem.

Well, NWN was 3e and I'm not up to speed on my 3e stacking rules. In 2e, you could wear multiple items together but only get the AC bonus from the higher--so if you wore plate +3 with a RoP +1 and an Amulet +2, you'd get a total of only +3 to AC but you'd still get the save bonuses from the jewelry.

The Multiple Protection Items tweak from BG2 Tweaks works on BGEE and provides two alternatives--allow unlimited stacking, or a PnP option which tries to emulate the above (you only get AC from your armor or one of your protection items).

3E stacking rules are pretty simple (though still more complex than 2E). Bonuses of the same type or from the same source don't stack. A ring of protection, for example, adds a deflection bonus, whereas an amulet of natural armor adds a natural armor bonus (which, as an exception, stacks with itself). Enhancement bonuses to armor and shields, though, are increases of the item's natural AC bonus. So you could wear a ring of protection +2 (+2 AC), a full plate +1 (+9 AC), an amulet of natural armor +2 (+2 AC) and a large steel shield +1 (+3 AC). and have all the different bonuses stack. However, casting the shield spell on top of that (which grants a +4 shield bonus to AC) only adds the difference between the spell and the shield, as they don't stack.

It's been a while, but I thought only dodge bonuses to armour stacked with themself in 3E?

moopy said:

@VikingR

Put the +3 Plate on your main character, and move the +2 guardian ring to another character.

The +AC bonuses on armor and on rings are the same bonus so you can't stack them, but that doesn't make higher + armor useless, it frees up those rings for other people.

The thing is that Full Plate/Ankheg Plate and a ring/amulet/cloak +1 grants the same AC as plate +3, but with better AC modifiers and a bonus to saving throws, and there's no shortage of items of protection +1. The only advantages to plate +3 are:
1) it can be used by low strength characters, but seeing as how there's 2 pieces of Ankheg plate available, you should already have this covered.
2) it frees up an equipment slot, but seeing as how there aren't nearly as many magic accessories in BG1 as there are in BG2, you'll probably have a spare slot anyways.

Overall I rarely end up using the plate +3

valky

Dodge or Generic is the only self-stacking armour bonus, and 3e+ classifies in different categories to make it simpler or easier to see the different AC bonus.
You should have 5 different AC 'classes' and do stack with each other, but not the same, where Dodge (or often seen as Generic) is the only exception to the non-stacking rule.
- AC
- Shield
- Natural
- Deflection (helms do that have now too - only if not specified differently)
- Dodge (afair the Dodge limit is 20...)

Natural armour does not stack ^^ Only humongous stupid stuff like elephant or bear hide or whatever it was called stack with natural armour and that is the very only exception and only for druids.

Am not quite sure, but 2.5e started already with that kind of different AC stuff...or am utterly wrong.

Jaaniv

Dodge bonuses stack with other dodge bonuses but other bonuses (enhancement, natural, luck, deflection, inherent...) dont stack with the same kind of bonus. All different bonuses stack together.

Dee

Luck bonuses do stack (because they're lucky), but that's a rare exception. Dodge bonuses are only acquired from spells (i.e. haste) and class abilities or feats, which makes them a lot like "untyped" bonuses.

lDanielHolm

Right, I made a slight error: an amulet of natural armor is actually an enhancement bonus to your natural armor (which, for most normal races, is +0). Thus, if you have a NA bonus from your race, the amulet of natural armor increases that NA bonus (thus, they stack). That is what I was thinking of. But if you have two separate sources of NA, only the best one applies. Sorry!

Jaaniv

Dodge bonuses are related to other dodge bonuses in a way that you lose them all if you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (suprised for example). There is a element of speed and awareness to sources giving dodge bonuses. Untyped bonuses don't behave like this.

Edit: I Have to look on that luck bonuses stacking thing, I could have sworn they don't stack but have to check that up.

Dee

@Jaaniv
Right; I just meant that because of the sources that grant them, they're a lot like untyped bonuses (i.e. you only get untyped bonuses from specific unusual spells, class abilities, or feats).

Jaaniv

@Aosaw
Yes in that way I agree. Just wanted to point out the way dodge bonuses differ from untyped bonuses.

valky

Jaaniv said:

Edit: I Have to look on that luck bonuses stacking thing, I could have sworn they don't stack but have to check that up.

I can assure you that Luck in at least IWD2 does stack :P (and not cause of abusing that stupid bard-song bug)
Young Ned's Knucky + 2x Tymoras Loop (farm-able, as they are in the loot-table of 7/8 named bosses) + Massive Greataxe of Flame +5 = enjoy the show!

Per PnP as far as my knowledge goes it should not stack and only the highest bonus is applied. But am not sure about 3e+. I think since the shifted system (AC+ better, Saves+ better etc.) there is a lot that suddenly became stackable. Switched to Battletech at that time

Game-engines tend to break rules or don't care about...

Dee

From the SRD:

Luck Modifier
A luck modifier represents good (or bad) fortune. Multiple luck bonuses on the same character or object do not stack. Only the highest luck bonus applies.

So I was mistaken; I think they might stack in Pathfinder, but not in 3.xe.

Jaaniv

valky said:

Per PnP as far as my knowledge goes it should not stack and only the highest bonus is applied. But am not sure about 3e+. I think since the shifted system (AC+ better, Saves+ better etc.) there is a lot that suddenly became stackable. Switched to Battletech at that time

Game-engines tend to break rules or don't care about...

I'm basing my memory on PnP and commented on that knowledge. I wouldn't be suprised that luck stackking and other rule breaks happen in computer games.

Jaaniv

Well I dont have any experience from pathfinder so cant say on that.

valky

Aye, googled at the same time as it was also confirmed Was only not 100% sure about...
The only known use of 3.xe to me are games, but not tabletop anymore. And there do happen quite some unimaginable things...and a lot of stuff has dodge (items/feats...), luck does stack (feat/items/spells) and so on.

leeho730

Enchantment on the armor was supposed to provide saving throw bonuses for touch attacks, weapons with effects that wearers can roll to save etc.... Does anyone know if this feature has been implemented? On ITM file enchantment bonuses are clearly there but I'm not sure whether it's functional or not for armors.

Dee

Ah--here we go.

The only bonuses that stack in PnP 3.x (including Pathfinder) are Dodge, Racial, and Circumstance bonuses. Circumstance bonuses don't stack if they come from "essentially the same source", though.