AC itemisation restrictions

Heindrich

This has only grown into an issue as I have gradually acquired so many magical items that I can no longer use all of them spread amongst the party... What are the rules for armour, protection jewellery etc restrictions? (Aside from character class restrictions)

For example, I can use Ring of Protection (+1) with Plate Mail Armour, but not Ankheg Plate, even though as far as I am aware, it does not count as magical armour. When I give Bracers of Defence to characters, it seems to provide no benefit, except for Dynaheir... so does Bracers count as some sort of base AC value like body armours, and doesn't stack with body armour? (which doesn't seem very logical/intuitive...)

Thanks in advance

TJ_Hooker

Body armour, bracers of defense, spells such as Armor, and a monk's natural AC all set your character's base AC. Sources of base AC do not stack. Pretty much anything that gives a + to AC, rather than setting it, will stack. However, you can't equip more than one item of protection (ring, amulet, cloak) at a time, nor can you equip one while wearing magical body armour (but you can with robes).

With regards to Ankheg Plate, I take it you're playing the original BG? They actually changed it so that you can equip an item of protection with it in BG:EE. There was some debate on this, and several people argued that because Ankheg Plate has one better AC in BG than it does in P&P, it has a hidden +1 enhancement to it, hence you should not be able to equip an item of protection.

Heindrich

TJ_Hooker said:

Body armour, bracers of defense, spells such as Armor, and a monk's natural AC all set your character's base AC. Sources of base AC do not stack. Pretty much anything that gives a + to AC, rather than setting it, will stack. However, you can't equip more than one item of protection (ring, amulet, cloak) at a time, nor can you equip one while wearing magical body armour (but you can with robes).

With regards to Ankheg Plate, I take it you're playing the original BG? They actually changed it so that you can equip an item of protection with it in BG:EE. There was some debate on this, and several people argued that because Ankheg Plate has one better AC in BG than it does in P&P, it has a hidden +1 enhancement to it, hence you should not be able to equip an item of protection.

Ah okay, I am indeed playing BG 1 Vanilla. BG/AD&D is a good fun game, but it does have some odd mechanics...

Sixheadeddog

Actually, so far as I know, this mechanic is unique to BG and exists entirely in the name of "game balance," for some reason. The only restrictions I'm aware of in the actual tabletop AD&D game are that you can only wear one ring on each hand, and you can only wear one amulet at a time. If this were a straight port of the AD&D rules, you *should*, by all rights, be able to pile-on all of the armor-boosting items you can manage in each of your equipment slots.

zur312

i think for BG1 items the best set is non-magical armor + rings/amulets of protection + resists + others
there are no good enough armors for fighters

but in BG2 there are few good armors + ac doesn't matter so much because you will get hit even with very high armor class so resists from armors + resists from rings matter even more in comparison to BG1

ZanathKariashi

Yeah, in PnP, you can wear magical armor and protection items just fine...they just don't stack with themselves, so even if you wore 2 protection items, only the strongest one would be used.

Still seems like an odd thing to do, considering all the other OP crap they deliberately put in.

zur312

well to be fair mages are the most OP so they don't even need armor ; P