Question about full plate's gauntlets

[Nicktacular]

Are the gauntlets provided considered a part of the armor?

[Flickerdart]

Part of the armour how? You don't get a penalty for not wearing them, if that's what you mean (I think it was 2e that had piecemeal armour rules).

[Averis Vol]

It's not exactly a rules question, so you're going to need to expand on the question a bit.

[Flickerdart]

It's not exactly a rules question, so you're going to need to expand on the question a bit.
Well, it kind of is. Gauntlets have separate stats (as a weapon) and don't provide any AC when worn, so they're clearly not part of the armor beyond coming for free with it.

[Thurbane]

If you mean while wearing full plate, are you considered to have gauntlets that can be used as a weapon? Then the answer is yes.


Full Plate: The suit includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and a thick layer of padding that is worn underneath the armor. Each suit of full plate must be individually fitted to its owner by a master armorsmith, although a captured suit can be resized to fit a new owner at a cost of 200 to 800 (2d4x100) gold pieces.


Gauntlet: This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. Medium and heavy armors (except breastplate) come with gauntlets.

[Nicktacular]

I mean, when you buy full plate(or most medium/heavy) armor it says that it include gauntlets, my question iOS, are those gauntlets considered a part of the armor.

Ex.1) rust monster attacks you and your armor is ruined does this affect the gauntlets

Ex.2) You have blue shine armor, you punch a black puddle, do the gauntlets stay safe or are they gonna dissolve

[Vaynor]

I think the extent to which the gauntlets are considered integrally linked to the armor is up to DM fiat, for the most part. If you buy full-plate armor, it comes with gauntlets, and they are considered part of the armor. The entry for full-plate says the what is provided from purchasing a set of full-plate armor are a series of objects including gauntlets. If a rust monster were to use its Rust ability on your armor, that armor, which would include the gauntlets, would dissolve (as long as your size isn't large enough for your armor to contain more than 10 cubic feet of metal).

As gauntlets are considered a weapon, and made of metal, using one to deal lethal damage with an unarmed strike against a black pudding would cause the gauntlets to dissolve. By RAW, and RAI as far as I can tell, the black pudding's Acid ability does not cause armor that simply comes into contact with the black pudding to dissolve. The dissolving part of the black pudding's Acid ability is only activated when a) the black pudding strikes your armor/weapon with its slam attack or constrict, or b) when a metal or wooden weapon is used to strike it. However, if the black pudding were to strike you (and thus your full-plate armor), the gauntlets would dissolve as well. I don't believe the gauntlets are significant enough to the structure of the full-plate armor to cause an AC penalty, but that would mostly be up to your DM. I'm not sure if there are any rules for partially-worn armor.

[Bronk]

The other thing is that the gauntlets that come with Full Plate aren't actually connected to the rest of the armor. There is separate item called 'locking gauntlets' that do that. If you were to buy Full Plate, there is nothing preventing you from swapping out the regular gauntlets for another pair, or gloves, or whatnot.