Choosing between Armor or Bracers of Armor

[sage20500]

Am currently designing a gestalt character that is pretty much full 20 paladin of tyranny on one side. My dex score is equal to 12, I have an Int score of 16, and battledancer is not an option for me to use even though i have a stupid Cha score. I'm not an arcane caster so I do not have to worry about spell failure. Would I be better off using enchanted heavy armor, or on the other side of my gestalt dipping two levels in monk and taking the kungfu genius feat to add my int to ac and then using bracers of armor? What about using Draconic Husk?

Any opinions on what happens to be the most advantageous with melee characters?

[Shpadoinkle]

At some point AC becomes an "all or nothing" issue. Either you invest heavily in it, or you get miss chance somehow (a permanent or semipermanent Blur effect, or some kind of invisibility, for instance,) and let your AC go to hell because it's not going to serve you any better than the miss chance. So first you need to decide on whether you want to go that route, bearing in mind that AC does nothing for stuff that targets saving throws, ability damage, and so on, which will become increasingly more common as you go up in levels.

Second, whether you go 'actual armor' or 'bracers of armor + other stuff' is going to depend on whether you want to consider armor-only enchantments; heavy fortification comes to mind. While there are rules somewhere (Magic Item Compendium I think?) that allow you to stick them on different pieces of gear, the cost for doing so is an extra 50%.

[ahenobarbi]

Definitely armor. It's much cheaper (fullplate costs 1'500gp, equivalent braces of armor would cost 64'000gp(and plate can be enhanced with casting of Magic Vestment, braces can't)) and you can add nice enhancements to armor (for example Deathward).

[sage20500]

At some point AC becomes an "all or nothing" issue. Either you invest heavily in it, or you get miss chance somehow (a permanent or semipermanent Blur effect, or some kind of invisibility, for instance,) and let your AC go to hell because it's not going to serve you any better than the miss chance. So first you need to decide on whether you want to go that route, bearing in mind that AC does nothing for stuff that targets saving throws, ability damage, and so on, which will become increasingly more common as you go up in levels.

Second, whether you go 'actual armor' or 'bracers of armor + other stuff' is going to depend on whether you want to consider armor-only enchantments; heavy fortification comes to mind. While there are rules somewhere (Magic Item Compendium I think?) that allow you to stick them on different pieces of gear, the cost for doing so is an extra 50%.

I probably should have mentioned that in my original post, I'm actually playing a character that is undead, so i'm pretty sure fortification actually doesn't do anything for me. I do how ever like the idea of investing in the characters ac. I've always seen paladins as the kinds of characters that rely on high ac to avoid attacks, not through using miss chance (Plus the DM would probably chuck a book at me if they had to constantly roll miss chance every time they tried to attack the party's "tank" character.) Aside from fortification though what are some other really good armor enchantments I could look at?

[Crake]

The only point at which you should choose bracers of armor over actual armor is when actual armor inhibits your characters abilities in some way (like wearing armor for a monk). Getting ACP/ASF down to 0 is quite easy for medium armors, and adding on mithril makes it not inhibit your movement, and allow you to wear it while sleeping. For example, a +1 twilight, nimble, mithril, feycraft breastplate has 0 ASF, 0ACP, +6 max dex, only 13.5lb, so most characters can wear it without issue, doesn't slow you down, can be worn while sleeping, and requires absolutely no proficiency to wear at all. It costs a little over 13k, and provides 6AC. Comparatively, +6AC bracers of armor cost 36k, and for anyone with +6 dex or less is functionally identical, with the exception of classes forbidden from wearing armor.

As you can see, actual armor is incredibly more cost effective and has a higher armor ceiling, breastplate for example can go up to +10 armor, bracers only go to +8, and people who don't care about spell failure can ignore the twilight enchantment, and even go up to fullplate with the halfweight enchantment on it for an armor cap of +13.

Honestly, I think the only class that would actually benefit from bracers over actual armor are monks, due to half their abilities not working with armor. For monks, you can consider their wisdom to AC as the "base armor" and the bracers of armor as the enhancement bonus to their armor, though of course, swordsages win over in that department, because they can wear light armor (like the aforementioned halfweight fullplate) and still benefit from wisdom to AC, albeit forfeiting the +1 AC/5 levels that monks get.

[Pluto!]

Bracers of Armor are always worse than either actual armor or a Mage Armor/Greater Mage Armor spell.

Even a run-of-the-mill nonmagical 100gp Chain Shirt is usually better than a set of Bracers because it can carry a Magic Vestment effect.

There are almost no scenarios where Bracers are worth their cost.

[Âmesang]

I find bracers of armor are fine enough if you're instead applying armor abilities to them (soulfire, heavy fortification, &c.), but of course that's while utilizing (greater) mage armor on top of that.

EDIT: At least with regards to those who find armor detrimental. If you're a fighter-type I'd stick with actual armor augmented with magic vestment.

[Hiro Quester]

I used bracers for a very nimble melee Bard/Sublime Chord character, for whom eliminating dex penalties and ASF was a concern.

But that was mostly because we got bracers of armor in loot from a defeated enemy. I don't think I would have paid full price for them.

Also, I ended up buying +1 nightscale armor just to house an armor crystal of fortification and a non AC (I think it was blur) enhancement. The non-AC buffs you can put on armor, but not on bracers without a very generous DM, are a significant consideration.

[trikkydik]

go with mithril armor (adds +2 to max dexterity, and puts the armor n 2 lighter weight classes. same for spell failure check. (add 1,500gp to armor)

so a mithril chain shirt has +4ac, +4dex, armor penalty 0, spell failure 10

Good luck

[Reshy]

Mithral Chain Shirt with the Reinforced[Dragon Magazine 358] property, and add a mithral Dastana and Chahar-Aina [Oriental Adventures) and you have a light armor with +6 max dex and no armor check penalty that gives you a +7 armor bonus.

Add Soulfire and Proof against Transmutation to "just say no" to save-or-die effects.

[OldTrees1]

Armor or Armor + Bracers


Magic Armor often is of the form +1 <armor type> of <special effect>. If you are using Arms and Equipment guide then Braces of Armor can also be of that form.

Also Gnome Twist cloth is +1 AC over Bracers of Armor for only 300gp more even if you have ridiculously high Dex.

[Crake]

go with mithril armor (adds +2 to max dexterity, and puts the armor n 2 lighter weight classes. same for spell failure check. (add 1,500gp to armor)

so a mithril chain shirt has +4ac, +4dex, armor penalty 0, spell failure 10

Good luck

This isn't quite accurate. It only reduces the category by 1, to a minimm of light armor, and the cost increase depends on the class of armor, and it also reduces the ACP by 3 and spell failure by 10% It's +1000gp for light, 4000 for medium and 9000 for heavy, so a mithril chain shirt would cost 1,100gp, and it would also have +6 max dex, not +4.

[trikkydik]

This isn't quite accurate. It only reduces the category by 1, to a minimm of light armor, and the cost increase depends on the class of armor, and it also reduces the ACP by 3 and spell failure by 10% It's +1000gp for light, 4000 for medium and 9000 for heavy, so a mithril chain shirt would cost 1,100gp, and it would also have +6 max dex, not +4.

Even better than i recalled. look at that i couldve sworn cost was 1500 plus armor cost. either way i think mithril is the way to go.