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Vrock Bait
2019-07-25, 08:50 AM
So I was thinking... how to get more item slots while retaining a non-aberrant appearance? Well.. I thought of this, which is entirely unsupported by any SRD: make chainmail out of magic rings. Would this be balanced? Would your armor look like the rainbow? Would the cost of all those magic rings be worth it? How to measure charges with so many rings?

ExLibrisMortis
2019-07-25, 09:14 AM
Considering that magic rings only work when worn on a finger, this would be balanced, if somewhat wasteful.

JNAProductions
2019-07-25, 09:15 AM
So I was thinking... how to get more item slots while retaining a non-aberrant appearance? Well.. I thought of this, which is entirely unsupported by any SRD: make chainmail out of magic rings. Would this be balanced? Would your armor look like the rainbow? Would the cost of all those magic rings be worth it? How to measure charges with so many rings?

If you're talking 5th edition D&D, attunement limits.
3rd or 4th edition, you can benefit from a max of two rings (barring certain feats or whatnot that expand the limit).
Other games probably have similar limitations.

NRSASD
2019-07-25, 09:23 AM
Mechanically, as a DM, I have no idea how to model that.

Another thing to consider is how durable magic rings are. If they're just as strong as ordinary rings, the chainmail is going to be quite ineffective as armor since gold and silver tend to be quite heavy and very soft when compared to more conventional metals. If the rings are more durable than mundane jewelry, the chainmail made out of them is going to be substantially stronger than regular steel armor.

Anymage
2019-07-25, 09:56 AM
Physically wearing more than two rings is not difficult. Getting around the body slot limit (3.5)/attunement limit (5e) is the trickier balancing point.

3.5, though, does allow you to come at this from the other direction, if you have the gold. You can't wear two helmets, but you can make one helmet that has both effects. A sufficiently astronomical sum of gold can make you an omni-item, which still fits into humanoid body slots.

SimonMoon6
2019-07-25, 11:19 AM
3.5, though, does allow you to come at this from the other direction, if you have the gold. You can't wear two helmets, but you can make one helmet that has both effects. A sufficiently astronomical sum of gold can make you an omni-item, which still fits into humanoid body slots.

And this of course therefore allows for the sort of "ring mail" that was being suggested. (It's one item with the effects of many rings and the possible extra cost of changing the "slot" from ring to armor.) However, what might be more interesting would be trying to figure out what extra cost would be required in order to be able to disassemble such an omni-item ring mail. ("My armor is made of a bunch of rings, one of which is invisibility. You need invisibility more than I do, so I'll just take the ring of invisibility off of my suit of armor and let you borrow it.") Probably, the versatility cost would be exhorbitant (as seen by the utterly useless-for-its-cost Rod of Lordly Might).

False God
2019-07-25, 03:19 PM
Well, it would be pretty, I guess. Assuming the rings in question are pretty.

But you'd get no mechanical benefit at all from it. Since none of them are on your fingers.

If you'd asking about making an item that has every ability of every ring ever made, or ever possibly made, then you're asking for infinity abilities and it would cost infinity gold and take infinity time to construct.

RNightstalker
2019-07-25, 09:22 PM
Wouldn't you rather make...RINGmail?!:biggrin:

The Insanity
2019-07-25, 11:24 PM
In 3/3.5 ed. there's an option to make slotless items. I'd say you'll still have to wear a ring for it to be usable, but that would give you 20 rings to use. 21 if you're male.

Elysiume
2019-07-26, 01:24 AM
In 3.5/PF you can basically make whatever magic item you want as long as your DM is okay with item. Item of permanent greater invisibility, permanent haste, permanent divine power, and permanent holy aura? Sure, as long as you're willing to pony up the absurd piles of gold and spend the rest of your life crafting it (or get a servitor and stick them in a time-generous plane). Rather than wearing extra rings you could just slap the effect on one or multiple slotted or slotless items.

As for extra ring slots you really need to specify edition. 3.5 has the Ringsword and the Extra Rings feat, 3.5/PF have the Hand of Glory, but neither makes it particularly easy or cheap to wear extra rings.

Kaptin Keen
2019-07-26, 06:03 AM
... I'm just going to go with 'yes' - that is a really stupid idea :p

For many reasons. Magical rings are not the kinds of rings you use in chain- or ringmail. There's no reason to think the magic would work, regardless. Apparently, it takes around 22500 rings to create a suit of chainmail. So that's 45000000 gold for armor composed of all rings of protection +1. Non-stacking, obviously.

It's quite likely the worst idea I ever heard.