Armor special abilities on non-armor?

[Hirax]

Basically I want to make a shirt of heavy fortification to wear under full plate. Would I have to make it a +1 shirt of fortification? This doesn't necessarily apply to just fortification, I'm just generally curious if you can use this method to get around the high cost of super enchanted armors, by, say, wearing a +5 full plate, a +1 shirt of heavy fortification. While the character in question is basically just after heavy fortification at some point, I'm also generally curious if you can do this with armor abilities.

[Psyx]

magical cloth armour? Wouldn't have an ACP, and you can stick 'twilight' on there, if arcane.

[cupkeyk]

If you wear a shirt under a plate, only one of them will affect you since they occupy the same slot: Armor.

[Hirax]

If you wear a shirt under a plate, only one of them will affect you since they occupy the same slot: Armor.

Nope.

A humanoid-shaped body can be decked out in magic gear consisting of one item from each of the following groups, keyed to which place on the body the item is worn.

* One headband, hat, helmet, or phylactery on the head
* One pair of eye lenses or goggles on or over the eyes
* One amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, or scarab around the neck
* One vest, vestment, or shirt on the torso
* One robe or suit of armor on the body (over a vest, vestment, or shirt)
* One belt around the waist (over a robe or suit of armor)
* One cloak, cape, or mantle around the shoulders (over a robe or suit of armor)
* One pair of bracers or bracelets on the arms or wrists
* One glove, pair of gloves, or pair of gauntlets on the hands
* One ring on each hand (or two rings on one hand)
* One pair of boots or shoes on the feet

[Peregrine]

Okay then, let me express cupkeyk's point in another way.

You can only put armor enhancements (including special abilities) on your body-slot item.

There are heaps of DMs who will let you enhance clothing like it's armor (AC +0, ACP 0, ASF 0%), but slot-wise, it then has to take up your body slot, not your torso slot.

[squishycube]

More generic version of statement posted by cupkeyk:
Smells like cheese, can't be done.
The part where it goes wrong in your request is this: "to get around the high cost of super enchanted armors". They are that expensive for a reason: balance. Trying to get around this should make any DM invoke the smite-stick.

[hamishspence]

What if the person wants to wear nonmagical armour, but a magical shirt?

[squishycube]

The 'slots' spoken of apply to magic items only. YMMV, depending on your DM.

[Hirax]

Okay then, let me express cupkeyk's point in another way.

You can only put armor enhancements (including special abilities) on your body-slot item.

There are heaps of DMs who will let you enhance clothing like it's armor (AC +0, ACP 0, ASF 0%), but slot-wise, it then has to take up your body slot, not your torso slot.

Gotcha, that makes perfect sense.

[hamishspence]

4E sort of allows this for shields. While bracers take up your "shield slot" you can have a nonmagical shield, and magical bracers, and benefit from the AC and Ref Defense bonus of the nonmagical shield, as well as the magical effects of the bracers.

[Hirax]

To draw more attention to the consideration that brought on this question, is there a magic item or other easy-ish way to get heavy fortification? It wouldn't be worth much trouble, but it'd be good to know for future reference.

[Escheton]

There is always the dastana, chainar aina(or whatever it's called), chain shirt combo from oriental adventures. The dastana take the bracerslot but give +1 armor that stacks with the other 2 in the set. the chanar aina goes over the chain shirt and gives another +1 armorbonus. Either could be enhanced with +1 heavy fort or +1 spell resist.

[KillianHawkeye]

There's also an optional rule to allow you to put armor special abilities onto Bracers of Armor, which doesn't interfere with wearing actual armor (although the armor bonuses won't stack). It's from a 3.0 book, though, so your DM might not allow it. But seriously, it's not broken or anything.

[Hirax]

There's also an optional rule to allow you to put armor special abilities onto Bracers of Armor, which doesn't interfere with wearing actual armor (although the armor bonuses won't stack). It's from a 3.0 book, though, so your DM might not allow it. But seriously, it's not broken or anything.

Cool, that'll probably be permissible. Do you happen to recall the book?

[KillianHawkeye]

Cool, that'll probably be permissible. Do you happen to recall the book?

Took a little while to find, but here it is: Arms and Equipment Guide p.130 (in the sidebar).

I shoulda checked there first instead of in all the class books.

[Diarmuid]

Cool, that'll probably be permissible. Do you happen to recall the book?

It's the exact same thing as trying to this with a cloth shirt. It's an old 3.0 rule that doesnt exist in 3.5 for the exact same reason you cant do this with your shirt.

[Curmudgeon]

Okay then, let me express cupkeyk's point in another way.

You can only put armor enhancements (including special abilities) on your body-slot item.

There are actually two body slots which can include magical armor bonuses: Body and Arms. The latter is how you get Bracers of Armor. See Magic Item Compendium page 234 for details.

It's the exact same thing as trying to this with a cloth shirt. It's an old 3.0 rule that doesnt exist in 3.5 for the exact same reason you cant do this with your shirt.

You're wrong on two counts here.

1. The "old 3.0 rule" still exists because the 3.5 rules say so. Check page 4 of your 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide:

   This is an upgrade of the d20 System, not a new edition of the game. This revision is compatible with all existing products, and those products can be used with the revision with only minor adjustments.

2. Shirts use the Torso slot, which is ineligible for armor bonuses. But as I noted above, the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium agrees with the 3.0 Arms and Equipment Guide that armor enhancements may be added in both Body and Arms slot items. So that means magic armor (Body slot), magic robes such as Robes of the Archmagi (Body slot), and magic bracers (Bracers of Armor, Bracers of Retaliation) (Arms slot).

[Escheton]

It also says you can put bonuses where you want as long as you simply pay extra.

[tyckspoon]

To draw more attention to the consideration that brought on this question, is there a magic item or other easy-ish way to get heavy fortification? It wouldn't be worth much trouble, but it'd be good to know for future reference.

The Draconomicon has the Gemstone of Fortification in the magic-items-for-dragons section. It requires a Limited Wish or similar to use on squishy humanoids because it has to be embedded in the skin, but it does provide Fortification decoupled from both the item slot system and from armor special abilities.

[Peregrine]

There are actually two body slots which can include magical armor bonuses: Body and Arms. The latter is how you get Bracers of Armor. See Magic Item Compendium page 234 for details.

The MIC says that armor bonuses to AC can be added to the Arms slot. It doesn't say that enhancement bonuses to armor can be added to the arms slot; that'd be silly, because nothing worn there has a non-magical armor bonus to AC -- there's nothing to enhance! And while as far as I know, the rules are silent on it, I'm making a very simple extrapolation to say that you likewise can't put other armor enhancements on the Arms slot, nor anything but the Body slot.

The alternative way to preserve balance would be to say that when only the best armor bonus applies, only its matching armor special abilities apply too. So you could have heavy fortification bracers of armor, but if you then don +5 full plate, you only get the armor bonus -- and the special abilities -- of one or the other. Depends on how good your bracers are.

[Cyrion]

But to muddy the waters- The various Shirt of .... items in the MIC grant DR which are quite arguably DR. Are those not effective under your armor or your robe?

[Diarmuid]

Shirt is a valid magic item slot, those shirts are not granting armor bonuses, nor are they being enchanted with armor enhancements.

The shirt of DR X/Y is simply a wondrous item that provides a benefit.

[Escheton]

You could just have bracer of armor +1 heavy fort and a +5 plate and only get the armor bonus from the plate but get heavy fort from the bracers.

[ericgrau]

...I'm just generally curious if you can use this method to get around the high cost of super enchanted armors...

The magic item creation guidelines are designed to help DMS and PCs make items that are the same cost/value as existing items, so no. This is why they are guidelines and not rules, to get DM approval and to avoid workarounds.

[Peregrine]

You could just have bracer of armor +1 heavy fort and a +5 plate and only get the armor bonus from the plate but get heavy fort from the bracers.

You could, if your DM allowed it. If I were your DM, I wouldn't. Because that's quite clearly leaps and bounds cheaper than putting all that on the full plate itself, and I see no downside. Hence, it's unbalanced.

+5 heavy fortification full plate: 101,650gp
+1 heavy fortification bracers of armor and +5 full plate: 36,000gp + 26,650gp = 62,650gp
Savings: 39,000gp

You don't even lose the chance to have something else in your Arms slot. Even if your DM makes you pay 150% of the cheaper component, you've got (39,000gp / 150%) = 26,000gp to play with. (Even if your DM says you can't enhance those bracers further, heavy fortification is going to be competitive with any other bracers out there, I'd wager.)

[Escheton]

You don't even lose the chance to have something else in your Arms slot. Even if your DM makes you pay 150% of the cheaper component, you've got (39,000gp / 150%) = 26,000gp to play with. (Even if your DM says you can't enhance those bracers further, heavy fortification is going to be competitive with any other bracers out there, I'd wager.)

Uhm, those bracers would take the arm slot. So no strongarm bracers or whatever. Now you could add that on for an extra price, but you still give up something. And seeing one usually adds on about 5 different bracers to make 1, just like boots. It will cost you in the long run. And seeing you will take light, moderate then heavy fort, the long run is what you are going for.
Also, bracers are usually easyer to sunder...
And what undead using BBEG sends forth his minnion to just be fodder? Not mine, I let them actually hurt my players.


There is also an amulet that gives fortification though I am not sure what the source is on that one.

[Peregrine]

Uhm, those bracers would take the arm slot. So no strongarm bracers or whatever. Now you could add that on for an extra price...

That's what I said!

...but you still give up something.

Which is? As far as I can tell, the only downside is making other bracer qualities more expensive. Which should be more than offset by the amount you saved on your full plate -- until your bracers get so magicked-up that you might as well just put heavy fortification on your full plate anyway.

Until that happens, you've gotten away with cheap boosts by abusing slots.

[Hirax]

The Draconomicon has the Gemstone of Fortification in the magic-items-for-dragons section. It requires a Limited Wish or similar to use on squishy humanoids because it has to be embedded in the skin, but it does provide Fortification decoupled from both the item slot system and from armor special abilities.

Cleverly hidden right under my nose in one of my favorite books, thanks :)

A cast of limited wish is 2,410, plus the gemstone of greater fortification is 35,000. So that's only slightly more expensive than a pair of +1 bracers of greater fort, but the gem doesn't take up a body slot, and is unambiguously legal.

As a general question to everyone saying what I was trying to do is sketchy, why? Greater fortification is good, but it's not stupendous, especially with the price tag. Just about every armor special ability (probably all of them if you look hard) has a wondrous item equivalent. Yes, I was trying to save money by splitting multiple abilities into multiple magic items. Doesn't everyone do that to some extent, to avoid paying the premium for second abilities on one item? Rule muddiness aside I don't think my original plan was at all unreasonable, especially since the cost of a legal solution has turned out to be similar.

Cheese means overpowered right? I'm still picking up some of the lingo after a couple years away from D&D

[Thefurmonger]

I have to jump on the "Not a chance would I let this crap fly in my game" bus.

Seriously the DMG give guidlines for this stuff for a reason. At least TO ME this is clearly a cheesetastic workaround to save money.

[hamishspence]

You could, if your DM allowed it. If I were your DM, I wouldn't. Because that's quite clearly leaps and bounds cheaper than putting all that on the full plate itself, and I see no downside. Hence, it's unbalanced.

+5 heavy fortification full plate: 101,650gp
+1 heavy fortification bracers of armor and +5 full plate: 36,000gp + 26,650gp = 62,650gp
Savings: 39,000gp

The Arms & Equipment Guide (page 130) states that armour special abilities can be added to bracers of armour, to a maximum of +13 (+8 bracers with an upgrade valued at +5). And gives prices.

So, there is definitely precedent.