Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Voldar_Mecorthio 09-06-06, 07:29 PM	One of my players wants to make the ultimate tank. Dwarf fighter wants to dual wield tower shields and wear two suits of mountain plate, one on top of the other. Should this be allowed? Theoretically, a suit of armor could be custom made to fit over another (probibly double the price), and holding two shields should double the protection. However, this would result in someone with an AC of 38 before any magical augmentations. How should I handle this?
Drodain 09-06-06, 07:38 PM	Similar bonuses don't stack. Although you could say the two tower shields grant him full cover. The armor would not stack mechanically. If you want it to stack you could, but I wouldn't let him.
ShinAkuma2 09-06-06, 07:50 PM	Wearing two suits of mountain plate would be very uncomfortable, to say the least.
Esponer 09-06-06, 08:13 PM	This should be handled by disallowing it. Neither options are permissible by the rules, and with very good reason. Prices increase exponentially, and so you cannot allow a character twice the benefit (two suits of armour) for twice the cost: the cost should be increased fourfold. This is essentially why you can't permit this.
fatal error 09-06-06, 09:54 PM	Logically, neither of those really makes him any more protected. The way mountain plate is designed, it already covers everything it can, anything that gets through would either A) get through both, or B) smash through both. Now, if he wants to then wear chainmail under his plate, remind him that wearing chainmail to cover joints in some types of plate was a standard practice, and is assumed to be done to the best effect. Finally, tower shields are so large there is no chance they could both help against the same person trying to help you, they'd get in each other's way more than anything else. Technically, shield bonuses won't stack with each other, and neither will armor. And you shouldn't allow them to.
Mr_Sprinkles 09-06-06, 10:34 PM	Ideally your friend wants a tank, but instead he's created some dwarven mini-barracade: Wearing two heavy armors would greatly hamper his movement since it is heavy armor. On top of that, he wants to carry an additional 2 heavy objects to the battlefield. The dwarf would need a high strength score to carry the items into battle in order to stay in heavy load at the least. Essentially, the player will have to be carried on a wagon to the battlefield and practically stand there since he can barely move (without a weapon I must add). That's where the touch attack spells kill him .
pres_man 09-06-06, 11:09 PM	Two words: Flash Flood Anyway, as others have said, the AC bonuses don't stack. So the benefit would be small, though if each was enchanted with different other abilities those would still work. Still I would think he would be better off with a chainshirt under the armor (his night shirt), and one tower shield and perhaps a light shield or heavy shield to make bash attacks with.
Unholy_Sacrament 09-06-06, 11:37 PM	Everyone knows exactly how the mechanics for armour works. However if you'd like to allow them to do this you may if you wish. If you do allow them, these would be useful for someone with such high AC. Add all the armor check penalties rather than doing complex math. Have their land speed between 10, and 5. Equip many monsters with Brilliant Energy weapons. Very useful for high AC. The only thing you can really do, if say no, but if you want to make them happy, make yourself happy too, and torture the player.
Jhaelen 09-07-06, 03:51 PM	As has already been mentioned wearing two sets of armor or using two shields does nothing to improve your AC. If you want to make your player happy, I'd allow him to gain a +1 bonus to AC for wearing a suit of light armor beneath a set of medium or heavy armor while doubling the penalties and halving the movement rate :)
Voldar_Mecorthio 09-07-06, 06:30 PM	Thanks everyone. I took Unholy_Sacrament's advice and let him, then gave the leader of the first group a +1 briliant energy battleaxe. Down went the dwarven wall. The player was so freaking mad... :P
dySWN 09-07-06, 10:27 PM	That thing about shield bonuses not stacking has always bothered me. I understand armor bonuses not stacking, but hw is a thri-kreen carrying two heavy steel shields and holding weapons in his other two arms not better protected by the second shield? Seems to me that a second shield (unless so big as to interfere with the other as in the tower shield example) would be quite useful, especially for a fighter who likes to shield bash.
Damionte 09-08-06, 01:08 AM	That's just dumb. Why in the world would you ever let him do something like this. You can't even put on two sets of armor like that. It's just stupid.
pres_man 09-08-06, 11:45 AM	Besides brilliant weapons as solution, grapplers and trippers also work, really anything that requires a touch attack.
stevetom 09-11-06, 06:31 PM	i say let him, even if its absurd. nice going with the brilliant energy weapon too. if the dwarf wants to wear 2 sets of armor, id rule he now looks like the michilen man(or that kid from christmas story :P ), cannot effectively wield anything, and cant move more than 5 ft a round
Izzak 09-11-06, 08:19 PM	Awesome move with the axe. Brillant I say
dengarbountyhunter 09-11-06, 08:47 PM	How to handle two armors on top of each other? It's like trying to handle a 50 pounds flail as an off-hand weapon in an efficient manner. It comes off worse than a normal flail.
Harrowdroth 09-11-06, 11:23 PM	1 allow it, but his movement speed drops to 5ft. 2 He can't make any attacks, 3 Mob!:P
shift244 09-12-06, 12:14 AM	Thanks everyone. I took Unholy_Sacrament's advice and let him, then gave the leader of the first group a +1 briliant energy battleaxe. Down went the dwarven wall. The player was so freaking mad... :POut of topic, and solely my point of view. While your player may hold nothing else against you, your choice to allow the player to do it and then choosing to introduce a brilliant energy weapon wielding opponent with the obvious intent to by-pass the granted advantages, is a trait I do not admire in DMs. You choose to allow it, then choose to manipulate its weakness in an "attempt to punish". It would have been far better to disallow it, explain the rules as necessary. If the player does not like that decision, then your gaming styles do not match, except that gracefully, and perhaps play in different groups. It is my opinion, so you can forget it if you want. Please take no offence as I meant none. I will now leave the topic to progress on.
Kratch 09-12-06, 01:42 AM	Personally, When a player wants to layer armour (usually in the case of bracers of armour and standard armour) i allow them to use the best AC for the situtation (so usually their normal armour, but the bracers against etherial touch attacks or the like) and the worst of the ACPenalty, arcane spell failure and max dex of all layered armours and encumberance modifiers. as far as the 2 shields go, you can still only block with 1 at a time without risking the enimies blade crashing through between the 2 shields (and square into the middle of your chest or skull), therefore only 1 shield would grant an AC benifit (hence the same stacking issue). The only benifit to using 2 shields would be keeping a shield AC bonus from your second one if your first one got pinned (as per the feat)
stuce 09-12-06, 01:00 PM	I think the thing to point out is that something like Mountain Plate or Full Plate has already been designed to provide the absolute maximum amount of protection that a person can reasonably wear. If stacking two sets of armor worked they would have just made the armor thicker to begin with. In fact I think it's insulting to the armor engineers to say that they are not making the armor thick enough to protect you. They put on as much metal and mesh to proect you as you can reasonably use. I mean, there are stories about knights in the middle ages getting dismounted during friendly jousting matches and drownding in an inch of water b/c their jousting armor was too heavy. As for the tower shield? You can already get full cover with a single tower shield if you give up your attack. That means that you cant be hit, a dragon cant breathe on you, a thousand archer with a thousand arrows cannot hurt you as long as you hide behind that shield and forgo your attacks. They can if they want hack their way through the shield to get to you which isnt too hard. The only reasonable addition I can think of to this would be to allow him to have a shield forged out of mithral or adamantite instead of wood to make it harder to cut through.
WhiteHarness 09-12-06, 04:01 PM	Thanks everyone. I took Unholy_Sacrament's advice and let him, then gave the leader of the first group a +1 briliant energy battleaxe. Down went the dwarven wall. The player was so freaking mad... :P Do you hate this player or something? Why did you do that? First you allowed him to do something stupid (which makes you, IMO, just as stupid for allowing it), then you go and do that to him. You should have told him "No" from the beginning and maybe he wouldn't have been as mad as he was when you messed with him. You seem to be an unnecessarily cruel DM.
CryoSilver 09-12-06, 05:03 PM	I would allow a character to wear 2 suits of armor. Then I would hit the player of said character. I would then hit him again. I would repeat this until the second suit of armor was removed.
Shinryouga 09-12-06, 06:17 PM	I agree with 90% of the above posters, as they are right. I also add: How high is the Dwarf's strength? The load for that much armor and shields is insane! I suppose since the dwarven racial trait removes the penalties, its no harm no foul, but consider this! STR 18: Heavy load limit 300 lbs. Mountain Plate: 225 Tower Shield: 45 2 of Each: 540. Paralyzed dwarf. He needs at least a STR of 23 to wear all that. Just so you know.
savant_warlord13 09-12-06, 06:47 PM	This should be handled by disallowing it. Neither options are permissible by the rules, and with very good reason. Prices increase exponentially, and so you cannot allow a character twice the benefit (two suits of armour) for twice the cost: the cost should be increased fourfold. This is essentially why you can't permit this. You can with a -24 armor check penalty and a maximum dex modifier of -3, if you require a feat to do it
Silverthumb128 09-12-06, 07:15 PM	(or that kid from christmas story :P ) GOD! You NINJA! :D
Steevo 09-12-06, 10:03 PM	Personally, I wouldn't allow this sort of abuse. More correctly, I would allow him to wear the armor (and pay the money for customizing the extra suit) but I would explicitly tell the player that the AC bonuses do not stack. If he still wants to do it, hey, it's his gp. However, hypothetically speaking, even if I did allow the bonuses to stack, what exactly is he gaining from it? So he's got an AC of 38 before magical bonuses or deflection (he sure as hell isn't getting any Dex bonus), so what? His touch AC is still 10. You can't shield bash with a tower shield (read the description of it in the PHB) and he's got a tower shield in each hand. Congratulations, you've got the highest AC on the field and you're completely incapable of hurting anyone else. You're effectively not even in the fight, except for blocking a 5x5 square patch of land. The enemies would completely ignore this doofus if I was the DM. They'd see he was a useless lump of metal and target the PCs who were actually a threat. If this charcater managed to block a narrow passage that they needed to get through, they'd just Bull's Rush him to the ground and run over him.
Kratch 09-13-06, 06:10 AM	The enemies would completely ignore this doofus if I was the DM. They'd see he was a useless lump of metal and target the PCs who were actually a threat. If this charcater managed to block a narrow passage that they needed to get through, they'd just Bull's Rush him to the ground and run over him. Overrun would be a better option IMHO. Bull rush can only push him so far and still leaves him standing to block those 5x5 squares. overrun will drop him on his butt like a poor, helpless turtle (not actually helpless).
Generic Poster 09-13-06, 09:15 AM	I have to say that if I was a player character adventuring with someone wearing multiple layers of heavy armor and wielding two tower shields,I would throw such a dwarf into the nearest lake or leave him on the doorstep of the nearest great wyrm and run away (I understand that dragons usually have no problem digesting metal). The idea is just dumb on so many levels, not only does it violate reality and game mechanics, it's not even in the slightest bit heroic to stand there like a big lump of metal and not do anything. At least the rogue who goes and runs off to hide in the darkness in a fight still might be useful for finding and disarming traps. The only thing this lame dwarf would contribute however is a huge move silent penalty. I hope that such a character didn't actually receive any xp for his non contribution to the party either, otherwise I would be twice as determined to kill this useless monster attractor.
Kradlo 09-13-06, 09:42 AM	Oh, gosh, the possibilities are nearly endless. How about a 1st level sorcerer casting grease on the ground beneath his feet? Let's see, armor check penalty of -38, let's see him make that Balance check! That aside, he can't stack armor on top of armor. It doesn't work that way. But I'm a firm believer in the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." Example: "I'm a Dwarven tank! I have an AC of 38! I'm invulnerable! Nothing can touch me!" Except for that +1 brilliant energy battleaxe, apparently. :evillaugh
CaoSlayer 09-13-06, 10:04 AM	umm, for such a character ever crossing a rope bridge will be a torture... I recomend you for the next fight to have the enemy in the other side of a bridge XD and make the dwarf to make balance checks or fall. Also if the enemy trips him, I would like to know how it is going to get up. The bad thing about heavy armors and rivers it is that they are so heavy that can perfectly hold the breath and walk to the other side.
Watchman 09-13-06, 10:05 AM	IRL layering armour is a fine and well-respected tradition. Mail was a really popular component, for the obvious reason that aside from its considerable weight it in most ways behaves much like heavy clotch (as far as wearing the stuff is concerned anyway). Corselets of scale and lamellar, solid breastplates, additional layers of mail, coats-of-plates and so on were all happily donned on top of mail hauberks and shirts, with the end result of rendering the covered area about invulnerable to most weapons. On the less excessive, expensive and encumbering side for example well-equipped Iberian warriors of Roman times might have a bronze pectoral plate over sturdy leather armour, or a Greek-style scale cuirass; Romans used similar pectoral plates alongside mail for a while, and the heavily-equipped Triarii veterans may have combined the two at times (the Republican citizen-levy army was very much a "bring your own stuff" outfit). Anyway, while the technique works quite well indeed - it wouldn't have been used for nearly three thousand years all over Eurasia if it didn't - it's not terribly effective in terms of encumberance and cost relative to the amount of protection afforded in the heavy end, at least not when compared to articulated full plate. The latter affords at least as good (and quite possibly better, if it's of particularly good craftsmanshipo and/or of extra thickness) protection pretty much everywhere, and isn't terribly encumbering all things considered. You can demonstrably do cartwheels wearing the stuff after all. What you very much cannot do with full plate, of for that matter any other reasonably solid and stiff armour of roughly equivalent coverage, is put another full plate (or whatever) atop it; that leads to all kinds of trouble with the joints and over-encumbered limbs right fast. "Doubling up" the body armour us another thing entirely; it was actually a quite common practice, as the plackart - the separate portion of the body armour protecting the abdomen, to which the pendant "skirt" covering the thighs and the groin was usually attached - was gradually extended upwards over time until it in for all intents and purposes became a second breastplate. Targeting the torso of a man equipped in such a manner with about anything short of light artillery was obviously pretty much a waste of time. Anyway, in D&D terminology the above would add up to a rule of thumb that Medium and Light armours (irrespective of special materials that might affect the classification IMHO, as the question is more about coverage and keeping the limbs still mobile) would in principle be eligible to being "layered" together for added protection, albeit not necessarily very efficiently in terms of ACP, cost and weight relative to the AC improvement gained. The more inefficient (and largely useless) Heavy armours could in fact be interpreted as exactly such combinations if one wanted to. A Light-Light combo should probably be counted as Medium, a Light-Medium likewise, and Medium-Medium as Heavy for what it matters. Heavy armours in turn ought to still remain "layerable" with at least Mail Shirts and Hauberks, and potentially reach the AC bonus of Full Plate albeit with way worse ACP and weight and a Max Dex of around 0. But hey, at least they'll be cheaper... Full Plate is already pretty much "as good as it gets" as armour goes and due to its tailor-made nature not terribly conductive to additional layering, but presumably you could throw in the rough equivalent of Breastplate for some extra AC at the expense of weight, cost, ACP and probably Max Dex to represent "doubled" body protection (forget the limbs; you need to move those, don't you ?). Something like Mountain Plate is, one suspects, already seriously "pushing the envelope" in terms of what a warrior can carry while still retaining enough mobility to fight effectively; try to add anything atop that, and the guy might as well walk around wearing an iron box. A sort of logical end-point of heavy plate armour, as it were.
CaoSlayer 09-13-06, 10:12 AM	the only trouble of that would be to use a mithril chain shirt + a adamantite breastplate by example for +9 Ac with the penalties of just the breastplate.
Watchman 09-13-06, 10:21 AM	*shrug* D&D number-crunching minmax isn't my forte. I just like to point out what's feasible or not in the light of logic and real-world examples. Then again, one tenet D&D seems to swear by is "the more obscenely kitted fellow wins" (think a tricked-out Mithral Full Plate with assorted magick thingamabobs thrown in as the starting point...). In that light, if someone can get his mitts on both a Mithral Mail Shirt and Adamantine Breastplate, and the GM is lenient enough to allow layering the two to be at least conditionally worthwhile, then it is only appropriate he should end up with pretty nasty AC for fairly little encumberance. I mean, if I was a medieval warrior I'd be pretty happy to cover my frail (in regards to sharp metal implements of carnage anyway) physique in quality armour made out of super-metals too, and for the pretty good reason I wouldn't have to worry about getting an arrow in the gut and sword in the luings too much. Sort of like how modern soldiers no doubt feel rather safer going to a firefight if they're wearing a kevlar helmet, decent vest and trauma plates, and for pretty good reasons too.
Kratch 09-13-06, 10:27 AM	Most armour descriptions in the PhB include layers of padded leather and/or chainmail fitted and/or riveted as part of the set.
Archtyrant Terevoth 09-13-06, 10:33 AM	One of my players wants to make the ultimate tank. Dwarf fighter wants to dual wield tower shields and wear two suits of mountain plate, one on top of the other. Should this be allowed? Two suits of mountain plate... lol. What a munchkin.
Watchman 09-13-06, 11:11 AM	Most armour descriptions in the PhB include layers of padded leather and/or chainmail fitted and/or riveted as part of the set. Fair enough, but I don't see why that would keep an aspiring combatant worried about his skin from adding an extra layer for further protection... Of course, most such layered combinations are seriously heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable (in D&D terms, have high ACP, low Max Dex and heavy weight; GMs wishing to drive home the point can always make use of applied fatigue rules to discourage excessive spelunking in such harnesses too...). Odds are most prospective users won't bother unless they're specifically expecting heavy fighting, such as a major set-piece battle or a frontal assault on some bandit stronghold, Orc lair or whatever that for one reason or another is reasonably readily accessible (and not, say, atop the ugliest, steepest, most densely overgrown hill around) or something of the sort. Although if it was up to me most adventurer types wouldn't even want to touch anything heavier than Mail Hauberk or Breastplate anyway, out of concerns of sheer convenience. But I digress. Me, I'd just more or less nick the system Conan D20 uses wholesale, although it needs some modifications for the somewhat less impressive D&D armour range. AC bonus is (higher component AC + half the lower component AC rounded down), Max Dex is (lower component limit -2, cutting off at 0), ACP is the two component ACPs flatly added up, and ditto for weight and cost. That should make a decent enough starting point at least IMHO, and rather emphasize the fact all such heavier combinations include a major tradeoff of about everything else for protection. 'Course, D&D doesn't have as much of a gap between Full Plate and the rest as Conan (where it is without doubt the best armour around, as well as truly obscenely expensive for the overall wealth level of the game) and assorted magicks and special materials can do weird things to the equations, but personally I don't really care. If the GM actually lets the players accumulate enough "layerable" high-grade stuff for it to become a genuine problem (and I don't regard a couple of Armour AC points one way or another a particularly major issue, given what the attack bonuses start looking like at higher levels and the fact Brilliant Energy is a reasonably cheap and easy way to patently ignore the junk anyway), that's the GM's concern. Besides, stacking assorted other supernatural sources of AC ought to more or less net you comparable results without the hassle of wearing a ton of ironmongery, plus Brilliant Energy won't bypass all of those either. Or at least that's the impression I've gotten of Monks, Rogues and other "lightweights" at higher levels in any case.
Kratch 09-13-06, 11:23 AM	If you really wanted to work a layering system in i'd recomend the w**h***** type method (it's very simplified and doesn't take ACP or max dex into play, but they'd be easy to work in) light armour adds 1 to armour, medium adds 2 and heavy adds 3 (for a total of 6 if all 3 are used). your allowed no more then one of each weight per location (they use a hit location), can add studs to light armour for +1 but then can't use it below other heavier armours and a similar thing for medium. the mixing and matching results in different types of armour sets like half plate or breastplate or chain shirt vs chainmail etc.
dokesa 09-13-06, 11:35 AM	Look at the epic feat additional magic item space.
Watchman 09-13-06, 12:33 PM	Yeah, well, fair enough, but given that the "stacking armour" trick is something distinctly non-legendary historical warriors, in D&D terms at best level 4-6 chars tops, did... Personally I also think Epic kinda sucks. All the bad things of non-Epic D&D, magnified. It doesn't even really have any style, and much of what I recall of the book (like the critter list, or that "epic campaign setting" thingamabob city) were just plain ridiculous even by D&D yardsticks. Gah.
Damionte 09-13-06, 01:56 PM	Out of topic, and solely my point of view. While your player may hold nothing else against you, your choice to allow the player to do it and then choosing to introduce a brilliant energy weapon wielding opponent with the obvious intent to by-pass the granted advantages, is a trait I do not admire in DMs. You choose to allow it, then choose to manipulate its weakness in an "attempt to punish". It would have been far better to disallow it, explain the rules as necessary. If the player does not like that decision, then your gaming styles do not match, except that gracefully, and perhaps play in different groups. It is my opinion, so you can forget it if you want. Please take no offence as I meant none. I will now leave the topic to progress on. agreed. That was a lame move on your part as the GM. You're supposed ot be the mature one who's above that kind of petty stuff.
Voldar_Mecorthio 09-13-06, 09:38 PM	With all the hate-posts about me allowing then killing, I would like to point out that me and his players are VERY good friends and we have an undeclared war where he creates massivly over-optomized builds and I knock them over like bowling pins using something he forgot. He wasn't offended at all by the briliant axe.
Grey_Mage 09-14-06, 01:41 AM	Out of topic, and solely my point of view. While your player may hold nothing else against you, your choice to allow the player to do it and then choosing to introduce a brilliant energy weapon wielding opponent with the obvious intent to by-pass the granted advantages, is a trait I do not admire in DMs. You choose to allow it, then choose to manipulate its weakness in an "attempt to punish". It would have been far better to disallow it, explain the rules as necessary. If the player does not like that decision, then your gaming styles do not match, except that gracefully, and perhaps play in different groups. It is my opinion, so you can forget it if you want. Please take no offence as I meant none. I will now leave the topic to progress on. Sometimes an example shows better than a thousand words could ever explain.
pres_man 09-14-06, 04:23 AM	A bit off topic, but can a warforge wear armor? Their composite plating takes the place of an armor or robe slot, but could a warforge just put armor on over and use the better value?
Joush Mark 09-14-06, 04:50 AM	You have 1 armor slot. Putting a second suit of armor on top of that is theoreticly possble, but provides the same benfit mechanicly as haveing a second set of armor in your backpack. To change the armor you are benfiting from you would have to take off your armor and put the orther suit on, useing the removeing/ donning armor times in the book. As for Bracers of Armor and a suit of armor? Mechanicly, the bracers are a magic item that provides an armor bonuse to AC. They take up your bracer/glove slot. You can ware them and a suit of armor if you want to, Armor bonuses don't stack with eatchorther, but you benift fully from bolth at the same time. (Normaly just getting the AC bonuse of the bracers or your armor, whatever is higher.) Diddo for two tower shields. Shield bonuses don't stack. I'd just explane to someone that the rules don't work like that, and point out that any remotely CR appropate challange will be hard pressed to hit his Mountan Plate + Tower shield AC. If he wants to keep up with the two shield idea, I'd suggest he take his second shield as a large shield, spiked or bladed. As for more.. ah.. un-insane armor stacking, My houserule considers the padding, leather and chainmal worn underneath half and fullplate as leather armor. This arming jacket can be worn without the fullplate and reduces the time it takes to put on the fullplate by 1 miniut. This lets fighters/paladins/clerics sleep in some measure of armor and be ready more quickly in the event of troble.
Jhaelen 09-14-06, 05:02 PM	My houserule considers the padding, leather and chainmal worn underneath half and fullplate as leather armor. This arming jacket can be worn without the fullplate and reduces the time it takes to put on the fullplate by 1 miniut. This lets fighters/paladins/clerics sleep in some measure of armor and be ready more quickly in the event of troble. Hmm, I never thought of that. Sounds good! :D Although all the fighter-types in my gaming group already have learned to appreciate the Endurance feat :)
Joush Mark 09-14-06, 05:26 PM	Endurence is nice, but dosn't allow you to sleep in heavy armor anyway. Carrying a set of armor pajamas seems silly so I normaly just avoid it with this house rule.