Armour Stacking

[Kethrian]

It reads to me that the chahar-aina and dastana could be worn with Mage Armour or Bracers of Armour, or other similar effects, and should stack.  Would that be correct?  And, since neither the Mage Armour nor Bracers of Armour have an enhancement bonus, enchanting either the chahar-aina or the dastana should stack on top of all that, correct?  Because if so, that's a tremendous boost to AC that has no max dex limit....

[Chemus]

Source?

Mage Armor provides an Armor Bonus to AC. If anything else also provides an Armor Bonus to AC these bonuses do not stack, they overlap, with the greatest bonus prevailing.

What types of bonuses do those two things provide?

[Kethrian]

Source: Oriental Adventures, Arms and Equipment Guide, 3.5e update in Dragon 318.

They both provide an armour bonus that explicitly stacks with the foundation armour.

[Chemus]

OK on reading, they only stack with padded, leather or chain shirt. It's specified in the description (OA p75). That said, they are armor and should be separately enchantable. The enchantment bonus is to their bonus so it should stack too.I'm not certain that they stack with each other though; a reasonable DM might limit you to only one or the other.

Nice find.

[Kethrian]

Actually, it states it stacks with the foundation armour.  It only states that it can be worn with padded, leather, or chain shirt.  Mage Armour and Bracers of Armour are not "worn" armours...

And yes, it is questionable whether their armour bonuses stack with each other.

[Chemus]

Chahar-aina...can be worn over certain other types of armor to provide an additional armor bonus that stacks with both the foundation armor and any shield worn. A character can wear a chahar-aina effectively over padded, leather, or chain shirt armor...

Dastana...can be worn in addition to some other types of armor to provide an additional armor bonus that stacks with both the foundation armor and any shield worn. A character can wear dastana with padded, leather, or chain shirt armor.

I only cut the feat requirement and the flavor text. It states that it can be used with some/certain other armor stacking with them and with shields. It then goes on to enumerate what other armors each can stack with. Since it's a special rule rather than a general one, silence is not permission. As for stacking with each other, they don't say that they do so again the general rule wins when there's no specific rule to countermand it. They don't stack with each other or with any armor bonus other than that granted by padded, leather or chain shirt armors. Sorry.

[Kethrian]

And can you show me where Mage Armour is "worn armour", and not a magic spell effect that just grants an armour bonus?

[Chemus]

The items specifically stack with those armors. They are effective (Stack) when worn with those armors. Normal rules; anything granting an armor bonus to AC does not stack with other things granting an Armor bonus to AC. If mage armor is not one of the armors listed as stacking with those two items, it doesn't stack. That's the rules in the text, and their interaction with the normal D&D rules.

For Mage armor to stack with them too it would actually have to say that it does, or else it follows the general bonus stacking rules.

On looking, the highest max dex chain shirt I can find you is mithril chain shirt with the Nimbleness enchantment (+1, MIC) at +7 max dex, and +4 Armor bonus. Leafweave (RotW) padded armor is +1 Armor bonus to AC and +9 max dex. Add on Nimbleness for +1, so +10 max dex. Enchant it to +5 and it costs about 37000gp or so. Add a +5 version of either of those other two, plus a +5 buckler with improved buckler defense and that's as good as I can see Armor/Shield bonuses getting for highly dexterous characters getting while still using those items you mentioned.

[Kethrian]

So you prefer to read it as they cannot stack with anything not listed as something they can be worn with.  Fine.

I, on the other hand, am reading that they stack with other armour, but restrict which armours they can be worn with.  And as you should know, worn armour takes up the "body" magic item slot, whether the armour itself is magical.  Mage Armour and Bracers of Armour (and other similar effects) do not take up that slot, but still provide an armour bonus.  They are not a "certain type of armour", they are a non-armour effect that gives an armour bonus.  Since you have an armour bonus, and nothing that is disallowed in your body slot, you can wear and stack the chahar-aina and dastana.  My reasoning for this is that they did not word them to only function with certain armours, which you think they worded it as, but rather stated separately (yes, in the same sentence) that they stack with other armour, but limit what they can be worn with.  If this were not so, why would they use roughly triple the space to say "...can only be worn with and stack with padded, leather, or chain shirt armour"?  The fact is they didn't, because they can be stacked with other armour bonuses that are not actual worn armours.

[zook1shoe]

I'm going with Kethrian on this one.

Both have separate sentences on what they stack with (armor and shields) and what they can be worn with (padded, leather, and chain shirt only).

Since mage armor (and other similar spells) grants an armor bonus, that is the foundation armor. But since its not physically worn, it does not disallow the ability to wear them.

But say you use a spell like goldenmail (or whatever from Champions of Valor) that creates a set of golden full plate. This is the a foundation armor, but triggers the 'not the right armor' clause, and you must choose the full plate OR the others as an armor option.

[Chemus]

The "triple space" is because they can be worn ineffectively with other armors; ie. not stacking with them. The first line says 'this armor stacks with certain other armors and with shields.' The second line says 'it can be worn effectively with these three armor types.' It never says that it stacks with all other armor bonuses, but with the armor bonus of the foundation armor. Mage armor/Bracers of Armor is not a foundation armor. As you said it's not even worn as armor. And no, not all items that provide an Armor Bonus to AC are worn on the body slot. It's just that the vast majority of them are.

My contention is about Armor Bonuses to AC, which is what those two armor add-ons and what Mage Armor provide, not stacking together unless specifically noted as being able to. It's not about slots. Slots make no difference to how those items work.

As for an armor with better Max Dex, I found that JaronK mentioned this on GitP a long time ago; Shadow Silk Padded armor has max dex of +10. Add on the Nimbleness and it's +11. Dex up to 32 is happy with that armor. Granted it alone can only ever give +6 armor bonus pre-epic. But it explicitly stacks with one of those two armor add-ons.

Sorry to keep disagreeing.

[nijineko]

my groups have always played it as stacking with the listed armors only.

however, using the official piecemeal armor rules, you could replace the bracer portion of a qualifying armor with bracers of armor and slide it through that way.

[zook1shoe]

I also agree I've only played in games where they stack with the listed, but I don't think anyone has tried anything other than them or the Vassal of Bahamut's platinum armor

[nijineko]

looking up said piecemeal armor rules: padded, leather, and chain shirt all have arm components which could be swapped for bracers of armor. huh, guess i should have looked it up and tried that one on my dms. probably would have gotten something tossed at me, but it would be worth trying. ^^

[phaedrusxy]

I'm pretty sure the chahar-aina and dastana are explicitly stated to stack with each other somewhere, but I don't have time to go dig through my copy of OA and Dragon 318 to double-check. That's the way everyone plays them that I've seen, though, and the illustration shows them being worn together on top of armor.

RAI: I think they should certainly stack with Mage Armor, Bracers of Armor, and other "magical armor" effects which are lighter/less cumbersome that the light armors they're specifically stated to stack with, as that's what makes sense.
RAW: it's debatable, but I don't really care to argue it... I'll leave that to you guys. All that matters is what the DM thinks.

[nijineko]

yes, they do stack with each other, or more accurately, they both stack with the foundation armor and do not prevent each other or overlap in doing so. do note the stipulation about proficiencies.

also note the stipulation about enhancement bonuses to armor when wearing one or both of these items.


more to the point, a dastana IS a bracer, one that is designed to fit over and provided added protection to the specified armor. just enchant it with the armor bonus you want. might be able to go up to +8, with another +5 of abilities. or you could go with +1 armor and up to +12 in abilities. that is, if you consider it a bracer that occupies the armor slot.

it would be fair to rule that if you enchant it with bracer magic, that it take up the arm slot as well as contributing to the armor slot, though that may be more rai than raw. fun possibilities.

[zook1shoe]

I'm pretty sure the chahar-aina and dastana are explicitly stated to stack with each other somewhere, but I don't have time to go dig through my copy of OA and Dragon 318 to double-check. That's the way everyone plays them that I've seen, though, and the illustration shows them being worn together on top of armor.

Dragon 318 update (pg42), talking about wearing three sets of armor, only the highest enhancement bonus stacks, but the rest of the three stacks.

the update also says "Both dastanas and chahar-ainas provide special armor bonuses to AC that stack with other armor bonuses granted by certain forms of light armor."

this seems to imply that the AC bonus only stacks  the three listed armor types.

but those armors can also be made into medium armor (and possibly heavy) with some tricks, so that's kind of curious if it would then negate the use of a dastana with medium chain shirt?


EDIT: partial ninja

[Kethrian]

Ah, thanks for pointing out the 3.5 update clarifies that they do indeed stack with each other!  I hadn't really gone over that last night, and had only remembered that it disallowed the enhancements from stacking.

While RAI is what my group prefers to use, having RAW for backup is always useful.  Since it appears that RAW is ambiguous, I will take comfort in the fact that RAW is not explicitly against RAI.