Mage Armor Thematic use

[Ruebin Rybnik]

I am DMing a small group with a champion fighter, life cleric, and draconic sorcerer.

The sorcerer wants to take mage armor to boost AC, because his resiliency is like natural armor. I understand that RAW, and probably RAI the answer is no, and i told him as much.

I am fairly lenient DM and I'm leaning towards saying yes because you can cast MA on something with natural armor. Thematically MA surrounds you with a magical protection so it makes sense that an attack would have to get through the magical prot. and you hard scaly skin in order to hurt you.

My fear is that giving him +3 AC would be to much and might make the armor wearing PCs feel like their armor isn't as worth having.

Should i allow it, and if not what AC boost can caster get later when armor gets magical +1, +2, +3 at each tier? Thanks for any advice you guys have.

[GalacticAxekick]

If the Sorcerer wants natural armour, why not give him Unarmoured Defense? AC = 10 + Dex + Con when he isn't armoured. This could give him up to 16 AC at 1st level, rivaling chainmail (!), but because this AC reflects an investiture of at least 16 Dexterity and 16 Constitution, and because chainmail reflects an investiture of only 13 Strength, the players who take armour aren't being cheated out of anything.

It's the same logic that makes the Barbarian and Monk's UD acceptable.

Of course those are front-line classes, which sorcerers are not. If the player is optimizing, this might make him a touch overpowered (back line, powerful and hard to hit?!) but if he isn't then it shouldn't be too bad.

[clash]

The designers of d&d were very careful in how they defined ac for each ability. If he wants higher armor all he has to do is increase his dex. With 13 + dex that can get up to 18 ac which is pretty significant. Do you allow multiclassing? If he has the strength another option is to take a level in a class that gives medium or heavy armor and/or shield proficiency. I would definitely not allow stacking ac definitions that were not meant to be stacked.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

GalacticAxekick
You're right i hadn't considered that he would not be targeted as much, so it will balance out with the armor wearers higher AC.

clash
I do allow multiclassing however when i mentioned it to the player he said that dipping into a martial class didn't follow his character concept.


Thank you for your suggestions. So my last question still is at later levels when the martial characters start acquiring +2 OR +3 armor respectively pushing their AC to 24+, what option are there for caster who cant wear armor or use shields?

[ravencroft0]

Thank you for your suggestions. So my last question still is at later levels when the martial characters start acquiring +2 OR +3 armor respectively pushing their AC to 24+, what option are there for caster who cant wear armor or use shields?

Consult page 227 of the DMG. Interesting stuff in there that might make low AC more bearable.

[GalacticAxekick]

Thank you for your suggestions. So my last question still is at later levels when the martial characters start acquiring +2 OR +3 armor respectively pushing their AC to 24+, what option are there for caster who cant wear armor or use shields?5e isn't designed under the assumption that martial characters acquire magic equipment at all. They can, but they're balanced under the assumption they'll simply acquire heavier armour, higher dexterity, or defensive features such as Indomitable and Evasion.

The purpose of magic equipment in 5e is to give users unique advantages, or at least unique options. If you're going to hand +1, +2 and +3 armour to your martial characters, hand magic items and spellcasting focuses to your spellcasters.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

Consult page 227 of the DMG. Interesting stuff in there that might make low AC more bearable.

Thank you, i had looked here and completely overlook the "Robe of the Aarchmagi", this is exactly what i was looking for.


5e isn't designed under the assumption that martial characters acquire magic equipment at all. They can, but they're balanced under the assumption they'll simply acquire heavier armour, higher dexterity, or defensive features such as Indomitable and Evasion.

The purpose of magic equipment in 5e is to give users unique advantages, or at least unique options. If you're going to hand +1, +2 and +3 armour to your martial characters, hand magic items and spellcasting focuses to your spellcasters.

I did not know the 5e was written to balance w/o magic equipment. I have always played with magic items are not everywhere but not that hard tI think next time i will try to run a low/no magic campaign and see how it plays out.