Sort of feels like people are adding a lot of extra steps to this process by taking a set of rules, intentionally interpreting them in the most obtuse fashion possible, criticizing that same obtuseness before patting themselves on the back and declaring that, in their magnanimity, they'll ignore their own interpretation in games they GM.
Like, you could just skip all that stuff in the middle.
Shhh don't tell them. What else are they going to do with their spare time? :P
Posting time isn't gaming time. Posting time is between games when there's no thunderpunching to do.
The issue, Nikuna, is that folks keep trying to say "well it's not actually RAW and your DM proooooobably shouldn't let you do it, but I'm a magnanimous sort so I'd let you get away with it in my games", which is kind of a self-defeating bullshit statement. What folks like Haravikk and myself are trying to get across is that the argument that it's perfectly RAW and you shouldn't have to have a "magnanimous DM" is just as strong as the arguments against - and in many cases, stronger. Yes, AL swings the other way because as stated, Adventurer's League is at its happiest when it's ruining D&D for everyone at the table, but even in AL the argument is valid. It's simply the case that AL rules against anything even slightly 'vague' because AL hates players, DMs, D&D, FLGSes, and in fact All of Humanity Itself because it desperately wants to be a video game but keeps having to run on mushy meat processors instead of clean, certain silicon.
If you're not striving to emulate a poorly programmed video game in your D&D? Let the player have it. It's just as valid as letting them not have it, and trying to score points by magnanimously allowing players to have something they should've had from the start is disingenuous bullhonkey.
None of us have actually said that your DM shouldn't let you do it. That is something that your adding into the interpretation all by yourself. The primary reason likely being that your feeling defensive and slighted from being told what the book says even though you agree with it. Many of us have actually stated that we dont' even agree with it. We just give warning that it is an issue that people may have to face depending on where they are wanting to play. Particularly in games that stick as close to RaW as humanly possible.
None of which is an actual attack on you or others here.
There's actually more attack in passive aggressive posts about scoring points and pats on the back that people would allow it by saying it doesn't work than there is in what most of us have said about why it does not work.
Jounichi actually posts the full conversation where Jeremy Crawford basically says that it doesn't work RaW and that individual DM's have to decide but he'd allow it and that's one of the creators of the game. More importantly I'd like to point out that he actually dodges the question when it comes to Improvised Weapons. He actually states only that Items either have value based upon the books or what a specific DM give the item at their table, but in no way addresses whether that value counts for uses outside of their intended uses/purposes or not or through special properties that make them function mechanically like a different kind of item. This is clever on his part because it can be read either way a person wants to read it but it's also problematic because it's not actually a direct answer to a question. It's careful political avoidance of the answer actually and puts it on the individual GM's and games.
The downside to the whole twitter thread is that he doesn't actually get anywhere near only parts of items that are turned into weapons as extra functionality or even might be added through class features. Which is problematic on several levels and not just for the artificer. The closest he gets is saying that he'd let the cantrip work with shadow blade despite the fact that the design team as a whole released official documentation saying that it wouldn't work with Shadow Blade and Jeremy basically confirmed such at one point.
As for Gauntlet's only being part of the whole. That is also problematic on multiple levels. Both because there are a number of item descriptions that don't list them (only some of the heavy armor's do) but also there is the issue that even if they are part of the armor they are clearly meant to be seperate to some extent so that they can be replaced by things like magical gloves and gauntlets with various powers and replacing them does not cause the armor to cease functioning in the slightest if magical. Boots are of the same part of yet seperate category despite not being explicitely stated except for perhaps somewhere in magic items that for some reason I remember reading but can't locate for the life of me when I go looking. Only finding the part about having to wear both for the magic to work. Yet they still don't hamper the function of armor when switched out for their magical counterparts either way. The insistance that they are defined by the entirety of the armor and can only be part of the armor not only creates interaction problems between magical items that isn't RaW and was never intended but also creates issues fort his feature and other features of the Armorer/Artificer in the form of Replicate Magic Item infusions that happen to be magical gloves/gauntlets or footwear that can be made through such.
But that's something we don't really think about until it becomes a problem for us personally I suppose. The irony being that Wizards did think of this in the way they wrote the level 9 ability for infusions and yet didn't address other underlying issues about it.
Is Thunder Gauntlet a valid weapon with which to use Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade? Relevant rules, bolded emphasis mine:
Booming Blade & Green Flame Blade: Components: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
Plate Armor 1,500 gp
Guardian Armor, Thunder Gauntlets, Armorer Feature Thunder Gauntlets. Each of the armor's gauntlets counts as a simple melee weapon while you aren't holding anything in it, and it deals 1d8 thunder damage on a hit.
Armor Modifications, Armorer Feature That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature.
Something which "counts as" something else has not lost any of its original characteristics. Instead, it is treated as though it had gained additional characteristics. Armor sets are indivisible. That is to say, no piece, or pieces, of an armor set can be construed as a divisible, separate, item, for the purposes of the rules. Armor sets can only be counted as having divisible pieces, and only in explicit cases where rule elements specifically allow for it. Does the Thunder Gauntlet become a separate item? No. Does the Armor Modifications actually divide a set of armor into separate items? No. They are only counted as such, for the purposes of the Feature.
Thunder Gauntlets are indivisible from the armor set they are part of. In fact, they are never construed as a separate item, in any case. Therefore, they have the value of the armor set, and satisfy the component requirement of the cantrips in question. Counting as a simple melee weapon satisfies the weapon requirement. Having the value of an armor set satisfies the cost requirement.
Is Thunder Gauntlet a valid weapon with which to use Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade? Relevant rules, bolded emphasis mine:
Booming Blade & Green Flame Blade: Components: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
Plate Armor 1,500 gp
Guardian Armor, Thunder Gauntlets, Armorer Feature Thunder Gauntlets. Each of the armor's gauntlets counts as a simple melee weapon while you aren't holding anything in it, and it deals 1d8 thunder damage on a hit.
Armor Modifications, Armorer Feature That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature.
Something which "counts as" something else has not lost any of its original characteristics. Instead, it is treated as though it had gained additional characteristics. Armor sets are indivisible. That is to say, no piece, or pieces, of an armor set can be construed as a divisible, separate, item, for the purposes of the rules. Armor sets can only be counted as having divisible pieces, and only in explicit cases where rule elements specifically allow for it. Does the Thunder Gauntlet become a separate item? No. Does the Armor Modifications actually divide a set of armor into separate items? No. They are only counted as such, for the purposes of the Feature.
Thunder Gauntlets are indivisible from the armor set they are part of. In fact, they are never construed as a separate item, in any case. Therefore, they have the value of the armor set, and satisfy the component requirement of the cantrips in question. Counting as a simple melee weapon satisfies the weapon requirement. Having the value of an armor set satisfies the cost requirement.
And posting this again since you felt the need to copy this Authoritative Diatribe into more than one.
Except Pieces of them are divisible and some of them are not listed seperately with prices in the books.
Otherwise you would never be able to use any kind of boots or gloves/gauntlets or helmets with Armor, Particularly magical armor because they in fact replace parts of various armors. Yet we know these things function together. And the magical armor will continue working.
Except Pieces of them are divisible and some of them are not listed seperately with prices in the books.
Otherwise you would never be able to use any kind of boots or gloves/gauntlets or helmets with Armor, Particularly magical armor because they in fact replace parts of various armors. Yet we know these things function together. And the magical armor will continue working.
This fails to acknowledge that the items you refer to were never part of an armor set. They are only individual items. Much like armor sets cannot be divided into components parts, as per rules, individual items cannot be combined into a set of armor, as per the rules.
Your argument is unironically working against your stated position. Additional items can be worn with an armor set, precisely because the "armor set" is treated as a "set" and not as individual component items. The check is for whether the "set" is being worn, rather than "is this piece of the set, which is not recognized by the rules, being worn?"
Additional food for thought: Consider whether or not a character is wearing a set of armor. This is only a binary value. Either the character is wearing the armor set and, enjoys the statistics provided thereby, or the character is not wearing the armor set. A middle ground simply does not exist. There is no rules provision, whatsoever, for wearing some, "part," or "parts" of an armor set.
This fails to acknowledge that the items you refer to were never part of an armor set. They are only individual items. Much like armor sets cannot be divided into components parts, as per rules, individual items cannot be combined into a set of armor, as per the rules.
Scale Mail and Chain Mail both say "The suit includes gauntlets." Plate has "A suit of plate includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and thick layers of padding underneath the armor."
However, Arcane Armor, the feature that actually matters, says "It also expands to cover your entire body." So it always includes gauntlets, meaning it's entirely reasonable to say the gauntlets are part of the armor, and thus have a cost. (Even though that case is never actually explicitly written.)
There's probably other edge cases around, like "can an Armorer with Arcane Armor wear regular-magic-item Gauntlets of Ogre Power?" Or, "can someone in regular Plate armor use Gauntlets of Ogre Power?" It's fairly clear that this is handled in a common-sense fashion, where armor that comes with gauntlets can have those gauntlets removed. However, if the armor had a price, then the gauntlets did too.
Except Pieces of them are divisible and some of them are not listed seperately with prices in the books.
Otherwise you would never be able to use any kind of boots or gloves/gauntlets or helmets with Armor, Particularly magical armor because they in fact replace parts of various armors. Yet we know these things function together. And the magical armor will continue working.
This fails to acknowledge that the items you refer to were never part of an armor set. They are only individual items. Much like armor sets cannot be divided into components parts, as per rules, individual items cannot be combined into a set of armor, as per the rules.
Your argument is unironically working against your stated position. Additional items can be worn with an armor set, precisely because the "armor set" is treated as a "set" and not as individual component items. The check is for whether the "set" is being worn, rather than "is this piece of the set, which is not recognized by the rules, being worn?"
Additional food for thought: Consider whether or not a character is wearing a set of armor. This is only a binary value. Either the character is wearing the armor set and, enjoys the statistics provided thereby, or the character is not wearing the armor set. A middle ground simply does not exist. There is no rules provision, whatsoever, for wearing some, "part," or "parts" of an armor set.
There is also no rules Provision for not wearing some or part of it. You also don't seem to be aware of a number of armor desriptions. Many heavy armor sets. List one or more of those parts that can be replaced with magic items as Kenlarcy has stated. Some medium armor sets do as well. But they do not actually get in the way of you using magical items in those same places if they are the same types of gear. The only objects that have a clear defining insistence or clarity about wearing all of something are magical boots and gloves. Everything else is just assumption.
So no. My position doesn't work against me. Your demands for people follow the logic chains to reach the answer that you feel is correct fails because your not following any logic chains that actually cause problems for it despite the fact that they clearly exist. You simply see them as full objects that cannot be in some way split apart when it's clear by various means that is not the intent or even the full truth according to RaW. If you wish for us to follow your Logic chains then you must there for follow all Logic Chains.
While your at it you should also note that Most of us that say it doesn't work per RaW also feel that it's probably wrong that it doesn't work per RaW. But that doesn't even enter into your thoughts does it? We are aware of your logic chain and how it works and why it works. Trying to bludgeon us into agreement with it yet again actually changes nothing in the thread or our Exact Reasoning why it doesn't work in some places. Including having StormKnight way into it in opposition to you.
Edit: And the Problem as stated from the beginning is not whether the Gauntlets have price. It's that the price is undefined. And Undefined price is a different problem from not being a separate item or not having a price. It's that it's a price we don't know and the Cantrips want to know the Price as a requirement.
Great googly goddamn boner-slapping kangaroo monkey-rutting cornhole cod filets.
WHY DO YOU PEOPLE WANT THIS TO FAIL SO FRIGGIN' BAD?
I don't get it. Literally ******* everyone that's told people they're bad terrible horrible awful people for wanting to [X] Blade with a Thunder Gauntlet, in this thread and many others, has also said "this is stupid, it should work, I'd allow it at my table, but per RAW it doesn't work and if you try it at your table you should throw yourself out a window for being the worst D&D player alive."
Why?
Why are you all so convinced that players should be drawn and quartered for doing the thing you all say you would allow in the bloody first place? The arguments for allowing it are stronger than the ones against. Not only is the RAW ambiguous, but it fits the (sub)class fantasy to a tee, it's incredibly thematic, and it's no more powerful than a Battlesmith using a Blade cantrip with an infused hittin' stick.
Just bloody let. It. Happen. It hurts no one and nothing save NPCs and monsters, and those are there to be punched. Let your Armorers have fun. Why stop them? Who is it hurting? Truly, who?
Because ambiguous Rules as Written murdered their parents in a dark alleyway behind the opera house, driving them to become persnickety Rules Lawyers who must pick every nit imaginable (while dressed as a giant bat, naturally).
Great googly goddamn boner-slapping kangaroo monkey-rutting cornhole cod filets.
WHY DO YOU PEOPLE WANT THIS TO FAIL SO FRIGGIN' BAD?
I don't get it. Literally ****ing everyone that's told people they're bad terrible horrible awful people for wanting to [X] Blade with a Thunder Gauntlet, in this thread and many others, has also said "this is stupid, it should work, I'd allow it at my table, but per RAW it doesn't work and if you try it at your table you should throw yourself out a window for being the worst D&D player alive."
Why?
Why are you all so convinced that players should be drawn and quartered for doing the thing you all say you would allow in the bloody first place? The arguments for allowing it are stronger than the ones against. Not only is the RAW ambiguous, but it fits the (sub)class fantasy to a tee, it's incredibly thematic, and it's no more powerful than a Battlesmith using a Blade cantrip with an infused hittin' stick.
Just bloody let. It. Happen. It hurts no one and nothing save NPCs and monsters, and those are there to be punched. Let your Armorers have fun. Why stop them? Who is it hurting? Truly, who?
Your going way to far with your rant here. Because most in this thread have in no way said any of what your implying. So would you perhaps please tone it down.
Also we have outright stated our reasoning. There are places like Adventurer's League where this is not allowed and why. And that it is entirely a table home brew to allow it. One we support and a point of RaW that we think should be changed. But you are villifying us on both accounts simply because we don't ignore the middle man with outbursts like this.
We are not attacking people when we say this like you say, we are not villifying them for wanting it to work. We are just explaining exactly why it does not and your insinuations to the contrary are not helpful nor are they needed.
And Finally. It hurts Every Single Person that comes to these forums and gets told it's ok, and then goes to any place like AL and then gets told it's not and exactly what we said in some form, Usually in a less nice form than what we have done here, When we could have and should have warned them of the possibility before they went through all that.
Cool. Warning supplied. Continuing to tell people "you're wrong, stupid, bad at D&D and also blights upon society" when the argument for it working is stronger than the argument against is frustrating beyond reason.
Yes, anyone who plays AL should know what they're getting into. Adventurer's League is a hypertoxic morass of bad-faith nonsense, because Adventurer's League wants more than anything in the world to be a video game. Because it can't be a video game, it makes everyone who meets it share in its anger and misery.
This isn't the AL forum. It's the Artificer forum. Continuing to hound folks into abandoning their armorers because armorers aren't allowed to use combat magic is a shitty way to advise people.
Cool. Warning supplied. Continuing to tell people "you're wrong, stupid, bad at D&D and also blights upon society" when the argument for it working is stronger than the argument against is frustrating beyond reason.
Yes, anyone who plays AL should know what they're getting into. Adventurer's League is a hypertoxic morass of bad-faith nonsense, because Adventurer's League wants more than anything in the world to be a video game. Because it can't be a video game, it makes everyone who meets it share in its anger and misery.
This isn't the AL forum. It's the Artificer forum. Continuing to hound folks into abandoning their armorers because armorers aren't allowed to use combat magic is a shitty way to advise people.
Stahppit.
Again. We have not said that. I said please the first time. This time I'm just going to say.
Quite Being Hyperbollic and Toxic. We haven't said that and your attacking us in this way is everything your accusing us of being.
If you Understand the Warning. Quit Telling us that we are wrong and how we don't understand what the rules are and why because we clearly do.
We aren't hounding People into doing anything and we're not stopping anybody from playing anything.
AL still Matters Here even if you don't like it and don't want it to.
Look, can we let this thread die already? There's nothing to be gained or said that hasn't been addressed already. It's the same arguments, again and again, that are just being made in a giant godforsaken circle.
The RAW is bad. They don't address the issue. It needs to be errata'd. That's it. That's all there is to say. We all know the arguments. They're the same arguments we've seen from the first page. Nothing new has been added. For four whole pages, nothing has been added that isn't just the same two arguments over and over.. Nothing new will be added until WotC decides to fix their stupid, badly written rules.
The rules are bad, and need to be changed. That's it. End of story.
EDIT: You know what? I'm just going to unsubscribe. There's literally nothing more to be had from this conversation anyway.
There is also no rules Provision for not wearing some or part of it. You also don't seem to be aware of a number of armor desriptions. Many heavy armor sets. List one or more of those parts that can be replaced with magic items as Kenlarcy has stated.
Regarding this point, it's actually worth noting that the rules don't explictly allow for swapping parts; if you look at the section of the rules on wearing and wielding magic items, it basically just comes down to "use common sense", there are no explicit rules about what you can swap for. You could even technically try to have a character wear medium sized boots over their small sized boots if you wanted; it's left entirely up to the group/DM to decide what makes sense to them.
While in practice most DM's will just rule that you can wear magic gauntlets with your existing armour on the basis that as long as you're wearing most of a set of armour then you should receive the full benefit of it, and since magic items like boots and gauntlets don't usually specify a type of armour it's reasonable to assume that they can take the place of any regular armour, but it really isn't defined at all.
In other words, sets of armour being divisible is a common ruling, but it's not RAW, but then the RAW is basically just "use common sense" so it supports it if that's what you and your DM agree. But common sense for one group may be different to another; what's the common sense going to be if your group all dress like Tidus from Final Fantasy X (who dresses like he got dragged backwards through a clothing factory)? 😂
Division of items in D&D is not defined properly at all in RAW, so a RAW argument that says an item must be divided can get real tenuous real fast.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
There is also no rules Provision for not wearing some or part of it. You also don't seem to be aware of a number of armor desriptions. Many heavy armor sets. List one or more of those parts that can be replaced with magic items as Kenlarcy has stated.
Regarding this point, it's actually worth noting that the rules don't explictly allow for swapping parts; if you look at the section of the rules on wearing and wielding magic items, it basically just comes down to "use common sense", there are no explicit rules about what you can swap for. You could even technically try to have a character wear medium sized boots over their small sized boots if you wanted; it's left entirely up to the group/DM to decide what makes sense to them.
While in practice most DM's will just rule that you can wear magic gauntlets with your existing armour on the basis that as long as you're wearing most of a set of armour then you should receive the full benefit of it, and since magic items like boots and gauntlets don't usually specify a type of armour it's reasonable to assume that they can take the place of any regular armour, but it really isn't defined at all.
In other words, sets of armour being divisible is a common ruling, but it's not RAW, but then the RAW is basically just "use common sense" so it supports it if that's what you and your DM agree. But common sense for one group may be different to another; what's the common sense going to be if your group all dress like Tidus from Final Fantasy X (who dresses like he got dragged backwards through a clothing factory)? 😂
Division of items in D&D is not defined properly at all in RAW, so a RAW argument that says an item must be divided can get real tenuous real fast.
I mentioned the specifics of magic items needing all their parts. But guess what? Gauntlets and Boots and Helmets? They don't count towards that with armor. They never have. This is even true by RaW because there is no limitation in any way what so ever to wearing things of the nature of these items with things like Magical Full Plate Mail. it's fully expected to you to wear magical items of these kinds with such things and the game is written around doing such entirely. In fact the only place that even implies that they might In fact be needed for the main piece to work is with the Armorer Artificer. It's the only place that has wording of adding these things if they aren't included or needing to count them as separate pieces for the sake of Infusions. Some of which copy existing Magical Items which would just as easily work in the place of those infusions. so it is the only place where these things are made completely whole and truely inseperable and then turns around and makes them individual pieces once more.
The only reason to have wording that makes them a Whole Item in the first place as in the case of the Arcane Armorer ability of the Artificer is because either by RAW or completely intended and though obvious reasoning that these certain indvidual pieces are not actually necessarily part of the whole even when listed as part of it. There is argument for the latter. But there is plenty of argument for the former as well despite the lack of explicit statement stating such.
I mentioned the specifics of magic items needing all their parts. But guess what? Gauntlets and Boots and Helmets? They don't count towards that with armor. They never have.
I'm not disagreeing that that's how it's intended to work, what I'm saying is that the rules weirdly never actually seem to state it as such; there's nowhere that says "you can swap the boots/gauntlets/helmet of your armour for magic items of the same type without interfering with the armour's protection" or words to that effect, the only relevant rule basically just says "use common sense", which is super annoying, as there are plenty of common sense arguments that make things more, not less, complicated.
Like I say, if you're swapping plate armour boots for Boots of Elvenkind for example, are those magic boots equivalent to the plate armour boots they're replacing? Common sense could very easily say that they might not be, and that your plate armour offers less protection as a result, or that because the armour specifically lists boots, and no rule says armour can function without the complete set, then common sense could also mean you can't just swap parts out and expect to receive the benefit of the armour. How many pairs of magic boots can a centaur wear? Can you wear magic gauntlets if you only have one arm? All common sense questions with no answers in the rules, as it really just comes down to "use common sense, and you can't mix and match boots".
That's one of the things that's weird about people specifically calling out the lack of clarity in the rules for Thunder Gauntlets in particular; in truth the rules for armour and magic items in D&D are really, really vague, and sometimes even sarcastically unhelpful. For 99% of D&D players and DM's this won't be a problem, as we all have a pretty good idea of how everything is supposed to work, and of course magic boots etc. would be largely pointless without swapping since a lot of armour includes boots, but my point is that the rules don't actually state a surprising amount of things that we take for granted, which makes it difficult to use that as the basis for something in RAW.
This is one of the biggest difficulties with RAW arguments is, how far do you take it when there's actually a lot that the rules don't actually say? A lot of arguments against cantrips being usable with the gauntlets as a weapon rely on separating the pieces, but the rules don't actually tell you how that works, when it applies etc., and the "use common sense" provision is specifically for magic items (not class features), and wouldn't support arguments against using the cantrips anyway, as applying common sense should say the gauntlets have value. You end up falling into a weird situation where an argument is essentially "it doesn't work because of this, but the book doesn't actually tell you that, it just sort of vaguely implies it… maybe", and it becomes a double standard when the criticism that it's the fault of the Thunder Gauntlets rule for being unclear.
TL;DR: D&D is not a great game for RAW arguments because the rules are both surprisingly complex and frequently unclear.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I mentioned the specifics of magic items needing all their parts. But guess what? Gauntlets and Boots and Helmets? They don't count towards that with armor. They never have.
I'm not disagreeing that that's how it's intended to work, what I'm saying is that the rules weirdly never actually seem to state it as such; there's nowhere that says "you can swap the boots of your armour for magic boots" or words to that effect, the only relevant rule basically just says "use common sense", which is super annoying, but there are plenty of common sense cases that make things more, not less, complicated.
Like I say, if you're swapping plate armour boots for Boots of Elvenkind for example, are those magic boots equivalent to the plate armour boots they're replacing? Common sense could very easily say that they might not be, and that your plate armour offers less protection as a result, or that because the armour specifically lists boots, and no rule says armour can function without the complete set, then common sense could also mean you can't just swap parts out and expect to receive the benefit of the armour.
That's one of the things that's weird about people specifically calling out the lack of clarity in the rules for Thunder Gauntlets in particular; in truth the rules for armour and magic items in D&D are really, really vague, and sometimes even sarcastically unhelpful. For 99% of D&D players and DM's this won't be a problem, as we all have a pretty good idea of how everything is supposed to work, and of course magic boots etc. would be largely pointless without swapping since a lot of armour includes boots, but my point is that the rules don't actually state a surprising amount of things that we take for granted.
This is one of the biggest difficulties with RAW arguments is, how far do you take it when there's actually a lot that the rules don't actually say? A lot of arguments against cantrips being usable with the gauntlets as a weapon rely on separating the pieces, but the rules don't actually tell you how that works, when it applies etc., and the "use common sense" provision is specifically for magic items (not class features), and wouldn't support arguments against using the cantrips, as applying common sense should say that the gauntlets have value. You end up falling into a weird situation where an argument is essentially "it doesn't work because of this, but the book doesn't actually tell you that, it just sort of vaguely implies it… maybe."
There are some oddities like magic boots that while they don't say. The rules that are there still work in the favor of being replacable. Like Magic Boots or gloves don't say you can't wear them with magical plate mail. Certain magical items are things you'd want to combine with Magical Plate mail like Gauntlet's of Ogre Power. Or the Belt of Dwarven Kind. Or Boots of Speed. Though in some respects a belt seems like an odd thing to be wearing with plate if you picture it in your mind. You start wondering how it's supposed to fit.
What is even more odd is there can be different rules for magical items and Normal Items. Magical Staves are a good example of this. Magical Staves even by the way they are written up by magical items Are meant to be Spell Foci but the general writeup outright says that All magical staves also count as a quarterstaff even if they don't explicitly say it in the write up. However the non-magical foci do not make that distinction. and the Quarterstaff is distinctly called out as a weapon with no ability to be used as a focus by the plain language of the way it is written up.
Another oddity because there is no true explicit statement is just how durable magical items are (or even regular items). Some things treat them as almost indestructible regardless of what their write up says. The Official entry about it in the DM's Guide says they are at least as durable as any non-magical version of such an item. But don't make any clear indication of when that might change or by how much. Only calling out specifically Artifacts which are actually a particularly rare kind of magic item (of which I think basically all are Legendary if not Unique) that usually says in it's write up some very convoluted way of destruction that would supersede the general rule even if it wasn't there. Yet at the same time. Several kinds of magical items have rules for what happens when you break them that are meant to be used by characters most likely lacking in the physical strength department like mages to just break when they have the need or the potentially suicidal desire to do so. But not only are those two things kind of contradictory in that they are treated extra hardy and yet are somehow willfully breakable. But the whole matter of attacking items and the damage that you deal to them has a few values that are only listed as suggested And the truth of it even by those same rules that give some suggestions is that every instance of trying to deal damage to any item, whether magical or mundane, Is entirely up to the story teller. Yet On top of all that we still have all kinds of spells that just offhandedly reference things like doing amounts of damage to (usually unattended) objects without any real clear structure for if that damage is even effective and nothing more than suggested hp even if it does. So any time that we're dealing damage to any kind of item we are technically jumping into a whole tangle of interactions of not fully fleshed out rules. Even in the DM's manual that is meant to help DM's to deal with these kinds of things.
I Don't believe you can because you have to brandish the weapon (weild) thus you cannot use thunder gauntlets in combo anyways I believe the gauntlets can allow you to cast spell then a blade appears in your hand not making your thunder gauntlets the blade
Round and round we go. A carousel of madness. When will it stop? Nobody knows.
Shhh don't tell them. What else are they going to do with their spare time? :P
None of us have actually said that your DM shouldn't let you do it. That is something that your adding into the interpretation all by yourself. The primary reason likely being that your feeling defensive and slighted from being told what the book says even though you agree with it. Many of us have actually stated that we dont' even agree with it. We just give warning that it is an issue that people may have to face depending on where they are wanting to play. Particularly in games that stick as close to RaW as humanly possible.
None of which is an actual attack on you or others here.
There's actually more attack in passive aggressive posts about scoring points and pats on the back that people would allow it by saying it doesn't work than there is in what most of us have said about why it does not work.
Jounichi actually posts the full conversation where Jeremy Crawford basically says that it doesn't work RaW and that individual DM's have to decide but he'd allow it and that's one of the creators of the game. More importantly I'd like to point out that he actually dodges the question when it comes to Improvised Weapons. He actually states only that Items either have value based upon the books or what a specific DM give the item at their table, but in no way addresses whether that value counts for uses outside of their intended uses/purposes or not or through special properties that make them function mechanically like a different kind of item. This is clever on his part because it can be read either way a person wants to read it but it's also problematic because it's not actually a direct answer to a question. It's careful political avoidance of the answer actually and puts it on the individual GM's and games.
The downside to the whole twitter thread is that he doesn't actually get anywhere near only parts of items that are turned into weapons as extra functionality or even might be added through class features. Which is problematic on several levels and not just for the artificer. The closest he gets is saying that he'd let the cantrip work with shadow blade despite the fact that the design team as a whole released official documentation saying that it wouldn't work with Shadow Blade and Jeremy basically confirmed such at one point.
As for Gauntlet's only being part of the whole. That is also problematic on multiple levels. Both because there are a number of item descriptions that don't list them (only some of the heavy armor's do) but also there is the issue that even if they are part of the armor they are clearly meant to be seperate to some extent so that they can be replaced by things like magical gloves and gauntlets with various powers and replacing them does not cause the armor to cease functioning in the slightest if magical. Boots are of the same part of yet seperate category despite not being explicitely stated except for perhaps somewhere in magic items that for some reason I remember reading but can't locate for the life of me when I go looking. Only finding the part about having to wear both for the magic to work. Yet they still don't hamper the function of armor when switched out for their magical counterparts either way. The insistance that they are defined by the entirety of the armor and can only be part of the armor not only creates interaction problems between magical items that isn't RaW and was never intended but also creates issues fort his feature and other features of the Armorer/Artificer in the form of Replicate Magic Item infusions that happen to be magical gloves/gauntlets or footwear that can be made through such.
But that's something we don't really think about until it becomes a problem for us personally I suppose. The irony being that Wizards did think of this in the way they wrote the level 9 ability for infusions and yet didn't address other underlying issues about it.
Is Thunder Gauntlet a valid weapon with which to use Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade?
Relevant rules, bolded emphasis mine:
Something which "counts as" something else has not lost any of its original characteristics. Instead, it is treated as though it had gained additional characteristics.
Armor sets are indivisible. That is to say, no piece, or pieces, of an armor set can be construed as a divisible, separate, item, for the purposes of the rules.
Armor sets can only be counted as having divisible pieces, and only in explicit cases where rule elements specifically allow for it.
Does the Thunder Gauntlet become a separate item? No.
Does the Armor Modifications actually divide a set of armor into separate items? No. They are only counted as such, for the purposes of the Feature.
Thunder Gauntlets are indivisible from the armor set they are part of. In fact, they are never construed as a separate item, in any case. Therefore, they have the value of the armor set, and satisfy the component requirement of the cantrips in question.
Counting as a simple melee weapon satisfies the weapon requirement.
Having the value of an armor set satisfies the cost requirement.
And posting this again since you felt the need to copy this Authoritative Diatribe into more than one.
Except Pieces of them are divisible and some of them are not listed seperately with prices in the books.
Otherwise you would never be able to use any kind of boots or gloves/gauntlets or helmets with Armor, Particularly magical armor because they in fact replace parts of various armors. Yet we know these things function together. And the magical armor will continue working.
Fateless getting annoyed at someone because their opinions are strongly worded......🤣🤣🤣
@Domitian: Well reasoned post. 100% agree.
This fails to acknowledge that the items you refer to were never part of an armor set. They are only individual items. Much like armor sets cannot be divided into components parts, as per rules, individual items cannot be combined into a set of armor, as per the rules.
Your argument is unironically working against your stated position. Additional items can be worn with an armor set, precisely because the "armor set" is treated as a "set" and not as individual component items. The check is for whether the "set" is being worn, rather than "is this piece of the set, which is not recognized by the rules, being worn?"
Additional food for thought: Consider whether or not a character is wearing a set of armor. This is only a binary value. Either the character is wearing the armor set and, enjoys the statistics provided thereby, or the character is not wearing the armor set. A middle ground simply does not exist. There is no rules provision, whatsoever, for wearing some, "part," or "parts" of an armor set.
Scale Mail and Chain Mail both say "The suit includes gauntlets." Plate has "A suit of plate includes gauntlets, heavy leather boots, a visored helmet, and thick layers of padding underneath the armor."
However, Arcane Armor, the feature that actually matters, says "It also expands to cover your entire body." So it always includes gauntlets, meaning it's entirely reasonable to say the gauntlets are part of the armor, and thus have a cost. (Even though that case is never actually explicitly written.)
There's probably other edge cases around, like "can an Armorer with Arcane Armor wear regular-magic-item Gauntlets of Ogre Power?" Or, "can someone in regular Plate armor use Gauntlets of Ogre Power?" It's fairly clear that this is handled in a common-sense fashion, where armor that comes with gauntlets can have those gauntlets removed. However, if the armor had a price, then the gauntlets did too.
There is also no rules Provision for not wearing some or part of it. You also don't seem to be aware of a number of armor desriptions. Many heavy armor sets. List one or more of those parts that can be replaced with magic items as Kenlarcy has stated. Some medium armor sets do as well. But they do not actually get in the way of you using magical items in those same places if they are the same types of gear. The only objects that have a clear defining insistence or clarity about wearing all of something are magical boots and gloves. Everything else is just assumption.
So no. My position doesn't work against me. Your demands for people follow the logic chains to reach the answer that you feel is correct fails because your not following any logic chains that actually cause problems for it despite the fact that they clearly exist. You simply see them as full objects that cannot be in some way split apart when it's clear by various means that is not the intent or even the full truth according to RaW. If you wish for us to follow your Logic chains then you must there for follow all Logic Chains.
While your at it you should also note that Most of us that say it doesn't work per RaW also feel that it's probably wrong that it doesn't work per RaW. But that doesn't even enter into your thoughts does it? We are aware of your logic chain and how it works and why it works. Trying to bludgeon us into agreement with it yet again actually changes nothing in the thread or our Exact Reasoning why it doesn't work in some places. Including having StormKnight way into it in opposition to you.
Edit: And the Problem as stated from the beginning is not whether the Gauntlets have price. It's that the price is undefined. And Undefined price is a different problem from not being a separate item or not having a price. It's that it's a price we don't know and the Cantrips want to know the Price as a requirement.
Great googly goddamn boner-slapping kangaroo monkey-rutting cornhole cod filets.
WHY DO YOU PEOPLE WANT THIS TO FAIL SO FRIGGIN' BAD?
I don't get it. Literally ******* everyone that's told people they're bad terrible horrible awful people for wanting to [X] Blade with a Thunder Gauntlet, in this thread and many others, has also said "this is stupid, it should work, I'd allow it at my table, but per RAW it doesn't work and if you try it at your table you should throw yourself out a window for being the worst D&D player alive."
Why?
Why are you all so convinced that players should be drawn and quartered for doing the thing you all say you would allow in the bloody first place? The arguments for allowing it are stronger than the ones against. Not only is the RAW ambiguous, but it fits the (sub)class fantasy to a tee, it's incredibly thematic, and it's no more powerful than a Battlesmith using a Blade cantrip with an infused hittin' stick.
Just bloody let. It. Happen. It hurts no one and nothing save NPCs and monsters, and those are there to be punched. Let your Armorers have fun. Why stop them? Who is it hurting? Truly, who?
Please do not contact or message me.
Because ambiguous Rules as Written murdered their parents in a dark alleyway behind the opera house, driving them to become persnickety Rules Lawyers who must pick every nit imaginable (while dressed as a giant bat, naturally).
Your going way to far with your rant here. Because most in this thread have in no way said any of what your implying. So would you perhaps please tone it down.
Also we have outright stated our reasoning. There are places like Adventurer's League where this is not allowed and why. And that it is entirely a table home brew to allow it. One we support and a point of RaW that we think should be changed. But you are villifying us on both accounts simply because we don't ignore the middle man with outbursts like this.
We are not attacking people when we say this like you say, we are not villifying them for wanting it to work. We are just explaining exactly why it does not and your insinuations to the contrary are not helpful nor are they needed.
And Finally. It hurts Every Single Person that comes to these forums and gets told it's ok, and then goes to any place like AL and then gets told it's not and exactly what we said in some form, Usually in a less nice form than what we have done here, When we could have and should have warned them of the possibility before they went through all that.
Cool. Warning supplied. Continuing to tell people "you're wrong, stupid, bad at D&D and also blights upon society" when the argument for it working is stronger than the argument against is frustrating beyond reason.
Yes, anyone who plays AL should know what they're getting into. Adventurer's League is a hypertoxic morass of bad-faith nonsense, because Adventurer's League wants more than anything in the world to be a video game. Because it can't be a video game, it makes everyone who meets it share in its anger and misery.
This isn't the AL forum. It's the Artificer forum. Continuing to hound folks into abandoning their armorers because armorers aren't allowed to use combat magic is a shitty way to advise people.
Stahppit.
Please do not contact or message me.
Again. We have not said that. I said please the first time. This time I'm just going to say.
Quite Being Hyperbollic and Toxic. We haven't said that and your attacking us in this way is everything your accusing us of being.
If you Understand the Warning. Quit Telling us that we are wrong and how we don't understand what the rules are and why because we clearly do.
We aren't hounding People into doing anything and we're not stopping anybody from playing anything.
AL still Matters Here even if you don't like it and don't want it to.
Finally, Your Not Helping. At All.
Look, can we let this thread die already? There's nothing to be gained or said that hasn't been addressed already. It's the same arguments, again and again, that are just being made in a giant godforsaken circle.
The RAW is bad. They don't address the issue. It needs to be errata'd. That's it. That's all there is to say. We all know the arguments. They're the same arguments we've seen from the first page. Nothing new has been added. For four whole pages, nothing has been added that isn't just the same two arguments over and over.. Nothing new will be added until WotC decides to fix their stupid, badly written rules.
The rules are bad, and need to be changed. That's it. End of story.
EDIT: You know what? I'm just going to unsubscribe. There's literally nothing more to be had from this conversation anyway.
Regarding this point, it's actually worth noting that the rules don't explictly allow for swapping parts; if you look at the section of the rules on wearing and wielding magic items, it basically just comes down to "use common sense", there are no explicit rules about what you can swap for. You could even technically try to have a character wear medium sized boots over their small sized boots if you wanted; it's left entirely up to the group/DM to decide what makes sense to them.
While in practice most DM's will just rule that you can wear magic gauntlets with your existing armour on the basis that as long as you're wearing most of a set of armour then you should receive the full benefit of it, and since magic items like boots and gauntlets don't usually specify a type of armour it's reasonable to assume that they can take the place of any regular armour, but it really isn't defined at all.
In other words, sets of armour being divisible is a common ruling, but it's not RAW, but then the RAW is basically just "use common sense" so it supports it if that's what you and your DM agree. But common sense for one group may be different to another; what's the common sense going to be if your group all dress like Tidus from Final Fantasy X (who dresses like he got dragged backwards through a clothing factory)? 😂
Division of items in D&D is not defined properly at all in RAW, so a RAW argument that says an item must be divided can get real tenuous real fast.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I mentioned the specifics of magic items needing all their parts. But guess what? Gauntlets and Boots and Helmets? They don't count towards that with armor. They never have. This is even true by RaW because there is no limitation in any way what so ever to wearing things of the nature of these items with things like Magical Full Plate Mail. it's fully expected to you to wear magical items of these kinds with such things and the game is written around doing such entirely. In fact the only place that even implies that they might In fact be needed for the main piece to work is with the Armorer Artificer. It's the only place that has wording of adding these things if they aren't included or needing to count them as separate pieces for the sake of Infusions. Some of which copy existing Magical Items which would just as easily work in the place of those infusions. so it is the only place where these things are made completely whole and truely inseperable and then turns around and makes them individual pieces once more.
The only reason to have wording that makes them a Whole Item in the first place as in the case of the Arcane Armorer ability of the Artificer is because either by RAW or completely intended and though obvious reasoning that these certain indvidual pieces are not actually necessarily part of the whole even when listed as part of it. There is argument for the latter. But there is plenty of argument for the former as well despite the lack of explicit statement stating such.
I'm not disagreeing that that's how it's intended to work, what I'm saying is that the rules weirdly never actually seem to state it as such; there's nowhere that says "you can swap the boots/gauntlets/helmet of your armour for magic items of the same type without interfering with the armour's protection" or words to that effect, the only relevant rule basically just says "use common sense", which is super annoying, as there are plenty of common sense arguments that make things more, not less, complicated.
Like I say, if you're swapping plate armour boots for Boots of Elvenkind for example, are those magic boots equivalent to the plate armour boots they're replacing? Common sense could very easily say that they might not be, and that your plate armour offers less protection as a result, or that because the armour specifically lists boots, and no rule says armour can function without the complete set, then common sense could also mean you can't just swap parts out and expect to receive the benefit of the armour. How many pairs of magic boots can a centaur wear? Can you wear magic gauntlets if you only have one arm? All common sense questions with no answers in the rules, as it really just comes down to "use common sense, and you can't mix and match boots".
That's one of the things that's weird about people specifically calling out the lack of clarity in the rules for Thunder Gauntlets in particular; in truth the rules for armour and magic items in D&D are really, really vague, and sometimes even sarcastically unhelpful. For 99% of D&D players and DM's this won't be a problem, as we all have a pretty good idea of how everything is supposed to work, and of course magic boots etc. would be largely pointless without swapping since a lot of armour includes boots, but my point is that the rules don't actually state a surprising amount of things that we take for granted, which makes it difficult to use that as the basis for something in RAW.
This is one of the biggest difficulties with RAW arguments is, how far do you take it when there's actually a lot that the rules don't actually say? A lot of arguments against cantrips being usable with the gauntlets as a weapon rely on separating the pieces, but the rules don't actually tell you how that works, when it applies etc., and the "use common sense" provision is specifically for magic items (not class features), and wouldn't support arguments against using the cantrips anyway, as applying common sense should say the gauntlets have value. You end up falling into a weird situation where an argument is essentially "it doesn't work because of this, but the book doesn't actually tell you that, it just sort of vaguely implies it… maybe", and it becomes a double standard when the criticism that it's the fault of the Thunder Gauntlets rule for being unclear.
TL;DR: D&D is not a great game for RAW arguments because the rules are both surprisingly complex and frequently unclear.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
There are some oddities like magic boots that while they don't say. The rules that are there still work in the favor of being replacable. Like Magic Boots or gloves don't say you can't wear them with magical plate mail. Certain magical items are things you'd want to combine with Magical Plate mail like Gauntlet's of Ogre Power. Or the Belt of Dwarven Kind. Or Boots of Speed. Though in some respects a belt seems like an odd thing to be wearing with plate if you picture it in your mind. You start wondering how it's supposed to fit.
What is even more odd is there can be different rules for magical items and Normal Items. Magical Staves are a good example of this. Magical Staves even by the way they are written up by magical items Are meant to be Spell Foci but the general writeup outright says that All magical staves also count as a quarterstaff even if they don't explicitly say it in the write up. However the non-magical foci do not make that distinction. and the Quarterstaff is distinctly called out as a weapon with no ability to be used as a focus by the plain language of the way it is written up.
Another oddity because there is no true explicit statement is just how durable magical items are (or even regular items). Some things treat them as almost indestructible regardless of what their write up says. The Official entry about it in the DM's Guide says they are at least as durable as any non-magical version of such an item. But don't make any clear indication of when that might change or by how much. Only calling out specifically Artifacts which are actually a particularly rare kind of magic item (of which I think basically all are Legendary if not Unique) that usually says in it's write up some very convoluted way of destruction that would supersede the general rule even if it wasn't there. Yet at the same time. Several kinds of magical items have rules for what happens when you break them that are meant to be used by characters most likely lacking in the physical strength department like mages to just break when they have the need or the potentially suicidal desire to do so. But not only are those two things kind of contradictory in that they are treated extra hardy and yet are somehow willfully breakable. But the whole matter of attacking items and the damage that you deal to them has a few values that are only listed as suggested And the truth of it even by those same rules that give some suggestions is that every instance of trying to deal damage to any item, whether magical or mundane, Is entirely up to the story teller. Yet On top of all that we still have all kinds of spells that just offhandedly reference things like doing amounts of damage to (usually unattended) objects without any real clear structure for if that damage is even effective and nothing more than suggested hp even if it does. So any time that we're dealing damage to any kind of item we are technically jumping into a whole tangle of interactions of not fully fleshed out rules. Even in the DM's manual that is meant to help DM's to deal with these kinds of things.
I Don't believe you can because you have to brandish the weapon (weild) thus you cannot use thunder gauntlets in combo anyways I believe the gauntlets can allow you to cast spell then a blade appears in your hand not making your thunder gauntlets the blade