Hi.

There seem to be a bug in bracers of defense item. It doesn't add the +2 AC to the character sheet.

Works for me. Are you attuning them and not wearing armor?

Yep. It's on a tortle. Don't know if there is something in that?

Ok, I can reproduce the bug with tortle. I tried a few other races with natural armor (loxodon and Warforged) and it worked for them (which notably the Warforged have the same wording for their natural armor ability). So the bug only seems to be effecting the Tortle race.

Ye, I can make it work with other races aswell. So it seems to be tortle AC that bugs it.

I'm having this issue with a Half-Orc too.

Quote from spiddydoddy >>

I'm having this issue with a Half-Orc too.

 
So you've equipped the bracers to the standard half-orc race character and attuned to the bracers, but the AC doesn't change?

If so please provide a link to the character sheet.

There is still no change.  A year later. Has this issue been solved? The Bracers of Defense do not work with my Tortle. 

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

Quote from Drawfonaf >>

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

 
Ring and Cloak of protection do stack on the sheet.

Just to be clear, everyone is aware that Tortle AC is "17 no matter what unless your own ac is naturally higher", so if you were a Monk and your combined dex and wis gave you total AC of 18, as a tortle, then you should be able to add the bracers and get ac 20 - which works, just tested it.

I'm guessing your characters do not have an AC or greater without this tortle feature, you won't see the benefit of the bracers.

It works this way because the modifiers are setting "minimum base AC" as 17. So, your AC will show 17 regardless of equipment, unless you can get higher without this feature.

Now, of course, it should not work this way, this is the incorrect modifier to use. The feature as worded should be an AC calculation, instead of 10 + Dex, you get 17 instead. It should work as an unarmoured AC calculation. So anything that boosts unarmoured AC should stack.

The issue is a bug because the devs used the wrong thing setting up the feature.

Quote from Drawfonaf >>

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

 A Ring of Protection and a Cloak of Protection absolutely stack on top of each other. If they do not on your character sheet then you have a bug.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Quote from Drawfonaf >>

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

 
Ring and Cloak of protection do stack on the sheet.

Just to be clear, everyone is aware that Tortle AC is "17 no matter what unless your own ac is naturally higher", so if you were a Monk and your combined dex and wis gave you total AC of 18, as a tortle, then you should be able to add the bracers and get ac 20 - which works, just tested it.

I'm guessing your characters do not have an AC or greater without this tortle feature, you won't see the benefit of the bracers.

It works this way because the modifiers are setting "minimum base AC" as 17. So, your AC will show 17 regardless of equipment, unless you can get higher without this feature.

Now, of course, it should not work this way, this is the incorrect modifier to use. The feature as worded should be an AC calculation, instead of 10 + Dex, you get 17 instead. It should work as an unarmoured AC calculation. So anything that boosts unarmoured AC should stack.

The issue is a bug because the devs used the wrong thing setting up the feature.

 I don't think that is correct. Unless the Bracers the cloak and the ring are all calculated differently. I just made 2 tortles both lvl20. One with a dex of 8 and the other with dex of 20.

Bracers of Defense: Do NOT work for either.

Ring of Protection: Works for both dex 8 and t dex20.

Cloak of Protection:

   Works for Dex 20 tortle; does NOT work for Dex 8 Tortle.

 Edit 1&2: accidentally posted twice. Then did not document it.

Quote from Sporksabre1 >>

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Quote from Drawfonaf >>

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

 
Ring and Cloak of protection do stack on the sheet.

Just to be clear, everyone is aware that Tortle AC is "17 no matter what unless your own ac is naturally higher", so if you were a Monk and your combined dex and wis gave you total AC of 18, as a tortle, then you should be able to add the bracers and get ac 20 - which works, just tested it.

I'm guessing your characters do not have an AC or greater without this tortle feature, you won't see the benefit of the bracers.

It works this way because the modifiers are setting "minimum base AC" as 17. So, your AC will show 17 regardless of equipment, unless you can get higher without this feature.

Now, of course, it should not work this way, this is the incorrect modifier to use. The feature as worded should be an AC calculation, instead of 10 + Dex, you get 17 instead. It should work as an unarmoured AC calculation. So anything that boosts unarmoured AC should stack.

The issue is a bug because the devs used the wrong thing setting up the feature.

 

 I don't think that is correct. Unless the Bracers the cloak and the ring are all calculated differently. I just made 2 tortles both lvl20. One with a dex of 8 and the other with dex of 20.

 

Bracers of Defense: Do NOT work for either.

Ring of Protection: Works for both dex 8 and t dex20.

Cloak of Protection:

   Works for Dex 20 tortle; does NOT work for Dex 8 Tortle.

 Edit 1&2: accidentally posted twice. Then did not document it.

 
No, it is completely correct.

Dex 20 is AC 15, less than the 17 AC of the tortle feature. As I said, you need to get AC 17 through other features then apply bracers to show it works. Which I did. Easily with a Monk (Dex 20 and wis 20 = AC 20, so anything added beyond this shows) and Barb (same as monk but with con), with a wizard using Robes of Archmagi and dex 20, with a dex 20, int 20 bladesinger tortle. Etc. All works as I detailed.

Ring and Cloak stack, and both work for tortle. Again the reason why you might think it isn't is because you're not seeing an AC of 17 without the feature. A Dex 8 is AC 9, so you're seeing an AC less of 17 without the feature, so the feature being higher overrides to 17.

Basically the feature is "Is the AC at 17? No: show 17, Yes: show normal AC."

The items are applying and working. It's just the combined AC is less than 17, so the feature overrides all of it and shows 17 instead.

Again, this is not the way it's supposed to work, (devs gone goofed) but this is what is happening.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Quote from Sporksabre1 >>

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

Quote from Drawfonaf >>

The problem with the tortle might be a redundancy issue. Like a ring "of protection" doesn't add with a cloak "of protection." the system may recognize a tortle feature as a primary & the bracers as a secondary redundancy. Are there any tortle features or sub-features "of defense?"

 
Ring and Cloak of protection do stack on the sheet.

Just to be clear, everyone is aware that Tortle AC is "17 no matter what unless your own ac is naturally higher", so if you were a Monk and your combined dex and wis gave you total AC of 18, as a tortle, then you should be able to add the bracers and get ac 20 - which works, just tested it.

I'm guessing your characters do not have an AC or greater without this tortle feature, you won't see the benefit of the bracers.

It works this way because the modifiers are setting "minimum base AC" as 17. So, your AC will show 17 regardless of equipment, unless you can get higher without this feature.

Now, of course, it should not work this way, this is the incorrect modifier to use. The feature as worded should be an AC calculation, instead of 10 + Dex, you get 17 instead. It should work as an unarmoured AC calculation. So anything that boosts unarmoured AC should stack.

The issue is a bug because the devs used the wrong thing setting up the feature.

 

 I don't think that is correct. Unless the Bracers the cloak and the ring are all calculated differently. I just made 2 tortles both lvl20. One with a dex of 8 and the other with dex of 20.

 

Bracers of Defense: Do NOT work for either.

Ring of Protection: Works for both dex 8 and t dex20.

Cloak of Protection:

   Works for Dex 20 tortle; does NOT work for Dex 8 Tortle.

 Edit 1&2: accidentally posted twice. Then did not document it.

 
No, it is completely correct.

Dex 20 is AC 15, less than the 17 AC of the tortle feature. As I said, you need to get AC 17 through other features then apply bracers to show it works. Which I did. Easily with a Monk (Dex 20 and wis 20 = AC 20, so anything added beyond this shows) and Barb (same as monk but with con), with a wizard using Robes of Archmagi and dex 20, with a dex 20, int 20 bladesinger tortle. Etc. All works as I detailed.

Ring and Cloak stack, and both work for tortle. Again the reason why you might think it isn't is because you're not seeing an AC of 17 without the feature. A Dex 8 is AC 9, so you're seeing an AC less of 17 without the feature, so the feature being higher overrides to 17.

 

Basically the feature is "Is the AC at 17? No: show 17, Yes: show normal AC."

The items are applying and working. It's just the combined AC is less than 17, so the feature overrides all of it and shows 17 instead.

Again, this is not the way it's supposed to work, (devs gone goofed) but this is what is happening.

Thank you for explaining it to me again.. You where correct.

I overrode the dex and bumped it to 26 for an AC of 18.

All three items worked as they should. 

It is weird that the cloak would work on my low dex tortle when the other two others wouldn't. Really confused me. 

I know that you can only use one  calculation  to get a characters AC. Like you pointed out for your monk. You can't take your (dex+wis) ac and add it to your natural armor AC17. but I thought +1 items could be used for either.  (natural armor ac17)+1 or (dex+wis)+1 but not (ac17+wiz)+1... (I could be wrong) 

Still confused re: it is not the way it's supposed to work. As I see it, there are 2 ways it should work for tortles:. +1ac items only add to the standard dex  calculation and not to the tortles natural armor or it should add th the higher.

Which part is wrong? Or rather, which way is it supposed to work for the tortle? 

Items like the cloak, ring and bracers are pure bonus, not calculations, meaning they should always stack with AC  with the two exceptions: bracers will only work if not wearing armour (the Tortle is not wearing armour, in fact their feature specifically states they can't wear or benefit from armour) and the second exception is the Barkskin spell. The barkskin spell specifically says your AC will be 16 unless you can get higher without it. Currently the Tortle AC feature is working the same way as this spell. But it shouldn't. The spell specifically describes how the AC works as an "override unless already higher", but the Tortle feature doesn't, it just says instead of your normal AC calculation being AC 10 + Dex, it's a 17 instead and dex doesn't add to it. In otherwords you treat it the same as an AC calculation (so magic items that boost AC stack).

By RAW a Tortle wearing the bracers would get AC 19. On D&D Beyond, however, they don't because their natural armour (which still counts as being unarmoured) is set up incorrectly. When the devs made up the tortle into the system they should have created a new unarmoured AC option to disallow dex and set it as 17. They didn't. For reasons I do not understand, they instead copied the Barkskin spell modifier. This was either misinterpretation of the feature or laziness. I'm hoping the former.