I am currently building a character that I was imagining wearing a Pride Silk Outfit. An outfit made of this silk essentially gives you a +1 to your AC, but it is not considered armor itself. DDB has it listed as light armor, but my understanding is that this was simply a necessary categorization because of the way the AC calculation happens in this system. It is treated as totally different "armor" category, as demonstrated by the fact that you have to manually add a custom proficiency in it if you don't want DDB to assign disadvantage to everything related to STR or DEX because "you are wearing armor you aren't proficient in" regardless of your actual proficiencies.
My questions are two-fold:
1. What are the communities thoughts on allowing Pride silk to be enchanted with +1,+2, or +3 to AC, like one could have Armor Enchanted? Additionally, if this was enchanted this way, would it then be considered "armor"? I'm curious if Bracers of Defense would work when worn with a Pride Silk Outfit?
2. Would you allow an artificer to use their "Enhanced Defense" infusion on a Pride Silk Outfit?
I would love to hear thoughts on this!
For anyone interested, the character I am working on is: Race: Variant Human, Class: Artificer - Alchemist, Background: Barkeep (Almost finished building background in DDB, will post afterwards). I am picturing the classic, well-dressed "man behind the bar" aesthetic; so I don't want him to wear traditional "Armor".
The outfit is marked as light armor, so I assume that you could find enchanted versions of it. However, the light armor title could only be to get it to fit in D&D Beyond, and the description seems to support this. I believe that it isn't a form of armor, so anything that refers to armor doesn't qualify. The reason why it isn't armor is because in the description, it says
If you aren’t wearing armor, your base Armor Class is 11 + your Dexterity modifier while wearing it.
I think Bracers of Defense are intended to work with Pride Silk, but I'd hesitate to let them work with +2/+3 versions. Consider Pride Silk + BoD to be the +3 bonus you're looking for.
BoD and Pride Silk are both trying to solve the same problem - AC of unarmored characters falls farther and farther behind as the party finds enchanted armors. As written, when you use both you can achieve the same +3 that armored characters can. Boosting Pride Silk even more is overkill at that point, which kills the justification for the houserule IMO.
Artificer's "Enhanced Defense" infusion specifically calls out a suit of armor, so it would not work with Pride Silk.
It seems more logical to be able to create a 'Pride Silk Outfit of Protection', following the model of a cloak of protection or ring of protection. Armor gets +X bonuses; non-armor defensive items get the 'of Protection' ability package.
As always with homebrew, the limit is whatever you deem it to be, but given the expense and social status of the base material I would likely consider a heavy enchantment (anything that offers +2 or better to AC, or any protective elements beyond 'of Protection') to skyrocket the price. Noblemen and wealthy top-class merchants wearing ungodly expensive pride silk garments with arcane protection built into it does, however, fit very nicely into how such people tend to operate, and I could see a lot of characters getting a lot of mileage out of what is essentially the Ye Olde Timey equivalent of a bulletproof business suit.
I see the concern shared by some respondents here that +3 is too much of a power creep potentially, and I could definitely see where that might be an issue, especially when considering the potential for BoD, which should be applicable since this is not, in and of itself, armor.
I had not thought of the "of protection" idea. Assuming that someone went with this kind of a model, would you say that something like doing +2 to AC, instead of +1 AC AND +1 to all saving throws, might be an equivalent exchange?
I saw the designation on the Enhanced Defense infusion, requiring that armor be what gets enchanted. I just figured I would throw it out to the universe to see what peoples thoughts were on this, since Pride Silk really is such a conundrum in the D&D 5e system :)
The principle is more that 'Of Protection' items grant a boost to AC and saves at the cost of requiring attunement. This is deliberate - virtually anything that messes with bounded accuracy in 5e demands attunement, in order to avoid the sort of bonus-stacking that breaks the system.
Pride silk is an AC calculator rather than an AC booster - it gives you a new way to calculate base AC, rather than simply adding onto whatever your base AC is. In this case, that makes it somewhat difficult to do as an 'of Protection' item, since Of-Protection items are boosters rather than calculators. You would have to decide what makes more sense for your table - pride silk that can be boosted similarly to regular armor, with flat additive bonuses to AC that do not require attunement as their limiting factor is the inability to stack calculations, or whether creating a garment that blends armor and a Protection enchantment into a single requires-attunement item would fit better.
In either case, the end result is likely to be exceptionally expensive. Many gold pieces will die in the creation of this object.
To be honest, there is absolutely nothing about a “Pride Silk Outfit, +2” that would break the game in any way. People think it might because “Things in 5e are bounded, and you should never go out of bounds because reasons!!” Horse poopy. They only say that because they either don’t understand the bounded accuracy, or don’t want to deal with anything extra.
Going outside of the normal boundaries is okay, as long as the DM is not careless about it, and doesn’t do it capriciously, needlessly, or without keeping track of what they have done. As long as one has a fairly decent understanding of the math, carefully considers the possible ramifications, and keeps track of their homebrews, it’s not nearly such a big deal as some make it out to be. Understanding the math helps to make sure that any potential imbalance one might create will be comparatively small, considering the potential ramifications in advance enables one to word things in such a way to avoid the kinds of goofy interactions that some of WotC stuff has (since they seem to skip this stem quite a bit), and keeping track of ones own stuff helps prevent unintended interaction with each other. And even if a DM does make something that’s a little unbalanced, those same three things provide the DM the means to fix their mistakes. I mean, if WotC can errata their stuff when it becomes painfully obvious that they messed up, then so can a DM.
Does it require a little bit more effort from the DM? Yes. And honestly that’s a perfectly valid reason to avoid the whole thing if one doesn’t have the time or desire to take on the extra work. But frankly, DDB makes at least two of those three things so much easier to do that I personally do not find it to be a great inconvenience. The math is the math. If one doesn’t like math they will have a harder time of things. But it’s easier to pick it apart when one can cycle open tabs to really see how things work side by side as opposed to flipping who knows how many pages from, wait, what book was that in again?!? It’s much easier to look that stuff up here. And the only way one can avoid keeping track of their homebrews is to avoid looking at one’s own collection entirely, at which point that’s on them.
So, are there reasons to not do such a thing? Yes, of course. Can it still be done safely anyway? Absolutely. Basically what it comes down to is each DM deciding for themselves if the juice is worth the squeeze.
My rule of thumb for items like these is that they're explicitly meant for characters who don't want to wear armor, and the game already makes it worth their while not to. As such I don't see much point in letting them get around that, so I don't allow Pride Silk to be enchanted that way. It won't break the game if you do, most likely, but for me there's no reason to. Those characters have enough alternatives to get their AC up if they want to.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
They have -one- alternative, Bracers of Defense. (Unless they're Monks or Barbarian), two for spellcasters, with Robes of the Archmagi, which doesn't stack with Pride silk Outfit.
There's nothing between the two, and no guarantees you'll get any of them in your campaign, unlike getting armor for other players.
This is also noting that the unarmored defenses, currently, completely override Pride Silk or Robes of the Archmagi. You can wear Bracers of Defense with any of these, but there is no interactions aside from that.
I am currently building a character that I was imagining wearing a Pride Silk Outfit. An outfit made of this silk essentially gives you a +1 to your AC, but it is not considered armor itself. DDB has it listed as light armor, but my understanding is that this was simply a necessary categorization because of the way the AC calculation happens in this system. It is treated as totally different "armor" category, as demonstrated by the fact that you have to manually add a custom proficiency in it if you don't want DDB to assign disadvantage to everything related to STR or DEX because "you are wearing armor you aren't proficient in" regardless of your actual proficiencies.
My questions are two-fold:
1. What are the communities thoughts on allowing Pride silk to be enchanted with +1,+2, or +3 to AC, like one could have Armor Enchanted? Additionally, if this was enchanted this way, would it then be considered "armor"? I'm curious if Bracers of Defense would work when worn with a Pride Silk Outfit?
2. Would you allow an artificer to use their "Enhanced Defense" infusion on a Pride Silk Outfit?
I would love to hear thoughts on this!
For anyone interested, the character I am working on is: Race: Variant Human, Class: Artificer - Alchemist, Background: Barkeep (Almost finished building background in DDB, will post afterwards). I am picturing the classic, well-dressed "man behind the bar" aesthetic; so I don't want him to wear traditional "Armor".
The outfit is marked as light armor, so I assume that you could find enchanted versions of it. However, the light armor title could only be to get it to fit in D&D Beyond, and the description seems to support this. I believe that it isn't a form of armor, so anything that refers to armor doesn't qualify. The reason why it isn't armor is because in the description, it says
So it clearly doesn't count as wearing armor.
I think Bracers of Defense are intended to work with Pride Silk, but I'd hesitate to let them work with +2/+3 versions. Consider Pride Silk + BoD to be the +3 bonus you're looking for.
BoD and Pride Silk are both trying to solve the same problem - AC of unarmored characters falls farther and farther behind as the party finds enchanted armors. As written, when you use both you can achieve the same +3 that armored characters can. Boosting Pride Silk even more is overkill at that point, which kills the justification for the houserule IMO.
Artificer's "Enhanced Defense" infusion specifically calls out a suit of armor, so it would not work with Pride Silk.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Isn't pride silk armor the exact same as leather armor in terms of AC?
It seems more logical to be able to create a 'Pride Silk Outfit of Protection', following the model of a cloak of protection or ring of protection. Armor gets +X bonuses; non-armor defensive items get the 'of Protection' ability package.
As always with homebrew, the limit is whatever you deem it to be, but given the expense and social status of the base material I would likely consider a heavy enchantment (anything that offers +2 or better to AC, or any protective elements beyond 'of Protection') to skyrocket the price. Noblemen and wealthy top-class merchants wearing ungodly expensive pride silk garments with arcane protection built into it does, however, fit very nicely into how such people tend to operate, and I could see a lot of characters getting a lot of mileage out of what is essentially the Ye Olde Timey equivalent of a bulletproof business suit.
Please do not contact or message me.
To Yurei1453:
I see the concern shared by some respondents here that +3 is too much of a power creep potentially, and I could definitely see where that might be an issue, especially when considering the potential for BoD, which should be applicable since this is not, in and of itself, armor.
I had not thought of the "of protection" idea. Assuming that someone went with this kind of a model, would you say that something like doing +2 to AC, instead of +1 AC AND +1 to all saving throws, might be an equivalent exchange?
Thank you for your response to my original post!.
To scatterbraind:
I saw the designation on the Enhanced Defense infusion, requiring that armor be what gets enchanted. I just figured I would throw it out to the universe to see what peoples thoughts were on this, since Pride Silk really is such a conundrum in the D&D 5e system :)
Thank you for your response to my original post!
The principle is more that 'Of Protection' items grant a boost to AC and saves at the cost of requiring attunement. This is deliberate - virtually anything that messes with bounded accuracy in 5e demands attunement, in order to avoid the sort of bonus-stacking that breaks the system.
Pride silk is an AC calculator rather than an AC booster - it gives you a new way to calculate base AC, rather than simply adding onto whatever your base AC is. In this case, that makes it somewhat difficult to do as an 'of Protection' item, since Of-Protection items are boosters rather than calculators. You would have to decide what makes more sense for your table - pride silk that can be boosted similarly to regular armor, with flat additive bonuses to AC that do not require attunement as their limiting factor is the inability to stack calculations, or whether creating a garment that blends armor and a Protection enchantment into a single requires-attunement item would fit better.
In either case, the end result is likely to be exceptionally expensive. Many gold pieces will die in the creation of this object.
Please do not contact or message me.
To be honest, there is absolutely nothing about a “Pride Silk Outfit, +2” that would break the game in any way. People think it might because “Things in 5e are bounded, and you should never go out of bounds because reasons!!” Horse poopy. They only say that because they either don’t understand the bounded accuracy, or don’t want to deal with anything extra.
Going outside of the normal boundaries is okay, as long as the DM is not careless about it, and doesn’t do it capriciously, needlessly, or without keeping track of what they have done. As long as one has a fairly decent understanding of the math, carefully considers the possible ramifications, and keeps track of their homebrews, it’s not nearly such a big deal as some make it out to be. Understanding the math helps to make sure that any potential imbalance one might create will be comparatively small, considering the potential ramifications in advance enables one to word things in such a way to avoid the kinds of goofy interactions that some of WotC stuff has (since they seem to skip this stem quite a bit), and keeping track of ones own stuff helps prevent unintended interaction with each other. And even if a DM does make something that’s a little unbalanced, those same three things provide the DM the means to fix their mistakes. I mean, if WotC can errata their stuff when it becomes painfully obvious that they messed up, then so can a DM.
Does it require a little bit more effort from the DM? Yes. And honestly that’s a perfectly valid reason to avoid the whole thing if one doesn’t have the time or desire to take on the extra work. But frankly, DDB makes at least two of those three things so much easier to do that I personally do not find it to be a great inconvenience. The math is the math. If one doesn’t like math they will have a harder time of things. But it’s easier to pick it apart when one can cycle open tabs to really see how things work side by side as opposed to flipping who knows how many pages from, wait, what book was that in again?!? It’s much easier to look that stuff up here. And the only way one can avoid keeping track of their homebrews is to avoid looking at one’s own collection entirely, at which point that’s on them.
So, are there reasons to not do such a thing? Yes, of course. Can it still be done safely anyway? Absolutely. Basically what it comes down to is each DM deciding for themselves if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
My rule of thumb for items like these is that they're explicitly meant for characters who don't want to wear armor, and the game already makes it worth their while not to. As such I don't see much point in letting them get around that, so I don't allow Pride Silk to be enchanted that way. It won't break the game if you do, most likely, but for me there's no reason to. Those characters have enough alternatives to get their AC up if they want to.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
They have -one- alternative, Bracers of Defense. (Unless they're Monks or Barbarian), two for spellcasters, with Robes of the Archmagi, which doesn't stack with Pride silk Outfit.
There's nothing between the two, and no guarantees you'll get any of them in your campaign, unlike getting armor for other players.
This is also noting that the unarmored defenses, currently, completely override Pride Silk or Robes of the Archmagi. You can wear Bracers of Defense with any of these, but there is no interactions aside from that.