Thoughts on Mage Armor stacking with Robes and Rings

[Blackwolf]

I am debating allowing this for my game to let things like + rings of Protection and say the Robes that give an AC like the Robe of Arch Mage to stack with Mage Armor. Mage Armor says isn't wearing armor and most of these other items read similarly. Is this to Over Powering? I have created to other shields for the Fighter and semi fighter classes to use one give an AC3 the other AC4 bonus so the fighter types can get a fairly high AC after a little while. and some coin.

[Zacchaeus]

As long as the character isn't wearing armour then Mage Armour can be applied. There's nothing preventing other magic items adding to the AC. A ring of protection isn't armour and neither is a robe.

[gqwebb]

An attunement is require for most magic items and the items must be unique. Can't have 10 rings of protection +1 as you can only be attuned to one of them. And the worse part is you can only be attuned to 3 magic items.

ref DMG pg 141

MU LT IPLE ITEMS OF THE SAME KIND
U se common sense to determine whether more than
o ne of a given kind of magic item can be worn. A
c haracter can't normally wear more than one pair of
fo otwear, one pair of gloves or gauntlets, one pair of
b racers , one suit of armor , one item of head wear, and
one cloak. You can make exceptions; a character might
be able to wear a circlet under a helmet, for example, or
be able to layer two cloaks.

[Pickled Pisces]

Hello, new here but thought this would be a good way to jump in. Tricky question. It says that it's base AC is 13 plus DEX Mod. I know that magical protection isn't exactly armor. Sage Advice says

"It’s true that the target of mage
armor must be unarmored, but mage armor gives you a new
way to calculate your AC (13 + your Dexterity modifier) and
is therefore incompatible with Unarmored Defense or any
other feature that provides an AC calculation"

That makes it pretty vague. Personally as a DM, I like the lower AC's in 5th Ed. I would be careful about stacking AC Bonuses to avoid "unhittable" ACs.

[Zacchaeus]

Hello, new here but thought this would be a good way to jump in. Tricky question. It says that it's base AC is 13 plus DEX Mod. I know that magical protection isn't exactly armor. Sage Advice says

"It’s true that the target of mage
armor must be unarmored, but mage armor gives you a new
way to calculate your AC (13 + your Dexterity modifier) and
is therefore incompatible with Unarmored Defense or any
other feature that provides an AC calculation"

That makes it pretty vague. Personally as a DM, I like the lower AC's in 5th Ed. I would be careful about stacking AC Bonuses to avoid "unhittable" ACs.

The important part of that phrase is 'provides an AC Calculation'. Rings and cloaks of protection don't provide an AC calculation. They simply provide a flat bonus to the wearer's AC. Unarmoured Defense on the other hand is a calculated AC (!0 + Dex + Wis) and so mage armour isn't compatible with that since it too provides a (different) AC calculation.

The bounded accuracy of 5e allows for a maximum AC of 30 which isn't going to be terribly easy to get to but a character can still be hit even with such an AC. Furthermore both rings and cloaks of protection require attunement (which is a limitation) and they'll never have a bonus of +3 (at least from the standard magic item list).

Overall then I believe that rings and cloaks can stack fine with any AC calculation and neither taken separately or together will they ever be overpowered.

[Dragontail]

If they didnt arcane casters would have a really rough time of it.....