mage armor not stacking my monk?

[Vertigo]

I had a single class monk with +4 dex who would get to something like 20-21ac with mage armor.

Right now I have a +2 dex [same wisdom modifier, no armor] who is only getting to like 16ac. Mage armor has no effect even though it shows her base ac as 10.

Is this a bug? I only noticed it after taking a level of paladin, but she still has no armor.

[Vox Maximus]

Originally posted by Panda:

Originally posted by Daskard:

This makes the monk passive 100% useless, since you can simply buff your char with mage armor in camp (from a companion you leave in camp even) after a long rest.
The monk passive might as well not exist.

"But you can increase your Wisdom to 18+ ..." - yeah, show me the ability point box you found, so that you have points to spare in Wisdom (only ONE item increases wisdom ... by 1)

Monk doesn’t need high dex, you only need wisdom, use str potions for damage, max wisdom, that’s all, for feats you only need tavern brawler.
There is nearly no reason for monk not to use armour in the late game, take +3 angry drow shield, take light armour helmet for extra bonus action, your passive armour is done here.

Alert makes a huge difference for monk.

Monk loses a lot of mobility with the armor. Just get high con and it will easily reach 19AC which is plenty for monk actually.

[larhtas]

Originally posted by Vox Maximus:

Originally posted by Panda:

Monk doesn’t need high dex, you only need wisdom, use str potions for damage, max wisdom, that’s all, for feats you only need tavern brawler.
There is nearly no reason for monk not to use armour in the late game, take +3 angry drow shield, take light armour helmet for extra bonus action, your passive armour is done here.

Alert makes a huge difference for monk.

Monk loses a lot of mobility with the armor. Just get high con and it will easily reach 19AC which is plenty for monk actually.

High wis you mean?

[guard65]

The fact is there are two types of armor definitions.

One is AC Base, like armor, unarmored, and things like mage armor. They change the Base AC value and do not stack.

The second is enhancement / buff to AC which does stack with both Base AC and other enhanced AC buffs.

Shields actually fall into buff category but they but they wrote in some exceptions with some class abilities to not include the shield with monk unarmored abilities.

[Vox Maximus]

Originally posted by larhtas:

Originally posted by Vox Maximus:

Alert makes a huge difference for monk.

Monk loses a lot of mobility with the armor. Just get high con and it will easily reach 19AC which is plenty for monk actually.

High wis you mean?

Right

[Simon McAllister]

Originally posted by Panda:

Originally posted by Daskard:

This makes the monk passive 100% useless, since you can simply buff your char with mage armor in camp (from a companion you leave in camp even) after a long rest.
The monk passive might as well not exist.

"But you can increase your Wisdom to 18+ ..." - yeah, show me the ability point box you found, so that you have points to spare in Wisdom (only ONE item increases wisdom ... by 1)

Monk doesn’t need high dex, you only need wisdom, use str potions for damage, max wisdom, that’s all, for feats you only need tavern brawler.
There is nearly no reason for monk not to use armour in the late game, take +3 angry drow shield, take light armour helmet for extra bonus action, your passive armour is done here.

Your melee weapons go off dexterity which works well with Monks cause it allows you to use bows as well. As long as you don't want to use two handed weapons all your weapons go off dexterity that you have proficiency with even the weapons without the finese tag. But to be fair if you go too low in strength your carrying capacity is really low. That is why gear such as the gloves of dexterity or the graceful cloth are great for monks. But wisdom is the spell casting ability similar to Paladin, game tells you strength but spell casting goes off from Charisma not strength. So you want a balance of both.

[Simon McAllister]

Originally posted by Vox Maximus:

Originally posted by Simon McAllister:

Your melee weapons go off dexterity which works well with Monks cause it allows you to use bows as well. As long as you don't want to use two handed weapons all your weapons go off dexterity that you have proficiency with even the weapons without the finese tag. But to be fair if you go too low in strength your carrying capacity is really low. That is why gear such as the gloves of dexterity or the graceful cloth are great for monks. But wisdom is the spell casting ability similar to Paladin, game tells you strength but spell casting goes off from Charisma not strength. So you want a balance of both.

Str or Dex for melee whichever is higher and for spells Wis. Charisma is irrelevant for monks.

If you read a little more closely I said Paladin uses Charisma for its spellcassting ability not Monks.