Is this homebrew magical Cape of Defense balanced?

Question

This is basically a dialed down version of the Bracers of Defense:

Cape of Defense

Wondrous Item, uncommon (requires attunement)

While wearing this cape, you gain a +1 bonus to AC if you are wearing no armor and using no shield.

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My intent for the item is to provide it to some level 3 characters, and I intend it to be perceived as a useful but not extremely powerful item.

I don’t want the melee types to benefit from a very high AC at this stage (chain mail + shield gives a warrior 18 AC already), hence the description. (By contrast, a Cloak of Protection's benefits stack with armor and shields, which I did not want.)

In my world magic items can be found in shops in major cities and can be sold anywhere provided that the merchant has enough money to afford it.

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The changes are:

• Cape instead of bracers.
• AC+1 instead of AC+2
• Uncommon instead of Rare.
• Price: 1500gp instead of 6000gp (according to Sane Magical Items).

Does this keep the balance for the item?

Answer 1

This may be a bit weak

Note that this proposed cape is strictly worse than the existing Cloak of Protection:

You gain a +1 bonus to AC and saving throws while you wear this cloak.

The cloak grants a bonus to saving throws on top of the AC and works along with armor and shields.

Other than the fact that the cloak is listed as 3500 gp in that list, it is better than your proposed cloak in every way.

Reducing the item to common is not recommended

This comparison to the Cloak of Protection may lead one to believe that reducing the rarity to common is a way to solve this. However, this item is still granting a static bonus to AC and according to DMG guidelines (page 285), this means the magic item should at least be uncommon.

This places it in a weird spot where it seems weak for uncommon but strong for common.

The price

You should keep in mind that the price list for magic items you are using is homebrew. Regardless, even using that list, you can find an Ioun stone of Protection that simply grants +1 to AC listed at 1200 gp which you may want to use instead.