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For example, +1 Leather Armor has the same total AC as nonmagical Studded Leather Armor, and +1 Splint Armor has the same AC as nonmagical Plate Armor.

Unlike with magic weapons that overcome resistances on dozens of monsters, there doesn't seem to be much point to having armor be magical "just for the sake of it". I can only think of three specific benefits:

  • Armor with lower base AC tends to be lighter (+1 Leather is 10 lb., compared to Studded Leather's 13 lb.)
  • Oozes (Black Pudding and Gray Ooze are the only ones I can find) and Rust Monsters can damage nonmagical armor, but not magical armor.
  • According to the DMG, "Most" magic items have resistance to damage. There don't seem to be many rules for how many hit points armor has, but this rule can at least help.

I feel like there has to be more of a point than just these. Are there any other types of monsters or spells that are less effective against magical armor?

Actually, thinking about it, this might also extend to "what's the benefit of +2 Leather compared to +1 Studded Leather." Or it might not, I don't know.

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    \$\begingroup\$ You basically answered your own question there haha. If you take out everything you found and pasted that as an answer I think it's solid! You did good research! \$\endgroup\$
    – user77842
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 7:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ Historically (in D&D, not real life), armor had other stats, such as different caps to Dex bonus. \$\endgroup\$
    – ikegami
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 16:57
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    \$\begingroup\$ in 5e there's little reason for more than 3 kinds of armor to exist after gp cost becomes negligible. Unfortunately it carried over all of them from previous editions. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rad80
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 17:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ What about the benefits of the nonmagical armor? Antimagic Field has no effect on nonmagical armor, it cannot be detected by Detect Magic... I'm sure there's others \$\endgroup\$
    – Nacht
    Commented Aug 9, 2022 at 2:22

4 Answers 4

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It's Mostly Legacy Content

You've done a pretty solid job of rounding up the benefits of +1 Leather over Studded Leather. Is that a pretty unimpressive list? You bet it is.

D&D5 is, in many ways, a simplification of some of the more commonly interacted with elements of D&D, armor class among them. Armor calculations in D&D5 are very simple, which is how +1 Leather and Studded Leather end up being essentially the same thing. This is not true in past editions of D&D. The straight up AC calculation of +1 Leather vs Studded Leather is the same as in past D&D, but other factors like Max Dex Bonus, Arcane Spell Failure, Armor Check Penalties, etc, differ from version to version. In 5e, those are non-factors.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Weight was also a bigger factor in previous editions because of how they handled carrying capacity, and the five pound difference (and higher base weights) in earlier editions seriously mattered for some characters because of this. In fact, in 3.5e and PF1e I think I’ve more often decided on what armor to use based on the weight than based on the other stats (but then, I usually play either classes that wear no armor or classes that don’t care at all about the other penalties). \$\endgroup\$
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 18:27
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The benefit is that the AC the armour gives is +1 over what a non-magical version would have. You generally use it when you have nothing better than you can use. Studded Leather doesn't come as part of starting equipment for most of the classes that end up wearing light armour so you might find Leather +1 before you have a chance to acquire Studded Leather (this is more likely in certain campaign types than in others). Same with +1 Splint and Plate, you might find one before the other, especially since Plate Armour is expensive. The other reason you might prefer one over the other is flavour and role-playing.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Well, studded leather in particular is only 45gp so there's a fair chance you can buy it immediately or at least very soon. +1 armor is actually rare so it won't drop until T2 play. WRT plate vs split +1 it's pretty legit though, because saving up 1500gp can sometimes be a task and take into T2. \$\endgroup\$
    – user77842
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 8:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @user77842 depends on the campaign, if it's some dungeon crawl - type campaign then you might not have opportunities to buy anything for quite a while if at all, you might find your armour in a treasure pile somewhere in a corner though \$\endgroup\$
    – AnnaAG
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 8:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ Studded not being starting equipment doesn't quite hold when including the Artificer. Not that it really invalidates your point. \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil ♦
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 10:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ The question this answer raises is, why would someone bother to enchant leather or splint? In-universe it makes sense that those armour types exist, as they're more cost effective, but given that the price of a magic item makes the base cost difference fairly minor, it's odd that enchanted versions of worse armour would exist \$\endgroup\$
    – StephenTG
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 12:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ @StephenTG don't expect the economy of d&d to make sense, it's an adventure game, not a real world simulator. Chances are players aren't even going to consider it from this point of view and if they do, then the DM can come up with some sort of justification, e.g. perhaps the apprentices practice on these types of material as it's cheaper so not much harm done if it ends up ruined and on the chance that it does come out nicely, it can be sold for some profit. The players generally aren't going to be enchanting anything themselves as it's much more hassle than just buying what they want \$\endgroup\$
    – AnnaAG
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 12:26
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It makes the rules simpler and is valuable loot

You identified most of the in-game mechanical benefits.

There also is an out-of-game benefit to having +1 for any armor type: it makes for simpler rules.

If you would exclude it, then you would need to have extra text on all the +1 magic items, that it excludes something like leather armor or splint mail.

It would also cause people to wonder: why would it be impossible to enchant a leather armor, or a split mail? It seems it certainly should be possible to do so.

Due to all that overhead, it seems much simpler to just have +1 armor of any type, even if some of them are not that exciting, mechanically speaking. I think this is likely the real reason why these items are in the game.

Magic items of any kind also still count as valuable loot. While it is not easy to sell magic items, there are optional rules for it (DMG p. 130), and as a rare item, such armor if some collector is interested in it can fetch a tidy price of around 5,000 gp - you can finance a lot of other useful items from it. Selling "useless" magic items can create a little mini-game that increases engagement, compared to just finding a pile of gold.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I suspect another reason such items are "in the game" is as a legacy from previous editions, where +1 leather did have other benefits. However, that gets to unsubstantiated designer intent. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kirt
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 16:19
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Your assessment is correct. The main reason you will use +1 leather is because you happened to get it as loot.

There are also rules for how much AC/HP items have, they are in the objects section; but that said there's not much difference between leather and studded in terms of how durable each item is.

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