An "important" question......

[nrgould]

......that is "completely serious", but I never thought of for the first few years of playing ddo.

What terrible affliction that torments all adventurous beings in Eberron means that a person can only manage to wear two rings at a time?!?!

Some kind of horrible fat finger plague?
REALLY heavy rings causing lack of mobility in hands?
A fashion statement across the planar dimensions?

Surely one of the mysteries of the universe........
(Apologies for the "...." use, when is apple going to invent the world-wide accepted sarcastic/non-serious font?)

[HelvanderSeries6]

If I recall correctly there is a Artificer feat in D&D that allows for more rings....(cough cough) devs?

[vyvy3369]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm

Magical item slot usage mostly comes straight from PnP. The way to get around the restriction there was to create customized "slotless" items, similar to ioun stones. I believe they went with everyone getting one trinket slot instead, and it makes sense in an MMO.

[Lleren]

If you try and wear two magic rings on the same hand they mate.
Most find this terribly distracting.

[susiedupfer]

I could pin many trinkets on my armor...

[Heladron]

Funny this topic should come up. Just the other day I was thinking why can our character wear only two rings. However rings are pretty common and one could become quite powerful with the ability to wear 8-10 rings.

I suppose we wouldn't want to walk around god-like in front of the citizens of Eveningstar. They might get ideas.

[Maxtrenth]

There is an artificer feat that allows them to wear four rings (two per hand). Should be in the main Eberron handbook.....That feat would be awesome to add in , the only other feat I would love to see (but doubt will EVER make it in!!!) is the one that gives you four extra APs per level...... ;-)

[sebastianosmith]

...one could become quite powerful with the ability to wear 8-10 rings.

You don't say...
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/main/sites/default/files/topten/images/291055-112600-the-mandarin_super.jpeg

[Heladron]

You don't say...
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/main/sites/default/files/topten/images/291055-112600-the-mandarin_super.jpeg

LOL! That's Awesome.

[Asmodeus451]

i can actually answer this one! (yay!)



the "lore" reason is that the magical properties exuded by enchanted rings dont "mesh" well, and attempting to force them (2 magic rings) into such close proximity with each other causes BAD THINGS(tm) to happen

kinda like when you put a Bag of Holding into another Bag of Holding (except with far less predictable results)

[brian14]

i can actually answer this one! (yay!)



the "lore" reason is that the magical properties exuded by enchanted rings dont "mesh" well, and attempting to force them (2 magic rings) into such close proximity with each other causes BAD THINGS(tm) to happen

kinda like when you put a Bag of Holding into another Bag of Holding (except with far less predictable results)
I honestly do not remember if it was part of official 2nd edition AD&D, or my own house rule, but the way I handled multiple rings in my PnP campaigns was this: If you wear more than one magic ring on a hand, only one is active at any time. Which one is active, changes randlomly every round.

At least one player I recall would enthusiastically stick a ring on every finger just to see random fireworks.

[Zyerz]

......that is "completely serious", but I never thought of for the first few years of playing ddo.

What terrible affliction that torments all adventurous beings in Eberron means that a person can only manage to wear two rings at a time?!?!

Some kind of horrible fat finger plague?
REALLY heavy rings causing lack of mobility in hands?
A fashion statement across the planar dimensions?

Surely one of the mysteries of the universe........
(Apologies for the "...." use, when is apple going to invent the world-wide accepted sarcastic/non-serious font?)


This has alwayse been something i've wondered myself. But I believe pnp also limits you to two rings for this obvious purpose:

Think how game breaking it could be. Having 10 rings, each with the best potentials available to rings (dex, str, con, spell pen, spell power, fort, FF, striding). You could then slot really powerful gear on the other slots and not have to sacrifice much. You'd be able to equip every stat increase item without sacrificing other items you might use nowadays. I constantly find myself swapping my magi necklace for my nullification one. My Dex +6 ring for my Disable Device ring, etc. And stuff like that. I had to completely change my gear settings so I could wear the purple knight gauntlets and helm. Had to find a new heavy fort item (a ring to replace minos), get an item with alacrity (druid commendation armor) and a new pair of bracers (got the villager commendations one for the parrying to somewhat replace the resistance +6 fabricators gauntlets had)

[LazarusPossum]

I could pin many trinkets on my armor...

This is DDO, not T.G.I. Friday's. We don't need more flair. :D

[fco-karatekid]

I honestly do not remember if it was part of official 2nd edition AD&D, or my own house rule, but the way I handled multiple rings in my PnP campaigns was this: If you wear more than one magic ring on a hand, only one is active at any time. Which one is active, changes randlomly every round.

At least one player I recall would enthusiastically stick a ring on every finger just to see random fireworks.

Did he later do a wild mage? sounds like that type of personality.

[dunklezhan]

i can actually answer this one! (yay!)



the "lore" reason is that the magical properties exuded by enchanted rings dont "mesh" well, and attempting to force them (2 magic rings) into such close proximity with each other causes BAD THINGS(tm) to happen

kinda like when you put a Bag of Holding into another Bag of Holding (except with far less predictable results)

In my view, the lore reason is stupid, and always has been.

What, rings only interfere with other rings? Why, for god's sake? There needs to be a better explanation than that. Even something like this would be better:

'when you forge magical effects into a circular physical shape, it's aura changes to a type which will interfere with other, similar types of aura. The 'circular' shape does not need to be complete, only curved back on itself enough that each 'end' of the aura touches (thereby stopping players from making not quite whole rings to circumvent this effect). At that point, any other similar aura (i.e. one generated from a ring or ring shaped artefact of any size) which intersects causes the effects to nullify after approximately 5-7 seconds (i.e. 1 round). The range of this effect is approximately 3 inches - enough that wearing two rings on one hand is likely to cause the auras to intersect. Folks with one hand will probably therefore need to put their second ring on a toe. Folks with small hands (e.g. halflings) may need to consider doing the same to avoid adverse effects when wielding a 2 handed weapon or carrying out other 2 handed activities'.

Long winded, but covers it in a more satisying way than 'they just don't mesh very well' for most reasonable people.

It won't cover it for folks who think everything comes down to maths and that all rules should be taken literally all the time regardless of what's actually happened (There are GMS out there who would take this view: 'oh, there's no rules for throwing that halfling to the other side of the 5ft wide piranha infested stream to tie that rope. I know you have Str 30 and the halfling has taken off their armour and things but there's no rules, so you can't do it. You'll just have to swim and get eaten, sorry.' I hate those guys).

The other reason the official explanation (and mine above) is silly is that pretty much anything that can go on a wondrous item can go on a ring and vice versa. Other forms of magical clothing (armour is not clothing) and jewellry (bracers, necklaces) are considered 'wondrous items', there really isn't a good reason for rings to be different. There really isn't a difference except that they (TSR/Wizards of the coast, rather than Turbine) arbitrarily decided that Forge Ring was required for rings for no reason I can readily discern except to force folks who want to craft to give up as many other abilities as possible.

Arms and Armour being different? Sure, they are functional equipment even without magic, and must be masterwork (i.e. **** good weapons and armour made by a master craftsman requiring specialist skills. A jewller is however a jeweller, so why would rings be different from necklaces, really?). Wands? Scrolls? Potions? Yeah, they all seem really pretty darn different from each other.

But if a necklace is a wondrous item, so should a ring. But they aren't. Stupid stupid stupid.


So I ignore the 'official' reason and I don't bother with my own reasoning either. If my players ask they get told straight up that it's a game balance thing, so suck it up. Usually I would never take that line but there's just no good IC reason for rings to work this way except for 'balance'. You may as well say 'oh, becuase the god/goddess of magic forbids it'. At least that's relevant to the game world.

Players who then continued to argue for more rings as a house rule would in my tabletop (pathfinder) game simply get told: core rules say maximum '+10' effects on any single item. If you want a house rule here it is: All rings worn by a person count as a single item. Wanna wear ten rings? Sure. But they'll be ten +1 rings. Want to wear 2? That's also fine, as long as they don't add up to more than +10 effect value, go for it. Wearing more than +10 just means effects will deactivate until you've got +10 or less. If that functionally means only one of your rings works because it's a +10 on it's own... suck it up.


TL; DR

In DDO, which simply doesn't 'do' roleplay and story and things in any way that makes the slightest different to how the majority of folks I encounter play, you can only wear two rings because the devs (or Wizards of the Coast) decided you can only wear two rings. And they did that for game balance. Suck it up.

[brian14]

Did he later do a wild mage? sounds like that type of personality.
It was a she, and yes she did have "that type of personality". No, she never played a wild mage, but if anything she topped that. She played a chaotic neutral cleric of Ssendam, Lord of Insanity.

For those who do not know, Ssendam is a slaad lord. Read his name backward.

[DeafeningWhisper]

So... If the rings can't be close together wouldn't that that make THF a big no-no?

[sebastianosmith]

This is DDO, not T.G.I. Friday's. We don't need more flair. :D

20 pieces minimum!

http://panicbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/office-space-flair.png

[gordgray]

i can actually answer this one! (yay!)



the "lore" reason is that the magical properties exuded by enchanted rings dont "mesh" well, and attempting to force them (2 magic rings) into such close proximity with each other causes BAD THINGS(tm) to happen

kinda like when you put a Bag of Holding into another Bag of Holding (except with far less predictable results)


Yes you are very correct

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I honestly do not remember if it was part of official 2nd edition AD&D, or my own house rule, but the way I handled multiple rings in my PnP campaigns was this: If you wear more than one magic ring on a hand, only one is active at any time. Which one is active, changes randlomly every round.

At least one player I recall would enthusiastically stick a ring on every finger just to see random fireworks.

I don't actually remember slot rules in 2nd edition at all, or at least not ring-specific rules. Granted, that was ages ago.

[Hambo]

If you try and wear two magic rings on the same hand they mate.
Most find this terribly distracting.

...Or short each other out cataclysmically :D

BTW, OP, It's coming out in court (Apple vs. Samsung) that Apple doesn't invent anything they can acquire by devious means :D (jk)

[Orratti]

It is an actual d&d rule. One magical ring per hand. I suppose you could wear all the cosmetic rings you wanted to on the rest of your fingers if that would make you feel better.

The magical properties are interrupted if more than one is on a hand.

[munificence]

Forget more than two rings, I want multiple necklaces!

http://www.wanderinggoblin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Mr-T.jpg

[Scraap]

PnP Lore wise it's entirely possible to wear more than one ring per hand.

Of course, without some specialty feats, one round later you're short a hand or two, as the magic resonates and goes off like a pocket-nuke but hey, it's *possible* :p

[DeafeningWhisper]

Should we be able to put a ring on our spare hand?

[Raithe]

Yes, I've often wondered why my character doesn't ever seem to need to empty his/her bladder, even after drinking dozens of potions... :rolleyes:.

Regardless of whatever "lore" is used as justification, it's obviously a simplification for gaming purposes. They could divide out all the current ring effects so that you had to put 5 different rings on your hand to match the benefits of one currently, but what would be the point of that?

I love how DDO suddenly becomes a roleplaying game when someone wants to maximize their item effects...

[cdbd3rd]

As the topic has received it's root answer - I shall help fuel the digression:

There was one character in an old 1st ed campaign who gained the ability to wear a third ring without penalty. (Not THERE! :eek:)

The group managed to gain temporary access to the Machine of Lum the Mad artifact. I had expansive tables set up taken from every game I owned at the time, including Gamma World mutation lists. A character gained a third arm protruding from between his shoulder blades. I ruled that that hand could wear an extra magic ring. This was balanced by the fact the character could not wear armor after that.

[porq]

On a related subject, why is it that every part of a character's body is glowing like a magic christmas tree, save for the legs?
Why don't we have pants as a slot?

[sebastianosmith]

Why don't we have pants as a slot?

When the magic goes bad would you rather lose a finger or... well, you get the picture. :D

[RedOrm]

Because people forgot about them?
I've always suspected the 2-ring policy to be due to the nefarious influence of lazy programmers, but since it never came up, never actually officially tossed the rule. I DID introduce magical bracelets, anklets, earrings, pins, brooches, charms and other jewelry and clothing, including the all-famous Everdry Socks.
Oh and yes, you COULD wear multiple necklaces; why on earth not? That limit wasn't so much tossed as never even introduced.

[JollySwagMan]

Yes, I've often wondered why my character doesn't ever seem to need to empty his/her bladder, even after drinking dozens of potions... :rolleyes:.

Regardless of whatever "lore" is used as justification, it's obviously a simplification for gaming purposes. They could divide out all the current ring effects so that you had to put 5 different rings on your hand to match the benefits of one currently, but what would be the point of that?

I love how DDO suddenly becomes a roleplaying game when someone wants to maximize their item effects...

This...

[Hambo]

Because people forgot about them?
I've always suspected the 2-ring policy to be due to the nefarious influence of lazy programmers, but since it never came up, never actually officially tossed the rule. I DID introduce magical bracelets, anklets, earrings, pins, brooches, charms and other jewelry and clothing, including the all-famous Everdry Socks.
Oh and yes, you COULD wear multiple necklaces; why on earth not? That limit wasn't so much tossed as never even introduced.

Hehe...

I could see two necklaces of oposite characteristics, to the point that they would be physically repelled from each other, as "like" magnetic poles are.

Put them both on and BAM! Instant vorpal effect :D

[ZeebaNeighba]

And I wanted to wear my gloves of the glacier but my greensteel gloves at the same time...why can't I just wear one of each? :rolleyes:

[nrgould]

And I wanted to wear my gloves of the glacier but my greensteel gloves at the same time...why can't I just wear one of each? :rolleyes:

Ha ha. Love it.