Ring Mail
Heavy armor: AC 14 flat. [[compendium:skill:Stealth]] disadvantage. No STR requirement. Weakest heavy armor — usually outperformed by medium armor.
Ring Mail (Heavy)
Ring mail is leather armor with heavy metal rings sewn into it, providing basic heavy armor protection.
Stats:
Don/doff time: 10 minutes to don, 5 minutes to doff.
Assessment: Ring mail is the cheapest and weakest heavy armor. At AC 14, it provides the same AC as a chain shirt (AC 15 with +2 DEX) but without the Dexterity bonus and with stealth disadvantage. There is almost no scenario where ring mail is optimal — a character with DEX 12 or higher gets better AC from medium armor. Ring mail exists mainly as a low-cost option for characters with very low Dexterity who lack access to better armor.
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.