The Tavern

Assassin background: you get a +2 dagger, a blowgun, 8 poison needles, and a cloak.
Octopodes cant wear a cloak, so they dont get one, missing out on +1AC.
Compensate this by giving OpAs either:

+1 hat (a rare item, maybe too valuable)

or a ring of protection +1 (already equipped - probably has longer use than +0 cloak, but will eventually be too weak to wear.)

Doesn't the innate AC bonus already balance for this?

No, because non-As octopodes get that too

FR: remove cloak from starting gear of As

Removing the cloak works fine too. Thats more of a flavour thing anyway - it made a teensy bit of sense more when elvish cloaks gave stealth.

Would be a nerf, but As is a strong background anyway. If the stealth-flavour should be kept, give ring of stealth.

we don't give op/dr/fe-- starts replacement rings for missing ac, there's no reason to handle --as any differently