Armor special abilities and total bonus

juliaromero · May 3, 2004

I'm confused by the magic armor chart in the DMG. Some of the abilities are listed as adding an equivalent ehancement plus for the market price, which you can use to calculate the cost of further enhancements and the limit on the total. However, some just list a straight cost. How do these special abilities work? Do they apply to the +10 limite somehow? If so, how? Do they always cost the same to add to a suit of armor? Do they not increase the cost for further ehancements? Thanks.

thorian · May 3, 2004

As long as our not going epic, it's fairly simple: you can have a total of up to +10 of enhancements on your armor. No more than +5 of the enhancements can be "plusses" and no more than +5 of the enhancements can be other abilities. For example you could have +4 armor with ghost touch (which is a +3 equivalent for pricing purposes), and the total price would be +7 on the chart, which is 49000 gp plus the cost of the masterwork armor that was enchanted.

Li Shenron · May 3, 2004

juliaromero said:
However, some just list a straight cost.
How do these special abilities work?
Do they apply to the +10 limite somehow?
If so, how?
Do they always cost the same to add to a suit of armor?
Do they not increase the cost for further ehancements?

They are just extras that you add on top of everything else. The cost stacks but it is always the same flat cost, no matter which other (and how many) enhancements the armor has. It does not count against the +10 limit.

I am not sure about what thorian said about the total bonus limit before epic. I think that +10 is the max total, +5 is the max "standard" enhancement, but there is no max +5 on the special abilities IIRC.

shilsen · May 3, 2004

thorian said:
As long as our not going epic, it's fairly simple: you can have a total of up to +10 of enhancements on your armor. No more than +5 of the enhancements can be "plusses" and no more than +5 of the enhancements can be other abilities. For example you could have +4 armor with ghost touch (which is a +3 equivalent for pricing purposes), and the total price would be +7 on the chart, which is 49000 gp plus the cost of the masterwork armor that was enchanted.

The bolded section above is not true. The enhancement bonuses are capped at +5 but special abilities are not. You can, for example, have +1 ghost touch wild armor of heavy fortification.

Oscar carramiñana · May 3, 2004

The armor abilities whitout bonus for enchanment are extras and only are added at the final price.

thorian · May 4, 2004

As long as your not going epic, it's fairly simple: you can have a total of up to +10 of enhancements on your armor. No more than +5 of the enhancements can be "plusses" and no more than +5 of the enhancements can be other abilities.

I was a little too hasty, the bolded portion should read no more than +9 of the enhancements can be other abilities, as Shilsen menioned.

iceifur · May 5, 2004

According to the Epic book (found at the beginning of the Magic Items chapter, IIRC), an additional factor also determines whether or not an item is epic or not: its market price. Non-epic items have a market price of 200,000 gp or less.

-B-

UltimaGabe · May 6, 2004

iceifur said:
According to the Epic book (found at the beginning of the Magic Items chapter, IIRC), an additional factor also determines whether or not an item is epic or not: its market price. Non-epic items have a market price of 200,000 gp or less.

-B-

If that were the case, any effective +10 weapon (such as a +5 Vorpal Longsword) would be considered Epic, as it costs 200,308 gp.