Ironguard : Weapons with wooden haft and arrows?

[Shin Okada]

Ironguard spell makes one immune to attacks delivered by metal items. Well, then, how this spell affects on weapons partially made of metal? Say, spears, axes and other swinging halted weapons, and arrows.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Well, it says that metal passes through the guarded person, so if you have an object partially made of metal that's coming towards you at great speed, it's going to hurt. I have absolutely no rules backing for this, but I'd go with minimum damage for arrows, and club damage for hafted weapons.

AR

 

[Deset Gled]

IIRC, items that have their "significant portion" made of metal are treated as being entirely made of metal for the purpose of special materials. For example, the weight is reduced the same, and when you fire an arrow with a cold iron arrowhead at a fey, you don't have to worry about the fact that the wooden haft (which provides a large chunk of the momentum and damaging force of the arrow) is wood. To be consistent with this concept, I would rule that a weapon with the significant portion being made of metal would be entirely ignored by someone with the Ironguard spell.

 

[s-dub]

This seems like a poorly thought out spell...

 

[Shin Okada]

IIRC, items that have their "significant portion" made of metal are treated as being entirely made of metal for the purpose of special materials.

For overcoming DR, yes. But while we can make a spear with a cold iron head. It is not "teated as being entirely made of cold iron." At least, I can't find any such rules.

It is still a wooden hafted weapon and when sundered, it uses hardness and hps of wood instead of cold iron.

Only the spear heads, arrow heads, axe heads, etc. are made of metal and that is a problem.

I am also wondering how this spell works against constructs and other creatures (supposed to be) partially made of metal, say, Shield Guardian, various Warforged, Steel Predator and such.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The only real guidelines we have are the special material construction rules.

Check out Magic of Faerun for the "Heavy Metal" special materials which let you create things made of alchemically tempered gold and platinum. They only work on "items that have their "significant portion" made of metal" and they give exemplars- swords, shields, armor, and specifically exclude things like spears and axes.

 

[Shin Okada]

Thanks. But that Farune special material rule gives no information useful for this issue. It only suggesting that hafted weapons and arrows cannot be made of those particular heavy metals.

That is not a generic rule for special materials. For example, in case of Cold Iron, DMG P.284 says "Item without metal parts cannot be made from cold iron. An arrow could be made of cold iron, but a quarterstaff could not."

So, something partially made of metal can have it's metal parts made of cold iron.

And anyway, it is obvious that some items are partially made of metal and partially not.

 

[Thanael]

I imagine if you use an axe normally to wound someone, the wooden parts would't make any contact with the opponent. If you do start to club him with the handle that would probably count as an improvised weapon. (very unwieldy)

Now skewering someone with a spear is somewhat different. To someone protected by ironguard it would be like a jab with a quarterstaff. So if you're proficient with the quarterstaff i would rule it as a normal attack or at least apply a lesser penalty than nonproficiency.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thanks. But that Farune special material rule gives no information useful for this issue. It only suggesting that hafted weapons and arrows cannot be made of those particular heavy metals.

Sure it does. It uses- if not identical then substantially similar- language in distinguishing between weapons made of "significant portions" of metal and those that are not...and provides examples.