D&D 5E Proposal for my DM

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Hey ya. I have a question that i don't know where to exactly ask, here or on some other part of EN World..... any moderators, feel free to relocate it...

Our party just reached Lvl5 and we entered the City of Splendors, so we try to goad our DM to reveal some of the nice shops and artisans of this great city, so we can.... you know.... go shopping and spend some of that hard earned gold. Most of my team mates ask for enchanted weapons (yeah, i know magic is not supposed to be get in stores in 5E), but i look for something more..... well..... out of the box?

Namely i want to get a mithral heavy armor. Not a plate or splint. Just a chainmail to replace the one i currently have. A non magical variant. I just want to sneak in it without penalty (i am a fighter with a great sword, so yeah, DEX isn't high on my priority and medium armor is a no go). A problem here.... 5E doesn't really have any prices for stuff like this. It only has for ordinary armor and the uncommon items (that the mithral armor falls under) are listed as 101-500gp.

Do you guys think it is appropriate for a lvl5 character like mine to get an armor like this via a shop in Waterdeep? And if so, how would the item be priced? 3x, 4X, 5X the normal value of the item? I know it is ultimately a DM decision, but i'd like to have at least something to propose to him. Not even the price of mithril is given as raw material for crafting......

 

[designbot]

It's up to your DM, but there is an excellent homebrew guide to magical item prices which suggests adding 800 gp to the regular price of armor to upgrade it to mithral. That seems reasonable to me.

 

[iserith]

I think it's reasonable to buy such an item in Waterdeep. As an uncommon "magic" item, it's worth 101 gp to 500 gp. Though if I were the DM, I'd ask for that plus the base cost of the armor and some kind of obligation from the character, so probably 575 gp plus the promise to the seller of a favor or future service of some kind.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Nice, i like both answers so far. As this will be our DM's first foray into 5E, i'd like to give him as much base to make his decision on.

 

[Waterbizkit]

As far as being able to obtain the armor to begin with, I would say it's more than reasonable for a 5th level character to buy something like this in a major city. By the rules a 3rd level character could craft an item of uncommon rarity, so buying one at two levels higher seems fine to me. That you're only looking for a mundane item crafted out of an uncommon material makes it all the more sensible to me.

Cost is trickier. No cost is provided for raw materials in the books, buying an uncommon item is listed as costing 101-500 gold and crafting an uncommon item has a listed cost of 500 gold plus the time to craft the item. I think the reasonable thing to do is for your DM to take that rough 100-500 gold range and add it to the base cost of the basic armor. If it were my table, I'd lean towards the upper end of range, but not the full 500. I'd probably have a starting price around 475 and maybe even let you have a chance to haggle it down as low as maybe 400.

But it's all arbitrary of course, every DM will be different. That said, at the very least I think it's more than reasonable to find the item for sale. If your DM won't even let you get that far I'd disagree with that ruling.

 

[aco175]

I smell a quest to go and find enough mithral to have the smith craft you some. It is a win/win. You get the armor and your dm has a quest for the party. This could even be a 2nd quest for finding the super smith who can forge this or the super forge location that can make it in one day if you can reach it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If your DM doesn't place an item or have it offered up for sale, chances are he's thought better of letting you have it.

If you want to wear chain and not take a stealth penalty, you can wear a chain shirt. You could even kit yourself out in full chain or just the shirt depending on what sort of challenges you anticipate for the coming adventure. Shirt for stealthy raids and exploration, full mail for pitched battles.

That's the kind of practical equipment choices you can make when you're not boxed into always wearing the best magical armor that's dropped so far just to keep up with level-appropriate AC.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Waterbizkit]

I disagree with the hypothetical decision in so far as it's not the one I would make at my table. I didn't mean to say that if I were the player and the DM flat out said "No, you can't find that item for sale anywhere in the city." that I would openly disagree with him/her at the table. If that was unclear I apologize.

To me, the player is asking to purchase a mundane item made from an uncommon material. It's not enchanted armor or indeed magical in any way other than being made of mithril. That seems like a reasonable thing to seek out and find in a major city like Waterdeep. It also strikes me as a fairly reasonable item for a 5th level character to have given that per the crafting rules, as I'm recalling them off hand anyway, would allow a 3rd level character to craft the same item so long as they had 20 days, 500 gold and proficiency with smithing tools.

But this is all a fairly pointless discussion because in the end only the OP's DM will get to decide what happens. I'm only stating how I would likely run it at my table under the same circumstances in order to give the OP some basis to possibly form a proposal for their DM. So again, if the way I worded that with regards to what I might disagree with and why caused some confusion I apologize.

 

[BoldItalic]

There is a procedure given in the DMG (p.130) for selling magic items but it can be adapted to buying them instead, if you reverse the numbers. This is how it might work for Mithral Armour (an uncommon item).

You make a DC20 Intelligence (Investigation) check. If you fail, you waste 10 days of downtime and get nothing. If you succeed, you find possible sellers after 1d6 days. To find out what prices they are asking, you roll a Charisma(Persuasion) check and add d100 to the roll, then refer to the following table:

01-20: You find one for sale at 5000gp.
21-40: You find one for sale at 2000gp and a shady merchant offering one for 1000gp.
41-80: You find one for sale at 1000gp and a shady merchant offering one for 500gp.
81-90: You find one for sale at 500gp.
91+ : You find a shady merchant offering one for 300gp, no questions asked.

It's not so much fun as dashing around the city following up rumours, trading favours with people for information, and finally haggling with a merchant when you track him down, though.