TwinPeaksGuy
Explorer
Except that we regularly have druids trying to make medium and heavy armors out of thinks like the hook horror carapace you mentioned. It doesn't give your character a mechanical advantage. but it would them. Why should you allowed to make armor out of it and they are not? That hardly seems fair.
So by that logic since my fighter started with chain mail and gains a mechanical advantage by buying splint, that's a problem. If said druid wants better armor and is prepared to quest for materials, and pay a multiple of base to get armor(bulette carapace breastplate for example) they have proficiency in, why is that unfair? Giving people limitations they will never overcome is demoralizing. Finding creative solutions to problems and limitations is empowering, and that should be a good thing.
The other situation you mention, buying a building or land, specifically has mechanical advantages as well. They are listed in the DMG. Rules in the DMG for the most part are off limits to AL characters for similar reasons.
I am completely at a loss as to what impact having a house on the outskirts of Mulmaster has when trying to warhammer a xorn. Zero change to AC or to hit.
Even though you say you are not, you sure seem like you are looking for a mechanical advantage. You could for example write off 500 gp and say you bought a house. You'd never get to go there as part of an adventure, but it would let RP that you had a house. If you want to actually be able to safely rest there and grab food there during an adventure, not you have an advantage no else has. But sure, you RP that you had a house. Its the Axe-Lute argument all over again.
No idea what an Axe-lute is. And you're presuming players are such dicks that if they have a bolt hole in time of need they'd leave the rest of the party out in the cold to die. Thanks for left handedly calling me out as being that sort of asshat. Sorry, that's already amply covered in the players guide rules about the party working together and supporting each other, one of the definite pluses for AL play IMO.
I do think Adamantine and Mithral have RP sizzle value, and both could and should have minimal impact mechanically. Given the hints in the MM and DMG, I think un-spelled Adamantine should simply be reskinned silver from a mechanical PoV: it nullifies a resistance for a small set of creatures but its rarity merits a cost factor of some sort. Given that the list of affected creatures is even shorter than the one for silver, that seems totally in the spirit of RAI, and a call I have to guess many home game DMs will make. Mithral weapons are a little harder, might be 2/3 normal weight, which might remove properties like heavy or make some weapons finesse. Maybe its sole virtue as a weapon material is to make the Magic Weapon spell last 2 hours instead of one. Or maybe it's just especially shiny and cleans itself, I might prefer that. Is nerfing either of these to be on par with silvering or some other allowed option really that hard to figure out? Mundane +0 weapons of either material ought to be something the AL could make a global call on, should they choose.
If the League is ok with acting as a meta DM, then maybe they should learn to be ok with making houserules for things like this that would apply league wide, and not throw out the good in fear of the bad. I intellectually understand the fear, but not having dealt with these prior leagues it's pretty abstract to me, and looks exactly like disempowering everyone. I had thought was what 5e was supposed to solve.