Adamantine question

[Durifern]

To make it short: Is adamantine still dissolving if brought in contact with daylight?
If I´m not completely mistaken I think it was the case in older editions (but I don´t have any rules to look it up), it´s only what I know from Baldur´s Gate II and a Salvatore book.
In the DMG there isn´t anything to be found about "side effects", so what´s the deal?
I take it that it doesn´t dissolve anylonger but it would have been quite handy for me because of some balancing issues.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

In the base rules, adamantine does not melt when exposed to daylight.


However, I am unaware of what takes place in the Forgotten Realms. You would need to ask someone more knowledgable than I for that answer.

 

[hong]

To make it short: Is adamantine still dissolving if brought in contact with daylight?
If I´m not completely mistaken I think it was the case in older editions (but I don´t have any rules to look it up), it´s only what I know from Baldur´s Gate II and a Salvatore book.
In the DMG there isn´t anything to be found about "side effects", so what´s the deal?
I take it that it doesn´t dissolve anylonger but it would have been quite handy for me because of some balancing issues.

Adamantine as a general rule never melted in daylight, even in 2E. _Drow-made_ items melted in daylight, whether they were made of adamantine (armour and weapons) or not (cloaks). In 3E, drow items are a bit tougher.

 

[Durifern]

Hmm, thanks. But it's quite odd that I can't find anything on that topic neither in the FRCS, LoD nor MoF.
Does anybody know if there's more in The City of the Spider Queen or Silver Marches?

 

[hong]

Hmm, thanks. But it's quite odd that I can't find anything on that topic neither in the FRCS, LoD nor MoF.
Does anybody know if there's more in The City of the Spider Queen or Silver Marches?

You won't find anything about drow-made items in 3E books, because drow-made items in 3E aren't particularly special. They're just items like any other.

In 1E and 2E, drow-made items rotted away in sunlight. This is no longer the case.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

according to the 2e FR supplement, Drow of the Underdark, the drow use an adamantine alloy that is:

"'baked' in the cold, hard radiations of a guarded, highly prized natural cyst-cavern, in the heart of what was once a lava flow"

items left there (for a year or longer) became quasi-magical and disintegrated in sunlight

i haven't seen any kind of update to this in 3e

 

[Kae'Yoss]

IIRC, drow used Adamantite, a special alloy of adamantine (or was it the other way around) that dissolved. But that's past now, and drow powers are balanced by other means (ECL+2, for example)

 

[JChung2003]

If drow-made magic items aren't special any more (if they don't dissolve after prolonged exposure to sunlight), then why does the 3e FRCS include a level 1 Drow domain spell (Cloak of Dark Power) that protects its subject and anything she wears or carries from the effects of full sunlight?

 

[Epametheus]

Probably because whoever wrote that up thought that drow equipment still melted in daylight. However, the drow now have photon-resistant weapons, armor, and clothing.

I guess you could deliberately make items that dissolve in sunlight; they'd probably be considered mildly cursed items (as in they don't do anything bad to you; they're just defective), and not cost as much to make.