Adventurer's Vault masterwork armours

Heck, all your players need to do is walk down to the store and buy a standard set up plate, and then can enchant it to be +6 Godplate. As others have said, all magic armor above a certain point is Masterwork Armor. So your players don't really have to "buy" it per se, they can just enchant it.
While you're right in that all magic armor above a certain point is masterwork, technically you can't transform standard plate into godplate.

I know there is no price issue or power issue or balance issue. But still, masterwork armor is not defined as a layer on top of the existing armor. It's defined as armor made out of a completely different material.

I realize this is all very easy to ignore, but the rules should really clear up this mess. If you enchant a standard suite of plate mail, you would end up with a +6 plate mail (which I agree would suck).

[/NITPICK]
 

log in or register to remove this ad

While you're right in that all magic armor above a certain point is masterwork, technically you can't transform standard plate into godplate.

I know there is no price issue or power issue or balance issue. But still, masterwork armor is not defined as a layer on top of the existing armor. It's defined as armor made out of a completely different material.

I realize this is all very easy to ignore, but the rules should really clear up this mess. If you enchant a standard suite of plate mail, you would end up with a +6 plate mail (which I agree would suck).

[/NITPICK]

Then how do you procure Masterwork armor that's not enchanted? The price is "special", remember? Additionally, it has a minimum enhancement bonus, which means that there is no such thing as mundane Masterwork armor. Are you proposing that the only way to get Masterwork armor is to find it? And that the only way to get it with the enchantment you want is to enchant over the existing effect? That's a pretty severe thing to do, since you're basically throwing away a high level magic item and yet still paying the cost of another high level magic item (including the cost of Masterwork armor that's already factored into the cost of the item).

All of this is moot anyway though... CS has said that the enchant item ritual will make mundane armor into Masterwork. Essentially, you can't have +6 standard plate, because anything past a certain point must be Masterwork armor.
 

That's exactly what we are looking for - Where it is said (by CS) that past a certain threshold, that all enchanted armor must be made from masterwork materials.

We (In the game I run) assume that it is made through a magic assisted process - not accessible to the normal armorsmith - and every single suit that can be masterwork is.
 

Then how do you procure Masterwork armor that's not enchanted? The price is "special", remember? Additionally, it has a minimum enhancement bonus, which means that there is no such thing as mundane Masterwork armor. Are you proposing that the only way to get Masterwork armor is to find it? And that the only way to get it with the enchantment you want is to enchant over the existing effect? That's a pretty severe thing to do, since you're basically throwing away a high level magic item and yet still paying the cost of another high level magic item (including the cost of Masterwork armor that's already factored into the cost of the item).
Relax... I was only playing rules-lawyer with you.

:-)

I still have a point, though, and that is that the PHB is lacking: they don't define exactly where standard plate "becomes" each level of masterwork.
 

Relax... I was only playing rules-lawyer with you.

:-)

I still have a point, though, and that is that the PHB is lacking: they don't define exactly where standard plate "becomes" each level of masterwork.

Sure they do, the minimum enhancement bonus. If you have +4 Plate, it's Masterwork because it meets the minimum enhancement bonus. Now granted, they could've done a better job of explaining that fact in an easy to understand manner, but having everything be Masterwork after +4 was their intent.

Now, with the introduction of the Adventurer's Vault, it changes things a bit, but not much. Basically, at certain levels (like the +2 or +3 levels) you have a choice between Masterwork armor with some kind of bonus, or mundane armor with a higher AC but no bonus. Then, once you get to +4 and higher, you have the choice between PHB Masterwork armor or AV Masterwork armor. Pretty simple.
 

Sure they do, the minimum enhancement bonus. If you have +4 Plate, it's Masterwork because it meets the minimum enhancement bonus. Now granted, they could've done a better job of explaining that fact in an easy to understand manner, but having everything be Masterwork after +4 was their intent.

Now, with the introduction of the Adventurer's Vault, it changes things a bit, but not much. Basically, at certain levels (like the +2 or +3 levels) you have a choice between Masterwork armor with some kind of bonus, or mundane armor with a higher AC but no bonus. Then, once you get to +4 and higher, you have the choice between PHB Masterwork armor or AV Masterwork armor. Pretty simple.
Look, Doctor Proctor.

I'm willing to endure your flippant tone, but don't gloss over legitimate issues, alright?

I have already made it clear my post was only a nitpick. But now it seems we need to go to the bottom of this.

If I want to create a +2 plate mail, you say I have a choice between standard PHB plate, and AV masterwork plates.

But what choice is that?! I could either get a straight +10 (8+2) or get Rimefire plate which also gives +10 and resist 1 all. Or I could, for the same price, get Layered plate, which gives +11 AC!

Where is this "mundane armor with a higher AC but no bonus" you speak so lightly of?

I see nothing simple about this. Instead, I find it to be confusing and indicative of power creep.
 

As said before, the new masterwork armor mainly just smooth out the already exisiting scale of armor progression.

And masterwork armors are required by the game as they are the only way to compensate for the fact that light armor users can add their (ever increasing) int or dex to their AC, and heavy armor useres can`t.
Exactly.

Masterworks armors are a "bug fix" masquerading as a "cool feature". The designers knew light armor folks (with stat increases to Dex or Int) could out-pace heavy armor folks, so they threw in a kludge to fix the problem.
 


Look, Doctor Proctor.

I'm willing to endure your flippant tone, but don't gloss over legitimate issues, alright?

I have already made it clear my post was only a nitpick. But now it seems we need to go to the bottom of this.

If I want to create a +2 plate mail, you say I have a choice between standard PHB plate, and AV masterwork plates.

But what choice is that?! I could either get a straight +10 (8+2) or get Rimefire plate which also gives +10 and resist 1 all. Or I could, for the same price, get Layered plate, which gives +11 AC!

Where is this "mundane armor with a higher AC but no bonus" you speak so lightly of?

I see nothing simple about this. Instead, I find it to be confusing and indicative of power creep.

I'm not being flippant, and the only one being an *** here is you.

I simply mispoke. I didn't have my AV book in front of me and assumed that the tradeoffs that apply to the armors at the higher enhancements applied at the lower ones. I was incorrect. There's no reason to be an *** about a mistake though.

The point I made still stands though. Your DM can hand you +2 Mundane Plate if he feels like it. Or he can give you Rimfire. He can also hand you +6 Tarrasque, or +6 Godplate. The Tarrasque has Resist 5 all, but lower AC than the Godplate. So you get hit more, but have Resist 5 to any incoming damage from those hits (as well as auto-damage and ongoing damage effects that aren't affected by AC).

Now, if you're enchanting the armor yourself? Yeah, it would be silly not to make one of the AV Masterword Armors at the +2 or +3 enchancement level. At +4 and beyond though, it depends on what you want. Do you want more AC, or less AC with a bonus?

And as for power creep, so what? It's a +1 to AC or a NAD (or Resist 1 for Plate) at levels where a lot of players complain about AC anyway. The old power curve for AC was very bumpy, and general had some issues in the Paragon tier. Now that's been fixed. It's not putting your totally out of line with enemies of those levels, so I wouldn't call it "power creep" just because there's a bigger number there.

To sum up though, Masterwork Armor is easy to understand. Anything above a +4 enhancement bonus is automatically Masterwork. If you're using the Adventurer's Vault then you can also get Masterwork Armor at the +2 or +3 enhancement levels. It's up to your DM to determine if this is automatic, or if you can still find mundane +2 or +3 armor. It could either way really...but it's the DM's decision.
 

Yeah, masterwork armor is one of the most confusing parts of the 4e rules. The table was poorly-explained, and IMHO out of place.

As Nail said, it's a kludge to fix the power curve between heavy & light armors. If you disregard it, the folks in light armor will be way ahead of the folks in heavy armor by the mid-levels.

Unless you go with one of the tricky Masterworks from AV, I'd just assume that the Masterwork AC upgrades go hand-in-hand with the enhancement bonuses, and disregard the flavor text except in those cases where it'd be cool not to disregard it.

-O
 

Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top