Does magic armor rust?

[Fortain]

There's no bouyancy or water pressure in the El. Plane of Water....so why wouldn't a ton of aquatic fighters wear full plate armor instead of coral armor? I can't find any reason for this. I'd like to get the players to adapt to their surroundings by wearing underwater gear, but why would they need to do that? My only thought was because of rust.

It's probable that, since the entire plane is under water (maybe?), there would be no way to heat metal to a molten form, then beat it out into armor, while coral can be grown to specific shapes & sizes. Now, if you're coming from the Prime Material, then of course you'd have access to forges, etc. Can't really make fire underwater - hot water, yes, but not fire hot enough to smith with.

 

[Musrum]

There's no bouyancy or water pressure in the El. Plane of Water....so why wouldn't a ton of aquatic fighters wear full plate armor instead of coral armor?

There is bouyancy, but then there is also subjective gravity. This allows the full-plate fighter to change his subjective gravity as a free action. So they just switch gravity 180 degrees X times per second to give themselves an effective neutral bouyancy. Looks a bit silly though...

 

[EyeontheMountain]

In my gmaes non-rusting, non-tarnishing, indestructible by normal weapons has always been a good sign the item is magical. Just as good as Detect Magic and almost as good as an identify spell.

 

[Sithobi1]

I'm pretty sure you can only make an attempt to switch gravity once per round...

 

[Oryan77]

There is bouyancy, but then there is also subjective gravity. This allows the full-plate fighter to change his subjective gravity as a free action. So they just switch gravity 180 degrees X times per second to give themselves an effective neutral bouyancy. Looks a bit silly though...

What I meant to say is there is no real gravity. The PC is just buoyant in the water. So his weight isn't going to matter. Sinking is not a danger in the plane.

I don't bother with thinking about which way a PC thinks is up or down and he'll float up or sink down in those directions. That hurts my brain trying to imagine that. I think the end result would be that you'd unconciously make yourself buoyant and stay in place unless you propel yourself in a direction. The water makes you buoyant...unlike the El. Plane of Air where air can't make you buoyant so you will fall in the direction you think is down.

But anyway, this doesn't help my armor dilemma. It's funny that forges were mentioned. It's a good point, but the published adventure I'm running has a forge underwater in a Sahuagin city. It's in an air filled room and not submerged in water. But none of the NPC's wear metal armor...not even the cleric Sahuagins priestesses.

I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just not used to picturing Aquatic people wearing metal armor. I guess I'll just imagine them looking like old scuba divers in full metal scuba outfits.

 

[ElectricDragon]

My Triton city has forges built next to an underwater volcanic vent. Of course they don't forge metal armors, though. They use it to forge crystal obsidian mined out of the areas around the volcanic vents. This is a special mineral material I made to give my underwater races a bit more of an advantage in their own environment. It looks just like glasssteel from earlier editions, has hardness 18 and gives its wearer a +2 bonus on all saves versus paralyzation and petrification. It can be forged above water but at a +2 to the Craft DC. It is only found near underwater volcanic vents.

Ciao
Dave

 

[Infiniti2000]

Well then I have a bone to pick with the SRD. Cause I have a slew of steak knives in my kitchen that keep rusting on me....

Close your windows. They'll keep the rain and humidity out.

 

[zlorf]

Does Magic armor rust?

Can a Rust Monster rust magic armor? (dont have the books near me to check)

Can a rust monster rust cold steel, mitheral and adamantine?

I would say if you if a magic item was left in water for a long period of time, it wouldnt
rust..it may have a lot of algae, silt and bits and piece growing off itt, but no rust.

 

[gardengoth]

There's no buoyancy or water pressure in the El. Plane of Water....so why wouldn't a ton of aquatic fighters wear full plate armor instead of coral armor? I can't find any reason for this. I'd like to get the players to adapt to their surroundings by wearing underwater gear, but why would they need to do that? My only thought was because of rust.

Plate has the more favourable armour Check Penalty, but in the case of a fighter it's quite likely that your Check Penalty is going to come from the weight of your gear instead, and this is where the Coral Armour's advantage lies; it's 20lbs lighter in water than plate - that's 4 off your penalty, making coral more favourable in terms of Swim checks if you're carrying at least 46lbs + the armour.

You can change the direction in which you "sink" 1/round as a free action with a DC16 Wis check, so not reliable enough to presume you can maintain "stasis". For traveling any distance it's fine since round on round after failure you get +6 to the check but in a combat situation that's going to mar (pun intended) your effectiveness, never mind the fact that succesful swim checks are doubly important in combat anyway.

As for rust - is there any oxygen in the water on the Elemental Plane of Water? I don't mean in the compound H2O but surely oxygen has to exist as an element for rust to occur? Also, only ferrous metals rust and whilst many others corrode, it can probably be argued that certain special materials (e.g. mithral - and mithral would work up to 51lbs of additional gear in my example above) don't.

 

[javcs]

In the real world, at least, there's free floating 02 in water - that's how fish 'breathe'.