Spatzimaus
First Post
Yes, those are the rules, and yes, they're pathetic. You'll just never see dragonhide armor (dragonhide bucklers, sure, but not the heavy plate).
Giving minor resistance bonuses is okay for a house rule, but it doesn't solve the core problem: armor made from animal parts just doesn't scale correctly. I mean, you don't need a Colossal-sized cow to make one leather jacket, after all. And if you just make it give big nonmagical bonuses, you go against the basic pricing structure of armor and weapons in 3E (where price goes as the square of the item's total power).
The worst part is, the MM rules only tell how to make armor from hides, it doesn't give a good guideline for item value. How much should it cost to have it made? How much could you sell it for?
***HOUSE RULE ALERT***
What's needed, IMO, is a complete set of rules for Exotic Materials. Mourn's system (above) is a good start. What we did IMC was assign every material a Type, a Hardness, a DC modifier, a cost multiplier, a list of Material Bonuses, and a list of "cost reductions".
Type: Hard (Metal, Crystal), Flexible (Wood, Bone) or Soft (Leather, Cloth) Each type can be used for specific items; it's not a question of what the item IS, it's what it can be used for. For example, Adamantine can't be used in leather armor since it's a metal. Dragonscale is Hard, Dragonhide is Soft.
In most cases, anything a Flexible material is used for also works for Hard. Bows only allow Flexible materials, while plate armor allows only Hard.
Hardness: the same as before. HP is, by default, 2 per inch per point of Hardness. A few materials specify the HP explicitly.
DC modifier: the modifier to the Craft save DC to make anything out of that material (replacing the flat "Masterwork DC 20"). Dragonscale might be +12, for example, so if it normally required a DC 15 Craft check, it now takes a DC 27 check. Also, the item can't have a higher total Market Price multiplier than the DC modifier (so normal wood, which is +0, can't be enchanted)
Cost multiplier: multiply the cost of the base (non-magical) item by this amount. Two numbers are given, one for weapons and one for armor. Fine Steel (the Masterwork replacement) is x20/x10, so a Fine Steel Longsword costs 20 times as much as the basic Iron Longsword. In general the weapon multiplier will be twice as much as the armor one, since armors are a mix of materials (dragonscale armor is dragon scales over a chain/leather combination, with the scales only covering the key parts) Dragonhide, for example, might be (N/A)/x40, so if full plate costs 1500 normally, it now costs 60,000gp. With that sort of cost, you'll want to stick to cheaper armors.
Material bonuses: Nonmagical bonuses/penalties the item gives. Fine Steel weapons, for example, get +1 to attack rolls (they're the analog of Masterwork, after all). The difference is that these bonuses stack with magical enchantments unless explicitly noted otherwise. Dragonhide armor might be something like "+1 AC, -1 Armor Check, 3/4 weight, gives 5 points of elemental resistance, -5% arcane failure"
Cost reductions: Many materials make certain magical enchantments cheaper, since the material is naturally appropriate. For example, Dragonhide decreases the price of the appropriate Resistance by 1 (so Fire Resistance only costs +2 if you use Red hide). If the enchantment can be put multiple times on the item (or if multiple reductions are listed for the same material), only apply it once.
This can make an ability "free"; for example, Gartine (tm Sagiro) reduces Keen by 1 for weapons, so all appropriate weapons made from Gartine can be made Keen without increasing the cost. However, it still requires a minimum +1 enhancement and the Keen Edge spell when being enchanted.
Anyway, I've got a table of numbers, but you could come up with stuff as appropriate. The nice part of this is I got rid of the Masterwork rules and the steel shield/wood shield dichotomy in one shot.
Giving minor resistance bonuses is okay for a house rule, but it doesn't solve the core problem: armor made from animal parts just doesn't scale correctly. I mean, you don't need a Colossal-sized cow to make one leather jacket, after all. And if you just make it give big nonmagical bonuses, you go against the basic pricing structure of armor and weapons in 3E (where price goes as the square of the item's total power).
The worst part is, the MM rules only tell how to make armor from hides, it doesn't give a good guideline for item value. How much should it cost to have it made? How much could you sell it for?
***HOUSE RULE ALERT***
What's needed, IMO, is a complete set of rules for Exotic Materials. Mourn's system (above) is a good start. What we did IMC was assign every material a Type, a Hardness, a DC modifier, a cost multiplier, a list of Material Bonuses, and a list of "cost reductions".
Type: Hard (Metal, Crystal), Flexible (Wood, Bone) or Soft (Leather, Cloth) Each type can be used for specific items; it's not a question of what the item IS, it's what it can be used for. For example, Adamantine can't be used in leather armor since it's a metal. Dragonscale is Hard, Dragonhide is Soft.
In most cases, anything a Flexible material is used for also works for Hard. Bows only allow Flexible materials, while plate armor allows only Hard.
Hardness: the same as before. HP is, by default, 2 per inch per point of Hardness. A few materials specify the HP explicitly.
DC modifier: the modifier to the Craft save DC to make anything out of that material (replacing the flat "Masterwork DC 20"). Dragonscale might be +12, for example, so if it normally required a DC 15 Craft check, it now takes a DC 27 check. Also, the item can't have a higher total Market Price multiplier than the DC modifier (so normal wood, which is +0, can't be enchanted)
Cost multiplier: multiply the cost of the base (non-magical) item by this amount. Two numbers are given, one for weapons and one for armor. Fine Steel (the Masterwork replacement) is x20/x10, so a Fine Steel Longsword costs 20 times as much as the basic Iron Longsword. In general the weapon multiplier will be twice as much as the armor one, since armors are a mix of materials (dragonscale armor is dragon scales over a chain/leather combination, with the scales only covering the key parts) Dragonhide, for example, might be (N/A)/x40, so if full plate costs 1500 normally, it now costs 60,000gp. With that sort of cost, you'll want to stick to cheaper armors.
Material bonuses: Nonmagical bonuses/penalties the item gives. Fine Steel weapons, for example, get +1 to attack rolls (they're the analog of Masterwork, after all). The difference is that these bonuses stack with magical enchantments unless explicitly noted otherwise. Dragonhide armor might be something like "+1 AC, -1 Armor Check, 3/4 weight, gives 5 points of elemental resistance, -5% arcane failure"
Cost reductions: Many materials make certain magical enchantments cheaper, since the material is naturally appropriate. For example, Dragonhide decreases the price of the appropriate Resistance by 1 (so Fire Resistance only costs +2 if you use Red hide). If the enchantment can be put multiple times on the item (or if multiple reductions are listed for the same material), only apply it once.
This can make an ability "free"; for example, Gartine (tm Sagiro) reduces Keen by 1 for weapons, so all appropriate weapons made from Gartine can be made Keen without increasing the cost. However, it still requires a minimum +1 enhancement and the Keen Edge spell when being enchanted.
Anyway, I've got a table of numbers, but you could come up with stuff as appropriate. The nice part of this is I got rid of the Masterwork rules and the steel shield/wood shield dichotomy in one shot.
