Masterwork Armors

[FourthBear]

It seems reasonable to assume that the creation of Wyrmscale, Godplate, Whatevertype armor is not possible without the use of a ritual's power. The ritual's power is such that even the weakest of such armor's created have a minimum enchantment and that lesser armors are unable to hold such enchantment.

As to the issue of characters not dedicated to the arcane or divine power sources using rituals, if this is an issue, it is not specific for creation of magic items. With the Ritual Caster feat and taking the resources to obtain and learn a ritual, any character can use rituals. I like it since it does allow for great dwarven smiths to be able to learn and use rituals to create great armors, without having the fig leaf of wizard or cleric-like nature to justify it.

 

[Mirtek]

I do not complain that non-casters can make magical armor, I am complaining that a non-caster can not make a non-magical wyrmscale armor.

The difference between normal scale and wyrmscale is a different arrangement of the individual scales to increase protection.

Why can't a smith just make it as a non-magical armor?

Also the text of the enchant item ritual states that the ritualist takes a non-magical armor of the type he wants to enchant and adds the magic through the ritual. So while making a +4 wyrmscale he needed a non-magical wyrmscale armor. So what if he just took the armor and decided it was good enough and chose to not enchant it? How much of the total ritual costs was for the armor and how much for the other arcane materials?

 

[WhatGravitas]

The difference between normal scale and wyrmscale is a different arrangement of the individual scales to increase protection.

What if wyrmscale is actually made from draconic scales and due to the resilience of wyrmscales, it is impossible to forge it without magic - they're too hard. But if you master the secrets of the mastersmith Komischername, you learn how to use special magical ingredients to get a fire hot enough to forge it.

A side effect is: It gets soaked with magic.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Verdande]

I don't know if this is on topic or if I've just missed the conversation, but here's my opinion:

It's awesome that non-spellcasters can make magical items. You don't have to be a wizard to understand how to use the Nine Sacred Glyphs of Amon-Ra-Atul to enchant your hammer into a +4 Deathhammer or whatever.



Also, it makes sense to me that you can't have nonmagical wyrmplate. Have you ever found a nonmagical dragon?

 

[Mirtek]

Wyrmscale is not made of actuall dragon scales. It just uses an arrangement of the metall scales to mirror the arrangement of dragonscales.

 

[hamishspence]

masterwork magic

Given that masterwork is described as built in, acording to the rules, so if you enchanted Platemail to be +6 platemail, it would automatically become Godplate, how would that work? It has been said several times that masterwork is built into the +6 enhancement, which is why it costs so much.

Maybe, the enchantment, as a ritual, draws power from the relavent source. so when 30th level fighter uses Enchant item ritual, and has the components (probably more special, given the price) power is drawn from the Astral Sea, morphing the item into the new one: godplate

Wyrmscale: Again: magic floods item, it shifts shape into the new more powerful arrangement. To put the wyrm in it, maybe the ritual draws magic from provided Dragonscales.

Idea for residuum: used in ritual, it metamorphs into the components you need.

 

[Revinor]

The difference between normal scale and wyrmscale is a different arrangement of the individual scales to increase protection.

Why can't a smith just make it as a non-magical armor?

He obviously can. It will just have a same bonus as plain scale armor, will only look 'posh'.

To give modern example. You have a tank with reactive armor. Some less developed country can reverse engineer it and create a tank with clay bricks around it. Looks the same ? Yes. Gives the same amount of protection? No, because a little bit of 'explosive magic' is missing within clay brick.

I'm perfectly ok with not being able to create masterwork items without enchanting them at the same time (it is especially helpful if you consider that enchantement actually determines the material you are creating armor from - look at hydra armor for example). But if it conflicts with your simulationist soul[1], just assume that extra bonuses for masterwork creation and not popping up till it is enchanted enough.

[1] - but how will you solve hydra/trollskin/etc enchantments ?

 

[hamishspence]

enchantment

I figue either the source of the power in the ritual, the components, or both. Trollskin armour might require trollskin as a component and the magic infuses the normal hide with Essence of Troll.

For residuum, I treat it as a magicmorphic substance that, in the ritual, will take the form of the necessary components.

 

[Kishin]

That does not make sense. It may be a fine gamist rule, but it's crap from simulationist PoV.

Simulationism + D&D = Oil and Water. 4E just turns that dial to 11.

 

[hamishspence]

masterwork

Its simply that the word doesn't mean what it used to mean. Before, smith could craft them. Now, masterwork is a form of magic enhancement. It just isn't costed.