MIC- Did the price of mithral change? Is mithral armor too cheap?

[Baramay]

I don't have the Magic Item Compendium but I was wondering if they changed the price of mithral armor. A friend said he did not think it changed. Adamantium is priced 5,000-10,000 and 15,000. Normal armor weighs 25 lbs for light (chain shirt), 30-40 lbs for medium (breastplate and chainmail), and 50 lbs for heavy (half plate or full plate). Full plate is twice as heavy as a chain shirt, thus has twice as much material. I can understand the additional cost entering the picture because adamantium is hard to work with, the benefits of heavy are very good, etc.

This is completely thrown out the window with mithral where light is +1,000, medium +4000, and heavy +9,000. Huh? Heavy armor weighing twice as much as light cost 9 times as much.

Mithral seems to also be in a much higher demand. In another thread I read that MIC has created "common" magic items that don't cost extra when combined with other magic items. The ability enhancing items were the example used. So now everyone can add dexterity modifying enchantments to other magic items to make use of mithral armor. It does not matter if one is the mithral chain shirt rogue or the mithral full plate fighter. Even a fighter with a 10 dex can enhance it to 16 to make full use of mithral full plate.

I would think carrying an additional cost for enchantment as cold iron does would be in line.

So please tell me this was addressed so I can allay my fear that WotC has a room of trained monkeys cutting an pasting old material into new books.

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times."

 

[Squire James]

No, I didn't see any signs MIC changed the price of mithral. They did give a breakdown of the augmented stats of mithral chain shirt, chainmail, breastplate, and full plate (i.e. they did all the computations for you to show you the final Armor Check Penalty, Arcane Spell Failure, Max Dex Bonus, and weight.

As a DM, I would price mithral as 1/2 adamantine cost. The main benefits are concentrated on the lower end, and I think light armors should pay more and heavy armors less.

 

[The Souljourner]

As a DM, I would price mithral as 1/2 adamantine cost. The main benefits are concentrated on the lower end, and I think light armors should pay more and heavy armors less.

That's completely the opposite of the true utility. Mithral makes heavy armors count as lighter, that's a huge benefit. Making Heavy armor count as medium means barbarians can wear it and not lose their +10' movement. Making medium armor count as light means it doesn't reduce normal people's movement from 30 to 20.

The other benefits - additional dexterity maximums and lower armor check penalty is exactly equal benefit across all armor types. One might even say the higher dex modifier is more useful in heavy armors, because a lot more people can take advantage of +2 or +3 total dex modifier than +6.

So... yeah, heavy armors should definitely cost more for mithral from a mechanics standpoint, and from an in-game logic standpoint, they simply use more mass of the material, and should cost more anyway.

-Nate

 

[blargney the second]

Rule -1) Don't try to use economics to make logical sense of game mechanics.

 

[Destil]

I don't have the Magic Item Compendium but I was wondering if they changed the price of mithral armor. A friend said he did not think it changed. Adamantium is priced 5,000-10,000 and 15,000. Normal armor weighs 25 lbs for light (chain shirt), 30-40 lbs for medium (breastplate and chainmail), and 50 lbs for heavy (half plate or full plate). Full plate is twice as heavy as a chain shirt, thus has twice as much material. I can understand the additional cost entering the picture because adamantium is hard to work with, the benefits of heavy are very good, etc.

Why does full plate cost 900 more than half plate? Their both 50 lbs? There can't be any more metal in full plate...

 

[Moon-Lancer]

craftmenship

 

[SadisticFishing]

It's because it's a lot easier to make a mithral chain shirt than full plate, by virtue of how hard it is relative to its thickness.

 

[The Souljourner]

The rules make sense both from an in-game standpoint, and from a balance standpoint. I don't see anything wrong with them.

-Nate

 

[Baramay]

It's because it's a lot easier to make a mithral chain shirt than full plate, by virtue of how hard it is relative to its thickness.

I included the cost for adamantium as well(x3) one would think that working with a harder material would increase the price but chain shirt 1,000 to full plate 9,000 is x9.

Nate, you are entitled to your opinion but could you cite some reasons based on the numbers I have presented, or your own.

Let's look at the mithral chain shirt. It allows one to use +2 more dex points that a normal chain shirt (+4 vs +6). Even if you are using a tough point buy system a rogue or finesse fighter will be able to gain a high dexterity. The additional points also help your armor check penalty reducing it to 0 with masterworked material. By comparison, a masterworked mithral chain shirt will cost 1,250gp. To get that AC with magical armor your would spend 4,250gp for +2. The magical armor would help in a small way be having more hp but the mithral quality would offset this as well. Also it would not help your touch AC. To get the same touch AC you would need a +2 ring of protection which would cost 8,000 gp.

Now before someone chimes in with but wait +4 gauntlets of dexterity cost 16,000 gp vs +3000 for magic armor and 8,000 for a ring. The gauntlets also help your reflex save and finesse attacks. The costs increase when you start talking magical mithral chain shirt.

A +2 magical mithral chain shirt would cost 5,250gp. A +4 chain shirt would cost 16,000gp while the difference between a +2 ring of protection and a +4 is 24,000gp. At higher level you will need epic items to cover the difference.

Mithral full plate is an even bigger issue because full plate grants the largest maximum armor bonus+dex bonus of any armor(+9). Also this allows classes that are designed to have armor limitations but other advantages, to bypass such limitations. The barbarian is a good example.

In an older post, (please excuse me for not having a link) the majority concensus was that an AC increase of +1 was better than a DR 1/-. Formulas were presented based on creatures players would fight once they achieved a level to buy adamantium armor or have DR as a class skill. Accepting this to be true then the cost of mithral and adamantium are not balanced.

 

[SadisticFishing]

Balance isn't the only issue in D&D.

Also, Adamantium is really hard to sunder.