Mithral and Armor Proficiency...

[Wolf72]

Re: Re: No stacking! (imo)

That's ok. Most people hate what proves them wrong.

Then you probably don't remember correctly.

My plain reading tells me both. I hate it when that happens.

You ain't just whistlin' dixie!

good chocolate or it's that good ol' texan wit coming out

 

[Roland Delacroix]

Isearched but couldn't find it.

Must have been on the old boards.

Or the real old boards.

Or I am making this all up!

Totally off topic but: Hey! I used to live in Trenton, about 12 years ago before my family moved to Chi Town! How is everything there? Didjaknow Trenton is a very popular area for product testing? I just found that out after wondering for years why we always could buy stuff months before my chicago relatives.

Left my best friend Ken Pogerzelski there :sniff: I hear he's running a pool business in south carolina now.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Her's an interesting note... compare the SRD entries for Adamantine, Mithral with Darkwood.

Adamantine: "Weapons and armor fashioned from adamantine are treated as masterwork items with regard to creation times, but the masterwork quality does not affect the enhancement bonus of weapons or the armor check penalty of armor."

Cost is dependant on the item.

Mithral: "Weapons or armors fashioned from mithral are treated as masterwork items with regard to creation times, but the masterwork quality does not affect the enhancement bonus of weapons or the armor check penalty of armor."

Again, cost is dependant on the item.

Darkwood: "Any wooden or mostly wooden item (such as a bow, an arrow, or a spear) made from darkwood is considered a masterwork item and weighs only half as much as a normal wooden item of that type."

Cost is is the price of a masterwork item + (original weight)x10gp

So...

Adamantine and Mithral count as MW only for the creation time, meaning you must make a MW adamantine sword or mithral breastplate to enchant it. Neither material includes the 300gp MW fee in its creation costs.

Darkwood, on the other hand, counts fully as a MW item in all respects, and includes the MW cost in the base price of the item.

 

[reiella]

If heavy armor that's made of mithral is still considered heavy for proficency, barbarians mustn't like using Mithral Plate at all, the -4 to all attack rolls and such is quite harsh.

The ELH enchanted mithral breastplate (with it's -1 ACP) has a bit of ad-hoc adjustments on it so not really fun to dissect.

MagF doesn't have any armors that dissect down with adamantium/mithral it does however have The Fist.

Adamantine Chainmail Gauntlet, +2 spiked gauntlet, but it also has ad-hoc abilities (woohoo go pildrive and chill metal/heat metal spells).

One Thousand Broken Dreams has some odd special qualities (mithral +3 holy drow bane longsword), but might be closest to 'clean'.
Market Value : 100,315
+3 (+2 Holy,+2 bane) ~= +7 weapon. 98,000
500gp/lb * 4 lb mithral. 2,000
+ 15 for the longsword base.
Leaves us short 300 gp. Which could either be +300 for the masterwork quality, or 300 for the "rumor that if drawn by a good-aligned drow, it would shatter into a thousand small (50 gp) moonstones. If the rumor is true, each of these moonstones could be used once as an atonement spell to redeem a dark elf."

However, I tend to think it's more the Masterwork quality being added in, now if that actually 'does' anything, I dunno.

Runehammer is similiar, but also with more than a few ad-hoc situations.

 

[Cergorach]

I don't believe that they stack, I'm guessing with the next release of the FAQ the mithral statement will be modified.

Ah... You must be one of those people that doesn't believ grass is green and that with the next FAQ release...

;-p

No offense guys, but the latest rulings (thus the FAQ) overrule any previous ones. You can disagree with those rulings, no problem, but that's not what's being discussed. Same goes for the votes, i'm not looking for votes, i'm looking for rules or properly defined opinions. If you think something is "like this or like that" tell us why it is so (quoting rules is a good way to do that)...

 

[trentonjoe]

Staying offtopic

Totally off topic but: Hey! I used to live in Trenton, about 12 years ago before my family moved to Chi Town! How is everything there? Didjaknow Trenton is a very popular area for product testing? I just found that out after wondering for years why we always could buy stuff months before my chicago relatives.

Left my best friend Ken Pogerzelski there :sniff: I hear he's running a pool business in south carolina now.

ROland, Trenton misses you but we are starting to move on.
Let's see, since 1990 we (this is the royal we) have been blessed with a minor league baseball team, a minor league hockey team, a phat new stadium that hosts tons of neat stuff. Also they are almost done with a corporate Marriot HOtel, the gays have taken over Mill Hill making it beautiful, a 3 bzillion dollar route 29 tunnel that is there for no reason, and we have the same mayor dOug Palmer. He may never leave.

ANy other information you would like to know just ask!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

We rule it that special materials just replace the masterwork factor in every aspect (so you can take an elven chain and enhance it)

I'd also say that you only need the lighter armor proficiency for mithral armor, eg. light for elven chain. After all, it's already considered light armor in respect of movement, and it's Armor Check Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure are lower than usual. IMHO that's all what makes a light armor a light armor.

The Idea that a mithral bastard sword is a light weapon for a medium-size character is indeed rediculous. The cathegories of weapons are based on relative size, not on wight. And a mithral bastard sword is still as big as a normal one.

 

[Sarellion]

I think Mithral and Masterwork stack in the spirit of the rules. A normal mithral plate is made of a lighter and better magical material. Masterwork means that a smith of exceptional ability has forged the armor, so that a mithral plate is a plate of better material forged by a god smith. There should be game differences between armor fashioned by a normal smith and armor made by a special smith, when they use the same material. Perhaps raise the DC for masterwork mithral if the material is difficult to handle, so masterwork mithral is more expensive and difficult to purchase.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

So...

Adamantine and Mithral count as MW only for the creation time, meaning you must make a MW adamantine sword or mithral breastplate to enchant it. Neither material includes the 300gp MW fee in its creation costs.

Darkwood, on the other hand, counts fully as a MW item in all respects, and includes the MW cost in the base price of the item.

A reasonable argument.

But you have skirted around the question of how does one make MW mithral armor. Does it take exactly as long as making non-MW mithral armor? That would obviously be strupid.

"Takes as long as" implies an increase to nominal cost and DC in the craft check. By the book, you go through the exact same process as if you were making MW armor, the only difference is you are using more expensive materials. So do you go through the process of making a MW item, but it turns out not to be MW in the end? That's certainly possible, but it is quite counterintuitive.

Is MW mithral made by creating a "MW MW item"? Again, that is possible, but it is pretty kooky.

Furthermore the normal 300 gp cost factor for making MW is a non-issue because you are paying much more than that in materials in the first place. Maybe the 300 is already figured in? Who knows?

The hard truth is neither opinion, stacks or doesn't stack, is 100% consistent with the rules as written. The language is too sloppy.

My vote is to pick what is the "least stupid" choice because it is too easy to ruleslawyer both ways.

IMHO, no stacking.

 

[kreynolds]

My vote is to pick what is the "least stupid" choice because it is too easy to ruleslawyer both ways.

Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing, but I think they should stack. So if my choice is "less stupid", what does that make yours? I think that was a bad way to phrase how to choose.