Andor said:
Just in case anyone hasn't had an aneuryism yet I should point out it's technically impossible to create the masterwork armours.
The 'Enchant item' ritual requires the base item. Which you can't aquire becuase it doesn't come in unenchanted varieties.
It's like someone wrote Catch-22 on a Moebius strip.
I personally think they dropped the ball here.
The RAW make two assumptions that need some sort of setting justification to work in game:
1) No-one enchants normal-grade armour past +3
2) No-one wears Masterwork armour which has not been enchanted to an appropriate level
I can see several ways around this, but they'd all require house rules.
Why no +4 standard-grade?
Solution A: Enchants past +3 require a minimum grade of armour for the enchant to take. Lesser armours either don't accept the enchant or cannot survive the enchanting process.
Solution B: The upgrade to masterwork is a side-effect of the enchantment ritual. Assuming you are of high enough level to have learned the technique, you buy the components required to upgrade a normal suit, and do the final infusion/assembly/tempering as part of the Ritual. (This also solves 2)
Why no unenchanted Masterwork?
Solution A: Masterwork armour is in some way unsuitable for use until you enchant it with a +4 (or +6) enchant.
eg: "Yup, this is a set of godplate, alright. Of course, the joints won't actually move until you enchant it. HEY! Don't try to bend that Feyweave! It's rigid as a board until you enchant it!
bloody elves...."
or
eg: “Of course they only come in size 0000! It’s easier to store and carry, and you resize it to fit once it’s enchanted!”
(size 0000 is for newborn babies, for those who don't get the joke)
Solution B: Masterwork sets exist. However, they are prohibitively expensive for unenchanted use, primarily because the masterwork AC bonus does not kick in until the set is enchanted to the required level. Until a sufficiently-powerful enchant is applied, they function as standard-grade armour only.
Solution C: Masterwork armour has an intrinsic +4 (or +6) enchantment when it is made, and furthermore is unusually receptive to the first enchantment ritual used upon it, so that the ritual requires fewer components than usual. As long as it is not marred by battle prior to enchanting, it counts as its full purchase value (rather than 20%) for the purposes of reaching the required component value for the ritual.
This only counts for the first enchant upgrade, however. If a set of masterwork that has already been upgraded from plain +4 (or +6) is re-enchanted, then normal enchantment costs apply.
(The reason Solution C gets so complicated is to preserve the rules for how much enchanted armour costs, while still allowing PCs to enchant a set of masterwork themselves.)
These are all house rules, given as examples of the sort of justifications the RAW seem to require here. I really wish they'd included them in the rules, rather than just saying "+4 or higher is masterwork, +6 is superior masterwork, deal with it!"
