The Spatzworld Exotic Material System

[Spatzimaus]

Well, yeah. If you're planning on making a tank fighter, chances are you're not going to dump too many points into Dex.

Remember that most "normal" humans will have an average stat of 10ish. If the town guards don't get to roll 4d6 for their stats, and don't ever get high enough in level for the +1/4levels, a 12 DEX starts seeming pretty reasonable. And part of this is a chicken-or-egg thing. In D&D, armors other than light armor suck. Therefore, everyone pumps up their DEX. But what if the heavier armors DIDN'T suck? You'd see more players using DEX as a dump stat and wearing heavy armors; same AC, and more stat points spent on things like CON.

If I've got a Dex that high, I'm going to be wearing leather or, at most, studded leather, unless I could get my hands on a mithral chain shirt - that's 3-4 points of ACP over scale mail, and when you're playing someone with a high Dex, that's a huge advantage.

And that's what I'm trying to change. Light armors have become such a no-brainer in D&D that the rest just almost never get used.

And ACP? If you're not a Rogue, what do you care? (So yes, Rogues will stick with light armor, which fits the fact that that's all they're proficient with.) Okay, the heavily-armored tank will on rare occasions need a Climb, Swim, or Balance check, but Hide and Move Silently? A Ranger might like those, but he'll be sticking with light armor anyway, for his pseudoFeats. And Tumble? Monks care about that too, but they don't wear armor. The same sort of argument applies to Somatic Failure (arcane spell failure): it's substantially higher for the heavier armors, but outside of a few multiclass combos, it never comes up. MaxDEX matters to everyone, but there's not nearly the discrepancy between light and medium there.
So for the Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins, and Clerics, medium or heavy armors will be desirable. That's what I'm going for.

Also, the numbers I listed in the earlier post are a bit misleading; for the armors using Soft materials (leather), they're calculated using a Hardness of 5. But, there are no Soft materials with Hardness above 10 (Dragonhide is 10), so the highest DR a Leather suit could get would be 6 points. Metals, on the other hand, were calculated using H=10, but metal Hardnesses go up to 25, and 20s are common at high level. So the chain-type armors will pick up substantially more DR as you go up.
On top of that, there are simply no ultra-high-level leathers. My materials have DC modifiers ranging from 0 to +20, with power roughly scaling with DC. The highest leathers have DCs in the ~12 range, while harder materials go all the way to the top.

Oh, I see. Seems like you have a good idea right there - x10 for light armors, x7.5 for medium, and x5 for heavy.

More or less. It's not going to be exact, of course. And when I say "Masterwork" what I really mean is "Armor made from Fine Steel (10 gp/lb, DC +3) and Fine Leather (5 gp/lb, DC +2), using the system in my first post." Due to the way this system works, they'll actually be slightly better than the PHB masterwork, but they're the closest analogue.

I don't see why MW leather would (or should) cost the same as MW plate mail, though...

I never said it would. What I was saying is that the PHB prices have the difficulty already factored into their costs; light armors are dirt cheap compared to heavies, but once the masterwork cost is factored in, the difference isn't nearly as much. It's still there; instead of a 100:1 difference between Leather and Plate, it's only 11:1. It's because now, neither is really "trivial"; MW Leather is still easier to make than MW Plate, but not by as much, so the price ratio skews closer to the ratio of the material costs.
That's the trend I'm trying to keep. I don't want a flat multiplier, because then the heavy stuff gets really expensive while the light stuff stays cheap; I don't want a flat addition, because then the base cost becomes irrelevant.

that tank fighter I mentioned above isn't going to get much benefit from leather armor with his 11 Dex, so he's going to go with something heavier - bandeded, scale, or even plate.

But in my experience, he doesn't (unless he's a Dwarf). He gets a Mithral Breastplate or a Chain Shirt, and an item that gives +6 DEX, and that's the end of it. No one wears Banded or Splint once they can afford Plate (it's pretty much better in every way) or a Breastplate, and no one wears Scale or Chainmail if a Chain Shirt is available. And once they can afford materials like mithral, all armor is Light (except for Dwarves).

Probably not... maybe have a modifier based on the weapon's size, so all light weapons are still relatively the same, all one-handed, etc., like I suggested above for armors.

Well, that's why I had the part in the very first post where I talked about how much material a weapon required. I'm still tweaking the formula for it, but it holds together pretty well. I don't like flat multipliers, in general, any more than I like flat additions. Both cause trends I dislike.
Plus, think of the multipliers we discussed for masterwork; that's for ONE material type. What multipliers would we use for the other 50 or so materials I have? That's why I'm trying to come up with a reasonably coherent equation that mimics the trends I was talking about there.

 

[Kerrick]

And that's what I'm trying to change. Light armors have become such a no-brainer in D&D that the rest just almost never get used.

Your experiences are obviously quite a bit different than mine. In our campaign, the paladins/tank fighters/heavy hitters always wear heavy armor - usually plate. I, personally, favor mobile characters, so I usually play rogues, rangers, or (rarely) Dex-based fighters, but if I were to play a Strength-based fighter, I'd dump most of my points into Strength and Con, make Dex the dump stat, and go with heavy armor. But that's just me. *shrugs*

On top of that, there are simply no ultra-high-level leathers. My materials have DC modifiers ranging from 0 to +20, with power roughly scaling with DC. The highest leathers have DCs in the ~12 range, while harder materials go all the way to the top.

And that's as it should be - there are a lot more metals on this earth than there are types of hide or leather, and most of the leathers are pretty well the same, whereas the metals vary widely - steel armor's going to provide a lot more protection than iron or bronze, and titanium will be even better.

I never said it would. What I was saying is that the PHB prices have the difficulty already factored into their costs; light armors are dirt cheap compared to heavies, but once the masterwork cost is factored in, the difference isn't nearly as much.

That's why I went with a flat multiplier - a masterwork dagger isn't going to be as hard to make as a normal greatsword - even though it's higher quality and will probably take longer to make, it uses a fraction of the materials. But then, I don't use the PHB crafting system, either, so the crafting time won't be based on the end price.

Plus, think of the multipliers we discussed for masterwork; that's for ONE material type. What multipliers would we use for the other 50 or so materials I have? That's why I'm trying to come up with a reasonably coherent equation that mimics the trends I was talking about there.

So you don't have a "masterwork" quality... that could prove to be a problem, yeah. Our group has a huge list of materials, too (at least 50), and the way we did it is this:

Each material has a Craft DC modifier - if you want to make an item from that material, you tack on the modifier to the item's DC (pretty much the same as you);

Each material has a price modifier.

We have 10 levels of mastercrafting (masterwork). Each material also has a max Craft bonus - that is, it can be made so well and no better. All items use the same multipliers for mastercrafting levels - a +3 masterwork longsword is price x16 for steel, adamantine, elven steel, or mithril, but based on the material the item is made from, the price will vary widely.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Your experiences are obviously quite a bit different than mine. In our campaign, the paladins/tank fighters/heavy hitters always wear heavy armor - usually plate.

I wonder how much of that is a residual "character concept" factor. That is, they wear heavy armor because they think a Paladin should wear heavy armor...
My point was that there's no statistical benefit to 3E heavy armor. It slows you down (unless you're a Dwarf), and you'll have the same AC as someone wearing lighter armor and a +DEX item. With less ACP and spell failure, less weight to deal with, fewer penalties for sleeping in armor, etc...

At low level, sure, heavy armor's common. But once +DEX items (and the 4-level stat boosts, and wish) start becoming more common, it just seems to disappear in every campaign I've played.

And that's as it should be - there are a lot more metals on this earth than there are types of hide or leather, and most of the leathers are pretty well the same, whereas the metals vary widely - steel armor's going to provide a lot more protection than iron or bronze, and titanium will be even better.

Yes and no. The main reason we have fewer leathers is that more people wanted exotic metals for their armors and weapons, so we never bothered making too many of them. The lower DC isn't because high-quality leathers are rare, it's more that high-quality leathers have lower DCs than their metal counterparts.
And to be fair, the highest mundane metals are DC+11, except for Darksteel at +16. Everything above 12ish is planar (Karach, Dajaava, Bloodsteel), alchemical (True Mithral, Orichalcum), or horribly limited (Adamantine, the drow metal that disintegrates in sunlight). To pick up the slack there are elemental crystal materials at 14-15, some rarer crystals at 15-18, and a few different Dragonscale materials at 15-17.
(Also, many of the metals were converted directly from an old AD&D document, so we converted a bunch that we never figured we'd use.)

You can't focus too much on real-world materials. While it might sound great to bring Titanium or Aluminum into these systems, it falls apart once you look at what chemical processes were needed to extract those materials from their ores. (The top of the Washington Monument has a small tip made of aluminum, because at the time it was more expensive than gold.) And yes, there are fewer types of leather, but we don't have Dragons and such around to provide variety in skins.

That's why I went with a flat multiplier - a masterwork dagger isn't going to be as hard to make as a normal greatsword

In our opinions, they'll be a lot closer than a flat multiplier would imply. Beyond a certain point, it's not about the quantity, it's about the quality. A dagger made out of adamantine (DC +19, not to be confused with the lower-quality "adamantium") should cost almost as much as a greatsword made out of adamantine, because the difficult and expensive part isn't getting enough metal, it's finding someone who can make DC 34 Craft rolls consistently and is willing to spend weeks on your item. So, we're trying to develop an equation that reflects this.

The same logic applies for armors. At low levels (mundane materials only), leather's cheap to buy (say, 1/12th the cost of plate's material) and much easier to work with, so it'll cost 50-100 times less than plate. After all, any apprentice can whip together a suit of leather, but it takes someone with some training to make plate armor.
But once you start making them out of really rare materials, I want the factor to decrease until at the top end it's pretty much right on that 1/12th material ratio, to reflect that you'd need a master craftsman for either. Ironically, a flat addition (not multiplier) does this well at the high end, but it's bad at the low end.

And we use a different Craft equation, too. It's in the first post, under the Craft Rules tag.

So you don't have a "masterwork" quality... that could prove to be a problem, yeah.

"Fine Steel" and "Fine Leather" simply replaced "Masterwork". That's all. (Historically, it didn't really matter how much time you spent on the sword, if it wasn't made out of high-quality metal it wouldn't be substantially better than a crude sword. But a good Damascene Steel could do wonders in the hands of a good smith.)

We could have added mastercraft rules on top of this, but it just made things even more complex, and we were already well past the point where you'd need a calculator to keep track of everything. So, we fudged a bit, and equated higher levels of "masterwork" to rarer materials; we figured that no one would ever make a sword out of Tana'ari Bloodsteel without spending enough time to make it a masterpiece.

 

[Kerrick]

You can't focus too much on real-world materials. While it might sound great to bring Titanium or Aluminum into these systems, it falls apart once you look at what chemical processes were needed to extract those materials from their ores.

Oh, I know. The original materials list, before I went over it, had things like rhodium and vanadium, which are toxic in large amounts and quite hard to smelt. But there's nothing to prevent you from ruling that titanium (or any other metal) is slightly different in a fantasy campaign world and can be mined/smelted like iron, for instance.

And yes, there are fewer types of leather, but we don't have Dragons and such around to provide variety in skins.

Ahhh. So what's dragonscale?

In our opinions, they'll be a lot closer than a flat multiplier would imply. Beyond a certain point, it's not about the quantity, it's about the quality. A dagger made out of adamantine (DC +19, not to be confused with the lower-quality "adamantium") should cost almost as much as a greatsword made out of adamantine...

Yeah... I went back and looked our mastercrafting rules, and I realized that the low-end items, like daggers or clubs, remain really cheap in relation to things like greatswords. Not sure how I missed that the first time (or maybe I didn't and just chose to overlook it). It works well enough for armor, since the cheapest there is 5 gp (and MW padded armor should still be fairly cheap).

because the difficult and expensive part isn't getting enough metal, it's finding someone who can make DC 34 Craft rolls consistently and is willing to spend weeks on your item. So, we're trying to develop an equation that reflects this.

I gotcha. If you're paying 5 gp a day for a smith, and he takes 3 days to make a MW dagger and 10 to make a MW greatsword, you're shelling out 35 more gp for an item of the same quality.

And we use a different Craft equation, too. It's in the first post, under the Craft Rules tag.

Yeah, I went back and reread that... the first time I read it, when you first posted this system, I thought you had come up with a crafting system independent of prices, but that's not the case. You should check out our system. I'm not saying it's better, but you might find some ideas there that would be useful. Ours uses flat crafting times*, and I also adapted the size/complexity rules from d20 Modern, so, for instance, a dagger (Small Simple) will be easier to craft (DC 12) and take less time (2 days) than a greatsword (Large Moderate, DC 15 and 10 days). Masterwork levels increase the item's "complexity" - higher quality means better craftsmanship, more complex processes, and more knowledge in general, which increases the base DC along with the time.

*I just thought of something - adding a modifier based on the gp cost, like there is for magic items. I don't currently have anything beyond an optional variable you could add to crafting time, but I think this would be a good idea - right now, making a greatsword out of adamantine only increases the DC and cost, but not the time.

We could have added mastercraft rules on top of this, but it just made things even more complex, and we were already well past the point where you'd need a calculator to keep track of everything. So, we fudged a bit, and equated higher levels of "masterwork" to rarer materials; we figured that no one would ever make a sword out of Tana'ari Bloodsteel without spending enough time to make it a masterpiece.

Or the DMG interpretation for mithril and adamantine, that because the metal is such high quality, any items made from it are automatically masterwork.

 

[Spatzimaus]

But there's nothing to prevent you from ruling that titanium (or any other metal) is slightly different in a fantasy campaign world and can be mined/smelted like iron, for instance.

Of course. Our top metal is Orichalcum. In reality, orichalcum is a copper/gold alloy, nothing more. But in our world, it's an alchemical mix of Mithral, Mercury, Gold, and Adamantium; and by "alchemical mix", I mean that the four metals have to be magically bonded together WHILE being initially forged into the final item; you can't stockpile it. This makes it the most expensive and most difficult material in the game (+20 DC, 600 gp/lb, although it only weighs 50% of the normal amount so you don't need as much).

Likewise, our elemental crystals have names like "Diamond", "Sapphire", "Ruby", etc., even though they're not actually the chemically simple (carbon, aluminum oxide, etc.) gems we know by those names. But it's convenient for the players; most people won't remember off the top of their heads what Dlarun or Arandur look like, but everyone knows Diamond.

Ahhh. So what's dragonscale?

To make sure there's no confusion, I just meant that in the real world there are no Dragons; if there were, there'd be far more variety, and so the real world comparison of metals-vs-hides doesn't translate. I didn't mean to imply that there aren't Dragons in my game; this IS D&D, after all.

In our world, Dragons actually produce four rare materials useable for armors:
Dragonbone (DC +16) is a Hard bone material. You CAN use it for armors if you really, really wanted to, but it's much better as a weapon material; it's very light, and made from a red dragon, for instance, any weapon gains the flaming property for free.
Dragonhide (DC +13, Hardness 10) is a Soft material. It's the parts of the hide covered by very small scales. It's not really "soft", of course, but it's close enough that you can use it for leather-type armors (without needing to treat it with tannin very much).
Dragonscale (DC +15, Hardness 15) is a Flexible material. It's the parts of the hide covered by moderate-sized scales. It's not chain, of course, but it's as flexible as chain, and so for game purposes it's comparable.
Dragonplate (DC +17, Hardness 20) is a Hard material. It's the parts with large scales, obviously, and you have to be a size or two smaller than the dragon to use it. The stat bonuses are pretty nice (for full plate, it's +3 AC, +2 ACP, +2 MaxDEX, resist ~20 to the appropriate elements, and -5% SF, and all of this stacks with magic), but it costs a hefty 250 gp/lb.

It works well enough for armor, since the cheapest there is 5 gp (and MW padded armor should still be fairly cheap).

The danger there is that if light armors reach the point where their ACP and SF are zero, there's no downside to Wizards and Sorcerers wearing them. If you wear an armor you're not proficient in, you apply the ACP to attack rolls and some skill rolls, but if the armor HAS no ACP, what's the downside?

So, high-DC materials used for light armors need to still cost a fairly large amount, or else you'll REALLY skew class balance. As it is, even with our changes people are doing this, and Dragonhide seems to be the biggest abuser, so we're looking at changing its stats.

I gotcha. If you're paying 5 gp a day for a smith, and he takes 3 days to make a MW dagger and 10 to make a MW greatsword, you're shelling out 35 more gp for an item of the same quality.

Right. And it's not just about sheer time; that high-end crafter KNOWS that you'll never find someone else who can do the job, so he'll charge what the market will bear. Plus, there's often a flat "overhead" cost involved; if he had to travel to your city, it won't matter as much how many days you expect him to work, and even if he doesn't travel, you're asking him to drop all of his other work. The "book" guideline of (material cost = final cost / 3) just falls apart for this sort of thing.
But there's also a balance issue. If everything's just a multiplier, people will completely avoid the items with slightly more expensive base costs. Why take a Falchon, when a Greatsword always costs 33% less? Why take a Double Sword, when a Double Axe costs 40% less and has comparable stats? And are you really going to stick with that Greatsword if a Longsword costs 70% less? It's worse for armors.
The PHB masterwork makes these minor price shifts irrelevant by adding a relatively huge 150gp or 300gp cost to everything. I don't want to go that far, but it's at least the right idea; flatten the curve a bit.

Or the DMG interpretation for mithril and adamantine, that because the metal is such high quality, any items made from it are automatically masterwork.

I know, the DMG says that explicitly for some of its materials. But note that I said "masterpiece", not "masterwork"; if you have ~10 levels of mastercraft, my point is that someone making a sword out of a really rare material (like Bloodsteel) would never settle for one of the lowest masterworks, let alone go non-masterwork; he'd go for one of the top tiers, something comparable to the skill/cost needed to work with the material in the first place. So, I simply equated the two, and removed the mastercraft part entirely by mapping its various levels to rarer materials.

 

[Kerrick]

Of course. Our top metal is Orichalcum. In reality, orichalcum is a copper/gold alloy, nothing more. But in our world, it's an alchemical mix of Mithral, Mercury, Gold, and Adamantium; and by "alchemical mix", I mean that the four metals have to be magically bonded together WHILE being initially forged into the final item; you can't stockpile it.

Yeah, we've got orichulum, which is an alchemical mix of copper, zinc, gold, and mercury and has a long and involved process to make (and even then you won't get much in the end).

To make sure there's no confusion, I just meant that in the real world there are no Dragons

Well of course we're not talking real-world stuff here. 3/4 of this stuff doesn't exist in the real world.

The danger there is that if light armors reach the point where their ACP and SF are zero, there's no downside to Wizards and Sorcerers wearing them.

Like the mithral chain shirt? +6 max Dex, no ACP, and 10% ASF means any mage will jump at the chance to get it. Even mithril breastplate is semi-viable - -1 ACP and 15% ASF, for a +5 armor bonus, and it weighs only 5 pounds more. Make it masterwork, and hey - no ACP!

If you wear an armor you're not proficient in, you apply the ACP to attack rolls and some skill rolls, but if the armor HAS no ACP, what's the downside?

Yeah... I think that rule was badly thought out - they didn't take mithril into consideration.
I'd simply have a flat -4 nonproficiency penalty just like weapons, and rule that if you're wearing an armor you're not proficient with, you suffer the -4 or the armor's ACP, whichever is larger.

But there's also a balance issue. If everything's just a multiplier, people will completely avoid the items with slightly more expensive base costs. Why take a Falchon, when a Greatsword always costs 33% less? Why take a Double Sword, when a Double Axe costs 40% less and has comparable stats? And are you really going to stick with that Greatsword if a Longsword costs 70% less? It's worse for armors.

Yeah... multipliers might not be the best way to go about it, but it's the best I can come up with - I didn't want to overcomplicate things too much. But really, people are going take what they want, unless they're min-maxing their PCs - longswords are very common because they're cheap, easy to find, and deal decent damage. Same with greatswords - they're more common than falchions (which is probably why they're cheaper) and deal more damage.

That extra cost for masterwork could only cover materials, not craftsmanship - someone capable of making a +6 mastercraft item is going to charge quite a bit of money for his services. Generally speaking, the larger the item (weapon or armor), the more material it uses and the more it costs. Items of unusual craftsmanship (hand crossbows, composite bows, etc.) might use less materials, but they cost more because they're more difficult to make.

I know, the DMG says that explicitly for some of its materials. But note that I said "masterpiece", not "masterwork"; if you have ~10 levels of mastercraft, my point is that someone making a sword out of a really rare material (like Bloodsteel) would never settle for one of the lowest masterworks, let alone go non-masterwork; he'd go for one of the top tiers, something comparable to the skill/cost needed to work with the material in the first place. So, I simply equated the two, and removed the mastercraft part entirely by mapping its various levels to rarer materials.

Ahh. So effectively, they have a "minimum craft level". Interesting idea. Can they be crafted better? I mean, could you make "masterwork" bloodsteel with a higher bonus than normal?

I just thought of something - adding a modifier based on the gp cost, like there is for magic items. I don't currently have anything beyond an optional variable you could add to crafting time, but I think this would be a good idea - right now, making a greatsword out of adamantine only increases the DC and cost, but not the time.

Ignore this - I discovered yesterday that factoring in gp costs for nonmagical items doesn't work. It's great for magic items, because they're all the same (formula-wise), but nonmagical items have such a sheer variety of types and materials (not even counting masterwork) that the system breaks down when you try to apply a modifier based on price. That's why the existing crafting system doesn't work.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Even mithril breastplate is semi-viable - -1 ACP and 15% ASF, for a +5 armor bonus, and it weighs only 5 pounds more. Make it masterwork, and hey - no ACP!

The way we've always interpreted the "mithral items are also masterwork" line is that the ACP reduction for masterwork was already included in the -3 mithral gives. But yes, I've played a Sorcerer who wore Celestial mail, although to be fair I DID have full armor proficiency (I had a level of Aristocrat. Yes, the NPC class.)

Yeah... I think that rule was badly thought out - they didn't take mithril into consideration.

Well, mithral is ALSO just too strong; you don't run into this problem with other materials. So, in our rules we went back to the AD&D style: there's Mithral, which is a bit weaker than the 3E version (+1 ACP, +1 MaxDEX, -5% SF, and mobility enhancements cost -1), and True Mithral, which is comparable to 3E (+1 AC, +2 ACP, +1 MaxDEX, -10% SF, and mobility enhancements cost -1); these stats assume you're using the material for the full suit of armor (half the bonuses go to Primary, and half to Secondary). They both reduce the weight class of the armor, also (but no material lets you change Heavy to Light).
The mobility thing is that we added two armor enchantments to our game:
Lesser mobility costs +2 and increases MaxDEX by 2, ACP by 1, SF by 5%, and the item's weight drops 10%. Requires haste or freedom of movement.
Greater mobility costs +4 and increases MaxDEX by 5, ACP by 2, SF by 10%, and the item's weight drops 25%. Requires mass haste or wind walk.
These are normally +2 and +4, but for Mithral they're +1 and +3. So, stacking Mithral with lesser mobility (at a cost of +1) gives you the same stat boosts as the old Mithral.

Instead of a -4 nonproficiency penalty, I'd prefer something a bit more flexible. Cut the AC bonus in half, add 5 to the ACP, add 25% to the spell failure, that sort of thing; penalize a little bit in each area.

But really, people are going take what they want, unless they're min-maxing their PCs

Up to a point. If you make the discrepancies too large, even the "casual" players will take notice. And if they don't notice until way down the road, it's just going to upset them when they find out they've been paying three times as much as the other guy for comparable effectiveness. I'd prefer to avoid that from the start, even if it means using slightly more complicated math.

Ahh. So effectively, they have a "minimum craft level". Interesting idea. Can they be crafted better? I mean, could you make "masterwork" bloodsteel with a higher bonus than normal?

As we've written it, no, you can't make an "improved" bloodsteel. Since you'd already need to find a level ~20 craftsman to make the high-end items in the first place (to hit a Craft DC in the mid-30s), there just wouldn't be much room for going higher. And with ~50 materials, we didn't really feel we needed more variation.
Also, that just brings up the problem mentioned earlier; if you allow masterwork bonuses to stack with magic to stack with material bonuses, it's really easy to hit ACP=0 and SF=0%. By removing the masterwork bonuses, it's not nearly as common, since only a couple materials have SF reductions of more than 5%, and they're all top-end (DC +19 or +20).

 

[Kerrick]

But yes, I've played a Sorcerer who wore Celestial mail, although to be fair I DID have full armor proficiency (I had a level of Aristocrat. Yes, the NPC class.)

I had a PC once who started out as an adept, then multiclassed into wizard. One of my all-time favorites; he became a spiritbinder.

Instead of a -4 nonproficiency penalty, I'd prefer something a bit more flexible. Cut the AC bonus in half, add 5 to the ACP, add 25% to the spell failure, that sort of thing; penalize a little bit in each area.[/qoute]
Ooh, I like that. The penalties could be based on the weight class of the armor; say, light armors add +2 to the ACP and +10%, medium +4 and 20%, and heavy +6 and 30%, in addition to losing half the AC bonus.

Up to a point. If you make the discrepancies too large, even the "casual" players will take notice. And if they don't notice until way down the road, it's just going to upset them when they find out they've been paying three times as much as the other guy for comparable effectiveness. I'd prefer to avoid that from the start, even if it means using slightly more complicated math.

True. I try to design rules so that just about anyone can understand them easily - I'm designing for a wider audience, whereas you're just doing this for your group. I'm sure there's an elegant solution to this problem, and it probably lies somewhere in between our two versions.

As we've written it, no, you can't make an "improved" bloodsteel. Since you'd already need to find a level ~20 craftsman to make the high-end items in the first place (to hit a Craft DC in the mid-30s), there just wouldn't be much room for going higher. And with ~50 materials, we didn't really feel we needed more variation.

Ah, so you don't play much beyond 20th level. Okay.

Also, that just brings up the problem mentioned earlier; if you allow masterwork bonuses to stack with magic to stack with material bonuses, it's really easy to hit ACP=0 and SF=0%. By removing the masterwork bonuses, it's not nearly as common, since only a couple materials have SF reductions of more than 5%, and they're all top-end (DC +19 or +20).

I keep forgetting materials in your system allow reductions in ASF. Ours don't - some of them have inherent abilities, and some (like your mithril) can take certain enchantments at lower cost. That's why our mastercrafting system stacks with the materials - the only way you can alter ACP and max Dex are through mastercraft bonuses (there's no way to reduce ASF).

 

[Spatzimaus]

I had a PC once who started out as an adept, then multiclassed into wizard. One of my all-time favorites; he became a spiritbinder.

The best part is that I intentionally took the Aristocrat level, even though I could have taken a PC class instead.

I mean really. It's a class with full armor and weapons, some nice class skills (including Speak Language, which was important since in our world there was no Common tongue), and 4+INT skill points. It's actually not a bad choice for a 1st-level character, although it obviously doesn't scale up nearly as well beyond that. And since my character was a nomadic Sorcerer from a family of wealthy merchants/craftsmen, it actually fit really well.

Of course, I later replaced the Sorcerer levels with Psion(Shaper) levels, at which point the spell failure thing went away.

Ah, so you don't play much beyond 20th level. Okay.

Generally, no. We usually start at ~3rd level (much better for multiclassers), and usually end as we get close to 20th.

But I was oversimplifying. It's not very difficult for a PC craftsman to hit 35 DC well before 20th; my 3.5E Shaper (with a high INT, an Artiste psicrystal and a luck ring that gave +1 to all skill checks) wouldn't have a problem at 15th level or earlier. Generally speaking, though, the DC modifiers match pretty well to what level the material is made for (+10 DC materials are balanced for ~10th level, etc.)

I keep forgetting materials in your system allow reductions in ASF.

Only a very few do. The mithrals and their alloys (orichalcum, for instance), the dragonhides, and a couple specific crystals; maybe 8 out of 50ish in total. It's just that those materials happen to be the ones we've been discussing.

 

[Crashy75]

A very interesting idea. A couple of things I've seen so far. (only read the first 2 posts)

Silver:
I don't agree with the +1 to attack. Silver is softer than iron no? I can't see why it would have the bonus. I could see the reduced ACP. I do believe it is lighter. of course silver armor would prolly have a lower ac...prolly don't want to go there.
EDIT: Silver weapons would prolly have a lesser damage too.... *runs away*

Cold Iron:
2 things. I can't see why it would have the +1 to attack or the +1 to ACP. It seems to have the same properties as iron (hardness/HP). Perhaps it is heavier? *really what is the dif between iron and 'cold' iron?* I suppose if it is heavier than it could have a +1 to attack or dam but not the ACP bonus.

Cool idea anyway.