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BakerOfBedlam
2006-08-05, 02:48 PM
I'm currently working on a new setting for my game (which I'll probably post up here once it's finished/close enough to finished), and I was thinking of special materials for weapons. The setting is going to be fairly low-magic, but I still wanted the relative diversity that magic weaponry and such brings. Hence, new special materials. Here's the "flavor text" I thought up for this one.

Nulinum

Very nearly any material in the world can be used to channel magic, from iron to gems to oak to stone. One metal, however, is a blatant exception to this rule, and it is called "nulinum". Only found in very small ammounts in the mines of Vjeldast*, it posseses absolutely no ability to channel magic energies of any kind. In fact, after a complex alchemical purifying process called quenching, nulinum will all but cancel out any magic near it. Nulinum is generally as hard as steel, but is considerably heavier. Standard nulinum posseses a faint silvery shine, while quenched nulinum is completely matte, and nulinum of both varieties is a dull shade of dark gray with small purple flecks throughout.

Any weapon or armor that is primarily made of steel can be instead made of nulinum. Any item made of nulinum of any kind is masterwork (included in the cost), and can never be enchanted in any way.

A standard nulinum weapon grants its weilder a +2 on any check to sunder or destroy a magic object. A weapon made of standard nulinum is 1.5x the weight of a normal steel weapon, and adds 450gp to the base cost of the weapon.

A standard nulinum suit of armor grants its wearer SR 10. Any suit of armor made from standard nulinum increases the arcane failure chance by 10%. This 10% applies to divine casters as well**. A suit of armor made from standard nulinum is 1.5x the weight of a normal steel suit, and adds 700gp to the base cost of the armor.

A weapon made of quenched nulinum grants its weilder a +4 on any check to sunder or destroy a magic object. If a spellcaster of any kind is hit by a weapon of quenched nulinum, they must pass a DC 18 Fortitude save or loose all spellcasting ability for 1d3 rounds.
A weapon made of quenched nulinum is 1.5x the weight of a normal steel weapon, and adds 900gp to the price.

A suit of armor made from quenched nulinum grants its wearer SR 13. Spellcasting (arcane or divine) is impossible in a suit of quenched nulinum armor. A suit of armor made from quenched nulinum is 1.5x the weight of a normal steel suit, and adds 900gp to the price.

Any spell targeting an item of quenched nulinum automatically fails.

*Primary dwarven kingdom.

**This forces divine casters to roll for 10% spell failure just like an arcane caster would.

The Vorpal Tribble
2006-08-05, 02:57 PM
I'm not a good one to ask about pricing but its a great concept and seems pretty workable.

chaiyo
2006-08-05, 05:50 PM
This material looks like it would be easily workable into a campaign with any amount of magic. However, I must point out one flaw.

When a creature has spell resistance, the caster trying to cast a spell on it must make a roll to break the resistance, not the creature. Thus, Nulinum armor should grant an arbitrarily low SR, like 10.

However, I do like what you did with the weaponry. If I knew a thing about pricing, I might say that the price adjustments would be reversed, with armor being increased by 500 and weaponry by 350. However, that's just a guess.

Fax Celestis
2006-08-05, 07:01 PM
When a creature has spell resistance, the caster trying to cast a spell on it must make a roll to break the resistance, not the creature. Thus, Nulinum armor should grant an arbitrarily low SR, like 10.
Similarly, I'd think that a creature hit by this might lose uses of spell-like abilities, uses of spells, or spell or energy resistance.

BakerOfBedlam
2006-08-05, 07:54 PM
When a creature has spell resistance, the caster trying to cast a spell on it must make a roll to break the resistance, not the creature. Thus, Nulinum armor should grant an arbitrarily low SR, like 10.


Aaaah. Right. I thought I might've messed up on that. I like your suggestion better, anyway. Gonna change that now.



Similarly, I'd think that a creature hit by this might lose uses of spell-like abilities, uses of spells, or spell or energy resistance.

I was going to give quenched nulinum something like this. I had also planned to have any spell that targets a quenched nulinum object automatically fails, or something like that. I'll write that up more fully once I've changed out of my work clothes, seeing as I just got off.

Myiven
2006-08-05, 08:33 PM
I like this a lot. It reminds me of a non-D&D PC game I used to play, where weapons could be forged out of a magic-eating material that cut through enchanted armor like butter. I think it was Chorozite from Asheron's Call, but I forget.

One of my favorite kits in AD&D was the Wizard Slayer Fighter kit. I'd definitely try to make a PrC working around anti-magic metal if I added this into a campaign.

Any thoughts on how it could be used in artifacts? Does your campaign have any wizard-run countries? Do they ban it, or allow it in under a licensing scheme with heavy taxes? More flavor text please!

martyboy74
2006-08-05, 08:54 PM
I'd up the cost of putting it in armor, because although it does prevent all other enchantments on the armor, it provides SR 3 lower than the kind that puts a +2 to cost on the armor.

BakerOfBedlam
2006-08-05, 10:04 PM
I tried to avoid setting-specific things, minus where most of the veins lie. There are no wizard run countries, so it's not against the law, per se. However, any citizen of any of the nations in my setting (the world is called Hamrend), minus Tel'Krijt (the primary elven kingdom), needs a liscence to carry any weapon larger than a dagger in public.

The nation of Telk (sort of an eastern European-inspired place) fields a kind of shock trooper called Nullers*, who use waraxes and full plate made from quenched nulinum. They're fielded in very small groups against enemy spellcasting units, which are somewhat uncommon, but dangerous enough to warrant the use of Nullers. Other than that, nulinum is seen somewhat frequently in adventuring equipment. All in all, it's not all too popular, but those who use it swear by the stuff.

Also, price noted. I'll bump that up some more. Also, going to bump up the price of the weapons, seeing as a nulinum sword costs only 50gp more than a masterwork sword, and masterwork quality is supposed to be included in the price.

*I plan on Nullers being primarily mid-level fighters, some with a few levels of that one anti-magic prestige class from Complete Warrior that I forget the name of.

knightsaline
2006-08-06, 05:50 AM
arrow heads! shoot one arrow with an arrow head made of this material at a spellcaster and if it hits, they lose all spellcasting abilities! thats really overpowered. even if they do remove the arrow from their body using some sort of Heal check, the metal has left trace amounts in the body of the spellcaster. I got the idea of losing spellcasting from a book called "shamans crossing" where a character loses the ability to do shamany.... things after being shot with an iron ball

martyboy74
2006-08-06, 07:45 AM
Yeah, maybe make projectile weapons made out of the stuff "fill up" with magical energy after a certain amount of time and disintgrate. Otherwise, casters would be practically useless after 1 arrow. A single, well placed arrow.

Were-Sandwich
2006-08-06, 07:49 AM
Yeah, but aren't casters useless after a single well placed arrow anyway?

Squangos
2006-08-06, 11:38 AM
Yeah, but aren't casters useless after a single well placed arrow anyway?
Not the divine ones… Anyway, this whole nulinum arrow thing is actually based off of quenched nulium, for which no actual statistics exist (no cost, no weight, no limitations that stop that sort of abuse… Nothing).

BakerOfBedlam
2006-08-06, 03:15 PM
There, stats for quenched. Sorry about the delay on that, but posting them up just kept getting lost in all the other crap I have to do.
The stats for quenched shouldn't be too deadly towards spellcasters, though they're supposed to be very effective against them.

Made a few changes to the standard armor, also.

The Glyphstone
2006-08-06, 04:47 PM
Maybe a Fortitude save to resist the antimagic effect of quenched nullinum? Still a wizard's bad save, but at least now it's not a total screw-over with a single hit.

Tallis
2006-08-07, 11:40 AM
I like the idea, seems a bit cheap compared to the cost of adamantine and mithral. I would think that something this useful that only comes from one place would be very expensive.
I can just imagine sorcerer prisoners being locked into suits of armor made of this stuff. It just might make an appearance in my campaign.

BakerOfBedlam
2006-08-07, 05:18 PM
The fort save seems like a good idea, I'll slap that in there.

Meh. I think the pricing is allright, seeing as nothing made of nulinum can be enchanted, which I would see as a serious drawback, and its abilities are only really usefull against magic items. It's very handy, but only in specific circumstances.