Adamantium based nail polish and natural claw attacks?

[Poil]

If you ground up adamantium and passed some form of alchemy dc wouldn't you be able to make nail polish out of it and then apply it to your claws in order to slice open plate armor as if it was made out of tinfoil? You could even use other materials such as silver and cold iron to bypass other forms of damage reduction. It feels like an obvious idea but the search turned up nothing.

Sure it's expensive and getting a sword out of the metal would probably be a lot better. Especially considering that you'll probably won't use the claws unless you lose your primary and secondary weapons first. But I'm aiming more for the cool factor here.

Would you allow it?
For some strange reason I suspect that druids should not be allowed to do this though.

[Malfunctioned]

I'm not sure if I'd allow it to act as if the natural attack was made completely out of the material, maybe allow it to reduce damage reduction or hardness, but not by too much, maybe 5 or lower.

[bosssmiley]

You're ignoring the relative hardness of the structural material supporting the adamantine nail polish (IE: the keratin of nails) when compared to steel. 'Hard and solid' beats 'sharp-but-brittle'.

This is why Molly Millions ("William Gibson? Sprawl trilogy? Bueller?") had her nails entirely replaced with blades, rather than merely buying Rimmel's new FoeSlayer line of nail polish.

Adamantine daggers or katars in the shape of giant claws will look equally cool and work by RAW.

[Telonius]

If it were good for more than one attack, no. The alchemy required by that would probably require an Artifact-level item to boost the skill enough to do it. At that point, you're talking about something on the level of creating Wolverine.

Now, if it were a single-use Wondrous or Alchemical item, Adamantine Oil might be a bit more reasonable. I'd say that a fourth of the cost of an adamantine version of the item would be reasonable. It wouldn't give you a claw attack, just make your fist count as adamantine if you applied it to bare hands. (Cost = 1/4 adamantine gauntlet). So you'd still get AoO's against you if you don't have Improved Unarmed Strike and attack with it.

[oxinabox]

Yes I would totally allow it.
Why shoulnd't characters with natural attacks get to bypass DR/Addy?
Or have a great bonus to sunder.

I'ld charge addy nail pollish at the same price a weopon enhancment.
twice if you wanted both hands.

But I'm a mechanistic (is that a word?).
I prefer an nice mechanic, to physical,/historical accuracy

[Poil]

Ah, yes that makes sense. Too bad, I thought I had something clever. :smalltongue:


Adamantine daggers or katars in the shape of giant claws will look equally cool and work by RAW.

No they're not, in my not so humble opinion. Also they require you to hold them in your hands and are affected by disarm.

EDIT


Yes I would totally allow it.
Why shouldn't characters with natural attacks get to bypass DR/Addy?
Or have a great bonus to sunder.

I'ld charge addy nail pollish at the same price a weopon enhancment.
twice if you wanted both hands.

But I'm a mechanistic (is that a word?).
I prefer an nice mechanic, to physical,/historical accuracy

That's what I was thinking.

[Sinfire Titan]

The Ring of Adamantine Touch from the MIC does what you are thinking about, but does it right.

[OverdrivePrime]

I've got similar concerns as above. As a slightly realistic DM, I'd be likely have the character make a Fortitude Save vs DC 10+ the damage they inflicted with their adamant nail polish attack. Failing the save means they take 1d4+1 damage (ignores damage reduction) as their fingernails tear away from their flesh.

[Poil]

I've got similar concerns as above. As a slightly realistic DM, I'd be likely have the character make a Fortitude Save vs DC 10+ the damage they inflicted with their adamant nail polish attack. Failing the save means they take 1d4+1 damage (ignores damage reduction) as their fingernails tear away from their flesh.

Interesting, I like it. But I never intended it to be used by humans or anything with human-like nails. Assume something like dragon disciple or half fiend instead. :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

Now I want to see rules for Adamantium body paint so creatures with slam attacks can do the same thing...

[Moriato]

Not unless it was magical. Powdered metal has all the strength of.. well, powder. Or the glue that holds it together.

The silver or iron I would let work because it's sort of a quasi-mystical thing. Certain creatures have a weakness to it, or they're allergic to it or... whatever. Adamantine seems to work just because it super-ultra hard or something like that, so a powdered form just wouldn't have that effect. Now if it were magical, sure. If it magically hardens to be just as strong, or were a potion or paint that actually turned the claws into adamantine, I'd let that work just fine.

This (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1316963/Metal-teeth-give-US-police-dog-a-new-bite.html) artical may interest you. It talks about how some police dogs have their canines removed and replaced with titanium, because a broken tooth will make them hesitant to bite.

[Doc Roc]

I has a word for you, and it are No.
No RAW support, no RAI support, just madness this way lies.

[Tiki Snakes]

Just get some adamantine goth-rings. You know, the type that fit over the finger, and look like a claw? But get them made to fit over your actual natural-attacking claws.

Basically doing the 'Gauntlet works with monk unarmed strike' thing, but with your scratchies.

Plus, the fact that you aren't trying to rely on the hardness of powder, as Moriato points out quite nicely.

[Doc Roc]

There are actually rules somewhere for claw-guard style weapons. I want to say draconomicon?

[Coidzor]

Adamantium finger-blades been mentioned yet?

Could be fluffed to be disguised as fake nails.

Or even false nails attached to the finger itself using sovereign glue.

In the case of something without actual hands... that'd be a bit trickier. Probably would have to have something more along the lines of actually turning their claws into adamantine for a temporary amount of time.

Or some kind of homebrewed template along the lines of spell-stitched which would basically make them Wolverine.

[warrl]

The problem with adamantium fingernail (well, claw) polish is that you could buy it in a somewhat larger container and paint a sword with it.

Or, how about the gallon bucket and paint your armor?

[Salt_Crow]

So it'd be a variation of Ring of Adamantine Touch mentioned above. I don't think it allows one to bypass hardness though. The only instance where something "acts like adamantine" bypasses hardness is Monk's 16th-level ability (or somewhere around that level) which specifically states that it does so.