Shark Armor?

[Cieyrin]

So in a campaign I'm playing that's currently highly sea-based, my druid is running with a shark companion and the thought of barding occurred to me. Now, from looking at the different movement modes, the only one that explicitly says anything about armor or encumbrance is flying, so there shouldn't be an issue on that front. The only things I see as potential problems about it is Mr. Jaws' unfamiliarity with armor and I'm having a hard time picturing a shark in leathers or chain.

So, what is the Playground's thought on this? Any experience in pimping your aquatic companion out there in the audience?

[AstralFire]

I'm having a hard time picturing a shark in leathers or chain.

http://www.pennyandaggie.com/comics/pna20050320.gif

Sorry, first thing I thought of.

Encumbrance in armor should affect speed as it does in land or air, but ACPs shouldn't concern him except for attack rolls, since it already has a swim speed.

[awa]

Correct me if im wrong but i think the only penalty for wearing armor your not proficient with is a penalty to attack equal to the armors armor check penalty so if you give him light armor like MW studded leather it shouldn't matter if hes proficient or not and wont weigh him down enough to mess with his swimming for added amusement get him master work shark skin armor (storm wrack)

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

right, but he should be able to be trained to wear the armor; like a horse or dog. A trick maybe? Or let him add the warbeast template?

[Olo Demonsbane]

Theres the trick "Armor" from Masters of the Wild which causes the animal to be OK with wearing armor.

[Skorj]

I read the thread title, and assumed armor made of sharks. That would be an amazing thing to pull off, even by charop standards. Disappointing OP is disappointing. :sigh:

[sofawall]

I was thinking mere sharkskin, but--

Wait, sharks as armour? Tidesinger, I demand you get to work on this!

[Sliver]

I read the thread title, and assumed armor made of sharks. That would be an amazing thing to pull off, even by charop standards. Disappointing OP is disappointing. :sigh:

I think only O-Chul could handle that armor..

[The_If]

Lets take it a step further. You have a shark who is wearing other live sharks as armor.

Is this awesome?
Yes[ ] Yes[ ]

[Yora]

There is sharkskin armor in Races of Faerûn.

[Harperfan7]

Lets take it a step further. You have a shark who is wearing other live sharks as armor.

Is this awesome?
Yes[ ] Yes[ ]

Pure win.

But seriously (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahlboyd/2382302779/), there's no reason you can't craft armor for a shark to wear, and as long as the check penalty is 0 and the armor is light, it shouldn't affect your shark at all when wearing it. The only problem I see is finding armor that can survive being in saltwater so much, but that can be fixed fairly easily with spells or special materials.

[bosssmiley]

I was thinking mere sharkskin, but--

Wait, sharks as armour?

A swarm of Tiny-sized sharks could do it. Kind of like the Crown of Vermin epic spell, or the idea of active swarm defences in "The Diamond Age". Just stat it as a special magical armour with shark-themed FX.

As studded leather or hide
DR ?/? or partial concealment/miss chance, water breathing, ravening frenzy 1/day (as disintegrate, but bloodier...)

[AstralFire]

A swarm of Tiny-sized sharks could do it. Kind of like the Crown of Vermin epic spell, or the idea of active swarm defences in "The Diamond Age". Just stat it as a special magical armour with shark-themed FX.

As studded leather or hide
DR ?/? or partial concealment/miss chance, water breathing, ravening frenzy 1/day (as disintegrate, but bloodier...)

Anyone who moves directly overhead of the wearer should have to make a Fortitude save or suck. :smallbiggrin:

I'd make it concealment. DR would be wonky.

[Doc Roc]

So I was summoned by the raw silly being churned up in this thread, and as a result of what your careless hands have wrought, I will be constructing proper live-shark-armor later this evening. However, the quickest trick that comes to mind immediately is to PaO your armor while you are wearing it into a shark somewhat smaller than yourself, causing you to rip through its still living flesh into some tightly fitting shark-shaped armor. Gentle repose applied there-after to "cure it."

Bonus points are then awarded if it bit your stupid freaking head off during its death throes.

Alternatively:
Stone Skin + Spell thematics = Lulz

Does a shark with Stone Skin sink? I know a shark with stone body is borked.

[Fax Celestis]

Exotic barding can be made for any animal.

Bonus points if you can get the shark to cast vortex of teeth or manyjaws.

[Urist Ironblood]

I'd go with a turtleneck-style coat of fine titanium mesh with holes for all of the fins, buoyed with a thin cork jacketing, and coated with outward-facing steel spikes set into small cork floaters spaced in a 1-foot grid. Impact attacks underwater are going to be rare - far more common to find piercing, slicing, or tentacle/grab attacks, against which this armor should be a nice defense.

The main things to be careful of are that a shark has natural neutral buoyancy, high speed, and a naturally sharp turning radius. Adding barding will weight the shark down (so you need cork floats that are correctly sized) and will also add a ton of turbulent drag at high speed and in sharp turns. The shark will probably be able to hit top speed, but will need to make Endurance checks to maintain; there may be a Dex penalty to fast & tight turns as well.

Another option would be a few plates of very very thin titanium held on with jewelry-style stainless steel chains, but the protection wouldn't be as good and you'd have to cinch it down to avoid fluttering at high speeds.

[Fostire]

I read the thread title, and assumed armor made of sharks. That would be an amazing thing to pull off, even by charop standards. Disappointing OP is disappointing. :sigh:

That was my first thought too :smallbiggrin:

As to the OP, I would like to point out that a sharks skin is made for high speed swimming. Their scales are places in a way so as to reduce friction to a minimum, so barding of any kind would make it lose this benefit and slow it down.

[Doc Roc]

Exotic barding can be made for any animal.

Bonus points if you can get the shark to cast vortex of teeth or manyjaws.

Spellstitched undead shark wights.

Go Go Go!

[Yora]

I've seen undead aquatic animals at least once before. Quite awsome stuff. ^^

[LibraryOgre]

This reminds me of the chicken armor abe suggested...

However, for armor that a shark could wear, I would make it fairly expensive, and may use the 3.0 swim check penalties instead of the 3.5.

[Glimbur]

I've seen undead aquatic animals at least once before. Quite awsome stuff. ^^

I really wanted to sic a skeletal shark on some characters once, but didn't end up running that session. I wonder if they would have complained about biological impossibilities...

[Yora]

This reminds me of the chicken armor abe suggested...

However, for armor that a shark could wear, I would make it fairly expensive, and may use the 3.0 swim check penalties instead of the 3.5.

Large Nunhuman armor costs allready 4 times as much as usual. For huge it's even 8 times.

[hamishspence]

There is already stats for armour made from shark (sharkskin armour in Races of Faerun)

on "what armour should a sea-creature wear" might depend on how much it would be expected to obstruct movement.

Also- sharks have denticles- spiny skin- they might wear through leather rather quickly.


I really wanted to sic a skeletal shark on some characters once, but didn't end up running that session. I wonder if they would have complained about biological impossibilities...

If cartilage counts as bone for the purposes of making skeletons, might be more workable. Would have swimming problems though, unless fins are retained as well.

[Cieyrin]

I read the thread title, and assumed armor made of sharks. That would be an amazing thing to pull off, even by charop standards. Disappointing OP is disappointing. :sigh:

The only disappointment here is that you set your expectations a bit too high, I'd say.

Now, if I'd called this Shark Lasers and you didn't get Lasers made of Sharks, then I'd perhaps be somewhat disappointed, too.

As for O-Chul dealing w/ 'shark' armor, I think he's had his fill at this point, considering that was only one of the several tortures he suffered. Silly Acidborn template and their example shark. :smalltongue:


A swarm of Tiny-sized sharks could do it. Kind of like the Crown of Vermin epic spell, or the idea of active swarm defences in "The Diamond Age". Just stat it as a special magical armour with shark-themed FX.

Sharks only go down to Medium, at least in D&D. I know there are sand sharks and whatnot, which I suppose would work as well. I think "Shark" armor would only really applicable to dire sharks w/ a swarm of medium sharks, heh.

For undead sharks, I always did want to play a sea necromancer...

[hamishspence]

Lack of tiny sharks can be solved by refluffing Stormwrack piranhas as very small sharks.

[Yora]

A sharks skeleton is rather unimpressive (http://www.marinebiodiversity.ca/shark/english/images/porbeagle%20skeleton%20for%20web.jpg).

You could say it's lacking.

[The Mentalist]

I see a big set of jaws. I fail to see a problem with it.

[Yora]

Animated shark skull

What do you say, Mr. Spock? (http://pictures.pichaus.com/ca5f59dd2716ac1d7d0fc4187ee193b05ec50d93?AWSAccess KeyId=0K4RZZKHSB5N2XYJWF02&Expires=1250110000&Signature=ykmzpDaD3e0er6qtb2ZYyQNow7U%3D)

[Woodsman]

There's sharkskin armor in Stormwrack, as well.

+6 to Escape Artist checks involving rope.

[Doc Roc]

Animated shark skull

What do you say, Mr. Spock? (http://pictures.pichaus.com/ca5f59dd2716ac1d7d0fc4187ee193b05ec50d93?AWSAccess KeyId=0K4RZZKHSB5N2XYJWF02&Expires=1250110000&Signature=ykmzpDaD3e0er6qtb2ZYyQNow7U%3D)


I know that McCoy wishes to tell you....
The Link's Dead, Jim.

[Fostire]

I know that McCoy wishes to tell you....
The Link's Dead, Jim.
:smallconfused: Works for me.

The link leads to the following image:
http://pictures.pichaus.com/ca5f59dd2716ac1d7d0fc4187ee193b05ec50d93?AWSAccess KeyId=0K4RZZKHSB5N2XYJWF02&Expires=1250110000&Signature=ykmzpDaD3e0er6qtb2ZYyQNow7U%3D
Can you see it?

[Harperfan7]

Okay, someone mentioned something about shark skeletons having trouble swimming. Am I missing something here?

[Urist Ironblood]

Okay, someone mentioned something about shark skeletons having trouble swimming. Am I missing something here?

Well, skeletons on their own should sink - sharks have fatty tissues that help them stay neutrally buoyant. Also, a shark skeleton is mostly cartilage, and so once that rotted away, it would lack some of the bones that you would expect to find: there are no "arm" bones that connect the spine to the fins, no rib cage, no pelvis... just a long skinny spinal cord, a skull, and a few detached fins.

[Kylarra]

I'm not sure why that matters since "normal" skeletons shouldn't be able to move either, lacking muscles and all. :smallwink:

[dspeyer]

I'm not sure why that matters since "normal" skeletons shouldn't be able to move either, lacking muscles and all. :smallwink:


Winged skeletons can’t use their wings to fly. If the base creature flew magically, so can the skeleton.

Presumably the same applies to finned skeletons and swimming. Or at least to penguins.

[Kylarra]

Presumably the same applies to finned skeletons and swimming. Or at least to penguins.Actually without text saying otherwise, we assume that aquatic skeletons can still swim, as that is not a movement specifically denied to them.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

The only things I see as potential problems about it is Mr. Jaws' unfamiliarity with armor and I'm having a hard time picturing a shark in leathers or chain.

Armored sharks? Sure. In a high tech/James Bond world I can see that, sort of a cybershark. Even in a D&D world, I can imagine that too. But the druid part sort of gets me. Metal or leather barded sharks don't seem too much in keeping with the druid motif.

But here's an option. Just fluff it to something appropriately druidic and aquatic. Pick the armor barding you want but call it seaweed/flotsam armor or barnacle armor or some such.

[shimmercat]

Our paladin rides a shark named Natasha.

Once our ship ran across a small group of shark-riding slavers. They were after a pair of gnomes in our crew, so we kicked their butts. It was then discovered that the leader of the slavers had shark barding that had 1/day Fly and Air Breathing on it, so we "rescued" that pretty quick. Now our paladin has a flying shark mount! :D

Not that this helps much for the thread, as my group is pretty "eh" as far as the rules go, if the rules are getting in the way of the awesome.

BUT FLYING SHARK MOUNT! :D

[Yora]

Can you see it?
No. There's nothing.

[Leon]

Our paladin rides a shark named Natasha.

Once our ship ran across a small group of shark-riding slavers. They were after a pair of gnomes in our crew, so we kicked their butts. It was then discovered that the leader of the slavers had shark barding that had 1/day Fly and Air Breathing on it, so we "rescued" that pretty quick. Now our paladin has a flying shark mount! :D

Not that this helps much for the thread, as my group is pretty "eh" as far as the rules go, if the rules are getting in the way of the awesome.

BUT FLYING SHARK MOUNT! :D

Does it Jump?