Eberron: Quori Shard Implant question

[JungleBox90]

I found the Quori Embedded Shard entry in ECS and thought it was kinda nifty. Unfortunately, it's poorly worded, so...

Ectoplasmic Armor Shard:

This shard provides a +2 armor bonus to the bearer's AC. When it is active, the bearer's body is surrounded by a ghostly image of a monstrous quori form. The bonuses stack with one another to a max of +10; however, with every additional shard the ghostly image becomes increasingly visible. The image produced by a single shard is barely noticeable, but the image produced by five shards used in conjunction (+10 AC) looks like a solid, real monster.
Because the armor is composed of stable astral ectoplasm, the armor is treated as a material physical object without any special qualities other than the armor bonus to AC. Ectoplasmic armor has no check penalty and does not reduce the wearer's speed.
Price: 8000gp
Source: Eberron Campaign Setting, p 264


Questions:
1) The wording makes me think its much like natural armor, should it be treated as such (via houserule)?
[IMO, seems like the simplest way to interpret it. I can't find any stats for "ectoplasm" so I don't know what the hardness and hitpoints would be for sundering purposes or if you can sunder it at all.]
2) Would it conflict with a monk's unarmored AC bonus?

[kamikasei]

1. I would say it makes more sense to treat it as armor than natural armor. Worn armor can't be sundered anyway, so the lack of hardness/HP doesn't matter. The fact that it's a "material, physical object with no special properties" I would take to indicate only that it doesn't defend against incorporeal attacks, etc.

2. It's much like summoning armor that you can't take off, only dismiss. So I'd say that, yeah, it conflicts with a monk's AC bonus. Odd that they specify it has no check penalty and doesn't affect the wearer's speed, but don't specify that it's light armor (as it would therefore appear to be). You could probably argue that the omission means it's not meant to count as armor at all. As far as what the rules actually say I'd come down on the side of it counting as worn light armor, but may well be willing to waive the incompatibility in a specific game depending on balance context.

[JungleBox90]

Much obliged, kind sir.

I guess it's too early to wrack my brain with this stuff (it probably would have confounded me anyway)

Also, slightly related question....

Would crafting a Quori Shard like that reduce its cost?
I read the footnotes and looked around a bit, but I'm still unsure if the list price is static and require no XP expenditure, or if you can go with the normal crafting rules like (most) everything else.

[supermonkeyjoe]

I think that fact that it isn't specified to be actual armour means that a monk can use the shards with no penalty, also nowhere does it state that this ectoplasmic armour is worn, merely that it surrounds the users body and RAW the monk only loses their bonuses when they wear armour.

[Zaq]

Yeah, I see no reason for this to interfere with a Monk. It's basically Bracers of Armor in another form, and Monks are totally allowed to use those.

[Fax Celestis]

Yeah, I see no reason for this to interfere with a Monk. It's basically Bracers of Armor in another form, and Monks are totally allowed to use those.

The price is a good bit cheaper for a +10 than the bracers, though. 40000gp for 5 shards (+10 bonus) vs. 64000gp for bracers of armor +8 (or, extrapolating to bracers of armor +10, 100000gp).

[Zaq]

True. I suppose that this is a case of the whole "race restriction = lower cost" thing, if I'm remembering the Implanted Shards correctly.

[JungleBox90]

Yea, it's for Kalashtar and Inspired races only.

[sreservoir]

wait, can you UMD quori embedded shards?

[Zaq]

UPD, technically, since you need to fake having a manifester level.

[Fax Celestis]

Yea, it's for Kalashtar and Inspired races only.

Only sort of:


Emulate a Race (DC 25)

Some magic items work only for members of certain races, or work better for members of those races. You can use such an item as if you were a race of your choice. You can emulate only one race at a time.
[...]
Action

None. The Use Magic Device check is made as part of the action (if any) required to activate the magic item.

Try Again

Yes, but if you ever roll a natural 1 while attempting to activate an item and you fail, then you can’t try to activate that item again for 24 hours.

[Keld Denar]

armor bonus to AC

Its an armor bonus. This is different from a natural armor bonus. It would NOT stack with Bracers of Armor, but it would stack with an Amulet of Natural Armor or any racial NA you might have.

That said, its not actual armor, and thus wouldn't affect a monk's class features.