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Zaggab
2006-11-13, 01:01 PM
It's common knowledge that almost everyone that uses armor either use a chain shirt (mithral) or a full plate, because it's the best. Almost no one uses medium armor, because it offers inferior protection, and greatly reduces your speed.

As it is now, medium armor reduces your speed to 20 feet (if normal (30) feet movement), and heavy armor reduced your speed to 20 feet and your run speed to x3.

Now, I was thinking, would it be okay to change it so that medium armor reduces your run speed to x3, and heavy armor reduces your normal speed to 20 instead. "Switching" places with the run speed and the movement speed decrease, in other words.

I propose this a fix since I think the main reason for the unpopularity of medium armor is that you lose to much mobility.

This would make it so that medium armor no longer is a lose-lose choice (lower armor, crappy speed), but rather an inbetween choice between greatly reduced mobility and high armor check penalties, and high mobility and low (or no) armor check penalties. Like it's supposed to be.

Would this make medium armor to good? Or does it change anything, really? Will it make medium armor more attractive?

Fax Celestis
2006-11-13, 01:20 PM
I wear mithril medium armor all the time.

Zaggab
2006-11-13, 01:27 PM
Then you must be an exception to a rule I saw established in another thread (where moslty everyone agreed that medium armor sucked).

Nevermind the above, I reread what you said and thought of an other answer:

Is that armor heavy armor that is mediumified, or medium armor that is lightifies? Either way, it's not really medium armor. It's using an armor that is made out of a material that must be overpowered (since virtually EVERYONE that wears metal armor eventually gets it made out of mithral).

I made this without taking mithral into account. Which of course was a mistake since it is so commen. In my defense I will say that in my campaign, I will most likely remove or nerf mithral.

XtheYeti
2006-11-13, 02:39 PM
Every one will still use mithrill armor if you make this rule because Mithrill armor is the best.

Khantalas
2006-11-13, 03:19 PM
Unless you're a low dexterity character that doesn't much care about mobility, in which case adamantine full plate is great.

Zaggab
2006-11-13, 04:00 PM
Every one will still use mithrill armor if you make this rule because Mithrill armor is the best.

If I remove it or nerf it, it might not be so.

This might be a bit off my own topic, but doesn't the fact that everyone uses mithral make mithral overpowered? I seem to recall one of the main points when making new player options is to make sure that it isn't something that everyone will always take. Mithral doesn't follow that, since almost everyone uses it.

Having said that, I think I will add to this topic a "fix" on mithral.

Mithral Houserule

Analysis

As I said, mithral is by defintion overpowered because everyone uses it. Therefore, the other materials need either be improved or mithral nerfed.
To make things easy, I will nerf mithral.

As it is now, mithral makes items automatically masterwork, -3 armor check penalty (including mwk bonus), +2 max dex, -1 weight category.

First, we must know why mithral is used. The answers I will propose here are just that, proposals. I don't have a definate answer, and everyone might not have the same reasons.

First let's look at the mithral chain shirt (one of the most common armors). Why do you have a mithral chain shirt, and not any other metal?
Light armor is for mobile characters, like characters with a lot of dex skills etc. They use a chain shirt because it offers good protection, the best for light armors. Because they use dex skills (and other armor check penalty skills) they want to remove their check penalty.
Later, when they have more than 18 dex, they also want the higher max dex bonus.
Plus, it's cheap. Very cheap. Just +1000 gp.

Then medium armor. The most common mithral medium armor is breast plate. Here I don't think that the check penalty is the most important thing. It's probably the increased max dex bonus.
At a +3 max dex, it isn't that hard to exceed it.
The better speed is probably also a very important reason. My first proposed houserule eliminates that need.

Now, let's look at the mithral full plate. The reason is usually not increased maneuverability, since medium armor still normally carries a hefty movement speed decrease. My houserule will, however, make mithral full palte more attractive.
The lessened penalties are probably a minor concern.
At a +1 max dex, it is extremely easy to max out. Therefor the +2 max dex adds a lot to the full plate.

---
Conclusion: The decreased weight category is attractive for the medium armor only, normally. For all other armor, it has almost no effect.
The lessened armor check penalties are a bonus, but usually not the main feature.
The increased max dex is an important factor in all categories. It is, therefor, mithral's main characteristic.
The halved weight is usually not important.

Suggestions: My first houserule eliminates the want for a mithral breast plate regardin movement speed. It does, however, significantly increase the worth of mithral full plate (+8 ac at normal speed? Yes please!).
Therfore, remove that aspect of mithral. It will change nothing from how it was before if you use my houserule.
The improvement in armor check penalty is rather insignicant. It can stay how it is.
Now to the +2 max dex. A dex heavy character can easily pump his dex to 22 (+6 as mithral chain shirt) farily early and easy. These +2 ac is worth, at lest, 16K gp. However, you might need to buy items to get you dex that high. Those items, on the other hand, would be purchased anyway.
For the breastplatebearer, a +5 dex bonus should be a fairly good thing to get (being relatively dexterity dependant and all). So there's 16K worth of stuff for just 4K again.
The full platebearer is seldom dex dependant, so to use that extra +2 dex bonus, it would have to get an item for 16K or 4K (depending on how much dex it has). And it costs 9k. So that's not off.

How to "fix" this then? We have two options: Increase the price, or decrease the bonus. A +1 bonus is rather weak, so a price decrease would be in order, too. At least on heavy armor. Perhaps 6000 for heavy armor
If we go eith the other option, to increase the price, by how much should we do it? I would say 5000 for light armor, 7000 for medium armor and 10 000 for heavy armor.

Final Conclusion:
Option a) No category decrease, -3 armor check penalty, +1 dex bonus. 1000 for light armor, 4000 for medium, 6000 for heavy. Half weight.
Option b) No category decrease, -3 armor check penalty, +2 dex bonus, 5000 for light armor, 7000 for medium armor and 10 000 for heavy armor. Half weight

Phew, that got long. I must learn not to post at all, because it just ends up wrong anyway

MandibleBones
2006-11-14, 05:39 AM
As I said, mithral is by defintion overpowered because everyone uses it.

I reject that premise. By your logic, water would be overpowered because everyone uses it. (Though everyone knows of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, so perhaps that's true?)


First let's look at the mithral chain shirt (one of the most common armors). Why do you have a mithral chain shirt, and not any other metal?

I've never seen anyone wear a mithral chain shirt - for the reason that it doesn't make use of mithril's possibly most useful ability, the type reduction. My rogue can sneak attack equally well in a mithril chain shirt or mithril chain mail, at least at the levels I'd be wearing masterwork armor. My ranger is equally proficient with both armors as well. How is this a "common" type of armor?


Later, when they have more than 18 dex, they also want the higher max dex bonus.

That's true, but by the time I have more than 18 dex (assuming I'm not playing an elf, and assuming that not all characters will start with 18 in dex), I'm not really at a power level where mithril is overpowered anymore.


Then medium armor. The most common mithral medium armor is breast plate. Here I don't think that the check penalty is the most important thing. It's probably the increased max dex bonus.

No arguments from me, max dex is useful. Again, however, I'd say the most important thing is the classification as light armor.


Now, let's look at the mithral full plate. The reason is usually not increased maneuverability, since medium armor still normally carries a hefty movement speed decrease.

It's true that medium armor still carries a hefty movement speed decrease, but mithril plate is already attractive - just to a different set of characters than other mithril armors are. Just as you would say my rogue wears mithril medium to get the best armor bonus for his light armor, a cleric, fighter or paladin (the traditional "heavy armor / plate armor" types) wears mithril heavy because he wants the best armor bonus - and with the increased max dex, he can get more AC (and make ranged combat an option still).

Still, we've both just given uses for mithril armor of the various types, which raises the question of why you think it needs to be "nerfed"?

I see nothing overpowered about it - it's expensive at lower levels ("only" 1000 gp? Maybe at level 4 or 5 that's not at least an expendiature to think about), the odds of finding someone who can craft it are slim and it's overshadowed by magical armor even as it becomes cost-effective.

Dhavaer
2006-11-14, 05:45 AM
I've never seen anyone wear a mithral chain shirt - for the reason that it doesn't make use of mithril's possibly most useful ability, the type reduction. My rogue can sneak attack equally well in a mithril chain shirt or mithril chain mail, at least at the levels I'd be wearing masterwork armor. My ranger is equally proficient with both armors as well. How is this a "common" type of armor?

Mithral chain shirts are popular with Wizards and Sorcerers with the Twilight enhancement, because it's far better than Bracers of Armour. +5 bonus for about 5000gp.

MandibleBones
2006-11-14, 06:13 AM
Mithral chain shirts are popular with Wizards and Sorcerers with the Twilight enhancement, because it's far better than Bracers of Armour. +5 bonus for about 5000gp.

Fair enough, but the fact that some armor is better than a magic item meant to be a stop-gap measure for people whose class prevented them from wearing it doesn't mean the material is overpowered.

(And on the other side of that, I'll have to remember that the next time I play a mage).

Merlin the Tuna
2006-11-14, 09:50 AM
I've found Mithral Chain shirts to be a very common armor for Rogue-types. It doesn't help you with the speed, but the weight reduction helps keep you from falling into medium load (as the Rogue/Bard type tend to have low-ish Strength), the Max Dex increase is very useful, and the elimination of an armor check penalty means you can still do all your jumping and tumbling.

Mithral Breastplate is definitely the armor that gets the most out of existing Mithral though.

Zaggab
2006-11-14, 10:55 AM
I reject that premise. By your logic, water would be overpowered because everyone uses it. (Though everyone knows of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, so perhaps that's true?)

Let me clarify. I have read in multiple locations (due to me generally sucking, I can't find any of them), that when you design new things it's important to see if you have any reason not to use it. If you can't think of a reason not to use antyhing, it is probably too good.

In the case of mithral, almost anyone uses it. There are exceptions, but on the whole, an overhwelming majority of armorusers use mithral. With the above paragraph in mind, that means that mithral is probably too good. Or it could just mean that there's a major lack of options, I don't know.

That's what I meant when I said mithral seems overpowered.

---

Now to clarify some other things:
When I first designed the house rule about medium armor, I did it without thinking about mithral. Which was probably a huge mistake since mithral is so common.

I have had very few comments on the real reason to why I made this thread. If that is because it was tupid beyond belief or because there nothing wrong with it, I don't know.

If you don't use mithral, medium armor is seldom used, because it's not a good "in between" option. The first house rule was made to adress that.

Then when someone brought mithral into the discussion, I realized that the first houserule got a lessened impact on what it was supposed to affect. Rather, it made medium armor less attractive.

So in order to save the first suggestion, I had to do something about mithral as well. So I nerfed it. The nerf is intended to be used with the first house rule. The main point with the nerf is to make it so that you can't use full plate as medium armor. I may have been a little harsh on the other aspects, but that was beacuse I was sleeping on my keyboard..
---
In conclusion: The both houserules are meant to be used together. The first houserule invalidates the primary usage of mithral (medium to light for speed). The second houserule's main purpose is to remove the possibility of almost unhindered movement in heavy armor.

---
Notes to self: I should not post when I am tired. The result will be bad. I should not post in language I can barely speak. I won't be able to express myself. I should not write so long posts. No one wants to read them. I should no bash myself. It makes me look untrustworthy.

Cybren
2006-11-14, 11:22 AM
Almost everyone uses bags of holding too.

pestilenceawaits
2006-11-14, 12:48 PM
In the campaigns I play in we use medium armor all the time. Most tanks use it at low levels because it is the best armor you can afford at the time. it is just like anything thing else in the game we move up to masterwork weapons when we can afford them and then on to magic weapons when we have even more money. Are magic swords overpowered because everyone uses them. I don't know about you but the over 11000 gold pieces it costs to get mithral full plate generally keeps it out of reach until about 10th level especially when it is cheaper to get a +2 breast plate or plain +2 plate

Mauril Everleaf
2006-11-21, 04:04 PM
simple solution to the mithril problem: scarecity. in previous editions, to have anything made from even part mithril was an extremely rare find, and one to be treasured above most others. mithril was a very uncommon material, so very few could have it (definitely not more than one person in a party, unless they did a lot of work for dwarves or gnomes and the DM was really generous). so no need to nerf the mods that mithril gives, just make it a whole lot harder to get. but thats just my 2 cp.

Serakus_DeSardis
2006-11-21, 06:37 PM
Totally agree with above post.

I've always taken a page from the Dark Sun setting. Exceptional materials should be scarce, mithril being one of the most revered materials in the fantasy realm of thought. Dwarves in many books and settings have been known to risk life and limb over even miniscule amounts.

I personally am big on adjusting economies to fit my worlds. Right now I am designing a "New World" type setting where coinage and wealth in general isn't widespread like it is in the average setting. This means there is less inflation but also alot more scarcity of magic and exceptional goods and materials. A suit of mithril in my setting is near priceless at the current timeline. Magic items are not rare, but are not availible for widespread purchase. Most of the times in my world have to be taken or recieved from NPCs who brought them to that world. Its complicated to explain without going off into a rant about my setting. But basically, I balanced alot of gameplay with magic items and exceptional materials by making them scarce. They are there, they are just not always easy to obtain.

I don't let my players go rifling through a sourcebook and pick out what magic items they want to buy etc. If I see the need for something, or if they imply they want something, I might make it availible in some way.

thats just my input heh, prolly not very helpful or on-topic.

Khantalas
2006-11-21, 06:42 PM
Well, if you have to go to Realms (no, not FR) to find the slightest mithril, deal with the dwarves of Bara'duir to take it with you and stabilize it using a method known only by Noithran mages, mithril is pretty much avoided by PCs.

StickMan
2006-11-21, 09:10 PM
I see the use of Medium armor all the time with charaters that are mid Dex score who want to have some speed but don't need to run around the feild. Mithral is perfectly fine as is. The fact that mithral is used by many is because its good not becasue its over powered. Most fighters use weapons. Most Druids take Natural spell. These things are not overpowered but but are common.

Merlin the Tuna
2006-11-22, 12:28 PM
Let me clarify. I have read in multiple locations (due to me generally sucking, I can't find any of them), that when you design new things it's important to see if you have any reason not to use it. If you can't think of a reason not to use antyhing, it is probably too good.

I'd completely agree with you in most cases Zaggab, but I'm not sure here. Sure, this is the measuring stick I use for PrCs, abilities, and feats, but in this case I'm not so sure it applies simply because there's not a whole lot to compare it to.

Is mithral better than steel? Than Darkwood? Certainly. It ought to be. You're paying extra -- a substantial amount extra -- and it's supposed to be an upgrade. The cost is supposed to be the deterrent here. "Deter" may not be the right word, since it's in fact more of a delay, but you get the idea.

I honestly believe that the problem with mithral armor isn't that it's so good, but that adamantine armor is so terrible. Damage Reduction is up there with Spell Resistance as something I think the Wizards designers greatly over-value. 15,000 extra gp for that Full plate -- a 1000% increase -- to ignore 3 points of damager per attack? Hardly a bargain. Look at Complete Warrior; it's a +2 enchantment to get DR 5 versus 1 damage type. If you want straight up DR 5, you have to get the equivalent of a +6 enchantment on your gear. I'd rather take a Fortification and a bit extra, thanks much.

For weapons, Adamantine is great. Ignoring the hardness of most things is great, and it's generally worth the extra cost. But for armor, it's worthless. Mithral's pretty much the opposite; spectacular for armor and shields, and pointless (in this case, completely pointless) for weapons. I don't think the problem is so much in what Mithral does (though it does admittedly do a lot), just the fact that these two materials really don't have any competition in their chosen fields.

I think it'd probably be a better solution to make admantine armor more worthwhile, and maybe give something to mithral weapons if you want to stop seeing mithral-clad warriors swing adamantine weapons.

Yakk
2006-11-22, 03:25 PM
AC is generally much more powerful than DR.

Posit three kinds of "likely" attacks:
Annoyance attacks (needs to roll a 20, low damage)
Standard attacks (needs to roll between a 5 and a 19, medium damage)
Overwealming attacks (always-hit, or needs a 1 to a 10, heavy damage)

And +DR only really outperforms +AC on annoyance attacks. Ie, 200 L 1 archers fire d6+0 damage arrows at you, and need a 20 to hit.

AC +3 does nothing while DR +3 reduces incoming damage by 70%.

...

You could introduce a full set of material types.

First, invent some fun metals.

Mithril: Also known as true silver, mithril is lighter and tougher than steel.

Dwarf Heavy Steel: A denser material, this is useful for the more stoic characters. Jealously guarded by the dwarves.

Adamantium: A living metal, adamantium is nearly impossible to pierce. It also repairs itself.

Mithril: As-is

Heavy Dwarf Steel: +2 AC, -2 armor check, half (rounded down) dex mod

Adamantium: +1 AC, BASE_AC temporary HP (temporary HP heals at the rate of 1 every 10 minutes) and d6/- damage reduction

Now, you are a ranger.

Would you rather be wearing Mithril full plate or Adamantium BP or Dwarf Steel BP?

Mith. Full Plate: 8 AC +3 dex bonus -4 armor check
Adamantium BP: 6 AC +3 dex bonus, d6/- DR, 5 temp HP buffer, -4 armor check
Dwarf Steel BP: 7 AC +1 dex bonus, -6 armor check

The A.BP is looking tempting. 2 AC vs d6/- DR and 5 temp HP.

Dwarf Steel is inferiour.

DS. Full Plate: 10 AC 0 Dex -8 Check
A. Full Plate: 9 AC 1 Dex -6 Check d6/- DR 8 temp HP
M. Full Plate: 8 AC 3 Dex -4 Check faster movement.

Must be careful one doesn't make Adamantium the new Mithril, however.

icke
2006-11-23, 08:31 AM
If You really want to houserule mithril and other materials, You could try this:

Every special material can, by a master craftsman, be used to craft armors that are better than their standard counterparts. The craft DC is:

20 - masterwork basis

+ 5 for every 1 point of magical enhancement( maximum 5)

+ 10 for every 1 point of mundane armor bonus

+ 10 for every 1 point of additional DEX bonus

+ 5 for every 1 point less check penalty

Special materials make special upgrades available:

+ 15 to count as one category lighter (Mithril only, maximum 1)

+ 5 for every 1 point of damage reduction (Adamantium only)

+ X for improvement Y of Your choice (Add You favorite limitation)

It works well enough in our home campaigns, in fact most DM's I play with have adopted this houserule.
It surely gives craftsmen the ability to built outstanding MAGIC armors WITHOUT XP costs, but the effectiveness is limited by material cost/availability, craft DC and, above all, TIME. It may take years for a qualified armorsmith to build a really good suit of lightened mithril full plate...


But to come back to the original topic, I like your approach of changing the speed reduction and the running x3, Zaggap.
One could go a step further: Completely eliminate medium armor and distribute the existing medium armors into the light/heavy categories, wherever each individual fits best(Hide Armor -> light, Chainmail -> heavy ...). For the armors switched to heavy, give them an extra point of armor class and readjust the prices.
With this arrangement you have to get rid of the lightening effect that mithril provides...

Ping_T._Squirrel
2006-11-23, 09:07 AM
I think mithral is about as powerful as you want it. It's other viable options that are needed for materials.

I like that one that above that gives temp HP. Interesting concept, but I think that is all that it needs to do, and I would put it on leather/padded armours. That way, the people that have low HP (Wizards, Sorcerers, bards and thieves) might look at:

Troll Hide: This material is hard to procure as it must be taken off a living troll and treated right away in a process that is gaurded by orcs and ogres, but the benfits are noticable. The material, because of its preciousness, is always a masterwork when put into an armour. It provides 5 temp HP for every point of AC it has. This regenerates at a rate of 1/hour or 1/day in the case of fire and acid damage. This can only be made into non-metalic armours.

Spirit Iron: This clear material is functionally the same as iron but it has properties that are unusal. It is theorized that the material is nothing more than "Force" that is maluable and made permanent by processes that happened long ago in the earth. This means that it protects the wearer against the incorperal and touch attacks with the same effectiveness as other weapons.

Cult_of_the_Raven
2006-11-23, 07:39 PM
I totally agree. Give more options to players, and you'll see more competition, and less use of mithral. then you have a reason why one wouldnt use mithral - because there might be better options in the next shop over.