Roaring Armor Upgrade

[Martial_law]

For the Roaring Armor Enchantment in MIC, it mentions a "nonmagical projectile that would deal 10 or fewer points of damage".

My question is, is that just the projectile such as a simple arrow, or is that including any flaming, sneak attack, or any other damage modifiers?

[T.G. Oskar]

Exactly what it says, a "non-magical projectile" that deals 10 points or less damage.

A +1 Flaming Arrow is magical, and thus deals full damage.

A Masterwork Arrow is blocked if the full extent of damage is 10 or less. Sneak attack damage dice increases the total damage dealt, so if the total damage exceeds 10, it deals full damage.

A magical projectile, such as Scorching Ray or Acid Arrow is fully magical, and thus deals full damage.

An arrow attack that has damage modifiers such as Inspire Courage/Dragonfire Inspiration, Crossbow Sniper, or others, deals full damage on the odd chance that it deals damage.

Anything that deals over 4d4/3d6/2d10 points of damage on a single hit has a 55% chance to deal full damage. This means most ballista projectiles and large rocks.

Finally, splash weapons, by virtue of being splash weapons, deal full damage.

Really: the Roaring armor enhancement is pretty cool, but weak. It's great against early-game projectiles and the bonus to initiative is awesome, but it's way too expensive for a +3 property. Had it scale up, or provide a different benefit, then it'd be an incredibly good property; otherwise, it's not very worthwhile.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would use it for a crit immune DR tank character. That way you can seriously make people have to WORK to kill you by kiting.

[Martial_law]

I have other options im looking at.

With those other options, what are the rules with stacking upgrades on a single piece of armor? Can I stack them as long as im under +5 or +10 or can I stack till all the money dries up?

[CyberThread]

I would like to add, that I would challenge the sneak attack subsuming the armors ability. Sneak attack gets added after an attack lands, and you could rule that roaring acts as a type of armor, otherwise it could not protect against damage if it has already hit you.


IF your DM or Rules reading treats it as a type of DR, if the projectile can't do more then 10 damage, then sneak attack damage never happens.

[Martial_law]

Thats how I was reading it also, but I figured Id ask

[Curmudgeon]

I would like to add, that I would challenge the sneak attack subsuming the armors ability. Sneak attack gets added after an attack lands ...
That's not quite right. Sneak attack is part of the total damage dealt, and is of the same type of damage as the primary weapon damage (so piercing with an arrow, for instance). It doesn't get added after the attack lands, but as part of it.

[T.G. Oskar]

I would like to add, that I would challenge the sneak attack subsuming the armors ability. Sneak attack gets added after an attack lands, and you could rule that roaring acts as a type of armor, otherwise it could not protect against damage if it has already hit you.


IF your DM or Rules reading treats it as a type of DR, if the projectile can't do more then 10 damage, then sneak attack damage never happens.

Much like Curmudgeon states, when you count all damage an attack can do, you add sneak attack damage. SA damage is distinct only for purposes of multipliers, as usually precision damage (a better, encompassing term) isn't multiplied after a critical hit, the most common type of multiplier.

However, let's look at this from a different perspective. If Roaring were to stop Sneak Attacks, by definition it must also ignore critical hits. The reason is as follows: a Sneak Attack involves attacking a vulnerable part of the body, one that's usually left unprotected. Normally, Dexterity bonus to AC allows you to dodge the attack, or at the very least move your attack to a place where the damage is negated. When you're SAing, you're usually not allowing a character to move defensively, but you're still aiming a small slot within the target's body; if you don't aim properly, your attack won't hit, as you're relying on hitting a more specific part of the target's body. A critical hit usually, but not always, lands on that area; SA deals with precision, whereas critical hits are a combination of luck and brute force (or luck and finesse). However, both usually hit at a pretty vulnerable area.

Now, if Roaring were to protect you from hitting that area, which is slightly more vulnerable and thus provoke more damage, it would come to thought that it also protects from lucky hits as it wouldn't take into amount the multiplied damage (which depends on whether you can roll it again or whether you simply multiply the rolled result alongside the static damage) by a similar interpretation.

Roaring can protect from crits and SA, but only if the total damage is lower than 10 points.


I have other options im looking at.

With those other options, what are the rules with stacking upgrades on a single piece of armor? Can I stack them as long as im under +5 or +10 or can I stack till all the money dries up?

Much like weapons.

All armor must have an actual enhancement bonus no higher than +5, and its total enhancement bonus (actual enhancement bonus + special qualities) cannot exceed +10. Since armor has a lot of fixed cost items, so as long as you don't exceed +5 enhancement bonus or +10 total bonus, you can spend most money at your leisure. Just consider that some special qualities do not stack, but overlap (for example: the Shadow armor quality doesn't stack with Improved Shadow; the latter is better than the former, and thus only the bonus of the latter apply). So as long as you remember that, you can spend money as you desire (or, as you said, "'til the money dries up")

Note that you CAN have an enhancement bonus higher than +5 or a maximum enhancement bonus higher than +10, but these are Epic weapons, and their cost is...rather prohibitive. To put an example: a +6 weapon (essentially, a weapon with an actual +6 enhancement bonus) is 10 times more expensive than a +1 weapon with a total enhancement bonus of +6. Armor follows the same terms. Oh, and they need a special feat to create (the epic version of Craft Magic Arms and Armor), so don't think you can create them on your own. Thus, for the low, low price of 360,000 gp, you can get an armor with a +1~+5 bonus, a number of special qualities that raise the amount to +10 (100k gp) and add 260,000 gp worth of enhancements. I believe not even adding the fixed-cost enhancements of the DMG and the MIC make a suit of armor that's so expensive.