Pricing an alternative Beastskin armour [DnD 3.5]

[Sir_Chivalry]

Those of you who are not aware, Beastskin is an armour special ability that allows a druid to spend an additional wildshape use to have their armour change forms with them, essentially having the armour not meld with the newly assumed form

I've a Tibbit character who has a suit of mithral fullplate, and I was wondering what a good price for a similar item would be. Instead of spending a wildshape use would increasing the required action for the changing of shape be an appropriate requirement?

[Debihuman]

Those of you who are not aware, Beastskin is an armour special ability that allows a druid to spend an additional wildshape use to have their armour change forms with them, essentially having the armour not meld with the newly assumed form

I've a Tibbit character who has a suit of mithral full plate, and I was wondering what a good price for a similar item would be. Instead of spending a wildshape use would increasing the required action for the changing of shape be an appropriate requirement?

To answer your question: NO. Increasing the action will have even less consequence.

A druid cannot wildshape in mithral armor. A druid can't cast spells in metal armor or use his or her spell-like and supernatural abilities. Why does your tibbit even wear mithral armor?

Beastskin armor has a property bonus you add to armor but adding it to mithral armor still won't let you use it as a druid.

Debby

[Sir_Chivalry]

The Tibbit wears mithral armour because she is not a druid.

My question was not if Beastskin would allow a druid to wear metal armour, it was what an appropriate variant that did not rely on expending wildshape uses would be.

Tibbit are shapeshifters that turn into cats, and armour and weapons explicitly meld with the new form. I would like to retain armour bonus if not whole armour but both Wild and Beastskin are specific to Druids (which the Tibbit is not)

[Debihuman]

So you want an armor that doesn't meld into your tibbit? Technically wildshape and beastskin have nothing to do with what you are asking since your Tibbit isn't a Druid. However, if you want to use beastskin armor as a model for what I think you want then look at the Magic Item Compendium. Beastskin armor cost +2 price bonus. I would say that your tibbit's armor would be more expensive since it has to overcome the tibbit's natural propensity for melding its armor. A +3 price bonus would be appropriate.

So you need to start with mwk armor, buy the +1 enhancement bonus to make it magical (it is required for all magical armors) and then pay the +3 price bonus at minimum. If you want to add other enhancements at that time you could as all you need is sufficient gp and/or time.

Here's the breakdown of the cost:
A masterwork suit of armor or shield costs an extra 150 gp over and above the normal cost for that type of armor or shield. Full plate costs 1,500, making it mithral costs +9,000, adding the +1 enhancement bonus costs 1,000, and the price for add'l +3 price bonus as this is now effectively the same cost as a +4 item is 16,000 gp. Totalling: 27,650 gp. It's still just +1 armor but now it doesn't meld into your tibbit. Note too that magical armor does NOT resize. So I am assuming you only want this for when your tibbit is in cat form. That's quite an expense for measly +1 Tiny cat-shaped mithral full plate armor. Also, a tibbit in cat form cannot don or remove its own armor.

Invest in a bunch of wands of mage armor and give it to the wizard to use on you before combat. Cheaper and more effective. It costs 750 for 50 charges. You could buy 36 wands and still have a couple of gp left for that price.


Debby

[ngilop]

A better alternative than buying a whole set of armor for a particular ability ( in this case I still has armor when I'm a kitty)

would be Wilding clasps, which are 4k a pop ( I think, correct me if I am wrong)

and then there is the Wild armor enchantment, which allows the armor's bonuses to count, but it still melds with your new form. ( which would be I'm a kitty but you don't know I has armor!)

I think wild armor would be the best of the choices as with wilding clasps you just be a little baby kitty cat that happens to be wearing mithril armor, yeah totally not obvious at all.

while with Wild armor, you could just be meow-ing away and when somebody tries to hit you with a club they find out that your fur is really really tough, cept you do a kitty laugh and know its cuz you have mithril armor.

[Debihuman]

A wilding clasp has to be attached to an amulet or vest and can't be be attached to armor. While Wild armor works on Wildshape, that's not the ability that a Tibbit has. A Tibbit has Feline Transformation.

Debby

[ngilop]

A wilding clasp may be attached to any item, Armor Included. just pay the 4K gold for the clasp attach it and the item is good to go.

[Debihuman]

Ahh Wilding Clasp was updated in the Magic Item Compendium. I think I was looking at the earlier version from Arms & Equipment. Yes, it can be attached to armor to prevent it melding "into your new form WHEN you wild shape." The problem is still that the Tibbit does not have the Wild Shape ability, it has the Feline Transformation.

This is the major drawback to the race. It's made specifically to bypass being able to wear armor. If it had either Wild Shape or Alternate Form, that would make sense.

Feline Transformation is based on the polymorph spell. It's quite detailed but says nothing about acting like Wild Shape for purposes of things that affect Wild Shape.

BTW,the errata says only to add Shapechanger Subtype. This is a natural ability apparently (it has no Special Ability designation); however, this may just be oversight. If so it should probably have the Sp designator. YMMV

Debby