Twilight Leather Armor

[SgtGio]

Hello, I'm fairly new to D&D and have a question about some magic armor. Our campaign is 3.5 and I am playing a Wizard.

I want to know how the armor check penalty on leather armor will affect me if the check penalty is zero. If I am reading the rules correctly, since my Wizard is not proficient with any armor he would take the armor check penalty on attack rolls, and all strength and dexterity based skills. If the check penalty is zero for leather armor does it matter if he is not proficient with it? The arcane spell failure is only 10%, but adding twilight to armor drops the spell failure by 10% so there would be no arcane spell failure on Twilight Leather Armor.

I want to purchase some Twilight Leather Armor to boost his AC by 2 and drop the leather armor's arcane spell failure to 0%. The cost to add Twilight to armor is +1 Bonus so, if I am adding everything correctly the total cost of this magic armor is 1165gp. (10 for leather armor, 150 for masterwork, 1000 for +1 bonus)

Thanks for helping me clarify some rules.

[Zanos]

You are absolutely correct. There is effectively no penalty for wearing armor with no ACP, regardless of non proficiency.

Some caveats. Magic armor has to be at least +1 to have additional properties, and has to be masterwork before it's magical. So +1 twilight leather will cost as much as masterwork +2 leather armor, and gives +3 AC. So you're looking at 4160 gp.

There are nonmagical ways to get armor to 0 ACP and 0% arcane spell failure, though. A mithral chain shirt(-10% ASF) with Githcraft(Dungeon Master's Guide II, -5% ASF) and a Thistledown Shirt(Races of the Wild -5% ASF) costs a little over 1000 GP, and gives +4 AC while having no ASF and no ACP.

Or you could just cast mage armor. :smalltongue:

[Darrin]

If the ACP is zero, then the penalty for being non-proficient is zero. Just adding masterwork to studded leather means you can wear it without proficiency.

As for ASF, yes you can lower the percentage down to 0% and not worry about rolling for ASF. You don't have to resort to Twilight, though. Leafweave or Darkleaf (A&EG) will drop the ASF by 5%, and adding the Feycraft (500 GP, DMGII) or Githcraft (600 GP, DMGII) template can drop it another 5%. Thistledown suit can be added to a chain shirt or any medium/heavy armor for another 5%.

[CMagnum]

Casting mage armor and having pearls of power lvl. 1 (1000 gp) to recover the spell is another cheap way to boost ac for a mage.

[swordsswords]

Leather Armor was allegedly one of the most popular types of armor used in the early medieval era. It was deemed to be fairly popular among the masses, and especially by the lower classes because it was cheap and easy to produce.

[Biggus]

Caster armor from Dragon Magazine #358 (p.39-40) is another cheap way to reduce ASF (400GP for 5% reduction for light armor). Many DMs don't allow Dragon Magazine content though, so it's worth checking with them before you get it.

If you want to get feycraft or githcraft it's worth checking first as well, as they can only be made by extraplanar creatures (or in the case of feycraft, those "under their direct magical influence") so they're not exactly off-the-peg items in a lot of campaigns.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Necromancers don't need armour.