Queries on riverine

[Noxangelo]

a few questions about riverine I couldn't find answers too.

1. what happens to it in and antimagic field? the book says nothing about it.

2. what is with the water? riverine armour would be better of without the extra weight and be near weightless sculpted walls of force.

[Powerdork]

The point of mass in armour is to absorb shock. If there were unbreakable plates 1 micron thin hanging on your body, it wouldn't do anything to actually stop an ogre from knocking you senseless, and would more efficiently transfer kinetic force into your body than comparable iron armour (which can deform some as well). Armour isn't only about cut protection; for that, leather would be plenty.

As for the antimagic thing, riverine is certainly magical and an item, but it's not a "magic item" and even if it is (with a magical enhancement bonus) only the magic item properties fade out in an antimagic field, just as with a golem (which is similarly a magical creation that maintains an existence. The property spells out that a few specific things can cause the water to flood out once the force is cancelled, but like a wall of force spell is immune to most spells, so should riverine (the basic material) be. Definitely allow dispel magic to turn off enhanced riverine, but in the way that it turns off other magical armour; what you have for the next 1d4 rounds is still armour.

[Noxangelo]

The point of mass in armour is to absorb shock. If there were unbreakable plates 1 micron thin hanging on your body, it wouldn't do anything to actually stop an ogre from knocking you senseless, and would more efficiently transfer kinetic force into your body than comparable iron armour (which can deform some as well). Armour isn't only about cut protection; for that, leather would be plenty.

actually the rigidity spreads the force over a wide area and the padding underneath helped absorb the shock. metal armour was use because it turned you into an untouchable human tank.


As for the antimagic thing, riverine is certainly magical and an item, but it's not a "magic item" and even if it is (with a magical enhancement bonus) only the magic item properties fade out in an antimagic field, just as with a golem (which is similarly a magical creation that maintains an existence. The property spells out that a few specific things can cause the water to flood out once the force is cancelled, but like a wall of force spell is immune to most spells, so should riverine (the basic material) be. Definitely allow dispel magic to turn off enhanced riverine, but in the way that it turns off other magical armour; what you have for the next 1d4 rounds is still armour.

lol, i thought so but a wanted to check, it goes against logic somewhat but the 3.5 for you.

[Fizban]

2. what is with the water? riverine armour would be better of without the extra weight and be near weightless sculpted walls of force.
And you have discovered that whoever wrote "riverine" had no idea what they were doing, at all. It's "water," which is actually surrounded by permanent magical force, which gives a partial deflection bonus to AC. Even though we already have stats for force-armor in the DMG, under Bracers of Armor and Ring of Force Shielding, as well as an armor property that gives the only significant rules change (functioning against incorporeal attacks), and force armor provides armor bonuses, not deflection.

The idea that it's wrapped around something to give it weight for more effective handling is a nice reverse justification, but it's just that, a justification. It's "water" armor in the book of water stuff. Except they forgot they can write new stuff, and instead of writing a magic item that maintains magically compressed water (or, ya know, an actual new fantastic material), they changed it to walls of force halfway through, without actually making it work like magical force. The only thing it *does* do like magical force, is be immune to most spells, and Wall of Force is immune to both Dispel Magic and Antimagic Field. Or rather, unaffected- so indeed, any magical properties on top of it should be sucesciptble as normal.

If you even use the stuff. As you might have guessed, my advice is to completely throw it out and never look back.