Official ruling for mithril material in armor?

[Spacehamster]

Is there any ruling for how much extra non magical mithril armor cost? Say for example a half plate normally costs 700gp, anyone know what a mithril breastplate would cost?

[Hytheter]

Mithral is considered a magic item. It's uncommon, so if you're using the Xanathar magic item purchase rules it will cost d6*100gp on top of the base armour price.

[Angelalex242]

Well. Sort of. Mithril and Adamant still work in an antimagic field.

I'd let PCs buy those materials, even though I wouldn't let them buy actual magic.

Of course, buying them involves going to whatever the campaign equivalent of Moria is...

[Anymage]

Well. Sort of. Mithril and Adamant still work in an antimagic field.

While you're unlikely to find a DM who will actually run it that way, by strict RAW both Mithril and Adamantine are magic items and are consequently negated in an AMF. That's mostly the fault of AMF broadly turning off magic items in a system that otherwise has no effects towards that end, however. Similarly, while it's an easy and common houserule, you aren't necessarily supposed to mix material, special effect and magical plus so easily in the same item.

[Angelalex242]

...Yeah, I think Rule 0 is gonna use common sense on that one, and I doubt even Sage Advice would say differently. Pretty sure Adventure League doesn't.

[Sigreid]

AFB, but I think somewhere there is a table of trade goods that has mythril and steel on it. Basic math should give a multiplier. Maybe adding 20-40% on top for not every smith knowing how to work Mythril.

[Angelalex242]

There's adamantine too. I can imagine a whole party loving the idea of being crit proof.

[Zhorn]

AFB, but I think somewhere there is a table of trade goods that has mythril and steel on it.
The tradegoods table in the PHB is missing Mithral and Adamantine in this edition.
You need to go to the modules to find prices for the materials per lb.


For Mithral;
WD:DotMM p85 ('Mithral Thieves' Treasure) value the metal at 50gp per lb., but as the book later on (p176, 7b Treasure) has 1 lb. gold ingots at 100 gp (twice the value the PHB gives) I favor halving the value of Mithral down to 25 gp per lb.

For Adamantine;
ToA (p63, 6 Treasure) - 1 lb. = 10gp
ToA (p73, 'Rite of Stolen Life' Treasure) - 1 lb. = 10gp
SKT (p60, Vonindon Fragment) - 1 lb. = 15 gp

I tend to go with the 1 lb. = 15 gp, mostly since I use SKT as a reference point more often.


With 1 lb. of Iron = 1 sp, I don't think a simple multiplication for gear based just on the difference in values between the metals is a satisfying approach.
Just as the case is with silver weapons, the cost difference between iron equipment and other precious/exotic metals is more a reflection of the skills needed to craft the item out of a difficult material rather than just scaling up to account for the per lb. price difference.

[Angelalex242]

Well, let's say ye olde dwarven master smith who lives deep in Insert Moria Knockoff here can work Adamantine and Mythril.

How much is he charging per suit? Chain Shirt/Breastplate/Full Plate?

[Rukelnikov]

Well, let's say ye olde dwarven master smith who lives deep in Insert Moria Knockoff here can work Adamantine and Mythril.

How much is he charging per suit? Chain Shirt/Breastplate/Full Plate?

Being worthy of donning it.

At least that's what I picture that archetype charging.

[Unoriginal]

AFB, but I think somewhere there is a table of trade goods that has mythril and steel on it. Basic math should give a multiplier. Maybe adding 20-40% on top for not every smith knowing how to work Mythril.

Yeah, the hard part isn't having the material, the hard part is finding someone who know the formula for a mythril armor.

Plus whichever quest the formula requires.

Compare that to adamantine, which can be added to a weapon without going through the magic item creation process.

[Chronos]

Quoth Sigreid:

AFB, but I think somewhere there is a table of trade goods that has mythril and steel on it. Basic math should give a multiplier. Maybe adding 20-40% on top for not every smith knowing how to work Mythril.
If you're doing this, remember that the whole point of mithral is that you're using less weight of it than you would of steel.


Quoth Zhorn:

For Adamantine;
ToA (p63, 6 Treasure) - 1 lb. = 10gp
ToA (p73, 'Rite of Stolen Life' Treasure) - 1 lb. = 10gp
SKT (p60, Vonindon Fragment) - 1 lb. = 15 gp
Outlier here: From Waterdeep: Dragon Heist pg. 90, a ten-pound bar costs 1000 GP. That's admittedly a buying price, not a selling price, but an ingot, even of a very rare metal, should be pretty close to a commodity.

[Zhorn]

Outlier here: From Waterdeep: Dragon Heist pg. 90, a ten-pound bar costs 1000 GP. That's admittedly a buying price, not a selling price, but an ingot, even of a very rare metal, should be pretty close to a commodity.
I tend to be wary of any ruling (be it official or homebrew) that prices adamantine and mithral equal to or more valuable than gold, mostly because it transitions all objects made of those materials into the treasure category to players.
Dungeon with mithral and adamantine doors become wrought with distractions and deviations from the adventure as players put more work into dismantling the doors the lead into the dungeon rather than delving into the dungeon itself for the treasure.

[Sigreid]

Yeah, the hard part isn't having the material, the hard part is finding someone who know the formula for a mythril armor.

Plus whichever quest the formula requires.

Compare that to adamantine, which can be added to a weapon without going through the magic item creation process.

I still think the way I'd go is commodity value+markup+DM determined expert tax. And if you want to you can annoy the player with rich parties wanting to snatch the armor out from underneath them or government officials wanting to know why they want such high grade armorments.

[da newt]

I tend to go with the 1 lb. = 15 gp,
With 1 lb. of Iron = 1 sp,

So simple math is 150x the price of mundane, and that's before you account for any sort of surcharge for the expertise / time / extra work involved, but a full set of plate would cost ~225,000 gp (the equivalent of 9 warships or 562 warhorses).

Alternately you can go with the generic magic item prices by rarity, but then a suit of mithral plate becomes cheaper than a mundane suit - so that's dumb.

So really this is a 'whatever your DM thinks is appropriate' situation. I usually default to 10x mundane just to keep it simple and special.

[Keravath]

The biggest irritation I have with mithril armor in this version is that it doesn't modify the weight of the armor.

Mithril chain mail weighs the same 55 lbs as a regular one it just avoids disadvantage on stealth checks. A mithril breastplate is worn solely for the style since there is no difference between a mithril breastplate and a regular one except that the mithril one can be worn under clothes.

Previous editions had mithril armor weighting 1/2 of regular armor so I just use that as a house rule if it ever comes up.

[kbob]

The biggest irritation I have with mithril armor in this version is that it doesn't modify the weight of the armor.

This is one of my biggest gripes too. Most tables don’t worry about weight but it’s the principle. All mithril does in 5e is remove disadvantage, if there was disadvantage, on stealth checks. This means that the quintessential mithril armor, the chain shirt - the one that Bilbo gave Frodo, does absolutely nothing to benefit its wearer beyond what a regular mithril shirt does. AT LEAST give it 1/2 weight. I mean an auto +1 would be thematic too as it’s supposed to be as “hard a dragon scales”.
At our table, mithril armor is 1/2 weight and it gives you the dex bonus of one weight, level lighter of armor (heavy, mithral armor gives a dex bonus of medium armor and medium gives a dex bonus of light). That said you still have to be proficient in the actual armor weight category (mithril only changes dex bonus not actual requirements for proficiency). It has been a welcomed addition to the game, one that the players and our rotating DMs enjoy.

[Zhorn]

I mean an auto +1 would be thematic too as it’s supposed to be as “hard a dragon scales”.

I get where you're coming from, but you might me mixing up your intellectual properties a bit.
Mithril as you correctly quote it is from Tolkien, where dragon scales as a measure of hardness is of legendary status
Mithral is what we have in d&d, where dragon scales is, while still hard, not of the impenetrable status of legend.

It's like with the assertions of Adamantium being indestructible and should have a +plus baseline
While d&d is using Adamantine, which is just quoted as being ultrahard, not indestructible.

I hear you; they are references to materials from popular media, but they are technically not the same thing.

[Chronos]

Quoth Zhorn:

I tend to be wary of any ruling (be it official or homebrew) that prices adamantine and mithral equal to or more valuable than gold, mostly because it transitions all objects made of those materials into the treasure category to players.
I think the best way to manage this (which D&D didn't really attempt) is to make adamantine, the material, only maybe twice as expensive as steel, per weight, but to put the added expense in the difficulty to work it (several real-world metals like titanium and tungsten are like this). So if you have an adamantine object, and it's already a sort of object that you want, like a weapon or armor, that's valuable, but if you just have a big lump of it in a not-particularly-interesting shape, like dungeon doors, not so much (I mean, you could still sell it for scrap, but it's probably worth a lot less than the "real" treasure, and much harder to haul out).

(OK, I just looked it up, and tungsten and titanium are more than twice as expensive as steel, but still far short of gold. And they're both still really difficult to do anything with.)

Now, mithral, yeah, that should be more precious than gold, and all mithral objects should be regarded as treasure. But then, that's probably why those objects were made to begin with: Some powerful king wanted to show off his wealth ostentatiously (and if he made even the gates to his palace out of the stuff, he was really showing off). It's not really a practical choice for most items (sure, they'll weigh less than steel equivalents, but for most metal items, that doesn't really matter).

[Psyren]

While you're unlikely to find a DM who will actually run it that way, by strict RAW both Mithril and Adamantine are magic items and are consequently negated in an AMF. That's mostly the fault of AMF broadly turning off magic items in a system that otherwise has no effects towards that end, however. Similarly, while it's an easy and common houserule, you aren't necessarily supposed to mix material, special effect and magical plus so easily in the same item.

I would run the two armor types as magic items in all respects, including the effect of AMF. If the intent was for them not to be, they wouldn't be in the magic item section.

It's not hard to rationalize; even if the materials themselves are nonmagical in their raw form, it's easy to conclude that the act of shaping them into armor (DMG 150/182) makes it so they end up interacting with things that care about magic items once finished.


The biggest irritation I have with mithril armor in this version is that it doesn't modify the weight of the armor.


This is one of my biggest gripes too. Most tables don’t worry about weight but it’s the principle.

The weight modification is found elsewhere actually - under the "History/Intended User" special properties. It's very likely that Frodo's shirt had the Elf property (half weight and adorned with vines) given that it was supposedly originally intended for an elven prince.


This means that the quintessential mithril armor, the chain shirt - the one that Bilbo gave Frodo, does absolutely nothing to benefit its wearer beyond what a regular mithril chain shirt does.

Eh, who says the one Bilbo found wouldn't have had a +1 on it in D&D terms? It's not like Tolkien would have known what that meant, sometimes you have to do a little bit of translation between media. The DMG certainly doesn't say anything like "this basic entry is identical to the one Bilbo gave Frodo."

[AdAstra]

The closest equivalent to Bilbo's fancy duds in the game right now is likely Elven Chain. +1 chain shirt that can be worn even if you're not proficient with medium armor, which makes sense as easy to wear, exceptionally strong armor for people who aren't fighters at heart. Doesn't really have the light weight, but as Psyren mentioned, there are special properties like that elsewhere.

[OvisCaedo]

I would run the two armor types as magic items in all respects, including the effect of AMF. If the intent was for them not to be, they wouldn't be in the magic item section.

It's not hard to rationalize; even if the materials themselves are nonmagical in their raw form, it's easy to conclude that the act of shaping them into armor (DMG 150/182) makes it so they end up interacting with things that care about magic items once finished.

I'm not totally sure about that, though. There were several nonmagical adamantine and mithral armors listed specifically in the magic items section in 3.5 as well, because that's just where special items ended up. But in that edition magic items had a dedicated spot in their entry specifying their magical aura and caster level, which is where the clarification was placed that the items were in fact nonmagical. 5e doesn't really have that kind of formatting, but still doesn't really have any better section to place mithral/adamantine armor in even if they were still meant to be nonmagical. It could easily just be something overlooked.

You are of course free to rule things either way yourself.

[Psyren]

I'm not totally sure about that, though. There were several nonmagical adamantine and mithral armors listed specifically in the magic items section in 3.5 as well, because that's just where special items ended up. But in that edition magic items had a dedicated spot in their entry specifying their magical aura and caster level, which is where the clarification was placed that the items were in fact nonmagical. 5e doesn't really have that kind of formatting, but still doesn't really have any better section to place mithral/adamantine armor in even if they were still meant to be nonmagical. It could easily just be something overlooked.

You are of course free to rule things either way yourself.

As you mentioned, those were specifically called out as being nonmagical, and specific trumps general. So yes, I'm free to rule them at face value.

[Tanarii]

One thing I love is that since (as of XTGe) 5e magic item creation doesn't require actual magical skills, just a formula, ingredients and appropriate tool skill, we're back to these kinds of magical items are created by mythical crafters who have the appropriate knowledge. Mithril suits, adamantine suits, elven boots and cloaks, etc etc. Not just "a wizard did it".


Compare that to adamantine, which can be added to a weapon without going through the magic item creation process.Whats this a reference to? Forging Adamantine armor also requires a magic item formula, but where the rule for a weapon found?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Whats this a reference to? Forging Adamantine armor also requires a magic item formula, but where the rule for a weapon found?

There's an obscure line in Xanathar's IIRC. Currently away from books so no reference.

[Tanarii]

There's an obscure line in Xanathar's IIRC. Currently away from books so no reference.
Thanks. Found it on page 78