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TheElfLord
2008-01-08, 04:31 PM
Back in Second Ed, Dragonhide armor was really something special. Not only was it cool, it was effective as well. This has been destroyed in third edition. Given the power level of the game, masterwork armor doesn't turn any heads, especally not at the level that players are able to kill dragons.

I would like to see people contribute ideas on how to improve armor made from dragon hide. Here is my suggestion:

All dragonhide counts as masterwork scale mail. It provides an armor bonus of +1 for each age catagory of the slain dragon. In addition the armor provedes an elemental resistance of 5 per level based on the dragon's immunity (fire, acid, cold etc)

Now this suggestion is pretty powerful, maybe too powerful. Thats why I'm asking for suggestions. I want to revamp dragonhide to the point that it is special again, but not gamebreaking.

Any comments are appreciated.

Fizban
2008-01-08, 08:12 PM
As long as you take the effective cost of the dragonhide armor they will make into account, it's just extra treasure. With that in mind, you can really just make it whatever you want, and count it as part of the standard treasure for the encounter.

Now as to how it would work, I'd say you find significant use for it in pretty much any non-chain armor, so we'll start there. It counts as masterwork armor of the selected type to start. Then how about an extra +1 AC and energy resistance 5 per age category of the dragon. The energy resistance isn't really all that good, but the extra AC is actually useful.

The worth of the hide is debatable. Assuming it doesn't require any magic or feats to make, just the skill, then the raw materials for one suit are 1/3 of the market price, which will be 1/6 if sold immediately instead of worked. If you craft the suit and then sell it, you've recieved 1/2 the market price, and of course if you make and keep it you've got the full price. I seem to remember a guidline stating that you should count found items that aren't specifically tailored to the party at 1/2 price, since they party is likely to just sell them, but it all depends on your style.

The market price would be the normal cost of a masterwork suit of armor + (age category)^2*2,000gp+ (age category)/2*25,000gp. The first part is from a non-standard AC bonus, pretty simple by the book. I winged it on the last part based ont the energy resistance abilities in the DMG. Very overpriced though, since ER is very situational.

Anyway, basically all I said was: it's not overpowered as long as you count it as treasure for the party's WBL, and add some AC bonus based on the dragon's age category to make it actually useful.

Edit: and re-reading the OP, I find that you've already added an AC bonus. I'd make it usable with more armor types though: the DMG allows more, and I really think that dragon is cool enough to work with any non-chain armor. The pricing is pretty easy: a non-standard AC bonus costs 2,000*bonus^2, energy resistance can be extrapolated from the DMG, though I'd cut the cost myself since it's so specific.

Riffington
2008-01-08, 08:47 PM
Yeah, there's nothing bad about making Dragonhide armor awesome as long as the price goes up to match.

Right now, it's basically there so Druids can have metal armor. Which is kinda lame, to be honest. So if you up the price to where it's more of a warrior thang... actually it's probably what Wotc should have done in the first place.

One thing: just have one version per weight category.
Dragon Leather, Dragonscale Mail, and Dragonscale Plate. Don't have a single template that applies to whatever armors already exist.

Dragon Leather should be ultralight and tough. Its check penalty should be 0.
Dragonscale Plate should be pretty heavy in contrast.

SilverClawShift
2008-01-08, 09:26 PM
Back in Second Ed, Dragonhide armor was really something special. Not only was it cool, it was effective as well. This has been destroyed in third edition.

I just wanted to mention that I fully agree here. Dragonhide gets listed like it's a mineable material like iron or something, ignoring that dragonhide armor is a living creatures SKIN made into a suit.

A living creature who is a walking representation of natural magic on the face of existance. A living creature who comes in dozens of flavors (red dragon hide should be very different from copper dragon hide, both mechanically, and in how people will react to it).
A warrior wearing dragonhide is almost guaranteed to be someone very important. They're either someone who KILLED A FREAKING DRAGON, and was an important enough part of the process that they got a suit of armor made out of the creatures scales, or they're wealthy/important enough that they could get said suit of armor from someone else.
There's a small chance the suit belonged to someone else at some point, and they found it or inherited it, but still. Suits of dragonhide armor should be rare enough that they're noteworthy, at the bare minimum.

F.L.
2008-01-08, 09:34 PM
One dragon + maximized shivering touch + adamantine scalpels + regeneration spell = minable dragonhide.

Edit: and if you don't feel like gaining a couple bonus vile feats for doing something so evil, damage away the dragon's charisma too. Without a charisma score, it can't tell itself from its environment, and is in a coma, and presumably is incapable of feeling pain.

John Campbell
2008-01-09, 12:12 AM
Dragonscale armor in nethack provides a base AC two points better than plate, weighs less than a tenth as much, causes no spell failure, and provides complete immunity to an energy type or other effect (sleep, disintegration, rays, magic...) depending on the type of dragon it was based on.

Dragonscale armor in D&D...

Well, my last party killed two dragons, a white and a blue, and, while we dutifully kept the hides, we did absolutely nothing with them, despite having a PC (me) who was an extremely skilled armorsmith and magic armor crafter. It wasn't even useful for the druid... any armor we could get out of it was either worse than her ordinary studded leather (not going to rant about the insane way 3.x handles armor, not going to rant about the insane way 3.x handles armor...) or required burning a feat on Heavy Armor Proficiency (not that the dragons were big enough that we could get full plate out of them, anyway) so she wouldn't be rendered utterly useless by the ACP. And she spent practically all of her melee time in wildshape, anyway.

I joked that we ought to collect the other three chromatics, and I'd take some ranks in Craft (taxidermy) and kitbash a stuffed Tiamat. It would've been more useful than any bloody thing else we could do with them.

I did get a good axe-handle out of one of the white's bones, though.

... Actually, we killed three dragons. The third was a silver; the knight/paladin did the dirty work. We didn't have time to skin it, though we did take some parts so we could resurrect it later. And, uh... *looks around to make sure the paladin's not in earshot* ... for spell components.

Amiria
2008-01-09, 03:30 AM
This is an old thread of mine where I thought about how to make Dragonhide Armors better. It is based on the Natural Armor of the dragon and has three categories (light, medium, heavy). I belive it is my only Homebrew project which I posted on the boards here.

The response to it was fairly positive. The only unsolved problem was setting a price for the armors. I guess it is best to just wing it / throw WBL overboard there. Anyway, I don't think that the additional points of effective AC (4 at max for heavy armor from Gold/Silver/Red Great Wyrms) from this armor would break a game.

See also post #23 in that thread where I suggest to lower the size requirements for dead dragons that are made into armor a bit.

Amiria's Alternative Dragonhide Armor (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21074)

The table is broken, I know that, it was made when the board software was still YaBB. Please don't post in my thread anymore (threadomancy).

F.L.
2008-01-09, 07:16 AM
Dragonscale armor in nethack provides a base AC two points better than plate, weighs less than a tenth as much, causes no spell failure, and provides complete immunity to an energy type or other effect (sleep, disintegration, rays, magic...) depending on the type of dragon it was based on.

Dragonscale armor in D&D...

Well, my last party killed two dragons, a white and a blue, and, while we dutifully kept the hides, we did absolutely nothing with them, despite having a PC (me) who was an extremely skilled armorsmith and magic armor crafter. It wasn't even useful for the druid... any armor we could get out of it was either worse than her ordinary studded leather (not going to rant about the insane way 3.x handles armor, not going to rant about the insane way 3.x handles armor...) or required burning a feat on Heavy Armor Proficiency (not that the dragons were big enough that we could get full plate out of them, anyway) so she wouldn't be rendered utterly useless by the ACP. And she spent practically all of her melee time in wildshape, anyway.

I joked that we ought to collect the other three chromatics, and I'd take some ranks in Craft (taxidermy) and kitbash a stuffed Tiamat. It would've been more useful than any bloody thing else we could do with them.

I did get a good axe-handle out of one of the white's bones, though.

... Actually, we killed three dragons. The third was a silver; the knight/paladin did the dirty work. We didn't have time to skin it, though we did take some parts so we could resurrect it later. And, uh... *looks around to make sure the paladin's not in earshot* ... for spell components.

I thought druids had heavy armor proficiency already, like clerics, it's just most normal heavy armor violates the druidic oaths.

John Campbell
2008-01-09, 08:22 PM
I thought druids had heavy armor proficiency already, like clerics, it's just most normal heavy armor violates the druidic oaths.

No; Light and Medium only.

seedjar
2008-01-09, 08:54 PM
I've had no trouble using dragonhide as a druid... There are other special materials in my campaign that beat it for my purposes so far as straight armor goes, as when it was an option the best I could do is dragonhide studded leather. Once I had access to better types of armor, I started using dragonhide for other types of equipment - shields, cloaks, etc. It's not as good as the nethack armor described above (not by a long shot) but I still dig having non-magical equipment that grants me Intimidate bonuses and energy resistance (even if it is a piddly 5 points.) I think, perhaps, that dragons are a little more accessible in your average 3.x campaign than one might imagine from their general legendary reputation.
~Joe

seedjar
2008-01-09, 08:56 PM
No; Light and Medium only.

IIRC, 3.5 dragonhide reduces the weight quality of armor by one step (up to light.) So it shouldn't matter, as there isn't any heavy dragonhide armor; even dragonhide full plate is medium.
~Joe

InkEyes
2008-01-09, 09:13 PM
You could incorporate/replace with Dragoncraft Armors. They're basically just like dragonhide except they grant an extraordinary energy resistance, make the size category one size less, and reduce armor check penalties. It's in the Draconomicon.

TheElfLord
2008-01-09, 09:18 PM
Seedjar i believe you are thinking of some houserules, because according to the SRD, dragonhide is not lighter than other armor, does not grant intimidate bonuses, and does not give you energy resistance. All it is is non metalic masterwork armor.

Countess, I like your system and may choose to implement it after I examine it more theroughly.

Most people have suggested offering multiple types of armor, dragon leather, dragon scale, dragon plate. Is there any reason for this other than allowing characters like rouges and bards to wear dragonhide. For the sake of the discussion lets discount the rules on dragon sizes and making armor. Why not just have all dragon hide armor be medium?

seedjar
2008-01-09, 11:41 PM
Ah, I hadn't seen the SRD listing - I was actually referring to the stuff out of the Draconomicon like InkEyes mentioned.
~Joe

PS - Now that I look, that is pretty weak. I don't think anyone in our group even bothered to consider the core rules for dragonhide when it became available to us; we went straight to the Draconomicon and discarded the Dragoncrafter feat.

Amiria
2008-01-10, 04:46 AM
Ok, for ease of use and self-glorificaton I decided to repost my old system here. :smallsmile: With a fixed table:

How to skin a Dragon !

I have made up an alternative system for armor made from the scaly hides of dragons and would like to have some comments and suggestions on it.

The armors are powerful because of the high armor bonuses. The older the dragon is, the better will be the armor made from its scales.

The system is as follows:

1) There are three types of dragon scale armor:

Heavy armor is similar to full plate
Medium armor is similar to breastplate
Light armor is similar to studded leather

2) You start with the natural armor bonus of the dragon and divide it by three, round down.

This number is the basic nonmagical armor bonus for a suit of heavy armor.
For a suit of medium armor you subtract 3 from this number.
For a suit of light armor you subtract 5 from this number.

[hr]
Here is a table with most information except the cost. The example is with suits of armor made from the hide of a black dragon great wyrm (Natural Armor bonus of 36. Divided by three = 12)

{table="head"]Armor Type|Armor Bonus|MDB1|ACP2|ASF3|Speed4|Weight
Light|7|6|0|15%|30|15
Medium|9|4|3|25%|20|30
Heavy|12|2|5|35%|20|45[/table]

1 = Maximum Dex Bonus
2 = Armor Check Penalty
3 = Arcane Spell Failure Chance
4 = for a base speed of 30 ft.

Appendix A) Size requirements for dead dragons that are made into armor should be lowered a bit. 2 size categories larger than the wearer for full plate or breastplate and 1 size category larger for "studded leather".

Appendix B) Dragonhide Armor is always of masterwork quality. It should be very rare and the process of crafting it should be very complicated and time-consuming. PCs shouldn't be able to make such armor themselves.

Appendix C) No prices are given. DMs should set the price and availability of Dragnonhide armor as it fits for their games.

Fuzzy_Juan
2008-01-10, 05:23 AM
hmmm...dragonscale...we always had a field day with that...

in our 2nd ed games, a suit made from dragonscale gave you immunity to the element of the dragon's breath...straight up. Though resistance of some sort might be better.

I would have dragonscale armor give a bonus to AC based on the type of armor you are making out of it, and then a bonus based on the age of the dragon...maybe the age catagory /2...so no more than full plate with an inherant +6 bonus. It would be masterwork of course...though aside from being light, it would have to have similar penalties since the scales are as hard or harder than steel or adamant in most cases.

Perhaps also grant 1/5 the DR of the dragon to the armor...so a great wyrm's armor would have a DR of 4/magic.

I might say that dragonscale armor granted a form of 'improved evasion' against the element associated with the dragon. Save for half or none. If the character had evasion, then they would take 1/4 damage on a failed save.

I would also note that wearing a suit of dragon scale armor would make any and all dragons you encounter hostile...at least in my games...even if you wore the scales of an opposite aligned dragon, they would be very purturbed that you wore the hide of their kind as armor.

DeathQuaker
2008-01-10, 08:14 AM
This is something I'd thought about for awhile too. Since I wanted a pretty simple system, what I ultimately came up with that Dragonhide is a kind of hide, and the methods used to make armor out of it would therefore be similar to the methods used to make Hide Armor. The difference is that Dragonhide has a Hardness more akin to Iron than Hide, so... ultimately, I just decided to use stats similar to Masterwork Hide with a better Armor Class:

Armor bonus +5, Dexterity Bonus +4, Armor Check Penalty -2, Arcane Spell Failure Chance 25%, Max Movement 20', medium armor, weight 30 lb

That's it as unenchanted. I thought about making it a category lighter, but I don't think of dragonhide as lightweight.

Unenchanted, the armor is itself immune to its element (so wear Black Dragon Armor when fighting Black Puddings, because its acid attack won't destroy your armor), but doesn't magically confer magical elemental resistance to the wearer. However, since its defenses cannot be easily penetrated by said element, it confers a +2 to saving throws versus that element.

If enchanted to be resistant to its relative element, it only costs half as much to do so. Undecided as to whether that eliminates the saving throw bonus. I've also considered making it cost half as much for taking ANY enchantment, and then an additional half (so total 75% discount) to enchant for the appropriate elemental resistance.

Dragonhide is not available in stores. You kill a dragon to get it, or you get it from another adventurer. Dragons don't like seeing adventurers wearing dragonhide and make a special effort to kill them if they learn of such an audacious person wearing a superior being's skin.

Amiria
2008-01-10, 01:50 PM
Yes, I can see affinities for appropriate energy resistance enchantments would also working for my version of Dragonhide Armor (see armor templates, DMG2, p. 273 et seq.)

BTW, how do people think about the medium armor in my version ? Is it good enough ? Who would wear it instead of heavy armor ? I'm thinking about lowering the Armor Check Penalty to 2 for it. Maybe also nix the speed reduction ... but that might be too much ...