PDA

View Full Version : Debate on Enchanting My Armor



Brauron
2008-11-17, 10:11 AM
At the end of last week's session in the game I'm playing in, the PCs, laden down with treasure stolen from pirates, reached a major metropolis and divided up our loot. It came to about 2,000 GP each.

Now comes the part where I start planning out what I want to buy.

I'm supplementing this by selling some of my current equipment -- a longsword and a masterwork short sword, as well as a +1 Chain Shirt.

I'm intending to buy a Masterwork Dwarven Waraxe, a Masterwork Warhammer, and a Mithral Chain Shirt. (My dwarf ranger recently had an epiphany that he has been a bad dwarf, and is working to redeem himself in the eyes of Moradin and his community)

I end up with a little over 1,000 GP to spare. I could spend that to make my Mithral Chain Shirt into a +1 Mithral Chain Shirt.

However, I also have a nifty little widget our DM has created called an Armor Rune. It's a palm-sized metal disc with a rune engraved on it, and if it's placed on a suit of armor and the proper spell cast, it makes the armor +1 for less than the usual cost of enchanting an armor.

Problem is, there aren't many mages who know the spell. To find one is almost a quest in and of itself. We met one a couple sessions ago, but he's two weeks' journey back the way we came, through pirate infested waters. To go back and get my armor enchanted from him would have a total cost of 650 GP or so. But that also puts us well out of the way of the quest we're on, and we risk another encounter with the pirate lord who kicked our butts so severely last session. To find another mage to cast the right spell would cost probably 650 for the casting itself, plus travel expenses, plus unknown dangers.

What do you folks think? Should I just get the armor enchanted the usual way, or should I hold off and wait to find a mage to use my Armor Rune?

Swiftest
2008-11-17, 10:22 AM
Sounds simple to me: just get the armor enchanted with a regular +1 and eat the 350 gold this time. Unless you *want* to go fight that pirate lord again :D.

Starbuck_II
2008-11-17, 10:43 AM
Problem is, there aren't many mages who know the spell. To find one is almost a quest in and of itself. We met one a couple sessions ago, but he's two weeks' journey back the way we came, through pirate infested waters. To go back and get my armor enchanted from him would have a total cost of 650 GP or so. But that also puts us well out of the way of the quest we're on, and we risk another encounter with the pirate lord who kicked our butts so severely last session. To find another mage to cast the right spell would cost probably 650 for the casting itself, plus travel expenses, plus unknown dangers.

What do you folks think? Should I just get the armor enchanted the usual way, or should I hold off and wait to find a mage to use my Armor Rune?

Any way you can go the Pirate way and run if the pirate attack?
Gust of wind should totally increase speed of a ship for running.

Telonius
2008-11-17, 11:19 AM
The wizard will still be there after you've leveled up and are ready to make Captain Bluebeard walk the plank. Buy something else for now, and go back when you're ready.

By the way, what's your class and stats? I'm more than a bit curious about why (what I'm guessing is) a Fighter would be getting such light armor.

Rad
2008-11-17, 12:17 PM
Eventually you'll want a +2 armor. Or a light fortification +2 armor. Or something.
I'd just pay the 1000gp and roleplay a very irritated dwarf at the human that overpriced his armor for him...:smallbiggrin:

Plus, on the long run those 350 gold will be just change coins

Brauron
2008-11-17, 12:52 PM
Dwarf Ranger 5 (2-weapon fighting build).
STR: 16
DEX: 17
CON: 20
INT: 14
WIS: 16
CHA: 8

I'd originally built him around the idea of him being a "mountaineer/fur trader" sort of ranger, two-weapon fighting with a Bowie Knife (short sword with damage type changed to slashing) and a hand axe.

His backstory is that several years prior to the beginning of the campaign, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced for destruction of property (he'd accidentally knocked over a lamp in a brothel while trying to reclaim money that was stolen from him, and the building ended up burning down), went to prison, got put on a chain gang, escaped, learned the art of rangering from an "Australian Bush Ranger" type ranger, and was scraping out a living killing animals and selling their skins. He doesn't really feel like he can go back to his people, and until just recently had accepted that fact and moved on with his life.

He lost the hand axe and his original armor (studded leather) during our first encounter with this pirate lord, when he was knocked unconscious and taken as a slave (he managed to get the knife back during the escape, as well as a longsword, along with stealing his current chain shirt from a cleric working for the pirate lord). The pirate lord pursued us, caught up with us (we couldn't cast spells such as gust of wind, since we hadn't been able to get the Anti-Magic Enslavement Manacles (tm) off us) and killed us all.

Our DM had previously ruled that if there was a TPK, we'd get a mulligan...once. We end up before the Raven Queen (he prefers the 4th edition death goddess to any of the 3rd edition ones, so he used her) who said, "Hmmm...well, I've been watching you, and you're not due back here for a while, so here's an extra quest to fulfill -- have fun with your second chance at life."

(side note, our DM had planned the encounter with the pirate lord with the idea that more than 2/3rds of the players would show up -- alas, our major damage dealer has the flu, and our healer had another obligation that prevented him from playing)

We return to the land of the living with all our gear and the Anti-Magic Manacles gone. Move inland (we'd washed up on the coast of where we were going), we find the city, end session.

I'd been feeling kind of blah about continuing with this character, but realized what was wrong -- I'd fallen away from roleplaying and was just gaming -- treating characters as just numbers. I suspect this is due to the fact that everyone I played D&D with for the last year were number-crunchers, and it rubbed off to me to an extant. I'm in a better group now, and don't want to be just a number-cruncher, so I started seriously considering how to make this character more interesting and more fun to play.

I decided that his brush with death would have really shaken him, and now he's questioning if the life he's lived up to this point would prevent him from achieving a proper Dwarven afterlife. He's reevaluating himself, and is now going to strive to make amends for what's come before and to be a proper dwarf.



New Information Relevant to the OP: The DM has also informed me that I can use the +1 Armor Rune to improve +1 Armor to +2 Armor later on, it just costs a little more for the casting -- still cheaper than buying +2 Armor. So I think I'll end up doing that.

Telonius
2008-11-17, 01:12 PM
It would usually be a good idea to pick up the Breastplate instead of the Chain Shirt. If you hit your maximum dex in either case, you'll have the same AC. But to reach your maximum dex with a Chain Shirt requires you to spend a lot more gold (or stat bumps).

If your DM needs convincing (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a)....


Is a character proficient with light armor, such as a rogue, considered to be proficient with mithral breastplate? What about a character proficient with medium armor, such as a barbarian—is he considered proficient with mithral full plate armor?

The description of mithral on page 284 of the DMG is less precise than it could be in defining how it interacts with armor proficiency rules. The simplest answer—and the one that the Sage expects most players and DMs use—is that mithral armor is treated as one category lighter for all purposes, including proficiency. This isn’t exactly what the DMG says, but it’s a reasonable interpretation of the intent of the rule (and it’s supported by a number of precedents, including the descriptions of various specific mithral armors described on page 220 of the DMG and a variety of NPC stat blocks).

Thus, a ranger or rogue could wear a mithral breastplate without suffering a nonproficiency penalty (since it’s treated as light armor), and each could use any ability dependent on wearing light or no armor (such as evasion or the ranger’s combat style). A barbarian could wear mithral full plate armor without suffering a nonproficiency penalty (since it’s treated as medium armor), and he could use any ability dependent on wearing medium or lighter armor (such as fast movement). The same would be true of any other special material that
uses the same or similar language as mithral (such as darkleaf, on page 120 of the ECS).

Brauron
2008-11-17, 03:04 PM
But a Mithral Breastplate would cost me 4,200 GP.

Telonius
2008-11-17, 03:26 PM
True, you can't afford it now. But if you expect the campaign to go into the higher levels, I would strongly suggest getting one before you invest too much in the chain shirt.

Starbuck_II
2008-11-17, 03:51 PM
But a Mithral Breastplate would cost me 4,200 GP.

Alternatively, you could buy Skin of Ecoplasmic Armor: (Costs 3K): +8 Armor, +2 Max Dex, -6 check penalty.
This is in Complete Psionics and Magic Item Compendruim books (editted a bit in the MIC though)

Doesn't count as armor just gives armor bonus similar to Bracers of armor.

Other than armor check penalty (which is kinda big), you would get more AC from armor than Dex unless you have way more Dex than you do currently.

Epinephrine
2008-11-17, 04:04 PM
Why Mithril?

A chain shirt has a max +4 dex modifier anyway, and you're at +3 dex bonus right now.
A masterwork (or +1 chain shirt, since it's masterwork) only has a -1 armour penalty anyway, so you're paying 1000gp to get -1 off the armour penalty and +2 to the dex limit, which you don't even need at the moment.

If you are planning on boosting your Dex often through spells, or with an item, or are raising your dex, I could see getting a better dex limit armour, but for now I don't see the need. You don't yet derive the maximum bonus from your armour, and even if you were nearing it, you could easily get the Nimble enhancement as the second +1 bonus on the armour - it raises the dex bonus by 1 and drops the armour check penalty by 2, so adamantine chain shirt +1 with nimbleness has a max dex bonus of +5 (high enough for you to benefit with up to a 21 dex) and no armour check penalty, while providing DR 1/-.

And while Telonius has quoted the FAQ, I personally disagree with letting mithril lend proficiency. I treat mithril as lowering the encumbrance an armour causes, but not changing the required proficiency - otherwise Heavy armour proficiency is nearly useless, and being restricted to medium armours is barely a limitation.

Brauron
2008-11-17, 06:36 PM
I'm also kind of thinking of the Mithral as a roleplaying thing -- any armorsmith can craft ordinary armor, but Adamantine, Mithral, and the other fancy materials? That takes the skill of a real artisan, something a dwarf can appreciate.