Mithral and the Armor Master's Handbook


Rules Questions

Sovereign Court

I recently picked up AMH and there's a bunch of feats in there that require you to be using armor of a specific weight.

Now, the mithral FAQ is pretty clear that you can use a mithral armor as a type lighter for abilities that require it:

Mithral armor: What exactly does it mean when it says mithral armor is counted as one category lighter for “other limitations?”

This means that mithral armor allows its wearer to use it when her own class features or special abilities demand her to wear lighter armor; in other words, the character wearing the armor is less limited. For example, a bard can cast spells in mithral breastplate without arcane spell failure, a barbarian can use her fast movement in mithral fullplate, a ranger can use his combat style in mithral fullplate, brawlers, swashbucklers, and gunslingers can keep their nimble bonus in mithral breastplate, rogues keep evasion in mithral breastplate, a brawler can flurry in mithral breastplate, characters without Endurance can sleep in mithral breastplate without becoming fatigued, and so on. It does not change the armor’s actual category, which means that you can still store a creature one size category larger in a hosteling mithral fullplate, and you can’t enhance a mithral breastplate with special abilities that require it to be light armor, like brawling (though you could enhance it with special abilities that require it to be medium armor), and so on.

What I'm not sure about however is if lightening is voluntary. If I'm wearing a mithral breastplate (medium -> light), can I still use abilities that require a medium armor? Could I use a light-armor and a medium-armor ability simultaneously?


"It does not change the armor’s actual category, which means that you can still store a creature one size category larger in a hosteling mithral fullplate, and you can’t enhance a mithral breastplate with special abilities that require it to be light armor, like brawling (though you could enhance it with special abilities that require it to be medium armor), and so on."

I would think that the feats would treat it as the type of armor that it is. I think your Mithral Breastplate would be medium as far as those feats are concerned.


My general rule is if it is a weight restriction of some kind then mithral reduces that restriction. In all other ways that armor protects the user, it is treated as medium armor.

So advanced armor training would use medium armor stats. Also, I am pretty sure that you can't get the bonuses from both light and medium armor from the ability.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The Armor Master's Handbook specifically addresses this. I'll get a quote/reference for you once I'm near my book.

Edit:

Under Heavy Armor Tricks, page 9:
Such armor tricks utilize the mass and heft of heavy armor, and don’t function when you’re wearing heavy armor that uses magic or materials to be treated as medium armor for any purpose, unless the heavy armor trick says otherwise.

Under Armor Style feats, page 10:
Armor style feats can be used only while wearing armor whose type matches the feat’s armor proficiency prerequisite, disregarding any changes resulting from the armor’s material.

Advanced Armor Training, page 14:

Advanced armor training options function only when the fighter is wearing appropriate armor or using a shield, unless otherwise noted.

Armor Mastery Feats, page 16:

You gain the benefits of an armor mastery feat only while wearing armor with which you are proficient and only while wearing a type of armor that matches the feat’s armor proficiency feat prerequisite, if any. Armor mastery feats without armor proficiency prerequisites can be used while wearing any suit of armor. Characters who lack the armor training class feature can access armor mastery feats by taking the Armor Focus feat, presented below.

I hope that helps.


as Ravingdork showed most of the sections cover how mithral interacts with it.

If you have a specific option or combo in mind we can let you know if it works or not.

Sovereign Court

It seems like not every section works the same way then.

Can I use light armor tricks in mithral breastplate? And can I use medium armor tricks in mithral breastplate? Those two seem to be the most useful for my current character.


Breastplate is medium armor. If you have both light and medium armor trick, then you met the requirement for the "light versatility" trick, which lets you do light tricks in medium armor.

You cannot just take light armor trick to use with the breastplate though.

(But I cannot imagine any of the tricks are worth taking the feat once, much less twice.)

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