A fantastic question. Allow me to hit a few of the points you raised.
First, you could enchant a wooden item (we'll say a wooden scimitar for now) whether or not it benefits from Ironwood. If the item is under the effects of the spell, it would function perfectly. When not affected by Ironwood, the scimitar would deal less damage as a mundane wooden weapon (as per Ultimate Combat's rules about wooden weapons). Even then it would be a +3 frost weapon.
Second, you should be able to cast Ironwood on darkwood. The final product would still weigh only half as much.
Third, unlike the magus' arcane pool enhancements, Ironwood's temporary enchancement bonus does not have any text showing that it would stack with any other enchantment. You could not employ the spell's last line to increase an existing weapon's bonus by 1.
The enchantment would remain once Ironwood wore off, but the item would likely be suboptimal. I was mistaken on one point: there are no wooden weapon rules in Ultimate Combat. There are bone items, though, which could serve as an adequate comparison for home games. A wooden sword would likely function as a club, and wooden armor would probably lose 1 point of AC and gain the fragile condition. Lighter wooden armor could use the stats of wooden armor from the APG. Even so, items would retain their permanent enhancement bonuses; your +3 frost scimitar would revert to a +3 frost club until properly enchanted.
There are precidents of wooden weapons already without a fragile property. Or what do you think a Quarterstaff or a Club are made of?
Fragile is "you hit it hard on the ground and it cracks already". Wood is not like that.
Those wooden weapons can be enchanted normally, and nothing says you can't use Ironwood on a club. Heck if you don't transform at least 30 lbs of wood (at 12th level, minimum to cast it) it already counts as a +1 weapon, so I see no reason why more would somehow be against the rule.
Also I see no problem allowing darkwood to be enchanted. The combination of the both could MAYBE be considered like mithral. That's not RAW though.
I cannot agree with the inclusion of the fragile property. The description of the fragile property notes that masterwork and magical item cannot have this property. I am not sure about changing say, a wooden full plate, to the wooden armor described in the APG, as they are very different.
I agree entirely, but I would point you to two things I said explicitly or by purposeful omission. First, in regards to armor gaining the fragile property, a permanent magical enchantment would negate the fragile property. I needed to include this point to cover the possibility that someone might not grant a wooden suit of full plate a +1 before hitting it with Ironwood.
Second:
Lighter wooden armor could use the stats of wooden armor from the APG.
As I stated, lighter wooden armor (a wooden breastplate or wooden four-mirror armor) could use the stats for the APG's wooden armor while unenchanted. I use this as an alternate option that references the existing rules' expectations for non-magical armor made out of wood.
There are precidents of wooden weapons already without a fragile property. Or what do you think a Quarterstaff or a Club are made of?
Fragile is "you hit it hard on the ground and it cracks already". Wood is not like that.
Take a closer look at my proposal, Quatar. I did not suggest that clubs or wooden scimitars should have the fragile property - only armor. I suspect that using a club's (or greatclub as appropriate) statistics for non-magical, wooden, would-be-slashing weapons is sufficient. To borrow from my first post, it also would be reasonable to use the rules for bone weapons from Ultimate Combat to judge how a wooden weapon that would normally be made out of metal would behave. In that case, a wooden rapier would have the fragile property, just as a bone rapier would. Magical enhancements would still negate the fragile property.
That's what your mother said last night.
Now to be serious, I'm pretty sure you can only enchant weapons or armor that are masterwork. If they are then yes, if not no.
My wood is masterwork.
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You can create masterwork items with ironwood spell. They function as steel for the purposes of crafting. The question is: once you have created a masterwork item using the ironwood spell, can you enchant it? Further, if you can enchant it, what happens to the item once the ironwood spell wears off?
I think I understand your question now, but I suspect you might be seeing something in the spell that doesn't exist. Ironwood does not create masterwork objects. It can enchant weapons and armor to be treated as magical and have a +1 enhancement bonus, but this is not the same as becoming masterwork items; a parallel would be the spell Magic Weapon, which grants a similar benefit without ever affecting the weapon's craftsmanship.
Ironwood is a magical substance created by druids from normal wood. While remaining natural wood in almost every way, ironwood is as strong, heavy, and resistant to fire as steel. Spells that affect metal or iron do not function on ironwood. Spells that affect wood do affect ironwood, although ironwood does not burn. Using this spell with wood shape or a wood-related Craft check, you can fashion wooden items that function as steel items. Thus, wooden plate armor and wooden swords can be created that are as durable as their normal steel counterparts. These items are freely usable by druids.
Further, if you make only half as much ironwood as the spell would normally allow, any weapon, shield, or suit of armor so created is treated as a magic item with a +1 enhancement bonus.
Using Fabricate might allow you to craft a masterwork weapon, but Wood Shape would only give the basic form (standard quality). Both spells have an instantaneous duration, so any masterwork quality achieved through them is permanent and not tied to the Ironwood spell.
Therefore, an item's enchantments would not wear off of an item affected by Ironwood, as the item would have to have been of masterwork quality to be enchanted in the first place.
Once again, I agree while referencing points made earlier. In the event you use a craft skill to create a masterwork wooden weapon or suit of armor, the item is permanently masterwork. Even in the absence of the Ironwood spell, one could use craft (woodworking) to carve a masterwork suit of full plate out of wood; it would be inferior to metal armor in many ways, but its masterwork quality would still be there. Because the Ironwood spell still requires the enterprising individual to manipulate the objects desired as if they were wood, I do not believe the prospective weapon's masterwork nature is tied directly to the spell. When the spell wears off, the item is still masterwork. As a result, it retains any permanent enchantments infused into it before or during the Ironwood's duration.
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I see. I still am unsure as how to adjudicate the properties once the ironwood spell wears off. Do the weapons deal less damage? Does the armor provide a smaller ac bonus or higher armor check penalty? How does create a formula for determining the effects so as to apply to different items if a change is needed?
If you the DM go with what feels right if your the player go talk to you DM and try to reach an agreement.
That is an incredibly simple, and logical solution. Now I just need to figure out if using darkwood effects any properties, especially armor.Treat items exactly like metal items, only using wood stats for hardness and the like.
You do not need new mechanics for a flavor consideration.
Half weight and -2ACP on shields.
This rare magic wood is as hard as normal wood but very light.
Any wooden or mostly wooden item (such as a bow or spear) made from darkwood is considered a masterwork item and weighs only half as much as a normal wooden item of that type. Items not normally made of wood or only partially of wood (such as a battleaxe or a mace) either cannot be made from darkwood or do not gain any special benefit from being made of darkwood. The armor check penalty of a darkwood shield is lessened by 2 compared to an ordinary shield of its type.
HP/inch 10
Hardness 5
Cost To determine the price of a darkwood item, use the original weight but add 10 gp per pound to the price of a masterwork version of that item
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So I can guess that darkwood armor has it's armor check penalty reduced by 2, but what about the weight reduction? There's a half the weight reduction from it being wood (as it states in the ironwood spell), and an additional half the weight reduction from being darkwood. Would this large weight reduction allow said armor to function similar to mithral in it's function and classification?
So I can guess that darkwood armor has it's armor check penalty reduced by 2, but what about the weight reduction? There's a half the weight reduction from it being wood (as it states in the ironwood spell), and an additional half the weight reduction from being darkwood. Would this large weight reduction allow said armor to function similar to mithral in it's function and classification?
-2ACP is shields only and by raw it doesn't make it work like mithril.
weight would be 1/3 for any item origanal metal.
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RAW in this case is not clear. There are no wooden armors in the core, therefore no need to mention it. Now we see there is indeed armor that is made of wood, thus can be made of darkwood. I can think of no examples, of a special material, that reduces the armor check penalty of shields, but not armor. It is an armor check penalty.
Look at mithral which calls out specificly Armor and Shields whilst darkwood only states shields.
Raw is clear RAI maybe not.
I as a gm would allow the reduction in ACP and would consider the weight reduction to treat it like mithril.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield) and a Craft DC of 20 - this is an extra "craft project". So first you need to succeed on the DC for the standard item and then it's another roll with a DC of 20 for the masterwork portion.
Wooden armor:
For comparison use Wooden armor from APG as starting point.
Except for swimming the ACP seems to stay the same as for leather armor. The diminished max dex bonus would stem from wood being less supple and flexible but talking about bulky medium or heavy armor I do not see, why ACP should be reduced when using wood.
Ruyan.
I'm actually running a game which used the "Into the Haunted Forest" module and changed the Breastplate of Fire at the end into an Ironwood Breastplate instead (Druids with metal breastplates what!?). Basically, I treat it like mithril pretty much, and it most certainly could be enchanted...if they knew what it was enchanted with ;)
Hm. Everybody in this thread tried to come up with RAW. Since nobody seems to be able to tell otherwise or find a quote it looks like that's the way the rules go. *shrug*
Also, the spell says
[...]ironwood is as strong, heavy, and resistant to fire as steel.
So ironwood uses another base material for creating armor, weapons etc but the result is similar to what any metal you would use as material for creating the same item would give you AC- max-dex- and ACP-wise.
It may be only a small comfort, but don't forget masterwork quality reduces ACP by 1.
Ruyan.