Mithral armour size categories

[Swiss Mercenary]

Just wondering.

If you make a medium or heavy armour in Mithral, it is treated as one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations.

What exactly are these other limitations?

I have a player asking if he can wear a barbed vest over a Mithral breastplate, my knee-jerk reaction would be no, but I am not 100% sure.

Barbed Vest:

Thin leather flaps keep the hundreds of tiny, fishhook-like needles dotting the surface of this black vest from harming
you while you wear it. However, any creature that injures you with a natural or unarmed attack must make a DC 15 Reflex save or take 1 point of damage. If a creature swallows you, it takes 1 point of damage each round until it either spits you up, you escape, or you die (at which point the vest has sustained enough damage that it no longer serves as a threat). The vest can only be worn over light armor or no armor. (my bold)

[MrSin]

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

What exactly are these other limitations?

To my knowledge the only thing that mithral armor isn't treated as one tier lighter for is proficiency. Its the only thing that's explicitly called out.

Something to think about is if wearing a barbed jacket is really going to break the game.

[Swiss Mercenary]

MrSin wrote:

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

What exactly are these other limitations?

To my knowledge the only thing that mithral armor isn't treated as one tier lighter for is proficiency. Its the only thing that's explicitly called out.

Something to think about is if wearing a barbed jacket is really going to break the game.

The barbed jacket is not actually the issue here, it is, is a Mithral armour also considered a category lighter for items or gear which are for a certain category of armour?

Imagine if you had a magical tabard which only fits over light armour, would it fit over medium armours made of Mithral?

For me you could say that each armour has a weight and a volume, while Mithral would decease the weight it would not decrease the volume. So even thought the armour is lighter it still is bulky and certain items would still not fit over it.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

How any of us visualise it is one thing, but the rules are another.

Since this is the rules thread, the answer is that medium and heavy armours count as one category lighter for all purposes (except proficiency) if made of mithral.

[ArmouredMonk13]

Mithral is awesome. You could wear stuff like the barbed vest with it, a Magus (with armor expert) can wear a Mithral BP and not incur any penalties at all, you can move full speed (Fleet feat included) and a bunch of other fun stuff. Houserule what you like, but RAW the only limitation is you need proficiency to not take that (reduced) penalty to attack rolls.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

MrSin wrote:

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

What exactly are these other limitations?

To my knowledge the only thing that mithral armor isn't treated as one tier lighter for is proficiency. Its the only thing that's explicitly called out.

Something to think about is if wearing a barbed jacket is really going to break the game.

The barbed jacket is not actually the issue here, it is, is a Mithral armour also considered a category lighter for items or gear which are for a certain category of armour?

Imagine if you had a magical tabard which only fits over light armour, would it fit over medium armours made of Mithral?

For me you could say that each armour has a weight and a volume, while Mithral would decease the weight it would not decrease the volume. So even thought the armour is lighter it still is bulky and certain items would still not fit over it.

In a flavor sense, that's how it is. Take Mithril Full Plate + Armored Kilt. You try to apply an Armored Kilt to that Full Plate and it won't do anything because it is still a Heavy Armor (but treated as Medium for all purposes outside proficiency, the method used to categorize armor).

Same with that. Mithril Breastplate is still a Medium Armor by proficiency, so the Tabard wouldn't be applicable since it is still considered a Medium Armor.

[jerrys]

The classic mithral thing is "mithril chain mail", which is described as being so lightweight and supple that you can wear it under your button-down shirt without anybody noticing you're wearing armor. Like Frodo. So in the game this is represented as mithril chainmail being treated as light armor. I think it is the intent that you'd be able to wear the barbed vest over mithril chainmail.

The mithril brestplate is a little harder to swallow, since you can't really picture that being as supple or non-bulky as the chainmail. But, there isn't really anything in the rules that would encapsulate that difference.

The mithril chainmail can be that way, i think, because mithril is both really light and really strong. So you can make the rings smaller and thinner without sacrificing protection. And I guess you have dwarves or elves or whatever around who can spend 50 years making little tiny rings and riveting them together, whereas a human wouldn't do that even if he had mithril. Anyway, the rings are so fine and well-worked that it's basically like you're wearing wool long-johns or something instead of chainmail.

Maybe there could be something similar going on with the breastplate ... maybe it is thinner and smaller than a steel breastplate, and of significantly higher quality craftsmanship such that it hugs your body more closely or something, and you could wear it under a slightly bulky coat (like the barbed vest)?

In any case, boiled leather armor or studded leather (brigandine?) are certainly bulky... i could see an argument that they are not really less bulky than a mithril chainmail or breastplate.

[MrSin]

Swiss Mercenary wrote:

Imagine if you had a magical tabard which only fits over light armour, would it fit over medium armours made of Mithral?

Well, to me, yeah, you totally could. Tabards in game can be worn over anything, so not the best example. Brawling enchant on a mithral breastplate sounds totally legit to me, as does a barbed vest. None of those things really stretch my imagination nor do I think any of them are overpowered mechanically. Beyond all that mechanically I think its just fine to consider a mithral breastplate light armor.

[mdt]

If the tabbard says it can only be worn with armor falling into the light proficiency group, then the tabbard can't be worn with mithral breastplate.

If the tabbard says it can be worn only with light armor, then it can be worn with mithral breastplate.

It's really that simple. The only thing the proficiency has for it is whether you get the ACP to all skills or just dex skills.

I have a Paladin/Zen Archer build I plan on wearing medium mithral armor with 0 ACP eventually. Why? Because I will only go 4 levels in Monk before going back to Divine Hunter. So I'll never really need the flurry. I don't really care if I'm proficient with it or not, since the ACP will be 0.