The weight is given in its description, so it would remain fixed in an A-M.
==Aelryinth
Of course you can, it's "fine." That still isn't and indication of whether its properties are from the magic or the material.
For all we know, it becomes just as bulky and burdensome as normal chain mail in an antimagic field.
That seems sensible, LazarX.
I noticed that the caster level requirements listed for Celestial Armour is off by 4. It has an enhancement bonus of +3 but the CL is listed as 5th? I thought the minimum CL was supposed to be equal to 3 times the enhancement bonus.
I did the math for the creation cost, assuming that mithril is indeed used:
For the +3 enhancement bonus, the formula is "bonus squared * 1000"
In this case,
9 (because the CL for a +3 enhancement bonus must be at least three times the bonus) * 1000 = 9000
For the 1/day fly, that is command word activated, the formula is "spell level * caster level * 1800"
However, because it is only usable once per day, we divide that total by 5.
In this case, let us do the math for both a CL of 5th (minimum required for a fly spell) and a CL of 9th (which is the minimum required for the weapon enhancement.
(3 * 5 * 1800) / 5 = 5400
OR
(3 * 9 * 1800) / 5 = 9720
Cost of mithril material and armour cost are added at the end (for a medium armour, the mithril chain mail costs 41500 gold pieces).
This gives us a total of 18,550 gold pieces (9000+5400+4150)
OR
this gives us a total of 22,870 gold pieces (9000+9720+4150)
As you can see, both possibilities are quite close to the listed price of 22,400 gold pieces (especially the latter possibility). I'm inclined to believe that Celestial Armour is indeed a +3 mithril chainmail with a better arcane spell failure. That is more likely than not can be explained away by the fact that the armour was crafted by celestial craftsmen - they get the benefit of experience and skills.
It is interesting to note that mithril itself is described as "very silvery" and that matches part of the description of celestial armour (it's a ridiculously easy cosmetic change to make an armour look like gold).
I'm not 100% if I deduced the creation cost accurately but for what it's worth, I would rule that it's a mithril chain mail. Simply enough, eh? :)
CB out.
I noticed that the caster level requirements listed for Celestial Armour is off by 4. It has an enhancement bonus of +3 but the CL is listed as 5th? I thought the minimum CL was supposed to be equal to 3 times the enhancement bonus.
I did the math for the creation cost, assuming that mithril is indeed used:
For the +3 enhancement bonus, the formula is "bonus squared * 1000"
In this case,
9 (because the CL for a +3 enhancement bonus must be at least three times the bonus) * 1000 = 9000For the 1/day fly, that is command word activated, the formula is "spell level * caster level * 1800"
However, because it is only usable once per day, we divide that total by 5.
In this case, let us do the math for both a CL of 5th (minimum required for a fly spell) and a CL of 9th (which is the minimum required for the weapon enhancement.
(3 * 5 * 1800) / 5 = 5400
OR
(3 * 9 * 1800) / 5 = 9720Cost of mithril material and armour cost are added at the end (for a medium armour, the mithril chain mail costs 41500 gold pieces).
This gives us a total of 18,550 gold pieces (9000+5400+4150)
OR
this gives us a total of 22,870 gold pieces (9000+9720+4150)As you can see, both possibilities are quite close to the listed price of 22,400 gold pieces (especially the latter possibility). I'm inclined to believe that Celestial Armour is indeed a +3 mithril chainmail with a better arcane spell failure. That is more likely than not can be explained away by the fact that the armour was crafted by celestial craftsmen - they get the benefit of experience and skills.
It is interesting to note that mithril itself is described as "very silvery" and that matches part of the description of celestial armour (it's a ridiculously easy cosmetic change to make an armour look like gold).
I'm not 100% if I deduced the creation cost accurately but for what it's worth, I would rule that it's a mithril chain mail. Simply enough, eh? :)
CB out.
Inclined to believe does not prove that it is Mithral.
In the description, the only thing we know about the metal itself is the color of it being a silver or gold (and not even in the errata's version).
There is no indication that it is Mithral, and if you choose to believe that it is, then that is a , and holds no place in the rules question forum.
It is listed as being chain mail, which is a medium armor. The rules for armor made of mithral state that you increase the price by 4,000 gp. Thus, we can conclude using the rules in pricing new items from Ultimate Campaign that your Mithral Celestial Armor (which is a new item as it did not exist before in print) should be priced based on the new cost of the item. That means we subtract the 150 gp that the masterwork cost from the price of Celestial Armor and add the 4000 that the mithral adds (netting an addition of 3850gp to the final price) and we get your Mithral Celestial Armor costing us 26,250 gp per RAW. The rules are written there to not only confirm that this item can in fact exist, but it even bothers to go in depth in how to calculate its price.
Any other interpretation is of course acceptable at your own home game, but for the purpose of answering the OP's question here you can't just ignore the printed material because you don't like it.
Even if it isn't mithral, it isn't surprising that since it is mechanically "mithral-like," the game designers used that as a basis for determining its final pricing.
@master_marshmellow,
I am not ignoring the rules since I clearly pointed it out that (a) it would be my opinion as to how to rule/deal with the issue, and (b) I was using the item creation rules as listed in the CRB, which Celestial Armour is in fact listed in (see page 465 of the CRB) to illustrate that cost listed for Celestial Armour is quite close to the cost one would arrive at using the item creation rules. It is not a NEW item, but rather an existing item. The costs for specific magical items do not always follow the exact rules for item creations but they are often close enough.
Also, non-masterwork mithral chain mail costs 150 gold pieces. Mithral chain mail costs 4150 gold pieces, which already includes the cost of masterwork quality (see page 155 of the Core Rulebook).
So, to explain again: I did not ignore the printed materials. I used the CORE RULEBOOK (specifically the 6th printing, which is the most recent printing by Paizo) to achieve the math and conclusions in my first post. My original post had NOTHING to do with whether I like or dislike what the OP is requesting. I merely provided an answer as to whether or not it is likely that the cost of Celestial Armour already has taken into account the cost of mithral. You are welcome.
CB out.
you'd USE A required CL of 9 for the enhancement bonus when determining the item's saving throws (the only thing it's calculated for), but the armor clearly says CL 5 for the Fly spell, so that's how you have to calculate it.
==Aelryinth
you'd USE A required CL of 9 for the enhancement bonus when determining the item's saving throws (the only thing it's calculated for), but the armor clearly says CL 5 for the Fly spell, so that's how you have to calculate it.
==Aelryinth
I suspected as much, which is why I listed both costs to compare. I suspect that the designers felt that the costs was too low for something as good as Celestial Armour and decided to bump up the price by a few thousands to keep it balanced. Still, if people want to add more reductions on Celestial Armour, they're entitled to it: it's their game after all.
CB out.
@master_marshmellow,
Also, non-masterwork mithril chain mail costs 150 gold pieces. Mithril chain mail costs 4150 gold pieces, which already includes the cost of masterwork quality (see page 155 of the Core Rulebook).
Right, the Mithral chainmail costs 4150, as evident with Elven Chain, but regular masterwork chainmail costs 300. I was simply doing my own math to price out the Mithral Celestial Armor per the item pricing rules in Ultimate Campaign.
Let's also not forget that the Sunblade also has a similar magic effect on it that causes it to be treated as one step lighter (actually one and a half) and it isn't listed as Mithral for this purpose, and it too is listed in the CRB.
It is also of note that the price for specific items are Arbitrarily created at times with no actual basis on the calculations other than what the developers at the time felt was a balancing act.
I will maintain that in the rules forum there is nothing one could say that invalidates having Mithral Celestial Armor exist using the rules for pricing new magic items using the original item as the starting point and simply adding in the difference of what it would cost to have a different item (+3850)
A more confusing question would be what happens when I have Celestial Armor made of a Mithral Breastplate instead of Mithral Chainmail?
A sunblade is not listed as mithral because mithral does nothing to weapons in terms of determining the effort required to wield a weapon. In fact, the ONLY benefit that mithral gives for weapons is a reduction in weight. Therefore, identifying mithral as the material used in the construction of a sunblade is irrelevant, unless you needed to know its weight for the purposes of encumbrance issues.
If one wants to add the properties of mithral on top of the existing properties (which are incredibly mithral-like to begin with) of Celestial Armour, by all means, they are more than welcome to do so. In such a case, your math is indeed correct, it would cost an additional 3850 gold pieces.
As for your question, it is a simple matter of determining the difference between the existing Celestial Armour (described in the CRB) and a mithral chain mail (difference in Armour Class Penalty, spell failure, Max Dexterity, and so forth), and apply that same difference for a "mithral breastplate" Celestial Armour. Your custom-made item is ready for play.
CB out.
Also, just to clarify, a sunblade is not considered to be "one step lighter" - the magical enhancements on the weapon allow it to be wielded as either a bastard sword or a short sword (both are one-handed weapons, given the right weapon proficiency), whichever is more beneficial for the wielder. But I digress. Back to the original topic at hand.
CB out.
Actually the description of mithral states if used in weapons it counts as silver for damage reduction so does the sunblade overcome DR/silver if not its not mitral.
Given every other special material states its made of that material e.g. mithral links as opposed to gold silver mail I'd work out the difference between chain and celstial plate apply that difference to a breadtplate and from there.
Pricing isn't the issue, as it would be 50 gp more than chain mail, so I could have a Mithral Celestial Breastplate for 26,300. My question is: Will that simply increase the Max Dex by one? For a whopping max dex of 11 with a +9 armor bonus?
It matches the Mithral Celestial Plate armor in terms of total AC should the player be able to get their DEX high enough.
Myself, I would like to see these in end game, post 20th level scenarios if at all, but it doesn't mean they are not feasible with the rules as written.
Actually the description of mithral states if used in weapons it counts as silver for damage reduction so does the sunblade overcome DR/silver if not its not mitral.
Given every other special material states its made of that material e.g. mithral links as opposed to gold silver mail I'd work out the difference between chain and celstial plate apply that difference to a breadtplate and from there.
Ah, I did not see that line earlier in the description of mithral when I checked the CRB. Well, that's a nifty bonus. Cool.
CB out.
Here is the difference. (WARNING: long post)
The standard normal mithral chain mail has the following statistics.
Armour Bonus: +6
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: +4
Armour Check Penalty: -2
Arcane Spell Failure: 20%
Speed: 30 feet (because it is now considered a light armour)
Weight: 20 lbs.
The Celestial Armour, as described in the CRB, has the following statistics.
Armour Bonus: +6 (not counting enhancement bonus of +3)
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: +8
Armour Check Penalty: -2
Arcane Spell Failure: 15%
Speed: 30 feet (because it is considered light armour)
Weight: 20 lbs
The differences between the two is a +4 increase in Maximum Dexterity Bonus and a -5% reduction in Arcane Spell Failure. Now let's see what happens when we apply the same logic to a breastplate.
The standard normal mithral breastplate has the following statistics.
Armour Bonus: +6
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: +5
Armour Check Penalty: -1
Arcane Spell Failure: 15%
Speed: 30 feet (because it is now considered light armour)
Weight: 15 lbs
If we were to apply the same differences between a normal mithral chainmail and a Celestial Armour to a Celestial Armour that was actually a breastplate instead, we should see the following statistics.
Armour Bonus: +6
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: +9
Armour Check Penalty: -1
Arcane Spell Failure: 10%
Speed: 30 feet (because it is now considered light armour)
Weight: 15 lbs
If, for whatever reason, you want to "add" mithral to create a custom "mithral celestial breastplate armour," you would get the following statistics.
Armour Bonus: +6
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: +11
Armour Check Penalty: 0
Arcane Spell Failure: 0
Speed: 30 feet (it is still considered light armour, does not get any better than this)
Weight: 7.5 lbs.
Still think it's a good idea? :/
CB out.
Here is the difference. (WARNING: long post)
[math goes here]
Still think it's a good idea? :/
CB out.
As a DM, NO!!!
As a player, hellz yes.
To put it another way for folks here, if you interpret that the material that the Celestial Armour is made of is not mithral but some fancy silver, gold, or whatever else you want to call it instead, then you have a "non-magical material" of some kind that has the following statistic adjustments in comparison to its steel counterpart.
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: improve by +6
Armour Check Penalty: reduce by -3
Arcane Spell Failure: reduce by 15%
Speed: armour is treated as one category lighter
Weight: reduce by 50%
If you think that you can add mithral on top of this fantastic "non-magical material" (that is better than mithral to begin with), then you get the following statistic adjustments.
Maximum Dexterity Bonus: improve by +8
Armour Check Penalty: reduce by -6
Arcane Spell Failure: reduce by 25%
Speed: same as above
Weight: reduce by 75%
Go wild with it. After all, it is only going to cost the enterprising adventurer a mere additional 1000, 4000, or 9000 gold pieces (for light, medium, and heavy armour respectively, more or less) to get this custom-made armour. :/ As always, choose what you think is best for your table, but remember: it goes both ways. If the players want it, the npcs and monsters can have it too. Good gaming and good luck.
CB out.
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I was always under the impression that it was lighter because of the celestial magic enchantment...
but it doesn't actually say that the physical properties are changed by the magic...it's "your" interpretation. Just like someone else would say silver or gold metal is not normal steel and thus not eligible to be replaced.
I don't see anywhere in any rules that the physical properties of celestial armor change when in an anti-magic shell...thus they'd be retained, imo...just the enchantment and fly go away.
Ultimately,
1. It does imply it is not made of normal material by the desciption (fluff)
2. It's physical characteristics are different, i.e 1 class lighter and weighs half as much; supporting the above fluff.
3. There is a established method for making armor out of differenet materials that do just that, again as above.
4. I am not aware of any spell that does exactly that as a basis
5. I'm not sure what the point of the discussion is?...your judge can home rule anything. Any decision is certainly an opinion as the armor is not specifically defined as being made from something different; only implied, so opinions will vary.
And to the OP, it actually is fairly significant, because it allows non proficent armor wearers to wear signifcantly higher armor class values without the traditional penalties.
None of the Celestial stats are because of the material, because they are not listed as the material.
They are ALL a result of the magic of the armor. In an AM shell, you just have normal armor that has a reduced weight.
That 9,000 gp is buying you the Celestial benefits.
Question: The Price of the Celestial Plate and Celestial Chain. Is the difference in price between the two merely the cost of the armor, or something more?
That should put the nail in the coffin, because there is no special armor material that is not more expensive on full over medium armors. There should be 5000 gp difference in the price, in addition to the difference between chain and full plate.
And Actually, I believe the Dex Mod from Celestial Armor is only +4 over base, not +6.
===Aelryinth
mithral does nothing to weapons in terms of determining the effort required to wield a weapon. In fact, the ONLY benefit that mithral gives for weapons is a reduction in weight.
Small aside - this isn't quite true. Mithril weapons give the ability to bypass DR/Silver without the loss of damage to P/S weapons like normal silver weapons would.
None of the Celestial stats are because of the material, because they are not listed as the material.
They are ALL a result of the magic of the armor. In an AM shell, you just have normal armor that has a reduced weight.
That 9,000 gp is buying you the Celestial benefits.
Question: The Price of the Celestial Plate and Celestial Chain. Is the difference in price between the two merely the cost of the armor, or something more?
That should put the nail in the coffin, because there is no special armor material that is not more expensive on full over medium armors. There should be 5000 gp difference in the price, in addition to the difference between chain and full plate.
And Actually, I believe the Dex Mod from Celestial Armor is only +4 over base, not +6.
===Aelryinth
Chainmail caps out at +2, Celestial is +8, so the difference is +6.
The Celestial armor entries do not specify that they are made out of any specific material. Thus, the simpler assumption is that the benefits of the armor come from its enhancements, not its materials.
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The fluff describes the celestial armor is made from something other than normal steel. I don't know what the author intended but it is (in part atleast) silver or gold metal.
It is not well defined. I am not promoting that celestial is mithril.
Are there any other examples with magic only improves the physical characteristics of armor; i.e ac penalties, weigh, class?
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The fluff describes the celestial armor is made from something other than normal steel. I don't know what the author intended but it is (in part atleast) silver or gold metal.
It is not well defined. I am not promoting that celestial is mithril.
Are there any other examples with magic only improves the physical characteristics of armor; i.e ac penalties, weigh, class?
I don't know of any other armors for which the magic improves its derived stats (so to speak).
I don't quite understand what you mean by "only" though. Do you mean, are there any armors that are explicitly on material, so the benefit from magic is certain?
The way I read and still read the paragraph, is that the celestial armor version is made of some "silver or gold metal", the word metal being undefined, vague or a mystery. It is not normal steel. It has some basic stats that are similar to mithril but not exact and the physicals are represented in the stats block. You then add +3 and fly to get the final item.
I have not seen any magical enhancenments (maybe there are) that only affect the physical properties of armor; i.e. armor check penalties, weight, etc. Even glamored doesn't change the weight.
For examples; a +1 enchantment that reduces the armor check penalty by 2.
Thus, in anti magic, the physicals are the same; its MW chainmail of some silver or gold metal (the author never chose to tell us what type, history or where its from) with the same physicals, just no fly or +3.
It's really only potentially broken at the higher levels of the game, because yes, having a monster Dex bonus allowable is cool...but you have to have that monster Dex to take advantage of it.
i.e. most melee don't have the 20 dex to take advantage of Celestial Full Plate until post-10th, at least, and the 26 Dex for celestial mail is a LONG ways off.
Yes, it does mean that you could get your full dex bonus of 34 from celestial mail if you were a 20th level fighter. But that's a long, long ways off.
==Aelryinth
Yes, but you're relying on a dex bonus, which means you can be flat footed or surprised and lose the bonus.
But I agree with you...for the money, there is no better armor then Celestial Armor.
IF you have the Dex to use it.
If you don't have the dex, it's useless.
Your argument against the 'required stat' to use it rings hollow, Bizbag. If something has a requirement which is not satisfied to gain a benefit, it's effectively not got the benefit at all.
This is one of the reasons why Fighter Armor Training is so relatively worthless. To actually use the benefit, the Fighter first has to have the Dex to use on it. It's not a bonus...it's a conditional bonus if the Fighter has the requirement. If he doesn't have the dex, it's worthless.
Ditto Celestial mail. It's a great item if you have the Dex...as you say, somewhere around levels 12-14, most likely. In that, it has a +2 AC bonus or so...better then any other armor, for certain.
But if you're not playing a dex heavy class, it's no better then any other kind of armor, especially since you can afford it relatively early.
So it's not a balance issue at low levels, only at high ones, and by then the additional amount of armor is almost negligible. Nice, but negligible.
Oh, by the way, all. You should totally sub out the Solar's plate armor +5 for Celestial Plate. It's cheaper and his AC goes up by 2 since it allows his 20 dex! I personally would just make it Mithral Celestial Plate +5 and with a Cat's Grace the Solar's AC goes up +6, but that's me.
===Aelryinth
Because you can't judge the usefulness of an item to everyone on its usefulness to a very small selection of people all the time, when it's benefit isn't based on class features, but just whether or not they have a high stat they likely won't reach for 2/3 of the game.
Kinda hard to break something that just nets you the same AC as wearing mithral heavy armor, no?
==Aelryinth
Actually, a Staff of Power still grants a barbarian a +2 luck bonus to AC and saving throws while raging, functions as a quarterstaff, and can use a charge to deal double damage for one round. It can also be used for a retributive strike.
Indeed. The item has a few uses. It is by no means being used to its full potential.
And Celestial Armor still grants +8 armor bonus to AC to a paladin with a 14 Dex, he can move at full speed, and it lets him fly once a day. It's not useless - but it's probably not worth the money to that character.
But how good a Staff of Power is to a barbarian, or Celestial Armor to a low-Dex paladin or fighter, isn't the measuring point for the relative power of the item. An Amulet of Mighty Fists is fairly lame for a standard fighter; an expensive way to add to a 1d3 unarmed strike. Its true power is in the hands of a monk or Druid or other character with many natural attacks.
Celestial Armor is, in most respects, the best light armor in the game, only surpassed by a very small number of other armors, and only if the character does not focus on their Dex score - in which case they should be wearing heavier armor types, or their AC is not their focus anyway (Bards and STR rogues, for example.)
Incidentally, I forgot that Chainmail was +6 instead of +5 base. A +5 mithral chain shirt only matches the AC bonus of this, and only +4 elven chain can exceed its armor bonus, but at a max Dex of only 4.
So what exactly is your problem with it? It's too powerful? It's underpriced?
It is mechanically possible to have this armor exist by RAW, we have demonstrated that. It may be cheesy, it may be overpowered, but in this game a vanilla wizard at level 13 can be overpowered if you put it in the right gaming environment.
Power is relative, especially in a table top game.
the others are already mithral and can not be further improved, is a problem.
What does this mean?
That is odd that the caster level is only 5th on a +3 item when the general rule is 3CL per +1. This "issue" of CL not matching up with enhancement value repeats itself for the Winged Shield and Screaming Bolts. So if it's in error, it's more an oversight than a typo.
If we strip away the +3 enhancement and the CL5 Fly ability along with their corresponding costs, we're left with an 8000gp suit of chainmail that costs twice that of Mithral, weighs as much as Mithral, reduces armor category like Mithral, and offers us 3x the Max Dex Bonus boost and 50% more ASFC bonus that Mithral alone gives. Also I'm inclined to think the "bright silver or gold" text is really just describing color and appearance and not material, since as flashy as gold is, it is neither fine nor light considering it is about 70% more dense than lead.
So what makes this armor so light and fine? Is it the special, unknown material it is made of? Or is it regular steel that is enchanted to be so?
Honestly, without a FAQ saying one way or the other, the text is not clear and I'd have to say the call is totally up to the GM. If it is the material, then Mithral doesn't help, but the specs don't go away in an Anti-Magic Field. So that's something. But if it is the enchantments, then Mithral does make it better...until you walk into an A-M field or get hit with a targeted Dispel. And considering the low CL, Dispelling it wouldn't be difficult and a nice way to help shut down any arcane caster that's wearing it.
Also, just to clarify, a sunblade is not considered to be "one step lighter" - the magical enhancements on the weapon allow it to be wielded as either a bastard sword or a short sword (both are one-handed weapons, given the right weapon proficiency), whichever is more beneficial for the wielder. But I digress. Back to the original topic at hand.
CB out.
This brings up an interesting question. Is the "wield as a short sword" benefit of the Sunblade lost while inside a AMF or if the sword get hits with a targeted dispel?