So, for flavor I am looking at creating a homebrewed kind of armor that is made out of Darkwood, having it been commissioned by druids or whatever and I am trying to make sure I am doing this right. (And this actually should be something allowed by the rules if I am doing this correctly.)
I want a darkwood agile breastplate, so I start by finding the cost for the materials. Masterwork agile breastplate is 550gp, plus 250 because that is 10 times the weight of the original item, as the cost is explained in the description for Darkwood. So my base materials are 800gp.
Next, we need to pay a druid to woodshape it, or a wizard to fabricate it. Since Woodshape is cheaper, we'll go with that. To pay a spell caster to cast it, we gotta pay 60 gp for a 2nd level spell (30 cubic feet should be enough at 3rd CL for our purposes) plus 1/10 of our cost for the focus item, being the hunk of darkwood. So we are paying 140gp to get this thing shaped into a breastplate. Assuming the 70% chance of success for making this thing, we are at a total of 940gp so far.
Now, this is where things get tricky. You see, if we need it, we can improve on this hunk of crude armor, in any case we want this thing to be of better quality because we want it to be awesome and usable. So we are going to find a caster to use Masterwork Transformation on this thing. Another 2nd level spell means we gotta pay 60gp again, but now we gotta pay for magical reagents (either dragon blood, diamond dust, or arcane residue) that cost a total of 150gp because we are trying to fashion armor. That's an extra 210gp for us and a total of 1,150gp so far.
But it is still brittle, and if worn as armor, would probably be treated as having the fragile condition. This is where we gotta pay the big bucks. Our armor here we can say weighs about 12.5 ilbs, meaning we need a 13th level caster to use Ironwood on it. Because our spell requires a focus, we gotta pay 1/10 the cost of that focus in addition to the cost of the spellcasting. So far we have paid 1,150gp for this thing, but only 950 of it applies to the cost of the focus because that's how much the armor is currently worth minus the cost of the spellcasting. My math says 875gp is a fair price to get this thing made into ironwood. That's 780 for the spell being cast, and 95 because it required our expensive focus. Currently we are at 2,025.
And there you have it!!! Or do you? To be sure, you now have a masterwork Darkwood agile breastplate, but only for the next 13 days. Since it isn't listed in the book, this is as far as we can go, RAW.
Now then, what are this armor's statistics? Since it weighs half as much, I would be willing to bet we can treat this armor the same as mithral for the purposes of determining armor statistics as mithral says roughly the same thing. So our breastplate can be treated as a mithral breastplate that your druid friends can wear, yay!!! Magic Vestment is also a thing so you can even have it be magical armor on a daily basis! Double Yay!
Now let's get ambitious. Let's say I don't want armor that only lasts 13 days. Ironwood is not one of the spells listed as appropriate for Permanency, so if you care about that kind of thing, stop reading now. But, if you wanna keep the dream alive, keep on reading with me. Comparable spells to Ironwood on the Permanency charts (6th level spells) all seem to require a minimum caster level of 14 and cost 15,000gp worth of diamond dust. Wowee that's a lot. So a 14th level caster is casting a 5th level spell. Easy enough, 700gp. Add in the 15,000 and the 2,025 we already paid and viola, for a whopping 17,725gp you can be the proud owner of Darkwood Agile Breastplate.
Naturally, if you care enough you can also do this for fullplate and heavy armors, but that much detracts from the point here of being able to play a druid for combat who doesn't focus on wildshape and doesn't have to stick to Darkleaf Cloth hide armor.
That's all terribly impressive, but dragonhide - see also here - is much cheaper and cooler IMO.
That's all terribly impressive, but dragonhide - see also here - is much cheaper and cooler IMO.
But it isn't light like mithral, meaning if you intend on maintaining your speed without wildshaping you are stuck with hide armor made of darkleaf cloth.
Another issue is that because it isn't made of metal, electricity attacks like shocking grasp and ball lightning no longer have their bonuses against you, or any other such weaknesses that come from metal armor.
Neither dragonhide nor wood is made of metal so that's not a distinguishing feature.
The speed difference I'll concede on; though there are means to maintain your speed as a druid, like riding an animal companion, (greater) longstrider etc., a mithral-equivalent breastplate could conceivably give you a 10' speed edge.
Neither dragonhide nor wood is made of metal so that's not a distinguishing feature.
The speed difference I'll concede on; though there are means to maintain your speed as a druid, like riding an animal companion, (greater) longstrider etc., a mithral-equivalent breastplate could conceivably give you a 10' speed edge.
My math is also assuming you have no spellcasting ability of your own, nor anyone in the party who can do these things.
you mean liked Stone Lamellar and Stone Plate?
Since this is a homebrew thing i suggest you just name a Price. Beating up 5 different rules for somthing like this, to be able to Call it RAAW(Rules Almost As Written) is pointless. And since i have been playing practically forever i am surely rigth;)
Hmmmm, just did some math on this and came up with +1 Darkwood Agile Breastplate for 4,150 gp.
400 agile breastplate
250 darkwood (darkwood items are considered masterwork)
2,500 magical strengthening (bone armor)
1,000 +1 armor enhancement
4,150 total, stats are the same as a plain agile breastplate, except...
weight = 12.5 lbs.
ACP = -1 normal/ -0 agile skills
COULD be house ruled for other benefits.
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They have some of their NPCs wearing ironwood armor but no rules to support wooden armor.
Ultimate Equipment has Wooden armor, as well as Horn Lamellar, Stone Lamellar and Stoneplate.
So, for flavor I am looking at creating a homebrewed kind of armor that is made out of Darkwood, having it been commissioned by druids or whatever and I am trying to make sure I am doing this right. (And this actually should be something allowed by the rules if I am doing this correctly.)
I want a darkwood agile breastplate, so I start by finding the cost for the materials. Masterwork agile breastplate is 550gp, plus 250 because that is 10 times the weight of the original item, as the cost is explained in the description for Darkwood. So my base materials are 800gp.
Breastplate Covering only the torso, a breastplate is made up of a single piece of sculpted metal.
Agile Breastplate This breastplate is specially crafted in a manner that allows extra maneuverability for some physical activities.Darkwood: see spoiler for full text.
DESCRIPTION
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.
Agile Breastplate is 400 gp and weighs #25. Masterwork Agile Breastplate is 550 gp and weighs #25.
To make it of Darkwood, cost is +(10 gp/# * #25) = +250 gp for a grand total of 800 gp.
Next, we need to pay a druid to woodshape it, or a wizard to fabricate it. Since Woodshape is cheaper, we'll go with that. To pay a spell caster to cast it, we gotta pay 60 gp for a 2nd level spell (30 cubic feet should be enough at 3rd CL for our purposes) plus 1/10 of our cost for the focus item, being the hunk of darkwood. So we are paying 140gp to get this thing shaped into a breastplate. Assuming the 70% chance of success for making this thing, we are at a total of 940gp so far.
Why cast Wood Shape? This is not needed by the special material, masterwork, or the item. Also, the 1/10 cost of a focus is spell component "F" not "DF". This is because the divine focus is needed for nearly every spell of the divine class, while the regular focus is specific to a spell. Also, the darkwood is not the focus, but the target of such a spell.
Now, this is where things get tricky. You see, if we need it, we can improve on this hunk of crude armor, in any case we want this thing to be of better quality because we want it to be awesome and usable. So we are going to find a caster to use Masterwork Transformation on this thing. Another 2nd level spell means we gotta pay 60gp again, but now we gotta pay for magical reagents (either dragon blood, diamond dust, or arcane residue) that cost a total of 150gp because we are trying to fashion armor. That's an extra 210gp for us and a total of 1,150gp so far.
Why cast Masterwork Transformation? It is already masterwork by virtue of the special material saying so.
But it is still brittle, and if worn as armor, would probably be treated as having the fragile condition. This is where we gotta pay the big bucks. Our armor here we can say weighs about 12.5 ilbs, meaning we need a 13th level caster to use Ironwood on it. Because our spell requires a focus, we gotta pay 1/10 the cost of that focus in addition to the cost of the spellcasting. So far we have paid 1,150gp for this thing, but only 950 of it applies to the cost of the focus because that's how much the armor is currently worth minus the cost of the spellcasting. My math says 875gp is a fair price to get this thing made into ironwood. That's 780 for the spell being cast, and 95 because it required our expensive focus. Currently we are at 2,025.
Darkwood (see above) makes no mention of being brittle like bone so why do you have to "correct" this? At 1/2 the weight, you need to cover #25/2 = #12.5. Since the minimum caster level is 11th level not 13th, that covers #55. More than enough. This spell should not have "F" as a component. Still, you are providing the "focus" in full as the armor. So there would be no additional cost for that. Cost to cast would be 660 gp. Not needed, but would make it tougher for 11 days.
And there you have it!!! Or do you? To be sure, you now have a masterwork Darkwood agile breastplate, but only for the next 13 days. Since it isn't listed in the book, this is as far as we can go, RAW.
You had it at 800 gp above. The rest is not needed. As special materials are covered by RAW, you have a standard item. Not listed, but easily calculated by everyone. No magic required. Playable everywhere, even PFS.
Now then, what are this armor's statistics? Since it weighs half as much, I would be willing to bet we can treat this armor the same as mithral for the purposes of determining armor statistics as mithral says roughly the same thing. So our breastplate can be treated as a mithral breastplate that your druid friends can wear, yay!!! Magic Vestment is also a thing so you can even have it be magical armor on a daily basis! Double Yay!
Whoa! Stats are easily found:
Armor .. Armor Bonus .. Maximum Dex Bonus .. Armor Check Penalty .. Arcane Spell Failure Chance .. 30' Speed .. 20' Speed .. Weight
30 ft. 20 ft.
Breastplate .. +6 .. +3 .. –4 .. 25% .. 20 ft. .. 15 ft. .. 15 lbs.
Agile Breastplate .. +6 .. +3 .. -4 .. 25% .. 20 ft. .. 15 ft. .. 12.5 lbs.
adding the rules for masterwork armor, we get:
Masterwork Agile Breastplate .. +6 .. +3 .. -3 .. 25% .. 20 ft. .. 15 ft. .. 12.5 lbs.
At no point is this the equivalent of Mithral.
Now let's get ambitious. Let's say I don't want armor that only lasts 13 days. Ironwood is not one of the spells listed as appropriate for Permanency, so if you care about that kind of thing, stop reading now. But, if you wanna keep the dream alive, keep on reading with me. Comparable spells to Ironwood on the Permanency charts (6th level spells) all seem to require a minimum caster level of 14 and cost 15,000gp worth of diamond dust. Wowee that's a lot. So a 14th level caster is casting a 5th level spell. Easy enough, 700gp. Add in the 15,000 and the 2,025 we already paid and viola, for a whopping 17,725gp you can be the proud owner of Darkwood Agile Breastplate.You need GM approval for new spells. CL 14 and 15,000 gp is common for 6th level spells made permanent. As a 5th level spell, but with a min 14th CL, you pay 700 gp + extra to have someone cast it. However, it can be dispelled.
Hardening is a 6th level spell, and if cast by a 12th level wizard imparts +6 hardness.
Armor, per Table Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, has hardness "special" and hp "armor bonus × 5". The note states " Varies by material; see Table Substance Hardness and Hit Points." This table list "Iron or steel" as having Hardness 10 and Hit Points 30/in. of thickness. So standard Darkwood Agile Breastplate has
hardness 5 and hit points 30. Using the spell Hardening at CL 12 costs 720 gp and gets a dispellable hardness of 11, better than ironwood's 10 or regular iron/steel's 10. If you go minimum CL for hardening, you save 60 gp, and get a resulting hardness of 10, the same as iron, steel, and ironwood.
Naturally, if you care enough you can also do this for fullplate and heavy armors, but that much detracts from the point here of being able to play a druid for combat who doesn't focus on wildshape and doesn't have to stick to Darkleaf Cloth hide armor.
Yep, you can do this. Just remember, special materials do not require magic to make into armor, and unless they say they do something different, they do not do anything different than the standard material.
/cevah
That's all terribly impressive, but dragonhide - see also here - is much cheaper and cooler IMO.
Dragonhide = 2 * MW Agile Breastplate = 2 * 550 = 1100 gp.
Darkwood = 800 gp.Darkwood wins price. Coolness is in the eye of the beholder.
But it isn't light like mithral, meaning if you intend on maintaining your speed without wildshaping you are stuck with hide armor made of darkleaf cloth.
Neither Darkwood nor Dragonhide mention a change in armor class like Mithral does. Thus neither changes speed like Mithral.
Hmmmm, just did some math on this and came up with +1 Darkwood Agile Breastplate for 4,150 gp.
400 agile breastplate
250 darkwood (darkwood items are considered masterwork)
2,500 magical strengthening (bone armor)
1,000 +1 armor enhancement4,150 total, stats are the same as a plain agile breastplate, except...
weight = 12.5 lbs.
ACP = -1 normal/ -0 agile skillsCOULD be house ruled for other benefits.
See previous post for correct cost of Darkwood Agile Armor.
A +1 version adds 1,000 gp. Total cost: 1,800 gp./cevah
Hmmmmm, re-did the math, could not find any errors, did find error in Cevah's math - you do not need to include the cost of masterwork quality for a darkwood item, such items are considered masterwork.
from Darkwood;
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.
Breastplates are not normally made of wood, so a non-magical darkwood agile breastplate would have an armor bonus of +0 not +6.
My suggestion is to use the rules in the primitive materials (bone) to magically strengthen it.
Also, just noticed an error, a darkwood agile breastplate would not weigh 12.5 lbs, you would need to determine the weight of a wooden breastplate first, then halve that for a darkwood one. If you use the heavy steel shield (15 lbs) & heavy wood shield (10 lbs) as your steel-to-wood weight ratio then round up you get 17 lbs for a wood breastplate, and 8.5 lbs for a darkwood one.
So, re-doing the math again,
400 gp for an agile breastplate
170 gp for the darkwood which includes masterwork quality
1700 to strengthen it magically, removing the fragile quality and making it as hard as steel
1,270 gp for finished Darkwood Agile Breastplate, stats are the same as a plain Agile Breastplate, except...
weight = 8.5 lbs.
ACP = -1 normal/ -0 agile skills
COULD be futher house ruled for other benefits as this is already in house rules anyway.
... did find error in Cevah's math - you do not need to include the cost of masterwork quality for a darkwood item, such items are considered masterwork.
My bad. Subtract 150 from my numbers.
from Darkwood;
... 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.
Good catch.
The are two main reasons for metal armor: flexibility, strength. A breastplate is a solid piece of material, so could be fashioned from the wood easy enough. Strength could be an issue. However, shields are made of wood or metal and can give up to +4 [tower shield]. Being strong enough for +6 could be a stretch that might mean it is extra thick or otherwise strengthened. Either way, GM approval needed here.
Breastplates are not normally made of wood, so a non-magical darkwood agile breastplate would have an armor bonus of +0 not +6.
no special benefit =/= no benefit.
If a GM allowed it, it should be +6 not +0.
My suggestion is to use the rules in the primitive materials (bone) to magically strengthen it.
Reasonable. I still think using the Hardening spell is simpler.
Remember, darkwood is not fragile, unlike bone, so does not normally need strengthening unless the GM says otherwise.
Also, just noticed an error, a darkwood agile breastplate would not weigh 12.5 lbs, you would need to determine the weight of a wooden breastplate first, then halve that for a darkwood one. If you use the heavy steel shield (15 lbs) & heavy wood shield (10 lbs) as your steel-to-wood weight ratio then round up you get 17 lbs for a wood breastplate, and 8.5 lbs for a darkwood one.
Reasonable. Only saves a small amount (80 gp) of money, so might not be worth pushing GM approval.
So, re-doing the math again,
400 gp for an agile breastplate
170 gp for the darkwood which includes masterwork quality
1700 to strengthen it magically, removing the fragile quality and making it as hard as steel
1,270 gp for finished Darkwood Agile Breastplate, stats are the same as a plain Agile Breastplate, except...
weight = 8.5 lbs.
ACP = -1 normal/ -0 agile skills
How do you get ACP -1? Regular is -4, MW is -3, MW Agile is -3(-1). Why does darkwood change these last numbers?
/cevah