I'm trying to figure out the pricing for these special materials. Feedback is appreciated.
For clarity: Celestial, Fiendish, Sublime and Abstract are replacement subtypes for Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic respectively within my campaign setting.
Concentration points are the name of a resource that can be spend to instantly pass concentration checks, caster level checks or gain additional saving throws against debilitating effects. (Characters start with 4 and gain 1 every 4 levels.)
Caster level checks and concentration checks in this game aren't made, either you have the points to pass or you don't.
"Special Materials: Weapons and armors can be crafted from unusual material mined in planar breaches or even on other planes of existence. These materials may vary significantly from their representation in other media (or in Cobalt's case, in real life).
Mithril: Mithril is a light silvery metal that is associated with celestial. It can be mined in Nirvana, Heaven, and Elysium or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
All items made from mithril weigh half as much as items made from steel.
Armors made of Mithril have their armor check penalties reduced by 2 (minimum 1).
Weapons made of Mithril bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the Celestial or Shapechanger subtypes.
Adamantine: Adamantine is a heavy black metal that is associated with fiends. It can be mined in Hell, the Abyss, and Abaddon or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
All items made of Adamantine weigh twice as much as items made from steel.
Armors made of Adamantine have their armor check penalties increased by 2, and grant DR 2/-.
Weapons made of Adamantine bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the fiendish subtype, aswell as the hardness of objects.
Orichalcum: Orichalcum is a shining metal that is associated with abstracts, it has a golden appearance but turns scarlet when exposed to magic. It can be mined in Elysium, the Abyss and Limbo or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
Spells cast in armors made of Orichalcum reduce the concentration cost of casting defensively by 1.
Weapons made of Orichalcum bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the abstract subtype and lower the target's spell resistant on a successful hit, as if the creature had spend an action to voluntarily lower it.
Cobalt: Cobalt is a dull blue metal associated with sublimes. It can be mined in Heaven, Hell and Utopia or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
Armor made of Cobalt provides spell resistance equal to 10 + the armor bonus.
Weapon made of Cobalt bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the sublime subtype and cause the target to lose 1 concentration point on a successful hit."
Orichalcum and Cobalt have pretty significant effects, I would price them double what the other two are.
Interesting choice on Adamantine not having scaling DR, I would just leave prices on that and Mithril the same.
Orichalcum and Cobalt have pretty significant effects, I would price them double what the other two are.
Interesting choice on Adamantine not having scaling DR, I would just leave prices on that and Mithril the same.
I tried to make them in line with eachother, so I'm finding it interesting the magic centric ones are considered more valuable.
As for adamantine not scaling DR, I think it makes it a more appealing choice to all builds to do so.
I'll have to figure out how to bring mithril and adamantine up more in line with the two magic materials.
Orichalcum and Cobalt have pretty significant effects, I would price them double what the other two are.
Interesting choice on Adamantine not having scaling DR, I would just leave prices on that and Mithril the same.
I tried to make them in line with eachother, so I'm finding it interesting the magic centric ones are considered more valuable.
As for adamantine not scaling DR, I think it makes it a more appealing choice to all builds to do so.
I'll have to figure out how to bring mithril and adamantine up more in line with the two magic materials.
I've always hated how cruddy Adamnatine is with damage reduction. Even if you doubled it beyond the existing stuff, it would still be iffy (in my opinion).
Anyway, just my two cents. Looking forward to your final version, I've always wished these materials were more interesting.
Here's an updated version, might be the last version for vanilla pathfinder rules.
"Special Materials: Weapons and armors can be crafted from unusual material mined in planar breaches or even on other planes of existence. These materials may vary significantly from their representation in other media (or in Cobalt's case, in real life). Items made from special materials are masterwork, but do not gain any of the benefits of masterwork armors made from normal material.
Mithril: Mithril is a light silvery metal that is associated with celestial. It can be mined in Nirvana, Heaven, and Elysium or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
All items made from mithril weigh half as much as items made from steel.
Armors made of Mithril have their armor check penalties reduced by 4 (minimum 1) if the user is proficient with the armor.
Weapons made of Mithril bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the Celestial or Shapechanger subtypes, additionally weapons made a mithril provide a +2 circumstance bonus to checks made to disarm, dirty trick, feint and trip attacks.
Adamantine: Adamantine is a heavy black metal that is associated with fiends. It can be mined in Hell, the Abyss, and Abaddon or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
All items made of Adamantine weigh twice as much as items made from steel.
Armors made of Adamantine have their armor check penalties increased by 2, and grant DR 5/-.
Weapons made of Adamantine bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the fiendish subtype, aswell as the hardness of objects, additionally weapons made from adamantine provide a +2 circumstance bonus on charge attack rolls and combat manuever checks made to sunder.
Orichalcum: Orichalcum is a shining metal that is associated with abstracts, it has a golden appearance but turns scarlet when exposed to magic. It can be mined in Elysium, the Abyss and Limbo or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
Spells cast in armors made of Orichalcum reduce the concentration cost of casting defensively by 1.
Weapons made of Orichalcum bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the abstract subtype and lower the target's spell resistant on a successful hit, as if the creature had spend an action to voluntarily lower it.
Cobalt: Cobalt is a dull blue metal associated with sublimes. It can be mined in Heaven, Hell and Utopia or planar breaches that link the material plane to those places.
Armor made of Cobalt provides spell resistance equal to 11 + the armor bonus.
Weapon made of Cobalt bypass the damage reduction of creatures with the sublime subtype and cause the target to lose 1 concentration point on a successful hit."
I would never use Adamantine, the double weight/increased penalties is severe and the DR doesn't scale...
Actually, forget that, I would use it on any archer I made :D
are you opposed to having DR scale based on light/med/heavy?
Those are the only criticisms I have, this seems pretty well thought out otherwise. I may adopt this for my games.
I like Mithril the most I think, I'm imagining someone with a mithril rapier going all disarmy on people. :D
I would never use Adamantine, the double weight/increased penalties is severe and the DR doesn't scale...
Actually, forget that, I would use it on any archer I made :D
are you opposed to having DR scale based on light/med/heavy?
Those are the only criticisms I have, this seems pretty well thought out otherwise. I may adopt this for my games.
I like Mithril the most I think, I'm imagining someone with a mithril rapier going all disarmy on people. :D
The double weight and increase armor check are intentional to contrast with Mithril. I'm trying to think of a way to give it some extra power without throwing it into all into combat potential. I may remove it if I can't think of anything.
As for DR Scaling, yes, I am opposed to it, as I think it makes adamantine unappealing to those who wear light armor.
As for DR Scaling, yes, I am opposed to it, as I think it makes adamantine unappealing to those who wear light armor.
It never has been. There actually is no point... putting adamantine on light armor, makes that armor no longer light. If you're going adamantine you might as well go for the heavy armor approach, it's not armor for the nimble. And you can't make adamantine versions of non-metal armor, so you're talking about a chain shirt.
Pricing is usually based on a multiple of the original weight in steel. Certain materials like Noqual and Cold Iron require an additional one time cost the first time they are enchanted. That's a flat cost regardless of armor size or weight.
That's not true, light armor doesn't magically go up an armor category at a certain weight value. The weight value itself, is trivial. Weight rarely comes up in games, pricing should be based on the effect it has, not some stupid multiplier.
Noqual, whatever it is, does not exist in my game, and Cold Iron is replaced by Cobalt, which serves the same purpose of having an anti-magic metal, just... better. It purposefully will never have an additional cost to enchant because that's just a terrible game balance decision.