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I noticed that there were no special materials for non-metal, non-wood armors and weapons. (of course, I'm not totally up on the bazillion different supplements.)
So I decided to create one.
I call it Ironweave Silk. Made from spider silk and created in a thick, tough, and redundant weave (kinda like denim in thickness, flexibility, and yet tougher because of being silk and the redundant weave). The material itself takes time to create, thus driving the expense and rarity of the material (not to mention the difficulty of getting enough silk to begin with). It is lighter than leather, more flexible, and just as tough.
It thus is like mithral, save for what items can be made from it. It can be used to make padded, leather, studded leather, hide, and other non-metal armors. It can also be used to make net, chain, rope, and similar weapons. Because the material is a cloth, it costs half as much to disguise the armor as a particularly nice set of normal clothes or to decorate with patterns and designs. Embroidery is commonly found on items made from this material.
Other things can be made from the material to take advantage of the light weight and toughness, such as hammocks and tents. The material is waterproof, so bags and packs are often made from it to keep contents dry.
However, it does not count as silver for bypassing armor.
At first, I figured on simply copying the mithral mechanics for new items, save for the silver dr bypass, but I'm thinking something unique would be really nice to add to it, perhaps cheaper enchanting or mild thermal protection, perhaps cold resistance.
Thoughts, suggestions, feedback?
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Silk is an electrical insulator, so possibly electricity resistance or a similar bonus?
Also while I like the idea that it's easier to disguise as clothing, the wording "cost" is a bit odd. Do you mean it's cheaper to add the glamoured property? I would consider a bonus on disguise checks, or a separate nonmagical property that could be added to the silk ("for an extra x GP, ironweave silk can be made to look like ordinary clothing, requiring a DC 20 Perception check to identify it as armour").
It comes from an Ironweave Giant Spider. Some enterprising merchant is feeding homeless people to them to get the silk :)
Great suggestions Weirdo (why does that sound like I'm calling you names? :) although, I wasn't overly worried about wording just yet. Not my forte. I prefer to make the design and let a rules lawyer write it up just right.
So, I'm thinking a bonus on saves against electricty equal to AC bonus, half price to add electricity resistance, and can add nonmagical glamour effect at half the price.
I think you're being quite generous. You should be comparing it to Darkleaf.
A flat +2 resistance bonus against lightning is 'typical' of what you might get from a material. If it grants all the other stuff, then you have to start giving other materials bonuses to be enchanted like they rightly deserve.
It's light armor that can be almost disguised as clothes. That's pretty decent right there. you start adding all the other stuff, then you should jack up the price to compensate.
==Aelryinth
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Well, Darkleaf actually is a bit cheaper than mithral (750gp vs 1000gp for light armour), so if you want it to cost as much as mithral it makes sense for it to be a little better than Darkleaf. As in, it could have one of those three benefits before increasing the cost.
I'm also still not sure what you mean by "nonmagical glamour effect at half the cost." Do you mean it functions like Glamered armour but at half price and it's not magic? That would be really weird since Glamered lets you actually change the type of clothing your armour looks like. On the other hand, there's no other reference for "half the price."
I understand that you don't want to worry too much about precise wording, but it's important to convey the concept clearly.
Non magical armor would be stuck in only one mundane clothing form. It would give the armor bonus of actual armor, but probably not as much of the drawbacks.
4th wallers will have it attract trolls offended by the wording.
Okay, after refreshing my erroneous memory, it seems glamoured does more than I recalled, though I think changing appearance each time would be up the gm. I'm not sure I'd go with that for this material, rather it just straight up looks like regular clothes.
The other stuff was simply suggestions.
As for bonus to saves vs 2 points of resistance, I figured the saves would be milder and I certainly won't bind myself to resistance just because that is what others do (my specialty is breaking the norm).
Thanks for pointing out darkleaf though as I had never heard of it before.
Azothath, Sounds like material fun to me. I'd be interested to know what you work out.
That's why I suggested creating a whole new spider.