Look at what a Dragon Scale Breastplate would be. It is one scale that would cover you from collar to belt. Basically a breastplate is a large shield that someone decided to wear on their chest. Even full plate allows smaller individual pieces. It works from a logical point of view but does break the fantasy idea pretty bad. :/
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*shrugs* They don't want to hand out too much free crafting material on dragons on top of their loot?
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It isn't supposed to make sense in any way other than the nonsense economy of PFS and PFRPG canon. You are getting expensive special materials effectively free. Yes, it is stupid, but it is stupid in a way that supports generally accepted stupidity.
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From the PRD: "Armorsmiths can work with the hides of dragons to produce armor or shields of masterwork quality. One dragon produces enough hide to make a single suit of masterwork hide armor for a creature one size category smaller than the dragon. By selecting only choice scales and bits of hide, an armorsmith can produce one suit of masterwork banded mail for a creature two sizes smaller, one suit of masterwork half-plate for a creature three sizes smaller, or one masterwork breastplate or suit of full plate for a creature four sizes smaller. In each case, enough hide is available to produce a light or heavy masterwork shield in addition to the armor, provided that the dragon is Large or larger."
You fought a Huge dragon which means you get a choice of the following:
large mwk hide + a shield
medium mwk banded mail + a shield
small mwk half-plate + a shield
tiny mwk breastplate or full plate + a shield
It does mention "choice scales and bits of hide". Your crafter isn't just looking to cobble together enough dragon to make a functional suit. He needs enough to make a work of art, to truly make the armor masterwork.
It's not that the rest of the dragon is broken into pieces. It's that the rest of the dragon isn't in mint condition.
The way you worded the post makes it sound like you are the GM lowericon; is that a correct assumption?
If you are, use this as an opportunity to give some of the PCs access to some dragon scale/hide armor. In situations like this, as a GM, I frequently disregard what the book says.
If I had to defend the rule, I would suggest that Saethori has the right of it. That is how I usually explain the rule when players ask.
EDIT: Saw your post, sounds like a good plan to me. Definitely helps compensate for the fact they won't get a nice shiny hoard of goodies.
Look at what a Dragon Scale Breastplate would be. It is one scale that would cover you from collar to belt. Basically a breastplate is a large shield that someone decided to wear on their chest. Even full plate allows smaller individual pieces. It works from a logical point of view but does break the fantasy idea pretty bad. :/A breastplate doesn't need to be made out of a single scale. But even if it did, am I supposed to believe only one scale from the entire dragon survived the fight? Yeah, they damaged it during the combat, but they didn't shove it down a garbage disposal.
Actually that is by definition what a breastplate is, one single piece covering the chest. As to the number of scales available there would probably be very few usable scales of the size and thickness needed for such. Look at a lizard or a snake sometime, the largest scales are on the belly with the back and sides covered with smaller overlapping scales. The scales on the underside will be the ones that take the most damage in a fight and be worn down the most from day to day movement. So you could probably only find one or two good solid ones that would work, one for a breastplate and one for a shield.
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Mending and Make Whole sound like viable options to 'restore' damaged chunks o' dragon after it becomes an 'object' (ie, a corpse) right?
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So this isn't so much a question, but rather somebody b%%&*ing about something they don't agree with. Gotcha.
Another option that my groups have used in the past... Combine the materials from multiple dragons to effectively increase the size. Have materials from two huge dragons? Count it as a single gargantuan dragon. Materials from two gargantuan dragons? Just as good as a single colossal dragon.
Wait, it takes a bigger dragon to make breastplate over half-plate?
don't imagine you're making the chain link out of dragon bones unfortunately.
It does mention "choice scales and bits of hide". Your crafter isn't just looking to cobble together enough dragon to make a functional suit. He needs enough to make a work of art, to truly make the armor masterwork.
It's not that the rest of the dragon is broken into pieces. It's that the rest of the dragon isn't in mint condition.
Or the 'non-choice' pieces just end up being little different from regular, if scaly, leather. That is how I interpret it.
I mean... the hide near the cloaca is probably not going to make anything to great defensively.
Likely, it is implying that only certain scales have the notable resistance (along the back, on the forelegs, on the head around the mouth), and the rest of the dragon's defense comes from just being a big mass of meat and hate.
It isn't supposed to make sense in any way other than the nonsense economy of PFS and PFRPG canon. You are getting expensive special materials effectively free. Yes, it is stupid, but it is stupid in a way that supports generally accepted stupidity.
Consistent stupidity.
I partially blame the economy because it was grandfathered from 3.5.
It is a silly rule in my opinion which is why I house rule the harvested parts to be equivalent to that of a dragon one size larger.
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You fought a Huge dragon which means you get a choice of the following:
large mwk hide + a shield
medium mwk banded mail + a shield
small mwk half-plate + a shield
tiny mwk full plate + a shieldYes, I understand that's the rule, but the rule is DUMB.
Then change the rule, it is your game, do what you want.
Then move on......
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equivalent to that of a dragon one size larger.That's certainly more reasonable. Thanks for the suggestion.
That also might be good fodder for a decent survival check - harvest without the check (or a failed one), use the standard rule. Make a reasonably difficult check and treat the dragon as 1 size class larger.
So, if you think about it, there are certain types of dragon armors that literally can't be made into Medium full plate, since some dragons don't go up to Colossal...
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So no one else has an issue with people wearing the skins of dead sentient creatures?
Mr. Fishy's line of air-breather skin accessories was not well received. Apparently murdering creatures and wear them is wrong...
Unless they're on the kill list.
Evil dragons OK. Evil Human, not OK....Air-Breather logic.
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If human skin gave any real perk, I'm sure players would try to BS their way into wearing some.
The question is, is Angelskin legit for a druid? LOL
It's not metal armor, although those who worked for good-aligned powers may ask some serious questions about how the druid obtained said armor.
Keep in mind that nothing prevents a Druid from being neutral evil.
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How dare the dragon grow its body parts to protect its self instead of some puny humanoid. Of course some will be too heavy, inflexible, small, large, oddly shaped, damaged, new, old, or just didnt make it through processing just right. A dragon is not raised in captivity, groomed and bred for this and armor requires precision.
Maybe this one kept a stash of his scales, so wizards cannot use them is spells to spy on him, or worse.
The low price of this stuff tells me that the larger dragons can shed their scales and do this as a sustainable harvest.
I'd just say "x" amount of the dragons treasure is in the form of crafting resources.
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So no one else has an issue with people wearing the skins of dead sentient creatures?
Mr. Fishy's line of air-breather skin accessories was not well received. Apparently murdering creatures and wear them is wrong...
Unless they're on the kill list.
Evil dragons OK. Evil Human, not OK....Air-Breather logic.
I was going to comment on it, but I feared I would have been turned into armor.
I've always been confused by the low price, considering the difficulty in obtaining the raw materials.
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I've always been confused by the low price, considering the difficulty in obtaining the raw materials.
Maybe dragons really do molt, and the smiths just say they had to kill a dragon to discourage competition? Arab traders had a few people convinced cinnamon came from phoenix nests, when it was really just a boat ride away. Could be a similar thing.
That would make sense to me.
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Which begs the question...
Do Dragons molt?
Might make for an interesting story. A dragon acquainted with the party knows it will be molting soon and thus vulnerable while it sheds its old scales/grows/hardens new ones, so it enlists the party to hide or protect it during this process. The dragon could pay the party with the scales, allowing a good character to obtain metallic dragon armor without alignment issues.
Dragons are often portrayed in personality as old cats. I'd expect that Dragons "shed" their winter coat of scales and repeat in the fall, or whatever seasons the Dragons are attuned (might be the seasons of another planet, rather than Golarion).
Anyway, up to the GM on how Dragons are portrayed. Could very easily go the cat route and have the players locate the Dragon's Scratching Post (probably a mountain) to gather the shed scales.
Regarding Good characters, I recall Dragons sometimes gift their champions with Dragonhide armor. It could be shed, or it could be one of a litter that didn't survive.
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or it could be one of a litter that didn't survive.
Dragonscale has a "the dragon must be this big to make that armor" clause. So hatchies would wind up making cat armor
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I'm okay with that. Snookums needs fire resistance.
But in seriousness, I really like the idea of dragon molt. I might end up using it in one of my campaigns!
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maybe it's so cheap because the true monsters are the adventurers out hunting dragons.
My group generally don't have sentient Dragons in our settings, they're just giant savage monsters. No moral quandary in wearing bullette plate, why should an unintelligent Dragon be different?
For those Dragons that don't reach colossal, you could always kill two to get your medium full plate.
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My group generally don't have sentient Dragons in our settings, they're just giant savage monsters. No moral quandary in wearing bullette plate, why should an unintelligent Dragon be different?
If your group lacks moral quandary with killing things, I can assume you are not playing Good aligned characters?
Good aligned characters should at least feel bad when they take a life. They don't need to get depressed or regret their actions every time, but Good characters are on the side of life, in pathfinder, so even "giant savage monsters" make good characters a bit sad when they have to slay them.
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We vary, but I don't think it's necessary for a good character to feel bad when they kill an unintelligent creature that's attacking them or others. If you're out on the ocean, and a giant shark attacks your ship and starts trying to each your friends and crew, you're not going to feel bad about killing it, because it was a violent beast that was going to kill you.
Now, if you're out on the ocean, and a bunch of pirates come, and you have to kill them, you'll feel bad because you killed an intelligent person, with hopes and dreams.
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and here I am running a campaign where dragons are a bog standard race like humans. though if you're wondering, their preferred social/governmental organization is anarchy regardless of color. evil ones like to burn and fight everything while good ones kinda make anarcho-communist societies.
I would suggest a major reason for Dragon Armour materials been cheap is that Dragon Armour really isn't that good.
And also probably removes the "Random target selection" when fighting other Dragons and replaces it with "Kill creature wearing Dragon Skin".
if how useful things were, were the primary method of determining price, water wouldn't be so cheap.