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A klar counts as a light shield for the purpose of using it as a shield (for instance, it grants a +1 shield bonus to AC, has a –1 armor check penalty, and has a 5% arcane spell failure chance). For the purpose of using it as a weapon, it is a one-handed weapon that deals 1d6 slashing damage, but it is otherwise similar to using a spiked shield (for instance, the damage doesn’t stack with the bashing ability, you lose the shield bonus to AC when attacking with the klar unless you have Improved Shield Bash, and so on). As a side note, anywhere that lists klars as counting as shields with “armor spikes” is a typo that will be handled in the next errata.
I think I now understand how a klar works in all ways except for making one from special materials. There are a few different ways you could interpret it and I am not sure which one is correct.
If I treat a klar as a weapon made of mithral then it would cost 3000 gp because it weighs 6 lbs but since that is the entire weight, it would make sense that the shield part is then also mithral and therefore masterwork. This option seems pretty simple but not very flexible. Also very few materials affect both weapons and shields.
The FAQ says that in most ways to treat a klar as a spiked shield which makes sense for a lot of materials but fails for anything priced by weight because a light steel spiked shield is 6 lbs + 5 lbs for shield spikes while the whole klar is 6 lbs so it is unclear how much of the klar is spike and how much is shield.
You could instead treat the klar a double weapon and use the appropriate rules for special materials that have them (silver, cold iron). So for example, if I wanted to make a klar with a cold iron spike and a living steel shield with both parts being masterwork then the cost would be 12gp (base cost) + 6gp (+50% for cold iron) + 300gp (masterwork weapon) + 100gp (living steel shield) + 150gp (masterwork shield) = 568gp. This makes the most sense to me but is also more complicated.
On a somewhat related note, if I made one end of the double weapon out of mithral which you pay for by the pound, would I only use half the weapons weight to calculate the cost? And since mithral halves the weight, I assume it would only halve the half that is mithral making the whole weapon weigh 25% less?
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Kinda like double weapons, you don't make one side a +1 and get the other for free.
If you make a klar a mithril weapon, you pay the weapon cost.
If you also want it a mithril shield, you additionally pay the shield cost on top of the weapon cost.
If you want it to be a +1 shield and +1 weapon, you pay those cost separately.
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While paying the cost for the +1 enhancement separately is correct, I have never seen where you are required to pay the material cost separately.
If the whole item is mithril, the whole item is mithril. What am I missing?
I'd have to check for mithril, but some of the special materials have different listed costs for each head of a double weapon. One of the advantages of having a double weapon is being able to alternate special materials by having different material "heads."
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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While paying the cost for the +1 enhancement separately is correct, I have never seen where you are required to pay the material cost separately.
If the whole item is mithril, the whole item is mithril. What am I missing?
There are always different costs for armor, shield and weapon for a material.
The material cost often models more than just the weight of the material so for flat rate materials it could be assumed that much of the cost is shaping the material to function not the cost of the material.
