Chemlak, they only like to have one FAQ question per post. They have said that publicaly.
For this inquiry I would ask about Celestial Armor specifically since it is a special case.
Here is how I would word it.
There seems to be change with the description of Celestial Armor between the CRB and Ultimate Equipment.
Celestial plate CRB: "This bright silver or gold +3 chainmail"
Celestial plate UE: "This +3 chainmail"
FAQ question is belwpw
Does the text change which states what Celestial Armor is made of from the CRB to Ultimate Equipment change how Celestial armor works with regard to upgrading it. In addition if I make it out of Mithral will it stack with the current properties?
This will cause them to answer how it works, and also state whether or not there are any mechanical differences between the two versions.
FAQ Candidate 2:
Can non-magical specific armor be made magical?
According to the SRD, this seems a rather straight-forward answer: yes.
Adding more magic to an existing item can be quite simple or very math-intensive. If the item's current and proposed abilities follow the normal pricing rules (particularly with weapons, armor, and shields), adding the new abilities is a matter of subtracting the old price from the new price and determining how many days of crafting it takes to make up the difference.
If you've got a named item without an enhancement, simply add the cost of those enhancements. If it's listed with an enhancement (+1 half-plate, for example), simply take the difference of the known cost of said enhancement.
The part where it starts to get fuzzy is when the numbers don't add up, and part of the named item's powers are obviously magical. The Man Mountain Armor's earthquake-based ability, for example.
I am surprised they still list the CL as 5th in the construction requirements despite the fact that celestial armour has a +3 enhancement bonus to AC. :/
Celestial armour is one of those legacy items from 3.0/3.5 D&D that had a ridiculous amount of heated debates (which has since continued into PF) from both camps (sometimes argued effectively, sometimes...not so much) that never saw (to the best of my knowledge) a single official statement clarifying precisely what is the armour's material construction (among other things that would be good to know regarding this magical item) in over a decade.
In all honesty, someone set up the FAQ, and let's hit that FAQ button so that we can stop arguing back and forth about this. :)
Although, to be fair, if the Bardic Masterpieces FAQ is any indication, it might be a handful of years before we get an answer, ;P
CB
Help me understand... if I want to make mithral celestial armor [sic] out of the celestial armor [sic] found in Ultimate Equipment, what hurdles exist to bar that option?
CRB says I can make metal armors out of mithral, check
Celestial Armor [sic] is a type of metal armor, checkI'm not asking for PFS. [sic]
The Ultimate Equipment printing should override the Core's description that specifies the armor's material. All that's left is to determine the material cost from the market/creation prices, which shows that the armor is made of some steel-equivalent base metal.
This should allow a crafter to make a version of the armor out of another material if they wish. The only reason why a character would not be able to is, essentially, "because we say so." This is fine for Society-based games, where a stricter sense of rules consistency is important. For S.L.'s table, however, I can't see why this would be an issue.
Taking that argument aside, however, as long as the math works out correctly, that will get a functional GP value for market/crafting prices.
A number of the names items can’t be made normally such as dark wood buckler (which is a light shield that doesn’t match stats for dark wood light shields.)
The Darkwood Buckler isn't a mystery price-wise. A light wooden shield costs 3 GP, making the masterwork version 153 GP. Darkwood adds 10 GP per pound of the original item to the cost of the masterwork version. A light wooden shield is 5 pounds, so add 50 GP. That leaves us with 203 GP, which is its listed market price.
As for the shield's stats, a masterwork light shield already has no armor check penalty, so the 2-point reduction from darkwood doesn't anything further. Darkwood doesn't change the AC bonus, so that remains at the base value of +1 for a light shield. It should weigh half of the original item, which it does (2-1/2 pounds vs 5 pounds). The arcane spell failure chance isn't listed in the Ultimate Equipment book, but since darkwood doesn't change that, it would be 5% like a standard light wooden shield.
Force Tower [sic] is another item that can’t be made directly because you can’t make mithril tower shields.
According to the math, you can. Double the crafting price, minus the market value. That will quite quickly get you the material cost for the base item. That gets us to 1,030 GP for the Force Tower. Subtract the cost of a vanilla tower shield (30 GP), and you're left with 1,000 GP remaining, which is the cost for making any shield out of mithral.
Chemlak, they only like to have one FAQ question per post. They have said that publicaly.
One per post, yes, didn't think it was one per thread. Hence breaking the question up rather than trying to put it all in a single question (sometimes the question we ask gets lost when that happens).
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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The Darkwood Buckler isn't a mystery price-wise.
Force Tower [sic] is another item that can’t be made directly because you can’t make mithril tower shields.According to the math, you can.
Thanks for the Darkwood Buckler, I've seen people ponder over how it's priced for a decade and you are the first I recall figuring it out.
As for Mithril Tower Shield:
Shield, Tower: This massive wooden shield
You can not make a Mithril Tower shield that isn't enhanced by magic from the effect of making it a Force Shield.
Thanks for the Darkwood Buckler, I've seen people ponder over how it's priced for a decade and you are the first I recall figuring it out.
It's a simple matter of adding up the involved components. The darkwood price adjustment has been around since at least 3.5 (the earliest source I have on-hand), but probably was the same in the original 3.0 printing.
As for Mithril Tower Shield:
Shield, Tower: This massive wooden shieldYou can not make a Mithril Tower shield that isn't enhanced by magic from the effect of making it a Force Shield.
Despite the description, which appears to be an artifact of the 3.0/3.5 days, there are two logical issues here.
First, the crafting order must be quite specific. The physical item would be obtained, which means mundane (though possibly magic-assisted) crafting for manufactured items like a tower shield. The physical item can then be imbued with magic. So for the Force Tower, the base item must be a non-magical mithral tower shield before any enchantment is bestowed upon it.
Second, the reality that the item exists, magic or otherwise. If you were to strip a Force Tower of its enhancements, without causing physical harm (No disintegrations!), leaving only a non-magical item behind, what would you have? A mithral tower shield, because that is what the base item is stated to be.
Therefore, a mithral tower shield is indeed possible. By working backwards, one can figure out how much such a shield would cost. As it turns out, it's simply the normal adjustment for any other mithral shield added to the normal cost for a (normally wooden) tower shield. This stands to reason that a wooden tower shield and a base metal (steel) tower shield are equivalent.
The rules for how item pricing works are quite clear, and all the math works out. The descriptions of the base items in the core books (of whatever edition) are basically just flavor text, and should be treated as such.
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The rules for how item pricing works are quite clear, and all the math works out. The descriptions of the base items in the core books (of whatever edition) are basically just flavor text, and should be treated as such.
If it were clear we would have 5-10 threads over the years about whether or not the tower shield can be mithril.
We don’t know which is true except that only one is:
1) The wooden in the description means mithril.
2) The designer of Force Shield forgot tower shields are wooden.
3) The base tower shield weights 150 lb but the magical properties of the Force Shield reduce the weight.
You still have not addressed the 300 gp base cost question.I don't need to.
Since you have no citations to support the 300 gp not being the masterwork chain mail, I will take your silence as being unwilling to answer.
You also haven't address the assertion that it is steel with magical enhancement to make it better than steel. Enhancement that doesn't stack with mithril.
You assert it is steel with an unstackable enchantment. Please cite where you get that from. It is not in the Special Materials section, nor in the magic item description.
You also haven't address that this isn't a +1 full plate. It is a custom item in the named item section and a number of sources say you can't enhance those to be magical. For example to make +1 elven chain in herolab you need the community package because back channel Paizo tells them you can't have a +1 elven chain item, so you can't in Herolab.
A number of unofficial sources. The official PF account is where official stuff comes from, and they have been mum.
As to Herolab, they are known to be conservative. They are also not an official source. Citing them proves nothing.
The prohibition on improving named items is more about figuring out the correct cost/price, and not about uniqueness. To get unique, you need to go to near artifact levels, and this is far from that. Either that, or have a deity be the creator/controller of the magic of the item.
I will grant that figuring out the price for an upgraded enchantment of a named item can be difficult. Upgrading the base item, however, is covered in the rules.
/cevah
A number of the names items can’t be made normally such as dark wood buckler (which is a light shield that doesn’t match stats for dark wood light shields.)The Darkwood Buckler isn't a mystery price-wise. A light wooden shield costs 3 GP, making the masterwork version 153 GP. Darkwood adds 10 GP per pound of the original item to the cost of the masterwork version. A light wooden shield is 5 pounds, so add 50 GP. That leaves us with 203 GP, which is its listed market price.
As for the shield's stats, a masterwork light shield already has no armor check penalty, so the 2-point reduction from darkwood doesn't anything further. Darkwood doesn't change the AC bonus, so that remains at the base value of +1 for a light shield. It should weigh half of the original item, which it does (2-1/2 pounds vs 5 pounds). The arcane spell failure chance isn't listed in the Ultimate Equipment book, but since darkwood doesn't change that, it would be 5% like a standard light wooden shield.
The Darkwood Buckler is not a buckler shield. If it were, it would cost 2 gp more.
/cevah
You also haven't address that this isn't a +1 full plate. It is a custom item in the named item section and a number of sources say you can't enhance those to be magical. For example to make +1 elven chain in herolab you need the community package because back channel Paizo tells them you can't have a +1 elven chain item, so you can't in Herolab.A number of unofficial sources. The official PF account is where official stuff comes from, and they have been mum.
As to Herolab, they are known to be conservative. They are also not an official source. Citing them proves nothing.
Not to mention, magical elven chain is a classic item from the TSR days. Based on the posts thus far, it looks like J.R. is firmly in the "the book doesn't specifically say you can, so you can't, period" crowd, except that the books do tell you that you can enhance existing items (SRD Link: See the Upgrading Items section). Obviously elven chain is able to be enhanced, and since the topic is brought up, here's the math for elven chain (so far as I can figure).
Normal mithral chainmail: 150 GP base armor + 4,000 GP for mithral medium armor, making the total market price 4,150 GP. This item is treated as medium armor for proficiency, but light armor in all other ways.
Elven Chain: 5,150 GP market price, but is treated in all ways (including proficiency) as light armor. Obviously it's better than mere mithral chainmail, but where does the difference of 1,000 GP come from? In my estimation, it comes from the fact that light mithral armor costs 1,000 GP, so adding that to standard mithral chainmail makes it truly light armor.
The heavy equivalent (elven plate), using this logic, would cost thus: 1,500 GP for base armor + 9,000 GP for mithral heavy armor + 4,000 GP for mithral medium armor, making the total market price 14,500 GP. Almost on par price-wise with adamantine full-plate, but it gets treated in all ways as medium armor instead of heavy. That seems fair to me.
I would love to hear a designer's feedback on the above pricing, just to satisfy my own curiosity if that was truly their thought process, as well as if the plate example would be considered balanced by the devs.
The Darkwood Buckler is not a buckler shield. If it were, it would cost 2 gp more.
/cevah
Nobody except the item itself was calling it a buckler. It's nothing more than a light wooden shield made of darkwood, albeit with an odd name.
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I will take your silence as being unwilling to answer.
You assert it is steel with an unstackable enchantment. Please cite where you get that from. It is not in the Special Materials section, nor in the magic item description.
Actually if you look at my posts, I agreed with you that it is priced as per the 300 gp chainmail. We don't disagree on that point.
We disagree that it's in rules as "steel". You ask me for where it says it's not a special material or special item. I'll ask you the same. Where does it say it's steel. It doesn't, anywhere.
So if you think I'm stretching, you are in exactly the same way.
The Darkwood Buckler is not a buckler shield. If it were, it would cost 2 gp more.
So the price break out that Feauce made isn't correct? My statement that Darkwood Buckler's specific price break out is still unknown?
It's astounding how often people fail to read before they post. That being said, to get us back on-topic...
Yeah, but that rised up a question on the italian fb group: setting aside the fact that technically a specific armor is just as is, no modification (Jacobs said that about them), if a gm want to allow modifications, well what about the mithral? I know the question was highly discussed here, but if I allow the mithral, what modifications should one made? Someone says it just alter the stats like normal mithral, someone says that the mithral totally substitutes the original material so you need to apply the mithral modifications to the base chainmail.
The standard modifications for mithral armors. The price modification would be the difference between masterwork armor (150 GP), since it's included in the mithral price, and the price for mithral chainmail (4,000 GP), since that is the base physical item. So the final price adjustment would be: 4,000 GP - 150 GP = 3,850 GP
The other abilities involved are irrelevant. The important piece of information is how much the physical item costs, and how that differs from the same thing made of mithral.
The final stats for the armor, assuming I've done my math correctly, should be: AC +9 (+6 base, +3 enhancement), Max Dex Bonus +10 (+2 base, +6 celestial, +2 mithral), Armor Check Penalty -0 (-5 base, +1 masterwork, +2 celestial, +2 mithral; max -0), Arcane Spell Failure 5% (30% base, -15% celestial, -10% mithral), weight 13-1/3 pounds (40# base, 1/2 celestial * 1/2 mithral = 1/3 modified), Type: Light. Final market price: 26,250 GP, final crafting cost: 15,200 GP.
P.S.
I was thinking, since I'm doing all this math anyway, I might as well include the cost of increasing the +3 enhancement bonus to +5. It's quite straight-forward also. The 1/day fly effect is irrelevant, since it would not be an enhancement-bonus type of enchantment.
The difference between a +3 armor (9,000 GP) and a +5 armor (25,000 GP) is 16,000 GP. So the crafting cost would be 8,000 GP to improve celestial armor from a +3 to a +5 enhancement bonus. This would increase the AC bonus to a total of +11 (+6 base, +5 enhancement).
P.P.S.
In case anyone is curious, as it turns out, the fly effect is rather cheap.
Fly 1/day: 3rd-level spell * 5th-level caster * 1,800 on command * 1/5 one use per day. This gives us a final market value of 5,400 GP and a crafting cost of 2,700 GP.
By process of elimination, we can discover the combined cost of the remaining effects. Namely, the weight, type, and other improvements.
22,400 GP full market value - 300 GP base item - 9,000 GP enhancement bonus - 5,400 GP fly effect, leaving us with 7,700 GP market value remaining to cover the rest. This equates to 3,850 crafting cost for this part of the armor.
Isn't math fun? :)
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Your fun math assumes that celestial is a material. You can’t apply two materials just like you can’t have an adamantine cold iron weapon.
Either way, the only person who is correct (between you and I) is the GM of the game. They get to pick between your version and my version of the rules for their game. Since the rules don’t cover which version is right.
Actually if you look at my posts, I agreed with you that it is priced as per the 300 gp chainmail. We don't disagree on that point.I will take your silence as being unwilling to answer.
You assert it is steel with an unstackable enchantment. Please cite where you get that from. It is not in the Special Materials section, nor in the magic item description.
OK.
We disagree that it's in rules as "steel". You ask me for where it says it's not a special material or special item. I'll ask you the same. Where does it say it's steel. It doesn't, anywhere.
So if you think I'm stretching, you are in exactly the same way.
True, it does not say standard masterwork chainmail is steel.
But special materials states you can use mithral for the armor instead of whatever is normally used and get the listed benefits.So no matter what standard masterwork chainmail is made of, replacing it with mithral is doable and gives the listed benefits.
The Darkwood Buckler is not a buckler shield. If it were, it would cost 2 gp more.So the price break out that Feauce made isn't correct? My statement that Darkwood Buckler's specific price break out is still unknown?
As he replied: Nobody except the item itself was calling it a buckler.
The description of the darkwood buckler states it is a light shield rather than indicating it is a buckler. My point was that the difference between a light wooden shield and a buckler is 2 gp as they weigh the same.The breakdown is correct, but the item is misnamed.
I was thinking, since I'm doing all this math anyway, I might as well include the cost of increasing the +3 enhancement bonus to +5. It's quite straight-forward also. The 1/day fly effect is irrelevant, since it would not be an enhancement-bonus type of enchantment.
The difference between a +3 armor (9,000 GP) and a +5 armor (25,000 GP) is 16,000 GP. So the crafting cost would be 8,000 GP to improve celestial armor from a +3 to a +5 enhancement bonus. This would increase the AC bonus to a total of +11 (+6 base, +5 enhancement).
I made a different calculation here.
Here is an excerpt:
Chainmail +3 is 9,300.
Flight 1/day is 5,400 leaving 7,700 unaccounted for.
If we take the difference of mithral chain mail (4,150) and elven chain mail (5,150) we get 1,000 gp. Taking this from 7,700 we get 6,700. This "elven" effect is for making it light armor. This is almost the price difference between +3 and +4 (7,000).I think I got it figured out:
Celestial Armor is +3 & "Elven" & Fly 1/day & Celestial (+1 equivalent) & base masterwork chainmail.
Enchanting is:
- + 150 (Chainmail)
- + 150 (masterwork)
- + 1,000 (elven lightness)
- + 5,400 (Fly 1/day @ 5th)
- + 4*4*1,000 (+3 & Celestial)
- - 300 (random discount)
- = 22,400 gp
What this means, is that you can treat the armor as if the "Celestial" enchantment was a +1 bonus, with a required extra for the elven light feature.
This means Celestial is a +1 bonus with an additional flat cost rather than just a flat cost. This further makes it have an effective +4 bonus for enhancement calculations.
By being a +1 bonus rather than a flat cost, than makes further bonuses each cost an additional 2000 gp. As the total price of the armor is less than +5 armor, it works well enough.
Since the debate usually is bonus vs. flat cost, I don't think any GM will mind you using the more expensive choice.
/cevah
Chemlak, they only like to have one FAQ question per post. They have said that publicaly.One per post, yes, didn't think it was one per thread. Hence breaking the question up rather than trying to put it all in a single question (sometimes the question we ask gets lost when that happens).
I meant once per thread. I do agree that for us, it is not ideal.
Your fun math assumes that celestial is a material. You can’t apply two materials just like you can’t have an adamantine cold iron weapon.
No, my math does not assume that. You're assuming that, without even the courtesy of asking if that's what I was assuming, because it helps your case if you've got a simple "you can't do that" counter-argument to claim.
"Celestial" as noted in my last post refers to the effects of it being celestial armor, which according to the math appears to be a miscellaneous enchantment.
Either way, the only person who is correct (between you and I) is the GM of the game. They get to pick between your version and my version of the rules for their game.
In the context of the game at the OP's table, that's correct. We actually agree on that point. That being said...
Since the rules don’t cover which version is right.
For clarity: There is a distinct difference between PFS rules and the game in general. This topic is not in the context of the Society, and so defaults to the general rules as printed.
Those rules actually do cover which one of us is right, but you don't like the answer. That doesn't change how the rules are written.
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Those rules actually do cover which one of us is right, but you don't like the answer. That doesn't change how the rules are written.
I'm not bringing up PFS, the rules don't cover this topic with clarity, and continuing to insist so is disruptive, chilling, and detrimental to discussion.
As for Mithril Tower Shield:
Shield, Tower: This massive wooden shieldYou can not make a Mithril Tower shield that isn't enhanced by magic from the effect of making it a Force Shield.
Taking this subtopic back up for a moment, since I found the reference I was looking for.
The body shield, also known as the kite or tower shield, is a massive metal or wooden shield reaching nearly from the chin to the toe of the user. It must be firmly fastened to the forearm and the shield hand must firmly grip it at all times. Naturally, this precludes use of the shield hand for anything but holding the body shield in place.
In the PHB, there is no mention of construction material. A body shield is listed as costing 10 GP and weighing 15 pounds, but many of these prices and weights changed from 2E to 3E, so that part should be taken with a grain of salt.
These descriptions show that the change from TSR to WotC altered not only the cost and weight, but also the text regarding these shields. This altered text was carried forward for 3.5E and Pathfinder, most likely because there were more important tasks than to look over every last scrap of flavor text for every item in the book.
I haven't had time to research the historical uses of body/tower shields sufficiently, but that's hardly a reason to ignore the game's long tradition. Traditionally, a tower shield could be made of basically anything. I'm sure there are some dwarves somewhere in a setting or other source book that made large shields and tower shields out of stone. If it makes the game more interesting or not, then that's up to the GM to decide.
As far as the rules are concerned, however, the specified special materials have methods to calculate how much they cost and mechanical adjustments for the items they modify. This is the part that should concern us here, not whether a two- or three-word change in descriptive text should decide what is possible.
The tower shield used to specify that it was made of metal or wood. Now it claims to only be made of wood. Celestial armor used to specify that it was bright silver or gold, and now it doesn't. These things are irrelevant.
If I wanted a character to craft a suit of celestial armor out of Elysian bronze, there are rules to figure out how much that would cost, how much time it would take, and how that would alter the item. (No, I'm not going into the math this time. ;) ) This is absolutely allowed by the rules as printed, and that's what this subforum should be concerned with.
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Mechanically, there should be no differences regardless of material, unless that material has some sort of special properties via the rules for custom magic items made from different base items as detailed in Ultimate Campaign (as cited in the linked threads). And only then (and it's important that everyone remembers me saying this) if the DM agrees with this interpretation of the rules (which I personally advocate, given the example in the book shows a clear mechanical advantage in allowing a druid to wield a wooden shield in place of a steel one).
For context:
Celestial armor is not mithral—it's actually made of silver or gold (as mentioned in its description), and thus doesn't gain any of the standard modifiers for being mithral at all. It's its own thing. Its lower arcane spell failure and higher max Dex bonus are a result of its magical qualities, not what it's made out of. In addition, this magic allows folks to wear it as if it were light armor—the mithral versions don't do this because mithral isn't fundamentally magical like the enhancements on celestial armor.
Emphasis mine.
It should go without saying, but before I go into any of this, I would like to state the following for the record:
I have the utmost respect and admiration for Jacobs, who has spent his adult life doing what I would love to be doing also. Many hats off to him and all the work he's done over the years.
Now then, onto the topic at hand.
Mechanically, there should be no differences regardless of material, unless that material has some sort of special properties via the rules for custom magic items made from different base items as detailed in Ultimate Campaign (as cited in the linked threads). And only then (and it's important that everyone remembers me saying this) if the DM agrees with this interpretation of the rules (which I personally advocate, given the example in the book shows a clear mechanical advantage in allowing a druid to wield a wooden shield in place of a steel one).
For context:
Celestial armor is not mithral—it's actually made of silver or gold (as mentioned in its description), and thus doesn't gain any of the standard modifiers for being mithral at all. It's its own thing. Its lower arcane spell failure and higher max Dex bonus are a result of its magical qualities, not what it's made out of. In addition, this magic allows folks to wear it as if it were light armor—the mithral versions don't do this because mithral isn't fundamentally magical like the enhancements on celestial armor.Emphasis mine.
From later in the same thread (Forum Link).
Thread ressurection. And +1 to the poster above me. If "Celestial" is some type of enhancement that could theoretically be put onto other armours, as James seems to say above, what should be its pricing. A +X on the enhancement scale or a fixed price?Without the cost of the +3 chainmail element of celestial armor, we get a price of about 13,000 gp. The simplest solution is to just say that its effects cost about 13,000 gp and be done with it... but of course, its effects are more powerful when put on heavier armor, so you'd probably want to adjust the cost significantly if, say, this ability were to go onto a suit of full plate.
All of which is why we DIDN'T present these abilities as a generic armor quality, but only as a specific type of magic armor. It's just simpler and easier.
Here it seems that James Jacobs does not dismiss outright the notion that you can modify Celestial Armor, or the option to make a custom suit with the same effects.
In fact, what Jacobs says about Celestial Armor indicates that it should be possible to modify the material of the armor. (Requoting the above, with additional emphasis, to better illustrate this point.)
Celestial armor is not mithral—it's actually made of silver or gold (as mentioned in its description), and thus doesn't gain any of the standard modifiers for being mithral at all. It's its own thing. Its lower arcane spell failure and higher max Dex bonus are a result of its magical qualities, not what it's made out of. In addition, this magic allows folks to wear it as if it were light armor—the mithral versions don't do this because mithral isn't fundamentally magical like the enhancements on celestial armor.
According to Jacobs, the effects of Celestial Armor are due to the magic it has been enhanced with, which means that swapping the material out (whatever it was originally crafted from) should apply those adjustments as well. Of course, if the original material had some special properties, those would have to be removed first, in order to get the correct numbers. Further, mithral as a material is non-magical and the adjustments it grants have nothing to do with anything except its own properties. Therefore, the bonuses from the enchantment suite we call Celestial Armor and the bonuses from mithral as a non-magical material should not conflict with each other, as each set of modifications is from a different source.
While the original version in the CRB listed the appearance of "bright silver or gold," which Jacobs stated refers to the material of its construction, the newer Ultimate Equipment version (first printing dated August 2012) has no such language. Thus, the original question on this thread. Since the descriptive text changed, it would seem that Celestial Armor no longer has a specified material, that arguments about whether the "bright silver or gold" wording referred to material or appearance are now irrelevant, and Jacobs's comment about its description from March 2010 is now outdated.
As I have said before, multiple times: A GM can rule however they want to for their table. Paizo can decide whatever they want in terms of how organized Society play is to be handled. If this question were posed in the Advice subforum, this discussion would have a completely different focus, but it wasn't. This is the Rules Questions subforum, and the rules as published support doing what the OP asked about doing.
In the previous threads, the specific citation in the books has us selecting a Lion's Shield made from wood instead of steel.
The specific benefit of this is to allow druids to use it, the exact advantage cited in the book.
Basing a judgment on this example, I accept that the purpose of this rule not only is to allow certain items to be changed, but it allows players to make combinations with them, like changing the base weapon on a Sword of Subtlety to match their build, and that seems to imply that one ought to gain the benefits of those changes.
If a DM wants to rule one way in the moment, it's their table. But the examples set out by the book have a logical conclusion.
Re: semantics on Celestial Armor; the armor in pretty much everyone's interpretation thus far is that it's weight and stats come from it's magic. How that magic works seems to be the point of contention. In one side's interpretation, all Celestial Armor comes out the same weight, as there the material is changed. In other interpretations, it changes to be exactly half weight of the base item, (this is also present with the Celestial Shield) which infers that the weight reduction applies to whatever material. Applying it to mithral by that interpretation (the one I share) would apply the benefits for both, calculated normally.
Aside- what happens to the weight of CRB/UE Celestial Armor in an antimagic field?
Re: semantics on Celestial Armor; the armor in pretty much everyone's interpretation thus far is that it's weight and stats come from it's magic. How that magic works seems to be the point of contention. In one side's interpretation, all Celestial Armor comes out the same weight, as there the material is changed. In other interpretations, it changes to be exactly half weight of the base item, (this is also present with the Celestial Shield) which infers that the weight reduction applies to whatever material. Applying it to mithral by that interpretation (the one I share) would apply the benefits for both, calculated normally.
Aside- what happens to the weight of CRB/UE Celestial Armor in an antimagic field?
Two things are certain, based on James Jacobs's statement that the entirety of the armor's differences from base chainmail are magical in nature. First, that the armor would return to the 40-pound standard weight. Second, that it would no longer be light armor, and would instead be medium armor with normal stats for non-magical, nothing-special masterwork chainmail.
The rest is not so certain, and has a couple of conclusions to be decided upon by the GM. The first option is that the "fits under clothing" part is a result of the construction methods involved in preparing the base chainmail, therefore still applies within a null-magic area. The second option is that this effect is also a result of the item's magic, and the chainmail returns to normal, likely destroying whatever outfit the character may be wearing over the armor.
I'm inclined to grant the first option, though more strictly-minded GMs might go for the second.
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You just admitted you are unwilling to accept, weight, and adjust your world-view based on evidence.cevah, this is a "round and round again" debate.
Nothing you show can prove it's steel.
You and Cevah are also. Because there is evidence that some of the money in the item is unaccounted. There is no way you nor Cevah can know that there isn't some magical properly that makes the item lighter and better in some way. Some way that might interfere if you make the item with Mitril.
So if I'm unwilling, so are you.
Thing is, I'm willing. I don't care if you can or can not mithril it. I just don't think the rules say one way or another. We do have developers on record saying you can't.
James, my specific issue is the wording you used. I've processed the evidence so far and I have my opinion so far. There's plenty you can show to sway my opinion.
It's just... you said nothing can sway you.
I hadn't really intended to post in this thread because I don't much care about the raw topic, but you're generally a reasonable guy. I had to say something about the phrase I read.
As you speak of weight (in another meaning of the word), have you looked the weight of Celestial Armor? 20 lbs. Weight of a masterwork chainmail 40 lbs. So what is the origin of the reduced weight? How much mithrail we need to replace the metal used in the chain mail? We should start with a weight of 20 lbs or a weight of 40 lbs? (by rules, 40 lbs, the original weight of a chainmail)
The rules don't even say that the Celestial Armor is made of metal, so you can use mithrail to made it?
As you speak of weight (in another meaning of the word), have you looked the weight of Celestial Armor? 20 lbs. Weight of a masterwork chainmail 40 lbs. So what is the origin of the reduced weight? How much mithrail we need to replace the metal used in the chain mail? We should start with a weight of 20 lbs or a weight of 40 lbs? (by rules, 40 lbs, the original weight of a chainmail)
We have covered this. More specifically, I have already spelled out the math you're asking about.
The final stats for the armor, assuming I've done my math correctly, should be: AC +9 (+6 base, +3 enhancement), Max Dex Bonus +10 (+2 base, +6 celestial, +2 mithral), Armor Check Penalty -0 (-5 base, +1 masterwork, +2 celestial, +2 mithral; max -0), Arcane Spell Failure 5% (30% base, -15% celestial, -10% mithral), weight 13-1/3 pounds (40# base, 1/2 celestial * 1/2 mithral = 1/3 modified), Type: Light. Final market price: 26,250 GP, final crafting cost: 15,200 GP.
Aside- what happens to the weight of CRB/UE Celestial Armor in an antimagic field?Two things are certain, based on James Jacobs's statement that the entirety of the armor's differences from base chainmail are magical in nature. First, that the armor would return to the 40-pound standard weight. Second, that it would no longer be light armor, and would instead be medium armor with normal stats for non-magical, nothing-special masterwork chainmail.
Read the thread before you post. Both of those quotes are from posts further up on the same page.
The rules don't even say that the Celestial Armor is made of metal, so you can use mithrail to made it?
Is this a serious question, or are you just trying to antagonize this thread further? Let's assume you're serious for a moment, which, for the record, I find hard to believe.
The CRB description describes it as being "bright silver or gold", which implies that it's made of metal no matter which way you care to read that. The UE version does not have these four words, so that's a bit more up in the air. However, both versions say quite specifically that it is chainmail, which is metal armor by default. So yes, Celestial Armor, regardless of which version of the description you want to use, is made of metal.
Am I unusual for ruling that no Specific magic item can be modified in any way? I mean, if Paizo had wanted to add a 'Celestial' armor special ability they could have done that, but they decided not to.
Am I unusual for ruling that no Specific magic item can be modified in any way? I mean, if Paizo had wanted to add a 'Celestial' armor special ability they could have done that, but they decided not to.
No, that seems to be a common opinion. I prefer letting my players upgrade otherwise specific magic items. The way I look at it is that the items on the Specific Armors/Weapons lists are the base models.
For example, if a character is still using a Buccaneer's Breastplate at 16th level, they probably would've wanted to make some improvements to it by then. After all, that piece is described as a +1 breastplate with some swimming-related enhancements. Figuring out the cost to turn that into a +3 breastplate with light fortification is relatively straight-forward, and would give an otherwise lower-level item more longevity.
Or maybe I have an existing higher-level party (previously land-based) that runs afoul of some pirates and finds themselves (after a bar brawl and a chase) fighting said pirates on the deck of their ship as they start to pull away from port. The barbarian gets a high roll on a bull rush and shoves the captain overboard, not realizing that he's wearing a non-standard version of a Buccaneer's Breastplate. Once all is said and done, the party may have the chance to acquire it for themselves.
Each approach is just as valid, it's just a question of which way a GM wants to go for their table.
Am I unusual for ruling that no Specific magic item can be modified in any way? I mean, if Paizo had wanted to add a 'Celestial' armor special ability they could have done that, but they decided not to.
You are when we're citing specific rules from Ultimate Campaign that enable one to customize a specific item from the books.
Otherwise, no.
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The rules don't even say that the Celestial Armor is made of metal, so you can use mithrail to made it?Is this a serious question, or are you just trying to antagonize this thread further?
It is a serious question and this entire thread is about whether or not you can mithril Celestial Armor.