Adamantine armor?

[Redblade8]

Hey,

So I'm not quite clear on the benefit of having one's armor made from adamantine. Shields, I get it, because their Hardness and HP get put to the test constantly. But I don't really see an upside to making your armor tougher like that (even though you might think there should be some benefit). Does 2e have sundering rules that slipped past my attention (not out of the question)?

Later on,
Ghorrin Redblade

[HammerJack]

There are monsters with the ability to damage your armor as well as your body when they attack. Much of the time, you would not see a benefit, though.

[gnoams]

special materials pretty much got nerfed into pointlessness. Adamantine isn't even good for shields, just compare an adamantine shield to a "sturdy" shield. Adamantine is uncommon and costs more for the same hardness and half the hp of the common sturdy shield.

[graystone]

Redblade8 wrote:

Hey,

So I'm not quite clear on the benefit of having one's armor made from adamantine.

It's shiny and expensive! Just the kind of thing a rich noble would LOVE! "Adamantine armor has a shiny, black appearance and is amazingly durable."

For an adventurer you get 2 gauntlets if the armor is heavy and the material in a weapon actually does something for you. For armor benefits, it's 1,600 gp or 32,000 gp just to have cool "shiny, black" looking armor...

[Zalerian]

gnoams wrote:

special materials pretty much got nerfed into pointlessness. Adamantine isn't even good for shields, just compare an adamantine shield to a "sturdy" shield. Adamantine is uncommon and costs more for the same hardness and half the hp of the common sturdy shield.

Agreed. Armor material is pretty well moot except mithril is lighter and orichalum can have another enchant. There are more beasties than I realized that had armor damaging attacks though (half dozen or so). It is still a huge chunk of your wealth tied up in little actual value.

I have seen some discussion that the magic items such as sturdy shield are just templates that can be applied to other materials. Take the difference in hp/bt from the base item (steel shield) to the magic item (sturdy shield) then apply that difference to shields of other materials. Again this is just an exercise, not sure if it based on any clarified rules. Also really works best for shields and maybe weapons.

[Kasoh]

Redblade8 wrote:

So I'm not quite clear on the benefit of having one's armor made from adamantine.

Since there doesn't seem to be a written benefit, I wondered what one might do with it anyway.

My first thought was to let people who wear adamantine armor use the 'Shield Block' reaction with their armor, but I wasn't sure if that would favor two handed warriors too much.

[Perpdepog]

My current think was to give the person wearing it physical resist 1.

[ChibiNyan]

Am amazed at how expensive and high level "special materials" are. Most don't seem to do much of anything and bump even the most basic weapon or armor to level 8-12+.

[YuriP]

graystone wrote:

It's shiny and expensive! Just the kind of thing a rich noble would LOVE! "Adamantine armor has a shiny, black appearance and is amazingly durable."

And is black too. Maybe good to very rich noble act as a black knight! 😂

Zalerian wrote:

Agreed. Armor material is pretty well moot except mithril is lighter and orichalum can have another enchant. There are more beasties than I realized that had armor damaging attacks though (half dozen or so). It is still a huge chunk of your wealth tied up in little actual value.

Even mithril is far away from being viable for an armor. It's just reduce the volume a little (1 point), there's no more armor class reduction like old version (what's good in my opinion, the armor reduction from old games give an enormous advantages with classes that has armor restricted abilities). And the orichalcum is a rare, lvl 20 stupidly expensive armor that just allow you to put one more rune and +1 for initiative. You probably don't earn such armor, in a game, and even if you earn one, you probably has a better use for the money.

The only special materials good enough is dragonhide armors that can allow druids to use much better armors than those they usually can use.

Redblade8 wrote:

My first thought was to let people who wear adamantine armor use the 'Shield Block' reaction with their armor, but I wasn't sure if that would favor two handed warriors too much.

Oh can imagine it:

- GM: You receive damage, what would you do?
- Player: I will open my arms and and try to block with my brilliant black admantium chest! 🤣

[Redblade8]

I... did not say the thing YuriP has quoted me about. /curious

[HammerJack]

Misattribution. It was actually something that Kasoh said.

[Saens_Danse]

YuriP wrote:

Zalerian wrote:

Agreed. Armor material is pretty well moot except mithril is lighter and orichalum can have another enchant. There are more beasties than I realized that had armor damaging attacks though (half dozen or so). It is still a huge chunk of your wealth tied up in little actual value.

Even mithril is far away from being viable for an armor. It's just reduce the volume a little (1 point), there's no more armor class reduction like old version (what's good in my opinion, the armor reduction from old games give an enormous advantages with classes that has armor restricted abilities). And the orichalcum is a rare, lvl 20 stupidly expensive armor that just allow you to put one more rune and +1 for initiative. You probably don't earn such armor, in a game, and even if you earn one, you probably has a better use for the money.

The only special materials good enough is dragonhide armors that can allow druids to use much better armors than those they usually can use.

I thought that if you had Mithral Heavy armor, that it basically removed the speed penalty as long as you had enough strength. I'd argue that 5 ft movement is decently valuable.

[YuriP]

Redblade8 wrote:

I... did not say the thing YuriP has quoted me about. /curious

Sorry, as the forum only auto-quote one person, I copied the wrong nick without notice.

[Perpdepog]

Saint_Saens wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Zalerian wrote:

Agreed. Armor material is pretty well moot except mithril is lighter and orichalum can have another enchant. There are more beasties than I realized that had armor damaging attacks though (half dozen or so). It is still a huge chunk of your wealth tied up in little actual value.

Even mithril is far away from being viable for an armor. It's just reduce the volume a little (1 point), there's no more armor class reduction like old version (what's good in my opinion, the armor reduction from old games give an enormous advantages with classes that has armor restricted abilities). And the orichalcum is a rare, lvl 20 stupidly expensive armor that just allow you to put one more rune and +1 for initiative. You probably don't earn such armor, in a game, and even if you earn one, you probably has a better use for the money.

The only special materials good enough is dragonhide armors that can allow druids to use much better armors than those they usually can use.

I thought that if you had Mithral Heavy armor, that it basically removed the speed penalty as long as you had enough strength. I'd argue that 5 ft movement is decently valuable.

That's correct, yup. You get a 1 bulk reduction and if you have the required strength it reduces the speed penalty by 5 feet. Admittedly that really only matters with heavy armor since medium would have its speed penalty negated when you had the required amount of strength anyway, but still.

[Vlorax]

I guess it kinda helps against adamantine weapons since the armor would have possibly higher hardness so the weapons wouldn't ignore it? Unless they're the same quality then it doesn't matter again.

[graystone]

Vlorax wrote:

I guess it kinda helps against adamantine weapons since the armor would have possibly higher hardness so the weapons wouldn't ignore it? Unless they're the same quality then it doesn't matter again.

There is currently no way to attack armor with a weapon that I know of: Strike only targets creatures.