I'm GMing for a party who just completed an encounter that involved defeating a hell hound and now one of the members is asking if he can take the hound to a tanner/leathersmith to have it turned into a leather helm. I have no problem with him doing that, but he's obviously expecting to get a really nice piece of equipment out of it. So I'm trying to decide what benefit the material might give. I could see it conveying something pretty small... like giving resist fire 2 specifically to his head. Of course, I could also imagine that, with the creature dead, it's not much more special than thick leather.
First off, is there a resource that addresses issues like this that I'm missing? If not, what would you rule? The party is only lvl 4, which is obviously a factor.
Fire resistance 2 would be cool.
Consider: Resist Energy is a lvl2 spell and protects you from the first 10 damage of the type of your choice.
So lvl2 spell × lvl3 caster × 2,000 continuous = 12,000 / 5 for only 2 resistance = 2,400 / 3 for only ever one type of protection = 800gp, which I'd be willing to reduce by half or more because it's so situational and isn't helping anyone min-max, etc.
So...maybe it's worth 250gp worth of treasure or so?
If you want it to be cooler/better, it could give them a breath weapon? Maybe just a ranged touch attack...2d6 fire as a standard action? I wouldn't make that worth much, either; if it takes up their standard action, every round they use it is a round they're not doing the main thing their character does. At lvl4, it's probably equal to a longbow, at absolute most. And it'll only get worse from there.
Or it could grant a bonus to Intimidate.
Or just +1 natural armor.
Or a combination of the above.
It's probably just leather, honestly. Leather that is terrible when dealing with the cold.
But I could see adding something minor just for fun.
Gotta be careful, though, otherwise they might expect to get something fancy from everything they kill. Which isn't bad, but it can bog down the game with unnecessary nonsense.
In an unnamed AP my players defeated a barghest at around 3rd level. The parry druid had it skinned and hide armor made from it. Not seeing it making a huge difference I gave it one additional armor point (most druids just spring for the superior dragonhide breastplate at around that point). That druid was still wearing the same suit of armor proudly (with upgraded enchantments) on the way to fight the BBEG in book 6.
Point is, some players latch onto a trophy like that and carry it forever, which just enriches the whole game.
A 1/day 10ft cone, 2D6 fire, DC 14 breath weapon is actually useless over half the time, but it's awesome at lower levels for swarms or nerfing Regeneration in a clutch situation.
It's the sort of thing that I would hold on to and have crafted into my helmet at later levels, or coat it in chainmail or whatever... I would keep it for my career, even when I have way better ways to deal with swarms and Regeneration that completely trivialize the 1/day breath weapon.
Someone at my table (level ~18) wanted some cool armor crafted for his Animal Companion, Dwayne "The Roc" Johnson, so I gave it the same breath weapon as the wyvern they killed to get the hide. And that is a little bit better than the Hell Hound. I can't even remember if I made it 1/day or 1D4 rounds! Lol.
PS. Forked-Tail Wyvern breath weapon:
30-foot cone that deals 6d6 points of fire damage. Creatures that take damage are also temporarily blinded by the fumes as though by glitterdust for 4 rounds. A DC 19 Reflex save halves the fire damage and negates the glitterdust effect.
No answer from a Rules Questions™ standpoint.
Designwise, even dragonhide armor doesn't confer energy resistance to its wearer by itself. I wouldn't expect hell hound leather to be any different. It would be reasonable to make the armor itself immune to fire, though, unless enough of its connecting or supporting bits are made of something other than hell hound. Basically, I wouldn't confer on it anything more powerful than what dragonhide confers, as we're talking hell hounds versus dragons here. Once magical enhancement gets involved, things might get interesting.
Tanning something immune to fire (and presumably heat in general) might be a challenge, though.
Resistance is actually rather expensive. As an armor special ability 10 points is 18,000 gp...
Is that a special ability that sees much use at all?
I feel like, when we look at the price of items that are almost never used for comparison, we can start to feel fairly safe in dropping the cost down.I mean, even if we factor in a 50% additional ability premium, a continuous 2nd-level spell is 18,000gp, but we're locked into one energy type the moment the item is created, reducing it's utility by approximately 80%. I just don't see anyone wanting that ability over another +X to AC or whatever.