"Mithral is a light, flexible metal." Wouldn't the armors be one category lighter than their non-Mithral counterparts? Similarly, I believe Elven Chain is usually made of Mithral?
I'm thinking not only in terms of whether a character proficient in medium armor can wear mithral plate, for example, but whether the Dex AC modifier should apply.
I'd say that Heavy Armor has a certain "bulky" quality that requires special training, beyond just the matter of weight. It tends to include a helm and gauntlets, either of which could be distracting if you're not used to them. Also keep in mind that most heavy armor has a STR requirement, but that decides whether you lose 10 feet of speed when wearing it, not whether you can wear it proficiently.
Elven Chain doesn't specifically say that it's made of mithral in its item description, but there's a good chance it is. Either way, I'd say it's the Elven crafting that makes it wearable by those who lack armor proficiency, not the metal.
Armor made of mithral does come with a benefit: negating the usual Stealth disadvantage from particular armors. There are medium armors that have Stealth disadvantage, so there's a good point to having mithral versions of those. That's about as far as it goes.
Finally, to have mithral add DEX (max 2) onto a heavy armor's AC would make it UNdesirable to plenty of characters who went with DEX of less than 10! That's part of the point of not including DEX in the heavy armor calculation. But eliminating the Stealth disadvantage for the less-stealthy Fighter, Paladin or Cleric makes mithral heavy armor well worth the cost or effort to acquire.
I guess that is the heart of the question... is the armor "heavy" or "medium" because of the weight, or because the coverage involved, especially at the joints, is too restrictive... I've personally never seen a true set of either, so have no basis to compare
I was at least partly basing my query on what books and cinema have characters doing while wearing elven chain... that stuff appears to be no more cumbersome than a t-shirt... and I am willing to concede that probably has as much to do with elvish crafting techniques as it does the metals involved... but, again based on books and cinema, elvish chain at least would seem to be a light armor... from a game play perspective, would that be too much, though..?
Of course, that could also open up a new can of worms... what if those same elven smiths made a suit of plate or half-plate..? Now I may be going too far ;)
Chain Shirt. Made of interlocking metal rings, a chain shirt is worn between layers of clothing or leather. This armor offers modest protection to the wearer's upper body and allows the sound of the rings rubbing against one another to be muffled by outer layers.
A regular chain shirt doesn't have Stealth disadvantage, meaning that making it out of mithral doesn't provide that particular benefit. But if it's meant to be worn between layers of clothing, then maybe the Elven Chain is crafted so finely and delicately (and it'd make sense if it was mithral) that it just feels like a layer of clothing. It is, like you say, no more cumbersome than a t-shirt, and if it feels more like a fabric than a bunch of metal rings, then that's why it doesn't distract a spellcaster who lacks proficiency in medium armor.
Plate or half-plate is made from literal plates of metal, not interlocking rings, so it's a different crafting technique. Probably the elves who are skilled at making a fabric-like elven chain wouldn't be able to bring that same type of skill to plate armor. There might be a darn nice set of Elven plate armor out there, though! And it would count as a magic item, like how Elven Chain does.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
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This is probably more of a WotC question
"Mithral is a light, flexible metal." Wouldn't the armors be one category lighter than their non-Mithral counterparts? Similarly, I believe Elven Chain is usually made of Mithral?
I'm thinking not only in terms of whether a character proficient in medium armor can wear mithral plate, for example, but whether the Dex AC modifier should apply.
I'd say that Heavy Armor has a certain "bulky" quality that requires special training, beyond just the matter of weight. It tends to include a helm and gauntlets, either of which could be distracting if you're not used to them. Also keep in mind that most heavy armor has a STR requirement, but that decides whether you lose 10 feet of speed when wearing it, not whether you can wear it proficiently.
Elven Chain doesn't specifically say that it's made of mithral in its item description, but there's a good chance it is. Either way, I'd say it's the Elven crafting that makes it wearable by those who lack armor proficiency, not the metal.
Armor made of mithral does come with a benefit: negating the usual Stealth disadvantage from particular armors. There are medium armors that have Stealth disadvantage, so there's a good point to having mithral versions of those. That's about as far as it goes.
Finally, to have mithral add DEX (max 2) onto a heavy armor's AC would make it UNdesirable to plenty of characters who went with DEX of less than 10! That's part of the point of not including DEX in the heavy armor calculation. But eliminating the Stealth disadvantage for the less-stealthy Fighter, Paladin or Cleric makes mithral heavy armor well worth the cost or effort to acquire.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
I guess that is the heart of the question... is the armor "heavy" or "medium" because of the weight, or because the coverage involved, especially at the joints, is too restrictive... I've personally never seen a true set of either, so have no basis to compare
I was at least partly basing my query on what books and cinema have characters doing while wearing elven chain... that stuff appears to be no more cumbersome than a t-shirt... and I am willing to concede that probably has as much to do with elvish crafting techniques as it does the metals involved... but, again based on books and cinema, elvish chain at least would seem to be a light armor... from a game play perspective, would that be too much, though..?
Of course, that could also open up a new can of worms... what if those same elven smiths made a suit of plate or half-plate..? Now I may be going too far ;)
Well, Elven Chain is a chain shirt:
Chain Shirt. Made of interlocking metal rings, a chain shirt is worn between layers of clothing or leather. This armor offers modest protection to the wearer's upper body and allows the sound of the rings rubbing against one another to be muffled by outer layers.
A regular chain shirt doesn't have Stealth disadvantage, meaning that making it out of mithral doesn't provide that particular benefit. But if it's meant to be worn between layers of clothing, then maybe the Elven Chain is crafted so finely and delicately (and it'd make sense if it was mithral) that it just feels like a layer of clothing. It is, like you say, no more cumbersome than a t-shirt, and if it feels more like a fabric than a bunch of metal rings, then that's why it doesn't distract a spellcaster who lacks proficiency in medium armor.
Plate or half-plate is made from literal plates of metal, not interlocking rings, so it's a different crafting technique. Probably the elves who are skilled at making a fabric-like elven chain wouldn't be able to bring that same type of skill to plate armor. There might be a darn nice set of Elven plate armor out there, though! And it would count as a magic item, like how Elven Chain does.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)