I am running my adventurers through a cave filled with steam, and they are fighting Mephits - specifically Steam and Magma mephits.
One of the key features of the magma mephits is that they are able to cast Heat Metal once per day, which I thought would be pretty cool as a challenge - and I have even homebrewed a boss who can cast it twice per day (and summon magma mephits) so it's going to come up quite a bit in the next session!
My problem, however, is that the party composition is making this a little biased.
I have a druid (with no metal), a wizard (with no metal), a monk (with no metal), an ooze (with no metal), and an armourer artificer. The party is at level 3. They just fought 2 steam mephits and a magma mephit, which I would consider to be easy/medium, and the artificer nearly died. Then they took a short rest in the cave, got ambushed, and had to fight another magma mephit, who they dealt with easily.
I am thinking that, to make things more interesting (and make the player feel less like they are being picked on, especially as they just improved their armour) I should replace some of the magma mephits in their path with steam mephits, so there's a bit less heat metal being solely directed to the artificer! I may also make a mephit use their ability out of combat (assuming the party doesn't just charge in and instead scouts a bit) to melt some scrap down, which fits the adventure and will reward them a little for scouting!
The gist of the adventure is that they need to get into this cave where the mephits are melting down scrap metal to sacrifice to their "god" (my homebrew boss) and they need to recover a bag which was stolen and thrown into the pile of stuff to be burnt & melted in a pool of magma. The only enemies I've put in there are Steam and Magma mephits.
What do you think I should do? Should I just play it like the mephits would and risk one party member going down exceedingly early? Or should I make some reasons why the heat metal has already been used, and reserve it for the boss fight (this is my preferred option thus far), or should I do something else?
Here's a couple questions: Are the players having fun? Would they have more fun, if the encounter worked differently? Did anyone complain that the Artificer almost dropped? Are you equating the chance of losing a character to them not having fun?
You are the best judge of character in this scenario. I would avoid changing your encounter based on what you don't know (is the PC gonna drop), but instead, change it to gain and maintain fun. PC death, or significant threat thereof, can be a powerful moment in game. Parties that find clever ways to successfully combat the threat of PC death feel even more powerful.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Well, I think heat metal is an awesome feature to give the players a fun and harsh time, but it needs to the party to have those metal lol.
I agree with Kaavel that you shouldn't bother too much with it if your players aren't complaining. You can keep this scenario, than encourage them to make team work to protect the most vulnerable char. It also could be a nice moment to them to realize the weakness of that char as long as its importance to the group. (If the mephits target only him couse of itss metals, what would everybody else do to protect him? and how much power the party lose when the artificer must keep running for its life?)
However, If the players see this scenario unfair to the artificer's player and complaint about it, I would suggest you to use the heat metal feature moderately. Don't let it out of game, it wouldn't make sense in narrative matters (and your players will realize that you just make it easy for them) but don't use it too often, the magma mephits can be busy with the rest of the party or in charge of protect the scraps while steam mephits go to the front line.
Anyway, I think the best option is the first one. In every possible encounter some char might have a better time or a harder one. Also, they must be glad that anyone else wield metal and the threat is just for one and not for all.
Why would you create a bunch of encounters around heat metal if your PCs don't have metal?
Don't you design encounters to your PCs?
In this case it could be fun if you don't change it as it would force your party to use different tactics. Put the wizard up front and keep the artificer at the back out of range.
Have the players realised at this point that the artificer is in trouble when they come up against the magma mephits? Maybe you could have one or two weaker ones aim straight for the artificer to drop the hint they are after the metal, prior to a 'proper' combat with them, so the players know to protect that player as he will be the intended target.
I agree with Helton that this creates an interesting combat where the other players would need to form a front line, but does this leave the artificer useless if he has no ranged attacks or other actions he can do? From the sounds of your description, the mephits are after melting the metal for favors from their god, could the artificer sacrifice a metal item he has by the mephits focusing their use of the spell on it, which makes him drop it, then another couple of the spells on it melts it down. That limits the damage he will take to not make it too deadly, but instead of being punished by going down or even dying, he's lost an item.
Why would you create a bunch of encounters around heat metal if your PCs don't have metal?
Don't you design encounters to your PCs?
In this case it could be fun if you don't change it as it would force your party to use different tactics. Put the wizard up front and keep the artificer at the back out of range.
I wrote the mission before the characters were made! This is my first campaign so I've over-prepped! I have the entire adventure loosely planned! I didn't even think about a situation where only one player had metal items, that seemed something of a far-fetched idea!
I agree that keeping it as is will work well. The artificer has also been something of the main tank of the party, dealing lots of damage and taking lots of hits, it'll give other players the spotlight somewhat if they are forced to stay back a bit!
Everyone is having fun thus far, my main worry was that I could do a little bit of damage to all the players, except one who I can deal 2d8 damage to every turn. It seemed a bit unbalanced, but then that's realism for you!
Or should I make some reasons why the heat metal has already been used, and reserve it for the boss fight (this is my preferred option thus far), or should I do something else?
If your encounter as written feels too biased and/or limited toward the only armor wearing character, then you could always swap out the heat metal spell for something else. For example, maybe a couple of the magma mephits have the innate ability to cast flaming sphere spell once per day instead of the standard heat metal spell (i.e., changing to a different 2nd level spell). This alteration would both surprise the party when the mephit(s) suddenly do something different than expected and also keep the artificer from being the sole target of effect.
Not saying change it for every mephit, but it wouldn't be illogical that their faith and sacrifices to this "god" figure might have given a couple devote followers something new and different. Normal mephit can target a single source of metal with their innate casting. This other devotee has learned to create a ball of fiery magma to consume everything in its path...
I like the idea of swapping it out for Flaming Sphere, I will take that one I think! It makes them a bit less inclined to focus solely on the poor artificer XD
I notice that not only is the Artificer getting brutalized by their Integrated Protection, they are likely to be using metal weapons. Heat metal is one of those old school "save or suck" spells that have largely been removed from the game, and probably should be avoided.
At third level, all the player characters have pretty sharp limits, and you never mentioned what sub-classes people were taking, nor have I a clue what a player character Ooze might be like. Without knowing the sub-classes and roles the characters are filling, it's hard to advise you except to say that if they are all having fun, just keep right on going.
One thing to keep in mind is that an Armorer Artificer can don or doff their armor as an action. So although it will negatively affect their AC, they can easily escape the effect of the heat metal spell on their armor unlike most armored characters.
Heat metal is very situational. It is very effective against the correct targets and does almost nothing otherwise. I've had several characters just give it a pass entirely since although it is great when you can use it, if you can't use it, it is a useless spell to prepare. On the other hand, a spell like Blindness doesn't require concentration and has a wide range of applicability.
In your case, all the heat metal should be doing is just forcing the artificer to ditch the armor, increasing their AC and costing them an action.
P.S. However, since the only character that can be a reasonable target for the heat metal is the artificer then I'd say they might end up feeling picked on so swapping some magma mephits for steam mephits might not be a bad idea.
Pick on the one PC mercilessly until they realize they should take off their metal armor and weapons.
With all the other PCs being unhindered, they should have a relatively easy time of the dungeon, vs. a party that will either take Heat Metal damage across several members of the party, or all operate in a weakened state.
I notice that not only is the Artificer getting brutalized by their Integrated Protection, they are likely to be using metal weapons. Heat metal is one of those old school "save or suck" spells that have largely been removed from the game, and probably should be avoided.
Actually it's a "You played the wrong type of character" spell. If you're wearing metal armor, congratulations, you're taking 2d8 fire damage per turn and have disadvantage on attack rolls, until someone breaks the spell. There isn't even an option to save (the only save is to avoid dropping a held item).
Change the monsters. You don't want the PCs to fight the same type of monster over and over anyway, unless they're 'standard grunts' - orcs, goblins etc, who just have standard attacks. Something cool like Heat Metal is fine but it's a gimmick for a fight to make that fight more interesting. Using the same gimmick over and over - particularly if it only impacts one character - is going to end up feeling tired fast.
I have a similar issue with counterspell. My players are a blood hunter, barbarian, rogue and tempest cleric. If they face a powerful spell caster with Counterspell, it shuts down the cleric pretty much completely. Every turn - Reaction, counterspell. Only one character in 4 is affected. That's fine for one fight - the cleric has to work out a way to be effective, either by burning the enemy spell slots by forcing counterspells, or by switching to melee attacks or cantrips to invalidate the enemy caster's defence. But if I put in a caster able to do that over and over, the player will feel that they're being shut down in the most frustrating way. This is particularly hard for me as a DM because their enemies are a circle of wizards, each specialising in a different school of magic. How many should have counterspell? Maybe 2 out of 8 seems fair.
Why would you create a bunch of encounters around heat metal if your PCs don't have metal?
Don't you design encounters to your PCs?
In this case it could be fun if you don't change it as it would force your party to use different tactics. Put the wizard up front and keep the artificer at the back out of range.
I wrote the mission before the characters were made! This is my first campaign so I've over-prepped! I have the entire adventure loosely planned! I didn't even think about a situation where only one player had metal items, that seemed something of a far-fetched idea!
I agree that keeping it as is will work well. The artificer has also been something of the main tank of the party, dealing lots of damage and taking lots of hits, it'll give other players the spotlight somewhat if they are forced to stay back a bit!
Everyone is having fun thus far, my main worry was that I could do a little bit of damage to all the players, except one who I can deal 2d8 damage to every turn. It seemed a bit unbalanced, but then that's realism for you!
Oh yeah I have been there before! Congrats on your first campaign btw :)
I think there is something great about writing some encounters that *don't* take the character's abilities into account. It can either make them too easy which can be great as some characters get to feel really powerful, or it can make them really hard which can also be great as it makes the players think out side the box and try new tactics.
The only thing I would recommend is really signpost or telegraph how dangerous the fight will be for that character so they know what the deal is going in. If they walk in there with their armor on and no plan.... well that's on them.
It sounds like you need to remind your players about concentration and focus fire. Every time they hit that magma mephit, there is a slightly-less-than 50% chance the heat metal goes away. If they kill the mephit then the spell absolutely goes away. :-)
Also remind them that dispel magic exists. Maybe do this by dropping a scroll or two in a loot pile.
Same for absorb elements (reduce the fire damage). Also invisibility and fog cloud and darkness and similar (if the mephit can't see you then it can't cast heat metal on your gear).
I wouldn't worry about changing it up too much. Probably what, 2-3 sessions this is going to go on? The artificer will be screwed for a little while, but it will teach the party to find other ways to solve their problems than just relying on him to tank. It will let them get creative. Now, if the entire campaign was based around this concept, then there would be a problem. But for a couple sessions, it should be fine. I'm sure things will happen in the future where other party members will have their own problems -- a bunch of flying things the monk can't reach, some magic-resistant enemies that stymie the wizard, the ooze (?!?!) will have to talk to someone, etc.
I think my current plan is to introduce a magmin or two in place of magma mephits, as the boss can spawn magma mephits so I don't want things to go stale! In fact, I may change it to spawn magmins instead, as they are supposedly summoned to serve masters, so that makes sense! Then I can leave the Mephits in the cave and not be worried about overloading heat metal spells!
I'm expecting this to last one more session, after which we're moving onto different challenges, so I'm not overly concerned that the artificer is going to feel overly picked on! I agree with the sentiment that it will probably help them to work out new ways to overcome the challenges!
for thos who were curious, the Ooze is an Ooze Cohort being played as a player character. Their class is perhaps underpowered compared with standard ones, but the player rolled high for stats so it actually feels about right!
I wouldn't change monster's tactics based on characters posssessions. If it's one of the Mephit's tactics to use heat metal, i'd have them use it whenever they can. It will be up to the Artifier to remove his armor if he doesn't want to die melted in it. ☺
If the party has no additional armor and you want the Artifier to at least wear one, you can always drop a non-metal armor in a treasure nearby.
If the party has no additional armor and you want the Artifier to at least wear one, you can always drop a non-metal armor in a treasure nearby.
No need, really. Mage Armor has a range of touch, not self, and is not a concentration spell. If the artificer didn't build his character with good dex, it might not be great, but I can't think of any non-metal armor that will be either.
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I have found myself in something of a quandry.
I am running my adventurers through a cave filled with steam, and they are fighting Mephits - specifically Steam and Magma mephits.
One of the key features of the magma mephits is that they are able to cast Heat Metal once per day, which I thought would be pretty cool as a challenge - and I have even homebrewed a boss who can cast it twice per day (and summon magma mephits) so it's going to come up quite a bit in the next session!
My problem, however, is that the party composition is making this a little biased.
I have a druid (with no metal), a wizard (with no metal), a monk (with no metal), an ooze (with no metal), and an armourer artificer. The party is at level 3. They just fought 2 steam mephits and a magma mephit, which I would consider to be easy/medium, and the artificer nearly died. Then they took a short rest in the cave, got ambushed, and had to fight another magma mephit, who they dealt with easily.
I am thinking that, to make things more interesting (and make the player feel less like they are being picked on, especially as they just improved their armour) I should replace some of the magma mephits in their path with steam mephits, so there's a bit less heat metal being solely directed to the artificer! I may also make a mephit use their ability out of combat (assuming the party doesn't just charge in and instead scouts a bit) to melt some scrap down, which fits the adventure and will reward them a little for scouting!
The gist of the adventure is that they need to get into this cave where the mephits are melting down scrap metal to sacrifice to their "god" (my homebrew boss) and they need to recover a bag which was stolen and thrown into the pile of stuff to be burnt & melted in a pool of magma. The only enemies I've put in there are Steam and Magma mephits.
What do you think I should do? Should I just play it like the mephits would and risk one party member going down exceedingly early? Or should I make some reasons why the heat metal has already been used, and reserve it for the boss fight (this is my preferred option thus far), or should I do something else?
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Here's a couple questions: Are the players having fun? Would they have more fun, if the encounter worked differently? Did anyone complain that the Artificer almost dropped? Are you equating the chance of losing a character to them not having fun?
You are the best judge of character in this scenario. I would avoid changing your encounter based on what you don't know (is the PC gonna drop), but instead, change it to gain and maintain fun. PC death, or significant threat thereof, can be a powerful moment in game. Parties that find clever ways to successfully combat the threat of PC death feel even more powerful.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Well, I think heat metal is an awesome feature to give the players a fun and harsh time, but it needs to the party to have those metal lol.
I agree with Kaavel that you shouldn't bother too much with it if your players aren't complaining. You can keep this scenario, than encourage them to make team work to protect the most vulnerable char. It also could be a nice moment to them to realize the weakness of that char as long as its importance to the group. (If the mephits target only him couse of itss metals, what would everybody else do to protect him? and how much power the party lose when the artificer must keep running for its life?)
However, If the players see this scenario unfair to the artificer's player and complaint about it, I would suggest you to use the heat metal feature moderately. Don't let it out of game, it wouldn't make sense in narrative matters (and your players will realize that you just make it easy for them) but don't use it too often, the magma mephits can be busy with the rest of the party or in charge of protect the scraps while steam mephits go to the front line.
Anyway, I think the best option is the first one. In every possible encounter some char might have a better time or a harder one. Also, they must be glad that anyone else wield metal and the threat is just for one and not for all.
Why would you create a bunch of encounters around heat metal if your PCs don't have metal?
Don't you design encounters to your PCs?
In this case it could be fun if you don't change it as it would force your party to use different tactics. Put the wizard up front and keep the artificer at the back out of range.
Have the players realised at this point that the artificer is in trouble when they come up against the magma mephits? Maybe you could have one or two weaker ones aim straight for the artificer to drop the hint they are after the metal, prior to a 'proper' combat with them, so the players know to protect that player as he will be the intended target.
I agree with Helton that this creates an interesting combat where the other players would need to form a front line, but does this leave the artificer useless if he has no ranged attacks or other actions he can do? From the sounds of your description, the mephits are after melting the metal for favors from their god, could the artificer sacrifice a metal item he has by the mephits focusing their use of the spell on it, which makes him drop it, then another couple of the spells on it melts it down. That limits the damage he will take to not make it too deadly, but instead of being punished by going down or even dying, he's lost an item.
I wrote the mission before the characters were made! This is my first campaign so I've over-prepped! I have the entire adventure loosely planned! I didn't even think about a situation where only one player had metal items, that seemed something of a far-fetched idea!
I agree that keeping it as is will work well. The artificer has also been something of the main tank of the party, dealing lots of damage and taking lots of hits, it'll give other players the spotlight somewhat if they are forced to stay back a bit!
Everyone is having fun thus far, my main worry was that I could do a little bit of damage to all the players, except one who I can deal 2d8 damage to every turn. It seemed a bit unbalanced, but then that's realism for you!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
If your encounter as written feels too biased and/or limited toward the only armor wearing character, then you could always swap out the heat metal spell for something else. For example, maybe a couple of the magma mephits have the innate ability to cast flaming sphere spell once per day instead of the standard heat metal spell (i.e., changing to a different 2nd level spell). This alteration would both surprise the party when the mephit(s) suddenly do something different than expected and also keep the artificer from being the sole target of effect.
Not saying change it for every mephit, but it wouldn't be illogical that their faith and sacrifices to this "god" figure might have given a couple devote followers something new and different. Normal mephit can target a single source of metal with their innate casting. This other devotee has learned to create a ball of fiery magma to consume everything in its path...
I like the idea of swapping it out for Flaming Sphere, I will take that one I think! It makes them a bit less inclined to focus solely on the poor artificer XD
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
It is a problem with Heat Metal that it's a 'hose very specific characters, useless on others' spell. You can also replace some mephits with Magmin.
I notice that not only is the Artificer getting brutalized by their Integrated Protection, they are likely to be using metal weapons. Heat metal is one of those old school "save or suck" spells that have largely been removed from the game, and probably should be avoided.
At third level, all the player characters have pretty sharp limits, and you never mentioned what sub-classes people were taking, nor have I a clue what a player character Ooze might be like. Without knowing the sub-classes and roles the characters are filling, it's hard to advise you except to say that if they are all having fun, just keep right on going.
<Insert clever signature here>
One thing to keep in mind is that an Armorer Artificer can don or doff their armor as an action. So although it will negatively affect their AC, they can easily escape the effect of the heat metal spell on their armor unlike most armored characters.
Heat metal is very situational. It is very effective against the correct targets and does almost nothing otherwise. I've had several characters just give it a pass entirely since although it is great when you can use it, if you can't use it, it is a useless spell to prepare. On the other hand, a spell like Blindness doesn't require concentration and has a wide range of applicability.
In your case, all the heat metal should be doing is just forcing the artificer to ditch the armor, increasing their AC and costing them an action.
P.S. However, since the only character that can be a reasonable target for the heat metal is the artificer then I'd say they might end up feeling picked on so swapping some magma mephits for steam mephits might not be a bad idea.
Pick on the one PC mercilessly until they realize they should take off their metal armor and weapons.
With all the other PCs being unhindered, they should have a relatively easy time of the dungeon, vs. a party that will either take Heat Metal damage across several members of the party, or all operate in a weakened state.
Actually it's a "You played the wrong type of character" spell. If you're wearing metal armor, congratulations, you're taking 2d8 fire damage per turn and have disadvantage on attack rolls, until someone breaks the spell. There isn't even an option to save (the only save is to avoid dropping a held item).
Change the monsters. You don't want the PCs to fight the same type of monster over and over anyway, unless they're 'standard grunts' - orcs, goblins etc, who just have standard attacks. Something cool like Heat Metal is fine but it's a gimmick for a fight to make that fight more interesting. Using the same gimmick over and over - particularly if it only impacts one character - is going to end up feeling tired fast.
I have a similar issue with counterspell. My players are a blood hunter, barbarian, rogue and tempest cleric. If they face a powerful spell caster with Counterspell, it shuts down the cleric pretty much completely. Every turn - Reaction, counterspell. Only one character in 4 is affected. That's fine for one fight - the cleric has to work out a way to be effective, either by burning the enemy spell slots by forcing counterspells, or by switching to melee attacks or cantrips to invalidate the enemy caster's defence. But if I put in a caster able to do that over and over, the player will feel that they're being shut down in the most frustrating way. This is particularly hard for me as a DM because their enemies are a circle of wizards, each specialising in a different school of magic. How many should have counterspell? Maybe 2 out of 8 seems fair.
Oh yeah I have been there before! Congrats on your first campaign btw :)
I think there is something great about writing some encounters that *don't* take the character's abilities into account. It can either make them too easy which can be great as some characters get to feel really powerful, or it can make them really hard which can also be great as it makes the players think out side the box and try new tactics.
The only thing I would recommend is really signpost or telegraph how dangerous the fight will be for that character so they know what the deal is going in. If they walk in there with their armor on and no plan.... well that's on them.
It sounds like you need to remind your players about concentration and focus fire. Every time they hit that magma mephit, there is a slightly-less-than 50% chance the heat metal goes away. If they kill the mephit then the spell absolutely goes away. :-)
Also remind them that dispel magic exists. Maybe do this by dropping a scroll or two in a loot pile.
Same for absorb elements (reduce the fire damage). Also invisibility and fog cloud and darkness and similar (if the mephit can't see you then it can't cast heat metal on your gear).
I wouldn't worry about changing it up too much. Probably what, 2-3 sessions this is going to go on? The artificer will be screwed for a little while, but it will teach the party to find other ways to solve their problems than just relying on him to tank. It will let them get creative. Now, if the entire campaign was based around this concept, then there would be a problem. But for a couple sessions, it should be fine. I'm sure things will happen in the future where other party members will have their own problems -- a bunch of flying things the monk can't reach, some magic-resistant enemies that stymie the wizard, the ooze (?!?!) will have to talk to someone, etc.
Thank you all for the replies!
I think my current plan is to introduce a magmin or two in place of magma mephits, as the boss can spawn magma mephits so I don't want things to go stale! In fact, I may change it to spawn magmins instead, as they are supposedly summoned to serve masters, so that makes sense! Then I can leave the Mephits in the cave and not be worried about overloading heat metal spells!
I'm expecting this to last one more session, after which we're moving onto different challenges, so I'm not overly concerned that the artificer is going to feel overly picked on! I agree with the sentiment that it will probably help them to work out new ways to overcome the challenges!
for thos who were curious, the Ooze is an Ooze Cohort being played as a player character. Their class is perhaps underpowered compared with standard ones, but the player rolled high for stats so it actually feels about right!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I wouldn't change monster's tactics based on characters posssessions. If it's one of the Mephit's tactics to use heat metal, i'd have them use it whenever they can. It will be up to the Artifier to remove his armor if he doesn't want to die melted in it. ☺
If the party has no additional armor and you want the Artifier to at least wear one, you can always drop a non-metal armor in a treasure nearby.
No need, really. Mage Armor has a range of touch, not self, and is not a concentration spell. If the artificer didn't build his character with good dex, it might not be great, but I can't think of any non-metal armor that will be either.