So... is there anything that says if Mithril armor or Adamantine can or can not be enchanted?
Normally "Armor +1" is Rare, "Armor +2" is Very Rare, "Armor +3" is Legendary . . . If you can enchant Mithril or Adamantine it would make since that they are more rare than the standard counter part so "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +1" would be Very Rare, "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +2" would be Legendary, "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +3" would be a named artifact...likely with at least one other property.
Is there something wrong with this way of thinking? Is their anything in the rules to support it? I have seen these pop-up in homebrew but if their is any official reference? I would love to know. I am indifferent the call one way or another, just curious what people thing and if their has been anything official.
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The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
There aren't exactly rules to re-enchant or improve the enchantment on magic items, but the DM may introduce any such ways or, as is entirely more common, entirely new magical items (such as a Mithril Armor +1) and so on and so forth.
As for the balance of such things? The consensus of players I've seen across a lot of campaigns about this concern when they get a "Armor of the Fallen Gods +6" or something is usually "who the $£^@ cares?!". :p
That said, it's easy enough (especially in this edition) to fiddle with items to get a lot of interesting and useful things without relying on raw numerical bonuses, which are usually boring for everyone except for the guy with the 28 AC.
[Tooltip Not Found] and Adamantine Armor are already magic items, and treated as such by all relevant rules.
There aren't exactly rules to re-enchant or improve the enchantment on magic items, but the DM may introduce any such ways or, as is entirely more common, entirely new magical items (such as a Mithril Armor +1) and so on and so forth.
So the question is then, are Mithril and Adamantine which are magical by the nature of the substance and not by enchantment unable to be enchanted in the first place? Sure they are on the magic items list because they provide magic properties but unlike everything else their magical properties are not the result of the crafting process but in disregard to it. So your not re-enchanting them. Does that mean then their magical property prevents enchantment or that they can be enchanted. Is there any RAW material or even official D&D lore addressing this? Its something I can house rule ether way but In Xanthar's you can make Adamantine Weapons which auto crit on object damage (like taking down a door, something the members of Critical role could use) but again this is not a property of an enchantment but simply a trait of the material used to forge the weapon.
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The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
DMs in their own games are free to make up, create, invent, or devise any and all magic items that they might want. Just because a magic item isn't listed in the books doesn't mean it doesn't or can't exist. Anything that the DM decides to allow is possible.
That said, it is usually better to avoid magic item power escalation. 5e has toned down the magic items and personally, I think this is a good thing.
As for especially finely crafted Mithril or Adamantine armor giving additional protective benefits, it ups the power level slightly but shouldn't break anything. The secondary benefits of mithril are no strength restrictions and stealth and for adamantine it is immunity to critical hits. Both are good effects for the appropriate characters but an extra +1 AC won't break anything in your home game. However, you might want to have these special armors require attunement since they might be particularly magical. This would make deciding to use these armors a decision with a cost involved rather than a strict upgrade (and since you are the DM you can make up whatever requirements you wish on the magic items you create).
If you are playing Adventurers League or some other type of shared campaign there are far more limits and you can't do whatever you like :)
There's no official ruling either way in any current 5th edition publication.
I expect that this is on purpose, to allow DMs the flexibility to use these materials as they like with respect to homebrew magic items.
So if D&D 5th edition wants to keep it open but as a GM I want to stay canon... then I guess I go to the "world" for elaboration. I am playing forgotten Realms and my group wants to stick to it. Which pretty much means the reply I got from Ed Greenwood on Twitter is as good as it gets.
"Items made of the metal mithral and the alloy adamantine can definitely be enchanted (by those who know how, of course), or we wouldn't have forty-odd years-worth of published official magic items made or partially made of them. ;}" Ed Greenwood@TheEdVerse
Really surprised to get that response and really happy to get it. Now I can tell my players that if I give them weapons of mithral or the alloy adamantine they can get them enchanted but I will likely make it quest for specialist enchanter thing. The way I do loot it might not come up but at least if we do get a tank with something like this on the way he has an option to keep them even as they might get higher magic item drops. I will likely make the cost the median/high of the rarity of the enchant +1 rarity level for the unique substance and the specialist to work it.
The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
I have permission to purchase +2 Adamantine Plate Mail at level 12....is this allowed? Or is it up to the DM? Or is there an official ruling? Also if it's legendary what is the level required to use it?
5e equipment rules are a bit lacking as far as I am concerned. I like to sometimes keep in the rules from 3e &/or Pathfinder.
Re: the old rules, and hombrewing, yes, you can give Mithril enhancement bonus's and other magical affects. In fact, you can do so MORE easily and redily than you can with normal steel.
In the case of Adamantine, I don't quite remember if you actually need to. I think they used to come with a natural enhancement bonus by default based on the ammount of metal used such that a suit of adamantine field plate would already exist with a +3 to AC; or perhaps to DR...? I don't remember if this functions against incorporeal foes the way a magical enhancement bonus would; and do know that natural and magical enhancement bonus's DON'T stack. You'd use the most applicable bonus in a given situation. So if you had a +1 suit of Adamantine Field Plate then vs ghosts, it would give you +1, but vs, gnolls, it would give you +3, not +4.
This is missing in 5e, because they nerfed mithral too. When mithral is working "correctly" it reduces armor type by one step such that heavy armors count as medium and medium armors count as light. Among other effects, this increases the applicable Dex bonus's to AC for characters wearing these armors. In 5e terms, this means a potential +2 to AC from Dex to all formerly heavy armors made from mithral, and for all formerly medium armors, a shift from a maximum of +2 to a maximum of +5 given a cap of 20 on ability scores. So IMHO, for Adamantine to stay competetive as desireable choice vs fully functioning mithral, it should indeed retain a natural enhancement bonus or DR affect given the infrequency of the use of it's only current benefit to negate a critical hit (which I don't remember being one of it's old features)
Also, not sure how the 5e rules work concerning this; but in 3e in order to add a magical effect to weapon, shield, or armor, it had to have a +1 magical enhancement bonus first. All magical items such as Hide Armor of Acid Resistance or what-have-you would count by default as a +1 item. This magical +1 again did NOT stack with any natural +1 or more that the item may have had from being of superior/masterwork quality, or from being made out of something like Dragonhide etc.
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We know for a fact that Adamantine is not inherently magical as a substance because it can be used to make nonmagical weapons and ammunition.
Adamantine Weapons
Adamantine is an ultrahard metal found in meteorites and extraordinary mineral veins. In addition to being used to craft adamantine armor, the metal is also used for weapons.
Melee weapons and ammunition made of or coated with adamantine are unusually effective when used to break objects. Whenever an adamantine weapon or piece of ammunition hits an object, the hit is a critical hit.
The adamantine version of a melee weapon or of ten pieces of ammunition costs 500 gp more than the normal version, whether the weapon or ammunition is made of the metal or coated with it.
I would refer to the rules from the DMG, but let’s face it, they’re pretty bad. (I’d call them 🐶💩, but i don’t want to insult the 🐶 like that.) So instead I’ll go with the same version of RAW that everyone else uses for crafting this edition, the ones in Xanathar’s Guide:
Crafting Magic Items. Creating a magic item requires more than just time, effort, and materials. It is a long-term process that involves one or more adventures to track down rare materials and the lore needed to create the item.
5e equipment rules are a bit lacking as far as I am concerned. I like to sometimes keep in the rules from 3e &/or Pathfinder.
Re: the old rules, and hombrewing, yes, you can give Mithril enhancement bonus's and other magical affects. In fact, you can do so MORE easily and redily than you can with normal steel.
In the case of Adamantine, I don't quite remember if you actually need to. I think they used to come with a natural enhancement bonus by default based on the ammount of metal used such that a suit of adamantine field plate would already exist with a +3 to AC; or perhaps to DR...? I don't remember if this functions against incorporeal foes the way a magical enhancement bonus would; and do know that natural and magical enhancement bonus's DON'T stack. You'd use the most applicable bonus in a given situation. So if you had a +1 suit of Adamantine Field Plate then vs ghosts, it would give you +1, but vs, gnolls, it would give you +3, not +4.
This is missing in 5e, because they nerfed mithral too. When mithral is working "correctly" it reduces armor type by one step such that heavy armors count as medium and medium armors count as light. Among other effects, this increases the applicable Dex bonus's to AC for characters wearing these armors. In 5e terms, this means a potential +2 to AC from Dex to all formerly heavy armors made from mithral, and for all formerly medium armors, a shift from a maximum of +2 to a maximum of +5 given a cap of 20 on ability scores. So IMHO, for Adamantine to stay competetive as desireable choice vs fully functioning mithral, it should indeed retain a natural enhancement bonus or DR affect given the infrequency of the use of it's only current benefit to negate a critical hit (which I don't remember being one of it's old features)
Also, not sure how the 5e rules work concerning this; but in 3e in order to add a magical effect to weapon, shield, or armor, it had to have a +1 magical enhancement bonus first. All magical items such as Hide Armor of Acid Resistance or what-have-you would count by default as a +1 item. This magical +1 again did NOT stack with any natural +1 or more that the item may have had from being of superior/masterwork quality, or from being made out of something like Dragonhide etc.
Keep in mind that 5e is designed to be run with smaller numbers than earlier editions, as part of Bounded Accuracy. +3 Armor/Weapons are the hard limit. That's probably why there isn't a +1 minimum requirement for enchanted armor, shields or weapons.
Also... I'm not sure the redefining of how mithral armor works is a nerf in the current system. Mithral Armor, as defined in 5e, removes any Stealth Disadvantage penalty or minimum Strength requirement from the type of armor. Those are nothing to sneeze at, especially for a paladin with an otherwise stealthy party, especially if they run into Strength-draining enemies like shadows. And having mithral heavy armor count as medium would make it less desirable to the paladin who dumps Dexterity.
Basically, it doesn't work so well to compare particular items or rules from an earlier edition directly to the same things in 5e. A lot depends on the underlying design structure of the game.
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Fair enough. It still should halve the weight of the gear in question though. Part of the wonderfulness of mithral is that a character whose dump stat is strength and so has low encumberance capacity can wear something normally relatively heavy for them and not have to sacrifice so much additional overall carrying capacity to do so.
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I played a cleric in a side quest from the Starter/Essentials sets, using the Epic Encounters Red Dragon and Kobold encounters. I had mithril armour pop up, I made it +1 along with it's baseline properties, I'm unsure why this is not covered in the DMG. To me it's +1 armour, the metal makes no difference! The fact you could have mithril or adamantine mixes things up a bit. I wouldn't award those items with less of a fight though! Must be earnt! Near death experience!
5e equipment rules are a bit lacking as far as I am concerned. I like to sometimes keep in the rules from 3e &/or Pathfinder.
Re: the old rules, and hombrewing, yes, you can give Mithril enhancement bonus's and other magical affects. In fact, you can do so MORE easily and redily than you can with normal steel.
In the case of Adamantine, I don't quite remember if you actually need to. I think they used to come with a natural enhancement bonus by default based on the ammount of metal used such that a suit of adamantine field plate would already exist with a +3 to AC; or perhaps to DR...? I don't remember if this functions against incorporeal foes the way a magical enhancement bonus would; and do know that natural and magical enhancement bonus's DON'T stack. You'd use the most applicable bonus in a given situation. So if you had a +1 suit of Adamantine Field Plate then vs ghosts, it would give you +1, but vs, gnolls, it would give you +3, not +4.
This is missing in 5e, because they nerfed mithral too. When mithral is working "correctly" it reduces armor type by one step such that heavy armors count as medium and medium armors count as light. Among other effects, this increases the applicable Dex bonus's to AC for characters wearing these armors. In 5e terms, this means a potential +2 to AC from Dex to all formerly heavy armors made from mithral, and for all formerly medium armors, a shift from a maximum of +2 to a maximum of +5 given a cap of 20 on ability scores. So IMHO, for Adamantine to stay competetive as desireable choice vs fully functioning mithral, it should indeed retain a natural enhancement bonus or DR affect given the infrequency of the use of it's only current benefit to negate a critical hit (which I don't remember being one of it's old features)
Also, not sure how the 5e rules work concerning this; but in 3e in order to add a magical effect to weapon, shield, or armor, it had to have a +1 magical enhancement bonus first. All magical items such as Hide Armor of Acid Resistance or what-have-you would count by default as a +1 item. This magical +1 again did NOT stack with any natural +1 or more that the item may have had from being of superior/masterwork quality, or from being made out of something like Dragonhide etc.
Keep in mind that 5e is designed to be run with smaller numbers than earlier editions, as part of Bounded Accuracy. +3 Armor/Weapons are the hard limit. That's probably why there isn't a +1 minimum requirement for enchanted armor, shields or weapons.
Also... I'm not sure the redefining of how mithral armor works is a nerf in the current system. Mithral Armor, as defined in 5e, removes any Stealth Disadvantage penalty or minimum Strength requirement from the type of armor. Those are nothing to sneeze at, especially for a paladin with an otherwise stealthy party, especially if they run into Strength-draining enemies like shadows. And having mithral heavy armor count as medium would make it less desirable to the paladin who dumps Dexterity.
Basically, it doesn't work so well to compare particular items or rules from an earlier edition directly to the same things in 5e. A lot depends on the underlying design structure of the game.
5e is about working with fewer and smaller modifiers (the bounded accuracy thing), with the result that having +1 to a weapon/armor/shield means more. That's also why some magic items that had been +1 in 3(.5)e, like mithral armor, don't have +1 but provide a particular mechanical benefit (no disadvantage on Stealth.) You can still use that as a base for a +1 armor or armor that gives a type of damage resistance, but doing so bumps up the rarity of the magic item.
If you're only recently DMing in 5e after using 3.5e/Pathfinder for a long time, I highly recommend that you carefully read the 5e Basic Rules. The system is very different under the hood in subtle ways that you might not expect (or mistake as "dumbing down".)
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5e is about working with fewer and smaller modifiers (the bounded accuracy thing), with the result that having +1 to a weapon/armor/shield means more. That's also why some magic items that had been +1 in 3(.5)e, like mithral armor, don't have +1 but provide a particular mechanical benefit (no disadvantage on Stealth.) You can still use that as a base for a +1 armor or armor that gives a type of damage resistance, but doing so bumps up the rarity of the magic item.
If you're only recently DMing in 5e after using 3.5e/Pathfinder for a long time, I highly recommend that you carefully read the 5e Basic Rules. The system is very different under the hood in subtle ways that you might not expect (or mistake as "dumbing down".)
haha, was being somewhat sarcastic with the "+5 holy Avengers" from yesteryear. I've come back after a layoff. One of 17 years initially in 2014, when 5e was released, I picked up the base books, starter set and a couple adventures Tyranny etc, started running ToD, but group due to work reasons etc of a couple couldn't make the time. Literally revisiting after 4-5 years again. I did know they wanted to move away from insane +5/+6 modifiers. It's just a weapon of such magnitude would be at near level 20, you would forsake some minor/major beneficial properties perhaps to make it work if you wanted the higher bonus modifiers to attack/damage rolls, you could home brew it still. I am however "inexperienced" to say the least, and it would be the stereotypical balancing act as always.
I personally couldn't stand seeing Mithril armour not giving an AC bonus as an extra, such an innate piece of kit, lovingly crafted and "magical" without a modifier? The fact the metal is either lighter/changes crit into normal hit etc, does make it "very rare" I totally agree.
when you look at the novels, most magic weapons/armor are already made out of mithral/adamantine. usually, you need an exceptional quality weapon to enchant it at all. that's novels though.
when you look at the novels, most magic weapons/armor are already made out of mithral/adamantine. usually, you need an exceptional quality weapon to enchant it at all. that's novels though.
yep good point. That's definitely where I'm coming from in terms of my reply for sure
I allow Adamantine chainmail, splint and plate as non-magical armours (the only real effect of this is that they don't glow under Detect Magic) that can be manufactured and purchased in cities, in order to enable heavy armour wearers to have some actual benefit compared to having studded leather and +5 dexterity. DEX is already the best stat in the game (just as good in melee, also does ranged, and initiative - one of the most important and underrated stats in the game). I really hate that the best armour in existence, full plate armour (which in reality makes you almost immune to handheld weapons), is barely better than just being quick and wearing a biker's leather jacket (yes I know leather armour is meant to be more than that, but seriously).
"But what about half-plate?" I hear you cry. Well, there just isn't any adamantine half-plate because then half-plate is still straight up better than plate, which is also just really annoying.
I feel that whoever wrote the rules for adamantine weapons was just stuck trying to come up with something that sat between a mundane weapon and a +1 weapon, and that didn't make it better than a +1 weapon, which is pretty difficult so was just "Errrr hey guys, yeah ok, so like it's a sword that's really dangerous if you're fight a cottage."
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So... is there anything that says if Mithril armor or Adamantine can or can not be enchanted?
Normally "Armor +1" is Rare, "Armor +2" is Very Rare, "Armor +3" is Legendary . . . If you can enchant Mithril or Adamantine it would make since that they are more rare than the standard counter part so "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +1" would be Very Rare, "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +2" would be Legendary, "Mithril or Adamantine Armor +3" would be a named artifact...likely with at least one other property.
Is there something wrong with this way of thinking? Is their anything in the rules to support it? I have seen these pop-up in homebrew but if their is any official reference? I would love to know. I am indifferent the call one way or another, just curious what people thing and if their has been anything official.
The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
Mithral Armor and Adamantine Armor are already magic items, and treated as such by all relevant rules.
There aren't exactly rules to re-enchant or improve the enchantment on magic items, but the DM may introduce any such ways or, as is entirely more common, entirely new magical items (such as a Mithril Armor +1) and so on and so forth.
As for the balance of such things? The consensus of players I've seen across a lot of campaigns about this concern when they get a "Armor of the Fallen Gods +6" or something is usually "who the $£^@ cares?!". :p
That said, it's easy enough (especially in this edition) to fiddle with items to get a lot of interesting and useful things without relying on raw numerical bonuses, which are usually boring for everyone except for the guy with the 28 AC.
So the question is then, are Mithril and Adamantine which are magical by the nature of the substance and not by enchantment unable to be enchanted in the first place? Sure they are on the magic items list because they provide magic properties but unlike everything else their magical properties are not the result of the crafting process but in disregard to it. So your not re-enchanting them. Does that mean then their magical property prevents enchantment or that they can be enchanted. Is there any RAW material or even official D&D lore addressing this? Its something I can house rule ether way but In Xanthar's you can make Adamantine Weapons which auto crit on object damage (like taking down a door, something the members of Critical role could use) but again this is not a property of an enchantment but simply a trait of the material used to forge the weapon.
The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
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D&D Beyond FoundersThere's no official ruling either way in any current 5th edition publication.
I expect that this is on purpose, to allow DMs the flexibility to use these materials as they like with respect to homebrew magic items.
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DMs in their own games are free to make up, create, invent, or devise any and all magic items that they might want. Just because a magic item isn't listed in the books doesn't mean it doesn't or can't exist. Anything that the DM decides to allow is possible.
That said, it is usually better to avoid magic item power escalation. 5e has toned down the magic items and personally, I think this is a good thing.
As for especially finely crafted Mithril or Adamantine armor giving additional protective benefits, it ups the power level slightly but shouldn't break anything. The secondary benefits of mithril are no strength restrictions and stealth and for adamantine it is immunity to critical hits. Both are good effects for the appropriate characters but an extra +1 AC won't break anything in your home game. However, you might want to have these special armors require attunement since they might be particularly magical. This would make deciding to use these armors a decision with a cost involved rather than a strict upgrade (and since you are the DM you can make up whatever requirements you wish on the magic items you create).
If you are playing Adventurers League or some other type of shared campaign there are far more limits and you can't do whatever you like :)
So if D&D 5th edition wants to keep it open but as a GM I want to stay canon... then I guess I go to the "world" for elaboration. I am playing forgotten Realms and my group wants to stick to it. Which pretty much means the reply I got from Ed Greenwood on Twitter is as good as it gets.
"Items made of the metal mithral and the alloy adamantine can definitely be enchanted (by those who know how, of course), or we wouldn't have forty-odd years-worth of published official magic items made or partially made of them. ;}" Ed Greenwood @TheEdVerse
Really surprised to get that response and really happy to get it. Now I can tell my players that if I give them weapons of mithral or the alloy adamantine they can get them enchanted but I will likely make it quest for specialist enchanter thing. The way I do loot it might not come up but at least if we do get a tank with something like this on the way he has an option to keep them even as they might get higher magic item drops. I will likely make the cost the median/high of the rarity of the enchant +1 rarity level for the unique substance and the specialist to work it.
The lack of inflection in text means that a reader of any post adds their own inflection as they "verbalize" it in their head. I write long and repetitive in an effort to be clear and avoid my intent from being skewed or inverted. I am also bad at examples. It is common for people to skim my posts pull out the idea they think I mean or want to argue against or focus on my bad example instead of the point I am actually trying to make. I apologies for the confusion my failure to be clear and concise creates.
I have permission to purchase +2 Adamantine Plate Mail at level 12....is this allowed? Or is it up to the DM? Or is there an official ruling? Also if it's legendary what is the level required to use it?
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There is not an official +2 Adamantine Plate armor. It would be up to the DM whether to allow it, and at what cost.
Magic Items generally don't have a level requirement with them, so as soon as you get it.
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5e equipment rules are a bit lacking as far as I am concerned. I like to sometimes keep in the rules from 3e &/or Pathfinder.
Re: the old rules, and hombrewing, yes, you can give Mithril enhancement bonus's and other magical affects. In fact, you can do so MORE easily and redily than you can with normal steel.
In the case of Adamantine, I don't quite remember if you actually need to. I think they used to come with a natural enhancement bonus by default based on the ammount of metal used such that a suit of adamantine field plate would already exist with a +3 to AC; or perhaps to DR...? I don't remember if this functions against incorporeal foes the way a magical enhancement bonus would; and do know that natural and magical enhancement bonus's DON'T stack. You'd use the most applicable bonus in a given situation. So if you had a +1 suit of Adamantine Field Plate then vs ghosts, it would give you +1, but vs, gnolls, it would give you +3, not +4.
This is missing in 5e, because they nerfed mithral too. When mithral is working "correctly" it reduces armor type by one step such that heavy armors count as medium and medium armors count as light. Among other effects, this increases the applicable Dex bonus's to AC for characters wearing these armors. In 5e terms, this means a potential +2 to AC from Dex to all formerly heavy armors made from mithral, and for all formerly medium armors, a shift from a maximum of +2 to a maximum of +5 given a cap of 20 on ability scores. So IMHO, for Adamantine to stay competetive as desireable choice vs fully functioning mithral, it should indeed retain a natural enhancement bonus or DR affect given the infrequency of the use of it's only current benefit to negate a critical hit (which I don't remember being one of it's old features)
Also, not sure how the 5e rules work concerning this; but in 3e in order to add a magical effect to weapon, shield, or armor, it had to have a +1 magical enhancement bonus first. All magical items such as Hide Armor of Acid Resistance or what-have-you would count by default as a +1 item. This magical +1 again did NOT stack with any natural +1 or more that the item may have had from being of superior/masterwork quality, or from being made out of something like Dragonhide etc.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
We know for a fact that Adamantine is not inherently magical as a substance because it can be used to make nonmagical weapons and ammunition.
I would refer to the rules from the DMG, but let’s face it, they’re pretty bad. (I’d call them 🐶💩, but i don’t want to insult the 🐶 like that.) So instead I’ll go with the same version of RAW that everyone else uses for crafting this edition, the ones in Xanathar’s Guide:
Any guesses what the key “rare material” is for making Adamantine Armor? Or Mithral Armor, or Dragon Scale Mail for that matter…? (This does not apply to dwarven plate, nor to boots of elvenkind / cloak of elvenkind. 😜)
Notice how in this edition, there is no more green-steel, or red-steel, or any other explicitly magical metals?
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The DM can certainly introduce pluses to these magic armors but they don't come off the book with that option.
Keep in mind that 5e is designed to be run with smaller numbers than earlier editions, as part of Bounded Accuracy. +3 Armor/Weapons are the hard limit. That's probably why there isn't a +1 minimum requirement for enchanted armor, shields or weapons.
Also... I'm not sure the redefining of how mithral armor works is a nerf in the current system. Mithral Armor, as defined in 5e, removes any Stealth Disadvantage penalty or minimum Strength requirement from the type of armor. Those are nothing to sneeze at, especially for a paladin with an otherwise stealthy party, especially if they run into Strength-draining enemies like shadows. And having mithral heavy armor count as medium would make it less desirable to the paladin who dumps Dexterity.
Basically, it doesn't work so well to compare particular items or rules from an earlier edition directly to the same things in 5e. A lot depends on the underlying design structure of the game.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Fair enough. It still should halve the weight of the gear in question though. Part of the wonderfulness of mithral is that a character whose dump stat is strength and so has low encumberance capacity can wear something normally relatively heavy for them and not have to sacrifice so much additional overall carrying capacity to do so.
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I played a cleric in a side quest from the Starter/Essentials sets, using the Epic Encounters Red Dragon and Kobold encounters. I had mithril armour pop up, I made it +1 along with it's baseline properties, I'm unsure why this is not covered in the DMG. To me it's +1 armour, the metal makes no difference! The fact you could have mithril or adamantine mixes things up a bit. I wouldn't award those items with less of a fight though! Must be earnt! Near death experience!
So no legendary/artifact +5 Holy Avengers?! :(
Nope, Holy Avenger is Legendary but +3.
5e is about working with fewer and smaller modifiers (the bounded accuracy thing), with the result that having +1 to a weapon/armor/shield means more. That's also why some magic items that had been +1 in 3(.5)e, like mithral armor, don't have +1 but provide a particular mechanical benefit (no disadvantage on Stealth.) You can still use that as a base for a +1 armor or armor that gives a type of damage resistance, but doing so bumps up the rarity of the magic item.
If you're only recently DMing in 5e after using 3.5e/Pathfinder for a long time, I highly recommend that you carefully read the 5e Basic Rules. The system is very different under the hood in subtle ways that you might not expect (or mistake as "dumbing down".)
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
haha, was being somewhat sarcastic with the "+5 holy Avengers" from yesteryear. I've come back after a layoff. One of 17 years initially in 2014, when 5e was released, I picked up the base books, starter set and a couple adventures Tyranny etc, started running ToD, but group due to work reasons etc of a couple couldn't make the time. Literally revisiting after 4-5 years again. I did know they wanted to move away from insane +5/+6 modifiers. It's just a weapon of such magnitude would be at near level 20, you would forsake some minor/major beneficial properties perhaps to make it work if you wanted the higher bonus modifiers to attack/damage rolls, you could home brew it still. I am however "inexperienced" to say the least, and it would be the stereotypical balancing act as always.
I personally couldn't stand seeing Mithril armour not giving an AC bonus as an extra, such an innate piece of kit, lovingly crafted and "magical" without a modifier? The fact the metal is either lighter/changes crit into normal hit etc, does make it "very rare" I totally agree.
when you look at the novels, most magic weapons/armor are already made out of mithral/adamantine. usually, you need an exceptional quality weapon to enchant it at all. that's novels though.
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yep good point. That's definitely where I'm coming from in terms of my reply for sure
I allow Adamantine chainmail, splint and plate as non-magical armours (the only real effect of this is that they don't glow under Detect Magic) that can be manufactured and purchased in cities, in order to enable heavy armour wearers to have some actual benefit compared to having studded leather and +5 dexterity. DEX is already the best stat in the game (just as good in melee, also does ranged, and initiative - one of the most important and underrated stats in the game). I really hate that the best armour in existence, full plate armour (which in reality makes you almost immune to handheld weapons), is barely better than just being quick and wearing a biker's leather jacket (yes I know leather armour is meant to be more than that, but seriously).
"But what about half-plate?" I hear you cry. Well, there just isn't any adamantine half-plate because then half-plate is still straight up better than plate, which is also just really annoying.
I feel that whoever wrote the rules for adamantine weapons was just stuck trying to come up with something that sat between a mundane weapon and a +1 weapon, and that didn't make it better than a +1 weapon, which is pretty difficult so was just "Errrr hey guys, yeah ok, so like it's a sword that's really dangerous if you're fight a cottage."