There are plenty of weapons that don't provide a bonus to hit/damage yet still are magical. Same goes for armor. If it's on the magic item list, it's a magic item. If it's not, it's probably not. Things like Alchemist's Fire may skirt the edges of being a magic item or not since it deals an "elemental" damage type, but the word "magical" does not appear in its description.
Mechanically there's nothing special about adamantine/mithral weapons. I'm guessing making a section on materials for armors would made things more complex than needed, therefore they put adamantine armor/mithral armor in the magic item section. Also this means that RAW you can't have a mithral demon armor or an adamantine mariner's armor or the like. I'm guessing that it would be possible that magic items is made from special materials. Same as that elven chain probably is made from mithral and if Dwarven Plate is made from adamantine that would also make sense. It's possible that the design team simply did not want to put down these rules, meaning that the DM can do with it what they want.
I don't count adamantine nor mithral as magical per se in most situations. However, I would consider it a pretty d*ck move if my dm would go "ok, that adamantine sword you have that cost you an arm and a leg (sometimes literal), yeah that's gone now... Sucks bro..." As a DM, I would not let such abilities work against them, but also not let the material work for them unless specified or if it fits the story. If I decided that this particular vampire was an elven king that sold mithral to devils for personal power, so a weapon from mithral harms it as if it were magical that makes a cool story. Simply having a weapon deal more damage to a bear because it hurts a stone golem more makes no sense to me.
You could make a difference between adamantine armor and adamantine armor, but that probably confuses players (with good reason). Adamantine and Mithral are pretty rare materials. Personally I don't like giving my players cool stuff just to take them away unless there's a good reason (either in game or out of game). So I would say that they are immune to "rust effects" and such.
I was going to bring this up in a new thread but then I found this was already here.
A lot of magical traps with rust effects do not specifically single out iron or iron alloys (like steel), suggesting all metal items are all equally prey to being magically rusted. Ditto for magic traps with a magnetic effect, the text usually states "metal objects" instead of limiting it to iron, nickel, copper, or alloys thereof.
I'm going to suppose this is intentionally designed this way to speed play, a lot of D&D 5e tends to not split hairs. Much like when you hurl a dagger you don't use your Dexterity bonus for to-hit and then your Strength bonus for damage, a-la Ad&d 2nd edition.
Though my players are sure going to cry foul when I turn their adamantine and silver items into rust flake. (shrug) It's magic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am a Canadian Dungeon Master, which means I reflexively apologize when the monsters score a critical hit on the players' characters.
to be considered magical armour, an armour has to have a magical addition to the armour class of the person wearing it.
Adamantine Armor is magic armor because it says right there in the description "MAGIC ITEM"
well i knew you were talking twaddle without re reading the item description but i read it again just in case and there's no where in the item description which says it's a magic item in either place that it's mentioned, however there's nothing in the description of silvered weapons anywhere either and they must be magical because as everyone knows they have a property that's not exactly the same as every weapon made of iron, it must be that they'er magical, not that they're a different material that has different properties ;)
I understand that CaptainCarrot has his own home rules about magic items that reflect previous editions, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But, to be fair, Adamantine Armor (and Mace of Disruption, etc), are magic items because they are included in the "Magic Items" listing in the DM's Guide, and thus do not often include further explicit mentions about their status (weapons often mention it explicitly, and I suspect this is specifically to prevent confusion about requiring a +1 or better to be considered such - the Mace of Disruption above, for example, does include the phrase "with this magic weapon").
Silvered weapons, on the contrary, appear in the Player's Handbook (page 148), in the Equipment -> Weapons category, and are thus not magical unless they explicitly specify such a quality. The same applies for Adamantine weapons (in Xanathar's, page 78).
Look, clearly this boils down to the fact that the magic item Adamantine Armor was introduced first in the initial publishing, and then when people were asking about about Adamantine weapons, and they were subsequently included in Xanathar's, they came in as non magical items more akin to silvered weapons. There is no lore or rule balancing reason why all Adamantine armor is magical (only the magic item exists, and no rule/effect is given for non magical Adamantine armor) while Adamantine weapons default to being non magic. It is just an oversight and misalignment resulting from different publishing times. Any ruling from here or from Jeremy is at best accurately interpreting the clearly accidentally misaligned rules as they stand.
I would rule that neither Adamantine object counts as magical by default, but add text to both saying "Adamantine objects count as magical for the purpose of resisting rust or corrosion effects, or any other magical effect which would damage or destroy an object." You can then also have magical versions of either weapon or armor which have added enchantments and are at least one level more rare than a non-adamantine version. These get their normal magic bonus (+1 or whatever) plus their Adamantine feature (damage vs objects or negate crits).
Simple solution: Just declare Adamantine to be a magical metal. "Adamantine is created when magic permeates and penetrates mineral veins blah blah blah lore stuff goes here"
Why is Adamantine armor magical? It's made of magic metal. Give the weapons the "magic weapon" trait in addition to the damage bonus against objects. Won't break your game, I promise, and it helps create some consistency to the world. Plus it helps justify dropping the extra 500 GP for the Adamantine sword.
If you want Adamantine to be a unique but mundane metal, you can just say that it's unique from iron and therefor doesn't rust. Aluminum doesn't rust because it's got no iron. It corrodes, but that's not a corrosion monster, it's a rust monster
The flavor of adamantine is that it is a super metal, extremely rare and valued for it's insane durability. I would just rule it doesn't rust to go with the flavor. I get that technically this may be disagreeable to folks, but that is my take on it.
Regarding nonmagical adamantine armor, I think I can safely say you won't ever run into that issue since it seems pointless. The item description says that the magic item Adamantine Armor is reinforced with adamantine, not that it is solid adamantine. Since the cost of a regular set of plate armor is 1500, triple that of most uncommon magic items (the category that Adamantine Armor falls under), and since adding adamantine to a weapon costs 500 (weapons are smaller than a set of armor), I can't imagine why anyone would add adamantine to armor unless it was for the purpose of getting it enchanted.
As for feeling bad about corroding someone's 500 gp sword, there's a few ways to go about fixing this. First, you could make magic items more expensive or adamantine weapons cheaper. That way, there is one distinct advantage adamantine weapons have over magic ones. Alternatively, make it so that rust monsters can digest adamantine, but it takes them time to do so, so getting briefly hit by an adamantine weapon won't corrode it.
This is the way I've run it. Player 1 goes to a blacksmith dragging with him a sack of Adamantite, he says to the blacksmith: Make me some armor! The blacksmith fits it to Player 1, gold and beer are exchanged, Player 1 has an Adamantine breastplate that is not magic. later while adventuring, Rust Monster attacks, bad roll ensues, breastplate is gone. Player 1 gives Stink-eye to the DM.
Later, Player 1 slays a monster, finds a halfling sized Adamantine breastplate in it's hoard, as he's holding it, it resizes itself to fit him. (Page 140 in the DMG where it says they may magically adjust themselves to fit the wearer). Player 1 puts it on, goes back to seek revenge on the Rust Monster, bad roll ensues, but this time, the breastplate survives! Roasted Rust Monster is consumed with gusto by Player one, as vengeance is sweet.
Basically for my games is: If you give a smith raw ore and they make you a weapon or armor, it has the properties of an adamantine forged creation. Immune to crit for armor, and bonus to siege damage for weapons, but it is not in and of itself magic, therefore it's susceptible to the effects of the Rust Monster. Weave Adamantine into the creation of a magic weapon or armor, and you get a magic item with the same properties (Immune crit, siege damage bonus) but Rust Monster immune.
According to the DMG P140 "In most cases, a magic item that's meant to be worn can fit a creature regardless of size or build. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or the: magically adjust themselves to the wearer."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Adamantine Armor is magic armor because it says right there in the description "MAGIC ITEM"
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
mace of disruption ??
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
There are plenty of weapons that don't provide a bonus to hit/damage yet still are magical. Same goes for armor. If it's on the magic item list, it's a magic item. If it's not, it's probably not. Things like Alchemist's Fire may skirt the edges of being a magic item or not since it deals an "elemental" damage type, but the word "magical" does not appear in its description.
Mechanically there's nothing special about adamantine/mithral weapons. I'm guessing making a section on materials for armors would made things more complex than needed, therefore they put adamantine armor/mithral armor in the magic item section. Also this means that RAW you can't have a mithral demon armor or an adamantine mariner's armor or the like. I'm guessing that it would be possible that magic items is made from special materials. Same as that elven chain probably is made from mithral and if Dwarven Plate is made from adamantine that would also make sense. It's possible that the design team simply did not want to put down these rules, meaning that the DM can do with it what they want.
I don't count adamantine nor mithral as magical per se in most situations. However, I would consider it a pretty d*ck move if my dm would go "ok, that adamantine sword you have that cost you an arm and a leg (sometimes literal), yeah that's gone now... Sucks bro..." As a DM, I would not let such abilities work against them, but also not let the material work for them unless specified or if it fits the story. If I decided that this particular vampire was an elven king that sold mithral to devils for personal power, so a weapon from mithral harms it as if it were magical that makes a cool story. Simply having a weapon deal more damage to a bear because it hurts a stone golem more makes no sense to me.
You could make a difference between adamantine armor and adamantine armor, but that probably confuses players (with good reason). Adamantine and Mithral are pretty rare materials. Personally I don't like giving my players cool stuff just to take them away unless there's a good reason (either in game or out of game). So I would say that they are immune to "rust effects" and such.
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
I was going to bring this up in a new thread but then I found this was already here.
A lot of magical traps with rust effects do not specifically single out iron or iron alloys (like steel), suggesting all metal items are all equally prey to being magically rusted. Ditto for magic traps with a magnetic effect, the text usually states "metal objects" instead of limiting it to iron, nickel, copper, or alloys thereof.
I'm going to suppose this is intentionally designed this way to speed play, a lot of D&D 5e tends to not split hairs. Much like when you hurl a dagger you don't use your Dexterity bonus for to-hit and then your Strength bonus for damage, a-la Ad&d 2nd edition.
Though my players are sure going to cry foul when I turn their adamantine and silver items into rust flake. (shrug) It's magic.
I am a Canadian Dungeon Master, which means I reflexively apologize when the monsters score a critical hit on the players' characters.
you'll never come across a mace of disruption in my personal game that doesn't have some form of plus, but that's just my game
well i knew you were talking twaddle without re reading the item description but i read it again just in case and there's no where in the item description which says it's a magic item in either place that it's mentioned, however there's nothing in the description of silvered weapons anywhere either and they must be magical because as everyone knows they have a property that's not exactly the same as every weapon made of iron, it must be that they'er magical, not that they're a different material that has different properties ;)
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
I understand that CaptainCarrot has his own home rules about magic items that reflect previous editions, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But, to be fair, Adamantine Armor (and Mace of Disruption, etc), are magic items because they are included in the "Magic Items" listing in the DM's Guide, and thus do not often include further explicit mentions about their status (weapons often mention it explicitly, and I suspect this is specifically to prevent confusion about requiring a +1 or better to be considered such - the Mace of Disruption above, for example, does include the phrase "with this magic weapon").
Silvered weapons, on the contrary, appear in the Player's Handbook (page 148), in the Equipment -> Weapons category, and are thus not magical unless they explicitly specify such a quality. The same applies for Adamantine weapons (in Xanathar's, page 78).
Look, clearly this boils down to the fact that the magic item Adamantine Armor was introduced first in the initial publishing, and then when people were asking about about Adamantine weapons, and they were subsequently included in Xanathar's, they came in as non magical items more akin to silvered weapons. There is no lore or rule balancing reason why all Adamantine armor is magical (only the magic item exists, and no rule/effect is given for non magical Adamantine armor) while Adamantine weapons default to being non magic. It is just an oversight and misalignment resulting from different publishing times. Any ruling from here or from Jeremy is at best accurately interpreting the clearly accidentally misaligned rules as they stand.
I would rule that neither Adamantine object counts as magical by default, but add text to both saying "Adamantine objects count as magical for the purpose of resisting rust or corrosion effects, or any other magical effect which would damage or destroy an object." You can then also have magical versions of either weapon or armor which have added enchantments and are at least one level more rare than a non-adamantine version. These get their normal magic bonus (+1 or whatever) plus their Adamantine feature (damage vs objects or negate crits).
Simple solution: Just declare Adamantine to be a magical metal. "Adamantine is created when magic permeates and penetrates mineral veins blah blah blah lore stuff goes here"
Why is Adamantine armor magical? It's made of magic metal. Give the weapons the "magic weapon" trait in addition to the damage bonus against objects. Won't break your game, I promise, and it helps create some consistency to the world. Plus it helps justify dropping the extra 500 GP for the Adamantine sword.
If you want Adamantine to be a unique but mundane metal, you can just say that it's unique from iron and therefor doesn't rust. Aluminum doesn't rust because it's got no iron. It corrodes, but that's not a corrosion monster, it's a rust monster
This is a little old, but information came up while I was reading the book (as opposed to only checking the monster card)...
So, from Monster Manual, page 262, or here:
"Rust monsters roam subterranean passages in search of ferrous metals such as iron, steel, adamantine, and mithral to consume."
Great catch!
"Not all those who wander are lost"
That's awesome and bummer at the same time.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The flavor of adamantine is that it is a super metal, extremely rare and valued for it's insane durability. I would just rule it doesn't rust to go with the flavor. I get that technically this may be disagreeable to folks, but that is my take on it.
Regarding nonmagical adamantine armor, I think I can safely say you won't ever run into that issue since it seems pointless. The item description says that the magic item Adamantine Armor is reinforced with adamantine, not that it is solid adamantine. Since the cost of a regular set of plate armor is 1500, triple that of most uncommon magic items (the category that Adamantine Armor falls under), and since adding adamantine to a weapon costs 500 (weapons are smaller than a set of armor), I can't imagine why anyone would add adamantine to armor unless it was for the purpose of getting it enchanted.
As for feeling bad about corroding someone's 500 gp sword, there's a few ways to go about fixing this. First, you could make magic items more expensive or adamantine weapons cheaper. That way, there is one distinct advantage adamantine weapons have over magic ones. Alternatively, make it so that rust monsters can digest adamantine, but it takes them time to do so, so getting briefly hit by an adamantine weapon won't corrode it.
This is the way I've run it. Player 1 goes to a blacksmith dragging with him a sack of Adamantite, he says to the blacksmith: Make me some armor! The blacksmith fits it to Player 1, gold and beer are exchanged, Player 1 has an Adamantine breastplate that is not magic. later while adventuring, Rust Monster attacks, bad roll ensues, breastplate is gone. Player 1 gives Stink-eye to the DM.
Later, Player 1 slays a monster, finds a halfling sized Adamantine breastplate in it's hoard, as he's holding it, it resizes itself to fit him. (Page 140 in the DMG where it says they may magically adjust themselves to fit the wearer). Player 1 puts it on, goes back to seek revenge on the Rust Monster, bad roll ensues, but this time, the breastplate survives! Roasted Rust Monster is consumed with gusto by Player one, as vengeance is sweet.
Basically for my games is: If you give a smith raw ore and they make you a weapon or armor, it has the properties of an adamantine forged creation. Immune to crit for armor, and bonus to siege damage for weapons, but it is not in and of itself magic, therefore it's susceptible to the effects of the Rust Monster. Weave Adamantine into the creation of a magic weapon or armor, and you get a magic item with the same properties (Immune crit, siege damage bonus) but Rust Monster immune.
According to the DMG P140 "In most cases, a magic item that's meant to be worn can fit a creature regardless of size or build. Many magic garments are made to be easily adjustable, or the: magically adjust themselves to the wearer."