Dragon scale mail is made of the scales of one kind of dragon. Sometimes dragons collect their cast-off scales and gift them to humanoids. Other times, hunters carefully skin and preserve the hide of a dead dragon. In either case, dragon scale mail is highly valued.
While wearing this armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC, you have advantage on saving throws against the Frightful Presence and breath weapons of dragons, and you have resistance to one damage type that is determined by the kind of a dragon that provided the scales (see the table).
Additionally, you can focus your senses as an action to magically discern the distance and direction to the closest dragon of the type of armor within 30 miles of you. This special action can't be used again until the next dawn.
Dragon | Resistance |
---|---|
Black | Acid |
Blue | Lightning |
Brass | Fire |
Bronze | Lightning |
Copper | Acid |
Gold | Fire |
Green | Poison |
Red | Fire |
Silver | Cold |
White | Cold |
Notes: Bonus: Armor Class, Advantage: Saving Throws, Resistance: Acid, Resistance: Cold, Resistance: Fire, Resistance: Lightning, Resistance: Poison, Detection, Combat, Warding, Stealth Disadvantage
cool
I'd say it's scales instead of metal, the overlapping metal pieces make up the "scales" of traditional scale mail so instead of metal they use actual dragon scales
ABOUT 10,000 i would say
So how many scales does it take to make this?
Anyone know or is it always DM's choice?
It's questionable as to whether or not a wyrmling would have enough scales to craft a suit of armor like this, though seeing as how the suit is composed mostly of metal, I wouldn't say it's impossible. Even if it does, you'd think the scales would be so small as to make actually crafting the thing far too difficult to be worth the trouble. A young dragon would be much more reliable, honestly.
Realistically, it wouldn't be purely dragon scales, in fact it would mostly not be made with them. When I imagine dragon scales, I think of them as supremely tough, yet sooner liable to break than bend under immense pressure. Chitin and keratin are both also like that, so I don't see why dragon scales would magically be different. In any case, you need the armor to hold together and fit the human form in order for it to be actually wearable, and to do that you need to work the material. That's not something you can do with such a thing as dragon scales, thus warranting the use of iron or steel.
The image used to represent this armor seems to support my idea, as well. From what I can tell, the breastplate, pauldrons, gauntlets and faulds are covered in the scales of a silver dragon, whilst the rest of it is likely made from iron or steel, including the helmet. Admittedly, the description says it's "made of the scales of one kind of dragon" but that could be explained as a brevity's sake thing. Or just D&D not understanding how real-world physics would affect its materials, that could be it too.
So basically, no you can't wear this if you're a druid, it still incorporates metal, and in fact is mostly made of it, only reinforced with dragon scales. I suppose a less misleading name would be "Dragon scale-reinforced scale mail" but that doesn't nearly have the same ring to it.
Why does none of these items have freaking prices?! Put prices on these damn things!
To be clear, the writeup says they don't, not that they can't. Frankly, without an actual mechanical penalty, the whole druid not wearing metal thing is not something the designers have any business declaring.