Changes to mithril/adamantine ore/ingots

[Athon]

I'd like to propose a change to mithral and adamantine to fall in line with the rulebook. Specifically, I'm proposing that all adamantine and mithril ore/ingots be of outstanding quality and that the metal can be only worked to masterwork. The rulebook specifically states that all adamantine and mithral armour/weapons are of masterwork quality.

Already, the chances of finding a mithril vein is low (never found adamantine), but that is fine. However, the size of the veins is always small and the distribution of the ore is between low and outstanding, leaning towards the low side. And then smelting has a < 50% chance of success, which further lowers the quality of the ingot. After resmelting the ore with trade focus: smelting, I ended up with just about enough pieces for ONE piece of outstanding mithril armour (full plate) after 3-4 hours of mining. This does not include travel time or smelting time. One suit of armour is going to require 30+ hours of mining. Mithral armour is nice, but the +2 dex bonus is really not worth all that time.

Changing it so that all pieces of ore and ingots are of outstanding quality would be balanced with the low mining chance (and requirement of trade focus: mining). Mithral is rare, but not THAT rare.

[Gwain]

Speciality metal is currently divided by race.
I believe only drow can mine adamantine, dwarves only mithril and elves only elven metal.

[Duranamir]

I actually think that the current system is fine, whilst it is hard to find the rarer metals they are there and can be mined and smelted, if with a low success rate as stated.

I also think it better that you can make non masterwork adamantine and mithril items, they are still very useful items in there own right, which makes the masterwork ones rarer and even more valuable as i think they should be.

Currently as a Drow i can mine adamantine ore and mithril ore, i would be interested to know if our dwavern "friends" can mine adamantine as well as mithril ?

Duranamir

[Kethyean]

A question that might go with this. Specialty metals. Do they give the bonus as stated of the material and kind for armour and or weapons as stated on d20? I know Masterwork doesn't give the +1 to the dex cap modifier so it has had me curious to know more.

[Nylo]

Masterwork isn't supposed to give +1 to dex cap. It lessens the armor check penalty by 1, that's it.

[Kethyean]

ah crud. I misread d20 -_-

[Athon]

I actually think that the current system is fine, whilst it is hard to find the rarer metals they are there and can be mined and smelted, if with a low success rate as stated.

I also think it better that you can make non masterwork adamantine and mithril items, they are still very useful items in there own right, which makes the masterwork ones rarer and even more valuable as i think they should be.

Currently as a Drow i can mine adamantine ore and mithril ore, i would be interested to know if our dwavern "friends" can mine adamantine as well as mithril ?

Duranamir

I'm not quite sure on how it works, but when I tested in on the test port, I could only find adamantine in the Underdark. So the Drow have a nice advantage in that regard. I don't personally believe that metals should be restricted by race so that is a good sign.

In regards to masterwork mithral, we shouldn't keep things difficult for the sake of being difficult. We need to look at the balance of the situation. And the balance is that there is virtually no PC-crafted mithral armour available in the game. So why keep things at this RIDICULOUS mess of trying to sort the very few ingots of various qualities (low, average, high, superior, outstanding) in the hope that I get 10 pieces of the same quality? There should be some degree of difficulty - which there is already with having to travel deep into the Underdark AND spend a lot of time just mining to get some - but not to the absurd level it is now.

Look at the market for mithral, for example. The benefit is that you get +2 to your dex bonus and that it weighs less. The only classes that would wear mithral of any sort are going to be warriors and clerics (you can make an argument for rogues in mithral chain, whom are in dire need of help in FK) - none of which the spell failure reduction would really apply to. Yes, there is a lessened armour check penalty, but the only things in game that applies to are climb, hide, and swim. There's nothing that is going to "break" the game there at all. The only added benefit from masterwork mithral armour is a negligible extra point in armour check penalty reduction.

So then, why make the change? Well, the game is trying to follow the rulebook and the rulebook specifically states that all adamantine and mithral armour/weapons are only of masterwork quality. But that's a poor argument. However, also consider that making masterwork increases the creation price of the crafted good, in addition to the additional resource cost (adamantine and mithral have increased creation costs for good reason). In effect, this raises the artificial price floor that crafters could sell their armour at, effectively making it more expensive and harder to get for the non-crafted (which isn't bad; this is the goal of a PC crafting system when it comes to rare goods).

And also some forward thinking: if an in-game enchanting system (which is sorely, sorely needed) for crafted goods eventually makes its way in the game, it would be a waste to see all the non-masterwork go to waste because they can't be enchanted (enchanted steel full plate will almost always be better than standard mithral full plate, for example).

At the end of the day, the time and effort that have already be invested by the master/GM-level smiths should warrant them this change. This won't really change the supply of mithral armour into the game. Besides, it only benefits the players of game. If you're still TERRIBLY concerned about the "difficulty" in obtaining mithral, then make this change and lower the chances of hitting a mithral vein. That is far, far, far superior than the current method.



PS. I should have mentioned in the original post, but this same concept should apply to leatherworking and dragonhide armour.

[Hrosskell]

I think Athon lays out a good case--the best case, in fact. +1 for support.

[Duranamir]

I guess in the end it is a judgement call about the value of different metal armours and masterwork items and how rare we want masterwork mithril armour to be.

To get it straight.

Masterwork steel/titanium and ordinary Mithril are all +1 on the dex allowance

Mithril masterwork is +2 on the dex allowance.

And who can do it.

Non master miners/smelters can find Mithril/Adamantine and can smelt it though with a very low success rate.

It currently takes a master to make masterwork items, a non master can make standard armour even of mithril or adamantine.

I would love enchanting to be in game and to be honest one of the reasons i am bothering to go through the whole grind of bumping crafting skills is in the hope that one day i can use it in combination with enchanting.

My concern is that by making all mithril ore outstanding and therefore making mithril masterwork easier for those who can handle it l.e. Master level smiths it does devalue masterwork steel etc and also cuts out anyone who is not a master from working with mithril.

Duranamir

[Selveem]

I fully support Athon's proposal in its entirety.

[Athon]

By the book, masterwork does not give +1 DEX bonus at all. And from what I can tell, this does not apply in game. For example, Moranall is wearing:

Head: Masterwork full plate, steel (Dex +1)
Body: Masterwork half plate, mithral (Dex +1)
Hands: Full plate, steel (Dex +1)
Arms: Masterwork half plate, steel (Dex 0)

From what we can see here, masterwork does not give an extra Dex bonus nor does mithral give the proper +2 Dex bonus. The mithral should obviously be at +2, but that's a fix for a different thread.

I personally have no problem with mithral and adamantine being restricted to master/GM. They are the premier metals and should be reserved for only the finest of the craft. That would fall in line with only master+ being able to make masterwork items.

The only thing that would make it "easier" if all Mithral was outstanding quality is the hassle of managing the vast range of qualities of ore (edit: the rate of mithral mined would have to go down a tad). I think the whole system of ore/ingots of various qualities is extremely cumbersome, but I'll be saving that idea for another thread. This would not change my stance, however, that all mithral/adamantine should be of masterwork quality.

This should have no effect on masterwork materials that aren't mithral/adamantine. The only reason to go masterwork for any of those materials is really to make them magical as the ONLY benefit of going masterwork is the reduced armour check penalty. Mithral is only going to appeal to characters with 14+ dex anyways and there is a SIGNIFICANT cost difference between the mithral/adamantine and everything else.

I think a cool concept would be to add material properties for some of the other metals. The rulebook is pretty ambiguous on it and we can certainly make things more interesting. Right now, there really is little coded benefit between copper/lead/silver/iron/steel/titanium that I am aware of, other than weight. An example might be having copper armour making the wearer more vulnerable to electric attacks and steel or titanium could give an extra point of AC (to fall in between copper/lead and mithral). These are just examples, but I'd gladly support a system like that to help spread the market out. In fact, I think it would really spice up the game for crafters.