Masterwork armor Dex bonus not working properly

[Brar]

Hey there, I just noticed something.

There may be an error in the bonus being masterwork gives to an armor.

According to DnD, a masterwork armor have a bonus of 1 to its armor check penalty.

In FK, masterwork armour gets a bonus to Dex penalty.

It is really not the same, and makes the masterwork armor being far more powerful than intended, and this impact on every magical armor as well (every magical armor is also masterwork)

Perhaps I'm wrong and this works as intented, but it gives a far better bonus than it should according to DnD rules.

I hope I'm clear...

Brar

[Athon]

What kind of armour are you seeing this on?

My masterwork full-plate that is made of steel has a dex bonus of 1. My masterwork full-plate that is made of mithril has a dex bonus of 2. These are both canon to DnD.

[Nysan]

Gilain's player crafted steel/mithril masterwork shows the same bonuses as Athon mentioned.

Are you looking at leatherworking masterwork or quest reward generated masterwork Brar?

[Selveem]

What kind of armour are you seeing this on?

My masterwork full-plate that is made of steel has a dex bonus of 1. My masterwork full-plate that is made of mithril has a dex bonus of 2. These are both canon to DnD.

You mean masterwork full-plate that is made of Mithral has a Dex Bonus of 3? Mithral, in Cannon, gives a +2 to Max Dex Bonus. As regular full plate already has a Max Dex Bonus of 1, +2 would bring it to 3.

[Athon]

Good catch.

My masterwork mithril is half-plate, not full-plate, yielding the +2 instead of the +3. Why it's half-plate over full-plate makes no sense at all to me, but we'll leave that to another topic.

[Brar]

...
I have this problem with my armour from the *** *** quest.
On both pieces. Vnum : 1676 and 1677

Also now that you speak of it...my pc-made mithril full plate only gives +2 dex and not +3, but they were made before the new crafting system (and thus not masterwork), perhaps it is the cause.

[Athon]

Masterwork shouldn't be giving any bonuses to dex, only a reduction in armor penalty.

Thanks for the Vnums, hopefully someone can look at them soon!

[Raona]

I crafted some normal and some masterwork studded leather; they come up correct, with the masterwork having the same DEX limit but one lower armour penalty.

Brar, the items you mention are both magical and masterwork, classified as studded leather. It is hard to find pairs that confirm this, but my guess is that items that magically improve AC also raise the DEX limit by one. Should that be the case or not?

In summary: there may be a problem here, but it doesn't lie with the masterwork flag.

[Selveem]

but my guess is that items that magically improve AC also raise the DEX limit by one. Should that be the case or not?

I don't remember ever seeing that option for any enchantments that I can recall. It may be an option on Artifacts, but none that I ever recall seeing.

[Nysan]

1. As Raona said, quality does not impact Dex. Dex is a constant, unimpacted by material or quality. Only magic affects Dex at this time. On that note, I don't think magic that changes AC should change Dex as well. Rather see Dex be a constant across an armor type, regardless of abilities... but that's just me.

2. To the other question, no pre-change armor is masterwork. Masterwork did not exist then, so 'old' armor can never be classified as masterwork and will not work with any future system involving masterwork. That said, certain 'old' armor will have masterwork-like stats/quality. If it was top of the line in the old system, it doesn't turn bad in the new system. These specific pieces will be comparable to masterwork in all ways besides being called masterwork. An "Appraise" check can show item quality, if 'old' armor has a quality in the highest tier of quality it is likely in this group of 'old' crafts. But remember, this is only certain pieces. If your old armor was poor quality before, it'll still be poor quality now.

[Harroghty]

@Raona: That is the case. "Magical" bonuses appear to AC appear to also confer a bonus to DEX bonus, but not incrementally. +1 to AC and +5 to AC appear to both be +1 to DEX bonus.

I am not sure what the d20 rules say about it, but I am not sure that it's worth changing. When I use APPLY_AC on an item then I think that the small bonus to DEX is pretty reasonable usually.

[Raona]

@Raona: That is the case. "Magical" bonuses appear to AC appear to also confer a bonus to DEX bonus, but not incrementally. +1 to AC and +5 to AC appear to both be +1 to DEX bonus.

I am not sure what the d20 rules say about it, but I am not sure that it's worth changing. When I use APPLY_AC on an item then I think that the small bonus to DEX is pretty reasonable usually.

Thanks Harroghty!

I'm inclined to call this a non-bug (adding a line to the armour helpfile explaining that magical armour also allows one more DEX) unless anyone objects.

[Harroghty]

To expand on my logic: You all know that I am not a game mechanics guy by now probably and, if not, please understand that I am not. I think about this in terms of a good example from Lord of the Rings. Frodo gets his mithril shirt from Bilbo and it is "light and yet harder than tempered steel" (Fellowship of the Ring, p.309). The "magical" metal (I understand it to be only a superior material, not actually enchanted) is stronger and lighter than mundane or more common materials. Therefore I believe that the dexterity bonus makes sense with objects using the APPLY_AC function because they are not necessarily enchanted, only better for some reason - the code does not specify the whys and hows. So such an object could be better because it's a better material or it could be better because of an enchantment. In either case the dexterity bonus is, I believe, pretty reasonable and logical.

Long story short, I agree with Raona. Let's not change it.

[Brar]

... I did not notice my armor was magical sorry for that ...
I'm all up for not bothering changing it, that's what home rules are for

But for your example Harroghty, it is already the case in game, for it gives a different bonus based on the material used to make it (be it pc made or not).
Material have an impact on the bonuses of an armour pieces based on the rulebooks, so that's ok (I think we have a problem with older pc made pieces, but it is no big deal at all).

However, adding 1 dex bonus for every magical armor is a different league, that basically means giving a free +1 AC to every magically enchanted item, which means you can't have a simple +1 AC to armor, only a minimum of +2.

I have no problem with that, but everyone should be aware of the implication.

[Harroghty]

Brar: To clarify my point, the APPLY_AC is really a tool to get around the standard materials though. For example, if I just want to make magic mithral armor then I will set the material to mithral and add FLAG_MAGIC, but if I want it to be better than magical mithral than I will add APPLY_AC_ARMOUR to improve it and that is the where it gains a +1 dexterity bonus. So my argument was just that I believed it to be logical because you are doing something above and beyond, something better than, the material.

[Brar]

Oh..crap me and my bad building code skills...
I agree with you then

[Raona]

Ok, added a helpfile topic on "Magical Armour" and filing this as resolved. Thanks to everyone for their input.

[Mask]

I fixed this as it was just a straight bug!

[Raona]

Ok! Thank you for saying so, and revising the helpfile accordingly!