Talk:Equipment (4E)

Masterwork Armor

I am strongly considering scrapping masterwork armor, and replace it with some other form of AC improvement. The main reason is aesthetic; all the masterwork armors are fairly detailed in description, and I'm not fond of the descriptions. Especially since these descriptions have NO relationship to the actual abilities of the armors.

• The enhancement bonus of magical heavy armor is doubled when calculating armor class. Instead of gaining an AC bonus of +1 to +6, the bonus is +2 to +12. Not coincidentally, this 6-point spread is the same as the extra armor bonus gained trough masterwork armor, with a few differences.
  • Armor only gives bonuses to AC, not to other defenses.
  • The bonus is accrued at somewhat lower levels. Overall, this increases expected AC in heavy armor by +1 in the level range of 1-25. This could be compensated for by making the masterwork bonus 2E -1 (where E is the enhancement bonus), but this is more complex and has a different spread (0-5 rather than 0-6).
  • This also solves a problem with transferring armor enchantments into different items. Reasonably, under the current rules, you must procure a suit of unenchanted masterwork armor to transfer the enchantment into, but there are no rules or prices for how this would be done.
  • Several types of masterwork armor could instead be made into armor enchantments, especially the ones that give a bonus to other defenses.

I would much prefer to use the original rules. It's probably better (and certainly easier) to ignore the problem with masterwork armor types. Your games if quite liberal with item appearance and transformation. Why not simply allow the masterwork properties to be transferred as well? They are at least somewhat magical in nature. Also, note that light masterwork armor also have special abilities. --Urban 19:33, 27 December 2008 (CET)

The enchant magic item ritual requires an normal item. PHB page 304:

You touch a normal item and turn it into a magic item of your level or lower. The ritual’s component cost is equal to the price of the magic item you create.

I think its fair to assumed that items created by the heroes should not be behind the curve. Therefore at least masterwork armor without any special abilities (apart from base armor value) is probably readily available or created/enchanted/upgraded as part of the ritual. I can see why one might actually have to slay a tarasque to make tarasque plate for story reasons, but the fluff in the PHB and AV are about techniques, not special materials. I don't think availability should be an issue for "plus only" masterwork armor" or even special ones unless it benefits the story. --Urban 20:25, 27 December 2008 (CET)