PDA

View Full Version : How would you price this metal? (3.5)



Seharvepernfan
2011-10-31, 09:36 AM
Someone else posted this in the homebrew forum a couple years ago, but I can't seem to find it with the search. I want to use it in my games but I don't even know where to start with eyeballing its price. Since I use parry rules in my games, it can be used to parry rays and ranged touch attacks with a shield or weapon.

I love the idea here, so even if you can't help me, I want to spread the wealth.

Antinium is a metal that naturally emits an anti-magic field. However this anti-magic field only covers the area of the metal itself.

Armor
That means that antinium armor and shields can block some spells that fire projectiles or rays, like disintegrate, but only if they hit the armor itself and not some other part of the target's body or clothing. It provides no defense against spells like Hold Person that do not fire anything. If someone wearing Antinium armor is plane shifted they vanish and their armor remains behind. Antinium armor prevents spells like Enlarge Person, since the armor remains the same size and restrains their growth, but not Reduce Person since they can shrink and be inside overlarge armor.

Weapons
Antinium weapons ignore most forms of magical protection, and oddly enough count as magic weapons for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction even if they have no enhancement bonus since damage reduction/magic is usually magical itself. But antinium weapons will always be limited by the fact that they cannot be enchanted. Antinium projectiles must be made entirely out of antinium alloy, or a defensive spell such as Protection from Arrows might deflect the non-metallic components.

Defenses
A lock with antinium components is immune to Knock spells. Mixing antinium dust with bricks, plaster, or mortar will block passwall spells and ethereal creatures. Antinium trap triggers cannot be directly manipulated by unseen servants or mage hand. Antinium doors, though absurdly expensive, are difficult to magically blast open.

Metal Strength
Antinium is as strong as iron, but is often alloyed with other metals to improve its quality. This gives it the strength and properties of the secondary metal, in addition to its antimagic field.

DracoDei
2011-10-31, 03:07 PM
The inability to be removed from its home plane (except by Gate and other such spells?) should apply to all forms, not just armor. Similiarly the fact that you can't enchant it should apply to all items, not just weapons or ammo. Both of these are actually a major limiting factor at higher levels. It ALSO means that the price could vary wildly from one plane to another.

It would require a smith to resize captured armor. I highly approve of this.

The armor needs mechanical effects on AC against projectile-based spells explicitly defined. Is it no effect except when combined with the parrying rules (which I am not familiar with)? This makes beholder's cry I think (and beholders can do some REALLY epic crying with all those eyes...:smallbiggrin:)

Note that they are immune to Chill Metal, Heat Metal, Magic Vestment, Shrink Item, all Artificer infusions, and so on and so forth (that list should be enough to give the reader the idea).

I would eyeball it as equal to Adamintine for weapons and armor (but more complicated for projectiles), but if you don't mind hitting full-BAB classes to knock high-level CoDzilla down a small peg, you could price it lower. This is all just a very rough guess.

Adamintine/antinium alloy might be popular. Mithril(sp?)/antinium depends on if it weighs more and (more mechanically important) how it effects ACP (my rogues generally spend most of their levels in mithril chain-shirt), counting as a lighter class (I hear barbarians love their mithril full-plate, and I suspect swordsages often go for mithril breast-plates), and maybe Arcane Spell Failure (although I don't actually here of anyone using mithril for that effect).

Tyndmyr
2011-10-31, 03:12 PM
I would eyeball it as equal to Adamintine for weapons and armor (but more complicated for projectiles), but if you don't mind hitting full-BAB classes to knock high-level CoDzilla down a small peg, you could price it lower. This is all just a very rough guess.

That's reasonable, so long as you keep the downsides. Some notable weaknesses there.

You'll want to define the save/miss chance on rays hitting armor vs other parts of you(presumably add that AC to touch AC as the most logical way).

You may also want to define how it interacts with Teleport, etc effects.

Also, with other AMFs.

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-01, 04:05 AM
Antinium cannot leave the plane you are on, except through a gate. Period. No planeshifts, no astral projection, no ethereal jaunts, no banishment, etc.
(bags of holding?)

Antinium cannot be enchanted. Period.

It cannot be affected by any magic at all, ever. Period. Not disjunction, not shatter, not chill metal, not disintegrate, nothing.

Wearing armor and/or a shield made of antinium grants you the AC bonus of the armor and/or shield against any spell that requires an attack roll. I would also think that antinium armor and shields would grant a cover bonus against area effects.

If you are holding/wearing anything made of antinium and you go through a dimension door or you teleport, the antinium stays behind, falling to the ground after your absence.

How would it affect an anti-magic field? It wouldn't. There wouldn't be any difference inside the field.

If you say it should cost as much as adamantine, what about antinium adamantine alloy? What I really need is something like:
-antinium light weapon +xgp
-antinium medium armor +xgp
-antinium heavy shield +xgp
-antinium mortar +xgp
-antinium lock +xgp
-and so on.

nonsi
2011-11-01, 04:34 AM
Man, I'v seen hundreds of homebrew materials.
This is the first one I liked, ever - and I like it a lot.

Wolderful inspiration :cool:


I'm gonna reference it in my homebrew codex when the next version comes up.

Veklim
2011-11-02, 06:45 AM
Personally I'd price it up the same as adamantine when used as a pure metal. For the purposes of alloys, I'd add half this number to the other material being alloyed, so if you were to make a set of medium armour from adamantine/antinium alloy, it would cost +15,000gp, the same in mithral would be +9000gp.

A cold iron/antinium alloy would be rather funky for fey hunting, and the extra cost to enchant cold iron wouldn't be such an issue, which is nice. I may well use this stuff (I particularly like the idea of un-knockable locks!).

With regards to rule functionality, it would be simplest to make it apply to any touch AC vs. spells. Would this material impede casting if the spellcaster were wearing it btw? If so, it would have to apply to all magic, not just arcane (and even psionics, depending upon whether you use magic/psionic transparency or not)...

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-02, 09:30 AM
With regards to rule functionality, it would be simplest to make it apply to any touch AC vs. spells. Would this material impede casting if the spellcaster were wearing it btw? If so, it would have to apply to all magic, not just arcane (and even psionics, depending upon whether you use magic/psionic transparency or not)...

It does apply to your touch AC vs. spells.

No, it doesnt make spells any harder to cast. Only the metal itself is antimagic, its aura doesn't extend beyond the metal itself. If your hand was covered in terrible burning arcane fire, trying to douse the flame by rubbing your hand on your antinium breastplate would do nothing.

DracoDei
2011-11-02, 11:52 AM
+500 GP sounds good for the anti-knock lock.

Amechra
2011-11-02, 02:36 PM
Fun fact: This stuff could be used to make Warheart Items.

Allow me to repeat that... THIS STUFF CAN BE USED TO MAKE WARHEART ITEMS.

I now know what my planned Blade Scholar crafter will make his weapons out of.

DeAnno
2011-11-03, 01:39 AM
It passes through walls of force.


Certain spells, such as wall of force, prismatic sphere, and prismatic wall, remain unaffected by antimagic field (see the individual spell descriptions). Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this.

Because Wall of Force > all

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-03, 02:44 AM
Because Wall of Force > all

:smallfrown: I guess V had that dragon caged after all...

agentnone
2011-11-03, 02:53 AM
:smallfrown: I guess V had that dragon caged after all...

I still like the idea, even if the spell can't affect other effects. However, it's still widely useable. Plus if the good guys are running around with weapons like this, the bad guys need something to help defend against. I plan on using something like this in my campaign now. I would have never come up with this on my own. Genius. I'm going to price it at double the cost of Adamantine or Mithril and call it good. I would price it like this because I would imagine this stuff to be quite rare and hard to find. And due to its nature, I would say that it can't be alloyed with other metals or it loses its effectiveness. But that's just me since I like to make things harder for my players. Still, genius though.