A change to how armor is enchanted: MAgic padded armor

[Lightlawbliss]

For an upcoming dnd 3.5 campaign, I was considering an alteration to medium and heavy armors and wanted some feedback.

First of all, all medium and heavy armors automatically have padded armor included in their construction as the innermost layer, masterwork padded armor in masterwork armors. The padded armor can be worn without the outer armor and can be moved between armors. Wearing the outer armor without the padded reduces the AC by 1. Because of how much experience armorers have in masterworking this armor and the lower cost of the materials (How much can you possibly spend on fabric, wool, and thick string), masterworking padded armor only adds 50gp to the cost and this is included in making a masterworking medium and heavy armors (so you don't have to pay it if you are providing the masterwork padded armor).

Now for the reason for that change. Wearing enchanted padded armor under masterwork medium and heavy armors that are not themselves enchanted will cause the enchantment on the padded armor to take effect. Magical outer armors suppress the magic of the padded armor underneath because the magic can not conduct through.

For example: if you wear +5 padded armor under a non-magical masterwork full plate, you effectively have +5 full plate. You could then take off the full plate while keeping the padded armor on and put on a non-magical masterwork breastplate instead and you now have a +5 breastplate.

Thoughts?

[Lightlawbliss]

I really would like feedback. Feel free to be honest as long as you give reasons for what you say.

[Zaydos]

Question:

I have +1 Full-Plate and find +4 Light Fortification Padded armor. What happens if I wear it under the full plate?

What if the full-plate was +1 Light Fortification and the padded armor was merely +4?

[Lightlawbliss]

Question:

I have +1 Full-Plate and find +4 Light Fortification Padded armor. What happens if I wear it under the full plate?

What if the full-plate was +1 Light Fortification and the padded armor was merely +4?

I guess my wording didn't convey my full thought, judging by the question. If the outer armor is magical, it suppresses the magic of the padded armor. The idea is essentially to allow easier transferring of enchantments between armors.

Edited the first post to better cover this.

[Zaydos]

I guess my wording didn't convey my full thought, judging by the question. If the outer armor is magical, it suppresses the magic of the padded armor. The idea is essentially to allow easier transferring of enchantments between armors.

Which ultimately means the outer armor would never be enchanted, at which point.

In theory it makes it easier to change armor, but you very, very rarely do so except to change enchantments which it is of only limited help with (as you still have to pay the full enchantment cost on two suits of padded armor). It does help if you are for some reason switching between suits of full plate made from different materials but I don't really think that is something liable to happen still.

It makes it a little easier to loot enemies that wear different armor than you, if you find armor better than yours but at the same time a worse type (which can happen when Mithral full plate comes into question). Other than that it makes rust monsters ever so slightly less threatening.

I can't think of a reason not to use it besides it being an extra thing that has to be explained to people.

[Lightlawbliss]

Which ultimately means the outer armor would never be enchanted, at which point.

In theory it makes it easier to change armor, but you very, very rarely do so except to change enchantments which it is of only limited help with (as you still have to pay the full enchantment cost on two suits of padded armor). It does help if you are for some reason switching between suits of full plate made from different materials but I don't really think that is something liable to happen still.

It makes it a little easier to loot enemies that wear different armor than you, if you find armor better than yours but at the same time a worse type (which can happen when Mithral full plate comes into question). Other than that it makes rust monsters ever so slightly less threatening.

I can't think of a reason not to use it besides it being an extra thing that has to be explained to people.

Just to consider my options, what would you say if they stacked in the classic "like bonuses don't stack" method? What about both applying in full?

[Zaydos]

Just to consider my options, what would you say if they stacked in the classic "like bonuses don't stack" method? What about both applying in full?

Bonuses don't stack you make Medium/Heavy Armor better because I can get +5 Padded Armor and +1 Everbright (to name the first meaningful +4 price equivalent armor enhancement to come to mind) Full Plate for 51,650 GP instead of it costing me 82,650 GP to get +5 Everbright Full Plate, relieves a certain amount of wealth needed by the heavier armor non-cleric types*. Also makes it so in theory you could wear 2 armor crystals. Overall it's a buff to anyone who wears medium/heavy armor other than maybe the druid who might need to get Wild on his armor twice.

*Cleric uses Magic Vestments to get +1 Everbright armor and +5 enhancement already. Of course cleric could use this to fit more armor enhancements on for cheap.

Bonuses stack gets weird and means cleric now uses Magic Vestments on both suits of armor for 5 better AC and everyone else has to pay more gold to keep up. It makes high AC a little cheaper, and makes it possible for a CR 20 dragon to miss without using PA but it feels wrong to me.

[Lightlawbliss]

Bonuses don't stack you make Medium/Heavy Armor better because I can get +5 Padded Armor and +1 Everbright (to name the first meaningful +4 price equivalent armor enhancement to come to mind) Full Plate for 51,650 GP instead of it costing me 82,650 GP to get +5 Everbright Full Plate, relieves a certain amount of wealth needed by the heavier armor non-cleric types*. Also makes it so in theory you could wear 2 armor crystals. Overall it's a buff to anyone who wears medium/heavy armor other than maybe the druid who might need to get Wild on his armor twice.

*Cleric uses Magic Vestments to get +1 Everbright armor and +5 enhancement already. Of course cleric could use this to fit more armor enhancements on for cheap.

Bonuses stack gets weird and means cleric now uses Magic Vestments on both suits of armor for 5 better AC and everyone else has to pay more gold to keep up. It makes high AC a little cheaper, and makes it possible for a CR 20 dragon to miss without using PA but it feels wrong to me.

I had already figured that bonuses stacking wasn't the best idea, but it is good to hear somebody else agree with me on that.

I'm not all that worried about the two armor crystals, it isn't incredibly common to know in advance two armor crystals that you want to use so there is a good chance of one of the two not doing anything anyway (assuming I allowed two in the first place, but it would be a reasonable interpretation). The problem/uneasiness with that method that I had before is the shift in power of the archetypes/classes.

Cleric was origanally a questionable shift, but looking at the numbers it looks like it wouldn't really change much since they already get so much through buffs. I had already planned to allow divine metamagic and persist so those will cover a lot of gaps better than enchanting armor can.

It wouldn't be hard to argue the druid needing two clasps for getting both sets of enchantments while shifted (aka, most of the game where this house rule would matter) so that reduces the viability.

arcane casters stay where they are.

gish is stronger, like I really care.

some scout builds stay where they are while others get stronger. The builds that get stronger become more likely (oh, look, the corpse dies less so they play more). That is neutral to win

Non-Cleric Tanks are much stronger, that sounds like a win.

Builds that focus on number of less accurate attacks are weaker.

big attack that always hits may not hit as often.


Monsters that nobody likes aren't as hated.

[Tiktakkat]

I wouldn't let the enhancement bonuses stack, but why not let any other enhancement stack?
There is a vague justification for it with the armor pieces from OA.
And, if you are going to use that realistic point of armor layers like that, you should recognize that the different layers actually contributed to different elements of the protection, so the enhancements should stack.

As for:

(How much can you possibly spend on fabric, wool, and thick string)

Quite a bit actually, particularly if the padding is worn alone and has some fancy embroidery.
Or if it involves mail gussets and attachment points.
Or if it is high quality leather as in buff coats.

Mind you, that doesn't mean it isn't a bit of a standardization kludge to have all armor (and all weapons for that matter) have the same masterwork cost increase; just that it can be at least partially justified.

[Damos Taranth]

Effectively, if you try to stack enchantments on under-armour with those on actual armour, you're playing the "More than one magic item in the same slot" game, which can have various effects from "Complete nullification" to "One of them nullified" to "Interesting interaction" depending on how much effort you're willing to put into it as a GM, but it's generally agreed to be a bad plan.

It honestly depends a bit on exactly how you want your enchantments to work. If a player suggested this to me without any supporting lore, my instinct would be to say that the enchantments actually have to be a part of the armour itself to work - IE, in order for the magic to provide a greater defensive ability than the full-plate, the enchantment would actually have to integrated into the full-plate, otherwise you're effectively wearing +4 armour (+3 padded) under +8 armour (M'work fullplate). If they had some supporting lore and I didn't have anything set up for the world setting, I'd at least consider it.

But as previously stated, it seems like an unnecessary complication for which the only real benefit is comparative ease of changing armour while keeping enchantments, and if I was going to try for something along that line I'd go down the path of enchantments being effectively removable and transportable. (IE, a masterwork set of armour is just one that's set up to receive/channel magic, and the actual magic itself is in a crystal or something that can be removed, added or upgraded, perhaps only with some time and effort from a blacksmith)

Either way is an interesting concept, but it's only really worth using if it's the most common method - it's a competing standard to the usual just-enchant-the-armour method, would have different drawbacks and benefits - I actually can see some enterprising mage trying to push this method and make it a new standard in a world setting... especially if he has a large share/friends in industries that would benefit from enchanting cloth rather than metal...

[Lightlawbliss]

Effectively, if you try to stack enchantments on under-armour with those on actual armour, you're playing the "More than one magic item in the same slot" game, which can have various effects from "Complete nullification" to "One of them nullified" to "Interesting interaction" depending on how much effort you're willing to put into it as a GM, but it's generally agreed to be a bad plan.

It honestly depends a bit on exactly how you want your enchantments to work. If a player suggested this to me without any supporting lore, my instinct would be to say that the enchantments actually have to be a part of the armour itself to work - IE, in order for the magic to provide a greater defensive ability than the full-plate, the enchantment would actually have to integrated into the full-plate, otherwise you're effectively wearing +4 armour (+3 padded) under +8 armour (M'work fullplate). If they had some supporting lore and I didn't have anything set up for the world setting, I'd at least consider it.

But as previously stated, it seems like an unnecessary complication for which the only real benefit is comparative ease of changing armour while keeping enchantments, and if I was going to try for something along that line I'd go down the path of enchantments being effectively removable and transportable. (IE, a masterwork set of armour is just one that's set up to receive/channel magic, and the actual magic itself is in a crystal or something that can be removed, added or upgraded, perhaps only with some time and effort from a blacksmith)

Either way is an interesting concept, but it's only really worth using if it's the most common method - it's a competing standard to the usual just-enchant-the-armour method, would have different drawbacks and benefits - I actually can see some enterprising mage trying to push this method and make it a new standard in a world setting... especially if he has a large share/friends in industries that would benefit from enchanting cloth rather than metal...

The system of enchanting the armor underneath only would actually still favor enchanters over the system of enchanting the whole thing. If you consider that the enchanter has to buy the armor to enchant (sure, it might be from themselves but it isn't unreasonable to still consider that buying it) then the cost of the armor is a flat rate before the enchanting begins. Since there is a good chance you will be effectively selling it to the customer for the cost you bought it at, your ratio of gold spent for gold received gets worse the more expensive the armor your buying to enchant is. Also, fullplate is heavy and not nearly as easy to work on or have stored in the back as padded armor is. It may not seem like much looking at it from the outside but it can actually add up quickly. As an added bonus, you don't have to worry about what kind of armor the customer wants: the same set of +5 padded armor will equally cover a huge portion of the market instead of stocking 10+ armors to cover what the customer might want.

The buyer also get's additional value from the purchase. If they want to have the enchantment while walking around town, they only have to wear some very think clothing rather then walking around town in their full combat armor. What stands out more when walking to the local market: a sweatshirt or fullplate?

[Debihuman]

You can't wear two types of armor together. You only have slot for 1. Also, you'd be wearing a non-magical gambeson under your armor (I have no idea why they don't allow masterwork gambesons to be worn with armor since it is traditional). I'd give a mastworker gambeson the same stats as padded armor but with the caveat that it CAN be worn under armor BUT its AC overlaps not stacks. So if your armor gets whacked, you can then use the AC of the gambeson and rust monsters can't affect it since it is made of cloth.

Just my two cents.

Debby