Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Orcdoubleax 01-20-07, 10:39 AM	A player ask me about somehow making his already expensive magic chain shirt Mithral (without losing the existing magic). Instead of dismissing him outright I decide to see if any such process exists. The chainshirt is already a +4 equivelent and I am not going to let him walk into a store and simply trade it in with a "So do you have one of this in Mithral?"
gravitywell 01-20-07, 12:35 PM	I don't know of anything "Official" that lets you remake armor with a certain metal after its been created...but You could have a Magical Blacksmith or something of the kind, be able to melt down the armor, somehow -capture- the magical essence, and then imbue it into the newly created armor. Of course, I'm sure such a prominent magical blacksmith would charge a nice chunk of platinum for this service.
Dheran 01-20-07, 01:14 PM	The Crafting rules are clear on this point: you've got to include the special materials or special fabrication at creation time. There's absolutely no way to retrofit special materials. It's like saying you want to change your Rolls Royce from steel to titanium: the only thing you can do is create a new titanium version of a Rolls Royce from scratch. You can sell your steel RR for half cost, of course.
Orcdoubleax 01-20-07, 01:31 PM	The Crafting rules are clear on this point: you've got to include the special materials or special fabrication at creation time. There's absolutely no way to retrofit special materials. It's like saying you want to change your Rolls Royce from steel to titanium: the only thing you can do is create a new titanium version of a Rolls Royce from scratch. You can sell your steel RR for half cost, of course. I sry i should have been clearer in my original post. I know it is agaist the rules, but I was looking for ideas on how to allow it at a reasonable cost. My current idea is that it would cost the 1000 gold for mithreal X the enachment bonus of the armour. Since the armour is a +4 equivelent it would cost him 4000 gp and take 8 day (doubling that because it does seam complicated) . Is this too lenient. My other idea was a transferance spell (The spell would move the magic enchantment from one item to the other). he would simply have to get a mithreal shirt and then pay for the spell to be cast. I was thinking the spell would be 5th level and require saphire dust equivelent to 1000X the enchantment bonus being moved. It would take an hour to cast. IT WOULD NOT STACK WITH AN ENCHANTMENT ON THE NEW ITEM.
EvilVegan 01-20-07, 01:44 PM	I would make it a quest to find the true philosopher's stone that lets you transmute metal of one type into that of another. Of course then you could turn lead to gold and buy all the magical armor you can find, but still. . .
risner 01-20-07, 01:44 PM	A player ask me about somehow making his already expensive magic chain shirt Mithral (without losing the existing magic). You can not make a non masterwork item into a masterwork item. Mithril counts as a masterwork item. So you can not take any item that isn't Mithril and turn it into a Mithril item. What he can likely do if the item value is below 25,000 gp: 1) Make a new chain shirt. 2) Use a Wish to move the magic from the old one to the new one. If you are particularly nice to him, this may not create anything of value and any additional XP beyond the 5,000 xp for the Wish will not be required. 3) Then he sales the old now nonmagical chain shirt for half.
DarkRhystar 01-20-07, 01:45 PM	The chainshirt is already a +4 equivelent and I am not going to let him walk into a store and simply trade it in with a "So do you have one of this in Mithral?" In the end, all you're doing is charging the player an arbitrary amount that he wouldn't have had to pay had he bought the armor made from the material in the first place. Pick whatever amount seems fair to you and call it a day.
StevenO 01-20-07, 11:27 PM	I agree that you can't change the material an item is made from. I also believe their should be a spell (level??) that will switch the magical properties of two items for a modest be fixed cost (500-1000 gp). Basically you aquire the enchanment worthy item and the move the magic which should also work for other items in addition to armor.
RavenDrake 01-21-07, 01:31 AM	I would say, if your amenable, the easiest way would be for the characters to know of(or learn about) a reclusive weapons/armour craftsman who has developed a means to transfer enchantments to new eqiupment. The actual effort and cost can range, as you feel necessary, from a small fee to aquiring rare and difficult reagents. You shouldn't make this too difficult, I don't see a point in allowing a character to operate outside the rules, then punishing them for trying it, that's just being a sadist. It should, however, give the character some pause to decide if it's worthwhile to forgo any pressing quests or requirements to attempt this. There are, however, two things you should strongly consider to head off any potential abuses should you allow this: 1. You can transfer magics ONLY to an mundane object(well, a masterwork object, but one with no prior enchantments). Because if, for example, you have a +1 breastplate with a +3 special property and find a +3 breastplate as treasure, it would be abusive to transfer that +3 property to the +3 breastplate, thus getting a +6 equivelent armour for practically nothing outside the transfer costs. So I'd either stick to allowing transfers to mundane objects, or(if you feel adventurous and want to let them transfer magic to magic) increase the transference fee by an ammount equal to upgradeing the armour in question from it's current value to the new value. 2. The transference process should destory(or at least render magically inert) the original object. Even if you don't transfer ALL of the properties of an item to another, the process should either completely drain(as though disjoined) or destory outright the object you're transfering from. Because if you can, say, take a +2 Flaming Burst weapon and transfer off the Flaming Burst, it can be re-added to the weapon by paying the upgrade cost to a +4 weapon(much cheaper than having it made from scratch) which could lead to abuses. Of course, both of these suggestions hinge on the transference processing being relatively accessable after it's discovery. If this is just a one time deal, I woudn't worry too much about it, but I would deffinitely hedge my bets against a potential abuse.
Vaelan 01-21-07, 02:18 AM	I'd go with Polymorph Any Object. A human with Bull's Strength doesn't lose Bull's Strength when they are polymorphed, so why would the chain shirt lose its enhancement bonus? I suppose you could make a case for enhancements being affected by cold iron, since there is clearly something going on there, but that isn't exactly relevant to this situation.
spectralphoenix 01-21-07, 02:31 AM	Polymorph Any Object specifically prohibits creating materials of great intrinsic value, and includes mithral as an example of that.
UnrelentingHoror 01-21-07, 02:38 AM	I'd say the only way to accomplish this would be with an open minded GM and the wish spell, but thats just what I can think of.
stsword 01-22-07, 04:08 AM	I'd say the only way to accomplish this would be with an open minded GM and the wish spell, but thats just what I can think of. The closest thing I can think of is viable only if you have access to artificers from eberron. They could destroy the old armor and then fashion a new one out of mithral using the experience points from the first one.
Harliquinn 01-22-07, 09:49 AM	I would make it a quest to find the true philosopher's stone that lets you transmute metal of one type into that of another. Of course then you could turn lead to gold and buy all the magical armor you can find, but still. . . I would go with this idea, but it would be a scroll (non-divine/non-arcane so it can't be scribed) that can be used once by a powerful (artificer if you play Eberron) blacksmith. Blacksmith charges (X) amount for his services, normal metal becomes mithral, scroll crumbles, knowledge is lost until another quest is needed :)