Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Killer_DM 03-27-06, 01:48 PM	A normal Chain Shirt is considered Light Armour and has a 20% arcane spell failure. This means that a Wizard/Socorer would not be proficient in its use. however, if that Chain Shirt was made from Mithril it is considered "no armour" Does this mean that a Wizard or Socorer could wear it and ignore the 20% failure? I ruled in my game, he could wear it with no armour penalties but the 20% failure still is in effect. The player disagrees, so to be fair :yuck: I thought i would post here and see. thank you.
tarkin 03-27-06, 01:56 PM	It is still armor. There is a bunch of stupidity around Mithril. Making something mithrail does not give ALL the benefits of lesser class of armor. It only changes movement and similar abilities. <Corrected> Mithrail Chain Shirt continues to count as Light Armor. The armor has an arcane spell failure chance of 10%, a maximum Dexterity bonus of +6, and no armor check penalty. Ruling otherwise is a House Rule that belongs in a Power Game or Anything Goes Game. The actual rules state the following: Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light.
Tyler Do'Urden 03-27-06, 02:01 PM	Mithrail Chain Shirt continues to count as Light Armor. The armor has an arcane spell failure chance of 20%, a maximum Dexterity bonus of +4, and an armor check penalty of -2.You wanna just try this bit one more time?
narukagami 03-27-06, 02:16 PM	From the SRD: Mithral Shirt This extremely light chain shirt is made of very fine mithral links. Speed while wearing a mithral shirt is 30 feet for Medium creatures, or 20 feet for Small. The armor has an arcane spell failure chance of 10%, a maximum Dexterity bonus of +6, and no armor check penalty. It is considered light armor and weighs 10 pounds. No aura (nonmagical); Price 1,100 gp. Emphasis mine.
Tyler Do'Urden 03-27-06, 02:20 PM	I... was actually hoping Tarkin would correct that himself, but yes, that is the information I was talking about, thank you. He was right about everything else though. It's still light armor, and they still get the spell failure chance. What they don't get are any additional penalties from being nonproficient with it.Nonproficient with Armor Worn: A character who wears armor and/or uses a shield with which he or she is not proficient takes the armor’s (and/or shield’s) armor check penalty on attack rolls and on all Strength-based and Dexterity-based ability and skill checks.So if you're not proficient with light armor, wearing a chain shirt gives you a -0 penalty to all attacks and Str- and Dex-based checks. So... w00t.
KangTheCallipygian 03-27-06, 02:54 PM	In addition to and agreement of the glut of disagreements already posted so far:Spell failure chances for armors and shields made from mithral are decreased by 10%That's how being made of mithral affects a given suit of armor's arcane spell failure chance. Likewise, neither can a monk get around his no-armor limitations by wearing a mithral chain shirt and saying, "it's lighter than light so it counts as none" Nice try though. And IMO being mithral shouldn't reduce the level of proficiency required, but since the Sage disagrees with me and I'm really not trying to hijack this thread, I'll let that one lie like the sleeping dog that it is. Kang
tarkin 03-27-06, 03:15 PM	It should be noted Kang, that the Sage does not outright say you are wrong, instead says you should play as if you were proficient. He says that it is the 'simplest answer', despite not being implied or stated by the DMG, that it is a 'reasonable' interpretation of the rules, and that the Sage expects most players to use. I do agree with you that the Sage gave a screwed up rule. P.S. Sorry about getting the Mithril shirt stats wrong, I copy and pasted incorrectly.
mowaca 03-27-06, 07:26 PM	Or you could just cast Mage armor. A first level wizard who wearing armor with no armor check makes good sense, but once Mage armor lasts more than an hour, the value of armor quickly diminishes. Mithril-wearing seems like more of a roleplaying decision to me - you can buy a lot of mage armor scrolls for 1100gp. And don't forget Darkwood Bucklers & caster shields also have 0 armor check penalty. So feel free to wander around with your Mithril + 1, a darkwood buckler +1 and a mere 15% arcane failure chance and you'll have a higher AC than some Monks & Druids. The really broken interpretation is to buy your Druid's Brown Bear or Rhino animal companion mithril barding - it will cost a pretty penny, but there's no armor check penalty so its all good. To me, that violates the spirit of the rules. I... was actually hoping Tarkin would correct that himself, but yes, that is the information I was talking about, thank you. He was right about everything else though. It's still light armor, and they still get the spell failure chance. What they don't get are any additional penalties from being nonproficient with it.So if you're not proficient with light armor, wearing a chain shirt gives you a -0 penalty to all attacks and Str- and Dex-based checks. So... w00t.
runestar 03-27-06, 11:01 PM	The advantage of a mithril shirt is that it has no armour check penalty, so classes with no armour proficiency can wear them just fine. But they will still suffer the ASF of 10%. Nice for psions.
mvincent 03-28-06, 05:35 PM	It should be noted Kang, that the Sage does not outright say you are wrong, instead says you should play as if you were proficient.To be fair, even if one decide to abandon the Sage's clarification (which his wording allows for) and also doesn't consider the proficiency restriction as a 'limitation', then clever players could still skirt the issue by purchasing elven chain or mithral full-plate of speed.