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## Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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User3
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by User3 » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:19 am

> And when that fails, bring up a broken custom magical item and say, "well if the DM is dumb enough to allow this, then heavy armor really does suck! See!"

Stop whining about celestial mithral full-plate. It's core, doesn't break anything, and refusing it means you have to accept a bunch of other crap that makes the game less fun.
It's a minor cost savings over the traditional ways to get extra AC. It's not even like arrows of spell-storing where you do a huge amount of damage. You save a significant but not huge chunk of money over other AC bonuses. Uh, so? I don't see anyone really complaining over that silly item in Complete Adventurer that gave you free damage points for power attack.
You're probably just mad because a core rules item and a celebrated core rules feature invalidates your argument. Don't worry about it. It's even happened to Uncle Lago on a few exceedingly rare occasions.
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:19 am

> Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1111374188[/unixtime]]
> There are already various effects in the game that allow you to change one nonmagical item into another. I don't see how an effect that would let you change a piece of armor into a sword could even be remotely unbalanced.

If you allow people to make celestial full plate, you just proved how magical item transformation is unbalanced.

> But this isn't cheesy stupid crap. The modular magical item thing is actually one of the more solid and internally consistent sets of the rules. It's still STUPID regarding slots and how bonuses stack, but it does not actually rend the game asunder.

But it's not modular necessarily. Specialized items don't have price increases, they have a fixed cost. You cannot necessarily go back and retrofit a cost onto any item you please and assume it will be balanced. If they wanted you to do that, they would have made it an armor property and applied a cost modifier to it, the same way you create a flaming burst or keen sword. But celestial plate isn't like creating fortification armor. You don't have a market price increase for it. You don't even know anything about the "celestial" property. It's possible it can only be put on medium armor. It just doesn't say, so it lies totally in the hands of the DM. It's not illegal per se, but it's not a 100% official item either. It's all about if the DM allows it or not.

> The worst effect in the game that can happen when you abuse the modular magical item creation system is that monks and duelists get a fraction of their old shield bonuses back and fighters end up with 3 more points of AC. Big deal. The real actual cheese comes from importing effects from the magic system (already broken, so big surprise) and when people introduce stupid custom items like the thought bottle.

Yeah, I agree, the thought bottle is a lot more abusive and needs to be fixed too. What's your point?

> But it IS dumb. Most of the heavy armor disadvantages actually come at the medium armor level, which the game gleefully expects you to exploit as soon as possible with mithril. Since you've already broken the chassis of 'trade mobility and movement for a bulge on AC' by having the bulge on AC, you're just actually getting more bang for your buck. Spending more money to get an additional AC bonus (and I'll also remind you than in 3.5E, you can buy a +2 sacred bonus to AC item for 10,000 gold pieces) is just a logical extension of that.

Well, spending money for AC bonuses like sacred is inflating the game but not necessarily hosing anyone. If the light armor and the heavy armor guy get equal benefit from the bracers of sacred AC +2, then the numbers get bigger, but nobody's personal fighting style gets hosed.
Celestial full plate is different. It's a kick in the balls to heavy armor wearers. Light armor wearers now get the benefits of full plate for a dirt cheap price and heavy armor gets nothing.

> Celestial mithral fullplate just gets the brunt of the blame because it requires a fairly understandable but unobvious chain of logic. But 'heavy armor' wearers were already getting kicked in the crotch. The game WANTS them to get kicked in the crotch. A large amount of WotC-published NPCs have mithral medium armor.

A mithral breastplate isn't "all that" It's one point better than a chain shirt. Big deal. The only people who really get screwed are the people who actually wear medium armor from the beginning. If you wear a normal breastplate it's like having full plate in terms of disadvantages only you're only +1 AC over a chain shirt. So those are the guys who are getting kicked in the crotch right now. The guys who want to wear a breastplate at low levels.

> Of course, a lot of DMs throw a hissy fit because they don't want to listen to an explanation of how the game works unless you can grunt out a one-phrase answer. Apparently if you offer a two or three sentence explanation for why something works or isn't balanced, the player must be pulling a munchkin trick.

I think we've already shown why mithral celestial full plate is broken. As for its legality, it's quasilegal. And honestly I could care less if people allow it in thier games. I just don't want to hear about how people think heavy armor sucks after they do so.
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:26 am

> Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1111375163[/unixtime]]
> Stop whining about celestial mithral full-plate. It's core, doesn't break anything, and refusing it means you have to accept a bunch of other crap that makes the game less fun.

It's not core. I don't see it listed as a valid magic armor property nor a unique magical item. "Celestial armor" is apparently chainmail and no other type of celestial armor is listed. Also it specifically states celestial armor is gold or silver. Which means it can't be mithral.
As for creating celestial full plate, you have
-no cost modifier for adding celestial to armor.
-no description of the celestial enchantment saying what types of armor it can be placed on.
-Only the word of a few people at WotC talking out of their ass.
Bottom line, Celestial full plate is about as legal as having a sphere of annihilation arrow. Even if you did somehow know that celestial armor could be made into full plate, there's no way to deduce the cost of crafting it without DM intervention. WIthout a market price modifier for it, which clearly isn't listed, you can't get a price w/o resorting to your DM.
It does break something. It's the sole reason apparently why heavy armor wearers suck. Apparently it's the only thing that "invalidats my argument" according to you. So apparently it breaks tumble and makes heavy armor characters suck.
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Murtak
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by Murtak » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:18 am

> RandomCasualty wrote:Even if you did somehow know that celestial armor could be made into full plate, there's no way to deduce the cost of crafting it without DM intervention. WIthout a market price modifier for it, which clearly isn't listed, you can't get a price w/o resorting to your DM

Sure you can. Calculate it's cost both as an enhancement equivalent and as a flat price, then use the higher one.
Murtak
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PhoneLobster
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:26 pm

It amazes me how desperate RC is to insist that no DM in his right mind would use the rules, as they are aparently intended, such that you actually can make holy avengers for Paladins who...
A) don't use long swords,
B) follow a god who's favoured weapon is not a long sword,
C) are modified with a higher or lower bonus and perhaps adittional magical bonuses (or are made of mithril or something else) so as to be suitable for a higher or lower level character.
And I thought the going method to figure the cost for the various specific abilities was subtract the cost of the masterwork item required and there yah go.
I would also sugest that, aah, surely the requirements for making the magic item are in the description, you know the bit where it notes the feat, alignment, and spell you need to know so that you too can make celestial armour? (note the caster level is of questionable merit due to contradictory rulings on what it even means, but thats the same for ALL magic items).
And finally from the top of each section of specific armour, shields and weapons, or in this case just armour... just to blow RCs mind...

> Dah Book wrote: The following specific suits of armor usually are preconstructed with exactly the qualities described here.

Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
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Murtak
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by Murtak » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:32 pm

I can see how the item description might lead one to thinking that "celestial" is a material. About the most restricting rules I can come up with is taht celestial is a material that can only be applied to medium armor. Insisting that it must be chainmail seems weird. Insisting that you can not slap it on heavy armor however is merely a differing point of view.
If you say celestial is a material then you can make celestial breastplates, but not full plate. If you say it is an enchantment you can still only add it to medium armor but as mithral full plate is medium armor that works out fine.
Murtak
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:41 pm

> Murtak at [unixtime wrote:1111408360[/unixtime]]
> I can see how the item description might lead one to thinking that "celestial" is a material. About the most restricting rules I can come up with is taht celestial is a material that can only be applied to medium armor. Insisting that it must be chainmail seems weird. Insisting that you can not slap it on heavy armor however is merely a differing point of view.
> If you say celestial is a material then you can make celestial breastplates, but not full plate. If you say it is an enchantment you can still only add it to medium armor but as mithral full plate is medium armor that works out fine.

Well first, full plate is heavy armor, and while mithral full plate is considered medium for most things, for enchantments it may still be considered to be the base type. Second, it is possible that all celestial enchanted armor must be gold or silver and thus cannot be mithral.
But really, all this is speculation, on both sides. It could be this, it might be that, blah blah blah. In the end, neither side is right or wrong. In the end, it's simply up to the DM. The rules don't speak one way or the other.
While it's possible to do all sorts of numeric methods for trying to calculate a cost for the armor, the rules don't give you that cost, therefore technically you cannot apply it to any other armor. Whenever you are reverse engineering something you are no longer using the rules and are instead trying to create your own rule. Further, you know nothing about the celestial enchantment or its restrictions. It really could be "only put on chainmail" or "only cast upon gold or silver" or "bonuses don't stack with mithral" or any number of other things. You just cannot know. This is what happens when you reverse engineer. You make all kinds of assumptions and try to create a "best fit". Unfortunately "best fit" is still creating a custom item and in this case a broken custom item.
If you disallow custom magical items you disallow celestial full plate, because it's not a listed item in the DMG.
Now, there may not be anything wrong balance wise wtih creating stuff like holy avenger battle axes or reverse engineering other items. But it's just not RAW and your DM is within his rights to not allow it. In the case of mithral celestial full plate, it is a balance problem, a big one. And in that case, I think the DM is not only within his rights but also encouraged not to allow it.
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fbmf
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by fbmf » Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:28 pm

> RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1111430500[/unixtime]]
> Whenever you are reverse engineering something you are no longer using the rules and are instead trying to create your own rule.

Actually, Skip said that reverse engineering was legit. Although the Sage Advice archive has been taken offline (so I can't find you the original wording), it is covered under the item creation rules in Skip Hates Sorceror's, page 73.
Game On,
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User3
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by User3 » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:17 pm

In this article, he states that you should eyeball magic item prices. For example, he puts the an item of True Striking at hundreds of thousands of gp rather than 2K.
Basically, he says "go ahead and make custom items, just don't do anything stupid and abusive." That really throws the wrench into a lot of abusive builds.
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:18 pm

> fbmf at [unixtime wrote:1111433286[/unixtime]]
> Actually, Skip said that reverse engineering was legit. Although the Sage Advice archive has been taken offline (so I can't find you the original wording), it is covered under the item creation rules in Skip Hates Sorceror's, page 73.

Ironically that page also says "Pricing a magic item always requires some guesswork and judgment."
The entire retroengineering of the staff of abjuration isn't a science. It requires a lot of DM intervention. While it is a process DMs can use to make items, it is by no means a science. Skip says that himself. And that's what creating celestial full plate is, purely guesswork and judgment on the part of the DM. And some DMs don't even have to allow it at all, or they may "guess" that it must be made of gold or silver, or they may "guess" that it can only be put on chainmail.
It really is just a guess. Nobody knows for sure.
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User3
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by User3 » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:54 am

So why are items that grant bonuses to Tumble legitimate, but not Celestial heavy armors? Especially when you take into consideration that there's an example of a Celestial armor right in the DMG, but absolutley no examples of Tumble-enhancing items printed anywhere in anything I've ever seen.
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:37 am

> Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1111463670[/unixtime]]So why are items that grant bonuses to Tumble legitimate, but not Celestial heavy armors? Especially when you take into consideration that there's an example of a Celestial armor right in the DMG, but absolutley no examples of Tumble-enhancing items printed anywhere in anything I've ever seen.

Well they're not anymore legitimate. But they're not really the center peice of my argument either.
Even if you just take high level characters, or fighters who dip one level of rogue to max tumble, or some of those feats that make crossclass skills into class skills or whatever. There are a bunch of ways to get large skill scores without skill items.
Even if you don't have tumble bonus items in your game, it's still potentially unbalancing, just because of the static nature of tumble's DC. Eventually you will be able to tumble in heavy armor and when you can the lightly armored guys lose a big advantage.
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User3
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by User3 » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:59 pm

> RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1111466239[/unixtime]]Even if you just take high level characters, or fighters who dip one level of rogue to max tumble, or some of those feats that make crossclass skills into class skills or whatever. There are a bunch of ways to get large skill scores without skill items.
> Even if you don't have tumble bonus items in your game, it's still potentially unbalancing, just because of the static nature of tumble's DC. Eventually you will be able to tumble in heavy armor and when you can the lightly armored guys lose a big advantage.

But Heavy armors have large armor check penalties, so you need a greater investment in Tumble ranks in order to be able use that skill as well as someone in Light armor. That means that characters who opt to wear Light armor still have the advantage when it comes to tumbling, doesn't it?
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:19 am

> Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1111510766[/unixtime]]But Heavy armors have large armor check penalties, so you need a greater investment in Tumble ranks in order to be able use that skill as well as someone in Light armor. That means that characters who opt to wear Light armor still have the advantage when it comes to tumbling, doesn't it?

Yes and no. Light armor characters get it earlier, but once heavy armor characters get to the point where they can make DC 15 checks they actually become equal.
So it becomes a differentiation between low level heavily armored characters versus low level lightly armored characters. And I see no reason why the disadvantages of your particular style should disappear at high levels.
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User3
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by User3 » Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:25 am

> RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1111558762[/unixtime]]Light armor characters get it earlier, but once heavy armor characters get to the point where they can make DC 15 checks they actually become equal.
> So it becomes a differentiation between low level heavily armored characters versus low level lightly armored characters. And I see no reason why the disadvantages of your particular style should disappear at high levels.

But they never really become equal. It will always cost the Heavy Armor character more (more skill points) to be able to Tumble with the same chances of success as a Light Armor character.
The disadvantage doesn't disappear at any point: you have to put additional skill points in Tumble, and you never get those skill points back. You are at a disadvantage the whole way through, because you have to devote more of your limited and finite resources in order to get an ability while other types of characters can get the exact same ability for less.
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Carcharoth
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### Re: Can Dwarves tumble in heavy armor?

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Post by Carcharoth » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:34 am

It's noteworthy here that skill points for the Heavy Armor classes are all 2+Int modifier, so taking Tumble to high levels for auto-success of DC 15 checks costs them more in absolute terms and in relative terms.
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