Comments on: Dumb Rules: Dragonhide

By: David M

David M — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:46:42 +0000

I personally like the 2nd Edition rules in the MM for making Dragon hide armor. When you get armor made from a dragon it is ALWAYS light scale mail [25 pounds] and the AC of the armor is 4 worse than the dragon you took it from. The Cost ranges 1000-10000gp ..which is Age category x 1000gp. The time required to make armor is equal to two weeks per level of AC below 10.
You can enchant the armor up to +5 as well as adding any other abilities following magic Item costs and time requirements. Simple and to the Point. Shields of any size can be made from the larger scales but they offer the same bonus as a standard shield of the same type, you can enchant as above. You also need a skinner to carve away the scales.Although, by the time a player kills a dragon they probably down to useless scraps anyway. Encyclopedia Magica states that any spell that gets through a dragons Magic resistance ruins it’s ability to add enchantments. Every cut made on a dragon’s body ruins 5% of the hide. So right there your players need to do called shots to the wings and head and turn the spell-casters into buffers for the battle duration. Then your skinner has a 30% chance to ruining the scales completely. To say you can only get 1 suit per dragon is someone who never took a math class with surface area -so I house ruled this. My house rule is 2 x age category for number of armors and 2 x age for number of 5lb medium shields. But the numbers above will severely limit what gets produced from the corpse. Subduing the dragon with blunt attacks will be the way to go which will make the encounter very tactical. Then your Armorer will need to pass the roll to even produce the suit. Could you make other types of armor besides scale? sure just subtract the supplies from the number of shields. [Plate mail would need 10 shields worth of material] The AC would still be the same as the scale mail though!

By: Liam

Liam — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:27:24 +0000

i think ur misreading wat it says about the sizes. it states that 1 dragon makes one suit of armor 1 size smaller then the dragon its self, however by selecting choice pieces of scales and hide(meaning yes u would have leftover hide/scales depending on the amount gathered) an armorsmith can make one suit banded mail for a creature 2 sizes smaller, or masterwork half plate for 3 sizes smaller, or half or full plate for a 4 sizes smaller. this being said says that it doesnt have to be a collosous sized dragon it can still be in its growth. now if the dragon is large sized or larger, it states that a small or large masterwork sheild could also be made. Also factoring in the size of a dragon means the amount of scales or hide a dragon has, how many or how much of those were destroyed or made unusable after slaying the dragon.

By: Quicksilver

Quicksilver — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:30:31 +0000

Lol, selling a druid item for gold to a druid (or anyone expecting to get something from a druid) is like asking if you can pay with pork when you go to get your kid a circumcision at temple.

Against that argument that it should give you protection against said elements… a red dragon is hot and can become as hot as anything that heats it, that doesn’t prevent the heat from getting through the hide. The black dragons hide doesn’t stop things from seeping into the cracks (and there has to be a ton of cracks in armor to put it on as no plate or leather armor has ever been waterproof). The white dragon has the same story as the red, it gets as cold as it wants, the skin doesn’t block it, it just withstands it and survives/acts normally by transfering the heat/cold. Devils advocate sorry. Don’t make sense of magic though, it doesn’t make sense. So if its that way in your game, kudo’s if people are smiling because of it.

The surface area rule goes off of the reasoning in the book that you have to find pieces that perfectly fit together to make a suit, and they have to be in perfect shape (post mortum). I disagree with the book, and agree with you guys, that it should give you more than its giving. But a direct equation or reasoning isn’t going to come up with something that answers the question in an absolute way with a fantasy world.

By: beriukay

beriukay — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:37:35 +0000

I googled a formula for surface area based on size, improvised a few numbers, and found that a 50′ tall human, according to the BMI calculation would weigh about 12,500 lbs. I converted the weight to kg, the height to cm, and found that the surface area of such a creature would be 982 (it did not provide units).

I did the same formula for a normal 6’4″ person, and found the surface area to be 19.

So even if an armor smith were discard 75% of the skin and utterly ruin half of the rest of his creations (wouldn’t be a very good smith, would ‘e?) there would still be enough hide area to cover six such normal people from head to toe.

I’m just fighting the rule off of verisimilitude. On other grounds, as a novice metal smith, I can tell you that it is often very easy to salvage a failure. Usually it ends up with a completely different purpose, but there is no such thing as “utterly destroys the component”

Finally, if a glove made of asbestos can protect you from a fire, then a glove made of the skin of a fireproof beast should provide the same protection.

By: divisionbyzer0

divisionbyzer0 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:39:26 +0000

Thanks for this post. I’ve been looking for the rules on dragonhide. I’m playing 3.5 for the 1st time as a barbarian / ranger and was looking to fashion some hide or something out of a slain black dragon, but now unless the DM comes up with houserules for improving the armor, I don’t think it’s worth the time or effort of skinning, and hauling it back to a place where it can be crafted. I’d at least expect some weight reduction or check penalty reduction, so I could wear better armor and have it be treated as “light” and still be able to fight two weapon; but damn, I’ll just stick with my current studded leather +3.

By: morhg

morhg — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:19:31 +0000

yea…my dm kicked that rule it only takes a 1 size catagory larger dragon and a good check to skin it + craft armour to make it if you dont fill like draging it back to a town :)

By: Jonathan Drain

Jonathan Drain — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:29:33 +0000

Dwarven beard rings, you say.

Craft works very poorly on expensive things. Masterwork full plate takes a skilled smith several months. At this rate there’s huge demand for wizard-blacksmiths who can craft any suit of armour instantly, for less than double the normal cost.

Nigel’s system is interesting. Dragonhide armour feels like it should be special, and I don’t see why being covered in red dragon’s hide wouldn’t confer you some protection against fire. It does strike me as something you ought to have to slay a dragon to earn, though – it’s not the sort of armour people tend to resell.

The implementation troubles me a little, though. A great gold wrym’s hide made into full plate armour offers you a +20 armour before enhancement, compared to the usual +8. In this case, you’re not only gaining an extra +12 to AC, but dragonhide because an automatic must for every high level character, and I think on a large scale this can cheapen the effect.

By: Nigel

Nigel — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:57:12 +0000

If I recall, that’s really close to how we did the price as well. It was very expensive to make, and took a very long time as well, rightfully so.

By: Glug

Glug — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:49:50 +0000

re: Nigel’s stuff.
I like it. Not bad. I assume Dragonhide would be fairly expensive, perhaps comparable to the price of the Dragonhide plate in the DMG? If that’s the case, there’s another nice limiting factor here. If you’re making sure that your players kill and harvest their own dragon, then you’re looking at raw materials, and a very very long time to actually craft them into finished goods.

Something like DC30 for trying to quickly make that AC10 full plate, at a 3000gp price.. thats 30,000 silver in progress to make, and if you just make that DC30, that’s 900/week, or 34 weeks to finish this off. Jesus.

Time for a fabricate or minor creation spell. I’ve always wondered why it takes a month to create full plate, and a day to enchant it.

By: Phased Weasel

Phased Weasel — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:23:08 +0000

Now that we’re discussing these flavor items, I’d like to make a request. I enjoyed some of your items / item attributes from deep in the archives. Specifically, dwarven beard rings and the “sour” armor attribute are awesome and I have incorporated into the game.

Any other “flavor” items or attributes would be appreciated!