Meteoric Metal vs Magic

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Now this may be what you want, and prefer (as its more interesting) but it is something different in a fairly fundamental way - and at that point you're opening the door to players trying to reason munchkiny gains from the described mechanics (like foil plating regular iron with meteoric iron to give it the same benefits at a fraction of the cost!).

That's why I'd tie the benefits of Meteoric Armor to its DR, or more generically its mass per surface area. If you've got just a tin-foil-thick coating, sure it'll be immune to the spell Remove Enamel, but it won't provide any additional benefit.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's why I'd tie the benefits of Meteoric Armor to its DR, or more generically its mass per surface area.

A simple version is just that meteoric iron armor provides magic resistance equal to its DR.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

One would hope the person wearing meteoric armor (which interferes with magic being cast on its' wearer) doesn't need magical healing ...

[Flyndaran]

This issue makes me think of an invisible cloak. The cloak is invisible... That is all.

Juggernaut has a meteoric helm?

I think the statistic is that 90/10 percent of meteors are carbonaceous/iron. But of those that survive to hit earth are 10/90 percent such.

Besides, what would you do with meteoric carbon?
Burn it for a temporary anti-magic smoke screen?
Blacken armor for temporary anti-magic properties?

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

This issue makes me think of an invisible cloak. The cloak is invisible... That is all.

I can see your point - but Meteoric items do have some boons, even if they're less impressive than they first seem when applied to armour and shields.

I'd still rule that you can use meteoric shields to block magical attacks (although note that things such as fireball tend not to be magical once thrown), and that meteoric armour grants full protection against magical attacks unless its aimed at a hit location not covered by it.

Just because your meteoric helm doesn't stop you getting mind-controlled, doesn't prevent it from being useful against that Magical Bolt to the skull - which may I add very much hurt. Armour is meant to stop you getting injured from attacks, and that's very much what the helm does here, why should it do anything else?

[DavidSev]

With an invisible cloak, the cloak is invisible; with an invisibility cloak, you are.

This is the same, it's a magic resistant shield, not a shield of magic resistance. If you want the latter, then go buy that instead.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by DavidSev

This is the same, it's a magic resistant shield, not a shield of magic resistance.

Whilst a magically resistant shield is an ordinary shield enchanted with extra DR? =D

[Jeminai]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A simple version is just that meteoric iron armor provides magic resistance equal to its DR.

I think you hit on something here. I like answers that stray away from all or nothing solutions and this is right in that vein.

Talk about this a bit more. Throw your ideas out there.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Jeminai

Talk about this a bit more. Throw your ideas out there.

Okay, well lets discuss the practicality of implementation.

Lets work out the regular meteoric armour first, DR = magic resistance (I'm shortening this to MR from this point on) seems easy enough but how are we applying this? Total DR from all meteoric armour worn? This could be very high if heavy armour is worn in all locations - although that would be very expensive to produce so perhaps this is fair.
Another approach might be the average between the best and worse or - the same as large area damage - or simply using the best DR. Of cause both of these promotes a wearing a single piece of heavy meteoric armour as the cost and effort of armouring all your hit locations in order to bring up your lowest DR is too great.
You might consider using more complex means of calculating averages or using partial contribution from additional pieces of meteoric armour to encourage you to wear as more than one item - but this will just lead to annoying maths each time someone takes off their meteoric helm whilst still wearing their meteoric boots.

Also, if you're using DR (of meteoric armour) as magic resistance then how does a meteoric shield work? It doesn't provide DR (but does have a DR for itself) so does it provide any magical resistance? Lets say it provides MR equal to its DB - as this seems reasonable and easy to add in - in addition to its normal characteristics of being meteoric (can't cast shatter on it or use magical telekinesis to disarm it etc). Then you have the question of if this contributes to the MR from your meteor armour or not too!

Then comes the question of if all of this MR is additive with innate MR, or again if just the best between the two is used. The former rewards everyone equally and makes sense why 'star-metal' is valued by everyone, however the latter stops naturally MR creatures (like Ogres, Goblin-kin and Gnomes) becoming truly unstoppable by magic when they don heavy meteoric armour! Although, this may be a feature rather an a terrifying bug - and magic resistance does only stop magic affecting you, so you can still be toasted in your armour by fireballs and the like.

The final thing to consider is if you want to go through the effort of using MR per hit location, considering you're only armouring those areas and so its logical that this might be the case (as we've already discussed with helms making you immune to mind-control). The first thing to worry about here is the huge amount of numbers you now have to look up, and the scale to which it actually impacts the world - of cause a meteoric helm stops mind-control, and meteoric boots might stop flying spells... but what do meteoric greaves do? Is the only benefit to wearing a meteoric codpiece MR against the Strike Barren spell? Do I need to make meteoric mail to add Arming Garments to my meteoric plate so that it grants full MR to my torso?

This neatly leads on to other basic questions like "does meteoric Medium Scale (DR 4) grant the same MR as meteoric Fine Mail (DR 4)? and if so why when it weighs so much more as has less gaps in it?"...

Of cause I'm not even going to try and answer all of these questions, but I will point out that there are some far reaching consequences for these choices and it will cause some tactics in armouring to become more popular (and optimal) than others - which may then also have a noteworthy decrease in the potency of magic users in the setting (although they get so many free meal tickets anyway that I wouldn't mind too much).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Total DR from all meteoric armour worn?

For touch effects, DR of the location touched. Otherwise, average of torso and worst armor, like large area damage.

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Also, if you're using DR (of meteoric armour) as magic resistance then how does a meteoric shield work?

It lets you block melee spells, which normally cannot be blocked.