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.