Materials

Weapons, armor and equipment can be made from various special materials.

Note

Adamantine, Asbestos, Mithral, and Cold Iron are mined primarily by dwarves and available if you have the coin.

Alchemical Silver is commonly available.

Darkwood is available from elves and fairly rare.

Dragonhide is practically non-existent, would need to provide the dragonhide.

Whipwood comes from the Vanara Plateau and is generally available.

Adamantine

HP/inch 40
Hardness 20

Weapons fashioned from adamantine have a natural ability to bypass hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 20. Armor made from adamantine grants its wearer damage reduction of 1/— if it’s light armor, 2/— if it’s medium armor, and 3/— if it’s heavy armor. Adamantine is so costly that weapons and armor made from it are always of masterwork quality; the masterwork cost is included in the prices given below. Thus, adamantine weapons and ammunition have a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls, and the armor check penalty of adamantine armor is lessened by 1 compared to ordinary armor of its type. Items without metal parts cannot be made from adamantine. An arrow could be made of adamantine, but a quarterstaff could not.

Weapons and armor normally made of steel that are made of adamantine have one-third more hit points than normal. Adamantine has 40 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 20.

Adamantine Item Cost Modifier
Ammunition +60 gp per missile
Light armor +5,000 gp
Medium armor +10,000 gp
Heavy armor +15,000 gp
Weapon +3,000 gp

Alchemical Silver

HP/inch 10
Hardness 8

A complex process involving metallurgy and alchemy can bond silver to a weapon made of steel so that it bypasses the damage reduction of creatures such as lycanthropes.

On a successful attack with a silvered slashing or piercing weapon, the wielder takes a –1 penalty on the damage roll (with a minimum of 1 point of damage). The alchemical silvering process can’t be applied to nonmetal items, and it doesn’t work on rare metals such as adamantine, cold iron, and mithral.

Silver Item Cost Modifier
Ammunition +2 gp
Light weapon +20 gp
1-handed weapon +90 gp
2-handed weapon +180 gp

Asbestos

Fire proof, adds Energy Resistance 5 vs Fire to cloth, armor, etc. Asbestos lined items cost 3 times as much, 50gp minimum.

Most sails and dirigible skins have asbestos fibers woven into them.

Cold Iron

HP/inch 30
Hardness 10
Cost 2x

This iron, mined deep underground and known for its effectiveness against demons and fey creatures, is forged at a lower temperature to preserve its delicate properties. Weapons made of cold iron cost twice as much to make as their normal counterparts. Also, adding any magical enhancements to a cold iron weapon increases its price by 2,000 gp. This increase is applied the first time the item is enhanced, not once per ability added.

Items without metal parts cannot be made from cold iron. An arrow could be made of cold iron, but a quarterstaff could not. A double weapon with one cold iron half costs 50% more than normal.

Darkwood

HP/inch 10
Hardness 5
Cost 10gp / lb.

This rare magic wood is as hard as normal wood but very light. Any wooden or mostly wooden item (such as a bow or spear) made from darkwood is considered a masterwork item and weighs only half as much as a normal wooden item of that type. Items not normally made of wood or only partially of wood (such as a battleaxe or a mace) either cannot be made from darkwood or do not gain any special benefit from being made of darkwood. The armor check penalty of a darkwood shield is lessened by 2 compared to an ordinary shield of its type. To determine the price of a darkwood item, use the original weight but add 10 gp per pound to the price of a masterwork version of that item.

Mithral

HP/inch 30
Hardness 15

Mithral weapons count as silver for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Mithral is a very rare silvery, glistening metal that is lighter than steel but just as hard. When worked like steel, it becomes a wonderful material from which to create armor, and is occasionally used for other items as well. 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. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. A character wearing mithral full plate must be proficient in wearing heavy armor to avoid adding the armor’s check penalty to all his attack rolls and skill checks that involve moving. Spell failure chances for armors and shields made from mithral are decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonuses are increased by 2, and armor check penalties are decreased by 3 (to a minimum of 0).

An item made from mithral weighs half as much as the same item made from other metals. In the case of weapons, this lighter weight does not change a weapon’s size category or the ease with which it can be wielded (whether it is light, one-handed, or two-handed). Items not primarily of metal are not meaningfully affected by being partially made of mithral. (A longsword can be a mithral weapon, while a quarterstaff cannot.)

Weapons or armors fashioned from mithral are always masterwork items as well; the masterwork cost is included in the prices given below.

Mithral Item Cost Modifier
Light armor +1,000 gp
Medium armor +4,000 gp
Heavy armor +9,000 gp
Shield +1,000 gp
Other +500 gp / lb.

Whipwood

HP/inch 10
Hardness 8
Cost +500 gp

Vanara woodworkers craft this extremely flexible material in a time-consuming process. Whipwood is actually a composite of several bendable wooden fibers woven and fused together to form a flexible but sturdy unit. Only wooden weapons or weapons with wooden hafts (such as axes and spears) can be made out of whipwood.

A creature wielding a whipwood weapon treats its CMD as +2 higher for the purpose of avoiding sunder attempts against that weapon. A whipwood weapon’s hit points increase by +5. Whipwood loses its special qualities if under the effect of an ironwood spell.