D&D 5e Armor Crafting System

Armor plays a very large role in Dungeons and Dragons and while there is a good amount of armor, I felt there was a big disconnect between normal armor and jumping to magical armor. I created a new system that allows us to create armor not only from various metals but also ceature parts and plant life for druids.

This system also brings more life into the "crafting tools" section of the game, which according to many people I've played with didn't feel it was a fleshed out as it could have been. While Xanathar's guide did expand on these, I feel this armor crafting system adds even more to many of those tool sets.

Armor Crafting Basics

Crafting armor should be left the specialists, no one wants faulty armor. That being said, allowing players to craft armor, as long as they have the right resources, time and profiencies isn't bad either. Below is a list of tools and what they can do for making armor and various other pieces of clothing.

Cobbler's Tools These tools focus on shoemaking, something a player would need when crafting boots from armor or animal hide.

Leatherworker's Tools These tools would be needed when crafting with any kind of animal or creature hide. Scale armor and of course any kind of leather armor would be good examples of where these tools would be needed.

Mason's Tools These tools are abit more specific. I would say that if your armor is made from stone you would need Mason's tools as opposed to Smith's tools, but of cousre this is entirely up to the DM.

Smith's Tools These are the main tools one would need to create "average" armor. Any armor made from Metal or some kind of ore would be what these tools are used for. While these tools cover a large array of armor creation, it doesn't cover them all.

Weaver's Tools These tools are for weaving and making cloth related armors. Cloth is very under-performing as armor for obvious reasons, but as D&D is a fantasy world, there should be some cloth that can be as a tough as steel.

Materials

Creating armor requires the use of crafting materials, these are broken down into three basic groups, Light, Medium and Heavy. Each group has their own drawbacks and special properies. Creating one armor can use one material or mix two of them to add to the value.

Light Material

Light material gives the least amount of armor but has the least amount of weight. This is the basic material for clothes. Some light materials include half points of armor value. Any finalized armor with a armor value that includes a decimal is rounded down to the base number.

For example, basic leather armor is leather + cloth resulting in 11.5 AC rounded down to 11. Using light material with heavy will lower the weight, but not with medium. Heavy + light becomes medium armor, medium + light stays medium armor.

Light Armor. If you wear light armor, you add your Dexterity modifier to the base number from your armor type to determine your Armor Class.

Medium Material

Medium material gives more protection than light matieral and is the basic material for most combat focused clothing. Good as a secondary to keep weight down or to add defense to lighter clothing. Medium is designed to allow the wearer to be protected but not make too much noise. Medium armor does not allow the full range of motion as light armor does, and thus the Dexterity bonus added to the character's Armor Class is limited.

Medium Armor. If you wear medium armor, you add your Dexterity modifier, to a maximum of +2, to the base number from your armor type to determine your Armor Class. Medium armor made from heavy + light has disadvantage on stealth checks unless otherwise noted.

Heavy Material

Heavy Material is the most protective, however, continued use wears the user down. When used as a secondary material, it will always bump the weight class of the primary up by one level. Heavier armor requires a Str requirement to wear.

Heavy Armor. Heavy armor does not allow a character to add their Dexterity modifier to their Armor Class. All heavy armor has disadvantage on stealth unless made from material that says otherwise, such as Mithral.

How It Works

All armor needs a primary material and a secondary material, the following table shows a list of materials already given using the armors in the Player’s Handbook. See Table 1.

Hide as Material. Hide material is any skin, fur, or hide from a low CR creature that hasn't been cleaned, tanned and properly turned to leather. The process of turning the hide to leather should always make it better.

Removing Stealth Disadvantage. Some materials state that they can remove stealth disadvantage, such as cloth. This means when used a primary material if the secondary has disadvantage on stealth you remove it from the finished armor. An example of this would be Breastplate.

Especially Heavy. Some material feels especially weighted and should not work as a secondary material. Furthermore, this material can never be reduced to medium weight by adding light material as the secondary. Rings is a good example of this. Ring Mail can be produced using rings as the primary, but rings cannot be used as a secondary and will always produce heavy armor. This goes for any other material labeled "Especially Heavy", such as Splint.

Using the Formula

Using these materials as a basis for armor crafting, we can re-create the armor that is currently in the Player's Handbook. Remember to always use a base Armor Value of 10. See Table 2.

Table 1: Pre-Existing Materials

■ = Especially heavy material

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Expanding the Materials

Now that we have some basic materials for armor crating, we can mix and match materials to make new armors. We can also use materials, monsters and other aspects of the game to create new material to add to the armor crafting pool as well. Below is a list of materials I have come up with. Of course, this this list is not the only material that is available, feel free to come up with your own. See Table 3

Tanned Hide. Mulitple creatures give hide for armor that can be turned into hide armor as normal, or can be tanned and cured and used as substiution for leather. If the creature gives no resistance to any kind of damage they are placed in this category. Examples of creatures that can give Tanned Hide without resistances are usually low CR creatures between 10 and 13 AC such as: Bears, Deer, Giant Bats, Giant Apes, Mammoths, Tigers, & Wolves.

High Quality Cloth. Normal cloth is fine, but sometimes cloth can be especially durable. It could be a kind of silk from a special caterpillar or cloth that needs to be soaked in a special brew. Possibly magically altered or comes from a specific way of weaving it passed down by one particular family. One way or another this cloth is a better quality than normal cloth and thus gives slightly more armor than normal cloth would. This cloth can vary in how much defense it should give, examples would be +1 (Uncommon) +1.5 (Rare) +2 (Very Rare) or +2.5 (Legendary). Anything above +2.5 would have to be tougher than dragon hide.

Mithral, a Magic Metal

Mithral is a light, flexible metal. It is sometimes known as Mithril, or truemetal among Dwarves. It is a precious metal produced from ore found in the Underdark as well as mountain ranges in certain areas of Faerûn. Armor made from Mithral is half the weight and thus easier on the wearer. It contains the following properties:

• Mithral can replace any of the following materials: Chains, Scales, Splint, Rings, Plate.
• Armor made from Mithral does not have disadvantage on stealth checks.
• Armor made from Mithral does not have any Str requirements to wear it.
• Chain Shirt, Chain Mail and Breastplate made of Mithral can be worn under normal clothing.
• Armor made of Mithral still keeps the same AC stats it would normally.

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Resistant Hide.

This is hide that has been taken from a creature that is either resistant or immune to a certain type of damage. This armor could also give the character immunity to certain weather effects as well. Even if the creature is immune to the damage it should only give restitance to the damage type unless the enemy was especially Legendary. For example, a Yeti is immune to cold damage, but it's hide should not provide Cold Immunity, only reistance and immunity to cold weather conditions. The bonus this armor provides should be adjusted depending on the CR of the creature it came from, examples would be +1, (Uncommon) +1.5 (Rare) +2 (Very Rare) or +2.5 (Legendary). Anything above +2.5 would have to be tougher than dragon hide.
Below are some examples of which creatures give damage resistances of certain types.

Cold. Winter Wolf, Yeti

Fire. Hell Hound, Fire Snake

Lightning. Behir

Poison. Naga

Radiant. Couatl

Dragon Hide. Not to confused with dragon scales, dragon hide is the softer skin of the dragon that is not scaled, such as the under belly or around the limbs. This can also consist of the webbing in the dragon's wings. Dragon hide and dragon webbing is light enough to be made to light leather. Not only that it brings with it resistance to whatever type of damage the Dragon's breath weapon was during life. For example, skinning a Blue Dragon gives you dragon hide that has resistance to Lightning damage.

Chuul Scales. Chuuls are ugly abberations that look like giant poisonous crustaceans. Those brave enough to skin them and soak the scales for days until all the poison has been soaked off can make medium armor from the pieces. This armor gives resistance to Poison damage. However, it always feels slightly uncomfortable. Chuul's have the ability to sense magic within 120ft of them. As an extra bonus to this armor, you could give the player the ability to use the detect magic spell once per day, or at will. You could impose disadvantage to Charisma checks while wearing the armor, or make people feel uneasy around the player wearing it as a lingering effect.

High Quality Hide or Scales. Some creatures, those with a natural AC higher than 13, give high quality hide that is better than normal tanned hide. This hide can make better quality armor than basic medium armor. Those who give high quality hide but give no extra resistances are simply put into this category. The AC bonus can vary but should be +2 (Uncommon) for any creatures CR 4-8 and +3 (Rare) for creatures CR 9-12. Examples of creatures that would give high quality hide without resistances are creatures such as: Ankheg, Basilisk, Hydra, Owlbear, & Wyvern.

Dragon Scales. Dragon scales, one of the most sought after pieces of armor crafting material. These scales are specifcally those that come from young and adult dragons. Dragon scales are durable, and great for crating armor as long as you can get a craftsman that can work with them. Any craftsman that has never worked with dragon scales before should be at a disadvantage when crafting with them the first couple of times. This is because they are hard to work with, especially ones that bring immunity to fire damage. Those willing to sit with the scales and study them for a tenday can forgo this disadvantage on crafting with them. Of course, dragon scales bring with them the resistance to whatever type of damage the Dragon's breath weapon was during life.

Dragon Parts

Consider adding the following extra effects to armor made of Dragon Hide, Dragon Scales, Ancient Dragon Hide & Ancient Dragon Scales

• Advantage on saving throws against Frightful Presence of dragons.
• Advantage on saving throws against breath weapons of dragons.

Ancient Dragon Hide. Ancient Dragons are the ones that lived the longest and became the most Legendary. Dragon hide from an ancient dragon is heavier than normal, but also even more durable. Dragon hide is the softer skin of the dragon that is not scaled, such as the under belly or around the limbs. This can also consist of the webbing in the dragon's wings. Dragon hide and dragon webbing from an ancient dragon is considered medium weight but gives extra armor. Not only that it brings with it resistance to whatever type of damage the Dragon's breath weapon was during life.

High Quality Heavy Hide or Scales. Some creatures give good quality hide that is heavier than most. This hide can be used to make Heavy armor as opposed to Medium armor as it normally does. Those who give high quality heavy hide but give no extra resistances are simply put into this category. Examples of creatures that would give High Quality Heavy Hide without resistances are heavy creatures with an CR of 5 or higher: Bulette, Purple Worm, & Umber Hulk

Remorhaz Hide. Remorhaz is a giant worm like creature that hunt in artic climates. Also known as a polar worm, or ice worm. These monsterous creatures give off an incredible heat. This makes their hides hard to work with when it comes to fire, but it also gives them reistance to both fire and cold damage. When a Remorhaz dies, the skin slowly comes to a workable temperature after a tenday. Even then, someone who makes armor from this hide will feel warm consatntly, mkaing them immune to cold weather effects as well. Working with this hide takes time as the heat radiating from it is managable but painful to deal with for long periods of time.

Ancient Dragon Scales. These scales are specifcally those that come from ancient dragons. Dragon scales are durable, and great for crating armor as long as you can get a craftsman that can work with them. Any craftsman that has never worked with dragon scales before should be at a disadvantage when crafting with them the first couple of times. This is because they are hard to work with, especially ones that bring immunity to fire damage. Those willing to sit with the scales and study them for a tenday can forgo this disadvantage on crafting with them. Of course, dragon scales bring with them the resistance to whatever type of damage the Dragon's breath weapon was during life. These dragon scales work the same as regular ones but are heavier and provide even more armor.

Tarrasque Hide. The Tarrasque is one the most notorious creatures of legend. These massive creatures are known to level a city in a matter of minutes. If you are lucky enough to take one down and strip it of it's scales and armor platings, you may create armor out of it. This armor is especially heavy, but as tough as adamant. Working with this material comes at a disadvantage unless you have worked with it before somehow, or study the material for a tenday. The armor has a massive armor bonus, makes the wearer immune to Fire damage, Poison damage and, like adamantine, any critical hit against you while wearing this armor becomes a normal hit.

Adamantine, Toughest There Is!

Adamantine, is a jet-black alloy of adamant and other metals. Usually black in color, adamantine has a green sheen when viewed by candlelight. It's found rarely in veins of ore near earth nodes, possibly found in the Underdark, and can be harvested from the occasional meteroite. Armor made from Adamantine is harder to get through. It contains the following properties:

• Adamantine can replace any of the following materials: Chains, Scales, Splint, Rings, Plate.
• While wearing armor made from Adamantine as the primary material any critical hit against you becomes a normal hit.

Crafting In Action

Using the formula is simple enough, but might seem complicated for some. Let's use Breastplate as an example as it has an extra effect to it.

Making a Breastplate

You add the total numbers the materials provide: In this case, 4.5. Add that to be base AC of 10, and you end up with 14.5. Remember you can't have any decimals so you drop the .5 and end up with 14 AC. Because your primary material was light, and your secondary was heavy, you've made Medium Armor. You end with:

Breastplate

Why is Cloth the primary material? Cloth material is the primary ingredient because the plate armor is only on the chest, the rest of the armor being mostly cloth and bits of leather. This is also the case because the special condition from the cloth needs to be primary to take effect.

Special Properties

Special properties from material should only be applied when the material is used as the primary. For example, if we had Yeti's fur that gave us resistance to cold damage, you shouldn't allow that resistant to be granted to armor that uses Yeti's fur as a secondary material, only armor that uses it as the primary. This makes materials with special properties much more valueable and less likely to be used as secondary materials. This is also done to balance out Cloth as it needs to be the primary ingredient to remove stealth disadvantage from heavy materials.

Crafting The Armor

A character who has the right resources and enough time can create armor in their downtown. We can use the rules explained in Xanathar's Guide as a base.

Cost. Xanathar's Guide to Everything states that a character needs raw materials worth half of the item’s selling cost. For this example (Breastplate) we can determine that a character needs 200 gp (400/2) worth of materials in Plate, Cloth and various other components.

Time To determine how many workweeks it takes to create the armor, divide its gold piece cost by 50. A character can complete multiple items in a workweek if the items’ combined cost is 50 gp or lower. Items that cost more than 50 gp can be completed over longer periods of time, as long as the work in progress is stored in a safe location. For the Breastplate we can determine that it would take 4 workweeks to finish this armor (200/50). Remember to use the gold value you are paying to make the armor, not the buying value.

What's a Workweek? An average "Tenday" (week) in the D&D Realms is ten days long. A "workweek" is 5 days. Most activities require a workweek (5 days) or more to complete. A character must spend 8 hours of each day engaged in the downtime activity for that day to count toward the activity's completion. The days don't need to be consecutive.

Rolling to Craft

Determining how armor is made based on a single roll is impractical, especially when the craft takes mulitple days to complete. I have determiend that the crafting system should work similiar to how death saving throws work.

Let's use Breastplate again as an example. This armor takes 4 workweeks to make this armor, 20 days working 8 hours at least. Determine when you want to make your rolls during this time. You should roll to determine how the crafting is going. Your rolls should be spread out across the entire work time, unless of course you fail before then.

Rolling the Dice Roll 1d20, adding your proficiency bonus to the roll if you are proficient with the tools you are using to craft the armor. A roll totaling 10 or better is fine. Materials that are rarer require a higher total than 10. But for this example let's just use 10 as the base.

Let's say you roll on the d20, adding your proficiency bonus and you get a 15. This is one success on your crafting process. Much like death saving throws, you need at least three successes to create a finished product. On the third roll of 10 or better, the craft is successful. If you get three successes before the workweeks are finished, have the character "work out the kinks" on the armor until the timespan is fully finished.

Rolling Below 10 When your total roll is below 10, consider that one failed crafting process, if you reach three failed attempts, you lose your materials and the armor your crafting becomes worthless. If you end up getting a total of three successes but have a failure or two in the process, consider adding more time to finish the armor.

Rolling a 1 When rolling a natural 1 on an attempt, consider this two failed crafting processes. If this causes you to reach a total of three the craft is considered a failure. As an added rule if you already had two failures and then roll a 1, totaling four failures, consider having the forge or the armor explode, melt or do something that damages the forge, the character, or the tools in some way.

Rolling a 20 When rolling a natural 20 on an attempt, consider this two successful crafting processes. If this causes you to reach a total of three, the craft is considered complete. As an added rule, if you already had two successful attempts and then roll a 20, consider allowing them to complete it sooner or consider the armor "masterwork". Do not give the armor a bonus to AC as this is too strong a benefit. But consider allowing the character to sell the armor for a higher value, or just describe the armor as exceptionally well made.

DC Based on Rarity

If the main material of the armor is a higher rarity than common, the DC needed to craft the armor should be higher.

Armor Crafting DCs

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Cost & Pricing

When determining the cost and time to craft a piece of armor, the first things we need to determine is the cost of the material. Prices should vary depending on rarity and the type, and are subject to change. Here's a quick guideline. It is ok to use a rough estimate, try not to overthink about exact prices of every single thing. Also, consider that armor for a gnome would be less expensive than armor for a Dragonborn. Or just use a flat rate for everything, its up to you. An easy way to look at the prices based on rarity is to think of Uncommon as a +1 bonus, Rare as a +2 bonus, and so on.

A good example of the difference in cost within the same rarity is that the common supplies to make leather armor only cost a character 2.5 gp, while the cost of common supplies for plate armor would be 750 gp. In these examples, I would determine that leather costs roughly 2 gp, and another 50 sp in random supplies to finish the product. Plate would cost roughly 500 gp in steel to make the plate and 250 gp on various other supplies. It's always safe to assume the higher the AC bonus the more expesnsive it is.

Specific Pricing

Certain materials already have an in-game cost that can be used when determing the price of making armor. Below is a breakdown of a common metal, an uncommon metal and a rare metal and their pricings.

Below are further examples of different pricing depending on what materials you make with them:

Steel

*Note: the consistency of these prices don't make a lot of sense, but they are based on the prices of the armor from the Player's Handbook, so we just have to go with it.

Mithral - (Steel x5)

Adamantine - (Steel x10)

Dragon Parts

Dragon parts should always be the highest price from the cost pool of their rarity. Here are some examples of how to price certain dragon parts to help you out. Of course you can adjust these for your own game however you'd like.

Cost by the Pound Rule

If you determine what the cost of a material is by the pound, you can use this quick reference guide to determine how many pounds you need to make a piece of armor.

Keeping Balance

Always remember to keep the game balanced, giving rare materials to your characters will get them good armor, but it's hard to do anything if all your players have 20+ AC.

Losing Materials

Failing a craft and losing a lot of materials doesn't feel great, but it's what helps keep the system balanced. If a player failed a craft you should make it so they lose their time and their materials. However, the DM can make any ruling, including keeping some (or all) the materials on a failed craft if you want to allow the players to try their luck again.

Selling Crafts & Making Money

This system allows players to make their own armor, and gives them something to do in their downtown. A player who has hoarded materials could go into a business of making armor for profit. This is of course, always possible. If a player wants to spend weeks at a time crafting and attempting to sell armors for a profit, there's nothing against that. But always remember to balance downtime and adventuring, if that character just wants to retire and make armor, that's fine, but they shouldn't hold the rest of the party back.

When it comes to determining price, whatever you put into the craft should be doubled when it comes to selling. Remember that not everyone in the world has 1,000+ gp to throw at great armor. Adventuring parties aren't always that common, especially not higher level ones with a large amount of gold. A character who is trying to sell 10 sets of Dragon Scale Armor might have a hard time finding 10 buyers in the course of a year, maybe even longer.

Base Rules Vs This Guide

According to the base rules of the DMG (pg 152) +1 magical armor is considered rare, while +2 is very rare and +3 is legnedary in terms of pricing. This system allows to create non-magical armor that would be considered +1 and treat it as uncommon, +2 as rare, and +3 as very rare, and a further +4 for legendary in terms of pricing. This could cause some balancing issues.

One example is that the Armor of Cold Resistance in the DMG is a rare magic item that gives no armor bonus and requires attunement. Creating armor with this system not only gives slightly more armor than normal but also gives the resitance without the need of attunement. However, keep in mind this armor isn't magical unless otherwise noted. A good quality leather armor will be destroyed by the Disintegrate spell for example, while magic items won't. Lastly, the prices and how you want to use these rules is always up to your interpretation.

Final Words

  Made in the Homebrewery by Codie R Frink, working on a Patreon and a GMBinder for a all my stuff, keep an eye out! Art by Wizard of the Coast, will probably be changed later for obvious reasons. Follow me on Twitter @CodieFrink and THANKS FOR READING!