A group of hardy adventurers are sitting in a tavern, drinking and sulking over a failed adventure. Many peasants give them right of way and plenty of space. The fighters have weapons that look like they know how to be used. The irredescent flashes from time to time are the only signs that the dented, burned, tarnished and pitted armor is magical. The leader of the group walks up to the barkeep and asks, "Do ye have a magical armor repair service here in town?" What?
So in 3.5 greyhawk, where do folks go to get their magical armor fixed? Does it just magically repair overnight (very cool) or do they have to find some wizard ina lonely tower and seek magical assistance? All opinions and help are welcome. Thanks!
In the past, I had magical plate (field & full) that could regenerate damage, but it was a special quality, and not standard.
Otherwise, I think this is covered in some of the skill descriptions. I would think that the same skills required to create the armor would be needed to repair it, but I have no book handy to confirm that.
It depends on how common such magic is in your campaign. Would the greasy blacksmith at some podunk crossroads hamlet have the required skills? Or is it more likely that a character will need to seek out a dwarven forge master hidden in his secret mountain stronghold?
Somewhere in the middle probably.
According to pg214 of the 3.5 DMG; "It costs no more to repair a magic item with the Craft skill than it does to repair its non-magical counterpart. The Make Whole spell also repairs a damaged-but not completely broken-magic item".
I'm beginning to get the impression that, in the newer additions of "Greyhawk," the DM's job is simply to flick through the books looking for "rules."
Are you telling me that there are "rules" for everything? What the heck do I need to roll in order to take a successful crap! A perfect 20! (Failed to take crap! Shucks, must be out of toilet paper!)
Really, though, you guys make it sound like too much. Most of it doesn't even sound like common sense, to me! Not to disparage anyone, not by any means, that is NEVER my intent, but, I don't need that much help!
1e & 2e for me, thanks. For me, the DMG is simply a guide, not hard and fast rules. No thanks.
IMO (and this could change), the enchantment on magical arms and armor is not damaged when the item is; only the physical aspect of the item is damaged. Therefore, a well-skilled blacksmith would be able to repair a damaged item (although he would see an item of great value and would thusly charge an arm and a leg). Remember, the item would be of masterwork quality, so the blacksmith's skill level must be up to the task.
Broken weapons and armor are another thing altogether. From a fantasy standpoint, items that are broken tend to loose there power, manytimes in a dramatic fashion to the woe of the wielder. Thus, while a broken sword might physically be repaired by a blacksmith, the magic would either ebb or surge out, depending upon the DM's view. The repaired sword would still act as a sword (and a masterwork one at that), but it's enchatment would be gone. _________________ Count Telemachus, Archmage of the Unicorn Conferderation
I agree that 1e was as much about interpretation as hard and fast rules, and all the better for it, but 2e? Do you not remember "Players' Option"?
Ragr! Hail and well met!
I know you haven't read everything I've posted, so I'll repeat a little.
I started playing in the Army (late 70') and I drifted away from the game early into 2e. I became an Over-the-Road truck driver, (early 80's) not very conducive for gaming.
I'm more 1e than 2e, so some of the schematics of 2e occasionally slip my memory. Thanks for the reminder!
Ummm, I hate to sound antagonistic, but reparing magical items is misleading. Joe fighter has a longsword +2. It's damaged. So he takes it to Mr. Bob Blacksmith. The basic score to repair it would be what? 22 (20 for mastercrafted and then +1 for each enhancement bonus). Well, Bob Blacksmith has been blacksmithing for ten years, so he's an expert 3rd level? Okay, so we'll say he has 14 Intelligence. Well he has the Blacksmithing skill of 4 (base) + 3 ranks (1/lvl) + ability modifier (+2) + maybe masterwork artisan tools (+2 circumstance bonus). So to start, Bob Blacksmith has +11 to his roll? What the.... Okay so this guy only has to roll a 11 or higher to repair the magic item?
Please, please, please, if I am not adding stuff up correctly OR if I am not using the rules correctly, then correct my ignorance
You just need to realize that there are bazillions of rule books out there, only two of which are necessary to play the game: The DMG and the PHB. The rest of the rules are published because some people prefer to have well laid out rules for everything. Other people don't. The game caters to both.
So if someone comes and asks a "rules" question, its pretty reasonable to assume they want a "rules" based answer and wish to know if there is on. If they didn't want a rules answer, they'd have resolved it by DM fiat without ever posting.
Further, this site in particular caters to people playing a wide range of rules systems. There are forum regulars playing BECME D&D, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition. As well as some who use non D&D games or variants like Castles and Crusades. So you need not worry about some sort of "this is the one true way" rules consensus.
You just need to realize that there are bazillions of rule books out there, only two of which are necessary to play the game: The DMG and the PHB . . . So you need not worry about some sort of "this is the one true way" rules consensus.
Vormaerin! Hail and well met!
We meet again, my friend. Thanks for the above.
I've only just returned to Greyhawk, having been away for over 25 years. I returned to find an inundation of new books, rules, systems, et al. I was beginning to think that I needed to roll the dice to see if it was OK to sneeze!
Good to be back and to have found Canonfire! and all you wonderful people. It's really great!
Regretably, I'm not "up" enough -- with 3e or 3.5e -- to offer anything but this opinion;
Only an "11" or better? That has got to be off. That makes repairing the item ridiculously easy. As has been stated "earlier," you shouldn't be able to get such armor repaired in just any little village you come to! But that "roll" sure lets you do it. Either the "rules" are miswritten, or one of the factors for the equation is off.
For us, it has always been if it is damaged it can be repaired. However, if you choose Jack the Blacksmith in BFE who has ten years of shoeing horses, fixing wagons, and making barrel hoops, you take a chance that he will bugger up your magic goody and you lose the magic. It always pays to use the best you can find.
If it was broken the magic is gone and can only be replaced by starting the process over, however the item itself can be repaired.
As far as the 3rd ed question, I have no idea. Must have missed my knowledge: obscure blacksmithing rules roll....
We had a 3rd edition campaign were we did a kind of throwback to the 1st edition Unearth Arcana Full and Field Plate (1st edition Full and Field plate had HPs and reduced the damage a character took from each attack by a small amount which did damage to the armor's HPs instead of the character's). What we did was:
The AC Bonus that armor would have provided was cut in half (rounded up) and the other half (rounded down) became a type of DR that instead of stopping damage changed it to non-lethal (to represent the battering you would get when hit in armor). This I really enjoyed because I was DMing and I don't like killing characters all the time and I don't like pulling the monsters punches… having the armor convert a portion of the damage to non-lethal let me have the monsters beat the holy living %#@& out of the front line armored warriors and only actually kill them once and awhile.
The amount of damage that the armor converted to non-lethal damage for the character was also taken as damage to the armor's own hitpoints, and as the amount of damage the armor had taken mounted the armor would gradually loose its AC and DR until it was repaired (the armor gradually got bent out of shape or shredded and became less protective).
Armors Hit Points were determined by:
1) The category of armor (light armor got 1d4 HPs per +1 of AC, medium 2d4, and heavy 4d4)
2) Masterwork armor could be of three types:
2a) Delicate (reroll all 4s rolled for Armor HPs but doubled the regular masterwork bonuses)
2b) Regular (no change to HPs and the normal masterwork bonuses)
2c) Durable (reroll all 1s rolled for Armor HPs but no normal masterwork bonuses)
3) Certain materials could add hitpoints to the armor. Adamantine doubled all HPs except for those from enchantments or spells
4) The enchantment bonuses on the armor gave it +5hp per plus per category (light/med/heavy) of the armor
5) Some house ruled spells and armor enchantments could increase the armor's AC, DR, and/or HPs or even give armor a self-repairing regenerative property.
Mundane armor repair was a craft check with the result of the check the amount of HPs repaired. The maximum amount an armorer could repair though was their 'take 20' score. If the armor had taken more damage than the maximum a craftsman could repair that damage was permanent until a better craftsman could be found or magical repair could be used. This made it important to keep up on keeping your armor repaired to keep the damage down in the repairable range.
Armor could be magically repaired: Usually with the Repair X Damage series of spells from the Spell Compendium that worked like the clerical Cure X Wounds spells where X is minor, light, moderate, serious, and critical. Like the Craft checks though the spells had a maximum possible damage it could repair and any more serious damage required a higher level spell to fix.
Make Whole could be used but was treated the same as Repair Moderate Damage
Fabricate could also be used but required the mage to have ranks of the associated Craft skill
Tracking damage to Armor:
To track damage to armor the player had a linear scale of the armors hitpoints. From 1 to X where X was the max hitpoints of the armor. When armor was repaired it was repaired from the bottom of the scale. When damage was done to partially repaired armor it refilled these bottom hitpoints before doing more damage to the armor. For example: A set of armor with 60 hp takes 35hp of damage in a battle. The party returns to town and finds an NPC that has 7 rankes of Craft: Armorworking and so is able to "take 20" if the party has the time and fix 27hp of that damage, the remaining 8hp of damage are just beyond his skill. The next combat the armor takes 32 more hp of damage. The first 27 is applied to the bottom of the scale (the hitpoints that the repair restored to the armor) and the remaining 5hp adds to the top of the scale. The armor now had 40hp of damage on it. The same NPC armorer would be able to fix 27hp of the new damage but lacks the skill to deal with the remaining 13hp of damage.
It looked like it was going to be a lot of work when we first set up the system but the players found that it wasn't that bad… they each kept a card or paper with a check boxes for each hit point the armor had and checked a box for each point of damage starting on the lower end and working up. For each point repaired they erased a checked box on the lower end of the card also starting on the lower end of the card.
As a DM all I had to do was tell them how much damage they were hit for and the players would track how much of that was changed to non-lethal and armor damage.
You'd need a Weaponsmith to repair a Longsword not a Blacksmith. Blacksmiths are ten a penny, weaponsmiths are not. That in itself may prove problematic if the characters are far from a major settlement, a village just won't cut it. Of course, the local Lord may have a weaponsmith; but. then again, he just might like the look of that sword too.
Let's face it, in a world where creation of a magical sword is possible getting one repaired is not going to be a problem as long as you're in the right location; not a dungeon/wilderness/village.
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A perfect 20! 
For me, the DMG is simply a 
Thanks for the reminder! 
As has been stated "earlier," you shouldn't be able to get such armor repaired in just 
