Mithral Armor & Weapons 5e: One Is Awesome, We Fix The Other

Unobtanium, vibranium, cold iron, adamantium… fantasy and the woolier sorts of science fabrication are littered with incredible metals .
From Captain America ’ s shield to Wolverine ’ sulfur claw, fabrication writers love a nigh-on-magical mineral with properties that make the most promote carbon fiber weave in a Formula 1 subspecies car look like pig iron .
nowadays, we ’ ra going to be taking a look at the grandfather of charming metals : Mithral .

“ Here’s a pretty thing…light as a feather, and hard as dragon’s scales. ”

Reading: Mithral Armor & Weapons 5e: One Is Awesome, We Fix The Other

Bilbo Baggins

What Is Mithral? 

Forged by elves, dwarves, or the breath of a moonstone dragon, mithral ( not mithril – absorb it, J.R.R. Tolkein ’ randomness lawyers ! Yours sincerely, Gary Gygax xoxo ) is a silvern, legally distinct alloy found throughout the D & D multiverse .
Rarer than platinum, more valuable than amber, harder than steel, and lighter than… about half as much steel, mithral is a highly coveted fabric used to forge weapons and armor thanks to its incredible elation .
It crops up quite frequently in the gamble Storm King ’ second Thunder, finds its manner into more than a few piles of charming items in Waterdeep : dungeon of the Mad Mage, and is the material used to forge a sincerely excellent legendary magic trick item, the Infiltrator ’ second Key, in the Explorer ’ s Guide to Wildemount .
Mithral in D & D 5e is, along with silver, closely linked with the Feywild – the celestial plane of the fairies .
The Dungeon Master ’ s Guide chapter on care for notes that charming items or gear of fey origin are distinguished by the fact that any alloy in the item is silver or mithral, rather than iron or steel ( presumably because the fey folk music traditionally hate cast-iron ) .
Moonstone dragons – dragons born in or otherwise mutated by the Feywild ’ second energies – loot mithral ( arsenic well as silver and platinum ) far above more traditionally hoard metals like gold and copper .
This is credibly more my own head canon than an actual fact from the 5e rules, but I view and treat mithral as silver that ’ s been infused with the department of energy of the Feywild .
therefore, a flatware mine that delves into earth where the margin between worlds is weaker might start turning up mithral rather, not to mention you start running into some nasty elfin creatures .

How Does Mithral Armor Work in D&D 5e? 

Armor forged from Mithral is actually remarkably simple, mechanically speaking. Any equipment forged from Mithral weighs just half as much as the same item forged from even the lightest steel. 
Therefore it does not impose any disadvantage on Dexterity Checks. It also does not have any Strength requirements.
Mithral Armor
Armor ( medium or dense, but not hide ), rare
Mithral is a sparkle, flexible metallic element. A mithral chain shirt or breastplate can be worn under normal clothes .
If the armor type made from mithral normally imposes disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) Checks or has a Strength requirement, the mithral version of the armor doesn’t.
Applicable Armor:

Name	Type	AC	Strength	Stealth
Chain Shirt	Medium	13 + Dex modifier (max 2)	—	—
Scale Mail	Medium	14 + Dex modifier (max 2)	—	Disadvantage
Breastplate	Medium	14 + Dex modifier (max 2)	—	—
Half Plate	Medium	15 + Dex modifier (max 2)	—	Disadvantage
Ring Mail	Heavy	14	—	Disadvantage
Chain Mail	Heavy	16	Strength 13	Disadvantage
Splint	Heavy	17	Strength 15	Disadvantage
Plate	Heavy	18	Strength 15	Disadvantage

mechanically, mithral armor is very simple in D & D 5e – about to the point of feeling slightly underwhelming .
Any and all heavy armor forged from mithral imposes no disadvantage on stealth checks.
besides, while the rules don ’ t explicitly express it, it’s a common assumption that mithral equipment weights half as much as the same gear made from steel or iron .
This besides means that armor with a base forte prerequisite loses that prerequisite if it ’ s made from mithral .
If your party uses burden rules and if 5e had basically any rules at all that imposed penalties for swimming in heavy armor, mithral starts to look even better .
Rogues in Platemail?! 
so, assuming your table doesn ’ t use hindrance rules ( who does in this day and senesce ? Unless you ’ re explicitly running an exploration-focused or very old-school kind of crippled – in which case, why are you however playing 5e ? – there ’ s no argue ), the first and foremost practice for mithral armor is that a lawsuit of mithral heavy armor can turn a sneaky, furtive rogue into a still-stealthy, still-sneaky, walking rampart of platemail .
so long as you take the Normal and then Heavy Armor Master feat or do some creative multiclassing, you can outfit your rogue in mithral plate from drumhead to toe, and they will distillery make about american samoa much noise as a vomit ’ s tail dragged across velvet shag carpet and have an AC of 18. Freaky stuff .
Another thing the RAW don ’ t make note of but seems to make its way into merely about every table ’ s list of theater rules is that while mithral isn ’ t explicitly immune to the effects of corrosion ( thanks to, say, a rust monster or a black pudding ), I would rule that it most surely is immune, possibly corrodes doubly as slowly, or something to that effect .
Because of its curio and rate, forging mithral equipment or buying mithral to make your own is an expensive work. The RAW state of something made of mithral will cost you an extra 200 general practitioner on top of the item ’ sulfur base price .
personally, I would say that mithral gear should cost an extra 200 general practitioner per 1,000 general practitioner in the price of the base token .
besides, sourcing enough mithral for larger projects should honestly be a fortune harder than fair scraping together the needed cash .
Finding a smith who ’ sulfur able of working with mithral could besides present an concern challenge, whether it entails a meet with the dwarf lords…
( Side note: You should 100 % steal from The Mandalorian here and make mithral into a badass Beskar steel analogue that was stolen from a dwarven kin by an evil conglomerate years ago .
Rocking up to a fortress fully of homicidal war dwarves carrying the equivalent of a cartful of Nazi gold can only make for an excellently tense negotiation – possibly the dwarves need you to prove yourselves worthy of wearing their kin ’ south sacred alloy, demand half of it in tribute, or just decide to shoot you all with crossbows and reclaim it for themselves. )
…or a parlous camping trip into the Feywild, a party on the hunt for a fresh set of mithral platemail should prepare themselves for an exciting prison term .

Mithral Weapons in 5e

There are, annoyingly, virtually no rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide or Player’s Handbook for how to treat mithral weapons.
however, extrapolating from the official rules for mithral armor and some good ideas from the D & D community, I think we can make the adopt rulings.

• Mithral weapons weigh half as much as their standard versions. 
• Mithral is too light to forge into heavy weapons or weapons that deal bludgeoning damage.
• Wooden weapons (quarterstaffs, for example) cannot be made entirely from mithral. 
• Any normal weapons made from mithral gain the “light” property. 
• Any light weapons made from mithral gain the “finesse” property. 
• Mithral weapons are immune to the effects of corrosion.
• Mithral weapons count as being Silvered for the purpose of overcoming resistances. 

therefore, the list of weapons that are eligible to be forged from mithral is as follows .

Simple Melee Weapons

Weapon Name	Cost	Damage	Weight	Properties
Dagger	2 gp	1d4 piercing	1 lb.	Finesse, light, thrown (range 20/60)
Handaxe	5 gp	1d6 slashing	2 lb.	Light, thrown (range 20/60)
Javelin	5 sp	1d6 piercing	2 lb.	Thrown (range 30/120)
Sickle	1 gp	1d4 slashing	2 lb.	Light
Spear	1 gp	1d6 piercing	3 lb.	Thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)

Martial Melee Weapons

Weapon Name	Cost	Damage	Weight	Properties
Battleaxe	10 gp	1d8 slashing	4 lb.	Versatile (1d10)
Lance	10 gp	1d12 piercing	6 lb.	Reach, special
Longsword	15 gp	1d8 slashing	3 lb.	Versatile (1d10)
Morningstar	15 gp	1d8 piercing	4 lb.	–
Rapier	25 gp	1d8 piercing	2 lb.	Finesse
Scimitar	25 gp	1d6 slashing	3 lb.	Finesse, light
Shortsword	10 gp	1d6 piercing	2 lb.	Finesse, light
Trident	5 gp	1d6 piercing	4 lb.	Thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)
War pick	5 gp	1d8 piercing	2 lb.	–

Mithral Magic Items 

As we mentioned earlier, there are a few charming items scattered throughout D & D 5e ’ s respective sourcebooks that are canonically made from mithral .

Danoth’s Visor

source : Explorer ’ s Guide to Wildemount
fantastic item, legendary ( requires attunement )
These mithral-frame goggles with clearly diamond lenses were used by the evoker Danoth Oro to spot invisible enemies and lookout areas from afar .
These goggles, depending on whether they are abeyant, awakened, or exalted ( basically, in the EGtW, charming items “ level up ” reasonably like characters as they are used and the narrative progresses ), allow you the ability to see through charming and nonmagical darkness, see inconspicuous creatures, see into the Ethereal Plane, see through solid matter, mechanically detect illusions, and finally project an antimagic field like a perceiver .

Gavel of the Venn Rune

reference : storm King ’ s Thunder
wonderfully detail, rare ( requires attunement )
A wooden gavel which, while little for a giant, is the size of a warhammer in homo hands. The storm colossus rune for “ friend ” is inscribed in mithral on the haft. This charming warhammer has the be properties :
Arbiter’s Shield. At the beginning of every fight, assail rolls against you have disadvantage before the start of your beginning twist, provided that the gavel is on your person .
Bond of Amity. As an action, you can use the gavel to strike a point on a hard open .
The first time in the adjacent minute that a animal within 60 feet of that point deals price to another creature with an fire that hits, the attacker takes psychic damage equal to half the damage it dealt to the prey .
once you use this property, you can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate use it again until you finish a long stay .
Gift of Truth. You can transfer the gavel ’ s magic trick to a place by tracing the venn rune on the anchor with your finger .
The point where you trace it becomes the center of a ball-shaped area of charming that has a 30-foot radius and that is fixed to the place .
The transfer takes 8 hours of work that requires the gavel to be within 5 feet of you. At the end, the gavel is destroyed, and the area gains the following property :

• Whenever a creature utters a lie while within the 30-foot-radius sphere, that creature takes 5 psychic damage and flinches visibly.

Infiltrator’s Key

reference : Explorer ’ s Guide to Wildemount
wonderfully detail, fabled ( requires attunement )
A mithral skeletal system cardinal which, as it reaches new stages of awakening, can be used as thieves ’ tools, to grant advantage on stealth checks, to transform into a charming dagger, to cast either Alter Self, Invisibility, Knock, or Pass Without Trace once per day, and even to create doorways through walls where none exist .

Korolnor Scepter

source : storm King ’ s Thunder
fantastic item, legendary ( requires attunement )
A brawny scepter forged by the dwarven gods, forged from a length of tapered mithral as long and thick as a dwarf ’ s forearm with a small platinum knob at the bottom and a round magnetic disk adorned with a ring of seven bantam bluing gems at the top .
This scepter can be wielded as a +3 magic golf club, and allows the wielder to channel the properties of the charming Wyrmskull Throne vitamin a well as the properties of the scepter itself .
The scepter has 10 charges, and it regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges at dawn. Its properties are as follows :

• If you are underground or underwater, you can use an action to expend 1 charge to determine the distance to the surface.
• As an action, you can expend 2 charges to cast the Sending spell from the scepter.
• As an action, you can expend 3 charges to cast the Teleport spell from the scepter. If the destination is within 60 feet of the Wyrmskull Throne, there is no chance of a teleport error or mishap occurring.

Navigation Orb

informant : storm King ’ s Thunder
wonderfully token, very rare ( requires attunement )
A hollow, 7-foot-diameter celestial sphere of dilute, milled mithral with a large skye ( obscure ) rune embossed on its out surface .
The ball levitates 10 feet above the ground and is keyed to a particular cloud palace, allowing you to control that castle ’ randomness altitude and movement while the eyeball is inside the castle .
If the orb is destroyed or removed from its castle, the castle ’ s altitude and location remain fixed until the orb is returned or replaced .
As an action, you can cause one of the play along effects to occur if you are touching the orb :

• The castle moves at a speed of 1 mph in a straight line, in a direction of your choice, until the castle stops or is made to stop or until another action is used to change its direction. If this movement brings the castle into contact with the ground, the castle lands gently.
• The castle, if it is moving, comes to a gradual stop.
• The castle makes a slow, 90-degree turn clockwise or counterclockwise (turning a northerly view into a westerly view, for example). The castle can turn while it is moving in a straight line.

Any creature touching the eyeball knows the altitude of the base of the castle above the ground or water system below it .
These are, like, credibly the inhalation for the Bureau of Balance flying ball in The Adventure Zone. besides, they ’ re a fantastic thing to steal and drop into your own campaign, whether or not you ’ re running anything to do with storm giants.

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I played my first tabletop RPG ( Pathfinder 1e, specifically ) in college. I rocked up late to the beginning seance with an unread rulebook and a human caparison called Nick Jugger. It was a rough start but I had a blast and nowadays, the better part of a decade later, I play, write, and write about tabletop RPGs ( largely 5e, but besides PBtA, Forged in the Dark and OSR ) games for a live, which is wild .

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