Potions and scrolls are among the most commonly found items in low level adventures. However, the next most commonly found items in early adventures are magical arms and armor. That +1 shield, +1 suit of armor, or +1 weapon really help out lower level characters, and also are sometimes required to hit certain creatures. This article will focus on the armor and shields that one can find. The next article in this series will focus on non-sword magical weapons.
Magical armor and shields are found 15% of the time, according to Table III Magic Items in the DMG. These items are very important to fighters and clerics; not so much for thieves, and not at all for magic-users. In fact, since thieves cannot use shields, and may only wear leather, they are the least likely to benefit from this table since the only item on the list they could use has an 8% chance of being included (and is only of +1 value regardless). It's curious to note that most armor has only a magical bonus - only two sets of armor have any other abilities, both are plate mail, and one of these is cursed. Only two shields have abilities other than the magical bonus (and one of these is cursed!).
Magical armor does not drastically, magically size itself to the wearer as it does in later editions of the game. Certainly, it does adjust somewhat to the wearer, but a halfling cannot use a human-sized suit of armor any more than a dwarf or elf could. In fact, there are but 4 sizes of armor: man-sized (65%), elf-sized (20%), dwarf-sized (10%), and gnome/halfling sized (5%). It's important to note that one must take this into consideration when seeking treasure - it's more likely for a human to find magic armor in a treasure trove than a dwarf (unless, of course, the dungeon is an ancient dwarf mine, elven stronghold, or gnomish lair). Mind you, most treasures should be placed by the DM, but most modules will list randomly generated treasures, so keep this in mind when deciding what class to play.
Magical Armor
The plus of the magic armor makes it better by lowering the armor class. Thus a +2 suit of armor lowers the AC by 2 places. Magic shields do the same. This might be counter-intuitive to a new player, so make sure that they realize that lower armor class ratings are better than higher ones. Gygax even explains on page 164 that he kept the old system of decreasing armor ratings for the sake of continuity and familiarity. If only he had switched them at this early stage.... Conversely, cursed armor makes one easier to hit. Thus, cursed chain mail -1 would make your AC one place higher (for a base AC of 6). There are no cursed armors listed on the chart (other than one, see below), even though such suits existed in many modules of the time.
The lighter the armor, the less likely it is to be very enchanted. Thus, leather, ring mail, and studded leather armors are only of +1 enchantment. Scale mail goes no higher than +2 enchantment, chain mail no higher than +3 enchantment, and splint mail no higher than +4 enchantment. Plate mail and shields, however, can be fully enchanted to +5 value! Curiously, there is no enchanted banded mail or padded armors. A player using these types of armors will apparently never find one that is enchanted!
Armor of +3 bonus is made from special meteoric iron steel. Armor of +4 value is mithral-steel alloy. Armor of +5 bonus is adamantite-steel alloy. I'm not sure that really means much to the user of the armor, but it makes a big deal to those seeking to manufacture such magic items. Mithral and adamantite are rare metals to surface dwellers (although the dark elves are known to trade adamantite bars in the underworld trade routes). So keep in mind that if you are a magic-user seeking to enchant some armor for a fellow party member or loyal henchman, you'll need to locate these rare metals in quantities large enough to create a suit of armor! The downside is that all these metals incorporate iron (steel) in some fashion, so all are susceptible to a heat metal or transmute metal to wood spell from a druid (although magic armors allow a saving throw).
The only suits of armor with special powers are both plate mail, and one of these is a cursed item. The "good" suit is plate mail of etherealness. This +5 enchanted armor enables the wearer and all non-living things carried by him to become ethereal. While in that state, the wearer cannot attack or be attacked by anything on the material plane, but may travel through physical obstacles as if they were not there, just like oil of etherealness. In essence, it makes the wearer a ghost (and would allow such a person to fight a ghost on its own ground!). The armor has charges, and each shift to the ethereal state uses one of those charges. It does not specifically state how long the character can remain ethereal, but it does say it functions just as if oil of etherealness had been used (so I assume that the duration of the oil - 4 + 1d4 turns - would be the duration of the effect). It is also interesting to note that ethereal beings and objects are considered invisible to those on the material plane. Since the armor is producing the effect, the user is effectively stuck in the ethereal state until the charge wears off; this could be bad if all he or she wanted to do was get on the other side of a locked door to open it for his party, or went off to face a ghost by himself. The armor's charges are initially set at 20 (if none had been previously used before it is found), and the armor bonus decreases by 1 for every five charges used. Thus, if a suit has 20 charges, once it has used 5 charges, it now has 15 charges and is plate mail of etherealness +4. Once all the charges are used, the suit is a normal suit of plate mail +1 and cannot be recharged. The only other weakness of the armor is the fact that a phase door spell will negate the ethereal state and prevent the armor from functioning again for 1 day. Now, how does one target an ethereal person with a spell when they aren't in this plane? For that matter, the caster would have to see the invisible ethereal target somehow in order to cast the spell. Thirdly, it has to be cast at a section of wall and attunes the caster's body to pass through that section of wall. This seems to be a strange effect of the spell. Does it mean to say that if an ethereal person tries to follow a magic-user through his or her phase door, it will render the ethereal person material again? Seems a round-about way of saying that. And, as usual, is such a case-specific thing, that it really should not have been included in the description (and is not even mentioned in the spell). A 7th level spell can only be cast by a high-level wizard in any case - so be careful when attacking liches in an ethereal state, I guess.
The other suit of armor with special properties is plate mail of vulnerability. This suit of armor appears to every test to be magical +1, +2, or +3 armor, but in reality it is cursed plate mail -2, -3, or -4! This vulnerability will not be revealed as such until the wearer is attacked by some creature in anger or with intent to harm or kill. On a natural 20 to hit, the armor falls to pieces. This really isn't all that terrible of a cursed item (I've seen much worse). Sure, you could be subjected to hits as if wearing chain mail, scale mail, or even studded leather, but the armor TYPE is still plate mail. Does the hit with a natural 20 remove the curse of the armor? This is not stated. Most cursed items cannot be removed; it seems that the only way to remove this cursed suit (other than a remove curse spell) is to be subjected to a hit of natural 20! Are the pieces still magical? Is the curse still in effect? Nothing is stated in the DMG - however, if I were adjudicating this, I would say that the armor's curse is effectively broken on that character. Of course, the poor character is now totally defenseless, and probably poorly dressed, to continue in combat. Once the armor falls off, he or she is struck as if wearing no armor at all (which gives a lot of weapons bonuses to hit).
A curious note (and one that I discussed in a previous article) is that magical armor either 1) weighs nothing and has no effect on movement rate; or 2) increases the normal speed by 3" (up to normal unarmored movement rate). It is stated both ways in the same book (DMG). Magical shields, however, do not have a weight reduction and don't normally affect speed in any case. How this affects magic armor in your campaign is up to DM decision. I, for one, have a hard time explaining how someone in plate mail can tread water, so I use option 2 in my campaigns.
One little-remembered aspect of magic armor is that such suits actually protect against more than just weapon blows or monster attacks. These items also help with saving throws against certain attack forms. Magic armor, however, cannot assist against gas attacks, poison, or spells which do not cause physical damage (like petrification, polymorph, charms, etc.). However they DO allow the magical bonus of the armor to affect saving throws against acid (unless immersed), disintegration, falling damage, fire attacks (magical or otherwise), and spells that cause physical damage (with the exception of electrical attacks against metallic armor). Naturally, if no saving throw is permitted, then the armor would not help, magical or not (against magic missiles, for example).
Magical Shields
Magical shields have bonuses of +1 to +5, and there are two special shields that affects missiles:
The first of these is the shield +1, +4 vs. missiles. This large shield is much better at protecting the user against hand-hurled and mechanically launched missiles of all sorts. It also has a 20% chance of negating magic missiles from the front arc. This is a tremendous boon to all clerics and fighters squaring off against magic-users, and is only 1 of 3 ways to foil these usually unavoidable magical attacks. It says nothing about boulders hurled by a giant; however, I suppose this is a "hand-hurled" missile of sorts. Since siege engines treat all targets as AC 0, and ballistae treat all targets as AC 10 regardless of armor worn, this shield would not be much help against such missiles.
The other magical shield is a cursed item, the shield -1 missile attracter. This item thus acts as if the user isn't even carrying a shield. The cursed part about attracting missiles only works if the DM follows the intent of the rules as written. It is explained in the combat chapter that firing a missile into a melee causes all participants in that melee to become random targets. Each target is then assigned a probability of being hit based on size. If this shield is being used by one of those combatants, it doubles or triples the chance that the wearer is targeted. I've seen quite a few DMs ignore the above rule about firing into melee. If that's the case, then the curse of the shield is useless since the chance to be hit is ignored. In order for this magic item to work, then, requires the DM to follow the rules exactly as written!
The end of the section on magical armors (page 165) includes a description of armor types (which were already fully described on page 27), and is the first place where Gygax describes the difference between plate mail armor and plate armor (which is lighter and more mobile). This was a Renaissance invention and cost 2-3 times more than plate mail armor; it was later inserted (as full plate along with field plate) in the UNEARTHED ARCANA.
UNEARTHED ARCANA Magical Armors and Shields
Speaking of that oft-maligned tome of knowledge, the armors were expanded in UNEARTHED ARCANA to include bronze plate (of +1 or +2 bonus), bucklers (up to +3 bonus), magical elfin chain mail (which Gygax swore up and down in the DMG did not exist), leather armor of +2 or +3 bonus, magical field plate (up to +5 bonus) and full plate (up to +4 bonus), ring mail +2, scale mail +3, and studded leather +2. Again, banded mail and padded armor was given the shaft and not even mentioned!
Another special armor was included in this section - anything armor. Such armor can be any type from leather to plate, originally appearing to have but a +1 bonus. Upon command it becomes any sort of other normal magical armor. For example, anything armor that appears as leather can change into plate, or vice versa. However it will never form into a specific type of armor more than once. A change into a specific type of armor will last for 1 day (24 hours) before the anything armor reverts to its usual +1 status. This change can include special armor types when commanded, but special armors only last for 1 hour. After commanded to change 3 different times, the armor loses all of its magical properties.
A note on the magical elfin chain mail indicates that it will rarely fit anyone who is not an elf or half-elf (but there IS a table one can roll on to see if the size was made for another race). There is only a 15% chance of it being made for a smaller race, and only 20% chance of it being made for an average or tall/muscular human (or half-orc). The great benefit of this armor is that a thief can wear it with minimal effect to his or her Thief Abilities, and can be concealed beneath clothing. Such a suit is also a boon for fighter/magic-users (who can only be elves or half-elves anyway).
Magical plate armor will conform perfectly to exactly fit the wearer who puts it on (but the size type must still be rolled on the table). Non-magical plate armor (and most other armors) are by necessity custom made to the wearer, because poorly-fitted armor actually hampers combat ability, movement, and causes chafing and pains when worn. Magical armor could not be altered to fit someone other than the person it was made for, thus magical armors now adjusted to fit the person wearing it so long as they are the same race/general size. Non-magical field plate and full plate typically had to be made to exactly fit their wearer, but now magical versions adjusted to fit the wearer with the same restriction listed above. In addition, these armors actually absorb damage, and each plus increases the amount of damage these armors can absorb. This was a critical departure from traditional AD&D in which armor did not mean much except to keep you from getting hit. Of course, with this damage absorption, one now needed to worry about armor repairs (also never considered when dealing with armors in the past). Apparently magical field and full plate may be repaired, but only by a specialist in magical armors (and the price of such repairs is quite costly and time consuming). Really, though, this is just another stat that has to be tracked on the character sheet along with hit points, XP, gold totals, etc. Still, this really affects the survivability of fighters, paladin, rangers, cavaliers, and clerics! And it seems that the only reason to include this armor in the game is to give cavaliers something else to make them better than fighters (since cavaliers always needed to obtain the best armor available).
Please be aware that all the rules regarding armor on page 27 of the DMG and pages 75-76 of the UA still apply to magical armors (except weight, of course). All the rules that apply to shields and the number of attacks they can block per round are also still in effect for their magical counterparts. For example, a magical buckler can still only be used against one attack each round, regardless of enchantment bonus.
The final addition to the armors section in the UNEARTHED ARCANA was the introduction of magical barding for mounts. Since cavaliers are, by definition, riders of mounts, their mounts needed magical protections as well! I won't go into this in much detail other than to state that this really is unnecessary when dealing with a traditional dungeon crawl, and comes into play only if the party spends most of its time in the wilderness with a cavalier in the party, or at a jousting tournament. Either way, it should rarely come into play during a traditional AD&D game.
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