Yesterday I talked about the basics of dragonhide armor – which mostly focused on the availability of these item and how dragons should fit into the majority of campaigns.
Today’s focus will be on how to properly price dragonhide armor and what effects it grants you.
The DMG
The DMG entry for dragonhide seems so crazily off the mark for pricing that I hope nobody’s using it as a reference point. In no way does this take the rarity and difficulty in obtaining the dragonhide into account.
Dragonhide Plate
This suit of full plate is made of dragonhide, rather than metal, so druids can wear it. It is otherwise identical to masterwork full plate.No aura (nonmagical); Price 3,300 gp.
It’s important to note that the armor is completely non-magical and offers no bonus of any kind beyond the typical armor bonus that normal masterwork full plate confers.
Standard full plate has a cost of 1,500gp. Masterwork full plate would be 1,650gp. Going by this baseline (the only one we have), this means that the dragonhide masterwork component costs only 1,650gp – which is the same as standard masterwork full plate.
Huh? That’s it?
While I understand that we don’t want to screw our Druid friends out of wearable heavy armor, this is completely inconsistent with everything we know about dragons. There’s no way any economy can afford to give away dragonhide full plate for 3,300gp with all of the difficulties of obtaining the raw materials in the first place.
If all I needed was to pay double for masterwork armor to have it be dragonhide armor, virtually every armor-wearing character I’ve ever played would have had it. The “cool factor” from a PC perspective justifies the cost many times over. However, this would quickly be squashed by how many people would have it if the only limited factor was price.
The Draconomicon
The Draconomicon is a great dragon-focused book. They cover pretty much all aspects of dragons and is a must-have for anyone that’s considering running a dragon NPC properly or have a heavy dragon presence in their campaign.
The main information that it gives on dragonhide armor is a nice chart that outlines what size armor a dragon’s hide of a particular size can be made into.
I’m not going to replicate the entire chart. What the chart below shows you is the smallest dragon size needed to create a medium-sized set of armor of a particular type. This means the warrior out for the full plate dragonhide armor needs to kill a colossal dragon. “Good luck,” is what I say to that!
| Dragon Size | Type of Armor |
| Large | Hide |
| Huge | Banded Mail |
| Gargantuan | Half-Plate |
| Colossal | Full Plate |
| Armor made from a large or larger dragon has enough material to make a light or heavy shield along with the armor. | |
In addition to this information, the Draconomicon also introduces the concept of dragoncraft items. These items are made from someone with the Dragoncrafter feat (something only really useful for an NPC) and they give a nonmagical bonus of a particular type. I’m going to ignore that this exists because I don’t enjoy how it works. It’s great for giving “cool dragon items” to low-level PCs, but it fails to provide useful benefits at mid to higher levels.
The benefits given aren’t large at all and aren’t tied to the dragon’s size that they’re created from. I find this to be an important thing to include. If someone kills a colossal dragon, there should be a greater reward than someone that squishes a tiny one.
Benefits Granted
The most obvious benefit of dragonhide armor is that it provides an armor bonus. The second very obvious benefit is that it looks so damn cool.
Beyond that, you don’t get a hell of a lot for all the effort of killing a dragon. Despite the lack of core rules for this, there’s a couple things that we know have been alluded to in various fantasy texts:
- Some degree of energy resistance that’s akin to the resistances that the dragon had in real life
- An aura of intimidation (akin to the dragon’s Frightful Presence ability
Energy Resistance
Each dragon has one or two immunities to specific types of attack. These immunities are Extraordinary Abilities. Extraordinary Abilities are not magical, they can not be dispelled and typically don’t require any effort to be activated – they’re reactionary and always on. This is the case for a dragon’s immunities.
It stands to reason that some part of this comes from their actual form itself. As such, it does not seem to be out of line to grant a suit of armor energy resistance of one of the types the dragon was immune to when alive.
Choose one type of energy immunity that the dragon had and it grants energy resistance in the following manner:
| Armor Size | Energy Resistance |
| Medium | 5 |
| Heavy | 15 |
| Shield * | 5 |
| * The shield energy resistance stacks with armor energy resistance if both are made from the same dragon. | |
This bonus is identical to the resistances listed in the Magic Armor and Shield Special Ability Descriptions listed in the DMG except that it is nonmagical in nature.
This energy resistance does not stack with other energy resistances of the same type. If you have fire resistance 20 from wearing heavy dragonhide armor from a colossal red dragon with a shield, this will not stack with a ring of fire resistance – only the highest applies. One benefit is that this energy resistance can not be dispelled and will function in an anti-magic shell.
Aura Of Intimidation
Dragons are scary. Very large dragons are even scarier. Someone that can kill a dragon is scary too.
Granting a PC the dragon’s Frightful Presence is a bit too much. What would be appropriate is a bonus to Intimidate checks while wearing the armor.
While wearing dragonhide armor, the wearer receives a bonus on Intimidate checks (including the Demoralize Opponent action) equal to +5 plus 2 for every size category the dragon was larger than medium sized (this benefit is considered a morale bonus).
Do not apply a penalty for dragons that were medium sized or smaller. These dragons merely provide a bonus of +5 to Intimidate checks.
Pricing The Product
Based on what I said yesterday and the additional qualities I gave this armor today, it’s safe to say that I’ve increased the price from the 3,300gp value the DMG lists it as. It should also be obvious that the base price should have been higher than this even without the abilities that I’ve given to dragonhide armor. It’s only fair to spec out some pricing guidelines for the upgraded armor. Keep in mind that the abilities are influenced by size, so we’re going to have to make this scale by size as well as the armor type.
Let’s start with a simple comparison. Based on the DMG entry, we know that the masterwork component for dragonhide should be priced at 1,650gp for heavy armor. Adamantine heavy armor is +15,000gp. Mithril heavy armor is +9,000gp. Unless you’re very unlucky, you don’t even need to kill dragons to get the last two – they’re just rare and hard to find. A dragon that doesn’t want to be found should be just as rare as the rarest materials on a given world.
We know we need to consider the size of the dragon when considering the masterwork component – bigger dragons are harder to kill than smaller ones. Beyond that, heavier, thicker hide from older dragons will be more difficult to work with (thus the higher MW component price will also reflect the difficulty in working with the tougher material).
A fair pricing for the dragonhide masterwork component would be a base +5,000gp plus an additional 2,500gp for each size of the dragon beyond medium. This brings the colossal hide to +15,000gp – which is right in line with adamantine heavy plate for a medium creature. This seems fair to me given the energy resistances and intimidation bonuses granted.
Similar to adamantine, any armor made of dragonhide is always considered masterwork and the masterwork price is included in the price listed by size.
| Dragon Size | Armor Price Modifier |
| Tiny – Medium | +5,000gp |
| Large | +7,500gp |
| Huge | +10,000gp |
| Gargantuan | +12,500gp |
| Colossal | +15,000gp |
Adding Some Flare
With these minor enhancements we’ve added a lot of flavor to dragonhide armor. And since the Aura of Intimidation is scaled to the dragon’s size, this should limit the PCs from gaining a bonus that would give them an unfair advantage at a given CR. The energy resistance is also loosely tied to the dragon’s size since you can’t make the heavier armors without larger dragons.
In addition to that, we set a price for the dragonhide that scales with the size of the dragon required to make the armor. This should also help mirror the difficulty in obtaining hide from large dragons as well as make it more difficult for lower-leveled PCs to be able to afford armors inappropriate for their CR.