Armor enchantment summary

There are many different enhancements that any base armor type (see light armor, medium armor, or heavy armor) can be found with. The properties can be categorized into several groups. While a piece of magical armor can have properties from one or more of these groups, it will never have more than one property from the same group.

Masterwork
A masterwork piece of armor is not technically magical, just an high-quality item. Because it was made with such skill, it isn't as cumbersome, reducing the Armor Check Penalty by 1.

Material Types

 * Mithral - 50% lighter, +2 max dex bonus, -3 armor check penalty, -10% arcane spell failure chance, and armor is one category lighter for proficiency purposes
 * Adamantine - excellent hardness, damage reduction (1 for light and shields, 2 for medium, 3 for heavy)
 * Darkleaf - non-metal, immune to Rust Monsters, slightly harder than steel
 * Flametouched Iron - +1 saves versus Evil Outsiders

Magic Armor Enhancement bonuses
In general, magic armor protects the wearer to a greater extent than nonmagical armor. Magic armor grants an armor enhancement bonus to armor class ranging from +1 to +5. Armor enhancement bonuses stack with regular armor bonuses (and with shield and magic shield enhancement bonuses). All magic armor is also masterwork armor.

Magic Armor Special Abilities
In addition to an enhancement bonus, armor may have special abilities. Special abilities count as additional bonuses for determining the market value of an item, but do not improve AC. A suit of armor cannot have an effective bonus (enhancement plus special ability bonus equivalents) higher than +6. A suit of armor with a special ability must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus.


 * Energy Resistance - confers resistance to one energy damage type, either Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity, or Sonic
 * Weaponblock - confers damage reduction to one weapon damage type, either Hammerblock,Axeblock, or Spearblock
 * of Command - increases all Charisma based Skills (e.g. Haggle, Intimidate, Use Magic Device) checks by +2, but puts a -6 penalty on Hide checks. This does not affect things like Paladin auras or Sorcerer casting

Spell Charges
Some items have charges of a spell on them and allow the user to cast the spell a few times every rest period. Generally, the items have 3 charges and the base value modifier is equal to the level of the spell. Every 2 extra charges increase the modifier by 1, and 2 less charges decrease it by 1.

e.g. Bull's Strength 5/Rest would have a modifier of +3 while Fireball 1/Rest would have a modifier of +2.