Invulnerability in armor useless?

[Noldor Elf]

Is Invulnerability as armor enchantment worth of taking?

I'm planning to create armor (Wooden Chain Shirt) for my character, effective +5 at maxium and DR sounds appealing, but it's only 5/+1. For market price modifier +3 this means that minium cost for armor of invulnerability would be 16,000 gp + cost of original armor.

At the point when such prize is appropiate for PC's armor probably most of baddies should have +1 weapons anyway.

(In our game Magic Vestment spell can give maxium armor bonus + enchantment bonus = +5 to suit of armor, so no use casting magic vestment on chain mail or heavier)

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I think it is useless for armor for most adventurers.

It is pretty good if you are in a campaign with a lot of mass combat, you can expect to get nickeled and dimed with normal arrows. Most people would be better off splurging for a potion of Protection from Arrows.

My favorite is Fortification. My guess is you are more likely to die from a single unlucky natural 20 from a Fire Giant or some such creature doing 80 damage instead of 40.

What it is useful for is on a shield. At higher levels you can have a 2 or 3 +1 shields with a single weird defensive ability. Swap them as needed. Beg for a Magical Vestment from the cleric to boost it up.

If you are a druid, I suspect non-magical creatures aren't going to cause you much trouble. So I doubt Invulnerability will help you much at all.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Looks pretty useless to me. Adventurers wearing armor that is +1 and invulnerable will most likely be fighting creatures that have DR of at least +1 (and thereby bypassing invulnerability).

I can offer you 2 suggestions:

1) Ask the DM to make it 5/-. Protects against all those pesky peasants, but you'll still feel the pain from more powerful opponents.

2) Get fortification instead. +3 is the equivalent of 75% fortification, which can be a life saver. As a DM, I would let the character upgrade to full fortification (+5 version) if they paid the difference (+5 - +3 = +2).

Hope that helps!

 

[Geoff Watson]

There are several high-CR creatures without DR (eg: Giants), enough that Invulnerability is worthwhile. It is also useful against hordes of weak foes.

It may be overpriced, depending on what foes are common in your campaign; you might be able to convince your DM to reduce the cost by one plus.

Geoff.