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I have a lizardfolk character that just got adamantine plate armour. I wondered whether my adamantine armour could be melted down and infused with my scales due to having naturally scaly and tough skin. This would ideally have the effect of giving my natural armour the 'adamantine effect' of all critical hits becoming normal hits.

Is that possible within the rules, and what would be the cost of so?

I am asking this out of pure imagination. I have a character that is a fighter/rogue lizardfolk. I have designed said character so that he plays as more of a commando, if you get what I am going for. He is going to be a samurai/swashbuckler

Due to his natural skin ability race feature, he can calculate his AC as 13 + dex modifier. I wanted to find a way where he can have the effects of the adamantium armor without the disadvantage to stealth rolls.

I am also asking this as I checked and there is no official ruling for it.

Szega
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just another guy
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    Why don’t you want to just wear the armor? – Thomas Markov Jun 09 '21 at 11:48
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    Hi and welcome to the site! I've given your question a little tidy up, but we still need details and it has been closed until you can provide some via an [edit]. For instance, why is it important to fuse the two (armour and scales) together, what class you are etc. Anything else you can add would be helpful. – AncientSwordRage Jun 09 '21 at 12:16
  • Does it have to be heavy armor? Or would a different Adamantine armor work? Basically, are you okay with the disadvantage on stealth checks? – Thomas Markov Jun 09 '21 at 15:27
  • yeah looks like it wont be possible I just wanted to see if I can lose the disadvantage anyway its plate armour and I have gotten like a +11 to steatlh – just another guy Jun 09 '21 at 16:19
  • i wanted to see if it was possible at all and if such was possible because I can get 20 ac if I have a dex 20 I just wanted to see if it was at all possible if its to much of a hassle I will just ask my dm u can just delete it if u want – just another guy Jun 09 '21 at 16:25

2 Answers2

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There are no published rules for this.

There are no published rules for doing exactly as you describe. But all is not lost, with some communication, you may be able to work with your DM to reach a favorable outcome.

Adamantine Plate is far more valuable than other Adamantine armors - ask for a trade.

While it is not explicitly stated, the value of an adamantine armor piece is "value of the armor + 500 gp". See here for some analysis: What would be the price of Adamantine Plate armor? Using this method, an admantine chain shirt would have a value of 550 gp - singificantly less than 2000 gp, and it does not give disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

Now here's how I dealt with a similar problem.

Be me, warforged paladin.

Party was just awarded five, yes five, mithral chain shirts from the castle armory.

There's a problem with mithral chainshirts: chain shirts already don't impose disadvantage on stealth. So the mithral feature of a mithral chain shirt is largely useless. No one else in the party had use of a chain shirt either, so we asked the DM if we could trade them for a mithral plate. We did this across two conversations, one out of game, one in character. First, I approached the DM out of game:

Thomas: Hey DM, we don't really have any use for all these chain shirts, what do you think about making arrangement in game with a local smith to work them into a mithral plate?

DM: I see. Yeah, I'm sure you could arrange something with a local smith, let's play it out in character and see what happens.

At the next opportunity, the party patronized the local blacksmith, and were able to arrange to have the chain shirt fashioned into a lovely mithral plate, after some in character haggling. We gave the smith all five chain shirts, and let him keep any remaining materials after the plate was finished.

The out of game conversation was longer than this, but the idea is that the party communicated with the DM that we didn't actually have any use for this in game reward, but we wanted to do something more interesting than just sell the pieces. Obviously, you want to avoid framing this conversation as "hey DM your loot sucks give us stuff we can use" - frame it as "hey DM let's work this cool loot into something we can use, since that's way cooler than just cashing out". So for you, I suggest having a similar conversation with your DM, asking if you can work the adamant plate into chain shirt, so that you can benefit from the adamantine feature and your natural armor, without having disadvantage in Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

Thomas Markov
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    Not to undermine your story, but the fact that breastplates and chain shirts already don't give you stealth disadvantage is why the mithral versions of them get the extra bonus of being able to be worn under your clothes, like Frodo did. All mithral armors either help with stealth or are concealable. (Completely understand that it's still basically useless for the majority of characters!) – Darth Pseudonym Jun 09 '21 at 20:44
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Not in 5e.

If you and your DM are willing to adapt from 3.5 content, then there was a huge array of grafts to chose from. Particularly, Faiths of Eberron included:

Adamantine Skin: [Skin] counts as medium armor, +3max dex, -3armor check, 25%ASF, +5armor to AC, DR2/adamantine, light fortification, 4hp.

Of course you can't just use 3.5 stats in 5e, but if you are playing in Eberron, it shows that what you want to do is, indeed, a surgery known in your world.

If I was your DM, I would certainly agree to allow you to graft adamantine scales, and ask here for a homebrew review of this.

Mołot
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