Modular Armor

The heroes defeated a group of enemies. After the heat of battle had subsided, they looked what equipement of their foes could be utilized in the battles to come. All of their fallen enemies wore plate armor, which was unfortunately useless for most of the party. A simple question was asked: “Can I just take half of the plate armor and call it a Half Plate?”

My answer was a “yes, of course” and after a bit of thinking here are the rules, how this whole modular armor thing works.

Armor Reduction

During a short rest you can reduce certain types of armor as follows:

• Plate can be reduced to Half Plate or Chain Mail.
• Half Plate can be reduced to Breastplate.
• Chain Mail can be reduced to Chain Shirt.
• Chain Shirt and Breastplate can be reduced to Padded.
• Scale Mail, Ring Mail and Splint can be reduced to Leather.

One character may perform any number of reduction steps on one piece of armor during one short rest.

Armor Upgrade

If you can wait a few days before acquiring a new piece of armor, you can ask the smith to upgrade your old armor. If the new armor you want could be reduced to your old armor, the price of the new armor is reduced by the price of the old armor you handed in.

Upgrading follows the normal rules of crafting as described in PHB page 187. However you only need to craft the diffrence in price. During the crafting process the armor can’t be used.

If you earlier reduced an armor and still possess the extra parts, the armor can be restored to its original state during a short rest.

Magic Armor

If the armor is magical in some form, you are still able to reduce or upgrade it, at the cost of disabling its magic properties. If the armor is restored to its original state, the magic properties are restored as well.