Can armor SDC be restored by the Mend Cloth spell?

[Tor]

PF2nd page 197 under this level 5 spell mentions that it makes the target 'as good as new'. Does this mean it could restore cloth armor to full SDC no matter how damaged it was?

Of course what this covers is pretty much bottom-tier stuff. It explicitly says it does not work on leather or padded armor, but wouldn't it cover Cloth or Quilt armor? So long as it was made from cotton/wool/silk?

Using the 'superior armor' rules on 272, Quilt could have as much as 35 SDC, so restoring a chunk of that for 12 PPE is a pretty sweet deal. If you wait until you had 5 left (assuming that reducing to 0 makes it utterly destroyed and un-mendable) then repairing 30 SDC of quilt using magic saves you 60 gold worth of self-repair or 120 gold worth of pro-repair.

Also the spell doesn't mention anything about only working on mundane, so wouldn't this also be useful in repairing enchanted cloth? Like on 249 there are 2 cloaks, of Armor or Protection, which are presumably made of cloth (unlike the 'leather of iron'). The CoA can have 50-250 getting far more bang out of the spell, and the CoP's fixed minimum is still 15 higher than the max quilt can normally grow to.

Sadly the 'magic SDC' enhancement can't be used on cloth fabrics But you could add Armor Rating Enhancement

If we compare this to other means of magically restoring SDC of armor, there is Mend Metal on page 231-232, but it costs over twice as much PPE and only gives you an average of 24 SDC. A superior-quilt would have 11 SDC left if you waited until you took that much damage. Plus warlock spells like this are less accessible (have to be level 6 or enslave a greater elemental) whereas anyone could learn mend cloth or put it on a talisman and stuff.

[drewkitty ~..~]

You would need the spell Mend the Broken to restore SDC to cloth armor.

Mend Cloth would only close any holes in the cloth.

[eliakon]

I can see both sides. It doesn't explicitly say it restores SDC....but if it doesn't then its not 'good as new'
Personally I would say that it would work, but only on normal cloth, I would not allow it to fix magical cloth (my personal view here).
So yes it could restore a suit of cloth armor....but since cloth armor isn't all that useful anyway I wouldn't be worried about it being abused.

[Tor]

I will not stand for your cloth armor bashing, that stuff is awesome.

Stuff with high AR is bound to take the majority of hits and get wrecked, and then you are naked and people will take pictures and they are spread on the black market and then suddenly you are Erin Tarn and every person you see will inspire you to wonder 'have they seen me in the buff?'

Stuff with low AR will regularly get bypassed, only taking the occasional hit, so it can survive combat and leave you clothed and then nobody can laugh.

[Library Ogre]

I would allow it to repair it, but agree that cloth armor is pretty useless as it's written... its AR is so horrible that it's only going to defend you on extremely rare hits that are a) from surprise and b) incredibly poorly rolled.

Which is why I like my AR -4 = DR shorthand, with your armor taking as much damage as it stops, every time it stops some damage.

[Tor]

Not just surprise, if you're saying parrying negates the usefulness then it would be good if you wanted to simultaneous-attack, or someone twin-struck you and GM requires twin-parry to block both.

[Library Ogre]

Not just surprise, if you're saying parrying negates the usefulness then it would be good if you wanted to simultaneous-attack, or someone twin-struck you and GM requires twin-parry to block both.

They have still rolled so low that they have essentially missed in the first place. IIRC, their AR is 5... meaning that 5% of the hits that would have gone to your SDC instead have 6 SDC subtracted to them, once.

[drewkitty ~..~]

1 out of 17 equates to 5.88%. That is (while in a melee) if you use that the attacker just have to hit and roll over the AR number. If it was only a natural die roll.

If the GM has if that the attacker has to roll over AR+number of Non-hit rolls, then in a melee (5 out of 17) then the % is more like 29.4% of the times it will block the attack.

[Tor]

They have still rolled so low that they have essentially missed in the first place. IIRC, their AR is 5... meaning that 5% of the hits that would have gone to your SDC instead have 6 SDC subtracted to them, once.

It's not THAT awful:
*if the attack does less than 6, it can help with multiple hits
*I'm also thinking that the spell would include Quilted armor, which has AR 8 and SDC 15
*this SDC can be increased by 20 points to 35 SDC for a total (50+90) cost of 140 gold, which is 10 less than a full suit of hard leather which only gives 30 SDC worth of protection
*if anything like the Analytical Genius from HU exists in PF then the AR could be boosted 2 points to 10, and boost SDC 25% to 43

So long as you're not taking on something epic, it's way cheaper to repair damage to quilted armor (or just cast-repair it) than pay the gold fees needed to get your armor back to snuff.

Oddly, it seems like every OCC begins with at least soft leather, can't find anyone beginning with cloth or quilted. It does mention that monks wear their leather armor UNDER their robe though, which makes me wonder...

Perhaps we could just wear cloth armor on top of other armor? That way it could help with light everyday damage and be easy to repair and replace and carry spares. If someone surpasses the AR but rolls under the AR of the heavier armor worn underneath it, then they hit that.