Made by the avariels and sun elves in an alchemical process requiring extensive knowledge of both metallurgy and glass-blowing, glassteel combines strength beyond iron with the transparency of glass. Mostly used as a building material in fantastic castles, glassteel can also be fashioned into weapons and armour. Glassteel is stronger and lighter than iron — but it’s fantastically expensive.
Just as does adamantine, glassteel grants a non-magical enhancement bonus to weapons and armour made with it. And like mithral, glassteel armour counts as one category lighter (although light armour is still light), spell failure chance is decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonus is increased by 2, and armour check penalties are decreased by 3. Non-weapon and non-armour items made of glassteel weigh half what they otherwise would.
Glassteel weapons and armour are hard to spot at a distance (-4 penalty on Spot checks), but just because armour is transparent doesn’t mean that the person underneath the armour is likewise concealed. In combat, glassteel’s transparency is mostly a decorative curiosity rather than a tactical advantage.
Glassteel has a hardness of 20 and 40 hit points per inch of thickness. Weapons and armour fashioned from glassteel are treated as masterwork items with regard to creation times, but the masterwork quality does not affect the enhancement bonus of weapons nor the armour check penalty of armour.
| Type of Glassteel Item | Enhancement Bonus | Item Cost Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Light Armour | +1 | +9,000 gp |
| Medium Armour | +2 | +16,000 gp |
| Heavy Armour | +3 | +25,000 gp |
| Shield | +1 | +4,000 gp |
| Weapon (1d4 or 1d6 damage) | +1 | +1,500 gp/lb. |
| Weapon (1d8, 1d10 or 1d12 damage) | +2 | +2,500 gp/lb. |
| Other items | — | +1,000 gp/lb. |
Source: Races of Faerûn (Page 158)