Tenfold Ironguard

This spell makes up to 10 beings (the caster may be one of them) touched by the caster immune to the damage of all metal items. Metal blades and bars pass through protected beings as if their bodies did not exist. Willing creatures are automatically affected by a tenfold ironguard spell; hostile creatures are unaffected if they successfully save vs. spell (and the caster must typically make a successful attack roll to touch them, too). The strength of this magic is not altered by how many or few beings are protected by it.

A being under the influence of a tenfold ironguard can pass through metal bars, gates, and the like as if a phantasm – but is brought up short by the presence of nonmetallic items (such as a wooden handle on a metal tool) or by enchanted metal. Heat, cold, and poisons still affect the guarded being, even if delivered by “harmless” metal weapons. Magical metal weapons deal damage equal to their bonuses, (those with no bonus inflict 1 point of damage per strike.) Spells whose effects involve metal (such as blade barrier) deal their normal effects to ironguarded beings. An ironguarded being pierced by or moving through metal when this spell expires is instantly slain.

A tenfold ironguard has one important difference from the 5th level wizard ironguard spell: Each protected being can designate one metal item (one that they are holding and that the caster can touch during casting) to be unaffected by the spell. Thus, a protected being can retain a single weapon, tool, key, or other item. The item can contain other items (a metal chest full of coins, for instance) and still be considered “one item” (though if the coins spill, the guarded being will not be able to pick them up), but cannot extend its exemption from the spell to attached items. (For example, a breastplate made exempt would not extend its status to an adjacent gorget or any other part of the same suit of armor.) Metal pieces “fall through” the body of an individual, but leather straps typically work by hanging tightly from the body, and buckles still hold them together even though the metal in the buckles themselves can now pass through the wearer.

The caster cannot end the ironguard early by any known means – dispel magic and similar spells cannot remove its protection – but the death of the caster ends the magic instantly.

The material components are a handful of iron filings and a drop of aqua regia.