Magic item that puts a stat at 18

[Diegan]

Hi!

We're starting a new campaign of 3.5 with some friends. I kind of remember there was a magic item (dunno if it was a necklace, ring...) that incremented one stat to 18 (maximum human capacity). I remember it wasn't very expensive, but don't know where to look for it.

Anyone knows which is this item, and where to find it? Is it in the dumgeon master handbook? What was it's name?

Maybe I saw it on Baldur's Gate 2, and it's not present in D&D 3.5...

Thank you!!!!

[Ahnehnois]

There aren't any such items in 3.5; Baldur's Gate did have something that did this but that's 2e. Everything now gives some kind of a bonus (+X) rather than setting you at any given number. This is to prevent abuse (a 3 Str character w/ an automatic 18 Str item; a menacing brute who turns into an emaciated weakling when he takes his gloves off).

[DarkelvenSFi]

Some of the old style girdles of giant strength items gave a straight strength value; dependent on the type of giant; hill, fire, cloud, etc. Never did see any similar items for other abilities.

[Particle_Man]

Technically, spells like Magic Jar and psionic manifestations like Mind Switch could do the trick, if you need high physical stats and have a buff physical specimen to try it out on. I think there is even a way to make the Mind Switch permanent.

[frankthedm]

Gauntlets of Ogre Power: These appear the same as typical handwear for armor. The wearer of these gloves, however, is imbued with 18/00 Strength in his hands, arms, and shoulders. When striking with the hand or with a weapon hurled or held, the gauntlets add a +3 bonus to attack rolls and a +6 bonus to damage inflicted when a hit is made. These gauntlets are particularly desirable when combined with a girdle of giant strength and a hurled weapon. They grow or shrink to fit human to halfling-sized hands.

Remember those items came from an era when only one class, the fighter, had a chance to have a noteworthy high STR score.

Those items also came from an era where stats were almost always rolled for & you had no guarantees of getting an particular given item. if a player in 1E or 2E intentionally sacked their STR score planning to get GoOP or BoGS, it would be simple for the DM to keep any "replace your STR score" items out of the campaign.

[Rhun]

Originally Posted by frankthedm

Remember those items came from an era when only one class, the fighter, had a chance to have a noteworthy high STR score.

Those items also came from an era where stats were almost always rolled for & you had no guarantees of getting an particular given item. if a player in 1E or 2E intentionally sacked their STR score planning to get GoOP or BoGS, it would be simple for the DM to keep any "replace your STR score" items out of the campaign.

Not only that, but an era where some items (the Hammer of Thunderbolts comes to mind) required both a Girdle of Giant Strength AND Gauntlets of Ogre Power to wield properly, even though the effects didn't stack.

[aboyd]

Originally Posted by Diegan

Maybe I saw it on Baldur's Gate 2, and it's not present in D&D 3.5...

Yes, actually, I just got it yesterday. I reinstalled BG2, created a fighter with Charisma as a dump stat, and then headed right into the circus tent to save Aerie. The end of the tent combat culminates with the character getting a "Ring of Human Influence" which sets Charisma to 18.

Since it's sooo close to the beginning of the game, in BG2 you can essentially have a terrible Charisma and never feel the effects of it.

[GenghisDon]

Items of this sort were found in earlier versions of D&D, 3e+ has no max human limits, nor should it have items that raise scores to an arbitrary #.

[Darklone]

Originally Posted by aboyd

Yes, actually, I just got it yesterday. I reinstalled BG2, created a fighter with Charisma as a dump stat, and then headed right into the circus tent to save Aerie. The end of the tent combat culminates with the character getting a "Ring of Human Influence" which sets Charisma to 18.

Since it's sooo close to the beginning of the game, in BG2 you can essentially have a terrible Charisma and never feel the effects of it.

Was that BG 1 where you could roll your stats for hours till you only had 18s?

[green slime]

Nah, it's perfectly feasible to patch together this kind of item.

Let's assume that the game in question uses the standard Point Buy system.

In order to avoid any kind of abuse, all you need to do is set the price at the maximum level.

Therefore, the point buy version of a dump stat (8), and the desired end result (18) means a 10 point difference. Use the standard equation for enhancing stats: 10^2 * 1,000 gp = 100,000 gp. Explain that the boost does not stack with any other enhancement bonuses nor inherent bonus. This puts it out of reach for low and medium level characters.

So the cost of an item that raises a stat to 14 by this system would cost 36,000 gp, putting it well out of reach for low level characters, and would generally only benefit those with super low stats, and isn't going to tip any scales over.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think it's a horrible idea for 3E, and i'm glad it's gone. Green Slime, since the value of high stats is not linear (8-->18 may be a 10 point difference, but costs 16 points using the point buy system you started with), shouldn't the price of such an item be based on the point buy cost? And the 14 costs the same as a +6 item, not sure if that's coincidence or not, but it makes your creation rather pointless to anyone using point buy, unless they both spike their str score AND pick a race with a str penalty.

And I don't understand how such an item would interact with the game. It "sets" your str to 18 or whatever. Ok...so, bull's strength no longer can give you a bonus, whether orinal + BS is > 18 or not? If that's the case, can you then not be subject to str penalties, like ray of enfeeblement. Ray of enfeeblement can't take your str below 1 effectively. Which means it's still being "set" to 18, even from 1. If the penalty from RoE applies to the item, why not positive modifiers? Because that'd be broken, but you don't care about internal consistency so RoE still works?

What about str drain/damage? Would you be paralyzed if your natural amount is reduced to 0? Or would it still get set to 18? Would the damage/drain apply to the item's 18, or your natural score?

[aboyd]

Originally Posted by Darklone

Was that BG 1 where you could roll your stats for hours till you only had 18s?

I believe that you can indeed. However, it saves with the character, "Rolled 19 times" or however many times you had to re-do it. That always made me feel like I was visibly gaming the system.

[green slime]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

I think it's a horrible idea for 3E, and i'm glad it's gone. Green Slime, since the value of high stats is not linear (8-->18 may be a 10 point difference, but costs 16 points using the point buy system you started with), shouldn't the price of such an item be based on the point buy cost? And the 14 costs the same as a +6 item, not sure if that's coincidence or not, but it makes your creation rather pointless to anyone using point buy, unless they both spike their str score AND pick a race with a str penalty.

And I don't understand how such an item would interact with the game. It "sets" your str to 18 or whatever. Ok...so, bull's strength no longer can give you a bonus, whether orinal + BS is > 18 or not? If that's the case, can you then not be subject to str penalties, like ray of enfeeblement. Ray of enfeeblement can't take your str below 1 effectively. Which means it's still being "set" to 18, even from 1. If the penalty from RoE applies to the item, why not positive modifiers? Because that'd be broken, but you don't care about internal consistency so RoE still works?

What about str drain/damage? Would you be paralyzed if your natural amount is reduced to 0? Or would it still get set to 18? Would the damage/drain apply to the item's 18, or your natural score?

I think you're over-analyzing this. Its not a problem, but an opportunity. For fun. For wonder. For good times.

"Broken"? Nope. And who said I don't care about internal consistency? You really shouldn't worry so much. Are you saying all those issues couldn't be handled by putting together a paragraph or two of text defining the rules as they interact with that item? That there are too exceptions in the game already to include one more?

Some people think stacking Empower Spell is broken. Some people think Ray of Enfeeblement should stack with itself. Which is why I really didn't want to get into those details.

Certain magic items require that you wear them for 24 hours prior to gaining their benefit.

There are other items that cause or caused similar "problems" within the history of the game. I'm not convinced that their removal was genuinely a "good thing" (TM). As always, if you don't want something, you're always going to have reason not to do it. YMMV.

[Eldritch_Lord]

Well, for the sake of argument, let's hash out how these items would work. I happen to have my 1e DMG on me, so here's the girdle of giant strength description:

Girdle of Giant Strength: This belt looks similar to those normal to adventuring. It is imbued with very powerful magic, of course, and when worn it increases the physical prowess of its wearer sufficiently to bring its wearer's Strength score in line with one of the various sorts of giants:

Roll	Type	Strength
01-30	Hill	19
31-50	Stone	20
51-70	Frost	21
71-85	Fire	22
86-95	Cloud	23
96-00	Storm	24

The wearer of the girdle is able to otherwise hurl rocks and bend bars as if he or she had imbibed a potion of giant strength.
The strength gained is not cumulative with normal or magical strength bonuses except with regard to use in combination with gauntlets of ogre power and magic war hammers (q.v.).

So effectively it's a variable-strength (ha ha) bull's strength spell: If you have an 11 strength, a girdle of storm giant strength grants a +13 bonus, if you have a 21 strength it grants a +3 bonus, and so on.

Let's see if this answers the problems:

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

Green Slime, since the value of high stats is not linear (8-->18 may be a 10 point difference, but costs 16 points using the point buy system you started with), shouldn't the price of such an item be based on the point buy cost?

One example of green slime's point about not getting into the details: I don't use point buy, so for my game pricing it on that would be a bad idea. In general, it might be. But moving on...

And I don't understand how such an item would interact with the game. It "sets" your str to 18 or whatever. Ok...so, bull's strength no longer can give you a bonus, whether orinal + BS is > 18 or not?

Indeed--not because it mysteriously sets your score, but because bonuses of the same type don't stack, or to use 1e terms where there are no bonus types, "The strength gained is not cumulative with normal or magical strength bonuses."

If that's the case, can you then not be subject to str penalties, like ray of enfeeblement. Ray of enfeeblement can't take your str below 1 effectively.

As enhancement penalties stack with enhancement bonuses (taking the worst penalty and biggest bonus for each type), then any sort of penalty reduces your strength. Thus, this is not a problem.

What about str drain/damage? Would you be paralyzed if your natural amount is reduced to 0? Or would it still get set to 18? Would the damage/drain apply to the item's 18, or your natural score?

Again, stacking rules resolve this. You're affected just as if you had a bull's strength spell going, the only difference being the amount of the bonus.


Given this model, it might be possible to price something like this now. Any ideas?

[green slime]

I suggested pricing. The motivation behind the prices I listed was due to the exhorbitant price, they are obviously not going to be available to characters for some time.

Belt of Pixie/Kobold Strength (6): 1,000 gp
Belt of Halfling Strength (8): 4,000 gp
Belt of Human Strength (10): 9,000 gp
Belt of Orc(?) Strength (12): 16,000 gp
Belt of Gnoll Strength (14): 36,000 gp
Belt of ?? Strength (16): 64,000 gp
Belt of Minotaur Strength (18): 100,000 gp
Belt of Ogre Strength (20): 144,000 gp

Somehow, I just can't see characters often using their hard earned cash on these kind of items, in an attempt to squeeze some perceived advantage. In 3.x, it strikes me that you just can't beat having a good DNA to start with.

I wouldn't include any item that provided a Stat above what one of the core base races can achieve at starting level.

[GenghisDon]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

I think it's a horrible idea for 3E, and i'm glad it's gone. Green Slime, since the value of high stats is not linear (8-->18 may be a 10 point difference, but costs 16 points using the point buy system you started with), shouldn't the price of such an item be based on the point buy cost? And the 14 costs the same as a +6 item, not sure if that's coincidence or not, but it makes your creation rather pointless to anyone using point buy, unless they both spike their str score AND pick a race with a str penalty.

And I don't understand how such an item would interact with the game. It "sets" your str to 18 or whatever. Ok...so, bull's strength no longer can give you a bonus, whether orinal + BS is > 18 or not? If that's the case, can you then not be subject to str penalties, like ray of enfeeblement. Ray of enfeeblement can't take your str below 1 effectively. Which means it's still being "set" to 18, even from 1. If the penalty from RoE applies to the item, why not positive modifiers? Because that'd be broken, but you don't care about internal consistency so RoE still works?

What about str drain/damage? Would you be paralyzed if your natural amount is reduced to 0? Or would it still get set to 18? Would the damage/drain apply to the item's 18, or your natural score?

These are among the many reasons they were ditched in 3e+. Wonder & such rot notwithstanding.

[StreamOfTheSky]

The more i think about it...I don't like the idea of such items in a point buy game. If you have a 6 or 8 or whatever with point buy, you CHOSE to have it that low, and got a good stat somewhere else in return. Adding these items would just be giving players a way to game the system. You could balance the cost by assuming only those with the worst possible score would take it, but why even bother? Then you're ensuring no one else will ever find it worth acquiring, and it's point buy...if you wanted to not suck at that stat, why didn't you just raise it up more? Even if you're a monk with MAD, the exponential costs of magic items means you can have FOUR +2 stat items for the same price as the wizard getting a single +4 int hat. It already self-balances.

However, if you do roll for stats, I could see the validity of such items. Too often, I've seen one or two people get stuck with terrible stats. Not bad enough to get a reroll, but bad enough to just be plain weaker than the other PCs and start out disadvantaged. In such a situation, items of this sort competively priced with the standard +2/4/6 enhancement items (ie, a little more expensive, if that's the equivalent bonus you would gain, cheaper otherwise) would be fair.

That said, I hate rolling for stats and will never, EVER go back to it in any game I run again. So from my perspective, these items are broken, unnecessary, or both.

[green slime]

Why?

Why does it matter at all that a player had a certain idea about their character at level 1, and, after 4 years of gaming, they now have a different idea?

Why does it matter, if the player is willing to sacrifice a not insubstantial amount of their own character's wealth to reach a stat which, for the levels at which 64,000+ gp items become feasible, is really not an isue at all?

Why care if the players are having fun? I don't know.

Giving players a way to game the system? Show me how this is going to be abused, rather than talking in generic terms.

[green slime]

Originally Posted by GenghisDon

Wonder & such rot notwithstanding.

Rude, snide remarks notwithstanding, was there some real point to your post?

[green slime]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

That said, I hate rolling for stats and will never, EVER go back to it in any game I run again. So from my perspective, these items are broken, unnecessary, or both.

I'm not seeing how they are broken. If they are please show me.

They are clearly as unnecessary as many other magical items that exist within the game. Should we remove all of the unnecessary items? How about some of the mundane ones?