Artifacts vs all else

Creeping Death · Sep 17, 2005

What is the difference between artifacts, weapons of legacy, magic items, epic items, and relics? Can't epic items be made that rival or surpass artifacts or relics? Are their epic advancement rules for weapons of legacy?

Thanks

Sledge · Sep 17, 2005

Mortals cannot create artifacts.

Crothian · Sep 17, 2005

Artifacts can't be made, and are mostly uniqt

Relics can't be made, and require a feat and spell slot usually to use

magic items and epic items are the same thingjust different power scale. Though epic items for some reason lack creaticity.

Weapons of Legacxy are magic items that grow with you I believe (I don't have the book)

Creeping Death · Sep 17, 2005

Are there any powers or abilities that artifacts or relics posses that can not be duplicated via epic items?

Crothian · Sep 17, 2005

Creeping Death said:
Are there any powers or abilities that artifacts or relics posses that can not be duplicated via epic items?

In theory, no. Epic spells can be made to do anything with a high enough spellcraft DC. And since epic spells can be made into epic items, anything can be made. It might just cost a billion gold to do.

Alzrius · Sep 17, 2005

Crothian said:
In theory, no. Epic spells can be made to do anything with a high enough spellcraft DC. And since epic spells can be made into epic items, anything can be made. It might just cost a billion gold to do.

That's not true. Page 123 of the ELH states:

You can't create an epic magic item that uses or mimics an epic spell, because these spells are simply too power to hold within a mortal-created item. A major artifact might be able to mimic such a spell, however.

Alzrius · Sep 17, 2005

Creeping Death said:
What is the difference between artifacts, weapons of legacy, magic items, epic items, and relics? Can't epic items be made that rival or surpass artifacts or relics? Are their epic advancement rules for weapons of legacy?

Don't forget Item Familiars from Unearthed Arcana also.

That said, artifacts are basically magic items that can't be created (by mortals, anyway). They can have powers beyond what's usually laid down for normal magic (or epic) items. Basically, an artifact can do whatever the DM wants, as they (for major artifacts) are the ultimate in magic contained in an item.

Weapons of legacy are magic items, but they aren't made with the various Craft feats. Rather, they're created by doing heroic (or otherwise incredible) deeds that imbue them with power. Anyone who finds an Item of Legacy can awaken its higher-order powers, but that requires a ritual investment (and a feat slot, maybe more than one) to do so. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any epic advancements for weapons of legacy.

Magic items are standard items that are imbued with magic via a spellcaster with the proper Item Creation feat and spells. They tend to have limits on how powerful they can be.

Epic items are magic items made by epic spellcasters with the proper Epic Item Creation feat. They have markedly fewer limits on how powerful they can be.

Relics can be divided into two sub-categories. Ancestral relics are where you take a feat that allows you to imbue an item you own (that has been in your family for a while) and imbue it with magic power, essentially making it a magic item. Holy relics are similar to minor artifacts, in that they aren't created, but are items of powerful goodness. Both types are found in the Book of Exalted Deeds.

Item familiars are where you can imbue an item with experience points and grant it powers and sentience as long as its with you.

Crothian · Sep 17, 2005

Alzrius said:
That's not true. Page 123 of the ELH states:

Is that also in the SRD, becasue I don't recall seeing it there.

Alzrius · Sep 17, 2005

Crothian said:
Is that also in the SRD, becasue I don't recall seeing it there.

I looked for it at d20srd.org, but I don't think that text was released into the SRD.

Crothian · Sep 17, 2005

Alzrius said:
I looked for it at d20srd.org, but I don't think that text was released into the SRD.

I looked there too, and it has a passage under creating epic magic items in the caster level section

"Spells with an effective level of 10th or higher are possible at epic levels. Because these spell slots aren’t automatically gained at a particular level like 0- to 9th-level spells are, they don’t have a minimum caster level. For this reason, the minimum caster level for any spell of 10th level or higher is set at 11 + spell level."

That seems to say in a very round about way, that it is possible.