Magic Item: Jump Stones

Jump Stone
Wondrous Item, rare
Jump stones are not attuned to individuals, but to each other. A stone may be attuned to up to 9 other stones at any given time (so 10 stones may all be attuned to each other, though the other stones attuned to one stone need not be the other stones attuned to another). To attune or unattune two stones to each other, one must spend 24 hours meditating and psychically binding or unbinding the stones to each other. Only two stones can be involved in this ritual at a time.
Each stone has 12 charges, and regains 1d4+1 of its used charges each sunrise. While holding a stone you may spend a given number of charges to perform one of the following actions:
1 charge: You may telepathically send a message to any number of creatures possessing any number of other stones attuned to it.
3 charges: You may teleport next to another stone as long as it is on the same plane and is within 500 feet.
5 charges: You may attempt to teleport another attuned stone and the creature possessing it to a space next to you. A willing creature instantly teleports to you, but an unwilling creature may make an intelligence saving throw (DC 10 plus your intelligence modifier) to avoid being affected. If the stone is more than 500 ft away or if the creature succeeds their save, only one charge is spent but the attempt fails. If the stone has laid untouched and unmoved for 30 days, the attempt is automatically successful, teleporting just the stone.
9 charges: You may force another attuned stone and the creature possessing it to teleport to a space next to you.

These are an upgraded version to the sending stones. I've been playing around a lot with attuning, and thought it would be interesting to make items attune to eachother like bluetooth pairing.

These stones have been used beautifully in a playtest run in a game. But we have run into an interestin conundrum. The party went into a space where several creatures were paralyzing the party members, and they wanted to bamph away to a stone they had left in a safe place, but it was ruled that would be a bit powerful to just be able to teleport away when paralyzed unless they are holding it. The feature to telepathically communicate would not work very well if the people needed to hold the stones to utilize them. Likewise, the 5 and 9 charge options would be near useless if the creatures needed to hold a stone to activate.

Should I say a creature needs to be holding it to activate them, but just on their person for it to be used on them?

I like the idea of this, but I feel like the item is doing too many things. Paradoxically, I think an item with more restrictions might lead to more creative game-play. More specifics:

- The DC for items other than staffs is usually fixed, and based on the hypothetical caster level of the item. Based on the effect here, I'd peg it at around a DC 15. This speeds up game-play a bit, and also lets all party members use the item equally.
- The 9-point summon doesn't mention alternate planes of existence: is that intentional? Very few teleports reach across planes; it's a very powerful effect, possibly too strong for a rare item. (Although the fact that you can only pull from a plane might balance it.)
- The idea of pulling an unwilling creature towards you is possibly unbalanced, though, as it could be abused, especially if the stone needs only to be on their person. Example: use Sleight of Hand to plant a stone on your enemy, then teleport them into a nearby deathtrap. That's not necessarily trivial (you need to set up the death-trap and then get close enough to the enemy to plant the stone), but I could see it being a favorite tactic. I might be inclined to make the 9-point teleport destroy the stone, because this kind of forced-teleport seems more appropriate to a consumable. (Actually I'd probably have a single "pull" teleport function, constructed like the 5-point version, but if the target is more than 500 feet away or is on another plane of existence, the stone crumbles after the teleportation. That way an unwilling creature always gets a save, and it encourages close-range pulls, rather than scry-and-fry.)
- The way I read this, the attunement is intransitive; if stone A is attuned to stone B, and B is attuned to C, that doesn't mean A is attuned to C. That seems like it would add a LOT of complexity. You'd basically need to draw a web of interconnected stones. Which is kinda cool, but I wonder if it's worth it.
- Is there any way to learn what other stones are attuned, where the other stones are, and whether anyone is carrying them? Or do characters need to discover and track this information separately?
- The "pull" teleport represents an EXTREME vulnerability of the stone. If you carry the stone, you let other people talk to you telepathically, which is nice, but it also lets them pull you into a trap. Are the PCs worried about this? Would enemies in your campaign use tactics like this? I feel like many players would feel clever if they got to use the death-trap trick, but would feel that it was unfair if an enemy used the trick on them.
- Mad props to you for actually playtesting your idea!

- Oh! I completely spaced on the same plane thing. Yes, it is not meant to reach accross planes.
- That's an interesting idea to make an auto pull be one use. Part of my thoughts on these stones is they are dead useful, but also incredibly dangerous if an enemy got their hands on one attuned to your network. The party got into some hot water and one member was captured within an anti-magic zone. The rest of the party escaped and then gambled on when to try pulling the stone, risking potentially one of them getting pulled into captivity as well, and also weighing if they wanted to attempt using the last of their charges jumping into the thick off it again with minimal resources.
- The web network was intended. An idea I had was military use in an Eberron level of magic. I imagine most in a party would just want their stones all attuned to eachother, but this method of attunement is also meant to keep the stones from being too powerful, it takes time and effort to make and sever ties between them, making them a time investment and something that matters to the party.
- Good point. I'm thinking identify can let people know if other stones are attuned. Maybe I should add a feature where communicating can give clues on where other stones are?
- Yes, the party is aware. The more I think about it, the more I agree that there should be a bit more involved with the pull teleport.

Thank you for the all the input!

Here is a modified version. I completely removed the auto teleport, simplified the pairing a bit, and added a feature to assist in locating other stones in the network.

Jump Stone
Wondrous Item, rare
You may spend a short or long rest attuning to this palm sized stone. Attuning to a jump stone does not count towards the total number of magic items you can be attuned to, but you may only be attuned to a single stone at any given time. Attuning to a jump stone allows you to use the abilities it has with any other jump stones that are connected to it. You may connect a jump stone to a network of other jump stones by meditating with all the stones involved for 24 hours to psychically bind them together. Each stone must have full charges, and this process drains all charges.
Each stone has 10 charges, and regains 1d4+1 of its used charges each sunrise. While holding a stone you may spend a given number of charges to perform one of the following actions:
1 charge: You may telepathically communicate with any number of creatures attuned to jump stones that are on their person in the network, or creatures holding jump stones in the network. If you use a charge to communicate with stones that are already communicating, you are included in the rest of that communication.
3 charge: Spending these charges allows you to scan another particular stone in the network, letting you know if it is within 500ft of you and if it is currently attuned to a creature. If you use the identify spell while using this feature, you get a brief sense of what direction it is in, and if it is being held by a creature not attuned to it or being carried by a creature attuned to it.
3 charges: You may teleport next to another stone as long as it is on the same plane and is within 500ft.
5 charges: You may attempt to teleport another attuned stone and the creature possessing it to a space next to you. For this to work, the stone must be within 500ft, and the creature must either be attuned to the stone and have it on their person, or else holding it. A creature may willingly be teleported, or can make an intelligence saving throw (DC 15) to avoid being teleported. If the stone is out of range or the creature succeeds their save, only 1 charge is spent. If the stone is within range but no creature would be affected, then the attempt is automatically successful, teleporting just the stone.

Edit: added a thing about being added to the communication, and took out a thing where you knew if you were scanned

Shrapp Hamnier said:

Here is a modified version. I completely removed the auto teleport, simplified the pairing a bit, and added a feature to assist in locating other stones in the network.

Jump Stone
Wondrous Item, rare
You may spend a short or long rest attuning to this palm sized stone. Attuning to a jump stone does not count towards the total number of magic items you can be attuned to, but you may only be attuned to a single stone at any given time. Attuning to a jump stone allows you to use the abilities it has with any other jump stones that are connected to it. You may connect a jump stone to a network of other jump stones by meditating with all the stones involved for 24 hours to psychically bind them together. Each stone must have full charges, and this process drains all charges.
Each stone has 10 charges, and regains 1d4+1 of its used charges each sunrise. While holding a stone you may spend a given number of charges to perform one of the following actions:
1 charge: You may telepathically communicate with any number of creatures attuned to jump stones that are on their person in the network, or creatures holding jump stones in the network.
3 charge: Spending these charges allows you to scan another particular stone in the network, letting you know if it is within 500ft of you and if it is currently attuned to a creature. If you use the identify spell while using this feature, you get a brief sense of what direction it is in, and if it is being held by a creature not attuned to it or being carried by a creature attuned to it. A creature attuned to a jump stone that is scanned by another jump stone knows about the scan.
3 charges: You may teleport next to another stone as long as it is on the same plane and is within 500ft.
5 charges: You may attempt to teleport another attuned stone and the creature possessing it to a space next to you. For this to work, the stone must be within 500ft, and the creature must either be attuned to the stone and have it on their person, or else holding it. A creature may willingly be teleported, or can make an intelligence saving throw (DC 15) to avoid being teleported. If the stone is out of range or the creature succeeds their save, only 1 charge is spent. If the stone is within range but no creature would be affected, then the attempt is automatically successful, teleporting just the stone.

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Funny enough I actually think this new version is more powerful than the last in certain ways, because it reduces a lot of the risk. These stones become tactical pieces, players can jump around between them, a rogue can carry one, sneak into a room, pull in another person, that kind of thing.

The nice thing about the first version is the risk. It reminds of the seeing stones in LOTR, you never know whose watching. It would be awesome for a few stone members to talk to each other, and decide to "gang up" on other members, taking all the stones for themselves, that kind of thing.

It could be a good encounter if there was another evil group who had a master stone that allowed them to teleport to the location of other stones. They could even surprise the PCs.

Stalker0 said:

Funny enough I actually think this new version is more powerful than the last in certain ways, because it reduces a lot of the risk. These stones become tactical pieces, players can jump around between them, a rogue can carry one, sneak into a room, pull in another person, that kind of thing.

The nice thing about the first version is the risk. It reminds of the seeing stones in LOTR, you never know whose watching. It would be awesome for a few stone members to talk to each other, and decide to "gang up" on other members, taking all the stones for themselves, that kind of thing.

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I'm not sure if these are any more tactically powerful than before, the only major difference was removing the auto-force teleport. I actually took away a couple charges in the new one, so they can't do as much teleporting now. But yes, either tactical jumping in or quick escapes to a stone outside the dungeon are things the party likes to do. (One thing they did recently in a cave, in a space near the boss room there is a large pool of water where they buried an extra stone, this way if they need to make a quick getaway, they have an easy return checkpoint, but at most the hav 3 teleports, and thats if they dont use them for communicating much)

You do have a very good point about the risk. I'm going to remove the thing where you know if you've been scanned. Both versions are designed so that you can choose who in the network is included in the communication.

Ooh! I think I will also clarify that if someone not included happens to use charges to communicate with one or more stones already communicating, they are added in to that "confrence call"

Thank you!

aco175 said:

It could be a good encounter if there was another evil group who had a master stone that allowed them to teleport to the location of other stones. They could even surprise the PCs.

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So you mean a jump stone that does not need to be attuned/paired with the other stones? I could see a set of artifact master stones that these were moddled after, and then either the prototype is stolen or another is found by the evil group.

Noice, thank you for the idea.

I assume this is for 5E?