Questions about Pearl of Power

[Greenfield]

First, the Magic Item Compendium is a book full of badly conceived and seriously broken items. Considering how poorly written it was it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the authors didn't look any farther than the item descriptions, without ever looking at the rules on activation or item slots. (Apologies to those who love that book, but most everything in there is a power boost, over powered and under priced magic gear that tends to break game balance. )

Second, the Magic Item Compendium also post-dates the DMG, so again the DMG couldn't have been referring to items from it.

Third, when an implication from one item contradicts the direct text on that same item from the DMG, I tend to go with the unambiguous version from the DMG.

Additionally, since Momento Magica is a separate item that applies to a completely separate group of casters (Spontaneous v Prepared), it's kind of off topic.

By the way, I discovered that text about the Pearl of Power being Use Activated almost by accident, so I know it's easy to miss. I was doing a word-search on the DMG PDF, and that one was the first reference. Sometimes it's shocking to discover that items and spells don't actually work the way most people play them. (For example, look at Mirror Image: The caster can only swap places with images on their Move action. If someone manages to hit them, and thus discover which one is real, they can continue to target the real caster for the rest of the round. Same for anyone able to observe the hit, if they can act before the Caster can take a Move. In short, it isn't always a dice roll. )

 

[Teemu]

But if pearls of power are use-activated, how do you use them? With a command.

Many use-activated items are objects that a character wears. Continually functioning items are practically always items that one wears. A few must simply be in the character’s possession (on his person). However, some items made for wearing must still be activated. Although this activation sometimes requires a command word, usually it means mentally willing the activation to happen. The description of an item states whether a command word is needed in such a case.

Unless stated otherwise, activating a use-activated magic item is either a standard action or not an action at all and does not provoke attacks of opportunity, unless the use involves performing an action that provokes an attack of opportunity in itself. If the use of the item takes time before a magical effect occurs, then use activation is a standard action. If the item’s activation is subsumed in its use and takes no extra time use activation is not an action at all.

How could it be anything but a standard action? You have to use the pearl with a command, and use-activated items require a standard action unless the usage itself is something else. A +1 sword is use-activated, and to use the +1 property is not an action since swinging the sword is the "use-activated" part.

 

[Greenfield]

I agree that it's confuzzling. The section on Use Activated items seems to say that "Use" may mean "Whenever desired".

For some items "use" is clear. You swing the +1 sword, you wield the +2 Shield. "Use" is clear and obvious.

But if there is no physical motion or obvious action needed to invoke a power then thee needs to be something else that fills that role, some other form of trigger.

Consider the Carpet of Flying: Command word activated to get it flying. After that, however, navigation is a free action. Spoken instructions are free actions because speech itself is a free/"immediate" action.

The section on "Use activated" also says quite clearly that some "commands" may simply be issued by thinking them. Taking these ideas together you could have a Pearl of Power that's use activated, where the "Use" is a mental command to recall a previously cast spell. Not even a command word, and certainly not a Standard Action.

Let me ask a slightly off topic question: Read the text describing a sword with the fire, frost, acid or electrical add on, a +1 enhancement for an extra D6 of damage.

It says that the blade lights up/cools down etc "on command".

Do you read that as "command activated"? As in, it takes a Standard Action to power up your magic weapon?

 

[Teemu]

Yes, the weapons require a standard action command word to activate. Unless otherwise noted, a "command" or "command word" are standard actions, and like their descriptions say, the energy effect remains on the weapon until de-activated with the same command.

Activation

Usually a character benefits from a magic weapon in the same way a character benefits from a mundane weapon—by attacking with it. If a weapon has a special ability that the user needs to activate then the user usually needs to utter a command word (a standard action).

You can have mental command words or thoughts, either as standard, swift, immediate, or free actions (though I'm not sure if there are any free action command thought items listed anywhere). Many items in Magic Item Compendium work like that. But even ignoring that book, in the psionic section of the SRD the idea of a standard action command thought exists, since many items there require that method.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Third question: At what point do POP qualify as "Broken"?

Probably around the same point where you would consider a Wand of Cure Light Wounds to be "broken", compared to potions. Just because something is out of line with comparable alternatives doesn't necessarily mean that it's overpowered.

By the time you have enough thousands of gold pieces lying around that you could afford twenty pearls or a ring of wizardry, the benefit of either is not enough to break the game. Honestly, I'd still rather have a hat of intellect +4 than either of those. Compared to the basic +stat items, the Pearl of Power is something that you might want a few of, and the Ring of Wizardry is an overpriced joke.

 

[Greenfield]

At 9th level my character had a Ring of Wizardry I. In an attempt to rebalance character wealth, which was way out of line, I had to reduce his goodies from 81k worth to 36k. Dropping the Ring of Wizardry (20 K) in exchange for some number of Pearls of Power (1K each) is well within my budget. I could get four or five, and a couple of PoP 2nd level as well, and still be solidly in the black on the deal. (4 x 1K + 2 x 4k = 12K < 20k)

I figure that 10 Pearls of Power would have been affordable, but broken. (18 K if I toss in the level II pearls, still cheaper than the Ring I)

My question was, at what point do they cross that line between "Bargain" and "Broken".

By the way, anyone can carry and use a Potion. Only a caster with Cure Light Wounds on the spell list for their class can use the Wand. It's an apples/oranges comparison.

Price wise, 1st level Potions cost 50 gp per use. 1st level Wand costs 15 gp per per. That's 70% cheaper.

Matching the slot capacity of the Ring using Pearls costs 40% as much. The pearl solution is scaleable, however, and the wand isn't. That is, I can get more Pearls at the same price. Cost/benefit curve is linear. No increase per effect. Scaling the wand up, however, is anything but linear. Price curve heads for the roof, fast.

Simply put, a 1st level caster Cure Light Wounds wand is a bargain. Same wand created at 2nd level caster gives +1 to each healing use but doubles the price. Going to a Cure Moderate wand multiplies the cost by six for slightly more than double the effect. No longer a bargain.

Now, looking back at the value of 1st level spells at higher levels: Grease is the gift that keeps on giving. It's a Balance check, a skill that few ever take and no monster other than the house cat comes with. Magic Missile, at 9th level, does about the same damage as a Fireball from the same caster a level later, albeit to a single target. And Ray of Enfeeblement can ruin the biggest, baddest tough guy's whole day. Silent Image is near infinite in its versatility. The list goes on.

The ability to stack 1st level spells, and pretty much reshuffle the spells at will, gives the Pearls a flexibility that the Ring never had.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

By the way, anyone can carry and use a Potion. Only a caster with Cure Light Wounds on the spell list for their class can use the Wand. It's an apples/oranges comparison.

Right, and preparing four extra spells per day (or leaving four spell slots open, to prepare later in the day) is different than recovering spells that you've already prepared, after you've cast them. One of those is pretty clearly better than the other. Anyone can use a potion, and not just anyone can use a wand.

For practical purposes, the difference in utility does not justify the cost disparity. The wand is mostly going to be used between fights, where the slow healing rate and spell list requirement aren't important. If it takes a standard action to use a pearl, then for practical purposes, that means you aren't supposed to use them during combat. It's only between encounters, when you have a few minutes to spare, that you would bother spending several standard actions to chain-use four pearls; and under those conditions, you would probably be better off with the option to just prepare slots that you'd left open.

So yeah, a bunch of pearls are better than a ring, because they're significantly less than half of the price for significantly more than half of the utility (especially if you convince the DM that it doesn't take a standard action to use), in much the same way that a wand is better than a bunch of potions. In both cases, it's due to a weird price scaling formula in the face of the expected wealth table. In neither case is it likely to wreck your game, simply because the game wasn't all that balanced to begin with. Twenty pearls would let you recover all of your level 1 spell slots between each fight, all day long, but level 1 spell slots aren't really a big deal past level 6 is or so (due, in part, to the way that saves scale); likewise, cheap wands let you recover all of your HP between each fight, completely derailing the whole HP attrition mechanic. The latter is far more disruptive to gameplay than the former, and (effectively) gives the cleric a ton of extra spell slots every day. If you're going to worry about how overpowered the pearl is, then you should look to get rid of the wand first. If you're fine with the wand, then don't worry about the pearl.

Edit: I should say that level 1 wizard spell slots aren't worth as much at high levels, because of the way that save DCs scale. Even if you gave a wizard infinite level 1 spell slots, they wouldn't be all that much more powerful because of it, even if it means you're throwing out 5d4+5 damage every round forever.

 

[Celebrim]

Pearls are a bargain. Like any bargain, they become broken when PC's have fungible wealth (can convert any magic item into any other magic item).

The pearls aren't quite as good as you think they are because they take up an action, but they are excellent solutions to the Wizards low number of spells per day. They are most underpriced as 1st level spells because of the price scaling that they used (square of the spell). The reason that the Pearl is underpriced is that it doesn't price in not taking up a slot, which is huge especially at higher levels of play.

The important thing to understand is something I've said before, which is that 'Wealth by Level' doesn't work, because it's a form of point buy chargen and point buy is almost impossible to balance. It's doubly true that 'Wealth by Level' is poorly balanced in part because no really strong effort was made to ensure balance because the designers I think poorly understood that they were implementing a point buy chargen system and it would be used as such by many tables. So yes, it's more than possible if you have fungible wealth to reduce wealth while increasing utility, just as in any point buy chargen system there are more efficient ways to spend points.

The question becomes, how much is a spell slot worth? This is a non-trivial problem especially for an item as complex as a Ring of Wizardry or a Pearl of Power or a Ring of Spell Storing. Many factors come into play. The only really valid test is what is the break even point for a person with system mastery when they would be reluctant to turn one into the other or would be for the most part equally happy to receive one of equal value.

As far as wands go, the fundamental problem is that prior to 3e, there were no clerical wands. 3e introduced both clerical wands AND introduced crafting for those wands. This had unexpected side effects that have nothing to do with the problem of cost balance. A CLW wand is broken at almost any price. The fact that it was an efficient cost only made it more broken. To be honest, in my game, I long ago banned all clerical wands.

 

[Greenfield]

Celebrim, as we noted in the DMG's section on item activation (specifically use activation), Pearls of Power don't take an action to use. They're use activated.

Yeah, the item says "on command", but the "Use Activated" section clarifies that there can be use-activated items that don't require a specific physical action to trigger. Instead they use a spoken or even mental command. And even though they require that expression of desire to activate, it's distinct from "Command activation".

As for the Wealth by Level table: By that rule no Wizard can be in budget at 1st level. Their spell book shoots that in the foot, since it costs 100 gp per page, and every spell uses one page per spell level (with Cantrips taking a page each, just like 1st level spells). Did the math in another thread and that book each wizard gets as starting gear costs something like 2315 gp. (The 15 is the raw cost of the empty book.)

That being said, Wealth by Level is like the CR system: Far from perfect, but better than nothing.

As for Wands: Just for the sake of style, consider a Holy Water Sprinkler that does CLW (1st level caster), but uses a flask of Holy Water per use. That is, 25 gp in cost (comparable to a scroll), but only good for as many uses as the party has flasks of Holy Water. Full round to use, plus whatever time to get out the Holy Water and pour it in.

Possibly add a function where it can be whirled around to do Cure Minor on 1D8+1 people in an area. Good for stabilizing several people at once.

Clearly not an in-combat item, and personally the style appeals to me. Good game flavor.

As for the Clerical wands: I'd never noticed that there weren't any. Learned something new today. Thanks.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Celebrim, as we noted in the DMG's section on item activation (specifically use activation), Pearls of Power don't take an action to use. They're use activated.

Whenever there's ambiguity, if one interpretation would be problematic, it's preferable to use the other interpretation. It's far from clear that the Pearl is intended to not cost an action.

It's like the crystal shard spell, which deals piercing damage that ignores DR because it's technically coming from a spell and all spell damage technically ignores DR. There was clearly some sort of miscommunication between the designers of the various sub-systems.