EOM traditions--Floran Artificer

[anondragon]

Hi All,
I've been working on getting a few traditions together and throught I would ask some help with some of the mechanics. Any comments and questions would be welcomed.

AnonDragon

Floran Artificer

The city of Glamour is founded on a large platter of meteoritic material propped up hundreds of feet in the air by thin column. It was constructed by one of the first Floran Artificers, mystical artisans that have mysterious powers over magic items and even permanent magical effects. Today Floran Artificers are an established guild in Glamour and can often be found adventuring for exotic raw materials for their latest magical creation. The work of an artificer is hallmarked by exceptional craftsmanship, heightened magical prowlness, and an unique arcane mark of each
creator.

Availability:
Typically mages will apprentice with a Floran Artificer and learn the necessary skills from their master until they become journeyman and leave to practice their trade. Occasionally an artificer will agree to train a mage in this tradition, but only if they have 8 ranks in use magical device and at least one appropriate craft or profession skill.

Thematic Elements:
Artificers see magic as the ultimate precision-power tool used for creating works of art. Their magic produces the desired effect well, but typically creates loud construction noises, sparking effects, and slight tremors. For this reason spell lists such as charm, compel, and illusion that require subtly are rarely used.

Spell lists:
Primary Elements: Earth, Metal, Nature, Crystal, Construct, Enchanted*
Primary Lists: Create, Transform, Summon, Heal

Misc:
Each Artificer has a unique arcane mark that is present on all items that they create.

Feats:

Spell Woven Items [Tradition]

Prerequisites:
Craft Charged Item Feat or Craft Wonderful Item, know arcane mark signature spell, craft skill 4+.

Benefit:
Using a craft skill you can create a Spellwoven Item.


Craft Spellwoven Item

A spell woven item is a masterwork crafted item that is especially suited for enchantment as it is laced with magic energy. Spellwoven items are composed of exotic component and are often decorated in fine jewels, delicate carvings , and runes.

All Spellwoven items have an arcane mark of their creator that allows the creator to scry on this
object with no penalties (Familiar object) to their scry check . In addition to providing the
benefits of a masterwork item, spellwoven items provide the following benefit.

1)The hardness of the magic item increases by 2 for every 5 points of hardness that an ordinary item would possess (with a minimum of 2). 2)If the item is made into magical item, the item receives a +1 to saving throws and costs 2 more MP to dispel.

Creation:
Spellwoven items cost +1000gp (masterwork quality is included in this price). The skill
DC to create a spellwoven item is +10 to the regular object. Because of the high cost of such
items, many artificers will rush their work and increase the DC by increments of 5.

Craft Magical Spellwoven Item [Tradition]
You can create Spellwoven items that have magical abilities paying only monetary costs.

Prerequisite:
Craft Charged Item Feat or Craft Wonderful Item, caster level 7+

Benefit:
You can craft Enchanted spellwoven items. This does not require xp. You may use the effects of the Intense spell feat for creating magical items if you do not already possess it.

Crafting Enchanted Spellwoven Items

Magical Spellwoven items are magical items that are crafted from start to finish with a particular set of abilities in mind. Because of this, the item receives the following benefit

1)The hardness of the magic item increases by 5 for every 10 points of hardness that an ordinary
item would possess rounded up (with a minimum of 5).
2)The item has a +2 to saving throws and magical effects cost 5 more MP to dispel.

The final cost of a magical spellwoven item is 2000 + the cost of a normal magic item. To craft a magical spellwoven item, the creator must use an appropriate craft feat ( craft jewelry for a ring, craft armorer for a suit of armor) with the follow two modifications.

1)The creator must provide one half the final cost in raw materials.
2)The progress in GP each week is the DC to
craft the spellwoven object (object DC +10) times the result of the check.

Enchanted Spelllist Effect [Tradition]

Prerequisite:
Skilled Artificer and Use Magical Item 7+.

Benefit:
An enchanted target is a magical item or a creature with a permanent spell effect on it. (Note that summoned creatures made permanent with the permanent spell feat are treated as the summoned creature.) You gain the Enchanted target to learn the following action lists. (Don't know if they should automatically receive these lists or not, probably too powerful)

Abjure [Enchanted], Hex [Enchanted]
Treat Enchanted as a creature type.

Charm [Enchanted]
Treat Enchanted as a creature type. If target is a magical item the hit dice are equal to 10 + 1/2 the
MP to create the object. Note that not many effects (such as Raging ) will have no effect on immobile targets with no AC or STR scores.

Compel [Enchanted]
Treat Enchanted as a creature type. If target is a magical item the hit dice are equal to 10 + 1/2 the
MP to create the object. If the target is a magical item, the item understands the caster's spoken language. Effects that affect the mind (Mind modify, mind wipe) can be used to alter recordings that a magical item is taking.

Heal [Enchanted]
Treat Enchanted as an Alignment type.

Greater Use Magical Device[Tradition]

Prerequisite:
Use magic device 10+, caster level 5
Benefit:
You may now use the skill use magic device as a magical skill. You may use the following effects.

1)you can spend one MP to add a +1 bonus to your use magical device check.

2)Use Item knowledge(DC 20 ; MP=MP cost of spell used). You may cast a signature spell or use a spell list from a charged item as a full round action. The spell does not count against the magic item's charges and instead uses the MP that you donate. If you must normally use use magical device to activate this magic item, you must make successful use magical device checks to activate the device first. If a 1 is rolled on the check, the MP is lost and use magic device cannot
be used on this object until the next day. This ability can be used to create magical items that contain spells the creator doesn't know.

3)Reverse effect(DC 20+MP of the spell ; MP=MP of spell effect) This skill allows the user to dismiss a spell effect of the item. If the spell effect is continuous, the effect is dormant for the skill's duration or 1 minute. If the effect has a limited duration the effect is dismissed.
(This works essentially like a dispel magic)

 

[Verequus]

I've looked it only quick through, so I could have missed some points.

1. Spellwoven Items: Alone their mundane counterpart seems overpowered, not to mention the combining with the magical effect. IIRC, magic items have already an increased hardness.

2. Spellwoven feats: This essentially nixes the XP-cost - the 2000 gp extra don't affect any high level characters. The XP-cost could be reduced, but with the extra benefits...

3. What's the meaning of the Enchanted type? Essentially it dissolves the creature types. You can say, that not every creature has aa permanent effect on it, but most high level opponents will certainly have some...

4. Greater Use Magical Device: The second use is already an epic feat, IIRC. At least a core feat. The third use let's me wonder: Why don't you use Dispel Magic? Because this use may be limited, but has a longer suspending duration. Furthermore, I dont understand, why you could use this skill for duplicating the effect of another skill - these are different skills, because they cover different effects. And the last point: Three entirely different benefits through one feat? That alone borders on overpowered.

 

[anondragon]

Thanks for the remarks. No one in my group has read the EOM yet and I've been dying to hear from someone.

I've looked it only quick through, so I could have missed some points.

1. Spellwoven Items: Alone their mundane counterpart seems overpowered, not to mention the combining with the magical effect. IIRC, magic items have already an increased hardness.

I thought only magical weapons(and armor?) have a bonus to hardness equal to their plusses. Is that also true for wonderous items, wands, scrolls? I don't have the books with me. I know that if I were to make the sword out of special substances I can have increased hardness. So ignore the fact that it is a feat, but look instead at the fact that there is an extra cost for adding different properties to an item. (masterwork adds +1 to attacks and doesn't require a feat) The cost is probibly off, but what would be a reasonable cost if you had to tweak it?

Magical items typically don't make saving throws unless they are unattened. So I don't think that the bonus to saving throws does too much.

I imagine that making it more difficult to dispel (surpress) is probibly more useful that I had first thought. Maybe I should work out templates so the abilties can be added to the item seperately, or maybe the cost just neeeds to be adjusted.

2. Spellwoven feats: This essentially nixes the XP-cost - the 2000 gp extra don't affect any high level characters. The XP-cost could be reduced, but with the extra benefits...

I'll leave the discussion of the added abilities for above.

As it stands there is a way to create magical items using some xp over a moderate amount of time (1000gp per day) and a way to create an item all at once using a lot of xp.

This method depends on a skill in order to work and even with maxing out those skills it would still take about 1 week per 1000gp. It guess you could make it more expensive, but there is the chance that the item is completly ruined during the construction which the other methods don't really adress. Plus if a character wants to spend a month working on one item that would have only taken 5 days, I was always pretty happy to let them and let thier companions keep adventuring.

3. What's the meaning of the Enchanted type? Essentially it dissolves the creature types. You can say, that not every creature has aa permanent effect on it, but most high level opponents will certainly have some...
[\QUOTE]
When a creature casts imbue fire on themself, they are then concidered to be a fire creature. I think that many high level character would have stat boosting effects that would effectivly make it a fire creature. Although truthfully, my intent was that artificers could affect magical items as if they were creatures (I presently didn't see any way to do this), affecting creatures with permanet effects was to keep it in the same flavor as the rest of the system.

I do have to admit, this is the one piece I was the least impressed with of the three, especially for a feat.

4. Greater Use Magical Device: The second use is already an epic feat, IIRC. At least a core feat. The third use let's me wonder: Why don't you use Dispel Magic? Because this use may be limited, but has a longer suspending duration. Furthermore, I dont understand, why you could use this skill for duplicating the effect of another skill - these are different skills, because they cover different effects. And the last point: Three entirely different benefits through one feat? That alone borders on overpowered.

All of these abilties require a skill to use. (A pretty useful skill, but a skill). I do remember there being a feat in the epic book to use spells from items, But I thought it was automatic. The third use is effectivly a dispel magic but more limited. The duration should be exactly the same as dispel magic. As for doing two things in the same way, there is precident. Grapples can use strength checks or escape artist checks. And in EOM there is a comment about how transformation is a powerful substitue for summon. (then again you have to have friends, so it is more limited). I was actually worried that there wasn't enough things that could be done to argue the benifit of a feat.