Pathfinder 1E Help a newbie create a very specific magical item?

[deletemyaccountnow]

Hello, new poster, very long time lurker. I was wondering if someone could help me figure out how to build a particular magic item for a Pathfinder campaign I'm working on? I'm not new to roleplaying, but I am pretty new to 3.5 / Pathfinder, and I'm having difficulty figuring out how to create a particular magic item(s), the idea of which is pretty vital to the start of my campaign.

It would work something like this:

The party is given bracelets which when put on do a few things:
- One, they transform into tattoos on their wrist.
- Two, they allow them to suddenly sense one another (without sight or hearing) and pinpoint each other's location.
- Three, they cannot be removed except by a particular person, command, or some kind of powerful spell.
- Four, they allow someone with a crystal ball to monitor the people wearing the bracelet and track their location (easily scry on them, basically).
- Five, because the bracelets are bound together, if someone tries to run away (right now I'm thinking gets 5,000 feet away for up to three days or so, something like that, it could change) he will fall ill and potentially die.

I've been reading through spell lists and magic item creation and I'm having difficulty figuring out how to create objects like this as well as how high level a wizard or other spellcaster would have to be to create such items.

Anyone have an advice?

Thank you!

 

[Keldin]

Well, there is one set of items that already does much of this same kind of thing, the Dungeon Ring. In this case, the jailer's ring costs 8,000gp, while the prisoner's ring costs 125gp each. But let's take these things one at a time.

1) There is no particular spell that I'm aware of that will do this, so simply assign a cost. I have noticed that a lot of items with unusual uses cost 1,000gp, so I'll use that for the price for the transformation.

2) That's a Status spell, most likely.

3) The Prisoner's Rings do just this.

4) Is this *anyone* with a crystal ball, or a specific one? If it's the latter, it's also just like the Jailer's ring.

5) You could probably use Bestow Curse or something like it for this.

If we go with this, you have these spells on the items: Status, Scrying, Bestow Curse, and whatever spell you use to simulate the change into a tattoo, probably a low level transmutation spell. All three of these spells can be cast by a cleric or an oracle. Of these, the highest level spell is Scrying, which is 5th level for clerics. That means the caster level for the item is at least 9th level. If we take the basic price of the dungeon rings and translate them into wondrous items, and add Bestow Curse (3rd level for Clerics), the master item is probably going to be somewhere in the 32,000gp range, and the subject items - I dunno, call it an even 500gp?

Anyway, that's a quick and dirty thought on the matter.

 

[Stormonu]

I'm not all that great with the math for creating magic items, but here are my thoughts (and hopefully it will spark others to chime in)

1) This sounds like a variation of disguise self, item or alter self. As far as magic items go, it sounds very similar to glamoured armor. About a 1st-2nd level enchantment requiring a wizard of at least about 3rd level.
2) This sounds like an "always on" detect spell, targeted against another user. Sounds like about a 1st level divination spell, caster level 1st+.
3) This sounds like an item curse or a (lesser) geas on the wearer with orders to prevent the wearer from removing it. In the latter case, that's a 4th or 6th level enchantment requiring either a 7th or 11th level wizard.
4) This sounds like a curse feature or a "reverse" casting of Nondetection, a 3rd level wizard spell, so a 5th level wizard at least
5) This is definitely a curse, almost like a mangled form of Shield Other, a 2nd level cleric spell, that'd take a 3rd level cleric or a wizard using limited wish - a 7th level spell requiring a 13th level wizard

So, depending on what you're looking for, I'd say this is an item with a caster level of about 11th level. Since it's mostly more of a cursed item than a beneficial item, I wouldn't assign it a high gp value - maybe about 1,000 gp at most.

For stats, I might do something like this:

Oversite Bracers: These magical bracers are sometimes crafted by churches of law or powerful enchanters who wish to keep tabs on individuals - such as criminals. When put on, the bracers meld with the victim's flesh, appearing as a sigil (often visibly marking the individual as a criminal). They can only be removed by a successful Remove Curse or Dispel Magic vs. an 11th level caster level. While worn, the wearer of the bracers can automatically detect the presence of another individual wearing similar bands when within 120' feet. However, they make the individual susceptible to divination spells, inflicting a -4 penalty to saves against divination spells and doubling the effective range that divination spells work against the wearer. Finally, each pair of magical bracers has an anchor point - whether the creator, an individual specified when the bracers are put on, a location or to another set of bracers. If the wearer strays more than one mile from the anchor point, they begin to waste away. The wearer must make Fortitude save (DC 18) or suffer 1d4 points of Constitution damage per day. If the wearer returns and remains within range for one full day, the Constitution loss stops. Moderate Enchantment. Caster Level 11; Disguise Self, Locate Creature, Divination; Price 1,000 gp; Weight 2 lbs.

 

[paradox42]

My take:

(1) I wouldn't even charge for this- it's a magic item with lots of more powerful effects, and magic rings resize to fit their wearers- so these bracelets likely would too. So they can already change. Turning into tattoos would be just part of the effect that makes them hard to remove.
(2) Status spell, beyond any doubt. And as Keldin pointed out, the Dungeon Rings already do something a lot like this, though they do not evidently let "prisoners" monitor each other as these bracelets would. But they do let the "jailer" Status the "prisoners." Say, perhaps, double the cost of regular Status to represent the extra links between all the items in the set- but Status is low-level, so no need to go more than double.
(3) This is a standard effect for any Cursed item to have, and (of course) as Keldin pointed out, the Dungeon Rings do exactly this.
(4) I'll hazard a guess that "only a specific person" was what the OP had in mind for this, and more precisely the person who made the bracelets the PCs have and gave them to the PCs. This would indicate that that person has the "jailer" bracelet, so again, the Dungeon Rings are exactly what you want.
(5) Mark of Justice is the obvious spell effect to use here. And this is extra, on top of the DUngeon Rings, so it'll be added in to that cost.

Mark of Justice and Scrying are both Cleric 5 spells, so we're looking at adding that to the base DUngeon Ring cost (along with the second half of the Status cost, since the first half is already part of the Ring's cost). The "master" bracelet the maker has and keeps is the high-cost item; the "prisoner" bracelets are effectively cursed items so very low cost (as Stormonu pointed out). Raise the caster level to 9th, to be sure all spells can be cast; being a bracelet (Wondrous Item) as opposed to a Ring shouldn't cost anything extra. We have the basic value of 16,000 gp for the "Jailer's Ring" of the Dungeon Rings set, and 250 for each "Prisoner's Ring;" raising the caster level of the existing item gets us to 18,000 gp and 281 gp plus change (let's round that down to 280 for simplicity) respectively.

Two effects are being added here: the Mark of Justice, which is of like level/strength to the Scrying which is already part of the item, and another Status, to allow the "Prisoner's Bracelets" to monitor each other. Status is Cleric 2, so we'll go with 2 x 9 x 2,000 gp for that cost (36,000 total,and don't charge the "multiple different abilities" extra cost since this is just using the same spell with more links). Mark of Justice is Cleric 5, so we get 5 x 9 x 2,000 gp (90,000 total) x 1.5 for the "multiple different abilities" extra cost for a total of 135,000 gp. That adds an immense 171,000 gp to the 18,000, for a total of 189,000 gp for the "Jailer's Bracelet" of this set- clearly absurdly expensive (this is no Ring of Elemental Command)! So maybe the estimate is off. No Ring with a caster level of 9th has a price higher than 75,000 (Ring of Telekinesis), in the Core Rules, so I suggest lowering this thing's price to about 60,000 (ballpark).

That's the main bracelet. The ones the PCs get are, of course, cursed, so they're much cheaper. If we keep the same price ratio of the Dungeon Rings, we'd get the "prisoner" ones being 1/64 the price of the "jailer" one, so estimate 1,000 gp for the PCs' bracelets based on my ballpark 60 grand for the main one.

Magic item pricing is more art than science, and always has been. Don't worry about being lost at the start (especially for an item so complex).

 

[LostSoul]

The easiest way to do this would be to cast Geas ("Don't leave my service") and then an Extended Status every couple of days. This is nastier because they can't even try to leave. They'd probably get a saving throw every week or whatever, but you can cast Geas before that happens and order them to fail their save ("Open your mind").

edit: That's not really helpful. I did cost out the item with Geas/Quest as a one-shot magic item, and it came out to around 20k GP. The Geas/Quest part was cheap, about 2500 GP, so the master ring could be 20k GP and each slave tattoo could be 2500 GP. I'd probably tack on a "you have to accept the slave tattoo for it to work" clause.

 

[deletemyaccountnow]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I didn't realize there were so many different ways an item of this type could be created. I'll look over everything and stat this up today, then come back here to see what everyone thinks. Thanks!

One point of clarification: even though it is a specific person who would be giving them these items to begin with, I definitely need the crystal ball or bracelet or whatever the "master item" happens to be to be transferable to someone else.

The basic premise is:

- The PC's will start out in jail having committed crimes (or accused of committing crimes) against the kingdom. As an opportunity to absolve themselves, particularly because they display potential and skill, a powerful governmental organization gives them the opportunity to serve faithfully (in an "adventuring" capacity, of course) for a period of time. Obviously, there has to be some oversight, though, as the party is sent out into the world by said organization.

They could just not accept, though then... well... I'll have to have a backup plan in place.

But assuming they will accept (and I think they will), then at some point fairly early on in the story the "master item" will be lost to an evil wizard in the underdark. (I have a compelling and reasonable scenario for how this happens.)

The party definitely won't be high enough level starting out to go get the master item back and free themselves. I'm reading through all of the spells in the Pathfinder Core rulebook and associated material to ensure there's no easy way of just removing the bracelets. I'd like them to be unremovable except by the master item itself, as I'd like them to have to eventually go after it. I won't force them into that, though, and I'm still thinking of other ways they could potentially have the items removed as they themselves grow in power and ability.

It may even be that as time goes on, the wizard who now holds the master item tries to influence them through it, though, again, haven't quite figured that out, yet. I'm just brainstorming here.

In any case, I thought it would be both an interesting way to get the party together, as well as keeping an overarching story (for a while, anyway) without trying to shoehorn them into following a very set and specific path.

I'm a big fan of open world play, but I also know that without direction, the players tend to flounder a bit. Trying to balance those two things can be... well, trying. I'm excited to see how this works. I have some time before we'll be starting this new campaign, so I have a little while to work out the kinks.

Thank you, again, for your help! I'll post back shortly with what I come up with.

 

[Keldin]

Hm. It's a good plan, but I can see at least one issue with it: what happens if a character dies and the player wants to bring in a new character?

 

[deletemyaccountnow]

I've actually thought about that. If it happens, it happens. We'll roll with it. I do have a few ideas as to how I might introduce another character with a bracelet, but it'd probably only work once, and I don't want to introduce anything that is too forced and contrived.

I plan as well as I can, but my players have surprised me so often I usually figure I should just roll with whatever happens and let it play out naturally. Eventually, that might mean we have a "mixed" party. If it comes to that, I'll deal with it then.