Immortals Handbook - Ascension Discussion

[shadethief]

How does the feat Ancestral Relic play into artifacts? Does it gain extra abilities, or would it just be reduced to a flavor feat? Ancestral Relic is in Book Of Exalted Deeds. Basically, you spend money & pray to increase the magical bonuses & abilities of one weapon. Thanks.

 

[dante58701]

It's just an alternate Item Creation feat. It would function normally but could also be used to create artifacts if you are of sufficient power to create them.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi shadethief mate!

How does the feat Ancestral Relic play into artifacts? Does it gain extra abilities, or would it just be reduced to a flavor feat? Ancestral Relic is in Book Of Exalted Deeds. Basically, you spend money & pray to increase the magical bonuses & abilities of one weapon. Thanks.

Very interesting. At a glance it appears that the Ancestral Relic 'bonus' is a twofold increase in the price with the stipulation that a character can only wield one such object.

It looks as though such a mechanic may well continue for artifacts. Though the doubling of the potential price isn't a massive a boost as you might think since theres a squaring of the bonus. In effect it would represent a 50% increase for any one item.

I think you would have to make something significant happen to the wielder if the artifact was stolen, destroyed, lost, compromised in some way.

I am working on some new artifact rules that I mentioned in another thread, whereby you balance artifact power with personal power and if the artifact is beyond your 'ability' to wield then you add in potential negative effects from wielding it.

 

[dante58701]

Very interesting. At a glance it appears that the Ancestral Relic 'bonus' is a twofold increase in the price with the stipulation that a character can only wield one such object.

It just looks like another item creation feat to me.

A +2 holy bastard sword at 7th level isn't all that exciting.

Sure you can make them more powerful, but look at Hell you have to go through to do it.

 

[shadethief]

Do feats such as Heavy Armor Mastery allow you to ignore the maximum dexterity bonus an armor provides as well as the armor check & movement penalties?

 

[Alzrius]

Do feats such as Heavy Armor Mastery allow you to ignore the maximum dexterity bonus an armor provides as well as the armor check & movement penalties?

Yes to all. The various Armor Mastery feats remove all negative penalties for wearing armor. Hence, Dexterity bonuses to AC are no longer capped, there's no armor check penalty or movement penalty, and no chance of arcane spell failure, among other benefits (e.g. you can be a monk who wears armor, without penalty).

 

[shadethief]

Taking the quasi deity template for example, if I were to remove all the spell like abilities granted by the template, what would the reduction in the ECL be? Would it be considered a balanced trade for a divine ability, or maybe even two?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Shadethief mate!

Thanks to Alzrius in my absence.

Taking the quasi deity template for example, if I were to remove all the spell like abilities granted by the template, what would the reduction in the ECL be? Would it be considered a balanced trade for a divine ability, or maybe even two?

Okay, well my eyeballing guess (without deconstructing the whole shebang) is -1 ECL.

Balanced against a single divine ability.

So SLA are probably about +0.25 per divine bonus.

Although I think when you get to cosmic that probably changes.

 

[dante58701]

From Ascension...

ABILITIES VERSUS ANTI-MAGIC
As noted previously, immortals are immune to the effects of anti-magic
when using their own abilities, artifacts (epic magic items) or epic spells
(spells above 10th-level).

...yup.

Did anyone else catch that last portion? Epic spells are spells above 9th level not 10th. 10th level spells ARE epic level spells.

 

[Evilmonkeygod]

Maybe in mundane, normal D&D, but maybe not in uber awesomesauce Krusty-verse D&D.

btw U_K, feel free to use that phrase, Krusty-Verse.

PS
I think in old school Forgotten Realms, before Mystra banned them, 10th level spells were not what one would equate to Epic Spells now, so maybe that's similar to what U_K's doing.