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Magic Item Construction - Spell effect vs. Item Description
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<blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 885665" data-attributes="member: 3051"><p>It's called "starting a post at work, going to lunch, then coming back and finishing it." Normally, this isn't a problem, but it ended up being a 2-hour lunch. Besides, with the number of times the "new item" argument has come up on the boards, I can write half the post in my sleep.</p><p></p><p>I figured that bow was S&F, but I also remember some strange bows from the various non-WotC splatbooks for Elves. It gets confusing after a while.</p><p></p><p>Anyhoo, to the original point: after a while, it became too much of a headache to constantly think "is that balanced?". The players were constantly suggesting new items, which almost always had three common points:</p><p>1> They were continuous-effect or unlimited use-activated.</p><p>2> They were Wondrous Items.</p><p>3> They had caster level 1 for all effects.</p><p></p><p>Now, one of the designers (Monte?) mentioned the "quacks like a duck" policy, where if an item has the kind of effects typical for a Ring, it should require the Ring feat. Ditto for Rods, Wands, Staves, etc. Everyone seems to want Wondrous Items to do everything, so why bother with any other Feats?</p><p></p><p>IMC I finally got sick of this sort of thing. I think it's a good thing when players get involved in the design process, especially if you have a rotating-DM campaign (which I did at the time). So, we tweaked the rules to make it more balanced, so that it was harder to come up with items that broke the rules.</p><p></p><p>***HOUSE RULE ALERT***</p><p>1> All items have a minimum caster level equal to the level needed for the prerequisite Feat. Wondrous Items require CL 3, weapons CL 5, Rings CL 12.</p><p>2> All effects on an item must have the same caster level.</p><p>3> Unlimited-use or Continuous effects can only go in Rods and Rings (and Rods have extra limitations)</p><p>4> Price the item as follows:</p><p><strong>Command-Word Activated</strong> (Standard Action to activate, draws AoO): 360 * spell level * caster level * uses/day</p><p><strong>Use-Activated</strong> (Free Action to activate, no AoO): 500 * spell level * caster level * uses/day. Even though it's a spell effect and it's a Free Action, it's NOT a Quickened spell and so doesn't count against the cap of 1 quickened spell per round.</p><p><strong>Interruptible</strong> (i.e., <em>boots of speed</em>): Pick either Command-Word or Use-Activated, as above, and add 50% to the cost (so a 1 round/level spell in a use-activated item becomes 750 * spell level * rounds/day).</p><p></p><p>Then, we changed all the DMG items to match these rules; a lot of Wondrous Items were tweaked. Some of the weaker Rings were changed, too.</p><p>In most cases the unlimited-use stuff was just changed to 4/day or 5/day to keep price the same, but the ones based on short-duration spells were mostly switched to an interruptible effect, and caster levels for some items got bumped.</p><p></p><p>For example, Boots of Springing and Striding was changed to be an interruptible use-activated Expeditious Retreat for 6 rounds per day (Caster level 3, 2 interruptible uses/day), which would cost 4.5k before adding in the Jump bonus. 6 rounds doesn't seem like much, but looking at how often you NEED that extra movement, it hasn't been a problem. I mean really, what do you expect from a level 1 spell?</p><p>***/HOUSE RULE***</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I'm not saying you should do something like that, it wasn't a small amount of work to go back through the DMG. But the part about only allowing new unlimited or continuous effects to go in Rings and such, that part can be useful.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Spatzimaus, post: 885665, member: 3051"] It's called "starting a post at work, going to lunch, then coming back and finishing it." Normally, this isn't a problem, but it ended up being a 2-hour lunch. Besides, with the number of times the "new item" argument has come up on the boards, I can write half the post in my sleep. I figured that bow was S&F, but I also remember some strange bows from the various non-WotC splatbooks for Elves. It gets confusing after a while. Anyhoo, to the original point: after a while, it became too much of a headache to constantly think "is that balanced?". The players were constantly suggesting new items, which almost always had three common points: 1> They were continuous-effect or unlimited use-activated. 2> They were Wondrous Items. 3> They had caster level 1 for all effects. Now, one of the designers (Monte?) mentioned the "quacks like a duck" policy, where if an item has the kind of effects typical for a Ring, it should require the Ring feat. Ditto for Rods, Wands, Staves, etc. Everyone seems to want Wondrous Items to do everything, so why bother with any other Feats? IMC I finally got sick of this sort of thing. I think it's a good thing when players get involved in the design process, especially if you have a rotating-DM campaign (which I did at the time). So, we tweaked the rules to make it more balanced, so that it was harder to come up with items that broke the rules. ***HOUSE RULE ALERT*** 1> All items have a minimum caster level equal to the level needed for the prerequisite Feat. Wondrous Items require CL 3, weapons CL 5, Rings CL 12. 2> All effects on an item must have the same caster level. 3> Unlimited-use or Continuous effects can only go in Rods and Rings (and Rods have extra limitations) 4> Price the item as follows: [b]Command-Word Activated[/b] (Standard Action to activate, draws AoO): 360 * spell level * caster level * uses/day [b]Use-Activated[/b] (Free Action to activate, no AoO): 500 * spell level * caster level * uses/day. Even though it's a spell effect and it's a Free Action, it's NOT a Quickened spell and so doesn't count against the cap of 1 quickened spell per round. [b]Interruptible[/b] (i.e., [i]boots of speed[/i]): Pick either Command-Word or Use-Activated, as above, and add 50% to the cost (so a 1 round/level spell in a use-activated item becomes 750 * spell level * rounds/day). Then, we changed all the DMG items to match these rules; a lot of Wondrous Items were tweaked. Some of the weaker Rings were changed, too. In most cases the unlimited-use stuff was just changed to 4/day or 5/day to keep price the same, but the ones based on short-duration spells were mostly switched to an interruptible effect, and caster levels for some items got bumped. For example, Boots of Springing and Striding was changed to be an interruptible use-activated Expeditious Retreat for 6 rounds per day (Caster level 3, 2 interruptible uses/day), which would cost 4.5k before adding in the Jump bonus. 6 rounds doesn't seem like much, but looking at how often you NEED that extra movement, it hasn't been a problem. I mean really, what do you expect from a level 1 spell? ***/HOUSE RULE*** Anyway, I'm not saying you should do something like that, it wasn't a small amount of work to go back through the DMG. But the part about only allowing new unlimited or continuous effects to go in Rings and such, that part can be useful. [/QUOTE]
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