Magical Tattoos?

[Jesus_marley]

Regarding balance:

Keep in mind you could always say that once you have a tattoo on a certain spot, lets say bracers of some sort, you could never wear actual magic bracers (or the like). I guess what I'm saying is the tattoo is permanent, and you would have to go through great lengths to have it removed. You could not just exchange your tatto on a whim to get a better tattoo or magic item. I think this balances out the issue of not being able to have them removed or sundered, etc.

This is just a suggest of course...

Gallo

This is the way they have it in the Shaman book.... you can have permanent tattoos that take up item slots.... and there are options for temporary one shot tattoos as well... I highly recommend it.... Lots of good ideas.

 

[frankthedm]

Just use it as an additional ability of magic item, adding +30% of the base price in that they can't be removed or sundered, but still take up a body slot. So you could tattoo a pair of bracers of armor on your forearms, or tatoo a cloak of the bat on your back, or a pair of eyes of the eagle around your eyes...

Only 30%? Well, since you can never sell them, i guess it is fair as long as the tattoo is really obvious. But I disagree for items that have a physical presence when operating and/or drawbacks like the BatCape and Bird's Eye lenses things like that should be items sunder-able/ removable.

I would let magic items worn over that tattoo, turn off the tattoo. The character was supposed to have paid for the item's unbreakably with the gp up charge. Preventing upgrading as well sounds like an attempt by the DM to say NPCs only to screw players out of even using them since now only short lived NPCs will not suffer that drawback. Trust me, magic tattoos can really change how much treasure PCs will see, let us not make them less desirable for the PCs.

 

[frankthedm]

Keep in mind you could always say that once you have a tattoo on a certain spot, lets say bracers of some sort, you could never wear actual magic bracers (or the like). I guess what I'm saying is the tattoo is permanent, and you would have to go through great lengths to have it removed. You could not just exchange your tatto on a whim to get a better tattoo or magic item. I think this balances out the issue of not being able to have them removed or sundered, etc.

The Upcharge also helps have an in-game reason why people still buy/trade/comission magic items. The selfish and evil would likely prefer having thier magic items scribed on themselves as well. If that costs more, then the PCs will still see some gear beyond armor and weapons.

 

[Enkhidu]

I played a cleric/monk (on his way to Scared Fist) that used tattoos instead of parchment for scroll scribing. Since all of his spells were themed as body manipulation and pressure points, the tattoos simply captured the pre-set manipulations for later activation.

It pulled a great deal from the psionic tattoo.

 

[Psion]

Wasn't there a PrC in Hyperconscious or something that allowed the creation of permanent psionic tattoos?

Yes. Actually, there's a feat chain, but the pattern master gets the feat chain.