permanancy

[Rakusia]

yeah though that takes some of the fun from it though

 

[Jacob]

The fact that many people are dismissing Permanency in lieu of magic items shows that the game is being played improperly. Magic items should be incredibly rare, lest the PCs are willing to go through the trouble of making their own or not kill the Wizard in his tower to steal his loot. Though if the cost is actually better (XP vs. Magic item (XP + GP)), then...*shrug*

More in line with the topic, Permanency can get broken fairly quickly if used for any spell, and great care was put forth to make sure it couldn't get abused (though I'm sure some abuse has been discovered). Know a former fellow player who attempted to get some of his Warmage spells up for candidacy, but my DM was smart to smother those plans.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The fact that many people are dismissing Permanency in lieu of magic items shows that the game is being played improperly. Magic items should be incredibly rare, lest the PCs are willing to go through the trouble of making their own or not kill the Wizard in his tower to steal his loot. Though if the cost is actually better (XP vs. Magic item (XP + GP)), then...*shrug*

It's a literal edition difference. Magic items went from "nice" in 2e to "required" in 3e. The requirement to use magic items is playing 3e properly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The fact that many people are dismissing Permanency in lieu of magic items shows that the game is being played improperly. Magic items should be incredibly rare, lest the PCs are willing to go through the trouble of making their own or not kill the Wizard in his tower to steal his loot. Though if the cost is actually better (XP vs. Magic item (XP + GP)), then...*shrug*

The thing is players correctly evaluate the magic item as vastly superior to permanency in most cases. The magic item could suffer physical destruction but that's very unlikely if it's neither a weapon nor armor. Very few monsters can destroy any other magic item and no spell can until disjunction shows up at very high levels. As you go up in levels you'll soon find yourself in a position where every monster is of high enough level to pop it, sooner or later a dispel will go through and you'll lose it.

Furthermore, there's a big problem with the equivalency--while the game evaluates 1xp as being worth 5gp the actual relationship is non-linear. A 1st level character who could trade 1xp for 5gp would gain substantially from doing so. A 20th level character would be insane to make the trade.

 

[7heprofessor]

I can't think of many spells I wouldn't allow Permanency to work with. Granted, the cost would be insane for many of them, but I'm all about allowing my PCs options.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I can't think of many spells I wouldn't allow Permanency to work with. Granted, the cost would be insane for many of them, but I'm all about allowing my PCs options.

Agreed. There's almost no magic item that's truly unacceptable. It's just what's the cost.

 

[Quartz]

Permanency is very useful. Making Detect Snares & Pits permanent on the Fighter makes him an excellent backup for the Rogue, for example. And its being dispelable is a feature, not a bug. Remember that a non-targeted Dispel only gets rid of one spell. One of the ways to encourage it is to have scenarios where the PCs aren't fully tooled up. "No, you're in a bathhouse. You don't have your magic staff / glasses / whatever with you." And the XP expenditure shouldn't be an issue: a PC spellcaster will likely be a level or two behind non-spellcasters due to XP expenditure on item creation and spellcasting and so earning more XP per encounter. And if it is an issue, you can steal the idea of Residuum from 4e.

 

[Greenfield]

Should I be the one to mention that Detect Snares and Pits isn't on the list of spells that can be made permanent?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I still don't see why you can't make a slotless item. Even if the DM says "skin doesn't count" you could make slotless earrings, hair clips, or anything else innocuous.

(Q, from James Bond fame, is an artificer. ^^ )

 

[Jacob]

I still don't see why you can't make a slotless item. Even if the DM says "skin doesn't count" you could make slotless earrings, hair clips, or anything else innocuous.

Ioun Stones are the most well known slotless items, but Psychoactive Skins exist as well.