Acquiring epic items

[Trainz]

Thanks all, very interesting insight.

If this is your problem, change the times. The XP and GP costs are the only important costs in item creation. In most campaigns 1 week or 10 weeks is the same in terms of inconvenience. Change the time to something flat per item: 1,000,000 gp / month, max 1 month per item regardless of cost.
Ditto

That's a brilliant idea. I am in mad love with it, and will have my players and DM's adopt it.

Yeah, he's not a bad DM

Why thank you !

Make me think to let the guys see this thread at next game.

This is what your epic cohort is for. He crafts the items, you set him up with lots of great workshops, and ale and wenches for his off time.

It is actually their cohorts that do the crafting, so your idea is already somewhat implemented IMC. I love the workshop/ale/wenches idea very much.

One of the things that I've noticed is that Epic items - especially, say, weapons and wondrous items - have an oversized "Epic surcharge."

That is to say, a +6 sword, despite not being terribly much more useful than a +5 sword, has such a huge increase in cost that it isn't really worthwhile.

This is so true on so many levels. A ring +3 and amulet +4 compared to a ring +6. I know the "slot" rationale, but this is getting out of hands.

I should rescale epic costs, I don't know... gotta rethink the whole thing with my players.

By the by, kudos to you for being a DM who not only allows item creation feats, but seems to go out of his way to let his players use them!

Wanna join in my game ?

 

[Jack Simth]

You could grab the scaling off of the Exodus Epic Arena for scaling - standard costs below an enhancement bonus of +5, total equivalence of +10 (note that this segment applies for armor and weapons), double standard cost up to +10 enhancement or total equivalent of +20, triple standard for up to +15 enhancement or total equivalent of +30, et cetera.

 

[the Jester]

In my epic game I've been strongly considering introducing magical substances that will substitute for gp for epic magic item creation and epic spell research. That way I can keep the creation time- an aspect of the epic item creation stuff I personally really like- but I'm not forced to give out the horrendous piles of gold the epic rules presume are out there. (Those piles of hundreds of thousands of gps just aren't believable to me as an everyday thing- that's the treasury of a large town or something!)

 

[Sledge]

large town is nothing to an epic character here. Epic characters are really at least the equivalents of billionaires. Find a large country and then you can compete with epic wealth.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

[Disclaimer]I've never actually played or DMed at Epic levels, so take this with a grain, er, um, slab of salt.[/Disclaimer]

OK, so the time to create epic magic items is a problem? I wouldn't think so. What's wrong with it taking months . . . or years to craft the grand sword of ever-special doom (TM) that is likely a totally unique item that does not have many (or any) near equivalents in the campaign world or even in the multiverse? How long did it take to forge Stormbringer or Excalibur? How long did it take to craft the One Ring? How long did it take to create the Dragon Orbs?

Remember that the +6 flaming holy vorpal great sword is a weapon the few mortals can even begin to craft. I'm assuming there are very few (if any) epic level spell casters in the campaign world when the PCs reach such levels. I'm also assuming that not all of the NPC epic level casters can craft epic magic items. Certainly none of them can craft all types of epic magic items. So, we have a very limited supply of individuals capable of crafting this monstrous item. The item is effectively unique. In most DnD games +1 long swords are very common. Hundreds (thousands?) of them exist in the campaign world. But there may be zero epic magical weapons if the PCs don't craft them.

So, in order to meet the super-scary massive multi-verse threatening challenge of the century (also TM) the PCs are going to have to prepare. They must create the grand sword of ever-special doom (TM) in order to handle the threat.

Remember, EL 21+ threats don't happen every day (month, year, decade?). In all likelihood the PCs spend a great deal of downtime between threats of significance. They should certainly have the time to build their own unique magical items of epic power which will enable them to meet the next appropriate level challenge.

This kind of touches on another thread . . . 30th level at 21 (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=133012). In this thread the author complains that his PCs reached 30th level by age 21. So, in a span of a handful of years there were enough threats to the village/town/country/region/world/multi-verse to advance four PCs to 30th level? What would the world have done if they hadn't been around? Surely their aren't dozens (hundreds?) of people gaining such experience in such a short time span. If that's the case then it seems that these threats that came along in such rapid succession were tailor-made for the PCs. Well, of course, they were, by the DM, but that makes the world rather unbelievable. Maybe the DM in that campaign (and the one that started this thread) needs to slow things down. Should there really be a challenge of earth-shattering (EL 21+) proportions often enough that the PCs can't spend six months crafting items between adventures?

Finally, there was some discussion of the cash necessary to build epic magical items. Sure it takes a lot of

raw materials costing one half this base price

to build the grand sword of ever-special doom (TM). It does not necessarily take raw materials that are available locally. What if you make acquiring the raw materials part of the challenge and potentially an adventure? I know this is not an original idea, but [rant type='explicitly not one' reason='I love DnD 3.x'] with the advent of item creation feats in DnD 3.x magic item creation has become formulaic. Forging a mighty magical weapon is no longer a thing of mystery and challenge. It's a simple matter of getting together the cash, spending some time and burning the XP.[/rant] So, how about making the 1,000,000 gp worth of raw materials needed to craft the epic item actually be something the PCs have to go find? You can't buy it in the city. You probably can't sell it in the city either. Someone would probably trade something worth 1,000,000 gp for this raw material, but it's unlikely you could just go buy it and sell it at the Local Wizard's Shop (TM). That being the case, you now have a potential adventure (go find the whatsit that's necessary to build the magic item) AND you don't have some gross distortion of a world's economy just because a PC wants an epic sword.

In conclusion, the time and money to craft unique magical items of awe-inspiring power like the grand sword of ever-speical doom (TM) is not outrageous. It should take a long time to craft such items and the money used to craft them is not actually money.

 

[Yig]

Why thank you !

So that means you won't kill my character ?

Oh wait.

Already done that twice in the same session.

Nevermind.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The alternative to making and using hideously cost-inefficient epic items is to use bonus-stacking. For example, not only do you have your Cloak of Resistance +5, but a crown that gives +5 Insight to your saves and AC, too. The only epic items worth buying are the ones that have irredproducible effects (like those +12/+12/+2 size category bracers).

Also, with weapons, use the golfbag concept. Get a bunch of bane weapons; also, cost out the Planes (+20k) and Sunblade (+2, +3 including the size reduction) properties and stack them on weapons. Since these effectively raise the enhancement bonus based on setting and target, you can breach Epic DR much more cheaply.

Brad

 

[Trainz]

So that means you won't kill my character ?

Oh wait.

Already done that twice in the same session.

Nevermind.

I'm not the one who came barging in the room spells blazing as soon as the door opened and thus put a big target on my forehead.



Don't worry, I'm sure the cleric will true resurrect you, and we'll all be laughing about it in a few months time.

DC 35 Implosion Fort saves are indeed hard to resist for arcanists. At least you went down screaming and kicking !

 

[S'mon]

IMC my current rule is that I mostly keep the x10 crafting cost for making Epic items, but I don'y multiply either the XP cost or the time taken. So where a standard item costs 200,000gp market price, 1/25 gp cost in XP and 200 days, the Epic equivalent would cost 2 million gp but only 1/250 gp cost in XP and still 200 days.

On the x10 cost multiplier, I'm phasing that in to prevent the problem of a +6 sword costing way too much. So +6 item is x2, +7 x4, +8 x6 +9 x8, +10 & above x10, I think that solves that problem ok.

 

[S'mon]

In conclusion, the time and money to craft unique magical items of awe-inspiring power like the grand sword of ever-speical doom (TM) is not outrageous. It should take a long time to craft such items and the money used to craft them is not actually money.

It should take a long time; but per RAW a +5 Sword costs 50,000 gp and normally takes 50 days, a +6 Sword costs 720,000gp (the full wealth of a 20th level PC!) and normally takes 720 days. Rather than fiddling with craft rolls I'd rather just have it take 72 days, that seems plenty long to me, and I reduce the cost to x2 standard = 144,000gp.