Adding a feat to a magic item

[Teneb]

My druid PC Ursa is going to hit 12th level very soon, and he needs himself a staff. For that reason I plan on taking Craft Staff as my feat. Here's my question: I want to make this a "summoner's staff" and have it grant me Augment Summoning (among other things). I can't find any guidelines in the DMG on how much something like this would cost. Can anyone help me out? Thanks!

 

[Lord Pendragon]

There are no hard guidelines on adding feats to magic items, because feats themselves have such varying values. I'd suggest that you get together with your DM, because (s)he is the only one who will be able to answer your question.

 

[Kalendraf]

Well, I'm the DM in question, and I have not had a chance to really investigate this yet. I am quite willing to take suggestions for how a feat like Augment Summoning on a druid's staff would be priced.

The campaign is using the core books + complete books + MM2/MM3/FF and that's about it. However, I am willing to consider rules or items offered in other d20 pubs as examples to consider.

 

[Kalendraf]

After thinking about it some more, I was wondering if perhaps a comparison to a Rod of Metamagic might be worth considering here? The feat in question is not a metamagic feat, but it does function in a similar manner by enhancing a spell as it is cast. One other difference is the fact that the metamagic feats could potentially apply to nearly any spell, while the augment summoning feat will only apply to a summoning spell.

Other things to consider:

- Augment summoning has a pre-req feat.
- Rods are useable by anyone, while the staff in question could be a druid-only item.
- Craft Rod requires CL9, while Craft Staff requires CL12.
- Rods come in 3 varieties (lesser, regular and greater) while staffs have just 1 type.
- The Augment summoning ability on the staff could either be a permanent ability of the staff, or it could burn a charge off the staff each time it is used (similar to the metamagic rods).

 

[reanjr]

Reducing magic item cost due to limited use (druid-only in this case) IMO is a bad idea. That often makes the item BETTER because it can not be taken and used against you. Is there anything that increase caster level? That might be a good basis.

 

[Kalendraf]

Reducing magic item cost due to limited use (druid-only in this case) IMO is a bad idea. That often makes the item BETTER because it can not be taken and used against you. Is there anything that increase caster level? That might be a good basis.

I never said I was going to reduce the price based on the fact it could only be used by a druid. Maybe you misinterpreted the dashes at the beginning as minuses? (They are meant to be bullets. and I probably should have used bullets instead, but forgot they were available.)

I was trying to point out differences between this staff and something like a metamagic rod for sake of completeness and clarity. I fully agree that items should not be reduced much in cost for that type of restriction, regardless of what the guidelines in the DMG might suggest.

I'm also not sure that an item that increases caster level is a good correlation for this. Augment summoning will boost the strength & con of summoned creatures. That isn't on par with what added caster levels would equate to in regards to summoning spells. For example, a 12th level druid casting a Summon spell vs. a 14th level druid casting a Summon spell is only going to be a 2 round duration and an extra 5' max range difference for the spell.

 

[Teneb]

Well, I think adding the feat should cost me 50 gp

But seriously, I had also considered the metamagic rod as a basis. However, I think the staff would be WAY overpriced if directly compared to this. As someone said, metamagic could apply to any spell, while this would specifically only work on SNA spells (do druids get other summoning spells? I don't think so.) Upon further consideration, maybe something that adds caster levels would be a good comparison; I know they're not exactly the same, but they might be comparable. Dunno.

I honestly have no idea where to start with this. That's why I came here.

BTW Kalendraf, hope I wasn't stepping on your toes here; knowing there weren't hard fast rules in the DMG I thought it might be helpful to all involved to do a little more research.

 

[Sejs]

The Arms and Equipment Guide suggests using a 10k base cost for an item that grants a feat, with an additional 10k per pre-requisite feat. So Power Attack would be 10k, while say Improved Bull-Rush would be 20k base.

An item that granted Augment Summoning would then have around a 20k starting point (requires Spell Focus: Conjuration, normally), and if you wanted it to only function for the Summon Nature's Ally line of spells, considder tossing on a watered-down version of the One-Class Only restriction.


Why did this get moved to House Rules, by the way?

 

[Teneb]

Thanks for the input Sejs. As to why it was moved, I'm unsure. It took me awhile to find it since there was no indication as to where it was moved to. :\

 

[Kalendraf]

The Arms and Equipment Guide suggests using a 10k base cost for an item that grants a feat, with an additional 10k per pre-requisite feat. So Power Attack would be 10k, while say Improved Bull-Rush would be 20k base.

An item that granted Augment Summoning would then have around a 20k starting point (requires Spell Focus: Conjuration, normally), and if you wanted it to only function for the Summon Nature's Ally line of spells, considder tossing on a watered-down version of the One-Class Only restriction.

That's a starting point to work with.

Why did this get moved to House Rules, by the way?

Probably because there's no "official" rules governing it. Any magic items not in the DMG are considered optional as are the magic crafting guidelines. I guess even an item made and priced thru careful application or extrapolation of those guidelines would be considered custom, and hence be a houserule.