Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="dcollins" data-source="post: 342991" data-attributes="member: 876">In order for the proposed item to be gameplay-balanced, it needs to be more expensive than the player is arguing.Sword & Fist's Alchemist's Arrow gives us the model of an arrow-borne load of Alchemist's Fire having a market price of x3.75 (75 gp vs. 20 gp) for -1 die of damage. By this factor, a 4d6 load of AF (1 round only) in a single arrow should have a market price of ~2,400 gp.However, more precisely, the item very nearly recreates the effect of the flame arrow fiery bolt spell -- 3rd level, range touch attack, 4d6 damage, Reflex save for half -- but 1 round/time only. At 8th caster level, one gets 2 bolts (2 x 4d6 damage), so if this spell were made into a single use-activated item, the suggested market price would be 1,200 gp (level 3 x caster level 8 x 50). This happens to be the same as a single use-activated 8d6 fireball (whose area-effect is both an advantage and a drawback).Therefore, if allowed, the DM must rule that all the precision crafting of arrow, vehicle, arrowhead, etc. brings the total market price to around 1,200 gp (or even 2,400 gp), or he's allowed an unbalanced item.Let's say the player argues that his character can craft the item for half market price. The comparison magic items above require a Feat to do so. In order to keep this balanced, the DM should require significant number of ranks in the skills of Alchemy, Craft (bowmaking), and Craft (pottery). That's all assuming that the DM allows this at all. (Note that the player is getting to exchange a 3rd-level slot that he would need prepared for flame arrow to pull off this effect, with the 3rd-level shrink item that could be cast days in advance, thus freeing up the slot for adventuring.) The DM certainly has excellent grounds for ruling any of the following:(1) Greater quantities of Achemist's Fire don't do any more damage.(2) Placing a shrunken item on an arrowhead makes it unsable as ammunition.(3) A ranged touch attack is insufficient -- like Sword & Fist's Alchemist's Arrow, a normal ranged attack is required.(4) The shrunken item's changed "now-shrunken composition" is inert and has none of the effects of the normal item (i.e., does not break as a grenade), only being restored by "tossing" or a "word of command". That's both in the precise spell language, and the historical intent when considering the robe of many items which inspired the spell.</blockquote>

Verification