circlet of spellcrafting +10

[the Jester]

The one trick I've pulled with crafting skill bonus items imc is to add x ranks in the skill as a prereq, where x is the bonus offered by the item. In other words, to make a good pair of boots of sneaking you have to be sneaky yourself.

Of course, there are possible spell substitutions up to a certain point, but Spellcraft? I would make 'em have the ranks.

 

[Jarrod]

I've always been amused with the skill bonus pricing. Why pick Skill Focus (+3) when you can have a +3 item for 900gp, much less +5 for 2500 or +10 for 10k? 10k is cheap at mid-levels, and it means you pretty much whomp up on any opposed check. "Sorry, old chap, I'm at 10 higher than you because of an item. Better roll a 20 there."

On the other hand, my new invisible blade character has a +10 bluff item because he's trying to beat vampires and their +8 Sense Motive.

Oh, yeah, racial +8 beats a Skill Focus +3 any day.

Okay, so Skill Focus is b0rken...

 

[Saeviomagy]

Here's the problem:

An item of +15 to diplomacy breaks the game.
An item of +15 to UMDbreaks the game.
An item of +15 to concentration breaks the game.
An item of +15 to sleight of handbreaks the game.

Guess which items are not available in the core rules? Yes! That's right kiddies - those ones given above.

An item of +15 to move silently - means someone is quiet. Oooh. Scary.

An item of +15 to hide - means someone can't be spotted. Unless, of course, you use one of the many, many ways to totally and utterly override hide. Oooh. Scary.

An item of +15 to sleight of hand means that a moderately effective (at the appropriate levels) rogue can steal every single item that a foe owns as a free action. That seems a little scary to me.

An item of +15 to diplomacy means that a moderately effective negotiator can turn basically any foe into an ally.

Get the point?

A blanket skill bonus to spellcraft isn't currently available. There may or may not be a good reason for that. The existence of a class or feats which require very high skill rolls to pull off very powerful tricks means that there IS a good reason.

So get lost. No items of +spellcraft. Not in my game.

 

[vexare]

According to the books, the final stage of creating a custom magic item using the price guidelines provided, is to get the dm's approval. Otherwise it would be trivially easy to cheese a character out. Every warrior on the planet would be running around with 100 different slotless items that each gave a +1 dodge bonus to ac, each of these items would only cost ~5k gp. Does that sound fair? -no, and thats where the dm steps in.

The prices listed are loose guidelines. Mainly because not every skill is as useful as others, some spells are drastically more powerful/useful than others of its level, some abilities are infanitly more powerful to a certain char build, ect. No sane person can argue that a +10 to use rope item given to any class, is as powerful as a +10 to spellcraft item in the hands of an incantrix. Or a +hide/move silent item, while nice isn't game breaking in most cases, but given to a hide in plain sight, spring attacking rogue or assassin with good speed, or even worse a flyer, can be devistating.

This applies to all levels of play, non epic and epic alike. At epic levels +spellcraft is amazing because simply put, epic spells are flat out godly. Sure, the premade ones suck, but customizing your own is flat out wrong in many cases. Assuming you allowed +spellcraft items, you could create a spell that would be 130ish spellcraft, but by increasing the casting time and other mitigating factors, could lower it to 100ish. This DC is makeable even at the lower epic levels. With this you could give yourself a +56ish to your primary casting stat....which means +28 to all of your save DC's, essentially turning your "save or die" spells into simply "die". Other options with the same spellcraft DC could be...+62ac, dispell 4 targets at caster lvl 1d20 + 91, rebound the next 30 melee attacks back at the attacker, bestow 17d12 negative levels (average 110.5)....as well as plenty of other equally absurd spells. I would kill to be able to cast any of these spells for a mere 1.5million gp. (900k to research, 650k for rod of excellent magic to negate the xp cost.) This is easily done by level 25.

 

[alice_of_ebony]

Yo

Obviously some folks don't know the Incantatrix class features off by heart. Amazing Here's some context to my question, thanks everyone for your advice. Keep it coming

An Incantatrix 2 gets Cooperative Metamagic: use Spellcraft to add a metamagic feat she has to someone else's spellcasting. The DC is 18 + (3 x new lvl). A 16th level caster can't modify a spell into a 9th level spell.

An Incantatrix 10 gets Improved Metamagic: metamagic feats cost 1 less to use [min 1] (eg Persistent costs 5 levels not 6)

To add 'Persistent' [+5] to the cleric's prayer [3rd] requires a DC of 42. The max DC (for 9th level spells) is 45.

spellcraft ranks: 19
Int bonus: +9 (18 +4 +6 = 28)
Know(arcana) synergy +2

By taking 10 this character can already (without additional bonuses, thanks Iku Rex!) make DC 40 (ie 7th level spells) no sweat. Greater heroism and a stone of good luck make that 45.

So the benefit of the circlet of spellcrafting is not so much that it allows DCs of 42 (or 45) to be reached, but that it allows them to be reached reliably in combat: when you want to be chaining [+2] and empowering [+1] the cleric's divine strike [5th]; or whatever.

Of course once you allow a circlet of spellcrafting you probably should also allow a headband of intellect and spellcrafting (double cost of course).

Core skill bonus items are the Elven Cloak and Boots, as Hawken pointed out, but in 3.5 they grant +5 competence bonuses. They cost 2500gp. Various elixirs and robes grant +10 competence bonuses, for limited duration OR in combination with other powers.

Epic stuff I'm not considering. If it's a problem later on I can always exclude epic spellcasting from the benefits.

I think Hawken's argument is the best: but even halving the bonus doesn't have much impact. I think overall it's ok - at 16th level: may not have been true at 12th level.

Rkhet's reference from the WotC website is to the 3.0 Incantatrix.

Cheers
Alice

 

[dcollins]

Obviously some folks don't know the Incantatrix class features off by heart. Amazing Here's some context to my question, thanks everyone for your advice. Keep it coming

I was in fact wondering what that was in your first post. Thanks for adding it.

I would highly recommend that you simply say "no" to this new magic item. As a DM you should not feel compelled to allow it in your game, when you can already see significant problems it will cause. PCs designing "new items" is a variant rule (DMG p. 214), and even then entirely the purview of the DM to say if it is possible or not. For me this would be a very easy, quick call and my players would be understanding. I highly encourage you to just say "no, that won't work".

There's an essay I wrote last year on my website, concerning this subject. You'll notice that it specfically mentions the "skill bonus to Spellcraft" item along the way. If you're interested, it's here: http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndfaq3.html

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Here's the problem:
...
So get lost. No items of +spellcraft. Not in my game.

The thing is if someone needs to have this explained to them they probably don't understand what they're doing, and they'll probably do it anyway.

2 months later there'll be a "the wizard rules my campaign, what do I do?" thread.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

An item of +15 to sleight of handbreaks the game.

How so? You can entertain too well? You can hide things too well? You can steal the sword out of the enemy's hand?

I'd say there are a couple of skills that should not be boosted too high. I wouldn't count SoH amongst them.

An item of +15 to sleight of hand means that a moderately effective (at the appropriate levels) rogue can steal every single item that a foe owns as a free action. That seems a little scary to me.

The SRD speaks about small objects, and I think that attended objects (meaning the sword he has in hands) qualify

An item of +15 to diplomacy means that a moderately effective negotiator can turn basically any foe into an ally.

That's more a problem of the Diplomacy skill, which needs an overhaul.

Just look at the Elven Cloak and Boots. They gave a +10 bonus to skills and they only cost 2,000gp.

Welcome to D&D 3.5, where they only grant +5 and cost 2500gp.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How so? You can entertain too well? You can hide things too well? You can steal the sword out of the enemy's hand?

I'd say there are a couple of skills that should not be boosted too high. I wouldn't count SoH amongst them.

Sleight of hand, 15 ranks (so a level 12 character). 5 ranks in bluff. 18 dex. Deft hands, skill focus sleight of hand. Total is +26. Occasionally this character can nick an item as a free action, but most of the time he'll fail. He certainly can't take 10 to succeed.

If we add an item of +15 sleight of hand, he now has a +41. Taking 10, he can succeed at a free action sleight of hand while being observed by someone who already saw him take an item. He now steals every item on a target as a free action. What is available for theft is probably up to the DM, but if you rule it to be only free and loose items in pockets, then it seriously cripples the skills use for normal, day-to-day adventuring purposes. OTOH, if you allow the sort of stuff that stage pickpockets do on a routine basis, then the target now has no amulets, rings, holy symbols, material components, backup weapons or money. In fact, he's probably missing the belt which was holding his pants up...

So it's a bit of a problem.

 

[Scion]

I think you are giving the skill a whole lot more power than it has as written Saeviomagy and that may be where part of the problem is coming from.

still though, I know there is a slight cost disparity, but which would you rather have as a character: a +6 dex item or +15 sleight of hand?

If you give it that much power I can see why you would go for the second, it would be the uber skill from the great beyond. If you cut down its power to a more reasonable level (reasonable in this case is just my opinion of course..lol) then the first would be much better.

This strikes me as similar to the thread about diplomacy and someone saying that with a +30 you can make someone your best friend in the world who will then stop fighting you and give you all of their stuff. It doesnt do that, nor does slieght of hand, in my eyes, allow you to do some of the crazy powerful things you listed (stealing someones rings off of their fingers? not going to happen while they are still alive except in the rarest of circumstances).

So yes, I definately see, 'lifting a small object from a person' as taking small objects from them that are not specifically tied up or down somehow and not in hand. Being able to take things out of peoples hands would make it much better than disarm, taking off rings would be well into epic.

Also, the dm limits the number of free actions in a round. While technically you could do it a large number of times I doubt limiting it to one free action per round for this would be too bad. It still does exactly what the feat should do, but keeps it from going overboard. I suppose an extra attempt each round could be attempted with an extra penalty of 10 for each additional one. (That way, with a big enough bonus you could get several items in a round).


In any event however, sleight of hand is a pretty strong skill. The fact that a person has no way to stop the sleight of hand person from taking the item I feel is the strong part. If the basic check succeeds (dc 20? please, of course this is a standard action) then the check is mainly just to do it unnoticed.


as for spellcraft though, what would a +15 item do for it nonepic? As that is a big bonus I'll just use the word 'always', even if it isnt necissarily true depending.

Always identify a spell being cast: Easy check to begin with, I dont mind the players knowing what is being cast most of the time. Those times I do care being out of line of sight tends to fix that problem
Always learn a spell from a spellbook or scroll: Cool, the player doesnt have to wait an extra level each time
Always prepare a spell from a borrowed spellbook: This I feel is one of the important ones, but it tends to be pretty easy even 'without' the bonus item. All it does is make it automatic a few levels earlier
Always know the school of magic when useing detect magic: I make my players roll this, but I always want them to succeed. Maybe I should get rid of the roll.hmm
Always identify a spell already in place: Cool
Always identify materials made by a spell: Nice!
Always decipher a written spell without having to use read magic: this one is weird, I didnt even realize it was on there, interesting
Always determine what a spell that targetted you was after rolling the save: didnt know this one was here either, learn something new everyday! This one is pretty cool for the player, I am not sure if it would cause any problems, and it isnt an easy check.
Always identify a potion: cool
Always succeed at drawing a diagram to allow dimensional anchor to be cast on a magic circle spell: nice
Always understand a strange or unique magical effect, such as the effects of a magic stream: This one I think is the biggest, and it is something that I look forward to the players rolling successfully. After all, if they fail then they have to go to other spells (like divination) or head off to do research just to find out the initial stuff and then do these again to find out more. Skipping one bookkeeping step is big to me But then, this is the one that is least likely to be 'always' even with the item


So long as you dont go into the epic book I dont see any of these as being a problem. I could see an increase in cost based on some of it being pretty nice to the player, but really, what would be overpowered with spending a large chunk of cash and a bunch of skill points to always succeed at the above?