Converting monsters from Imagine Magazine

[Shade]

Yessir. This is the weaker one...

The Wyrmhelm
This helm is cast in the form of a snarling dragon head, so elaborate and stylised as to be utterly useless as armour. However, its wearer can understand the tongues of all dragonkind and cast charm monster (no saving throw) on any dragon once per week. The wearer can also cast command 3 times per day. It has an Ego of 9.

Suggestions...

Lesser Powers:
Command 3/day
Wearer can speak Draconic
Item has 10 ranks in Intimidate

Greater Powers:
- (the sole one is used for special purpose power)

Special Purpose Power:
Charm monster 1/week (dragons only)

 

[freyar]

That sounds good. CE?

Also, we need to boost the DC on the charm monster or else give it the no save from the original text. Charm monster limited to dragons 1/week seems kind of weak all by itself.

 

[Shade]

Sure. Do we want to tie this one in with black dragons, since that is the only primary chromatic not represented by an item?

I hesitate on the no save, as even the orbs of dragonkind allow a save (DC 25) vs. domination.

Maybe we could heighten it to 9th level?

 

[freyar]

Heightening the charm to 9th sounds fine. Maybe we can boost to 1/day or 3/week or something.

I would like to tie these to black dragons, at least in appearance. We just don't have much wiggle room in terms of powers. Really, after taking into account the original text, we can only swap out the Intimidate ranks. Would water breathing 1/day be a reasonable lesser power? That's kind of black-dragon-ish.

 

[Shade]

1/day is reasonable. It's not devastatingly powerful, and the artifact lacks any other "oomph!"

I'd rather not do water breathing since we already gave it to the venom lance. Maybe resistance to acid 10?

 

[freyar]

Forgot about water breathing on the lance. Unfortunately, greens and black cover a lot of similar ground. Resistance to acid 10 works fine for me.

Once this last one is written up, do you want to add "set powers" as in MIC for people who own 2, 3, or 4 of them? We already know the "power" of owning all 5.

 

[Shade]

Yeah, definitely set powers. We might also writeup the wyrmhorn and Taumet codex as artifacts.

 

[freyar]

Good idea on the other 2 artifacts.

My weekend is turning busy (there goes the skinpuppets ), but I'll see if I can look up the set power guidelines.

 

[Shade]

Summarizing...

The Wyrmhelm: This black metal help is elaborately sculpted into a stylized, snarling dragon head. This chaotic evil intelligent artifact has Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 18, and Ego X. The wyrmhelm provides its wearer resistance to acid 10 and the ability to speak fluent Draconic. The wyrmhelm has 10 ranks in Intimidate, and can use command 3/day. Like the other Taumet relics, its special purpose is to join with the other relics to form the Taumet. Its special purpose dedicated power allows it to use charm monster (heightened to 9th level, DC 23) once per day, but only against creatures of the dragon type.

The wyrmhelm has darkvision, blindsense, and hearing to a range of 120 ft.. It can speak Common and communicate telepathically with its wielder, and can read all languages as well as use read magic at will. Caster level 20th.

 

[freyar]

Looks good!

I glanced at the MIC this morning. I didn't see guidelines on the set powers, but a quick look at some examples suggests that adding another item to your possession should give you essentially one lesser power (possibly on the weak side, though these are artifacts and could therefore get a bigger boost).