Disjunction - some thoughts on what is affected

[Quartz]

I've been doing a bit of thinking and I thought I'd try and tie together the rules as to what and what isn't affected by Disjunction with the Epic rules, and the Deities and Demigods rules. Herewith my initial thoughts.

We can split magic items into 4 categories: Non-Epic, Epic, Artifacts, and Relics.

Non-Epic items are already catered for in the rules.

Epic items are simply bigger and better normal items, created by Epic crafting feats. They should be affected by Disjunction but be somewhat resistant. We can account for this by giving the items a significant bonus - +5 or +10 - on the saving throw. What are now classed as 'minor artifacts' such as Staff of the Magi are more typically Epic items.

Relics are those items with divine essence directly imbued. Either the relic is actually a remnant of the deity, like a finger or tooth, or it's an item of particular significance, a signature item like a mace (q.v. St. Cuthbert) or wand (q.v. Orcus). The imbued divine essence means that the item is simply not affected by mortal magic.

Artifacts are defined as those items which are created with the Create Artifact Special Divine Ability and are Epic spells or SDAs made into items (cf ELH p. 73). The SDA automatically grants all the Epic crafting feats, but only the Create Artifact SDA can create a magic item embodying an Epic spell or SDA. Such artifacts have a base Will Save bonus of +20 plus the Divine Rank of the creator, and 1 is not an automatic failure. E.g. the workshops of the God of the Forge produce many weapons of surpassing potency so the loss of such items isn't normally especially important to the god (but the god might notice); for the God of the Forge to create an actual Artifact is vanishingly rare.
Only the Disjunction of one of these triggers the possibility of losing spellcasting ability.

Self-created (a.k.a. Vacuum Genesis) artifacts (q.v. Pharanme's Urn in Wyre) are absolutely not affected, even by the greatest of deities.

What do you think? I was considering some sort of Spellcraft check for negating artifacts but I thought it better to keep it simple.

 

[Pyrex]

As far as Disjunction is concerned, there are really only two categories of items:

1) Artifacts

2) Everything Else

Looking at the SRD, I would split that even a little more finely to:

1) Major Artifacts

2) Everything Else, including Minor Artifacts

Why? The Minor Artifacts in the SRD are simply (very) powerful magical items that are still within the realm of mortal magic to create. We know this because they have a Caster Level listed.

Major Artifacts, being beyond mortal magic don't have a caster level listed.

So given that Major Artifacts are easy (covered by the 1%/CL chance of destruction), lets look at the more interesting category:

Everything Else
Magic Items already have decent saves, (2 + 1/2 Caster Level), so the only thing you really need to do for any item that isn't a Major Artifact is make sure it has a sufficiently high caster level.

This extends quite nicely for Epic magic items and the 'Relic' category. Quasi-divine beings probably have really high caster levels available for creating their relics.

Alternately you could define true Relics (as opposed to the lower-powered Relics in the Magic Item Compendium) as belonging in the Major Artifact bucket, being beyond mere Caster Levels.

 

[Quartz]

What o you think of my suggestion that Epic items get a bonus on the save?

 

[Pyrex]

Epic items really don't need an additional bonus on the save.

If they're sufficiently Epic, their high caster level should already give them a huge save.

If there is a particular item you think needs to be particularly resistant to Disjunction simply have that instance of that item crafted at a higher Caster Level.

IMO, there's no particular reason a CL 21 item should be twice as hard to Disjoin as a CL 20 item.

 

[Storminator]

Most affected by Disjunction is your game session, as it devolves into rolling saves and recalculating your character sheet!



PS

 

[Kerrick]

I agree with Pyrex - epic items are the same as normal items for purposes of disjunction, since they follow the same rules. I broke artifacts down into three levels - minor, lesser, and major, per earlier editions:

Minor artifacts are little more than epic items with a few odd abilities; they can be affected by a legendary disjunction (I moved disjunction up to 11th level and made it a legendary/epic spell; alternately, if you don't want to do that, minor artifacts can be affected by a normal disjunction. Either way, you have to make the Will save to avoid losing spellcasting ability.)

Lesser artifacts are immune to all non-legendary/non-epic spells, and all legendary/epic spells from a non-divine source.

Major artifacts are immune to ALL spells, and can only be destroyed via a specific method.