Formula for Creating Magic Items for Feats

[Shadowkiller]

I'm try to create a forumla for 3.5 for magical items that grant characters the use of a feat. In 3.0 some magical weapons had properties that did this (Cleaving, Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, etc), however they seem to have been removed from 3.5.

It doesn't need to necessarily be a weapon granting the feat, but any wonderous magical item could do it. The formulas for Skill enchancements, Ability points, Spell Resistance, and Magical spells are already in the book, but nothing for feats (and there don't seem to be any items that do this sort of thing so there isn't even anything to compare to).

Any suggestions on how would you go about creating a formula for this? What about feats that have pre-requisists (Cleave with the Power Attack prereq, or the Whirlwind feat with all of its prereqs)? Or feats that are class specific (craft item feats, weapon specialization, or divine feats, etc). And finally what about epic feats?

Can anyone help me out with this?

thanks,


Shadowkiller

 

[Crothian]

The Artificiers Handbook has suggests for this, but I don't have access to it at the moment to say what those are.

 

[kreynolds]

Can anyone help me out with this?

Check out page 128 of the Arms & Equipment Guide.

 

[Shadowkiller]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look those up and see what I can come up with.

-Shadowkiler

 

[Otterscrubber]

Feats are pretty subjective as far as their usefulness goes. I can't imagine a formula that would successfully translage feats into values for magic creation purposes. Even skills have ranks that lend themselves towards an equation of some sorts, although some would argue that is relative as well. I would just use somethign similar to the spell creation guidelines and try find something that is similar in effect, price it accordingly as best you can. Anything that is too useful, like metamagic feats, should be given limited uses per day to help maintain balance. Feats are hard to come by, so should any magic item that simulates them.

 

[MerakSpielman]

And then there's the sticky issue of granting a feat for which you do not meet the prerequisites. A sword that grants Great Cleave, for instance. Does it work if you don't have Cleave yourself? Do you price it as granting both feats? What if you don't meet the ability requirement?

 

[Vanye]

And then there's the sticky issue of granting a feat for which you do not meet the prerequisites. A sword that grants Great Cleave, for instance. Does it work if you don't have Cleave yourself? Do you price it as granting both feats? What if you don't meet the ability requirement?

The only abiltiy that I've seen for cleaving is Mightly Cleaving, which gives you a second Cleave attack per round if you have the Cleave feat...

 

[der_kluge]

The general method the Artificer's Handbook used was to define "levels" of Feats. So, for every pre-requisite a feat requires, it has another level. A prerequisite of "6th+ level" a specific BAB has a level equal to 1 per every 3 levels of class it requires. So, a feat like Leadership, which requires you to be 6th level, would be a 3rd level feat since, under normal circumstances, you'd have to take 2 other feats before you take that feat.

So, given that, you can establish some costs based on the feat's level. For that matter, you could just cost them out as +1, +2, just like weapons or armor for simplicity.

 

[Shadowkiller]

Thanks for the info die_kluge, I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy of the Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games.

A level adjustment formula like that seems to make sense.
Something like:

Feat Level = (3 X Number of Prereq Feats) + ( 2 X Ability Score Modifier Requirement) + BAB Requirement + Character Level Requirement + 3

Total cost = (feat level/3) X (feat level/3) X 2,000gp

I think I'd rather go with the weapon forumla (+ X + X 2000gp) rather than the armor formula (+ X + X 1000gp) just because a higher cost for feats seems to make more sense.

So for an item to grant a feat like Weapon Specialization it would be:
1 Prereq feat (Weapon Focus)
0 Ability Score Modifier Requirement
0 BAB Requirement
4 Character Level Requirement (4th level fighter)
Feat Level = (3 X 1) + (2 X 0) + 0 + 4 + 3= 10
Total cost = (10/3) X (10/3) X 2000 = 22,222gp

Whirlwind attack would be:
4 Prereq feats (Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack)
2 (Int 13 (+1), Dex 13 (+1))
4 BAB Requirement
0 Character Level Requirement
Feat Level = (3 X 4) + (2 X 2) + 4 + 0 +3 = 23
Total cost = (23/3) X (23/3) X 2000 = 117,556gp

That seems like a resonable price for those two abilities, I'd have to run through a few more examples (metamagic feats, craft item feats, divine feats, etc). But I think it's a good start.



thanks,

Shadowkiller

 

[kreynolds]

...I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy of the Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games.

If you like the formula he posted, then you'll no doubt find that book very interesting. I really dig it. In most cases, I use both it and the DMG to price items, then I find a happy medium between the two results.