Gems and magic

[EricNoah]

I love gems. They are very magical things in my games. I'm looking for rules for using gems to enhance magic items, particularly wands. I know Magic of Faerun has rules, which I will be relying on pretty heavily. I'm curious if there are other rules out there for using gemstones to enhance magic items. Or if anyone has their own rules for such. Thanks,

 

[Psion]

Well, maybe not QUITE what you are looking for, but my favorite take on gem related magic is the Jewel Mage from Bastion's Spells & Magic.

Basically, the class is a prestige class, though it has rules to make it a base class. IT has normal progression but replaces the standard wizardly feats with the ability to create special gem-related magic items.

The items do things like absorb and/or enhance certain types of magic (depending on the gem type), capture and summon certain types of creature (again, depending on the gem type), or ultimately serve as a receptable for the caster's soul.

 

[Rel]

Well Dragonshards from Eberron are pretty much gemstones (at least that's how they look in the picture) and there are pretty good guidelines as to how the various types are used in the creation of magic items. I think that would be a great start.

I co-wrote a book a long time ago for Rolemaster (the Essence Companion) that includes a set of rules for which gemstones have affinities for which kinds of magic. If you want me to post an excerpt then I'll be happy to.

 

[EricNoah]

Some ideas I had related to wands & gems...

A gemstone tip that, when attached to a wand, increases the wand's save DC by +2.

A gemstone tip that, when attached, grants a particular metamagic feat applied to the spell on the wand (could be anything from sonic substitution to enlarge/extend etc. but not maximized, empowered, or quickened).

A gemstone tip that, when attached, allows one to drain 2 charges to cast an empowered or maximized effect from the wand (not sure which; might only allow it to be applied to healing wands).

A gemstone tip that, when attached, allows the user's spellcasting stat to set the save DC (instead of minimum, fixed DC).

A gemstone tip that, when attached, adds xd6 force damage every time the spell is cast (not sure what x should be relative to cost).

A gemstone tip that, when attached, makes any damaging effect into either holy or unholy damage instead of energy, force etc.

An oddly-carved gemstone with two holes drilled through it. When two wands are placed in the holes, one can transfer charges from one wand to the other (losing some charges in the process).

What I don't have a good grasp on is figuring costs on stuff like this.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I saw a web site with something not that long ago, let me search....

 

[mcrow]

The Demon Wars campaign setting has some very good rules for magic gems. The book isn't very expensive either so if you are really interested you could check it out.

http://fastforwardgames.com/ffesales.cfm


Here's a review of it as well:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2010579

 

[Hand of Evil]

Could not find much but did find: http://www.winterpass.com/WinterpassFRPG/Back/GemPROPRTY.htm

 

[der_kluge]

The Artificer's Handbook has rules for "socketed items" which allow you to add in gems or runestones, etc, into an item for the purposes of enhancing it in some way.

If you've ever played Diablo, you get the concept.

And yes, it has easy rules for calculating the costs of such a thing.

 

[Sledge]

While I've seen lots of items that happen to be gems, (Unorthodox line has many of these as bonuses) I'm thinking that for their worth a gem should give a very small bonus. For instance a certain kind of gem could replace xp usage representing magical energy contained within. This gem could also be destroyed and release the energy wildly. Another option is to have the gem increase caster level. This should however be a very expensive option unless the gem is disposible. Caster level boosts are in the DMG/SRD so that should be easy to value, but disposable makes more sense to me. Alternatively you could take the list of all gems and start labelling them with spell affinities. Diamonds and quartz could both be used in casting prismatic spells, but quartz would merely increase the duration, while diamond would also enlarge it. Also make it so that the gem must be precisely cut to function properly.
The metamagic feats are okay, but need to be balanced with cost. Disposable is one way, and specialization is another.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Note exactly rules, per se, but the 1E DMG has a nice table of reputed properties of gems, e.g. "this stone is supposed to protect against undead" etc.