Help with Ancestral Relic

[rushlight]

So, here's the situation. My campaign has been running for quite a long time, and the current players are all 19th level. A new player is joining the group, and is making a 19th level character. When it comes to character wealth, I only allow a player to spend up to 10% of his total wealth (in this case his total wealth is 580,000gp) on a single items, so that means no items over 58,000gp.

So, he decided to take the Ancestral Relic feat, from the Book of Exalted Deeds - which will allow him to bypass the 10% rule for his sword.

The problem is that the feat allows him to spend up to 290,000gp on the sword, and it becomes 380,000 when he reaches 20th level. Since a +10 sword costs 200,000 (plus the cost of the weapon), how could he possibly spend it all? The only thing I could come up with was to make it intelligent, but that would imply that he gets to choose it;s powers rather than roll, which could be a bit excessive.

What would you do in this situation? He also asked if I could allow him to split it between two swords (which would be two +8 swords) or between a sword and some armor. I could use some advice or ideas on how to handle this situation! Thanks!

 

[Eolin]

I say grab something from "swords of our fathers" -- they're miniartifacts that shoudn't unbalance that high level a game too much....

Or, make an intelligent item. It never says *he* gets to roll. You do the roll, and use it against him. I've never seen an intelligent weapon that was worth it ...

YEs... the sword can cast disentigrate at will ... it is also smarter than you and doesn't care much for this quest...

Whatever, I'm drunk ... girls .... its still a good idea.

 

[AuraSeer]

In order to increase the market price past 200k, you can add special abilities that do not have an equivalent in "plusses."

For instance you could let the sword cast dispel magic once per day (like a holy avenger), or grant its wielder a resistance bonus to saves, or any other reasonable effect that isn't listed on the weapon ability table. You just need to figure out a market price for each ability, remembering to account for the slotless penalty and so forth.

 

[hong]

The problem is that the feat allows him to spend up to 290,000gp on the sword, and it becomes 380,000 when he reaches 20th level. Since a +10 sword costs 200,000 (plus the cost of the weapon), how could he possibly spend it all? The only thing I could come up with was to make it intelligent, but that would imply that he gets to choose it;s powers rather than roll, which could be a bit excessive.

What would you do in this situation? He also asked if I could allow him to split it between two swords (which would be two +8 swords) or between a sword and some armor. I could use some advice or ideas on how to handle this situation! Thanks!

In terms of pure powerplay, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The quadratic scaling in item prices means that sinking lots of gp into one item eventually becomes counterproductive. The character would probably be better off spending the money on miscellaneous stat buffs, save boosters, wondrous items to obtain powers like flight, dimension door, poison immunity, stoneskin, etc.

 

[Pax]

The problem is that the feat allows him to spend up to 290,000gp on the sword, and it becomes 380,000 when he reaches 20th level. Since a +10 sword costs 200,000 (plus the cost of the weapon), how could he possibly spend it all? The only thing I could come up with was to make it intelligent, but that would imply that he gets to choose it;s powers rather than roll, which could be a bit excessive.

What would you do in this situation? He also asked if I could allow him to split it between two swords (which would be two +8 swords) or between a sword and some armor. I could use some advice or ideas on how to handle this situation! Thanks!

Well, there're a few things to consider (and use multipleof the ideas):

• He could try buildign the character with a double-weapon
• He could add in materials cost to make it adamantine
• He could have an intelligent weapon (abilities subject to negotiation with you, ofc)
• He could search through other sourcebooks for direct-add-to-cost abilities for weapons (OA has couple nice ones)
• He could add some Wondrous Item properties to the sword, at 2x their normal cost (unslotted item, etc, etc)
• He could search through various sourcebooks for unique weapon properties, negotiate the price with you, and add them to the weapon -- i.e., the ability of an Ioun Dagger to hold one ioun stone within itself, granting the wielder the Stone's properties/benefits.
• He could expend some of the money as if he'd hired a spellcaster to cast some permanent-effect spells -- Hardness from the DLCS is a good one (at Caster Level 20, that's an undispellable +10 hardness ... for about 2Kgp)

Basically, the thing to keep in mind is ... not all of the money has to go to the magical +'s of a single-bladed sword. 290Kgp on a double weapon means, you could have e.g. an Adamantine (on both ends) Double-Sword, which is also Hardened on both ends (hardness 30, before even counting magical enhancement!), at +7 per "end" ... with plenty of room left to spare, for add-directly-to-cost abilities -- like, say, Jumping from MoF. Build it +5/GhostTouch/Flaming on both ends (or flaming/icy, or whatever), and you're looking at 40 hardness, around 70hp, on both ends. Now, THAT is a nice piece of sharp-and-pointy, wouldn't you agree?

That'd cost 218,000gp. Throw on 50,000 for a +5 Resistance bonus to all saves, and we're at 268,000gp; that leaves 22,000gp for some other ability.

Now, the Ioun Blade from the Arms and Equipment Guide lists at 6,302gp ... it's a +1 dagger that can hold one ioun stone in it's hilt. Reverse engineering the price gives us 4,000gp for the ability to hold the ioun stone. Add that twice (once per "end"), and we're up 8Kgp, to276,000gp. 14Kgp left ...

A Wondrous Item effect of "continuous shield", at Caster Level 1, would cost 1x1x2000x2(duration)x2(unslotted), or, 8,000gp. 6K left ... perhaps time to call it "close enough".

So, now we have a Hardened Adamantine Double-Sword +7(Ghost Touch, Flaming)/+7(Ghost Touch, Frost) Twin Greater Ioun Blade of Continuous Shield and +5 Resistance. Net market price is 284,000gp.

Out of pocket, he can buy a Dusty Rose ioun stone (+1 insight bonus to AC) and a Pale Green ioun stone (+1 coimpetence to attacks, saves, and checks), for 5,000gp and 30,000gp respectively -- and they can slot into that sword, nad give him teh benefits ... with noone the wiser; no targetting them for sunders or captures or whatever during battle, because noone knows he even has 'em! ^_^

Not bad for a "mere" +7/+7 double sword, eh? And it's unique enough, given the nature of the feat and the inherent backstory involved, that something along those lines should satisfy your player ... immensely.

^_^

 

[Ferret]

I made this for a compo on the WotC boards, It should be an artefact, but does nothing special. So I turned it epic. (N.B I turned it epic now, before they didn't use the epic rules so I couldn't do the extra pricing tell me if it's wrong please):

Robe of Safe keeping: This large billowing robe was first used as a traveling robe simply enchanted with an endure elements spell, passed down the generations of wizards; many of these wizards have enchanted the robe over the centuries it has been in use. The first of such enchantments was first used as a variation of the robe of useful items, where not only do some pockets contain items that may be of use, they can also be used to carry 90 lb of items. The most famous use of this robes ability was when Agar the blackened lifted a prison door off of its hinges and placed it into the robe.

The second of the robes abilities is to block the use of a door, it is simply placed over the door so it is completely blocked from view, once the robe is in place the effects of an arcane lock take hold of the door. This quite a frequent way for the cloak to pass hands as the former owner leaves it behind to beat a hasty retreat.

The third of the robes powers can whisk the user and the robe off to a hut with the same specifications as a cottage made by the spell Leomunds Secure Shelter as a free action at will, the shelter however is placed in the astral plane. This ability has confused many lore keepers and spell casters as the spell Refuge does not allow planar travel, and the hut has a chest inside where the items from the first ability are stored.

The items you might find inside the robe are:
• 1 Lamp
• 1 pouch of spell components
• 1 piece of silk rope (50 ft)

d%	Result
01–08	Bag of 100 gold pieces
09–15	2 socks of random colours
16–50	Door, Iron bars (up to 4 ft. wide and 7 ft. high )
50–51	Gems, no more then 10 (100 gp value each)
52–66	Shard of glass
66–70	Counters
71–76	Bottle of silversheen
77–79	Potion of cure serious wounds
80–85	12 pieces of parchment
86–89	Minor scroll of one randomly determined spell
90–96	Small empty vial
96–98	Metal rod 6 inches long
99–100	Arcane symbol

Moderate Conjuration; CL 18th; Craft Wondrous Item, Arcane lock, Leomunds secret chest, Leomunds Secure shelter, Refuge; Price 2,540,000 gp, Cost 1,295,500; Weight 4 lb.

Price explanation:

Arcane lock: 2*3*2,000*.25
Endure elements: 1*1*2000*.5
Leomunds Secret Chest: 5*9*2,000*.375
Leomunds Secure shelter: 4*7*2000
Refuge: 9*17*2,000*.5
Robe of useful items: 7,000
__________________________________
253,750 Rounded up to 254,000, yet it’s over 200,000, so it becomes epic cost 10X more.

 

[Philip]

Why would the robes' wearer ever use it for a wizard lock when he can just tranport himself to the astral. Especially considering that the wearer would be epic, and would have a lot of method available to flee (or block a door) instead of 'sacrificing' the robe.

I like the idea, but no character of mine would ever pay that much for a robe that only has the powers you describe.