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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 25446" data-attributes="member: 99">First of all, if you are one of my players, DON'T READ THIS! (fat chance of that anyway since I can't even get them to post to the Story Hour!)Ok.  I've got a magic item that is in my campaign whose abilities I haven't permenantly defined yet.  I am somewhat constrained by the way it has been used so far but I want opinions on whether the properties I'm assigning it are too powerful.  First, the physical properties (these cannot be altered):It consists of a large (4' by 6') painting of a black dragon on white silk.  It has a black, laquered wood frame (the frame can be essential to the working of the item or not).  The painting was owned by a moderately powerful wizard who had a fascination with dragons and is missing and presumed dead after venturing to the lair of a powerful black dragon.  The painting hung in his abandoned tower for several years until it was pilfered by Kobolds who now have it in their lair and will be using it against the party (they've used it once already).  It is highly likely that at some point in the relatively near future the party will defeat the Kobolds and capture the painting.FYI, the party consists of a Dwarven Fighter/Cleric, a Druid and a Human Rogue/Sorcerer.  The Druid is 6th level, the other two are 5th.The item description I've come up with (this can be altered somewhat in the details, but the basic function of the item must remain the same):This painting, entitled "The Blood of the Dragon" is in fact, painted with the blood of a Black Dragon.  Only those who have dragon blood in their veins (Sorcerers for purposes of my campaign) or who have consumed the blood of a dragon (this is why the Wizard who owned the painting went to confront the dragon) can activate the power of the item.Once per day, as a full round action, the user can call forth a "Shadow Dragon" (based on the Shadow Conjuration spell) to do his bidding for one minute per level.  The dragon called forth in this manner obeys all the normal rules for Shadow Conjurations (20% of the normal hit points and only does 20% normal damage to those who understand that it is a Shadow).  The power of the dragon is determined by the level of the user.  A first level user calls forth a Wormling size dragon.  The size increases by one category for every two additional levels of the user.That is pretty much it.  The leader of the Kobolds is a 5th level Sorcerer and is therefore capable of conjuring a Shadow of a Young dragon (17HPs with all normal attacks but they inflict only 1/5 normal damage if the creature being attacked makes a Will save).  The party Rogue/Sorcerer has 4 levels of Sorcerer and at this time would be able to conjure a Very Young (if memory serves) dragon.The party has encountered it once and they figured out it is a shadow so they won't take much damage from it in the future but it is still a reasonable threat.The areas I feel I could adjust for the sake of balance are the duration, the frequency the dragon could be called, the age category of the dragon (it could be fixed at Young) and any other abilities it might impart.  Another possibility if it seems too powerful, would be to require that it be kept in the frame which would make it far too bulky to carry around without some kind of magical help (portable hole, maybe?).Also, I have considered having it be mildly intelligent or perhaps empathic.  It might generally encourage sorcerous tendencies in those around it (which would explain why a high percentage of the Kobolds that possess it now are Sorcerers).  It could also tend to encourage evil perhaps.Whatdya think?</blockquote>

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