Immortals Handbook - Grimoire (Artifacts, Epic Magic discussion)

[Kerrick]

Kerrick, I have a slight issue with the idea of the scaled multiplier for the epic items, which is that what you're just effectively doing is changing the cost from bonus squared to bonus cubed. Even that doesn't scale well.

Umm... no I'm not. I tried bonus^3 x constant (1,000 or 2,000), and it didn't work, so I used bonus^2 x constant instead. Here, check this out - I wrote it all up and put it on my site awhile back, so it might be a little easier to understand than the rambling and strange tables I posted here.

Bob has decided to make the Sword of Win, which will give the user an equal bonus to all attributes, attack bonus, and natural armor.

So, setting aside for the moment that this is an utterly ridiculous item that breaks the rules and that no DM would ever allow...

Bob's sword will get a +1 bonus at 21st level assuming that this is the ONLY thing bob spends wealth on.

Ah... but he can't spend all his wealth on it, because I'm using the rule (stated in the ELH, and which should have been stated in the DMG) that you can't spend more than 1/4 of your starting wealth on a given item. Therefore Bob wouldn't be able to afford a +1 Sword of Win until 26th level, or 30th if you use my wealth progression. And how, if Bob's so lazy, is he going to get to that level anyway?

it will get a +2 at 36th level
+3 at 44th level
+10 at 69th level
+40 at 98th level

It will get +2 at 51st level
+3 at 78th
...and I don't feel like extrapolating the table out to 200th level or so to figure out what +10 is. Granted, this is using my progression again, so the numbers are slightly higher than the official one - I'd drop 6-7 levels, but still... it's not overpowering. Trust me on this - I spent over a week on it, testing out various combinations of things. Like I pointed out to UK, my method actually fits his ECL formula for magic items for levels below 40th, which is something he couldn't do.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

For non-epic wealth I have been thinking:

ECL divided by 2.1 = bonus squared x 2000
ECL divided by 1.8 = bonus squared x 1000

So you might own +10 armour (+5/+5) at 18th-level while at 21st you might have a +10 sword (+5/+5)

For epic wealth of course:

ECL divided by 2.8 = bonus squared x 20,000
ECL divided by 2 = bonus squared x 10,000

Further investigation shows that under the official rules...

You could have
A +6 shield (+6/+0) @ 23rd level
A +11 shield (+6/+5) @ 31st-level

A +6 weapon (+6/+0) @ 27th-level
A +11 weapon (+6/+5) @ 37th-level

While my epic equation does give slightly higher results that balances against the reduced variety from only having four items.

Under my system you could have a +11 (+6/+5) shield at 22nd-level and a +11 (+6/+5) weapon at 31st-level.

This method is a lot better balanced than the core rules I think. I don't see too many trading in a +5/+5 shield for a flat +6 shield. Might have a tad more relevance with weapons as thats useful for bypassing damage reduction.

 

[zarquin]

Umm... no I'm not. I tried bonus^3 x constant (1,000 or 2,000), and it didn't work, so I used bonus^2 x constant instead. Here, check this out - I wrote it all up and put it on my site awhile back, so it might be a little easier to understand than the rambling and strange tables I posted here.

Using your tables, if I try to design a +100 weapon, my cost is 100*100*95*2000, which is close enough to be bonus cubed. Yes, the difference may be noticable at the low bonuses, but by the higher bonuses it becomes effectively bonus cubed.

So, setting aside for the moment that this is an utterly ridiculous item that breaks the rules and that no DM would ever allow...

I agree that it is an utterly ridicuolous item, however barring the ad-hoc multipliers to make it a more expensive weapon, I fail to see how it breaks the rules at all. It was created through the DMG magic item creation rules, and while I agree that many of the effects on the sword don't make sense to be placed on a sword, it has a compensating cost which is LARGER than the DMG recommends. Although if you'd prefer it should only cost... 185,000*bonus² if we want to make sure to follow the rules exactly, which even spending at most 1/4th wealth would give a higher bonus than the original sword gave. Although, I think the reason no DM would ever allow this item is because no player would ever want this item, you can do everything this sword could do much cheaper if you just use the 8 items that were designed to do what it does, seperately.

Ah... but he can't spend all his wealth on it, because I'm using the rule (stated in the ELH, and which should have been stated in the DMG) that you can't spend more than 1/4 of your starting wealth on a given item. Therefore Bob wouldn't be able to afford a +1 Sword of Win until 26th level, or 30th if you use my wealth progression. And how, if Bob's so lazy, is he going to get to that level anyway?

I mentioned about ignoring the rules of spending more than 1/4 of starting wealth by the fact that if bob didn't spend all of his money he would have more than 2x the bonus that the sword of win would give him since he would just split the cost into the 8 equivalent items which would reduce his cost from 800,000*bonus² to 100,000*bonus². And my point was far more directed towards the inherient flaw in epic wealth progression far more than anything else, the sword of win was just a silly silly example, because according to the ELH character wealth is supposed to double every 7 and a half levels, and if you double the cost of a bonus² item you increase the bonus by ~40%.
Yes, using your system of wealth progression this solves the example, but so would using any system of wealth progression that increases at the same rate of magintude as the costs. Or just removes costs/wealth and gives the user a set bonus to their items which increases at level and ignores costs all together. Which seems more like what U_K is doing with his system.

Althoguh, I'm not sure how his system deals with things like disposable items, or the flat cost items like putting a spell into an item.

 

[Frobojoe]

Althoguh, I'm not sure how his system deals with things like disposable items, or the flat cost items like putting a spell into an item.

Actually, I'd love to know this, too. I've been mentally toying with a Artificer deity, but I have no idea how to price things like wands and staves under UKs rules.

 

[WarDragon]

Could do what I did with my build of Santa; include a built-in, creative method of recharging it. I just gave it something fairly easy, and increased the total effective price of the spells by 50%.

As for how you get the maximum price allowed...

For items that are not necessarily measured in terms of bonuses (such as an Amulet of the Planes or a Rod of Rulership) simply determine the GP value of the item by working out the cost of one of the above item types.

 

[Frobojoe]

Could do what I did with my build of Santa; include a built-in, creative method of recharging it. I just gave it something fairly easy, and increased the total effective price of the spells by 50%.

That's sort of what I've been considering, but I'm not sure yet what good method for recharging would be, as Artificers can burn through wands like firecrackers if they want to.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Well, the staff of the Magi has a listed means of recharging. Perhaps a price could be put on that. 50k gold seems about right to me, or you could just Add in a x2 cost multiplier for rechargeable or whatever sounds right.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

There are no epic disposable items. Therefore an epic character can have (within limits) any number of non-epic items (up to normal wealth limitations). But I suggest that any players trying to exploit that should have their characters routinely disjoined.

 

[WarDragon]

Hey guys!

There are no epic disposable items. Therefore an epic character can have (within limits) any number of non-epic items (up to normal wealth limitations). But I suggest that any players trying to exploit that should have their characters routinely disjoined.

The SRD begs to differ. Why should staffs be capped at the 20th level limits?

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

True, it is harder to "arm" a magic using deity with Artifacts, since a staff or a wand will likely be useless, and since staff creation rules are so open-ended, many of the logical ideas are dubious from a balance perspective. (The 'do anything staff', with over 50+ spells in it, or the 'brokenation' staff with every spell that has an effect that the caster should have to pay for, like wish, timestop, etc. I did this once. DMs do not like you spamming Quickened Maximized Timestops, buffing yourself, and then using your last action to ready an action to cast a Quickened Maximized Timestop right after your timestop ends. )

But wands and Staffs, with the introduction of Metamagic Capacity feats, don't need epic equivalents in my view. (At least not in the same mechanical sense) Since a staff takes the wielders spellcaster ability, then one could just say AMC-limits apply. Wands could work the same. (Maybe with an epic feat?)

Deities and the like have, at a certain point, unlimited* wealth. (*limited only by how many epic spells to create gold coins they wish to cast) Allowing "epic staffs" is like saying "Here Mr. Wizard, be able to spontaneously cast your spell book," Because A staff has no limit to how many spells it can hold. (not that that capability is broken, but that it is achievable at too low a level)

Perhaps one could have an "artifact staff/wand", and while it may allow the wielder to use spells for charges, it probably has a bigger, more epic purpose. (Like enhancing all of the spells cast by the wielder, or what not) And the spells that use charges are only "fluff".