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Message: <blockquote data-quote="timer" data-source="post: 1254328" data-attributes="member: 15595">This has been a recent topic of debat in my campaign. I'm a very open DM and if a player finds something in print in the books I let it run. I made a decision to allow the netbooks in as well, they're an excellent resource and they're free can't beat that.One of my player who I shall name Sneaky, decided on making magic items. The character he made was 16th level, which fit in well enough in the 18th level party. You'll see why it fit out in a second.Sneaky here is a crafty devil, he's slow as a snail but he's crafty. He spent roughly 1 month devising his character and working out all the details. Then he explained the concept showed me print outs of the classes (which I doubled checked) and any rule he used. It all seemed fine and it was in fact legit however there was a problem that arose when other player found out the sheer level of power he could through about.Sneaky's character class picks started with a wizard then added in two different artificer prestiege classes. They were different enough that it was feasible to be both. The combination resulted in Sneaky having two different caster levels with different spell lists accordingly. When out adventuring he functioned as a 5th level wizard. That could get him killed right there but the other end of the stick is when he made items he functioned as a 23rd level wizard quite the stick isn't it?That alone gave him the ability to make just about anything he could get his mind around. At first it looked to me like he'd gotten a bad trade then I realize my folly as I looked at his 'toy' part way through our first session with the character. His 'toy' is/was a staff and it could toss about quite a few 9th level spells. Not bad, others could cast them on their own so on its face it wasn't too bad then I saw how often it could cast them 3/day each without draining a single charge. Suddenly dread started filling in. The other abilities worked out to similar benefits, the thing made most artificats look like childrens toys. I spent 2 hours after the session working out how he did it, and the frightening thing is I saw ways he could have made it more powerful and still stayed within the rules.With staves (his specialty) he had a modifier to cost that made it so he only paid 10% of the actual cost. That is if it had a base cost of 200,00gc he paid 20,000gc. His staff ended up with a base cost of 1.9 million gc he had to pay 190,000 for it. At 16th level an average character has 260,00gc which is what I alloted him and that staff fell right into it.  Exp wise it worked out in a similar fashion. I think the staff cost him 3,000xp to create and only aged his character about a year in the process. It would have been fine to transition between sessions but sadly Sneaky died. One might think that to be a blessing but no Sneaky is the kind of player that pouts and moans and generally pisses everyone else off when he doesn't get his way. He's like a 21 year old grade school kid. In his pouting he starts mouthing how his staff should survive his death how it's too powerful because it's solid admantine. I thought about it and I gave the staff a saving throw which it failed. To elaborate Sneaky was hit dead on by a Great Red Wyrms breath weapon from point blank. Sneaky was dead regardless though in failing his save he was turned to less than ash -60 or there abouts. The staff became an issue it had 200hps and had just taken about 150 in damage from the breath weapon. It failed its save and by all means was 75% destroyed but he kept arguing that since some of its hps were there it should survive. In any case in the arguing he mentioned a bit too often what his 'toy' could do. Meteor Swarm, True Seeing at will, Prismatic Sphere ect it quickly became a mater of "That's sick, you shouldn't have that" No other player wanted anything like it, I can't blame them it ruins the fun of the game...in fact 1 of the players used a plot device in the campaign to rid himself of all his magic items. (If you read the Exhalted deads book you'll probably know what he's in store for) Anyway I spent a couple of days trying to figure out ways to limit such things from reaccuring. So far I haven't found a printed rule that prevents it and I hate saying "It doesn't work because I say so" that's as bad as letting him use the bloody thing.I came up with a system of checks that in a sense prevent the super sick items like that but still allow for nearly every item in the books to be used as was intended.I devised a way of using the Craft Check used to make an item the limiter. I gave masterwork items a Check of 20 and stated that a magic items craft check must be equal to or greater than 1/10,000th of its base cost. Thus a 200,000gc item needs a Check of 20 or a masterwork item. So the books are rather transparent in change. However since this works off base costs and not modified costs Sneaky's toy would now require an item crafted with a Check of 190 to get made. Something completely epic in nature.  Materials add in to what the items check is, Mithral adds +5, Admantine +10. Then each Epic Item creation feat adds in +5. Thus it's possible to make the item in the ELH at epic levels but not before, and it prevents insane items from being crafted too soon.I'm not sure if it's a perfect or even a good system yet, it hasn't been tested out except in the math. If anyone would like to give me feedback on it I'd be very appreciative.</blockquote>

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