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Just say NO to buff items, the crack of D&D.
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<blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1471075" data-attributes="member: 3051"><p>Not that this hasn't come up before, but I figure I might as well reiterate a House Rule we've used since 3.0 that solved this problem perfectly for us. Basically, the limiting factor for most buff spells (duration) became a non-issue when items were involved, so we wanted to fix that in general.</p><p></p><p>In short:</p><p></p><p>Craft Wondrous Item can't make any "always-on" items. If you want that, either make it a Ring, Rod, or Arms/Armor as appropriate.</p><p></p><p>So, the Belt of Giant Strength might cast <em>Bull's Strength</em> five times per day, at Caster Level 3. When this item was translated to 3.5E, nothing had to change; it could now still cast it five times per day.</p><p></p><p>Actually, we expanded the basic rules a bit, by giving three options:</p><p>1> Standard Activation: The default. The item takes a Standard Action to activate. Cost is 360gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day.</p><p>2> Command Activated: The item only takes a Free Action to activate (all you need is a thought or one word). Cost is 500gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day.</p><p>3> Interruptible Activation: The item takes a Free Action to activate, AND you can choose to only use part of the duration, so instead of "X charges", it's listed as "X rounds". For example, the Boots of Speed. Cost is 750gp * spell level * (caster level * uses per day). The reason I put that last part in parentheses is that the product is all that matters; if the duration is 1 round/level, and you have caster level 10, then the item has 10 rounds of use.</p><p></p><p>So anyway, we went back through the DMG and converted all the use-activated or continuous items to one of these three forms. It worked great so far, and when we shifted to 3.5E there wasn't suddenly a bunch of scrambling for new items.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Spatzimaus, post: 1471075, member: 3051"] Not that this hasn't come up before, but I figure I might as well reiterate a House Rule we've used since 3.0 that solved this problem perfectly for us. Basically, the limiting factor for most buff spells (duration) became a non-issue when items were involved, so we wanted to fix that in general. In short: Craft Wondrous Item can't make any "always-on" items. If you want that, either make it a Ring, Rod, or Arms/Armor as appropriate. So, the Belt of Giant Strength might cast [i]Bull's Strength[/i] five times per day, at Caster Level 3. When this item was translated to 3.5E, nothing had to change; it could now still cast it five times per day. Actually, we expanded the basic rules a bit, by giving three options: 1> Standard Activation: The default. The item takes a Standard Action to activate. Cost is 360gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day. 2> Command Activated: The item only takes a Free Action to activate (all you need is a thought or one word). Cost is 500gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day. 3> Interruptible Activation: The item takes a Free Action to activate, AND you can choose to only use part of the duration, so instead of "X charges", it's listed as "X rounds". For example, the Boots of Speed. Cost is 750gp * spell level * (caster level * uses per day). The reason I put that last part in parentheses is that the product is all that matters; if the duration is 1 round/level, and you have caster level 10, then the item has 10 rounds of use. So anyway, we went back through the DMG and converted all the use-activated or continuous items to one of these three forms. It worked great so far, and when we shifted to 3.5E there wasn't suddenly a bunch of scrambling for new items. [/QUOTE]
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