Victim
First Post
All permanent magic items are intelligent, including spellbooks.
Intelligent magic items are much more expensive and more rare than normal, and thus characters will have far fewer items and item creation will be difficult.
Magic becomes more risky, as it is subject to control by the possibly unreliable personality of the item. Wizards will have to contend with the egos of their spell books to refresh spells, therefore encouraging them to use spells more sparingly.
Item special powers may be replaced by other things. For example, an item might be able to cast spells like an X level character. So a wand might replicate the spellcasting of a third level sorcerer with the Magic missile and shield spells instead of having 50 charges of magic missile.
A sword might be imbued a portion or the entire spirit of a skilled warrior, and thus give benefits such as +3 to hit (focus and aid another), +2 damage (spec) and a feat or two instead of being +3 flaming. Also, the weilder might benefit from advice of the sword. However, it could also penalize the weilder's attacks if treated poorly. Or the weilder might be able to benefit from Tenser's or Divine power like effects as the sword takes temporary control of his actions.
On the downside, intelligent items add a lot more work for the DM and, if treated poorly, the personalities of the items would have little impact.
Also, this idea doesn't really check the power of divine casters who don't have to worry about a spell book taking control and can function without magic items.
Intelligent magic items are much more expensive and more rare than normal, and thus characters will have far fewer items and item creation will be difficult.
Magic becomes more risky, as it is subject to control by the possibly unreliable personality of the item. Wizards will have to contend with the egos of their spell books to refresh spells, therefore encouraging them to use spells more sparingly.
Item special powers may be replaced by other things. For example, an item might be able to cast spells like an X level character. So a wand might replicate the spellcasting of a third level sorcerer with the Magic missile and shield spells instead of having 50 charges of magic missile.
A sword might be imbued a portion or the entire spirit of a skilled warrior, and thus give benefits such as +3 to hit (focus and aid another), +2 damage (spec) and a feat or two instead of being +3 flaming. Also, the weilder might benefit from advice of the sword. However, it could also penalize the weilder's attacks if treated poorly. Or the weilder might be able to benefit from Tenser's or Divine power like effects as the sword takes temporary control of his actions.
On the downside, intelligent items add a lot more work for the DM and, if treated poorly, the personalities of the items would have little impact.
Also, this idea doesn't really check the power of divine casters who don't have to worry about a spell book taking control and can function without magic items.
