Magic item for +10 Performance skill

[Vymair]

Thanks for all the great advice.


It's also potentially the deciding factor in whether a Bard character takes a Craft feat (for a character with 10 ranks in Perform already).

Again, the advice is appreciated, particularly on a day when its often been difficult to post replies.

P.S. Where is 3rd Eye of Concentration from?

Third Eye of Concentration is from Psionics Handbook. They have several skill adding items in there and the most common requirement is half the ranks of the skill bonus the items has.
This should cut down on the +10 Tumble, +10 Spot items...IMC, it must be the creator who has these skills his rogue friend cannot help him...

 

[Mistwell]

Remember that such an item won't help the bard use his bardsong abilities, as they are based on ranks rather than bonus.

The only thing I can see which this item would help him do is make money.

It's a Monte Cook Bard. Performance checks are VERY important for certain feats for that version of the Bard.

 

[AuraSeer]

I've seen DMs who charge x10 the price for particularly useful +skill items. This would include items that give bonuses to Perform, Move Silently, Hide, Concentration, and so on. It doesn't apply to the movement skills (Jump, Swim, Balance, etc) or skills that have limited offensive use (Heal, Intuit Direction, Innuendo, etc).

For a campaign using the Monte Bard, I'd definitely use the x10 rule for a +Perform item, because it's so very useful. That makes your +10 item cost 20,000 gold.

If you plan to use the ELH, be wary of +Spellcraft items! Research and use of epic spells depends solely on the caster's Spellcraft modifier, so any bonuses to that skill are disproportionally powerful. For that reason, I wouldn't allow arbitrary crafted items to increase Spellcraft.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I've never really liked having these sorts of items in the game. By the time you're level 13+ you have hundreds of thousands of GP in assets. Buying a dozen +10 items for limited use is just too cheap. Instead of using skill points to get a good Craft skill, just buy a +10 item for the skill you want! Why bother with Rogue levels when you can just get items for Hide and Move Silently?

Personally I'd do it this way:
1> Increase the price by a factor of 2.5, to 50*(ranks^2). You could vary it by skill, of course. Double if it's a slotless item, as usual.
2> Require equal ranks instead of half; you can't put knowledge into an item that you didn't have yourself.
3> The bonus acts as ranks of the skill for the purposes of skill checks. The skill is treated as being a class skill for this purpose, but the bonus cannot take you over the maximum class-skill rank for your level. So, if the total of your own skill ranks plus those from the item exceed (level+3), the excess is lost.
4> The benefit only applies if you've been wearing the item for 24 hours. (Use the attunement rules from a Ring of Sustenance as a guideline). If you want an item with no attunement time, double the cost again.

Example: a level 4 Wizard picks up a ring that adds 10 to Perform (cost: 5,000 gp). At that level his maximum rank is 7, so for the purposes of Perform checks it'll be as if he had 7 ranks in the skill. Effectively these become useless to anyone who already had maxxed out a class skill.

 

[Mistwell]

I've never really liked having these sorts of items in the game. By the time you're level 13+ you have hundreds of thousands of GP in assets. Buying a dozen +10 items for limited use is just too cheap. Instead of using skill points to get a good Craft skill, just buy a +10 item for the skill you want! Why bother with Rogue levels when you can just get items for Hide and Move Silently?

Personally I'd do it this way:
1> Increase the price by a factor of 2.5, to 50*(ranks^2). You could vary it by skill, of course. Double if it's a slotless item, as usual.
2> Require equal ranks instead of half; you can't put knowledge into an item that you didn't have yourself.
3> The bonus acts as ranks of the skill for the purposes of skill checks. The skill is treated as being a class skill for this purpose, but the bonus cannot take you over the maximum class-skill rank for your level. So, if the total of your own skill ranks plus those from the item exceed (level+3), the excess is lost.
4> The benefit only applies if you've been wearing the item for 24 hours. (Use the attunement rules from a Ring of Sustenance as a guideline). If you want an item with no attunement time, double the cost again.

Example: a level 4 Wizard picks up a ring that adds 10 to Perform (cost: 5,000 gp). At that level his maximum rank is 7, so for the purposes of Perform checks it'll be as if he had 7 ranks in the skill. Effectively these become useless to anyone who already had maxxed out a class skill.

I'm sure that's great for your game, but I am not looking for an extensive house rule that makes the items useless for people who have ranks in that skill. In fact, since I already said these items are extensively in use in this campaign already, I really don't understand all these opinions I am getting about how certain DMs don't allow these items in their game, or how much they hate these items. That would be great for the house rules forum. However, all I need to know is the rules for making this item, and the appropriate cost IF THE ITEMS ARE ALREADY EXTENSIVE IN THIS GAME, and going by the rules as written. I agree there should be concern about cost, and I am interested in opinions on that subject. But extensive house rules - not so much.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

For a campaign using the Monte Bard, I'd definitely use the x10 rule for a +Perform item, because it's so very useful. That makes your +10 item cost 20,000 gold.

Yeah. Or I could get a +4 stat item for that amount, probably Dexterity.

I've never really liked having these sorts of items in the game. By the time you're level 13+ you have hundreds of thousands of GP in assets. Buying a dozen +10 items for limited use is just too cheap. Instead of using skill points to get a good Craft skill, just buy a +10 item for the skill you want! Why bother with Rogue levels when you can just get items for Hide and Move Silently?[/B]

Looked at the rules lately? There are a very limited number of slots magic items can take up. Double or more stacking doubles the cost. 'Slotless' items are even more expensive. Typical Warrior or Magic user has quite a few items he'd rather spend his dough on, at any level. "Gee wish I could hit this DR +4 guy but I wanted to have +10 Hide boots"

 

[Quidam]

People started riffing on the other options for these types of items since you brought up their cost- a point of some contention. I think they were meant more as comments on the topic than replies to your question- which you already got early on.

And could have asked me, as I run the item enchanter in the party in question and just recently enchanted a bard's instrument to give him +10 to perform. Cost 2k- actually a bit lower, as Aster doesn't charge party members full price, so maybe you shouldn't get it until you join up, eh?

(methinks the local fighter's going to be replaced by a bard soon...)

 

[Mistwell]

People started riffing on the other options for these types of items since you brought up their cost- a point of some contention. I think they were meant more as comments on the topic than replies to your question- which you already got early on.

And could have asked me, as I run the item enchanter in the party in question and just recently enchanted a bard's instrument to give him +10 to perform. Cost 2k- actually a bit lower, as Aster doesn't charge party members full price, so maybe you shouldn't get it until you join up, eh?

(methinks the local fighter's going to be replaced by a bard soon...)

I had no idea that's what you did to Eldane's instrument! I certainly was going to be asking you, but I wanted to hear peoples opinions about cost first.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Looked at the rules lately? There are a very limited number of slots magic items can take up. Double or more stacking doubles the cost. 'Slotless' items are even more expensive. Typical Warrior or Magic user has quite a few items he'd rather spend his dough on, at any level. "Gee wish I could hit this DR +4 guy but I wanted to have +10 Hide boots"

Looked at the rules lately? There's noone telling you that you have to use the items all the time.

On adventures, he'd have his usual stuff on. In calm times, when he's creating items, he'd don his bracers of craft (something) instead. He could make an armor with his bracers of craft (armorsmithing) and then a weapon with his bracers of craft (weaponsmithing). After that, he'll make some dozens of masterwork arrows with his bracers of craft (fletching).

And using items that don't use slots (or adding powers to a given item) would double the price. And 4000 is still not so much. So you could easily enchant your bracers of dex with +10 to move silently and +10 to hide, for 8000 gp. Or just make slotless items of five different skills, for 20.000 together. Still not very much.

 

[StGabriel]

bah on +skill items

I agree that skill items are too cheap.

A perform item for a Monte bard is a particularly egregious abuse of this. A +10 perform check effectively allows a Monte bard to always use his "metasong" to maximum effect. The class is already capable of some rather nasty sonic damage, this would allow a goodly increase for very little outlay.

+skill items should be hard to make, no matter the skill, imo. Skills are level restricted entities, and adding to them is like adding hps or base attack, etc. You shouldn't be able to exceed your natural level restriction by 10 levels for only 2k. This is made even worse by the requirement of only having half that skill level. This allows a caster to TRIPLE his base skill level, cheaply.

If I were to write the reqs and costs for skill items I would say:

1) You must have 3x the skill of the bonus you wish to imbue.
2) The maximum bonus to a skill is +5.
3) The cost is 100*(2*bonus)^2. That would make costs:

+1: 400
+2: 1,600
+3: 3,600
+4: 6,400
+5: 10,000

4) Optionally, you can make "simple" skills such as climb, jump, spot and listen cost half as much, but they should still have the same requirements.

---
StGabriel, the Taoist saint.