Magic Items for Lycanthropes

[Archade]

Hey all,

We have a player in our group who is playing a lycanthrope, and he feels he is hampered by the use of command-activated magic items.

He has asked me what options are available for having a magic item built that can be activated while in hybrid or animal form by a growl, or similar noise, or failing that, what additional cost would be necessary to change a command-activated magic item to a mental-activated magic item.

Thoughts?

 

[Cbas_10]

Hey all,

We have a player in our group who is playing a lycanthrope, and he feels he is hampered by the use of command-activated magic items.

He has asked me what options are available for having a magic item built that can be activated while in hybrid or animal form by a growl, or similar noise, or failing that, what additional cost would be necessary to change a command-activated magic item to a mental-activated magic item.

Thoughts?

First thing that comes to my mind...I would tell the player that's part of the downside of playing a lycanthrope. Kinda sounds like a fighter-rogue complaining about his penalty to sneaking around in full-plate. Sure, the fighter-rogue can sneak around...when he takes that armor off.

Off the top of my head...not sure what to do for a mentally activated item. However, I would allow the player to take a feat, allowing the character to speak (and, thus, activate magical items) while in hybrid form. Then, probably another feat (using that first as a prereq) which allows the activation of items in animal form.

 

[Rath the Brown]

Have you checked out the Magic Item Compendium? The stat blocks list what action is required to activate the item (free, standard, etc) and how that action is performed (command, mental, etc). There are several items that are activated via mental commands or require manipulation, which the player could activate in hybrid form.

 

[evilbob]

This is a really good question! I don't think I've seen anything specifically differentiating the price of "mentally"- vs. "command word"-activated items. Here's my idea:

In the DMG, we see that "command word"-activated carries a manufacturer's suggested retail price of CL x SL x 1800g. A "use-activated" - which I would approximate to "mentally activated" in this case since no word is required - has an MSRP of CL x SL x 2000g.

2000 / 1800 = 111%.

So, a good rule of thumb might be to allow such an item to be made for 111% of the normal price, or make it about 10% more expensive to make the math easier. Seem fair?

Additionally, I wouldn't say no to a single house-ruled feat, as above, that allowed "barks and growls" to count for command words, similar to Natural Spell.