New Feat....need feedback

[Devin Cole]

New Feat: Bind the Soul (Item Creation)

Prerequisites: any evil, any item creation feat, Caster level 11th

This insidious ability, granted by evil outsiders, makes the creation of magical items easier to complete at the cost of living souls.

Benefit: This feat allows a spellcaster to substitute exp in magic items for the soul of creatures. For each hit dice of the creature that is bound within the item the experience cost to create the item is lessened by 25 points. The item takes on aspects of the bound creature and may actually appear to be the creature itself in many ways. Example: Elbren the Shaper decided that his companion needs a weapon worthy of a king. He creates a magical +2 flaming longsword for that companion. In order to create the item he would normally pay 720 exp and 9315 gold. Instead he decides to bind the soul of his companion’s chief advisor, a 5th level expert. In doing so he reduces the exp cost to 595. When he gives this weapon to his companion it’s pommel bears a strange resemblance to his once trusted advisor. In order to bind a soul into a magic item the target soul must fail a saving throw DC equal to the caster’s level. This saving throw is a will based saving throw.

Normal: In order to create a magic item the caster must pay all gold and experience point cost’s associated with that magic item.

 

[JimAde]

I think you need some more details.

Does the victim have to be killed first, or does this act kill him? If it does, what are the requirements? How long does it take, etc. If he can be dead already, how long can he be dead? What's to prevent everybody using the soul of the long-dead legendary hero Fred (who clearly had a lot of hit dice)?

 

[Devin Cole]

Very good points. My intention was for the wizard or cleric (or other spellcaster) to harvest souls from the living. The creature could either willingly fail its save or fail the save through bad dice rolls and be wholly trapped withing the item being created. In order to do this the creature, or creatures would need to be present during the entire item creation process. Souls of the dead may not be used so the caster would need to keep the creature alive during the entire process. If the magic was ever unbound the sould would be free to proceed to its afterlife or could automatically return to life as if it had been trapped body and soul within the item, i have not decided that yet.

 

[JimAde]

I see. Interesting! It would really stink (for the item creator) to go through the whole item creation process, then have the victim make his save. Would the creator then have to pony up the XP or would the whole thing fail?

The idea of someone doing this willingly is cool, too, though I think that might make it not evil. I can see a paladin saying "I will sacrifice my humanity to defeat this great evil!" Then he could be bound into a +5 Cold Iron Holy sword to be wielded by another member of his order. And then, after the evil is defeated, they can break the sword to release him (which kind of blunts the whole "sacrifice" thing) or to release his soul to its well-deserved reward (better). Cool.

I have no idea if it's balanced, though.

 

[ARandomGod]

Can you only bind one soul per item? If so, 25XP per HD seems pretty low.

Can this only be done by evil? What about good... as JimAde suggests someone might be willing, if so why is this evil? What does the soul experience during it's time as an item? Is there a way to use this to create intelligent magic items (note: I personally already allow people to be made into intelligent magic items if they are willing... for special occasions, no special feat needed.)

 

[Devin Cole]

Well i guess i should set up a little back story to shape up the feat then so I can better understand myself as well as better explain what Im going for. In my Campaign World, we have a race of half elven like humaniods called the Elareth. The Elareth are wholly evil, manipulated by devils and the god of tyranny himself. One of the Devil's, a son of Asmodeous, taught the Elareth to trap the souls of living creatures within gemstones to power charged magical items. Each gem grants a limited number of bonus charges based on the trapped soul's hit-dice. When all charges are expended the soul dies and the creature may not be resureected without the use of wish or simular magic.

This same unique Devil also taught these people to bine souls into magic items in the way i have described in the feat above. At one time virtually the entire halfling race was bound into gems and magic items possessed by the Elareth people.

Ok so here goes with in-game answers to your questions from my point of view( and please help to mold this if you can). Anytime a person manipulates an actual soul it is an evil act. The act of willing sacrifice may be good indeed but the act of actual binding the soul is evil, so there are two sides i guess. I am leaning more towards the soul being freed to proceed to its afterlife if an item is destroyed so the process will, in effect, kill the creature so bound.

If the creature makes his will save then the item is still created if the creater has the nessessary exp to create the item. If it would cause the caster to lose a level (which item creation cannot i belive) then the item creation fails.

The process may bind as many souls into a single item as the caster has creatures at his disposal. Any exp that is not used is wasted yet the creature still is killed.

On a special note. This feat may not be used as a means to kill a creature in combat since it must remain with the caster during the entire magical item creation process.

Thank you all very much for reading over this and for your ideas and support.

 

[ARandomGod]

OK.

I'm not a big fan of "acts are evil because they're evil"... if the soul gets to move on and volunteers for the task, well, 'not evil' as far as I can see. Of course, in general it doesn't seem that anyone not evil will learn this skill, that I'll agree with. It's main uses are definitely evil.

And as long as you can bind as many as you want, the amount per HD seems fine. A little wasteful, perhaps (they do have a LOT of XP at higher levels, you might consider a non-linear amount gained), but hey, what do the evil people care?

^_^

 

[ARandomGod]

Anytime a person manipulates an actual soul it is an evil act.

See, this cannot be true. A person manipulates his or her own soul on a daily basis. Personal interaction can be considered to be manipulation of the soul by another... Of course, one could say that personal interaction that ends up in "soul manipulation" is really the person manipulating his/her own soul, and could also state the manipulating your own soul does not count in the above situation..

But what about giving birth/conception? That's manipulation of a soul. And really so is raising a child, but see above (interaction). Gods manipulate souls all the time. Even good gods.

That statement would also qualify resurrection/reincarnation spells as evil (but that's a very interesting flavor...)

 

[jaker2003]

how about direct manipulation of a soul beyond natural means is evil. A good god can manipulate a soul as directly as it/he/she pleases because it is a natural ability to do so.

But then we still run into the whole forced/willingly and good/evil ends versus good/evil means, so nevermind.

 

[ARandomGod]

how about direct manipulation of a soul beyond natural means is evil. A good god can manipulate a soul as directly as it/he/she pleases because it is a natural ability to do so.

But then we still run into the whole forced/willingly and good/evil ends versus good/evil means, so nevermind.

What's beyond natural means? Clearly anything a god does is beyond that... I just don't buy that it's "natural" for a "good" god to do it while "unnatural" for an "evil" god (or godling, of servant of a god, or worshipper) to do the same thing.

How is is unnatural to use magic? Magic is natural (in this genre).

Anyhow. Personally I'd take the (evil) descriptor off, but it's not necessary if you just avoid the subject... and if you want to be complete and NOT avoid the subject, you can include that learning this feat requires you to do certain "unspeakable" deads. Presto, an explanation that explains nothing, and cannot explain anything because you've thrown in "unspeakable". Like they did with the Lich's phylactery.

"You're assignment is to a planet so mysterious, noone dare speak it's name"

"Oh, what's it's name?"

"I dare not speak it!"