New magic item - PEACH

[beverson]

I'm about to start a new campaign that is going to have a large undead component, and the party has no cleric. Now, I'm really not concerned about the lack of a cleric that much, but I did want to give the party a little something to help out now and then. So I made this:

Mantle of the Raven Queen Level 5+
This blue and grey cloak is emblazoned with the Raven Queen’s
symbol, and can be used to turn undead creatures.
Lvl 5 +1 1,000 gp Lvl 20 +4 125,000 gp
Lvl 10 +2 5,000 gp Lvl 25 +5 625,000 gp
Lvl 15 +3 25,000 gp Lvl 30 +6 3,125,000 gp
Item Slot: Neck
Enhancement: None
Property: You gain the ability to Turn Undead a number of times
per day equal to your Wisdom modifier. This ability functions as
the Cleric Feature, substituting the item’s enhancement bonus for
Wisdom modifier, Charisma modifier, and number of dice of
damage.

I realize that this breaks the rules based on the magic items in the PHB, but hey, 4e is all about exception based design, right?

I figured since I was giving the wearer a class feature, I should nerf it a bit so that it wasn't too powerful, so I removed the normal enhancement bonuses to defenses provide by a neck slot item.

I also thought about just making it a Holy Symbol instead...

Please tell me what you think.

 

[Pennarin]

Do all items in the PH have pluses, like yours? If said bonuses are applied to nothing, like in your item, I wonder what they're for. I suggest verifying that.

I would make the ability a Daily power, not a property usable/X times.

...or, make it a property that costs a healing surge. Could be a nice trade-off.

 

[beverson]

Do all items in the PH have pluses, like yours? If said bonuses are applied to nothing, like in your item, I wonder what they're for. I suggest verifying that.

They all have pluses, but they all usually apply to something - in this case with a neck item, it would be the Fort, Ref, and Will defenses. But I removed that so it wouldn't be "too powerful". But I left the pluses on the item because they meshed well with the increasing damage mechanic of the Turn Undead ability. It gave me a scaled amount of damage that wasn't quite as good as what a Cleric would get, which I liked.

I would make the ability a Daily power, not a property usable/X times.

...or, make it a property that costs a healing surge. Could be a nice trade-off.

I should mull over the healing surge idea some more.

 

[Alex319]

The only items that have magical pluses are primary slot items (weapons/implements, armor, and neck slots) that provide pluses to attack/damage, AC, and other defenses respectively.

Since your magic item is a neck slot item, it should have pluses and its pluses should go to fortitude, reflex, and will. And yes, definitely make the power a daily power. Normally all magic item powers that are used up are daily powers. (This causes their use to use up a magic item daily power use, which prevents players from carrying several of the same item and switching them out after their abilities are used up so they can get lots of daily power uses.)

 

[beverson]

Alex319, sorry if I wasn't clear previously. I am aware of everything you said, but didn't want to do it that way. I wanted the user to be able to Turn Undead more than once a day, even at Heroic Tier, hence why I diverged from the normal magic item build standards.

 

[beverson]

So, anybody have any thoughts on if this idea is too strong, too weak? Part of me is thinking maybe I should just go with the route of having the item give the class feature as a daily power, but I'd want some way to refresh it if I did that.

Any thoughts?