Periphats of wisdom and such

[Kae'Yoss]

When you pass around the bong, you don't percieve the real world as good as you did before, but you percieve different things That sould be a wisdom penalty. But it should remove fear effects and some such. And that's the difference: While the bong gives you both advantages and disadvantages (and makes you addicted, of course ), the Perforat does only good things.

 

[HeavyG]

Hmm. I was under the impression that they did. An ability boost is an ability boost, whether it's from a parfreiapt or an Owl's Wisdom spell. The only thing is that the Owl's Wisdom spell would normally run out before the time comes to prepare spells again, unlike the parphripette.

IIRC, the spell descriptions are clear on this. Which would make the Pariah a superior option to running around with an extended Owl's Wisdom spell.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would recommend following the rules as actually written as closely as possible, and not make up random rules that make life confusing for spellcasters.

(1) You gain full benefits from the periphat after an "appropriate period of time". At a minimum that would be 8 hours of rest plus the normal preparation time. (It would be reasonable for the DM to increase this time to something like 24 hours.)

(2) When your casting stat "temporarily" drops, you lose no prepared spells, you are still restricted by your spells per day. That may mean that you have spells prepared you cannot cast at the moment, or until tomorrow; so be it.

I do not think losing a random spell is a good idea. Not only do you have issues of shapechanging, but walking in and out of an Anti-Magic Field or taking stat damage will cause headaches.

 

[CRGreathouse]

(1) You gain full benefits from the periphat after an "appropriate period of time". At a minimum that would be 8 hours of rest plus the normal preparation time. (It would be reasonable for the DM to increase this time to something like 24 hours.)

(2) When your casting stat "temporarily" drops, you lose no prepared spells, you are still restricted by your spells per day. That may mean that you have spells prepared you cannot cast at the moment, or until tomorrow; so be it.

I agree, though I'd use 24 hours for #1. This is what the Sage ruled when asked about Extended owl's wisdom, IIRC, and it makes sense to me. I'd do the same with the parryappt of Wisdom.

 

[nwn_deadman]

Why not just say that the periapt can only grant the spells to one creature at a time?

This is the easiest way to do this without going overboard in rule mongering.

That way you can take it off and put it back on, but nobody else can benefit from it in the mean time.

But, what about using another item in its place? Such as a necklace of prayer beads?

Sort of like the no overlaping items rule...

Maybe there could be no items used in its place, while the magic stays in effect and if you CHOOSE to activate another item in the same slot, then you WILL lose the spells gained.

You choose the spells to lose, but you lose the entire amount of spells that you gained. If you have none left when you remove the item, you have none left!

This would allow the Druid. Wizard, Cleric to shapechange without losing the benefits of the item, since the needed focus is not a magic item per se.

 

[Xarlen]

For the sake of your shapechangers, there is a magical item in the Magic of Faerun that allows you to hook a necklace type item onto a chain, and hang it about your neck. This item stays on you, when you shapechange, allowing you to keep the abilities of it, while in the changed shape.

 

[Christian]

Good point. But in the end, it's 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. Put on periphat, get spell - take off periphat, can't cast spell, i.e. lose spell. Either way, you can't cast the spell until you put the periphat back on, which is why it would be pointless to pass it around.

What the post was referring to was the ability requirements to cast a spell of the given level at all ... If a character has a Wisdom of 14 and a Periapt of Wisdom +2, she could prepare a bonus 3rd level spell with her effective Wisdom of 16. If she dropped the Periapt, her Wisdom would drop to 14. Under the interpretation given, the bonus slot would not suddenly vanish, but would still be available (until she prepared spells again the next day-even if she found the periapt again, this would be the case, as she needs to have had it on continuously for 24 hours to get the spell slot bonus). On the other hand, a character with a Wisdom of 12 and a Periapt +4 is in a different situation. If he loses the Periapt, he not only has too low a Wisdom to get a bonus 3rd level spell, but to low to cast 3rd level spells at all! In this case, there's a new interesting questions: does he lose all of the spells in the 3rd level slot, or can he just not cast them until he finds the Periapt again? Hmmm ...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

On the other hand, a character with a Wisdom of 12 and a Periapt +4 is in a different situation. If he loses the Periapt, he not only has too low a Wisdom to get a bonus 3rd level spell, but to low to cast 3rd level spells at all! In this case, there's a new interesting questions: does he lose all of the spells in the 3rd level slot, or can he just not cast them until he finds the Periapt again? Hmmm ...

That is one of the reasons why losing random spells is an incomplete answer to a more general problem. Do not think of the special case as an opportunity to muck with your PC's spells with arbitrary new rules. Look at the big picture and come up with rules that are workable in all situations.

My answer is you lose no spells. But what you cannot cast you cannot cast.

I just thought of another problem case: Feeblemind. A Wizard would not be able to cast any spells. Does he lose all of them? Doesn't say so in the spell description. How does he figure out the "right" spells and spell levels to toss out? Which Intelligence score does he use? 1?!?

At the power level where you see lots of Feebleminds, you will also see Heal and Limited Wish. So it is not unlikely that a Feebleminded wizard will be back on his mental feet 6 seconds later. Taking away spells doesn't seem appropriate at all in this case.

 

[Don21584]

The 24 hours thing is a great solution, as was the exact case with the Ring of Sustenance in the Encyclopedia Magica.

"Oh you're hungry? Here, wear my ring for a few seconds, you'll feel fine!"

So things like that don't happen.

 

[kreynolds]

The 24 hours thing is a great solution, as was the exact case with the Ring of Sustenance in the Encyclopedia Magica.

"Oh you're hungry? Here, wear my ring for a few seconds, you'll feel fine!"

So things like that don't happen.

True. Only now, the Ring of Sustenance requires it to be worn for a full week, which translates to 10 full days in D&D time.