Shrink Item Question

[Shadowdweller]

Unless you were to further cast permanency.

 

[Harmon]

<grumbling> I hate me connection <grumbling>

Sorry, just wrote a reply and was kicked, didn't even get a chance to Select and Copy or nothin'. Oh, well <shrug> so is life.

Try again.

Lots of cool thoughts, thank you for that.

I understand the concern from a GMs POV, one of those things is- what about loot?

The GM once in a while likes to see the Players consider things- how are we going to get that out of here?

What we have is a group that runs into lots of coin and more times then not we end up leaving a lot of coin behind- copper and silver mostly. What would happen should we shrink a few chest and stick them inside a chest to be shrunk later then place that into our Bag of Holding. What would the GM do when we bring forth chests and unshrink them, fill them and re-shrink them (regardless of the Permanency or non- we could do that) is that fair?

Should we consider that in our processing of getting loot from here to market?

Personally, I think as a GM there are lots of ways about the shrunken chest idea. Hell, Dispell targeted on the carrier, and now that dude is buried under a mound of half a ton of copper (or what ever). Could put a dampener on things.

So more thoughts. I like the idea of getting this out there, and figuring out why I should tell my GM to say no I should not be allowed to or yes, I should and for what reasons.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Unless you've paid the XP to cast permanency upon it, returning the chest to full size ends the spell. So once you put the loot into the chest, you have to burn a 3rd level spell for each chest you want to shrink again. That doesn't seem unbalanced to me.

Sure, it can function as a single use Bag of Holding, but you have to end the spell each time you want to open the chest to put something in or take something out, then recast it again to shrink it.

I have no problem with this spell.
-Dave

 

[Harmon]

Permanent on a chest of Shrink Item is like 1500 xp with little more then the cost of the chest to "create".

Craft Wonderous (which we don't have nor do we have the money to make or buy) a bag of holding is 100-400 xp (using 3.0e and pretty much trying to remember this as my PHB is not near). Cost starts at 1250-5000 gp to make and is beyond our means right now.

Seems that most of the ENWorlders that have responded have pointed out that its pretty much a do-able thing and would be acceptable in their campaigns.

Thank you for your time and insight.

 

[BSF]

My first thought would be No. Then I would stop and think about it and figure why not? You can't get anything out of the chest without breaking the spell. And a targeted Dispel Magic might be funny. Is it hugely unbalancing? I can't think of a way that it really is. I can't think of a way that it is really all that much better than a real magic item. If the drawbacks are never brought up, it might be more useful. So if the DM ever brings up the drawbacks, then it will create a new challenge for the group to overcome. Enough so that they recognize the drawback of the "cheap route".

 

[Harmon]

Do you think that this would allow the characters to have what ever mundan items they would ever need.

Presently the character I am considering doing this with is a 10th lvl character, and he has extend spell, meaning that he could waste a couple of 5th lvl spells to make it better then a month worth of storage, or when he has the desire to spend the xps he can make it permanent.

Would that bother you all (GMs and Player) that we could pull out more sunrods, or rope, or never have to worry about food and water again (forgetting for the moment that most of these things could be done with spells like Create Food/Drink, Create Water, Fly, Continual Light, etc.)

Another question- in our haste to just "grab everything and leave," say we try to Shrink Item on the chest and one of the items was missed with a Detect Magic or it wasn't cast, or whatever, what would you do with the chest as it shrinks- or would you allow it to shrink?

FWIW- I would see this as one of the those chances- "the chest shrinks down to just about a foot in size then a dagger rips out the side of the chest and the continents spill everywhere as the spell fails. What next?"

 

[DaveStebbins]

I can't think of a way that it is really all that much better than a real magic item.

One advantage I can see is that Shrink Item seems to be more of a transformation, which means it would be safe to take into a rope trick or other extra-dimensional space, unlike a Bag of Holding or a Handy Haversack.

Do you think that this would allow the characters to have what ever mundan items they would ever need.

Presently the character I am considering doing this with is a 10th lvl character, and he has extend spell, meaning that he could waste a couple of 5th lvl spells to make it better then a month worth of storage, or when he has the desire to spend the xps he can make it permanent.

Would that bother you all (GMs and Player) that we could pull out more sunrods, or rope, or never have to worry about food and water again (forgetting for the moment that most of these things could be done with spells like Create Food/Drink, Create Water, Fly, Continual Light, etc.)

This would not bother me because of the spell's major drawback. Each time you return the chest to full size to open it up and take something out, the spell's duration ends immediately. If you pull out your sunrod and then want to shrink the chest again, you need to re-cast the spell. The alternative is to invest the XP in making it permanent. Heck, I don't even have a problem if you want to stick magic items in it.

-Dave