3.5 magic item shenanigans

[Trekkin]

So I may end up playing an artificer in an upcoming game, and for various reasons I'm considering installing secondary enchantments in most of the items I make (I'm kind of the Q to their Bond, and I'd rather not see what I make show up in the hands of the enemies; in addition at least one's probably going to end up turning on me). So, with that in mind:

1. Is there a way to mask an item's magical aura?
2. Is there a way to do this only partially, so that it registers as a +2 weapon or whatever and they don't notice the command word-activatible curse?
3. What are the rules for adding more than one enchantment to an item?

and, on a tangent

4. Can artificers research/imbue items with epic spells?

[senrath]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm

Allows you to alter how a magic item (or nonmagic item) appears.

[Lysander]

This is less handy for a weapon, but you could also stow magic items in a bag of holding. Then they only detect the bag.

Maybe you can also make the item function as a cursed item for unauthorized users? Identify only has a 1% chance of correctly identifying a cursed item.

[Trekkin]

Thanks, senrath! That will be extremely handy.

By the way, what are everyone's favorite curses?

[The Shadowmind]

You get a 10% discount if the item requires a specific skill to use, and speak language is a skill.
Make up a new language, have every spend the points to get the language or just pick are very rare language.

[2xMachina]

Or requires Common.

Yay, I sell at 10% discount for all items.

[ericgrau]

Yeah, discounts are part of why magic item creation guidelines are only meant to be guidelines. The DM must approve, to prevent silly things like drawbacks that aren't actually drawbacks. As for putting multiple abilities on the same item:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#multipleSimilarAbilities
(and the multiple different abilities section that follows immediately after)

Again, subject to approval. Another guideline is to compare the new item to existing items to see if it should be allowed, how expensive it might be, etc. which is yet a 3rd way of saying make sure all new items are the same value as existing items. A 4th way to price that says the same thing is "enough that PCs think twice before buying or crafting it."

[RandomNPC]

I've seen it in dungeon magazine, things like "Orc blood" weapons. they are +1 Items, that gain +1 or +2 and sometimes an ability on top of that, If an orc holds them.

Got a half elf in the party? make an elf blood weapon, or a dwarf blood weapon, after all, we never said what the other half was.

there's alignment restrictions, all that.

Or just make subservient inteligent weapons that just happen to really like the people you make them for.

But I like the command word curses.

[Lycanthromancer]

Get creative with preexisting spells, like shrink item. Make it permanent (or just craft it as part of the item), and keep it shrunken down to "normal size" (when it was originally 16x that size). That way, if someone steals your stuff, you can call out the command phrase and make the spoils just too damned big to carry around (trying to lug around a greatsword that weighs 4000x as much as a standard greatsword is..difficult, at best).

If it's something that you don't mind destroying out of spite, just put an explosive runes spell on it. For instance, put it on the part of that tower shield that faces the wielder when he sets it for cover. If the spell is keyed to the guy you made it for, it'll just sit there. But if someone else tries to wield it, it'll blow up right in their face, and destroy the shield outright. Of course, make the shield from aurorum, and make the runes permanent, and every time they wield it they'll get a face-full of boomstick even if they do fix it right back up again. Every. Time. If you can make them undispellable, that's even better.

This is also doable with various symbol spells.

[edit] I actually want to play a wizard now, who specializes in traps. Permanency. Explosive runes. Symbols of X. Shrink item abuse. Explosive Spell. Enveloping pits. Do it yourself death traps.

He'd be a kobold, of course. And his name?

General Akbar.