Shpadoinkle
2011-01-02, 12:58 AM
Namely, the fact that it's nigh useless past level 10-ish unless you pour vast amounts of money into improving it, and then it only defends against physical blows and nothing else, so it's essentially pointless because anything level-appropriate will either be able to hit you without even trying or use magic.
I started off thinking that an AC bonus based on your BAB, that stacked with whatever armor bonuses you have might make it less useless, but that's kind of hit or miss, and doesn't do anything to alleviate the problem of AC being useless vs. magic.
Then I thought about how powerful items tend to gravitate towards powerful people, and what I came up with is basically a combination of the "AC bonus based on your BAB" idea and the OA samurai's Ancestral Daisho class feature, along with some Vow of Poverty thrown in.
Basically, once you reach level 6 you're already capable of stuff beyond normal mortals, and you have a kind of power that resonates within your body and soul. A bit of this power seeps into the items very close to you, the things you use every day, and sort of bonds them to you, granting them magical properties as long as you're using them.
I wanted to get this idea written out while it was still fresh, so I haven't thought a lot about it, but the basics of it are this:
- At level 6, any one nonmagical item you possess is now treated in all respects as being a +1 item (or something of equal or lesser GP value). This is a property of the character, not the item- for anyone besides you it functions as a nonmagical item unless they attune it to themselves as well.
- Attuning an item to yourself requires a week of use. It takes time for you to really become intimately familiar with the item and for it to feel like a natural extension of yourself.
- I'm kind of at a loss for what to call this effect, but it increases as you level up. It starts at level 6 as a +1 bonus to one item, but every time you go up a level it increases by 1, so at level 7 you have two +1 bonuses to two different items (your weapon and your armor, for instance) or a +2 bonus (or the equivalent) to one item (i.e. a +1 flaming longsword.)
- You can switch this bonus to a different item (you can lose the bonus on the longsword and basically swap it out for a +2 suit of platemail, for instance.) As mentioned above though, it takes a week to attune an item to yourself, so you won't be doing this in the middle of a dungeon crawl or whatever.
- You can't apply this bonus to an item that's already magical. You can't boost that +2 shortbow to +4 because its own magical aura prevents the necessary instinctual connection needed. Alternately, you CAN apply it to already magical items, but the cost doubles- you'd have to spend 2 'levels' worth of this effect to raise the bonus by 1. You have to invest more of yourself in order to merge your aura with that of the item.
Granted this doesn't fix the AC problem explicitly, but if you wanted to you could restrict it to defensive items.
Another problem is that this benefits casters at least as much as noncasters, who are the ones who really need it, so it could be restricted to anyone who doesn't have any item creation feats.
Thoughts, ideas, criticism?
I started off thinking that an AC bonus based on your BAB, that stacked with whatever armor bonuses you have might make it less useless, but that's kind of hit or miss, and doesn't do anything to alleviate the problem of AC being useless vs. magic.
Then I thought about how powerful items tend to gravitate towards powerful people, and what I came up with is basically a combination of the "AC bonus based on your BAB" idea and the OA samurai's Ancestral Daisho class feature, along with some Vow of Poverty thrown in.
Basically, once you reach level 6 you're already capable of stuff beyond normal mortals, and you have a kind of power that resonates within your body and soul. A bit of this power seeps into the items very close to you, the things you use every day, and sort of bonds them to you, granting them magical properties as long as you're using them.
I wanted to get this idea written out while it was still fresh, so I haven't thought a lot about it, but the basics of it are this:
- At level 6, any one nonmagical item you possess is now treated in all respects as being a +1 item (or something of equal or lesser GP value). This is a property of the character, not the item- for anyone besides you it functions as a nonmagical item unless they attune it to themselves as well.
- Attuning an item to yourself requires a week of use. It takes time for you to really become intimately familiar with the item and for it to feel like a natural extension of yourself.
- I'm kind of at a loss for what to call this effect, but it increases as you level up. It starts at level 6 as a +1 bonus to one item, but every time you go up a level it increases by 1, so at level 7 you have two +1 bonuses to two different items (your weapon and your armor, for instance) or a +2 bonus (or the equivalent) to one item (i.e. a +1 flaming longsword.)
- You can switch this bonus to a different item (you can lose the bonus on the longsword and basically swap it out for a +2 suit of platemail, for instance.) As mentioned above though, it takes a week to attune an item to yourself, so you won't be doing this in the middle of a dungeon crawl or whatever.
- You can't apply this bonus to an item that's already magical. You can't boost that +2 shortbow to +4 because its own magical aura prevents the necessary instinctual connection needed. Alternately, you CAN apply it to already magical items, but the cost doubles- you'd have to spend 2 'levels' worth of this effect to raise the bonus by 1. You have to invest more of yourself in order to merge your aura with that of the item.
Granted this doesn't fix the AC problem explicitly, but if you wanted to you could restrict it to defensive items.
Another problem is that this benefits casters at least as much as noncasters, who are the ones who really need it, so it could be restricted to anyone who doesn't have any item creation feats.
Thoughts, ideas, criticism?