Re'ozul
2011-04-26, 12:57 PM
This was inspired by the ability scores thread were someone asked the question why higher ability scores really need to cost more in point-buy. The answer that of course sprung to my head immediately was that they are rarer and require more training since everything is based on the average person.
But then my mind wandered to things like the cloak of charisma that gives the same "enhancement" bonus to everyone with no regard of how capable that person already is.
Should a person with a low intelligence or strenght not benegit more from something that has magic imbued in it to increase the specific ability?
So my question would be wether a system of the following qualities would unbalance a normal game of D&D.
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1. Items that give enhancement bonuses to ability scores are defined by the number of "points" invested in them.
2. each point invested has a price of 2000gp
3. To create an item of specific point value a certain caster level is necessary. To be precise, a caster may only imbue a value of points into enhancing one ability score into an item that is no higher than her Caster level to the power of 1.5. (CL4=8points, CL9=27 points etc)
4. The actual effect of an item is based on the characters' basic (original+inherent bonuses) ability score.
5. The actual increase in score is calculated using the continued point-buy system. This means an increase from 18 to 19 costs 4 points, 20 to 21 costs 5 points, etc.
6. There is no distinction between epic or not as the point-limit is defined by Caster level.
Summary:
This would mean a hypothetical lvl 4 character could invest 8 points towards one ability score maximum. This increase could then either give a character with a natural 8 in that score a bonus of +7 to 15, or a character with a natural 18 a bonus of +2 to twenty since both would be the same "cost" based on the point buy system.
Possible problems that can be easily seen:
This would make it exceedingly easy to bring each score up to certain point in higher levels since raising those low scores is very cheap.
It would further make increasing high scores very expensive.
A CL 20 character could invest 89 points into a score enhancing item.
By the afforementioned point-buy continuation, this could bring a character from 8 to 29, but a character with a base 30 would only get a +7 to 37.
But for both the item would cost the same (178,000gp market price)
But then my mind wandered to things like the cloak of charisma that gives the same "enhancement" bonus to everyone with no regard of how capable that person already is.
Should a person with a low intelligence or strenght not benegit more from something that has magic imbued in it to increase the specific ability?
So my question would be wether a system of the following qualities would unbalance a normal game of D&D.
---------------------------------------------------------------
1. Items that give enhancement bonuses to ability scores are defined by the number of "points" invested in them.
2. each point invested has a price of 2000gp
3. To create an item of specific point value a certain caster level is necessary. To be precise, a caster may only imbue a value of points into enhancing one ability score into an item that is no higher than her Caster level to the power of 1.5. (CL4=8points, CL9=27 points etc)
4. The actual effect of an item is based on the characters' basic (original+inherent bonuses) ability score.
5. The actual increase in score is calculated using the continued point-buy system. This means an increase from 18 to 19 costs 4 points, 20 to 21 costs 5 points, etc.
6. There is no distinction between epic or not as the point-limit is defined by Caster level.
Summary:
This would mean a hypothetical lvl 4 character could invest 8 points towards one ability score maximum. This increase could then either give a character with a natural 8 in that score a bonus of +7 to 15, or a character with a natural 18 a bonus of +2 to twenty since both would be the same "cost" based on the point buy system.
Possible problems that can be easily seen:
This would make it exceedingly easy to bring each score up to certain point in higher levels since raising those low scores is very cheap.
It would further make increasing high scores very expensive.
A CL 20 character could invest 89 points into a score enhancing item.
By the afforementioned point-buy continuation, this could bring a character from 8 to 29, but a character with a base 30 would only get a +7 to 37.
But for both the item would cost the same (178,000gp market price)