Is there any item that can be used to remotely leech spellcasting power?

[FMArthur]

Hey all, I'm DMing soon and am making a couple of nations that the players will be sailing into in the future.

One of the countries will be a communist "meritocracy" (an aristocracy in truth), and one particular oddity of the nation I want to make a central part of it is the use of collars which draw energy from all living residents for use as magic. Ostensibly it's a sharing system, where magic is siphoned off of the population in small enough quantities that they don't feel its effects too harshly, and stored to be distributed as needed in the form of spellcasting powers via collars with tiered access levels, particularly in times of war.

Army officers, designated mages and members of the aristocracy are granted the use of spells by the collars. Power-hungry politicians will be trying to step up the drain rates, and if there is particularly great need or an incredibly evil person gets the reins, the collars are capable of drawing enough energy out of the citizens that they are rendered incapable of working or killed by it if weak enough.

Are there any methods existing in the rules for this or something similar? It's dealing with life energy, so should this be a psionic thing, an arcane thing, a Druid thing, etc? As the DM I can just make this work, but how is still very uncertain. I'm want to have the collar suppress citizens' own magical powers, but if the players get captured, is that an okay thing to do to them? They'll need to be able to get them off, but mundane means shouldn't be possible. How should it be possible? Maybe spellcasters could figure out a way to get some of their powers around it?

It's at concept stage this far so I don't quite know what I should do to fill in the statblocks of these collars. Any thoughts? Plot ideas that this idea brings to mind? I barely know where to begin.

[Lonely Tylenol]

The closest thing I can think of to what you're looking for is a modified version of the Spellpool feature for the Mage of the Arcane Order (Complete Arcane), but I am not well-versed.

[FMArthur]

The closest thing I can think of to what you're looking for is a modified version of the Spellpool feature for the Mage of the Arcane Order (Complete Arcane), but I am not well-versed.

I'm familiar with the prestige class, but from its description the spell-sucking is voluntary and you need to already be a mage to donate and recieve the spells. Does the Arcane Order have more extensive mention elsewhere?

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm familiar with the prestige class, but from its description the spell-sucking is voluntary and you need to already be a mage to donate and recieve the spells. Does the Arcane Order have more extensive mention elsewhere?

No, but the "adaptation" section (top right of page 48) suggests that you can come up with alternate means of producing the Spellpool. As is, the Spellpool concept wouldn't work for you, but here's what the adaptation says:

"This prestige class can be tweaked by changing the premise of the Spellpool. Instead of a construct of stored spells that must always be paid back, lest debt be incurred, perhaps the Order managed to subdue and chain a demigod of ancient days below their stronghold. What the Order members actually do when they call spells from the "Spellpool" is, perhaps unbeknownst to them, slowly draining the essence of this being."

This adaptation of the Spellpool takes away the "voluntary" element of the spell-sucking completely, and it even implies that the spells flow in only one direction--so why couldn't your adaptation do the same? It wouldn't be that hard to, say, imply that the "Spellpool" referred to in the book is actually the draining of magic from people who wear one type of collar (the collar worn by the common people) and the transference of that magic to people who wear another type of collar, or have a certain symbol of their nation, or something to that effect (or even nothing at all; these would be your aristocracy). The Spellpool mechanic still maintains an even balance, because the spells "borrowed" by the rich are "paid" by the poor by the magic-draining effect. (Nobody said it had to be fair; in fact, your concept depends on it not being fair.)

If your "designated mages" were in fact Mages of the Arcane Order, then they would be able to draw power from the people directly; perhaps, then, they could transfer this power into magical items, which they trade with the aristocracy to curry favor or climb the social ladder (thus ensuring they play an important role in the power structure). In doing this, you could even have them pulling the strings, and deciding the direction their government takes by appropriating items that channel the magic of the people to those whose policies they like, and abstaining them from those who they don't.

Alternately, you could find a million other good ways to rule how the concept gets transferred from Mages of the Arcane Order to non-mages; if you were creative enough to get this far, I imagine closing this gap would be nothing for you. :smallsmile:

[FMArthur]

I do sort of like that, but I think it really should be able to grant spellcasting to noncasters.

It's rather similar to an item in BoVD I just found called "Belt of the Dread Emperor", which restores empty spell slots by dealing damage to victims chained to it. I'll probably use that as a base if I can't find something to mirror the mechanics in mind more closely, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense for this to be Psionic (not a difficult conversion from any spellcasting-related finds, really).

[Jack_Simth]

Not really, no. I can't think of anything already existing that does what you want.

There's a Psionic power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/powerLeech.htm) that can be used to leech power points, and there is the Mindfeeder (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#mindfeeder) weapon enhancement, but ... not really.

However, "It just works" is simple enough, usually. As for making it work, I'd be inclined to make it somewhat indirect. A "draining" collar imposes an untyped penalty to all mental stats, in steps of -2 (so -2, -4, -6, -8, to whatever level is set). A "Boosting" collar gives a boost based on a slow-growth formula - doubling the number of "draining" collars the "boosting" collar is tuned to increases the boost of the boosting collar ... by 1. Likewise, doubling the penalty increases the boost of the boosting collar... also by 1. So the final result might be something like....

Tax Band
This simple copper choker necklace has a small obsidian gem hanging from it. It imposes a -2 penalty to all mental stats (and a -1 penalty to all physical stats) for each attuned Collector Collar. A Tax Band can be attuned to multiple Collector Collars (with a corresponding increase in the penalties; if the Tax Band is attuned to three Collector Collars, the wearer of the Tax Band takes a -6 penalty to all mental stats, and a -3 penalty to all physical stats), and can, in fact, be tuned to the same Collector Collar more than once (with a corresponding increase in the penalties). The collar is considered cursed, and cannot be removed while any attuned Collector Collars are being worn by living beings. If the person wearing the Tax Band dies (such as penalties stacking to the point where the recipient has a Con score of 0), all currently tuned Collector Collars cease to be tuned to this Tax Band (the wearer, however, stays dead). A Remove Curse spell will also remove one attunement that is currently in place (so multiple Remove Curse spells may be needed to remove a Tax Band).
Moderate Necromancy; CL 7. Requirements: Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch, and Enervation; market price: 1,000 gp

Collector Collar
This ornate choker is made of gold, with numerous diamonds fastened into the structure. With a standard action, the wearer of a Collector Collar can tune any Tax Band within line of sight to his Collector Collar (which causes the associated penalties for the bearer of the Tax Band). As a free action, the wearer of a Collector Collar can release any given attunement. If the wearer of a Collector Collar dies, all current Tax Bands lose their attunement to that Collector Collar (attuments remain if the Collector Collar is simply removed, however).

The Collector Collar gives a bonus to one stat (selected by the wearer of the Collector Collar) based on the number of attuned Tax Bands currently attuned to the Collector Collar in question, as follows:
{table=head]Tax Bands Attuned and worn by a living, intelligent creature|Bonus
9 or less|+0
10-19|+1
20-39|+2
40-79|+3
80-159|+4
160-319|+5
320-639|+6
640-1279|+7
1280-2559|+8
...|...
[/table]
The progression should be obvious.
Moderate Necromancy; CL 7. Requirements: Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch, and Enervation; Cost to Create: 5,000 gp, 400 xp; Market Price: Special: 10,000 gp, +100 gp per attuned Tax Band currently being worn by a living, intelligent creature

[FMArthur]

Wow, that is quite a bit of detail. Thank you for writing this up. I like it, especially the diminishing returns thing that necessitates a massive population to keep growing. The 'mental stat penalty' thing is especially good, because it means that 'common' spellcasters with mediocre ability scores will be suppressed quite effectively, while the higher-statted spellcasters (the PCs) will be able to work around it.

The cumulative penalties for each Tax Band for every Collector will probably need to go, on account of the collars all being linked to a central pool which is in turn linked to all Collector Collars. I suppose I could even have the central storage node be a physical entity, like a massive glowing crystal. That would be the key to destroying the network, should the players aim for such.

Anyway, the wearers of the beneficial collars (Power Collar? They're not really collectors themselves in this version) would probably have multiple tiers of collars, and would need to confer psionic power to its holders instead of just ability scores.

Something like this might work:

{table=head]Collar Rank | Tax Collars per Power Collar| Manifester Level | Power Points | Powers Available
5: Army officer, city mage | 100 | 3 | 10 | ???/???
4: Army mage| 500 | 5 | 20 | ???/???/???
3: Army mage officer, lower nobility| 2500 | 7 | 40 | ???/???/???/???
2: generals, upper nobility| 12500 | 9 | 80 | ???/???/???/???/???
1: King, Coucil| 62500 | 11 | 160 | ???/???/???/???/???/???[/table]

The Tax Band reduces ability scores by 1 (physical) and 2 (mental) as ability burn that is healed (with appropriate food and rest) and renewed at sunrise every day (there is no break period or noticable change at this time, it's just the rules-specific effect of the constant burden). Controllers of the Core are able to step-up the ability burn in those increments with the Council's or King's permission to improve ML by 2 and PP by 25%.

Does this look good so far? It's very powerful, but remember that the nation won't have much in the way of other magic, and probably doesn't tolerate its unauthorized use. Anyway if I use this I can probably scale the encounters of this little campaign properly against my ECL ~8ish players.

I'm thinking the value of the collars are going to have be massively reduced compared to what they should be as D&D items, on account of them being mass-produced and available everywhere. 1000gp around every peasant's neck is unlikely to promote heroic behavior among my players, for instance. :smallwink:

Any power selection and plot hook ideas? It's all sort of coming together pretty well already.

edit: To go along with pricing guidelines and ensure players don't craft this stuff (or at least until they gain similarly world-changing powers at 17+ or even epic), the cost of the Core that makes it all work could be made massive as a subsidy for relatively cheap collars, or even proportionate to how many collars (of both kinds) you key to it.

Anyway I need to turn in for the night, so I'll pick up on this again tomorrow.

[Talentless]

edit: [/B]To go along with pricing guidelines and ensure players don't craft this stuff (or at least until they gain similarly world-changing powers at 17+ or even epic), the cost of the Core that makes it all work could be made massive as a subsidy for relatively cheap collars, or even proportionate to how many collars (of both kinds) you key to it.

Anyway I need to turn in for the night, so I'll pick up on this again tomorrow.

Another option is to just have them crafted with by a specific group within the kingdom, with their own maker's mark/custom sigil that is (possibly epic level casting) unforgeable. And that puts a giant neon target sign over the head of anyone trying to sell collars without the mark. Then you also make the general populace only willing to deal with government officials over the collars, so if the PCs kill/engineer the deaths of many peasants to get the collars with the sigils to try and sell those... well, they aren't government certified, so once again a giant neon sign that they are enemies of the government to be exterminated.

[supermonkeyjoe]

This sounds somewhat similar to the nation of Riedra in the Eberron campaign setting, I believe there are rules in Secrets of Sarlona for monoliths that leech psionic power from beings and can redistribute it.