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drakeae
2011-11-11, 12:15 PM
me and some friends are creating characters for a level 30 campaign and each player is aloud 1 major artefact. i was wondering what people thought of this artefact i made for my gentleman monk build. can anyone if this seems over or under powered for a major artefact please.

Token to the deities bar
Major Artefact
Activation: Swift action
This token looks like a coin with the image of the moon on one side and on the other a picture of a saloon doors.

This token is granted to only a few champions of the gods, the power to summon a mystical bar in which one can gain great power from its many beverages. The token can be used only by a chosen champion, 3/day as a standard action, by laying it on the ground or placing it against a wall a divine light shines forth from the token after the light subsides a bar stands in the tokens place. After appearing the bartender turns to the player and services them one of many divine alcoholic drinks, the player rolls 1d10 to determine which drink is served to him. Alternatively the token can be used to, unlimited/day, supply the player and his party with unlimited non-magic alcohol. The token can only be held by the person it is first given to by the gods to all others their hands pass right through it as if it didn’t exist in the first place. If lost or stolen in anyway the token magically teleports back to the owner precisions 1d6 round after going missing.

Reroll on the table below to determine your drink, if you roll the same drink twice you may reroll.

#d10 Drink name
1 Divine Skill
2 Rapid Speed
3 Heroic Perfection
4 Animalistic Essence
5 Absolute Perfection
6 Godly Power
7 Second Chance
8 Essence of hope
9 Luck of the gods
10 Roll twice
All effects last 12hours unless otherwise noted.

Essence of Hope: This alcoholic beverage has a sweet and yet somehow strong taste making the player feel like he could have anything he desires, after drinking the player is granted 1d4 wishes.
Second Chance: After consuming this beverage the player gains a soothing feeling that he could survive anything but it has a bitter a after taste granting the player the effects of Contingency True Resurrection.
Absolute Perfection: This alcoholic beverage has a strong and invigorating flavour, after consuming the player feels they have gained perfection gaining a +6 bonus on all ability scores.
Rapid Speed: This alcoholic beverage has a fizzy taste, after consuming the player feels faster on his feet, gaining a +6 bonus on initiative rolls, a +10ft. bonus on all movement and the player is granted the effects of Haste.
Divine Skill: This alcoholic beverage has a strangely smooth taste, after consuming the player feels more skilful, granting a +30 bonus on all skill checks.
Godly Power: This alcoholic beverage has a really strong taste leaving the player a little light headed at first then strangely powerful, roll 1d6 to determine which ability score is doubled for the next hour.
Animalistic Essence: This alcoholic beverage has a strong and yet smooth taste, after consuming the player takes on animalistic traits, granting the player the effects of Bite of the werebear, Barkskin & Tortoise shell.
Luck of the gods: This alcoholic beverage has a smooth and yet so sweet taste, after consuming the player feels a sense overwhelming lucky, granting the player a +10 luck bonus on all rolls and the ability to reroll all natural 1’s this effect lasts for the next hour.
Heroic Perfection: This alcoholic beverage has a strong yet fizzy taste, after consuming the player feels a sense of greatness, granting the player a +15 bonus to attack rolls & saving throws.

Dyllan
2011-11-11, 02:18 PM
I love the flavor. I do hope your monk took levels in Drunken Master.

I think the first power is problematic, however. All the rest are temporary improvements, but with wish you can get permanent improvements, and with a 30% chance of getting it each day, and an average of 2.5 wishes each time you roll it, that averages to 3/4ths a wish per day, for free.

I wouldn't hand out free wishes on a daily basis in any campaign. All you need is a few months down time to get ANYTHING you want.

The rest of the powers are very powerful, but for a level 30 campaign, probably alright. Your DM may want to tweak the numbers a little, but otherwise they're good.

I suggest adding a line saying how long the bar remains, and that any drinks not consumed before the bar disappears lose their magical properties, so you can't save them up. Also, it's not clear whether each person who approaches the bar gets a magic drink, or just the owner of the token does.

tyckspoon
2011-11-11, 02:31 PM
I love the flavor. I do hope your monk took levels in Drunken Master.

I think the first power is problematic, however. All the rest are temporary improvements, but with wish you can get permanent improvements, and with a 30% chance of getting it each day, and an average of 2.5 wishes each time you roll it, that averages to 3/4ths a wish per day, for free.


Eh. Level 30. Anything Wish can do safely you can do just as easily with a less expensive resource at that point (except for perhaps the 'go anywhere regardless of conditions' teleport power; that's the most powerful thing Wish does, for my money.) Anything outside of the safe list you have to hash out with the DM anyway. I don't think it'd be that big of a problem... the only concern I'd actually have is that some of the powers might actually be a bit weak considering the level of the game (Rapid Speed and Absolute Perfection are nifty, for example, but not terribly impressive for level 30) and Godly Power stands a decent chance of being largely useless if its benefit lands on your dump stat (admittedly Monk's MAD helps out a bit here because there's so many useful stats you could get buffed.)

Neat idea, tho, and I certainly wouldn't say no to having it.

Dyllan
2011-11-11, 03:18 PM
My biggest problem with wish is breaking the economy.

Wish for the fabricate spell and use it to craft platinum coins. You can make 10,000 GP worth (assuming the coins value is in the value of the platinum, ie a 1 platinum coin costs 10 gold worth of platinum in materials to craft).

You get 1,000 platinum per casting for free.

Say you have a year of downtime. You're making an average of 750 platinum per day, times 365 days, that's 273,750 platinum a year.

How long until you destroy the value of the metals and break the world economy?

Emperor Tippy
2011-11-11, 03:19 PM
For a level 30 game it's week. That's a decent major artifact in a level 20 game.

1) Wish is already free at this level and the only thing it's really useful for Transporting Travelers, Undoing Misfortune, and (sometimes) removing injuries/afflictions. And with free wishes and Craft Contingent you can get pretty much an unlimited number of all 3 usable in combat.
2)Everyone already has unlimited Contingent True Resurrections at this point. I've never seen an epic player that was kept dead with less than 5 killings unless their contingent true resurrections were stripped and/or they were killed in a way that required Wish to return them first.
3) It's nice but nothing special at this level. Maybe have it give a +60 bonus to one ability score for the day. That would be a major artifact power at level 30 (and even then it would be a secondary power on the artifact).
4) The only thing even worth talking about at this level is the all day Haste. And that's not anything really special at this point.
5) +30 is a non epic bonus on a skill check. Make it that the player automatically succeeds on any skill check they try for the next day and then you are looking at a decent artifact power.
6) Make this last all day and it's enough to qualify as a secondary power on a minor artifact.
7) Nothing special at all.
8) Make it last all day and it's decentish.
9) Make this the player auto succeeds on every attack roll or save and then you are talking epic artifact range.

tyckspoon
2011-11-11, 03:24 PM
My biggest problem with wish is breaking the economy.

A: That's what magic *does*. D&D's economy only 'works' anything like a real-world economy if you studiously ignore the dozens of ways spells can completely explode it.

B: That's not Wish making the problem, it's Fabricate and especially the weirder implications of the Craft rules- take any precious material and Craft it into objects made of the same stuff. You only need 1/3 the value of the finished item as materials... which means you can mint 3 coins out of 1, or turn a block of mithral into many times more items (also mithral is worth much less as a finished weapon/armor than it is as a trade good valued by weight.)

Calanon
2011-11-11, 03:24 PM
Whenever I have a DM that allows the group 1 artifact each I always ask for the same thing:

Me: I want the Ars Factum!
DM: Whats that?
Me: Its a Nether Scroll...
DM: Oh those things that increase Spellcraft and arcane DC? Yeah sure I guess thats fine...
Me: Thanks :D

DM: Alright, so your gonna have to give me a solid answer for how you made a Mythallar, a Deck of Many things, a Sphere of Annihilation WITH THE TALISMAN! and a friken Staff of Magi...

Me: The artifact you gave me allows me to make Minor Artifacts :smallconfused: I thought you said it was ok for me to use...

DM: NO! That is NOT what I thought it did! alright, rocks fall everyone dies

Everyone else: Thanks alot dude...

Me: :'(

Emperor Tippy
2011-11-11, 03:25 PM
My biggest problem with wish is breaking the economy.

Wish for the fabricate spell and use it to craft platinum coins. You can make 10,000 GP worth (assuming the coins value is in the value of the platinum, ie a 1 platinum coin costs 10 gold worth of platinum in materials to craft).

You get 1,000 platinum per casting for free.

Say you have a year of downtime. You're making an average of 750 platinum per day, times 365 days, that's 273,750 platinum a year.

How long until you destroy the value of the metals and break the world economy?

At epic 2.7 million GP per year means that you are a pauper.

The player would also make more money just wishing for straight gold; you get 25,000 GP in non magical items without a problem.

Douglas
2011-11-11, 03:54 PM
Whenever I have a DM that allows the group 1 artifact each I always ask for the same thing:

Me: I want the Ars Factum!
DM: Whats that?
Me: Its a Nether Scroll...
DM: Oh those things that increase Spellcraft and arcane DC? Yeah sure I guess thats fine...
Me: Thanks :D

DM: Alright, so your gonna have to give me a solid answer for how you made a Mythallar, a Deck of Many things, a Sphere of Annihilation WITH THE TALISMAN! and a friken Staff of Magi...

Me: The artifact you gave me allows me to make Minor Artifacts :smallconfused: I thought you said it was ok for me to use...

DM: NO! That is NOT what I thought it did! alright, rocks fall everyone dies

Everyone else: Thanks alot dude...

Me: :'(
Heh. Toss in a bit of metagaming, and it's not that hard to pick up the Nether Scrolls in an epic game in FR - the book that gives their stats also explicitly states that there is a complete set of them in a particular vault in a particular location in the ruins of Myth Drannor, so just drop by there and pick them up. Then again, if you want the artifact-creation one I think that one's noted as being locked with no one knowing how to unlock it.

Calanon
2011-11-11, 04:15 PM
Heh. Toss in a bit of metagaming, and it's not that hard to pick up the Nether Scrolls in an epic game in FR - the book that gives their stats also explicitly states that there is a complete set of them in a particular vault in a particular location in the ruins of Myth Drannor, so just drop by there and pick them up. Then again, if you want the artifact-creation one I think that one's noted as being locked with no one knowing how to unlock it.

A rule of thumb when accessing the Nether scrolls in game is that you can use any of them (Except the Ars Factum) without any previous readings of the Nether Scrolls so you can read the Arcanus Fundare, Magicus Creare, Maior Creare, and the Planus Mechanus without any previous readings from any of the other scrolls so unless you can get your hands on all of the scrolls before you perform your raid on the Windsong tower that scroll is just going to be a nice piece of Platinum that you can hang on your wall :smalltongue:

EDIT: Reading this comment back to myself made me think that I have to many Faerun games... :smalleek:

drakeae
2011-11-11, 04:36 PM
I suggest adding a line saying how long the bar remains, and that any drinks not consumed before the bar disappears lose their magical properties, so you can't save them up. Also, it's not clear whether each person who approaches the bar gets a magic drink, or just the owner of the token does.

thanks for pointing this out to me i'll add that only the owner can be served magical drinks everyone else is served non-magical alcohol. and i think a duration on how long the bar stays is a great idea but i'll make it like 1hour or until owner demises just in case the party needs a few drinks after a big battle.


Godly Power stands a decent chance of being largely useless if its benefit lands on your dump stat

so far my only dump stat is Int all other abilities scores are useful to my monk, So its a 1 in 6 chance of being usless

i forgot to add this campaign is mostly arena battles and has six players each of which is a DM for this campaign to make it challenging each of us will take a turn to try and destroy the party who ever is DM there character sits the battle out. its going to be fun to see what everyone comes up with. we do have one person making the main story though