Custom Magic Items

[Suddo]

I have some questions concerning custom item creation. I'll be reffering to this a lot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm).


So questions I have:
When making a Custom Magic Item do the caster Levels of all the effects have to match up?
Can I take an item and increase its caster level simply by multiplying its cost? This question is particular to premade items, such as Hand of the Mage. Hand of the Mage of CL 10 costs 4500?
Can I move premade items from slot to slot by increasing their cost due to lose of slot Affinities? Cloak of Sustenance costing 3750gp?
What Caster Level do things like +20 Competence Bonus to Diplomacy or +2 Luck Bonus to AC have? The guide only states the cost not the CL.
How all does Metamagic work with Crafting items.
A) I think I can persist a continuous effect in order to up it's caster level and reduce its cost better than just straight increasing (due to being 24 hour duration). Sorry that's a silly idea.
B) Does Empowered work on things. Like would a Continuous Empowered Bull's Strength give +6 STR and have a minimum CL 7 (as it takes up a 4th level spell).


I think that's all. I'm asking this from a RAW perspective. I'd prefer to have my build done and have somethings vetoed than not have any build at all.

[Acanous]

Hoo boy *Cracks knuckles* This'll be a cruncher.
You can adjust caster level on Magic items. It does increase pricing -Or decrease, if the minimum caster level for the spell is lower than the level required for crafting the item. A Ring of Magic Missiles, for example.
That's only applicable when dealing with spell effects, though.
Yes, you can move item slots. The rules are right there in the DMG, not sure where it's unclear.
The caster level for an Armor bonus to AC is always twice the bonus, Deflection and Natural Armor are thrice.
Competance bonus to skill checks work entirely off of the printed rings/armor modifiers that add bonuses to Jump, Hide, and Move Silently. This wasn't addressed very well in the DMG. Back in the day when they were making 3e, they figured skills as "Non-weapon proficiencies" and thought we wouldn't use them much, aside from the physical skills.
snerk.
Empowered Bull's Strength still gives you +4 to strength. The bonus is static and not subject to empowering.
Magic items do not interact with metamagic normally. You can houserule this or be an artificer.

[Suddo]

So my caster level on effects do have to be the same for them to be on the same item?
So when increasing caster level do I have to increase spell level as well. As in when I make something caster level 5 does it suddenly get cast from a 3rd level spell slot? Or does the caster level simply increase.

[Toliudar]

Crafting items doesn't use up spell slots, AFAIK. So as long as you have the caster level you're trying to put into the item, there should be no conflict. So if, for instance, you can only cast 4th level spells but have have CL 12 thatks to, oh, Practiced Spellcaster, you can still make an item with a caster level of 12, assuming you can meet the other prerequisites.

[ericgrau]

This may help: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm

I could be wrong but AFAIK there aren't any rules against having different caster levels for different effects. However you do need to pay extra for more than 1 effect on the same item. See "multiple ... abilities" in the link for more details.

You may increase the caster level without increasing the spell level.

It's important to remember that these are guidelines not rules. Items should be similar to existing item for their cost and the DM should approve all items. Thus a continuous +6 enhancement bonus to strength should always cost 36,000 gp and if you're trying to make it cheaper then you're looking at the guidelines the wrong way.

If you have the feat you can apply metamagic to custom magic items freely. Increase the spell level and minimum caster level accordingly when figuring out the cost.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Crafting items doesn't use up spell slots, AFAIK. So as long as you have the caster level you're trying to put into the item, there should be no conflict. So if, for instance, you can only cast 4th level spells but have have CL 12 thatks to, oh, Practiced Spellcaster, you can still make an item with a caster level of 12, assuming you can meet the other prerequisites.

Minor nitpick: while crafting you have to expend the proper spell(s) each day during crafting. But once finished, items dont take slots (unless the specify they do).

[Suddo]

Where did I hear that the CLs need to match up? I could have sworn that was a rule.

[ericgrau]

It might be. The best I could find from searching was a statement that implied that items have a single caster level. And AFAIK the example items all have a single caster level. Maybe it's in a FAQ somewhere. A quick google only revealed an opinion that they usually have the same caster level but you may make them with different caster levels.

[nedz]

A lot of these things require judgement calls from the DM. I find that WotC seemed to have two different standards in that the pricing scheem in the DMG seems more expensive than that used in the MiC. The following are my interpretations of the rules in the DMG.


Can I take an item and increase its caster level simply by multiplying its cost? This question is particular to premade items, such as Hand of the Mage. Hand of the Mage of CL 10 costs 4500?
I'm not entirely sure how they costed this, but it has CL2 so a CL10 ought to be 4500

Can I move premade items from slot to slot by increasing their cost due to lose of slot Affinities?
Yes

Cloak of Sustenance costing 3750gp?
yes

What Caster Level do things like +20 Competence Bonus to Diplomacy
Boots of Elvenkind +5 skill item requires CL5 DMG p250 This suggests that a +20 item would require CL20. I thought that these were limited to +10, but I'm not sure if that is correct. Cost for +20 skill item would be 40,000 gp.

+2 Luck Bonus to AC have?
Table 7-33 DMG p285 has this specific example for cost of 10,000. I guess CL would be 6

[ericgrau]

The epic rules limit non-epic skill items to +30 and there are example items going up to +15.

Since diplomacy is not a normal skill it requires DM approval. Really all items do, but a DM would have little reason to ever turn down an item that matches an existing item. I think the existing items are limited to physical abilities because it makes more sense and because it's harder to break the system that way. Unless you're already breaking the game with "diplomancy" I doubt a diplomacy skill item is broken though. And you could have it make sense if you fluff it as a magical silver tongue that takes the head slot, or some other item that makes you more eloquent. Maybe make charm person one of the spells required to make it.

A +1 luck bonus to AC would be 10,000 gp IIRC. A +2 would be 40,000 gp (2x2x10,000). I'd be careful about strange typed bonuses costing less than 18,000 gp though or it's a good way to get bonuses cheaper than they normally are (again, not what the guidelines are meant to do) since you could get the +1 item for less than upgrading a normal item from +4 to +5. This particular item is fine though.

[Metahuman1]

So, question, would anyone care to speculate on what a fair price would be that allows you to reduce the cost of one Psionic power (Picked at creation of the item.) by 2? I've got a friend asking me about that for a game and I'm honestly not sure.

[Zaq]

So, question, would anyone care to speculate on what a fair price would be that allows you to reduce the cost of one Psionic power (Picked at creation of the item.) by 2? I've got a friend asking me about that for a game and I'm honestly not sure.

Depends on the power and on what the player intends to do with it. That sets off a few alarm bells in my head, to be honest.

[Metahuman1]

Expansion, and they'd be using it to dish out more damage and Grapple more effectively. Maybe to pull a bit of zaniness out side of combat but the whole party will be doing that anyway so that's not a concern. Party is also at enough of an optimization level that letting Melee have a bit of Gish boosting by using Psi-warrior as the primary chassie for an unarmed combatant shouldn't be a major problem. Part's also got a cleric (Not DMM: Persist, but still, cleric played with reasonable level of competence.) Sorcerer focusing on "Your gonna hate me if your still alive after my turn." school of though spells with a few key defense options (Displacement, Greater Invisibility, the usual suspects.) One player who's still making up there mind what they want to run for this game (It's still in planning stages, worth noting, I've been working with everyone to try to get an idea what there gonna do together so that we can try to not step on one another toes.) and a Factotum played with reasonable competence.

In a party like that, I think the item itself isn't gonna hurt anything, but having an idea for the price tag would be nice.

[ericgrau]

I think he should get cognizance crystals and leave it at that. If the reduction in power points means he can effectively spend 2 more PP on a power then the answer should be no. He might also look into dorjes, power stones, tatoos, potions of enlarge person, gloves of titan's grip and so on as backups or boosts. Expansion + grip of iron + half-giant is already an easy way to auto-pass grapple checks.