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rottenvenetic
2012-07-24, 11:01 PM
My first minor contribution: a set of six powerful sashes which confer huge boni to ability scores. They're rather inconspicuous and (supposedly) vanishingly rare, so they make an ideal item for unexpectedly increasing one of a character's (especially an antagonist's) abilities to ridiculous levels :smallwink:

1. Bloodweave sash of Colossal Strength. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Strength bonus.

2. Sinewy sash of Ghostly Dexterity. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Dexterity bonus.

3. Boneweave sash of Titanic Constitution. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Constitution bonus.

4. Brainweave sash of Ultimate Intelligence. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Intelligence bonus.

5. Fleshweave sash of the Ancient’s Wisdom. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Wisdom bonus.

6. Skinweave sash of the Exemplar's Charisma. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +15 Charisma bonus.


Notes:
These sashes will not provide any boni to creatures whose targeted ability base score is not at least 3.
Only one sash may be active on a character per number of waists that character has, but they will not interfere with any other belt types.
An epic character can’t be harvested for more than one sash, and it must be a humanoid or monstrous humanoid. The harvested parts must be fresh when used.
These sashes are all indestructible and have a market price of 2 million gold pieces each.

Crafting:
Requires:
Feat: Craft Epic Wondrous Item
A bowl or cauldron of sufficient size to contain the other ingredients
A premade masterwork sash
Fresh body parts from an epic, sentient, humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature, that must be killed or destroyed and harvested within the hour (the ritual may be attempted at a later date if the ingredients are preserved). Depending on the ability score desired from the sash, use these body parts:

Strength - The heart and 1 quart of blood
Dexterity - 3 ounces of sinew tissue
Constitution - The skull or spinal column
Intelligence - The brain
Wisdom - The whole body and it must be at least mostly intact
Charisma - The whole or 90+% of the skin or hide (any cheratin is not required but will not interfere with the spell)

Do not use any extraneous ingredients or the crafting will automatically fail. Clothes (other than the sash) and any magic items count as extraneous ingredients. Bacteria, the air, negligible dust, sand, rust or other small particles do not.

The ingredients are placed into a bowl of sufficient size and an incantation of great power (no specific spell needed for this one) is cast over them. The incantation works as a spell but its DC is 60, it doesn’t use up any spell slot and rolling 20 on the check will not pass it automatically.

If the roll is failed, the ingredients are destroyed, turning into black, viscous goo of the same volume and weight, with no properties.

If the roll succeeds, the body parts gradually turn into bright energy that permeates the sash.
After 10 rounds the sash has absorbed all the energy and is enchanted, however it is about 1000 degrees Kelvin and must cool off before being worn. If, after a successful incantation, the process is interrupted, such as by kicking over the bowl and spilling out the contents, the ingredients combust from the heat in them.


Changes: Upscaled the boni to flat +15 to prevent overlap with the core epic ability items, and the cost to 2 million gp. Put all the crafting details in the crafting section.

Old version:



Bloodweave sash of Colossal Strength. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +8, +10 or +12 Strength bonus, depending on whether the creature has a racial penalty (+12) or bonus (+8) in Strength to begin with. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and the heart and one quart of blood from an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1 million GP.

Sinewy sash of Ghostly Dexterity. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +8, +10 or +12 Dexterity bonus, depending on whether the creature has a racial penalty (+12) or bonus (+8) in Dexterity to begin with. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and at least 3 ounces of sinew tissue from an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1 million GP.

Boneweave sash of Titanic Constitution. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +10 Constitution bonus. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and the skull or spinal column from an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1.5 million GP.

Brainweave sash of Ultimate Intelligence. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +8, +10 or +12 Intelligence bonus, depending on whether the creature has a racial penalty (+12) or bonus (+8) in Intelligence to begin with. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and brain from an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1 million GP.

Fleshweave sash of the Ancient’s Wisdom. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +8, +10 or +12 Constitution bonus, depending on whether the creature has a racial penalty (+12) or bonus (+8) in Wisdom to begin with. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and the intact or mostly intact corpse of an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1 million GP.

Skinweave sash of the Exemplar's Charisma. Worn around the waist, this sash provides a +8, +10 or +12 Charisma bonus, depending on whether the creature has a racial penalty (+12) or bonus (+8) in Charisma to begin with. To be crafted it requires Create Epic Wondrous Item, a premade silk sash and the tongue and flayed skin from an epic-level sentient creature, that can’t have died before it was harvested for this item. Costs 1.25 million GP.


Notes:
These sashes will not provide any boni to creatures whose targeted ability base score is not at least 3.
Only one sash may be active on a character per number of waists that character has, but they will not interfere with any other belt types.
An epic character can’t be harvested for more than one sash, and it must be a humanoid or monstrous humanoid. The harvested parts must be fresh when used.
These sashes are all indestructible.

Crafting:
The ingredients are placed into a bowl of sufficient size and an incantation of great power (no specific spell needed for this one) is cast over them. The incantation works as a spell but its DC is 60, it doesn’t use up any spell slot and rolling 20 on the check will not pass it automatically.

If the roll is failed, the ingredients are destroyed, turning into black, viscous goo of the same volume and weight, with no properties.

If the roll succeeds, the body parts gradually turn into bright energy that permeates the sash.
After 10 rounds the sash has absorbed all the energy and is enchanted, however it is about 1000 degrees Kelvin and must cool off before being worn. If, after a successful incantation, the process is interrupted, such as by kicking over the bowl and spilling out the contents, the ingredients combust from the heat in them.

Reluctance
2012-07-24, 11:14 PM
Any reason why the Charisma one costs more than the Dexterity one? They should all be a flat million, in keeping with the normal cost rules for epic magic items.

Having the bonus fluctuate based on whether or not the creature has a racial bonus/penalty is silly and unnecessary. +10 is enough.

The ritual bit is unnecessary fluff, since you're basically describing a boring old item of +10 to stat. Depending on the interpretation, it's either extraneous (the DM isn't going to let a flavorful component fall into your laps with no adventure) or wholly gruesome (requiring you to capture and then murder a creature at the exact moment of creating the item). Not that killing an epic level creature is that horrible a sacrifice, in a game where True Rez exists, but it's still basically fluff that should be rolled into the market cost.

rottenvenetic
2012-07-25, 12:23 AM
I actually just threw this one up quickly because I'm trying to draw a decent concept art for a character class I've been preparing (which is a nasty piece of work). The character in the art is epic, and I drew it with no armour, a sash and summer clothing, and when I was thinking about itemizing the idea hit me: use the sash.

The racial dependent bonus was an idea of mine to make characters with bad classes (such as dwarf sorcerers and orc psions) have something to look up to, that would correct their natural flaws. I suppose it's not really needed, since an orc psion can still have 16 int easily in point buy.

As for the crafting bit, the gruesome requirements are meant to increase the difficulty of gaining such a sash. Typically it would be created in one of 4 ways:

1. Slaying an epic enemy and creating a great trophy for yourself/an ally out of it
2. Hunting down epic creatures to create sashes (extremely high-level and extemely evil)
3. Creating it out of the body of a friend who either dies and allows/requests this to be done
4. If you're Epic you can try to commission one of the sashes from your own body (and a True Rez). Be advised, the mage might want to default on the rez and even try to trap your soul (:xykon: may not be the best contractor for this even though he probably has the feat).

I'll redo the first post now and preserve the old in a spoiler.

Edit: done.