Tattooed Samurai (help)

[Zanthy1]

Hello! If any of you saw my last post regarding tattoos and monks, this is only slightly similar!

Building a samurai, its an Eastern style campaign, but also high fantasy, and I also really really wanna role play being a samurai.

I have this concept that I really want to use, which involves having certain spells tattooed onto my characters body. The spells work with a charge effect, so like 3 activations per day. All of them I have to touch to activate, and some are passive.

The tattoos I want are:
True Strike (3/day)
Cat's Grace (3/day)
Mage Armor (1/day)
Sustenance (as the ring, mainly to eliminate having to eat and drink)
Also a tattoo that when activated teleports me to my Lord (every samurai has a Lord) as per the Regroup duskblade spell, but sort of combined with greater teleport so that no matter where I am (on the same plane) when my Lord needs me I am there.

I want to know how much you would estimate it would cost to get these tattooed on, something that I could start game with.

My DM said that the teleport to Lord one might be free because my Lord would pay to have all his samurai able to appear at his side in an instant

Also any other advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Psyren]

For the first three, the rules for Psionic Tattoos (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicTattoos.htm) will do nicely. A first-level tattoo is 50 gp, so 3x True Strike would be 150, 3x Cat's Grace would be 900, and 1x Mage Armor would be 50. This is based on the following formula: (25gp * [Spell or Power level] * [Caster or Manifester Level]), x2 if personal range. (So True Strike is 25 * 1 * 1 * 2 (personal) = 50 each.) Sustenance is a 2nd-level power lasts 24 hours so it would be 300.

For simplicity, you'd need a minor houserule here that lets you stack the uses into one tattoo, rather than needing 8 separate ones.

Now the trick is making them not disappear when used. For that we turn to the Getting Wired article, or more specifically the excellent 3.5 conversion (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4319.0) of it created by DSP's Jeremy Smith (Bacris.) Specifically, you'll need Capacitors (lets you use them X/day without fading). Combined with the above houserule that lets you consolidate the uses, and you'll only need 4 capacitors (rather than 8) at 1250gp each.

[danzibr]

Call me silly, but... is all that stuff originally in 3.0? And by that I mean the capacitor business and whatnot. I don't happen to have any 3.0 psionic stuff.

[Diarmuid]

You could just classify them as slotless magic items and price them accordingly.

[Psyren]

Call me silly, but... is all that stuff originally in 3.0? And by that I mean the capacitor business and whatnot. I don't happen to have any 3.0 psionic stuff.

Yes, the original was a 3.0 article. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20031225a) As I said in my post, Jeremy Smith updated it to 3.5 on the WotC boards, but it was lost in the reorg for 4e until PhaedrusXY ported it over to BG.

[danzibr]

Yes, the original was a 3.0 article. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20031225a) As I said in my post, Jeremy Smith updated it to 3.5 on the WotC boards, but it was lost in the reorg for 4e until PhaedrusXY ported it over to BG.
Ah-ha, thanks. Now I see what he means by, "There was an excellent Mind's Eye Article called "Getting Wired" that detailed a new feat which allowed the creation of Advanced Psionic Tattoos, which can contain powers above 3rd level, and also a few unique tattoos. It was 3.0, but [...]." I was forgetting what Mind's Eye was.

[Jeff the Green]

It looks like the capacitor only works if you have pp, which samurai generally don't. So I agree, price them as slotless magic items.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just for reference sake, Races of Faerun has the feat Tattoo Magic, which basically allows spellcasters to create magical equivalents to psionic tattoos. Prices and spell level caps are the same as potions.

[Zanthy1]

Thank you all, these all sounds like good ideas. I think the psionic tattoo idea would be just fine, but I'd have to work something out regarding the PP (power points?)

I am also curious as to how the slotless magic item concept would work out. Can you give me more information on that?

What if it was possible to combine both of those ideas?

The more help the better!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There's also Spellstitched, if one will houserule away the requirement that the recipient be undead...