Components to Foci

[Gildedragon]

Hey there playground;
I've never been particularly fond of spell components myself; for non-gp cost ones they are generally poor jokes, and high cost ones feel wasteful. I was thus wondering if there are rules or guidelines you've divined to turn material components into arcane foci.
As a DM it'd help, that way I can have the spellcasters find ritual paraphernalia that has some crunch (eg: a brazier used to cover things in continual flame).

[Telonius]

I believe BoVD and BoED had some rules for alternate material components. The Black Lore of Moil (CArc) feat does something similar.

I never used them myself. It always seemed that the benefit was either too small to be noticeable, or cost too much to use.

[Gildedragon]

I am aware of power components, what I'm asking is if anyone knows of guidelines for turning components (which are spent on use) into foci (which are not)

[Mnemnosyne]

Any spell with material components that have no listed cost may as well simply be listed as having a spell component pouch as a focus. So, working on that to make it more interesting, it could easily be said that each caster fashions their own universal focus that is used for all these costless components. Be it a wand, a crystal, an amulet, or anything else, it can be unique and individual to each caster. Granted, they can make more than one and if they lose one they can easily and cheaply make a new one, but the poing is to replace all these joke components with something that's unique to the caster.

As for costly components, harder to say. You could follow the rule as for creating daily use magical items that have a costly component; multiply the cost by 50 and you have the price of the focus needed for that spell. This is great for a spell you think you're going to cast more than fifty times, but not so good when it's for a spell that you probably won't cast more than ten times in your career or something. Imagine having to obtain a 500,000 gp diamond as a focus for resurrection.

As an alternative, it may be better to allow the focus at cost x 50, but also allow for using individual components. For this I also actually liked an idea that I think I saw in 4th edition, surprisingly. I believe they had this dust stuff that worked as a universal material component, so there was no need to specifically obtain rare materials; just use up the correct value of the universal component. This means players just need to stock up on 2000 gp of material component, without having to determine exactly which spells they're going to need to cast, and then figuring out which components to stock in what quantities.

Thus, you can provide focuses for specific spells as treasure, which the players will either keep or sell depending on whether they believe they will cast those spells enough times to make it worth keeping them. The focuses would be unique to each spell, so you just come up with whatever seems most thematically appropriate for that spell as a focus. And the costless components become something interesting instead of a ridiculous joke, because each wizard now has a personal focus, that one might recognize and associate with that particular spellcaster.

[Fouredged Sword]

In one game I played was high magic but no large civilizations. No large markets existed for almost everything. Platemail was rare and hard to find, likely having to be made to order by a blacksmith.

Spellcasters used gems for all spellcasting material components that cost GP. The gems had their GP value of magic in them that could be expended.

This provided a use for a whole section of the random treasure table. The party actual kept a gem pile around with them.

Allowing this and maybe allowing spellcasters to attune a gem to a particular spell by sacrificing 50x the spell components worth of gems would be cool. The spell then becomes a foci requiring spell rather than a material component spell.

[mattie_p]

In one game I played was high magic but no large civilizations. No large markets existed for almost everything. Platemail was rare and hard to find, likely having to be made to order by a blacksmith.

Spellcasters used gems for all spellcasting material components that cost GP. The gems had their GP value of magic in them that could be expended.

This provided a use for a whole section of the random treasure table. The party actual kept a gem pile around with them.

Allowing this and maybe allowing spellcasters to attune a gem to a particular spell by sacrificing 50x the spell components worth of gems would be cool. The spell then becomes a foci requiring spell rather than a material component spell.

That is, like, a total call-back to Might and Magic II

[Gotterdammerung]

Just brainstorming here, but I remember somewhere the ability to ignore component costs at a rate of 5 xp per gold piece cost.

1 exp is worth 5 gold

so I imagine that taking a material component and multiplying it by 5-10 to turn it into a focus would be reasonable.

So a 250 gold piece material component cost per spell would be replaced by anywhere from a 1250 gp to a 2500 gp one time focus cost.

[Gildedragon]

Wouldn't it be 25 times the original cost?
1gp->5xp
1xp->5gp
So 1gp->5x5gp

[Gotterdammerung]

Wouldn't it be 25 times the original cost?
1gp->5xp
1xp->5gp
So 1gp->5x5gp

I math goood! :smallfurious:

[Fouredged Sword]

I think we are getting 50 from the cost of material used when making a wand.

I would go back and read through BoED. There are rules there for turning material components and foci into exp costs per casting. I would use those rules to covert material component to EXP and EXP to foci. See if that turns out looking right.

[Gildedragon]

Each that's what Götterdämmerung suggested and what I feel inclined to do; 50 times is a bit much by my book as making a constant use item grants more versatility than having it replace the components with a focus.
In BoED it's under ramifications of poverty which makes it a 1:5 ratio.
Though I don't know where the XP->GP conversion would be found.


Edit:
BoVD seems to suggest under sacrifice that 5gp are equivalent to 3xp (same dc for getting these via sacrifices) in the context of item creation. A 1.6... times difference. So rounding up for ease...
This makes the focus cost about 10 times the original cost. I'm not sure if this seems reasonable?

[mattie_p]

Though I don't know where the XP->GP conversion would be found.

That exchange rate is found in the rules for magic item creation.

[Gotterdammerung]

That exchange rate is found in the rules for magic item creation.

Yeh that is one place but I was using pg 132 of the players handbook under the rules for hiring a spellcaster.

Thanks for finding the BoED, I couldn't remember where I saw that 1 gp to 5 exp ratio but you jogged my memory, that was it.

So if BoED turns 1 gp into 5 exp and the players handbook says 1 xp has a gold value of 5, then around x25 the cost of a material component could make a focus instead. That still seems so high though. I would personally do a x10 cost increase. It would certainly put a new spin on raise dead line of spells though. You would likely be able to start a business just renting out the 125k focus for raise dead spells to people who couldn't afford to by such an expensive focus.

And the rolls royce of material components would be expensive to rent, not many people could afford the 625,000 focus item for true rez.

[Gildedragon]

Thanks. So I end up with a range from 10-25 times the cost.
25 seems to have the most raw backing though.

[mattie_p]

You would likely be able to start a business just renting out the 25k focus for raise dead spells to people who couldn't afford to by such an expensive focus.

Rent the focus out for 1k a pop. :smallbiggrin:

[Gildedragon]

Appraise becomes really useful for those fighting necromancers, you can assess the might of their minions by the quality of their staff

[Doxkid]

We were doing pretty well until we got to people ogling the necromancer's staff...

[Gotterdammerung]

Another solution would be to invent a common magic item with flavor kind of like boccob's book. You know the whole "Not every wizard owns a boccob's book, but every wizard SHOULD own a boccob's book."

Eye of Power:

An eye of power is cheap and easy to make only costing 100 gold pieces. The eye has a power pool that starts at 0. Anyone may sacrifice items to the eye to increase this power pool. The pool will increase on a 1gp to 1 power ratio. An eye of power may be used as a focus in place of any required focus and/or material component as long as the power pool value meets or exceeds the gold piece value of the material component added to the required focus.

A power pool is exclusive to its owner. An eye of power given to another creature would have a power pool of 0 unless he also sacrificed items to the eye. If given back to the original owner, the eye would remember that owner's power pool and function accordingly.

Since the power pool is exclusive, an eye of power maintains a static value no matter how many items are sacrificed to it. Items sacrificed to an eye of power are completely absorbed and lost forever.




With this magic item, players can choose how much money they wan't to dump into this item. They might decide that true ressurection isn't cast enough to warrant feeding 25k gold into their eye. But feeding it 10k is worth it.

[Doxkid]

Straight from the Necromancer's magic staff to a Sorceress' perky eyes...

At any rate, the essence of both ideas is pretty good...until you hit a certain snag: trash loot and/or unintended item conversions.

Converting low magic/mundane/useless items isn't much of a big deal, but there's always the chance that the party will look at that MacGuffin you gave them 10 minutes ago and think "This should be worth at least two stoneskins. Maybe even a Raise Dead." Meaning you'll need to give that object plot armor.

That will in turn tip the party off about it's importance. Some DMs like sneaking important items into the party's bags and others do not; whether the this whole thign is a problem to you depends on that.

Then there are cursed items, which can often be worth plenty of gold...