Custom Item of Dominate Person?

[erok0809]

I'm not really sure how custom items work, especially those with spells involved. Is there a way I can take an item, say the king's crown, and make it so that someone wearing it (or holding it would be even better) falls under a dominate person effect, with the caster being the master? I'm looking for a BBEG to control the king by making such an alteration to his crown, and this would be a really easy way to do it. Any advice on the mechanics and cost and whatnot? Or should I just call this a homebrew thing and make it so it works?

[Nettlekid]

Perhaps you could craft a very big Enslavement Ring (from Underdark) and put it inside the crown, so it fits around his head, and then you own the Master Ring that can cast Dominate Person on the wearer of the Enslavement Rings.

Or use Rune Magic from Runecrafter (Player's Guide to Faerun) to make runes of Dominate Person on the inside of the crown, so it counts as "passing" the runes when his head passes through the opening of the crown, and they activate.

[Crake]

Really, if you're the DM, you can just invent a custom item that dominates a person who wears it. There's no need to justify it to your players, the guy made it, end of story?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Don't worry about it too much-- it's an NPC-made item being used on an NPC for purposes of Plot.

If you want a vague guess for pricing, take a continuous item of dominate person and cut the price down by a third or so for having a limited target. Required spell being dominate person, with a final price somewhere around 60,000 gold.

[137beth]

You're the DM, you make the items. The custom item rules are for players, to stop the players from being able to make arbitrarily powerful items. When you make plot-inducing items, you don't need to worry about the rules. It's a plot device. There are no rules for plot devices.

[Segev]

The one thing, from a mechanical perspective, I would make sure to pay attention to is how the "master" is determined. The crown obviously marks the slave. But is the "master" the person who forged the crown? If so, it's automatically never going to fall into PC hands...unless the party wizard MAKES one. But then you really need to determine a market value for this very powerful item that is always tied to its creator, and thus can't even really be stolen. After all, whoever steals it will eventually get it to somebody who'll put it on, and then the creator has a new slave.

Is it the person who gives the item to the wearer? This has interesting ways to manipulate it. Is it the person who put it on the wearer's head? Good way to make it seem innocuous for a while, since most people put their own hats on, but during a coronation, for example...

Is there a "master" item, a la the rings suggested earlier? This is the easiest way to look at it, because it means there's a clear marker as to who is the master, and it means it consumes an item slot on said master to use it properly.

[erok0809]

Alright, that's cool then, DM's custom item of Plot Device it is. Thanks guys