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Iituem
2007-02-12, 11:23 AM
If you assume that Craft, Knowledge, Perform and Profession all equal 9 skills each, there are really only 72 skills, so that shall be our base for today.

Ring of Skillful Ability: This simple copper band grants a character a +2 insight bonus to all skills. He cannot use skills prohibited to his class or which he has no training in (and requires training to use).
Market Price: 31,680gp. Cost to Create: 15,840gp materials + 1267xp, Forge Ring, CL 8



Ring of Skillful Expertise: This silver band, etched with little pictures of tools around the outside, grants a character a +4 insight bonus to all skills. He cannot use skills prohibited to his class or which he has no training in (and requires training to use).
Market Price: 126,720gp. Cost to Create: 63,470gp materials + 5068xp, Forge Ring, CL 16



Ring of Skillful Mastery: Gold bands of this type are periodically found amidst ancient ruins, particularly temples devoted to long-lost gods of craftsmanship. Each is delicately engraved with depictions of figures at work in the fields, workshops and libraries, surmounted by a distinctive symbol; a scythe crossed with a quill, over a gear. The ring grants the character a +6 insight bonus to all skills, including those he has no training in and which would normally be barred to his class.
(Minor Artefact.)



Ring of the Skillful Grand Master: This gold and silver ring is much revered in legend and myth as once belonging to the chosen champion of a long-lost god. It bears highly realistic minature depictions of figures working in the fields, workships and libraries, all rendered painstakingly in gold and silver down to the last hair on their heads and the last leaf on the trees. If examined closely the leaves can be seen to be rustle occasionally and, should the watcher concentrate, he will realise that the figures are moving, carrying out their various tasks. A distinctive symbol surmounts the ring in gold; a scythe with a ruby blade crossed with a quill with a sapphire tip, overlaid upon an emerald gear. The wearer gains a +8 insight bonus to all skills, including those he has no training in and which would normally be barred to his class.
(Major Artefact.)

Caveat: None of these skill bonuses apply to any form of skill-based magic (aside from Use Magic Device).

Peregrine
2007-02-12, 01:03 PM
How do you figure 72 skills? 36, but we're counting four of those nine times, making 68... psionics adds three (it would be four, but one is another Knowledge category, which we've fixed at 9)... and Control Shape for lycanthropes? That's 72 there. (Or did you just count the 36 core skills and then add four 9s for the categorised skills?)

Anyway, this illustrates a (minor) flaw in your method. Supplements and house rules can add new skills, making your items incrementally better. (Of course, adding new skills is always fraught with problems in adding another skill to characters' limited repertoires.) For instance, I'm working on a homebrew Taste/Scent skill, elevating those senses (together) to equal footing with sight (Spot) and hearing (Listen). And then there's skill-based magic systems, where these items will really shine.

That said, barring a critical use of skills like skill-based magic, I don't think this breaks your items. I just wanted to go into it a bit, since you stated an assumption at the outset that I disagreed with. :smallsmile:

You might want to rephrase this bit: "He cannot use skills ... which he has no training in." Make it clear that this only applies to skills that normally cannot be used untrained. Otherwise putting the ring on suddenly bars you from making untrained Bluff checks or whatever.

katarl
2007-02-12, 01:59 PM
There are cheaper ways of doing this you know. A luckstone is one.

Iituem
2007-02-12, 02:12 PM
+2 luckstone would be, what... 80k? +4 luckstone... 320k? We're already into artefact territory by that point.

magic8BALL
2007-02-13, 02:16 AM
I'm playing an Elf wizard that, through some really distasteful feat selections, has found himself with at least 1 rank in every skill... even skills we don't know exist yet are covered by this feat. It's in the Races of the Wild... um Elf Diligent.

Anyway... I gotta get me one of these rings!