Is it Possible to Transfer Bonuses from One Magic Item to Another?

[Droningbass]

So, I have a predicament: My party killed a bunch of Large opponents equipped with Large magic armors and Large magic weapons, and it would be great to put those magical enhancements to use even though our characters are all Medium or Small!

Does anyone know of a way that we could transfer enhancement bonuses/special abilities from one magic weapon or magic armor to either a non-magical item or another magic item to save some cash? This seems like a more reasonable option than selling all of the Large items and then turning around to get identical enchantments on smaller items. Is there a use of any of the Item Creation Feats (in particular, Craft Magic Arms and Armor), an errata, obscure entry in a supplement, or other option for transferring the qualities of magic items?

Obviously, if this is an option, an item would need to be of masterwork quality for any transfer to be made and enhancement bonuses transferred would not be able to stack.

Thanks for the help!

[Flickerdart]

Magic weapons can have the Sizing property added to them to resize to your needs. Magic full plate, like any full plate, can be refitted to a new owner for 2d4×100gp (there is no clause saying this cannot change size category). Everything that isn't weapons or armors resizes automatically.

As far as I know, you can't transfer properties.

[Darrin]

Dragonshard Pommel Stones (Magic of Eberron) can be enchanted as weapons and switched from weapon to weapon.

Ancestral Relic feat (Book of Exalted Deeds) can convert loot worth x GP into a magic item worth x GP.

[Phelix-Mu]

I have allowed this to be a safe use of wish, as it's rather more mild than creating valuable stuff from scratch.

However, this probably won't help you much, as by the time wish is affordable, having a bunch of unusable magic items is usually not a huge issue.

Aside from the trick with getting all of the large stuff enchanted with sizing, the only other thing such items are usually kept around for are for equipping minions at later levels.

This may be compounded by the fact that, as a DM that likes a bit of believability, I probably wouldn't allow you to just go to the nearest humanoid city and offload a bunch of items that no humanoid will be capable of using. Or you could sell them, but at a heftily reduced price.

Even the sizing idea can be quite expensive. Consider allowing the existence of weapon/armour augment crystals that provide the benefit of sizing to whatever they are tacked onto. This would allow a believable way for there to be use of the items without the characters having to go out of their way.

On the other hand, perhaps having a boatload of oversized items can be a plot hook. They are searching for a way to get rid of them, and they hear about a giant tribe in a distant jungle that is fighting the drow/trolls/illithids/campaign-appropriate creatures, and who are in desperate need of equipment upgrades. Is the tale true? Are the giants friendly? Will the party stick around and help defeat the baddies?

[Telok]

Polymorph Any Object may work. If you kick the caster level over fourty it will be effectively immune to the normal dispells.

[Kazudo]

I had an epic level NPC whose entire shtick was that, actually. He'd figured out that magically enhanced items are made of a different particle base than normal objects, and that all magic items (potions, wands, armors, weapons, etc) were mutable. So he figured out how to recompose items. It turned interesting.

Want that Potion of Bear's Endurance made into a suppository? Well, he's your man. Want the wand of cure light wounds to be a bit thinner? Congrats, he's made you a chopstick of cure light wounds (which was interesting). Need that +1 Mithril Breastplate of Light Fortification to actually be a +1 Chain Shirt of Light Fortification? Eeyup, that's him.

The only caveat was that combining two magical items was sometimes tricky and prone to failure (even at his great prowess) and would only "work" 60% of the time, and only work in a planned, intentional manner 10% of the time. You had to make an item using the same matter that you had to start with. If it was originally wood, it stayed wood, but you could compact it to make it thicker, sturdier wood (the difference between various thicknesses of wood) etc.

It was entirely homebrewed, but that was a weird campaign setting. Aside from that there isn't a way to transfer magic item properties barring maybe homebrewing a spell.

[Jack_Simth]

So, I have a predicament: My party killed a bunch of Large opponents equipped with Large magic armors and Large magic weapons, and it would be great to put those magical enhancements to use even though our characters are all Medium or Small!

Does anyone know of a way that we could transfer enhancement bonuses/special abilities from one magic weapon or magic armor to either a non-magical item or another magic item to save some cash? This seems like a more reasonable option than selling all of the Large items and then turning around to get identical enchantments on smaller items. Is there a use of any of the Item Creation Feats (in particular, Craft Magic Arms and Armor), an errata, obscure entry in a supplement, or other option for transferring the qualities of magic items?

Obviously, if this is an option, an item would need to be of masterwork quality for any transfer to be made and enhancement bonuses transferred would not be able to stack.

Thanks for the help!

Not RAW that I know of, no. An Artificer can drain the XP out of them to use in later crafting. You can sell them for gold. But I'm unaware of any officially published way to transfer the qualities.

You can, however, with a little bit of work at high level, change the underlying item. Greater Dispel Magic to suppress the magical qualities, Polymorph Any Object to change the underlying item, and then let the magic resume. Of course, that takes someone capable of casting Polymorph Any Object, and in general it won't be that big of a deal at 15th.

[Droningbass]

Polymorph Any Object may work. If you kick the caster level over fourty it will be effectively immune to the normal dispells.

Telok, I was so excited by this idea! But I double checked the entry on Polymorph Any Object... it specifically says that magic items aren't affected by the spell. What a bummer! That would have been perfect, since the effects would be permanent were it not for that exclusion! :smallmad:

Thank you to all of you for your responses so far! I specifically want to figure out a way to transfer the magical qualities from one magic item to another, if it is possible. For example, would it be possible to take a Large +1 Greatclub and transfer the enchantment to a Mw. Longsword? That way you would end up with a Large Mw. Greatclub and a +1 Longsword. That's the basic aim of our party, but with a small plethora of different needs.

[Jeff the Green]

If you're okay with incantations and homebrew, look at the Dungeoneer's Book of Incantations in the "Older stuff" link in my sig. It includes a number of incantations I designed for a game with no way to buy magic items at all and no artificer, and one that's exactly what you're looking for.

[Jack_Simth]

Telok, I was so excited by this idea! But I double checked the entry on Polymorph Any Object... it specifically says that magic items aren't affected by the spell. What a bummer! That would have been perfect, since the effects would be permanent were it not for that exclusion! :smallmad:You use (Greater) Dispel Magic to make it temporarily nonmagical first. Then when you cast PaO, it's a valid target.

[Droningbass]

You use (Greater) Dispel Magic to make it temporarily nonmagical first. Then when you cast PaO, it's a valid target.

Ah, very sneaky! Makes sense though...

[Jeff the Green]

Just watch out for a second dispel magic that will make your equipment revert to its original form. PAO's maximum duration is Permanent, not Instantaneous.

[Jack_Simth]

Just watch out for a second dispel magic that will make your equipment revert to its original form. PAO's maximum duration is Permanent, not Instantaneous.
Yes, if Dispel Magic is a regular thing in your game, you'll want to use some trick or other to prevent it from happening to your items. There's multiple - a Red Wizard using Circle Magic to get a caster level of 40 - putting it out of range of Greater Dispel Magic - or a Dweomerkeeper using Supernatural Spell come to mind.