Rune Circle, worth it?

[Milo the Gnome]

Hello!

So my party just cleared out a dungeon/fortress, and we're turning it into our base of operations.

Rune Circle from Races of Stone, worth it?

I have a cohort that's based on crafting who will stay at the base. Is the Rune Circle feat worth it at all? The idea of a magic area that affects anyone in it sounds good. But the CLs of the circles are pretty high (11,15,18) and the ones listed in the book are usually race specific (dwarves and goliaths).

Anyone ever had a good experience with these or is it a trap?

[GilesTheCleric]

Hello!

So my party just cleared out a dungeon/fortress, and we're turning it into our base of operations.

Rune Circle from Races of Stone, worth it?

I have a cohort that's based on crafting who will stay at the base. Is the Rune Circle feat worth it at all? The idea of a magic area that affects anyone in it sounds good. But the CLs of the circles are pretty high (11,15,18) and the ones listed in the book are usually race specific (dwarves and goliaths).

Anyone ever had a good experience with these or is it a trap?

It looks similar to Earth Nodes, and I'd bet most of the same uses could be had from it. If you're crafting magical items and want reduced prices or a higher DC, it might help; casting extended/persisted(/chained if you're in a hurry) buffs from the circle also seems worthwhile. Divination with better DCs would benefit. I can see it becoming portable through casting spells from within into an Imbue with Spell Ability or similar; casting through a proxy at the battlefield while you stay at the circle is probably possible as well (familiar, Chain of Eyes, ring gates, divine ward-esq abilities, etc). Basically, if you're able to gain one of these benefits for a reasonable cost, then it's likely more worthwhile than buying gear (Extended+Persisted Mind Blank and Freedom of Movement, for 50-100k rather than 200k for the item? Sure; it frees up a head slot and might have a higher CL. Just watch out for dispel magic!).

Even if the circles are race-specific, it seems like they're probably counted as magic items (or perhaps portals are a better comparison), which means you can make a UMD check to pretend to be whatever race they're keyed to.

If you do go with these, then treat it the same way you would anything that's valuable to your character or that is a source of their power. Anti-divination, abjurations, glamers, extra-dimensional spaces, Skull Wards, Word of Recall, the works. Don't forget anti-possession, -control monster, etc measures. SBG probably has a few things you could use, if 3.0 is allowed.

Finding the correct location for your rune circle sounds like it might be a fun side-quest, too -- like connecting a specific plane's coordinates or redirecting a ley-line with your new fortress to make it more efficacious or secure in some regard ("Because the creation process creates a threefold connection between the location, the magic energy expended in the creation, and the physical earth or stone in which the runes are drawn, there’s no way to create a mobile rune circle"). Perhaps that would even let you Genesis a whole new demiplane tied to the fortress for it, which will also greatly reduce the number of points of failure to get to it.

[Milo v3]

I personally think the best benefit of Rune Circles is the cost reduction, means you can have some cool "mundane" magical effects on an area without spending giant amounts of money.