Need Hilariously overpowered custom magic items

[flamewolf393]

I want the stupidest most broken magic items you can come up with. Assume this is made by an optimized crafter wizard/psion, so you have taken all the crafting bull**** to make them as fast/cheap/low level as possible.

To start things off I present a couple relatively tame things:
Boots of quickened inconstant location. As an at will free action teleport to a place you can see.

Wizards crown of balanced thought: This crown is festooned with pearls of power. Must be TN human wizard to use.
bonuses to Int: +6 enhancement, +6 sacred, +6 profane, +6 anarchic, +6 axiomatic = +30 Int
Pearls of power: 10 of each spell level. I actually craft this in a game for only like 325k gold :smallbiggrin:

[InvisibleBison]

Stupidly broken magic items, huh? Here's a couple.

Amulet of Infinite Spells: This ornate amulet can be activated as a free action to duplicate the effect of any spell.

Ring of Invincibility: The wearer of this carved bone ring is immune to all spells, abilities and effects that would have an adverse effect on them.

No idea how you'd go about crafting them, though.

[JoshuaZ]

I want the stupidest most broken magic items you can come up with. Assume this is made by an optimized crafter wizard/psion, so you have taken all the crafting bull**** to make them as fast/cheap/low level as possible.

To start things off I present a couple relatively tame things:
Boots of quickened inconstant location. As an at will free action teleport to a place you can see.

Wizards crown of balanced thought: This crown is festooned with pearls of power. Must be TN human wizard to use.
bonuses to Int: +6 enhancement, +6 sacred, +6 profane, +6 anarchic, +6 axiomatic = +30 Int
Pearls of power: 10 of each spell level. I actually craft this in a game for only like 325k gold :smallbiggrin:

Is this 3.5 or is this PF?

Staff of Everything: This Staff has all the powers of a Staff of Abjuration, Staff of Power, a Staff of Illusion, a Staff of Necromancy, Staff of Conjuration, Staff of Defense, and Staff of Divination. Also it gices a +10 competence bonus to knowledge(arcana) checks and spellcraft.

I haven't worked out the crafting cost but definitely craftable.

The sword of non-epic but totally ridiculously too many abilities: is a +1 Keen, Flaming, Defending, Shocking, Spell-Storing, Manifester, Psychic, Shortsword. Note that since Psychic and Manifester are strict gp cost increases not bonus prices, adding them in doesn't push this to epic. If you go outside core there are probably some other similar bonuses you can pile on to it.

[SirNibbles]

3.0 has a spell called Blackstaff which makes your staff do a targeted Dispel Magic every time you smack someone with it and it eats up one of their spell slots/prepared spells. It also gives it a +4 enh bonus. If you manage to make that into a permanent magic item it would be quite powerful. All the DCs are based on the creator's stats, not the user's stats, so you could pass it to a Druid or Monk and they could use it just as well.

[flappeercraft]

A beholder mage with the Craft woundrous item, extraordinary artisan and magical artisan craft woundrous item feat could create a item of continuous Mystic shield that is limited to a specific alignment, class and skill along with being made of Fey cherry wood which would have a Base price of 154,307 GP and 2 SP which would give the wearer immunity to all 6th level and lower spells (Also includes psionics with the magic-psionics transparency rule) and gives him also immunity to enhancement bonuses on weapons but not properties.

[Crake]

Is this 3.5 or is this PF?

Staff of Everything: This Staff has all the powers of a Staff of Abjuration, Staff of Power, a Staff of Illusion, a Staff of Necromancy, Staff of Conjuration, Staff of Defense, and Staff of Divination. Also it gices a +10 competence bonus to knowledge(arcana) checks and spellcraft.

I haven't worked out the crafting cost but definitely craftable.

The sword of non-epic but totally ridiculously too many abilities: is a +1 Keen, Flaming, Defending, Shocking, Spell-Storing, Manifester, Psychic, Shortsword. Note that since Psychic and Manifester are strict gp cost increases not bonus prices, adding them in doesn't push this to epic. If you go outside core there are probably some other similar bonuses you can pile on to it.

That's not actually correct. While you're right, it having a +10 bonus puts it at the edge of non-epic, the market value of a +10 sword is 200,000gp. Adding any flat value bonus to that weapon will push it over 200,000gp, which, according to the epic item crafting rules:


In general, an item with even one of these characteristics is an epic magic item.

[...]
Has a market price above 200,000 gp, not including material costs for armor or weapons, material component- or experience point-based costs, or additional value for intelligent items.



That's enough to push it into an epic item.


A beholder mage with the Craft woundrous item, extraordinary artisan and magical artisan craft woundrous item feat could create a item of continuous Mystic shield that is limited to a specific alignment, class and skill along with being made of Fey cherry wood which would have a Base price of 154,307 GP and 2 SP which would give the wearer immunity to all 6th level and lower spells (Also includes psionics with the magic-psionics transparency rule) and gives him also immunity to enhancement bonuses on weapons but not properties.

This runs into the same issue, you reduced the crafting cost, but the market value remains the same, and the market value for that is still over 200,000gp, making it an epic item.

[nettle3305]

That's not actually correct. While you're right, it having a +10 bonus puts it at the edge of non-epic, the market value of a +10 sword is 200,000gp. Adding any flat value bonus to that weapon will push it over 200,000gp, which, according to the epic item crafting rules:



That's enough to push it into an epic item.

This. Which is why, when it comes to magic weapons and armor, sometimes you should leave the total bonus at +9 so you can add on fixed price effects.

[Crake]

This. Which is why, when it comes to magic weapons and armor, sometimes you should leave the total bonus at +9 so you can add on fixed price effects.

Armor is actually far more lenient, as a +10 set of armor is only 100,000gp, so you have 100,000gp of space for fixed price abilities

[Ludic]

Are we hand making these stupidly overpowered items, or from the books?

Because . . . for a measly 1400 gold you can get Bracers of Quick Strike . . . Because who doesn't like an extra attack with ANY weapon you are HOLDING at your full attack, +\- modifiers during a full attack action.


If only it wasn't a 1/D function. Because you know, Martial classes can't have nice things that alleviate the eighty-bajillion penalties they get to attack rolls already. :annoyed:

On the other hand, as an always on, that could also get so abused.


But then again, that does pale to the Set Armors with cumulative bonuses . . .

The MiC has many a wonderful 'O.O the DM should never allow this' items.

[flappeercraft]

The MiC has many a wonderful 'O.O the DM should never allow this' items.

Like which ones? The closest I can think of is the Belt of battle and Vest of the Archmagi which don't seem too broken to me. Just curious to know about what my players might try to pull off.

[nettle3305]

Armor is actually far more lenient, as a +10 set of armor is only 100,000gp, so you have 100,000gp of space for fixed price abilities

Yeah, you're right. My bad.


Like which ones? The closest I can think of is the Belt of battle and Vest of the Archmagi which don't seem too broken to me. Just curious to know about what my players might try to pull off.

Prismatic Burst (MIC 40) fires off a prismatic spray on a crit with save DC 20. This ability hurts pretty bad on a crit fisher, plus it costs only +30,000 gp.

[Crake]

Are we hand making these stupidly overpowered items, or from the books?

Because . . . for a measly 1400 gold you can get Bracers of Quick Strike . . . Because who doesn't like an extra attack with ANY weapon you are HOLDING at your full attack, +\- modifiers during a full attack action.


If only it wasn't a 1/D function. Because you know, Martial classes can't have nice things that alleviate the eighty-bajillion penalties they get to attack rolls already. :annoyed:

On the other hand, as an always on, that could also get so abused.


But then again, that does pale to the Set Armors with cumulative bonuses . . .

The MiC has many a wonderful 'O.O the DM should never allow this' items.

Wouldn't an always on version just be called a speed weapon? :smalltongue:

There's not a single item in the MIC that I would ever ban, the book is full of great items, who's cheap price is the ONLY reason someone would pick them over the standard "+ability item, +saves item, +deflection ring, +natural armor amulet" seemingly required combo.

[Telok]

The Frog God's Bong: When used it calls (not summons, calls) any number of slaadi to the area in an attempt to solve your problem. The slaad called forth are of random types and are immune to being controlled, convinced, deceived, pressured, or bribed in any manner. If the user does not specify a number of slaad to call forth then (1d100)d100 slaad are called. The user automatically fail any save and forefits any immunity to the substance used to activate the bong.

[nettle3305]

There's not a single item in the MIC that I would ever ban, the book is full of great items, who's cheap price is the ONLY reason someone would pick them over the standard "+ability item, +saves item, +deflection ring, +natural armor amulet" seemingly required combo.

I agree here. The only items I'd ban are in the SRD (namely the candle of invocation and the dust of sneezing and choking). The MIC is such a great book.

Depending on optimization level, I might also rule that the nightstick (LM) doesn't stack, which isn't a straight out ban.

And I'd ban players from being able to craft magic ammunition in small quantities, which is a trick to get some great weapon SA benefits cheap.

[Thurbane]

There was a pretty awesome relic in a 3rd party book I read recently, which was a severed hand that allowed the wielder to benefit from 5 rings at once, and activate two command activated powers/round as free actions.

It could also animate and use the rings on its own.

[Crake]

I agree here. The only items I'd ban are in the SRD (namely the candle of invocation and the dust of sneezing and choking). The MIC is such a great book.

Depending on optimization level, I might also rule that the nightstick (LM) doesn't stack, which isn't a straight out ban.

And I'd ban players from being able to craft magic ammunition in small quantities, which is a trick to get some great weapon SA benefits cheap.

I let players craft ammo in smaller batches, because sometimes you just don't want 50 dragonbane arrows haha. Plus sometimes there's a time constraint, and for a single shot, even an expensive ability can be wasted by the shot just missing.

That said, anything that's along the lines of "while held" isn't getting applied to ammo in my game.

[DarkSoul]

The Ring of Wizardry (Period).

Combines the effects of Rings of Wizardry I - IX in a single band. I priced it out at one point and it's several million gold.

[Crake]

The Ring of Wizardry (Period).

Combines the effects of Rings of Wizardry I - IX in a single band. I priced it out at one point and it's several million gold.

Is that before or after the x10 epic item cost increase?

[DarkSoul]

Is that before or after the x10 epic item cost increase?After the increase, especially considering rings of levels 5-9 are already epic.

[Ludic]

Wouldn't an always on version just be called a speed weapon? :smalltongue:


+3 Bonus. 18,000 gold versus 1,400 for the bracer that are for any weapon you're holding. 1,400 that applies it's effect to both weapons if you're a TWF character or whatever weapon you're using at the time, or 18,000 for each weapon. If the bracers were 1,400 and an always on, why would you ever take a speed weapon? Excluding the MiC being banned by the DM. And yet, for some reason, they're both built on Haste, and have the same exclusions listed. One just takes Wondrous Item, and the Other Magic Arms and Armor.

[AtlasSniperman]

I assume you don't mind non-core spells being used?
If so, the spell "24 Hours"(Encyclopedia Arcane- Chronomancy) when combined into a touch-attack item with the spell "Bleed"(Complete champion) could theoretically deal 14400 damage and cost 264000gp(I think), which if you think about it is SUPER CHEAP.

[Zancloufer]

Staff of Infinite Wishes.

Get any masterwork staff (even a +1 would be fine), make it usable only by a specific alignment, skill, and get that -25% cost reduction feat. End cost is something like 180K for what is essentially Wish at Will.

[Jormengand]

Using the custom magic item rules, we can get these brilliant items:

The Staff of Instant Death
This item, despite its name, is not a staff in the conventional sense, but a wondrous item bolted to the front of a quarterstaff. Each staff is keyed to a particular class or alignment, and a particular skill (such as truenamers and truespeak, or chaotic good and perform (kazoo)). When a creature that has trained in the relevant skill and is of the relevant class or alignment touches the staff, it activates, causing a whirling cone of energy in front of the wielder in a 15 foot cone. Any creature who touches the cone takes 1d4 points of damage. Half of this damage is fire damage, but the other half results directly from divine power and is not subject to fire resistance. This process is repeated until the character is dead, instantly killing any character who is not somehow immune to divine damage.
Market Price: 600 gp.
Prerequisites: burning hands; creator must have the Sanctum Spell feat, and either the consecrate spell or corrupt spell feat, and a feat such as arcane thesis (burning hands), easy metamagic (consecrate spell) or practical metamagic (corrupt spell). The item must be made outside the creator's sanctum. Some of the prerequisites can be ignored, but if either the sanctum prerequisite or the metamagic reducer prerequisite is ignored, the cost is 1200 GP. If both are ignored, the price is 7200 GP.

Eternal Striking (Weapon property)
A weapon of eternal striking allows the wielder to make an extra attack whenever the wielder attacks with it, and they ignore concealment with their attacks. It only works for one wielder, and is therefore keyed to a skill they can use, their class or alignment, and their personal true name. The magical properties of the weapon don't trigger except for the intended user, and creatures cannot attack with the weapon at all unless they meet the skill and class/alignment prerequisites.
Market Price: 60% of masterwork weapon price. Prerequsites: temporal twist, archer's eye.

Calculations:

The burning hands price is based on Sanctum Spell making it 0-level, meaning that the continuous cost is 2000*0.5*1, except that making a weapon that can only be used by certain people reduces its cost to 60% of the original cost. If the spell is level 1, it costs 2000*1*1*0.6=1200, and if it's level 2 (due to the non-reduced metamagic) the cost is 2000*2*3*0.6=7200.
The cost for temporal twist and archer's eye is 0 if the creator has no truenamer levels, as their caster level is zero. This can be achieved by taking lots of feats and such. To add insult to injury, the base weapon price also seems to be reduced by the cost reducer. If you want a ranged weapon, use activated Bolt (the psionic power) only costs an extra 600.

EDIT: Also these:

Eternal Health (Armour Property)
Armour of Eternal Health is keyed to one user, and only works for users of their alignment or class, and with a skill they have trained. These are chosen upon creation.
The wearer of the armour of eternal health is always at maximum hit points. Any of the following conditions is cured by the armour upon application of that condition: ability damaged, ability drained, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, dead, deafened, diseased, energy drained, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned.
Market Price: 60% of masterwork armour cost + 117600 GP. Requirements: True Resurrection, Restoration, Heal. Creator must have the Sanctum Spell and Ignore Material Components feats and the item must be crafted outside of their sanctum.

Lesser Eternal Health (Armour Property).
Armour of Lesser Eternal Health is keyed to one user, and only works for users of their alignment or class, and with a skill they have trained. These are chosen upon creation.
The wearer of the armour of lesser eternal health is always at maximum hit points.
Market Price: 60% of masterwork armour cost +600GP.

[icefractal]

If we're talking about people with massive wealth (as in the OP), then unarmed strike is the most enchantable weapon of all. A +2 Necklace of Natural Attacks is 8600 gp. Make it slotless for 17200 gp. Now get separate ones with every single +1 property that's at all useful and wear them all at once. Do the same with the other properties if you want; it's somewhat expensive, but far cheaper than trying to fit that all on one weapon, and custom slotless items can be unstealable.

Heck, even if you don't plan to fight in melee whatsoever, it may be worth it to get useful properties applied to your body. With the Monk's unarmed strike (conveniently available in item form already), you can turn your body into metal (Metalline), semi-incorporeal energy (Brilliant Energy), and who knows what else?


The most over-the-top item I've used was this, in a fairly ridiculous game:

The Miracle Engine
Intelligent item that has the powers of Miracle and Gate (travel only) at will. Extremely expensive, but I built it as magical architecture (immobile), and had some cost-reducers, so it was doable somewhere in 15th-18th level.
What does it do? Create and maintain a huge and dynamically reshaping complex of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansions linked together with Gates. Miracle allowed it to do a number of things, like M^3 itself, Telekinesis to move stuff around, Image spells for decoration.
It also allowed copying a rather broken spell from a Forgotten Realms book, which could steal the actions from all creatures nearby (max 10, I think) and give them to you. So hey, 10x speed improvement, 10x more mansion size it can handle.
Then I made some keys that let you get in mental contact with it. Take one out, think the right password, and the next door you unlocked with it would lead inside the mansion.
It had no particular protection against people Gate-ing in, but once inside they'd face a labyrinth that shut closed around them, leaving them sitting in a no-longer-connected Magnificant Mansion whose duration was soon to expire. We had to make up a rule for what happens when a M^3 expires and the plane it was made from is also gone - dumped in a random spot on the Astral Plane, same as a ripped Bag of Holding, was our answer.

In all honesty, the fact that it could generate a massive space was something that never mattered - I didn't have that much stuff to store. But it did make for a pretty swanky base of operations (and housing for followers, minions, etc), and the easy travel was handy.

[Morphic tide]

Let's see what sillyness I can think of...

Demon's Doom:
Magic side: +1 Holy Axiomantic Bane of Outsiders(Evil and Chaotic) Use Activated CL 1 True Strike
Cost: +7 bonus (98,000 GP) + 2,000 = 100,000 GP

As it turns out, use activated True Strike only costs 2,000 GP because of it's status as a 1st level spell. As for what this does, +27 to to-hit, +7 to damage and +8d6 damage vs Demons, who fill the Chaotic, Evil and respective Outsider banes. Sure, the True Strike will be devouring actions, but much demon destroying is had off of a +7 bonus and an overpowered spell activated continuously.

Also, have people ever debated about mixing the Magic and Psionic bonuses? I'm not sure how they stack for pricing...

[gr8artist]

Most overpowered I've used: Vest of Enlargement
Use-activated or continuous spell effect cost = Spell Rank * Caster Level * 2000 * (modifier for spell's original duration)
Enlarge Person has a duration of 1 minute / level, which has a special modifier of 2.
So what you get is an option to permanently enlarge yourself for the measly cost of 4000 gold (1 x 1 x 2000 x 2).

I promptly put that on a Skinwalker (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/more-races/standard-races-1-10-rp/skinwalkers-10-rp) Barbarian / Warshaper build (it was a 3.P crossover campaign on the forums here), for tons of melee damage. [Character Sheet] (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1037163)
I then proceeded to play like an ******* and piss everyone off. Not so proud of that part.

[Crake]

+3 Bonus. 18,000 gold versus 1,400 for the bracer that are for any weapon you're holding. 1,400 that applies it's effect to both weapons if you're a TWF character or whatever weapon you're using at the time, or 18,000 for each weapon. If the bracers were 1,400 and an always on, why would you ever take a speed weapon? Excluding the MiC being banned by the DM. And yet, for some reason, they're both built on Haste, and have the same exclusions listed. One just takes Wondrous Item, and the Other Magic Arms and Armor.

It most certainly does not. It says you may make an extra attack "with any weapon you are holding", not "with all weapons you are holding". You can pick one weapon you are holidng and you get to make a single extra attack with that weapon.

Additionally, by "always on" I assumed you meant "at will" since it's an activation item, so it would continue to eat up your swift action every turn. Sure, some characters wouldn't care about that, but many builds have something else to spend their swift action on, ot only that, but the bracers require you to have performed a full attack, which can sometimes be hard to set up. Finally, as a slotted item, that in and of itself is a downside.

Compare it instead to the spell Swift Haste, which does practically the same thing as the bracers, except it also grants you a +1 attack bonus, dodge bonus to AC and reflex saves and can also counter/dispel a slow spell on yourself, AND lasts 1d4 rounds, rather than just for a single turn. To make a 1/day, command word item of swift haste that only lasts 1 round would cost (1800*2*4/5=5760gp/average 2.5 rounds) 2304gp, Minus the bonuses to AC, attacks and reflex saves and bam, you've basically got your quickstrike bracers.

The main thing is: Maybe I want something else in that bracer slot, or maybe I want to use swift actions for something else. Either of those is good cause to use a speed weapon over the bracers, but honestly, I think, and I believe many others agree, the speed weapon ability is overpriced, rather than the bracers being too cheap.

[Barstro]

This runs into the same issue, you reduced the crafting cost, but the market value remains the same, and the market value for that is still over 200,000gp, making it an epic item.

Cover it with "Frozen" stickers. That will reduce the price market value considerably, assuming the owner is not an eight year old girl.

[Zancloufer]

Using the custom magic item rules, we can get these brilliant items:

The Staff of Instant Death
This item, despite its name, is not a staff in the conventional sense, but a wondrous item bolted to the front of a quarterstaff. Each staff is keyed to a particular class or alignment, and a particular skill (such as truenamers and truespeak, or chaotic good and perform (kazoo)). When a creature that has trained in the relevant skill and is of the relevant class or alignment touches the staff, it activates, causing a whirling cone of energy in front of the wielder in a 15 foot cone. Any creature who touches the cone takes 1d4 points of damage. Half of this damage is fire damage, but the other half results directly from divine power and is not subject to fire resistance. This process is repeated until the character is dead, instantly killing any character who is not somehow immune to divine damage.
Market Price: 600 gp.
Prerequisites: burning hands; creator must have the Sanctum Spell feat, and either the consecrate spell or corrupt spell feat, and a feat such as arcane thesis (burning hands), easy metamagic (consecrate spell) or practical metamagic (corrupt spell). The item must be made outside the creator's sanctum. Some of the prerequisites can be ignored, but if either the sanctum prerequisite or the metamagic reducer prerequisite is ignored, the cost is 1200 GP. If both are ignored, the price is 7200 GP.

Calculations:

The burning hands price is based on Sanctum Spell making it 0-level, meaning that the continuous cost is 2000*0.5*1, except that making a weapon that can only be used by certain people reduces its cost to 60% of the original cost. If the spell is level 1, it costs 2000*1*1*0.6=1200, and if it's level 2 (due to the non-reduced metamagic) the cost is 2000*2*3*0.6=7200.
The cost for temporal twist and archer's eye is 0 if the creator has no truenamer levels, as their caster level is zero. This can be achieved by taking lots of feats and such. To add insult to injury, the base weapon price also seems to be reduced by the cost reducer. If you want a ranged weapon, use activated Bolt (the psionic power) only costs an extra 600.

The problem with the Staff of Instant Death (bedsides that any game that it would fly at is so far beyond practical optimization your not playing D&D anymore) is that Continuous/User Activated items are either :
(A) Full time buffs that are always active
(B) Standard action to use its ability(ies) once.
(C) It's abilities are activated on "usage", so for a weapon that means every time it is swung. Mind you 600GP for a +1 staff that does +1d4 damage in a small AoE on each strike is still a very nice magic item, but not game breaking as you interpret the rules here.

[Morphic tide]

The problem with the Staff of Instant Death (bedsides that any game that it would fly at is so far beyond practical optimization your not playing D&D anymore) is that Continuous/User Activated items are either :
(A) Full time buffs that are always active
(B) Standard action to use its ability(ies) once.
(C) It's abilities are activated on "usage", so for a weapon that means every time it is swung. Mind you 600GP for a +1 staff that does +1d4 damage in a small AoE on each strike is still a very nice magic item, but not game breaking as you interpret the rules here.

Actually, the cost table makes it fairly clear that the Use Activated/Continuous entry is for continuous and at-will use. Single Use (Use Activated) is it's own entry on the table. This is rather broken as it allows for infinite True Strikes at 2,000 GP before any cost reduction shenanigans. And the attack trigger makes it even more powerful because it makes it so all your attacks have a +20 to to-hit, before any other effects. Another similar issue is that Continuous Bull's Strength is cheaper than a +4 to Strength, then you can stack other types of bonus. Generally, if a spell granting a bonus exists, the spell is cheaper than the normal bonus.

Fun fact: One can make a ring granting +44 to a skill pre-Epic. Instead, they can make an item with a +22 bonus to 4 skills. Or a +20 bonus to five skills.

[Mr Adventurer]

Ever since I thought of it, I've always wanted to have an intelligent item Staff of the Magi. The Staff can absorb spells as charges. Normally you don't know how many it has, and have to ready an action to absorb a spell, and it explodes if it overloads. Making it intelligent bypasses all of those problems, and you basically have a wizard who's got your back, too.

Of course it is an artifact so I don't think I'll ever be able to have such a grossly overpowered thing. It did make me wonder whether you could make a weapon crystal which made it's host item intelligent, though...

[Morphic tide]

Ever since I thought of it, I've always wanted to have an intelligent item Staff of the Magi. The Staff can absorb spells as charges. Normally you don't know how many it has, and have to ready an action to absorb a spell, and it explodes if it overloads. Making it intelligent bypasses all of those problems, and you basically have a wizard who's got your back, too.

Of course it is an artifact so I don't think I'll ever be able to have such a grossly overpowered thing. It did make me wonder whether you could make a weapon crystal which made it's host item intelligent, though...

Well, I fail to see the point of making the weapon intelligent. There's no functional difference between an Intelligent Item that is a sword and one that is an axe beyond the mundane item they are in. Anything that can have magic item effects applied can be an intelligent magic item. So, the crystal should be able to be an intelligent item, but it means nothing as the enhancements should transfer to the weapon it's in.

[JoshuaZ]

That's not actually correct. While you're right, it having a +10 bonus puts it at the edge of non-epic, the market value of a +10 sword is 200,000gp. Adding any flat value bonus to that weapon will push it over 200,000gp, which, according to the epic item crafting rules:



That's enough to push it into an epic item.



This runs into the same issue, you reduced the crafting cost, but the market value remains the same, and the market value for that is still over 200,000gp, making it an epic item.

Good catches. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Mr Adventurer]

Well, I fail to see the point of making the weapon intelligent. There's no functional difference between an Intelligent Item that is a sword and one that is an axe beyond the mundane item they are in. Anything that can have magic item effects applied can be an intelligent magic item. So, the crystal should be able to be an intelligent item, but it means nothing as the enhancements should transfer to the weapon it's in.

Er... What?

[Morphic tide]

Er... What?

Basically, there's no point to having the Intelligent Item property transfer to the weapon the crystal is in. It has no mechanical benefit, because the crystal already gives all of it's abilities to the weapon.

[Crake]

Actually, the cost table makes it fairly clear that the Use Activated/Continuous entry is for continuous and at-will use. Single Use (Use Activated) is it's own entry on the table. This is rather broken as it allows for infinite True Strikes at 2,000 GP before any cost reduction shenanigans. And the attack trigger makes it even more powerful because it makes it so all your attacks have a +20 to to-hit, before any other effects. Another similar issue is that Continuous Bull's Strength is cheaper than a +4 to Strength, then you can stack other types of bonus. Generally, if a spell granting a bonus exists, the spell is cheaper than the normal bonus.

Fun fact: One can make a ring granting +44 to a skill pre-Epic. Instead, they can make an item with a +22 bonus to 4 skills. Or a +20 bonus to five skills.

Use activated is something of a misnomer because you can't actually make a sword that's "activated when swung" to grant true strike, it still takes a standard action to use. This is the difference between a "continuous" used activated ability (such as a sword's +1 enhnacement bonus, which is "use activated when swung") and an item that actually requires manual activate, which non-continuous spell effect items are. Also, granting an enhancement bonus to an ability, even if you're trying to do so via duplicating a continuous spell, still uses the pricing guidelines for granting an enhancement bonus to an ability, sorry to burst your bubble there. Remember these are guidelines, not hard and fast rules, so there's no "gaming the system" when it comes to custom items. This is a very common misreading of the rules by novice players though, so don't worry yourself too much.

Also, despite it not being over the cost limitations, there is a hard limitation of +30 to a skill check pre-epic, so granting +31 to a skill check makes the item an epic one. Additionally, though not a hard rule, all existing +skill items require a number of ranks in the skill equal to the bonus, so even then, +30 to a skill would still require level 27 to make.

[Morphic tide]

Use activated is something of a misnomer because you can't actually make a sword that's "activated when swung" to grant true strike, it still takes a standard action to use. This is the difference between a "continuous" used activated ability (such as a sword's +1 enhnacement bonus, which is "use activated when swung") and an item that actually requires manual activate, which non-continuous spell effect items are. Also, granting an enhancement bonus to an ability, even if you're trying to do so via duplicating a continuous spell, still uses the pricing guidelines for granting an enhancement bonus to an ability, sorry to burst your bubble there. Remember these are guidelines, not hard and fast rules, so there's no "gaming the system" when it comes to custom items. This is a very common misreading of the rules by novice players though, so don't worry yourself too much.

Also, despite it not being over the cost limitations, there is a hard limitation of +30 to a skill check pre-epic, so granting +31 to a skill check makes the item an epic one. Additionally, though not a hard rule, all existing +skill items require a number of ranks in the skill equal to the bonus, so even then, +30 to a skill would still require level 27 to make.

That's why I said the attack activation would make it more OP. I wasn't agreeing with that interpretation of "use activated," I was giving an example of why it would shatter game balance. If you look at the item I posted, you'd see that I specifically mentioned that the True Strike effect screws over the action economy of the user of it. But +20 to to-hit is still massive enough that it's worth needing multiple actions. Especially for a sniper, who can easily get to the point of half mile range.

As for the skill restrictions, I did not know that. Can still get 5 +20 bonuses, though.

[Morphic tide]

Okay, let's look at the basic cost reduction things:

Full Alignment lock and class restriction: reduces to 34.3% base price. Shockingly huge cost reduction, but the math checks out. 0.7 * 0.7 * 0.7, a 30% cost reduction three times.

Requires a skill to use: reduces by 10%, may be used more than once, but that's a sort of cheese that leads to book-to-head collision. If stacked, associated skills work best.

Combined, these two make an item cost 30.87% base cost. That's after all other cost modifiers.

Now, for the basic effect costs:

The equation for use-activated and continuous spells is (SL*CL) * 2,000 GP. This is for whenever you want spells. The minimum cost for a 3rd level spell, here, is (3*5)*2,000 GP, or 30,000 GP. Plug that into the cost reduction pileup and you get 9,281 GP. As a side note, infinite use 9ths require a skill prerequisite and locking to a class or alignment, at minimum. Doing so gives a cost of 192,780 GP. Do note that the pre-Epic cost limit applies only to the cost from the equation, material costs and XP costs do not get counted. So having a Staff of Wish that requires you to have Spellcraft and be a Wizard is entirely doable pre-Epic.

Command word activation, however, uses 1,800 GP instead of 2,000 GP for the final bit. This is a small risk, as you need to be able to speak as you use the item, but it changes the cost for a 3rd level spell to 27,000 GP, or 8,334.9 GP with all the cost reduction. It also removes the need for the skill lock on the Staff of Wish. Have the command word be "I, (character name) Demand" for extra drama.

Of note is that Continuous spells cost more based on duration. It's *4 cost for rounds duration, *2 for minutes duration, 10 minutes/level is *1.5 and 24 hours or greater is half cost. This makes Persist well worth the spell level adjustment for the shortest buffs, as it can cut the cost down to 1/8th what it would have been otherwise.

Enhancement bonuses to attributes cost (bonus ^2) * 1,000 GP. This makes it so that you are, by far, better off using continuous buff spells than you are using this effect. Non-enhancement bonuses are even worse. However, stacking the buff spells with the non-enhancement bonus things can let you get quite a bit higher. Armor bonus (Enhancement) and Save Bonus (Resistance) have the same cost.

Natural Armor bonus (Enhancement), AC bonus (Deflection), Weapon Bonus (Enhancement) and Save Bonus (Other) cost twice as much as the Enhancement bonuses for Armor. So, (bonus^2)*2,000 GP. This makes them sub par unless you have quite a lot of gold laying around or have maxed out other options.

AC bonus (Other) costs (bonus^2)*2,500 GP. So it's one of the worst options to have. Of course, because of how exponents work, the optimal layout is to keep the AC bonuses equal and upgrade them in the order of Armor Bonus (Enhancement), Natural Armor Bonus (Enhancement), AC bonus (Deflection), then the remaining AC bonuses.

Bonus Spell, as in Pearls of Power, cost (SL^2)*1,000 GP. This can be rather useful, for a few builds, but it largely isn't worth it. Rings of Wizardry are just better, because those scale.

SR is a bit odd. 10,000 GP for each point over 12, with a minimum of 13. You can get SR 32 pre-Epic without the cost reduction. With the cost reduction, that SR 32 goes down to 61,740 GP. The max for all the cost reduction included is SR 64, with 2,432 GP left over.

Skill bonuses are caped at +30 pre-Epic(which you can have two of on one item), but the equation is (skill bonus^2)*100. As with all exponents, better to spread out. 5 +20 bonuses is just about optimal, as a +2 usually isn't worth losing a +20 to a skill.


I hope this listing of how much the various things cost as a start helps people come up with items.

[Jormengand]

(A) Full time buffs that are always active

It's this one, except that there's nothing saying that it has to be a buff. It changes the duration of the burning hands from instantaneous (you take the damage once) to permanent (you take the damage constantly).

[Morphic tide]

It's this one, except that there's nothing saying that it has to be a buff. It changes the duration of the burning hands from instantaneous (you take the damage once) to permanent (you take the damage constantly).

At which point the most logical interpretation is that it's an impossible to extinguish flamethrower.

[VisitingDaGulag]

You reduced the crafting cost, but the market value remains the same, and the market value for that is still over 200,000gp, making it an epic item.But if you start flooding the market with these things (doable with dedicated wrights), then doesn't that become the market price? Is there a definition of market price somewhere?

It would TO if you were a fighter trying to convince your DM that your items should be bought for cheap. But if you're the guy making them then you do have control over their price.

[icefractal]

Of note is that Continuous spells cost more based on duration. It's *4 cost for rounds duration, *2 for minutes duration, 10 minutes/level is *1.5 and 24 hours or greater is half cost. This makes Persist well worth the spell level adjustment for the shortest buffs, as it can cut the cost down to 1/8th what it would have been otherwise.By making it +6 spell levels higher? Most metamagic-reduction methods only work for casting, not for crafting.


It's this one, except that there's nothing saying that it has to be a buff. It changes the duration of the burning hands from instantaneous (you take the damage once) to permanent (you take the damage constantly). Sure, but it's still only applying 1/person/round. There are plenty of continual damaging spells, such as Wall of Fire, and the continuous part doesn't mean "kills everything by applying infinite times in a second."


So that I'm not just nitpicking :smallredface: -
Spell Storing / Glyph Seal / anything similar is a great way to leverage those metamagic-cheesed abilities that would normally be impossible to put in item form. Even setting aside Spell Storing arrows (a massive bargain if allowed), a +1 Spell Storing Dagger is only 8.3K gp. For something that can hold a ridiculously amped-up Orb of X spell, that's not a bad price at all, and it's even re-usable.

Which brings me to:
Golden Gun
There are better ways to kill people, but if you're insanely wealthy enough you can use this. It has two spells, both use activated:
Limited Wish (to guarantee your next attack hits)
Quickened Launch Item (arguably doesn't need to be Quickened, but this seems more fair)

So whatever you fire from it hits automatically within 300 ft. For ammunition, use fine-sized Spell-Storing weapons.

[Jormengand]

Sure, but it's still only applying 1/person/round.

Source on this? Buffs such as magic weapon don't only apply once per round: it is generally the case that the spell increases your attack and damage rolls with each attack you make. Wall of fire can affect you multiple times if you cross the wall more than once. Spells such as acid fog specify that they deal damage each round, so they do that. Burning hands only with a duration deals damage each time you're a creature and you're in the area.

I'll grant you that I'm using a reading that I would never use in a real game, but it is technically the correct reading.

[icefractal]

Source on this? Buffs such as magic weapon don't only apply once per round: it is generally the case that the spell increases your attack and damage rolls with each attack you make. Wall of fire can affect you multiple times if you cross the wall more than once. Spells such as acid fog specify that they deal damage each round, so they do that. Burning hands only with a duration deals damage each time you're a creature and you're in the area.

I'll grant you that I'm using a reading that I would never use in a real game, but it is technically the correct reading.Magic Weapon is just applying once - its effect is that the weapon is +1, which applies to all attacks you make with it, but there's only a single instance of the Magic Weapon effect itself.

Interesting point about re-entry; I think you can make a reasonable case that continuous Burning Hands would act like Wall of Fire, so if you have forced movement you can shove enemies through it repeatedly. If you're saying you could wave it back and forth as a free action to apply it multiple times - I don't think that can be extrapolated, given that nothing else in the game works that way.

[Jormengand]

Magic Weapon is just applying once - its effect is that the weapon is +1, which applies to all attacks you make with it, but there's only a single instance of the Magic Weapon effect itself.

Exactly - there's also only a single instance of acid fog or wall of fire or Staff of Instant Death, it's just that each of them has a different trigger for how many times it activates (once per round, once per entry [though you can also argue that it's active continually when you're in the state of moving through {Nested brackets are fun!}], for as long as you're a creature in the area of the flames). If it matters so much to you, you can have a cursed -2 sword of instant death, drop it, and re-draw it using quick draw (or put its sheath in your Spell Component Pouch so that drawing it is a feee action) to put creatures back in the area again.

[bean illus]

At will all day true strike.

I saw a thread about the cost of it. I don't remember, but it's just a 1st level spell. Obviously best if it somehow applies to the wearer, not the weapon.

[Morphic tide]

By making it +6 spell levels higher? Most metamagic-reduction methods only work for casting, not for crafting.

Actually still cheaper. X6 price from slot increase compared to 1/8th price from going from rounds/level to 24 hr. duration. So you multiply the price by 6, then divide by 8, over getting the normal spell Continuous. Overall, you get a 25% cost reduction over the non-Persisted version of a spell with rounds/level duration. The bigger cost is fewer metamagic slot ups left. Oh, and the fact that it only works for 3rd level and lower spells. Unless you can stack metamagic to push a spell past 9th level pre-Epic, which would be silly.

Nobody commenting on the 30.87% cost? This over triples how much you can fit into a pre-Epic item. Because the cost reduction from restrictions applies to the market price. Increasing the effective maximum GP value of a pre-Epic item to well over 620,000 GP. Never seen anyone exploit this bit of RAW... Well, I mentioned a Command Word Staff of Wish with only a class restriction as RAW valid...

Staff of Wizardly Supremacy
This staff, engraved with many incomprehensible arcane scripts, is often considered an artifact beyond mortal power, gifted by a God of arcane studies. In truth, it is merely the result of a long-forgotten egotistical Wizard who wished to create an item that would ensure the supremacy of Wizards for all time.
Abilities: Unlimited Use Command Word Wish, CL 17
Requirements: User must have Wizard class levels
Cost: 210,280 GP (RAW excludes material component based cost and XP based cost from the pre-Epic limit, so this is actually RAW legal. If it has to have a specific Wish wording to trigger, have it make Rings of Three Wishes and increase costs accordingly)

I'd give you the cost step-by-step, but I don't have access to a calculator at the moment(why the hell does Apple require your password for free apps?) so you'll just have to check the math yourself. I got 17,500 GP for the restriction-adjusted XP based cost, so that you know where that came from. Please correct any math I got wrong.

[gr8artist]

At will all day true strike.

I saw a thread about the cost of it. I don't remember, but it's just a 1st level spell. Obviously best if it somehow applies to the wearer, not the weapon.

That's one of those things that falls under the "no you can't make this because comparable magic items have absurdly different costs" fiat.
Spell Level (1) x Caster Level (1) x Continuous (2000) x Duration Modifier (4) = 8000 for an enchantment that gives you True Strike continuously.

[Calthropstu]

Okay, let's look at the basic cost reduction things:

Full Alignment lock and class restriction: reduces to 34.3% base price. Shockingly huge cost reduction, but the math checks out. 0.7 * 0.7 * 0.7, a 30% cost reduction three times.

Requires a skill to use: reduces by 10%, may be used more than once, but that's a sort of cheese that leads to book-to-head collision. If stacked, associated skills work best.

Combined, these two make an item cost 30.87% base cost. That's after all other cost modifiers.


Ummm, can you show me where you can stack cost reduction modifiers, because as far as I can see, those modifiers do not stack since they are listed as modifiers, and modifiers of the same source (in this case restriction modifiers) do not stack.

[icefractal]

Actually still cheaper. X6 price from slot increase compared to 1/8th price from going from rounds/level to 24 hr. duration. So you multiply the price by 6, then divide by 8, over getting the normal spell Continuous.If it's the same caster level, then yes - better than that in fact, since it's only x6 for 1st level spells, less for 2nd/3rd. But if you're going for the minimum CL, it's a pretty big difference:
Sanctuary, Continuous = 1 (SL) x 1 (CL) x 8 (duration) = 8
Persistent Sanctuary, Continuous = 7 (SL) x 13 (CL) x 0.5 (duration) = 45.5

Edit: Although now that I calculate it out, 3rd level spells are cheaper the Persistent way, even at minimum CL. Interesting, I'd never noticed that. And if you can find a way to make Persistent only +5, 2nd level spells would also be cheaper.


Nobody commenting on the 30.87% cost? This over triples how much you can fit into a pre-Epic item. Because the cost reduction from restrictions applies to the market price. Increasing the effective maximum GP value of a pre-Epic item to well over 620,000 GP. Never seen anyone exploit this bit of RAW... It's RAW (as a guideline), but it's also one of the most common ones for GMs to ban, since it's power for nothing in a very direct way. Also, it sets a precedent where logically speaking, all the treasure the foes have could be geared to extremely specific combinations too (Belt of Strength +6, but only for LE Hobgoblin Monks) :smalleek:

[Mr Adventurer]

Basically, there's no point to having the Intelligent Item property transfer to the weapon the crystal is in. It has no mechanical benefit, because the crystal already gives all of it's abilities to the weapon.

These things are contradictory, or at least seem to be orthogonal to one another?

"There's no point in X. Because X is already true."

Are you saying that weapon crystals already transfer all of their properties to the weapon they are attached to? Does it say that in the MIC? Because I thought it was only the specific listed effects.

[Calthropstu]

It's RAW (as a guideline), but it's also one of the most common ones for GMs to ban, since it's power for nothing in a very direct way. Also, it sets a precedent where logically speaking, all the treasure the foes have could be geared to extremely specific combinations too (Belt of Strength +6, but only for LE Hobgoblin Monks) :smalleek:

If my players tried that level of cheese, I'd probably respond that way.