Is the Ancestral Relic feat worth it?

[skunk3]

To me it seems like the feat would be nice in certain ways since you can sacrifice gear at full value (rather than selling to a merchant to get GP) to enhance your item, but the total GP value of the item is based upon what level you are (which isn't all that helpful until level ~17 or so), and also it takes 8 hours a day of prayer or meditation, and judging by how the feat is written, it seems as though you can't skip a day once you have started the process... so if you wanted to sacrifice an item that is worth 20k GP you have to spend at 8 hours a day praying / meditating for 20 continuous days to receive the benefit. That's cool and all if you are in a campaign with a lot of down time, but if you don't have that down time it would be extremely hard to find the time to do that.

Another thing that kinda sucks about the feat is that the item must be an item that you own that was inherited from your family, so without some metagaming RP cheese that basically means that you have to get special permission from your DM to allow you to turn an item that you obtain later in the game into an ancestral relic by saying that you bought it from some pawn shop that your great-great-grandfather sold it to many years ago to pay off gambling debts or something... or you could simply just start with a plain masterwork item that is a family heirloom and slowly improve it.

To me it seems like the feat isn't really worth it unless you are hellbent on having an item with a higher than normal total GP limit and spending less money than normal... which sounds cool but it only really shines in later levels and requires a lot of down time. Thoughts?

[Kelb_Panthera]

To me it seems like the feat would be nice in certain ways since you can sacrifice gear at full value (rather than selling to a merchant to get GP) to enhance your item, but the total GP value of the item is based upon what level you are (which isn't all that helpful until level ~17 or so), and also it takes 8 hours a day of prayer or meditation, and judging by how the feat is written, it seems as though you can't skip a day once you have started the process... so if you wanted to sacrifice an item that is worth 20k GP you have to spend at 8 hours a day praying / meditating for 20 continuous days to receive the benefit. That's cool and all if you are in a campaign with a lot of down time, but if you don't have that down time it would be extremely hard to find the time to do that.

Another thing that kinda sucks about the feat is that the item must be an item that you own that was inherited from your family, so without some metagaming RP cheese that basically means that you have to get special permission from your DM to allow you to turn an item that you obtain later in the game into an ancestral relic by saying that you bought it from some pawn shop that your great-great-grandfather sold it to many years ago to pay off gambling debts or something... or you could simply just start with a plain masterwork item that is a family heirloom and slowly improve it.

To me it seems like the feat isn't really worth it unless you are hellbent on having an item with a higher than normal total GP limit and spending less money than normal... which sounds cool but it only really shines in later levels and requires a lot of down time. Thoughts?

It's just a limited version of craft arms and armor for that one item with a few tweaks. It's a way to guarantee you get exactly the item you need for that slot without having to worry about getting back to civilization and bugging a wizard/artificer to do the same thing in the same time.

As for the downtime, the first time you can make a 20k, 20 day adjustment is when you hit lvl 14 unless you've been leaving the item well short of its maximum. Even then, 10th is as early as it gets. You should be far more than powerful enough that the adventures you're on by then move at a pace of weeks-to-months unless the world is figuratively on fire. 3 weeks down to improve your odds of victory shouldn't be -too- great an obstacle.

[ranagrande]

It doesn't have to be a family heirloom. The feat description says the item could have belonged to anyone you have a connection with, and gives the example of members of the same religious order. I think that should easily, perhaps even obviously, extend to members of the same adventuring party. So any masterwork item one of your party members gives you could potentially become an ancestral relic.

On most characters, Ancestral Relic is decent, but not really good enough to spend a feat on. It reaches its true potential when picked up by a Chameleon as their second level bonus feat. Take the feat and make your awesome relic. Then switch to a different feat. The description doesn't say that anything happens to the item you've already made if you stop having the feat. You've already paid for it after all, so we can safely assume that it is still fine; you just can't upgrade it further. Now that you have your awesome ancestral relic, and no longer have the Ancestral Relic feat, give your relic away to one of your party members. Now you can take the feat again and make a new one, and continue on in this fashion until each member of your party has their own fancy relic. Then ditch the feat again and take something else.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

According to the pricing in the Stronghold Builder's Guide, buildings and permanent furnishings are ridiculously expensive. Go clear out the enemy temple dedicated to Vecna and sit out front with your portable altar, and sacrifice the temple. Now you've got way more wealth than the DM gave you, without sacrificing any of your WBL. Plus, you just destroyed a temple For the Greater GoodTM.

[Falontani]

It's just a limited version of craft arms and armor for that one item with a few tweaks.
I agree with your entire post except this bit.

You are not limited to weapons armor, or even shields when choosing your relic. Nor are you restricted to Craft Arms and Armor.

If you chose a staff as your relic, you could enchant it as a: Double Weapon, a staff, and a wondrous item. If you chose an Elvencraft Longbow you could enchant it as a double weapon, a longbow, a staff, and a wondrous item.

Technically there is nothing preventing you from also enchanting it as a universal item either.

Also by RAW you may entirely reenchant the relic by donating a single gold piece. (so you have it enchanted at 5k, you spend 1 GP so its enchanted at 5001, and you can take all the enchantments off and change them.)

[BloodSnake'sCha]

It is very good for a runestaff.

I use it 2 times: 1) Low magic game. 2) a Sorserer.

[Acanous]

It’s situationally useful and has some good RP/fluff potential. Better than 1/3rd of the feats out there.

Also if you go Kensei there’s some trick somewhere that lets you end up with a +19 worth of bonuses on the weapon. More if there’s no mag/psi transparency in your game.

[Troacctid]

It gives you the WBL advantage of crafting your most expensive item, but without the XP cost.

[Soranar]

It's incredibly good to casters with limited spell lists (say a sorcerer)

You can use it to get a runestaff which you can customize all the time to reclaim charges on specific spells or add any spell you need access to.

Same trick can be used with a psicrown or a dorje for a psionic character

[Zaq]

It's good if there's one item that your build just plain completely relies on and you have reason to believe that you aren't going to be able to get it otherwise (because the GM dislikes players purchasing items, because you need something obnoxiously obscure, because your GM has a Gygaxian fascination with rolled treasure tables, etc.).

In my Truenamer guide, for instance, I mention it as a semi-guaranteed way to get an Amulet of the Silver Tongue (with the caveat that you do have to have loot in the first place, but it doesn't have to be the "right" loot) if you anticipate that you won't get one otherwise. Now that I think about it, you could potentially make an argument for making your AR into an item that gives a competence bonus to TS, but the Amulet of the Silver Tongue is more ironclad.

I agree that the downtime is a little bit obnoxious in certain cases, so ideally you should only need to use the "upgrade" function a limited number of times if downtime is a concern.

If you have generous access to any or nearly any item you can muster up the gold for, it's not an especially amazing feat for the reasons already mentioned. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a trap feat or anything, but you can often find something better. I wouldn't take it only for the cost savings unless your GM is really, really excited about rolling useless items off a table and just never gives you anything useful (or enough raw gold to buy something useful) outright. The old optimization adage "never spend feats when you can spend gold" is an oversimplification, but it's a decent rule of thumb, and it does apply here. The feat is more useful if you can't just spend the gold for some defined reason.

[Alucard 109]

I know this post is old, but I had an idea that may make the feat worth it.
Whenever there's an item no one wants, offer to buy it at half price (as is customary) using your share of the total loot. Whatever you spend on the item, you end up doubling, due to the fact that ancestral relic is based off the full true value of the items. This means you can get a completely custom magic item for as low as half the usual price for it, for the cost of a single feat
PS: you could also buy items at less than half value, or buy items other people wanted (so long as the price you paid is less than it's actual value) if you want to be evil
Edit: also, it doesn't even require the magic item to be a piece of equipment, so you could theoretically use it to craft a construct, so long as the base was a masterwork object of some significance to you.

[Vizzerdrix]

Lots of people say runestaff, but you could also make a drake helm as well.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'd probably use it on this, myself. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?177889-Brainstorm-for-Psionic-Tricks-Tactics-and-Combos-Handbook/page11&p=23285432#post23285432)

[Vizzerdrix]

I'd probably use it on this, myself. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?177889-Brainstorm-for-Psionic-Tricks-Tactics-and-Combos-Handbook/page11&p=23285432#post23285432)

Personally, Id want enchanted shapesand.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Personally, Id want enchanted shapesand.Can you make shapesand out of riverine?

The possibilities, they are endless.

[jdizzlean]

You can sacrifice anything to add its market value to your ancestral relic, which is then added to the relic's stored gp value. You can then apply that value toward assigning magical properties to the relic, but those properties' total value cannot exceed the value by your level on the table. Nothing says you cannot store value for future use in excess of the maximum magical value.

For example, your party kills a bunch of orcs, and you have 20 studded leather and 20 falchions. The gear is in poor condition and may not even be worth hauling back to town to sell, as you would only get a fraction of its value. However, you can sacrifice all of that into your ancestral relic for its full market value, or 2,000 gp. You must meditate for two days to do so, but you can spend eight hours one day to do half, and eight hours another day to do the rest.

As another example, the party is going through a ruin and finds an ornate marble fountain in one of the overgrown gardens. It's in good condition and certainly worth quite a bit, but it's a permanent fixture and much too heavy to move. In comes your character with his Ancestral Relic feat, and you kneel by it for eight hours a day for several days until the entire thing is sacrificed and the full value is added to your relic! The same goes for all the fixtures in a given dungeon: doors, decorations, carvings, murals, you name it, its value gets added to your gear despite such items not typically being taken into consideration for party loot.

If the party would sell junk loot for half its value, you can buy it from the party pool for that price, and still get a portion back when cash is split. You can sacrifice that junk loot into your relic to add its full market value. For example, 1,000 gp of junk loot would sell in town for 500 gp normally, or 125 gp per character in a party of four. You pay the rest of the party 375 gp for the pile (500 gp, and then you get back 125 gp), and sacrifice the full 1,000 gp into your relic, so you're upgrading it for 3/8 cost.

Each time you upgrade your relic you can completely change what its properties are. You can get a rod, make it a Lesser Rod of Extend, later switch it to a Lesser Rod of Empower, then a Lesser Rod of Maximize, and later upgrade it to a Lesser Rod of Quicken. You don't have to keep any of its previous properties when you upgrade it. You can get a masterwork/masterwork Quarterstaff, make it a custom Runestaff with any spells you want on it. At any time you can switch what spells it provides, and as long as the value stays the same a gp difference of zero makes it take zero days of meditation to switch it. Later on add charges of spells per a Staff. (which we can do at all day long for Divine Power uses) Eventually make each end +1 Defending and put Greater Magic Weapon +5 on each for +10 AC.

It's basically a fully customizable item, plus a garbage disposal for junk loot or unlootable decor that the party wouldn't have hauled back to sell. You always get to pick what magical item it is and can switch what it is (apart from its shape) whenever you want. It's especially good for a character who's extremely dependent on 'the right item' such as a bow with the right properties for an archer, or a runestaff for a sorcerer, etc., especially when your DM won't reliably give PCs access to buying magic items or placing an order to get them crafted.



as zaq said, in a game where you have infinite resources, it loses some luster, otherwise it's much better.

[Roland St. Jude]

I know this post is old, but ...Sheriff: No "buts" please don't revive old threads. Please see the Forum Rules about Thread Necromancy.