Items with personal triggers

[Falcii]

I have a player who wants a magical device that only he can activate properly, but when other people it fails spectacularly and seemingly humiliatingly. Is there a RAW way to account for this kind of thing?

The example he gave was a wand of prestidigitation which produced whatever smell he liked when he used it but in another person's hands would only produce a foul stench.

(I know I could hand wave it but I'd prefer to stick legit if it's possible)

[Venger]

I have a player who wants a magical device that only he can activate properly, but when other people it fails spectacularly and seemingly humiliatingly. Is there a RAW way to account for this kind of thing?

The example he gave was a wand of prestidigitation which produced whatever smell he liked when he used it but in another person's hands would only produce a foul stench.

(I know I could hand wave it but I'd prefer to stick legit if it's possible)

He can't exactly make it work only for himself, but he can come pretty close with other considerations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#otherConsiderations) and build in a requirement for a user to have x ranks in a skill, x class, and x alignment matching his own stats. Gives him a little discount, too.

It doesn't allow per se for him to curse enemies trying to use it to smell bad, but as long as you don't apply a mechanical penalty for it in the game to npcs doing this, it's probably fine to just handwave, that sounds pretty cute.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The only option for that is an intelligent item of his own crafting with a -huge- ego score. That, however, requires a CL of 15 and some means of being able to craft magical gear. Access to a forge of thautam can cover the latter and a SLA of some stripe can do the former if it's keyed off of HD or has a fixed CL that's high enough. Otherwise, he's SooL.

[Nifft]

If this PC were to take the Item Familiar feat, the PC would get a friendly intelligent item around level 7.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm

[DarkSoul]

He can't exactly make it work only for himself, but he can come pretty close with other considerations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#otherConsiderations) and build in a requirement for a user to have x ranks in a skill, x class, and x alignment matching his own stats. Gives him a little discount, too.

It doesn't allow per se for him to curse enemies trying to use it to smell bad, but as long as you don't apply a mechanical penalty for it in the game to npcs doing this, it's probably fine to just handwave, that sounds pretty cute.This was the first thing I thought of too.