3.5e Custom Magic Item- Old School command words?

[Nezkrul]

Back in the fun days of 2e, if you had command word items, and ANYONE that said the command word, within like 30 feet of you, activated your magic item, regardless of weather you wanted them to or not.

I know for 3.5e they changed the way command-words work to actually be an action you have to take, but...

Is it possible to have an old-school command word activated item in 3.5e?

Would be useful if you tied in certain condition-removing spells to their command words, so that your friends could activate your item for you on their turns to help get you out of sticky situations.

[ericgrau]

It has a major issue if saying that word doesn't cost an action. That dramatically increases the power and cost of the item. It has a major issue if saying a word DOES cost an action, because you could make the command word "the" simply to make talking enemies have a high chance of losing their turn. Maybe saying the command word AND deliberately using an action could work. Meaning no accidental activation. Force of will I guess. In that case I'd give it a cost multiplier, something like x1.5 or x2.

Sure it could be a drawback if enemies find out. But if you do your best to keep the word secret and/or make it something that's hard to pronounce correctly it's usually an advantage.

[Saintheart]

Because Rune Magic out of the FRCS is semi-broken, this can be fairly easily done with permanent runes. You have to be a Runecaster PrC to do it, but this enables you to set a rune that triggers when read or passed within 30 feet of you. A rune that so triggers, per RAW, "can be set to almost any special condition the caster specifies", excepting only that the rune can't trigger on a given class, level, or HD. Passwords or phrases can be put on a rune to stop it activating, so the reverse likely applies as well. The cost increase is reflected in the fact this form of rune is double the normal price to make it.

A rune costs a standard action for someone to deliberately trigger it, and no action to trigger otherwise. Which means enemies within 30 feet and uttering the trigger word are hit without spending any actions. Runes are explicitly capable of functioning as simple magic traps, which essentially is what you're doing with this. This is essentially command-word magic