Item familiar question

[skunk3]

Is the pre-epic GP value of item familiars capped at 200k like most items?

[magic9mushroom]

Is the pre-epic GP value of item familiars capped at 200k like most items?

Yes and no. It would count as an epic item past that*, but inasmuch as you don't need item creation feats to improve your own item familiar, and the gatekeeper of making epic items is epic item creation feats, you personally could improve it into an epic item pre-epic. Of course, the XP and GP costs associated with this are usually prohibitive.

*Note that the 200k value cap is on the base price. Weapon and armour costs, material/XP costs of spells, and intelligent item costs are not included.

[skunk3]

I am still a bit confused. What you are saying is that while technically there is a 200k GP cap, that cap doesn't really matter in the case of item familiars because the feat allows you to improve/upgrade the item without taking any feats?

I have an item familiar in a game right now. A ring. For now it only has one lesser power but I'll be adding a greater power to it soon. The reason why I am bringing this question up is because one of the dedicated powers available for an item familiar is that the item can use True Resurrection on the wielder once per month. It's 200k, so it's very pricey but eventually I would like that. I just want to be sure that I can actually put that on my ring or if I wouldn't be able to since it would put me over the 200k cap.

Furthermore, I have a question that is more broadly a general question about crafting but it applies here as well... when making a magic item if the property you want to add has a flat GP cost, I am assuming that you can either pay the GP cost or 1/2 of the GP cost + 1/25th of that in XP, correct? (This would apply to item familiar powers, or even a flat GP cost armor enhancement... like silent moves or whatever.)

I've never messed with creating magic items much before aside from basic stuff but this campaign I'm in currently is much higher-powered and I'm a Warlock so I want to take full advantage.

[skunk3]

One other question that I have:

So far in the campaign my item familiar has been basically irrelevant. I've mostly just enjoyed the extra skill ranks invested in the ring as well as the 10% bonus XP. I do want to make my ring more of a feature in the game and with my character. For now it doesn't even have stats. In the listing it says this:

Sapience
If a character with an item familiar is at least 7th level, the item gains rudimentary sapience. It gains Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Two of these scores (player’s or GM’s choice) are 10 and one is 12. The item familiar also gains an Ego score. This last score should not come into play very often—an item familiar is completely loyal to its master, unless its master radically changes alignment or one or the other is affected by some strange compulsion.

So it gets 3 scores, two of which must be a 10 and a 12. What about the other one?

Also, looking under intelligent items I see some extra GP prices for ability scores, communication, abilities, etc. The prices range from 1,000 GP to 15,000 GP. I am assuming that this cost only applies to intelligent items and not item familiars, correct? (Since it clearly says when item familiars get senses, abilities, and so on...)

[magic9mushroom]

I am still a bit confused. What you are saying is that while technically there is a 200k GP cap, that cap doesn't really matter in the case of item familiars because the feat allows you to improve/upgrade the item without taking any feats?

Basically. The 200k limit is where the epic magic item rules come into play, but the only thing actually stopping a nonepic character from crafting an epic magic item is the lack of the epic item creation feats (which are epic feats, and therefore can't be acquired before character level 21st). Since you don't need item creation feats to improve an item familiar, it can be improved into epic territory without you having to be epic.

(There's also nothing stopping you from going out and buying an epic item pre-epic - it's just that you usually won't have the money and only planar metropolises have a GP limit high enough.)


I have an item familiar in a game right now. A ring. For now it only has one lesser power but I'll be adding a greater power to it soon. The reason why I am bringing this question up is because one of the dedicated powers available for an item familiar is that the item can use True Resurrection on the wielder once per month. It's 200k, so it's very pricey but eventually I would like that. I just want to be sure that I can actually put that on my ring or if I wouldn't be able to since it would put me over the 200k cap.

Intelligent item powers don't count toward the 200k cap, as they're part of "additional value for intelligent items". As such, it won't make the item epic.


Furthermore, I have a question that is more broadly a general question about crafting but it applies here as well... when making a magic item if the property you want to add has a flat GP cost, I am assuming that you can either pay the GP cost or 1/2 of the GP cost + 1/25th of that in XP, correct? (This would apply to item familiar powers, or even a flat GP cost armor enhancement... like silent moves or whatever.)

No. Or rather, yes, but one of the options isn't what you think it is.

Crafting costs 1/2 the base price + 1/25 the base price in XP + any special material components + any special XP components.
Paying someone else to craft for you costs the base price + the gp cost of any special material components + 5 gp per XP in special XP components.

The rules get weird when it comes to crafting intelligent items. For crafting intelligent items, you pay the gp and XP appropriate to the level of intelligence only, but the powers are rolled randomly. For instance, you could pay 7,500 gp and 600 XP (on top of whatever the base item cost) to craft an intelligent item with two scores of 19, the remaining score at 10, speech, telepathy, read magic, four lesser powers, three greater powers (one of which might be replaced by a special purpose/dedicated power), and 120ft darkvision/blindsense/hearing (that list is the stats from the bottom row of the table, price modifier +15,000) - but you have no control over which scores are 19 or what the lesser/greater powers are. On the plus side, you don't have to pay for the lesser/greater powers.

Item Familiars, meanwhile, have their own rules: you get to pick the lesser/greater/dedicated power you want, but you have to pay for it in gp. In the case of the True Rez power, you'd simply have to pay 200k. Note that this eats a "special ability" choice from the Item Familiar table.


Sapience
If a character with an item familiar is at least 7th level, the item gains rudimentary sapience. It gains Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Two of these scores (player’s or GM’s choice) are 10 and one is 12. The item familiar also gains an Ego score. This last score should not come into play very often—an item familiar is completely loyal to its master, unless its master radically changes alignment or one or the other is affected by some strange compulsion.

So it gets 3 scores, two of which must be a 10 and a 12. What about the other one?

"Two of these scores are 10 and one is 12."

Two of them are 10. One of them is 12. 2 + 1 = 3. :P


Also, looking under intelligent items I see some extra GP prices for ability scores, communication, abilities, etc. The prices range from 1,000 GP to 15,000 GP. I am assuming that this cost only applies to intelligent items and not item familiars, correct? (Since it clearly says when item familiars get senses, abilities, and so on...)

You don't have to pay those costs, no (particularly since item familiars don't perfectly match up to any of those rows). The Sapience, Senses and Communication abilities of an item familiar have no GP cost, and neither do the Improved Senses, Greater Senses and Increased Sapience special ability choices (though they, obviously enough, eat special ability choices).

Incidentally, I would advise taking Increased Sapience if you want to be able to coordinate actions with the item familiar (e.g. if it has offensive activated abilities, so you can tell it who to shoot). Without it, your communication is vague empathy and it can't be relied on to know what you want it to do (in the case of True Rez, this doesn't matter so much, because it will know you are dead and that it needs to Rez you, but if for instance you stuck the Haste greater power on it, you'd want to be able to tell it when to use the power, and if you stuck the Deathwatch lesser power on it, you'd want it to be able to tell you what it sees).

[Bronk]

I agree with most of that except for the epic magic item rules. They're clear that as soon as the cost of the market price of a magic item passes 200000 gold (barring physical bits of armor and weapons), the item counts as epic.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/basics.htm

The way you usually hear about getting around this is by also making the item familiar an ancestral relic, or vice versa. The ancestral relic feat explicitly lets you upgrade your magic item up to a worth of 380000 gold by level 20. You pay for the upgrades in gold, just like for the item familiar, but you can do it by directly sacrificing other items to do it for their full market price, which, if your DM is going by the book and forcing you to sell items for half market price, could effectively double your money.

[skunk3]

Yeah, I assumed that any special materials or XP costs would be included.

What I am asking though is this: Say I wanted to add the True Resurrection special ability to my ring. Would I *have to* pay 200k GP or could I pay 100k GP + 8k XP? I just want to know if enhancements to an item with a flat GP cost can be purchased with GP + XP or if you have to pay the full GP cost listed, whether that is with an item familiar or any other sort of item. (For example: adding +6 DEX to a pair of boots, which is normally 36k GP IIRC.)

For now I do not plan on making any intelligent items. My character has no need for a fancy weapon and I think it would be weird to have an item familiar in addition to an intelligent item. I just want to 'pimp out' my item familiar as much as reasonably possible. We just finished a major story arc in my campaign and hit level 16 so I am sitting on about 70k GP right now.

[magic9mushroom]

I agree with most of that except for the epic magic item rules. They're clear that as soon as the cost of the market price of a magic item passes 200000 gold (barring physical bits of armor and weapons), the item counts as epic.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/basics.htm
The hell?


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.

Emphasis mine.


What I am asking though is this: Say I wanted to add the True Resurrection special ability to my ring. Would I *have to* pay 200k GP or could I pay 100k GP + 8k XP? I just want to know if enhancements to an item with a flat GP cost can be purchased with GP + XP or if you have to pay the full GP cost listed, whether that is with an item familiar or any other sort of item. (For example: adding +6 DEX to a pair of boots, which is normally 36k GP IIRC.)

In this specific case, you would have to pay 200k GP, but that's only because Item Familiar says so (you can't actually add that capability to a pre-existing intelligent item with normal crafting - Item Familiar is an exception here).

For normal crafting, you either pay someone else to do it (costs the amount of GP listed) or do it yourself (costs half GP listed + 1/25 of GP listed as XP).

[skunk3]

The hell?



Emphasis mine.



In this specific case, you would have to pay 200k GP, but that's only because Item Familiar says so (you can't actually add that capability to a pre-existing intelligent item with normal crafting - Item Familiar is an exception here).

For normal crafting, you either pay someone else to do it (costs the amount of GP listed) or do it yourself (costs half GP listed + 1/25 of GP listed as XP).

Yikes. Looks like True Resurrection on my ring is going to be very pricey. I think I'll save it for later because for now 200k is a bit much to swallow even if it is a super nice ability. I have lots of other stuff I could spend money on. ;)

[Bronk]

The hell?

After looking at it again, I think you're right... but there's no reason to be so angry about it.


Yikes. Looks like True Resurrection on my ring is going to be very pricey. I think I'll save it for later because for now 200k is a bit much to swallow even if it is a super nice ability. I have lots of other stuff I could spend money on. ;)

It's an extra feat, but ancestral relic can still effectively halve your cost here.

[skunk3]

After looking at it again, I think you're right... but there's no reason to be so angry about it.



It's an extra feat, but ancestral relic can still effectively halve your cost here.

Well, the problem with that is that we are level 16 already and I can't exactly take Ancestral Relic and say "oh yeah, my item familiar was once owned by blah blah."

[Segev]

If your DM is generally okay with you having true resurrection on your item familiar, you could always take an RP approach to it: go on a quest.

The 200,000 gp is an abstraction, anyway, of rare and vaulable components you have to go out and buy to use in the ritual to create/improve magic items (and, in your case, your item familiar). Do some research IC into what sorts of things would be needed to awaken this power in your item familiar, and talk to your DM about one or more rare and hard-to-acquire things that might suffice. Then do some further research, info-gathering, and other "find my quest hook" activities to learn where such things might be found.

For example, perhaps you need "still-warm cinders from a phoenix's resurrection," and the problem is that you can't really guarantee you'll find a phoenix right when it's resurrecting, and keeping the cinders warm long enough might be an issue. However, you hear about a "Phoenix Nesting Grounds" in your research, where so many phoenixes have been reborn that the center of it is a caldera of ash over a network of cracks into the elemental plane of Fire, so the whole area is always scorching hot. The cinders from their resurrections will thus be scattered there, and kept quite warm! You now have a quest to seek out this rare ingredient and attempt to find this location and perform your ritual there. The GM is giving you standard quest rewards (XP, if nothing else), and a 200,000 gp-equivalent reward that can only be used towards this one thing. Plus maybe some incidental treasure, but the 200,000 gp equivalent is pretty huge.

An enterprising party might also find ways to store some of these cinders in ways that preserve their heat so they can sell them on their return. How much they can get for them will depend more on demand than anything else, but 100,000 gp resale value is a good ceiling, at least. Particularly ingenius methods of preservation and mass transport could be rewarded with better prices due to more customers being satisfied.


Anyway, that's one example. Work with your DM to come up with a quest, and the super-expensive upgrade can be done with a "substitute" of a quest reward. (Especially when you remember that the 200,000 gp cost is an abstraction, not the actual reagent.)

[Mr Adventurer]

Well, the problem with that is that we are level 16 already and I can't exactly take Ancestral Relic and say "oh yeah, my item familiar was once owned by blah blah."

Of course you can. Relics get discovered in people's attics all the time.

[magic9mushroom]

(Especially when you remember that the 200,000 gp cost is an abstraction, not the actual reagent.)

Mmm... that's the usual case for these sort of things, but item familiars are oddly worded.


The master must spend the amount of gold pieces given in the Base Price Modifier column of the Special Purpose Item Dedicated Powers table to purchase the dedicated power.

As written, you literally do have to spend gold pieces. :V

(Also, it costs 200k for a reason; bending the rules to break WBL is a bit shady no matter how you slice it.)

[Segev]

Mmm... that's the usual case for these sort of things, but item familiars are oddly worded.



As written, you literally do have to spend gold pieces. :V

(Also, it costs 200k for a reason; bending the rules to break WBL is a bit shady no matter how you slice it.)

And now I'm picturing Item Familiars as having a demiplane inside them filled with nothing but a big shop where you literally spend money to buy features. They're DLC in the Cash Shop!


WBL is not hard-and-fast in most games. It's a guideline. This is why you do need to discuss it with your DM: we don't have an abstract WBL discussion, here, but a simple question: does the DM feel that true resurrection accessible in this way will break his game? If so, he should forbid it, no matter whether the 200,000 gp is within WBL or not. If not, then coming up with a side quest to enable it is perfectly valid D&D-style gameplay.