How much is too much?

[CIDE]

Hello playground,

I recently had a short discussion with a friend of mine about how much stuff can all be put into single objects. To be more specific, how much in the way of enchantments, enhancements, and effects can be put into weapons and/or armor?

The discussion started with using something like a staff of power as a quarterstaff. Pretty straight forward on its own, right? But can there be separate weapon enhancements on it? Wand slots? Augment crystals? Weren't there additional things that could attach to the weapons? what beneficial materials can we make it out of? Can the staff be elvencraft and let us go even further down the rabit hole. Then there's rods with the mace comparison. Or weapons that change shape or type.

I understand having items like this is probably cost prohibitive. By the time you can dump all that into a staff you're better off putting those resources into something else

[Mike Miller]

Well... I want to say it is campaign dependent, but that probably isn't useful. For a quick idea, weapons and armor up to +10 total effective enhancements (up to +5 enhancement bonus) is not yet epic. Also, under 200,000 gp for one item is not yet epic. So I would say if you go beyond those limits, unless you are really trying to go epic, it is too much.

There is no limit on epic items that I recall.

[Promethean]

Technically, with how the spell Wish is worded, you can use it to create magic item's without a price limit pre-epic. I'd personally ignore the epic handbook's existence anyway.

This may even be explicitly RAI, as they intentionally limit the price range of any non-magic items on the line just above the one allowing magic item creation. Not only this, it's one of the things Wish explicitly allows the players to do without allowing the GM to mess with the wording.

[Jay R]

Ask your DM. This is a judgment call, and nobody else's judgment is relevant.

The best DMs (in my estimation) will rule so that the PCs are still being challenged. This means that the answers are dependent on the items and monsters that the PCs are likely to encounter. It follows that the answers are setting-dependent.

I have one DM who often rules, "If your PCs start doing that, so will the NPCs."

So ... ask your DM.

[Pippa the Pixie]

There is no limit.

Add as much as you'd like.

[CIDE]

Ask your DM. This is a judgment call, and nobody else's judgment is relevant.

The best DMs (in my estimation) will rule so that the PCs are still being challenged. This means that the answers are dependent on the items and monsters that the PCs are likely to encounter. It follows that the answers are setting-dependent.

I have one DM who often rules, "If your PCs start doing that, so will the NPCs."

So ... ask your DM.

There is no DM. It's a thought exercise.


Technically, with how the spell Wish is worded, you can use it to create magic item's without a price limit pre-epic. I'd personally ignore the epic handbook's existence anyway.

This may even be explicitly RAI, as they intentionally limit the price range of any non-magic items on the line just above the one allowing magic item creation. Not only this, it's one of the things Wish explicitly allows the players to do without allowing the GM to mess with the wording.

That sounds like a very long and wordy wish to come up with the flipper baby briefly covered in my OP.

[Crichton]

Technically, with how the spell Wish is worded, you can use it to create magic item's without a price limit pre-epic. I'd personally ignore the epic handbook's existence anyway.

This may even be explicitly RAI, as they intentionally limit the price range of any non-magic items on the line just above the one allowing magic item creation. Not only this, it's one of the things Wish explicitly allows the players to do without allowing the GM to mess with the wording.



Well, Wish also costs you double the XP when you create or modify a magic item, and you can only have just so much XP before level up (up to a single point of xp lower than the second next level's threshold), so there's a pretty solid limit to the price of what you can create. For instance, if you're level 15, and you save enough XP to be one point away from level 17, you'll have 30999 xp you could conceivably spend on Wish. 5000 of that is the cost of casting Wish, so you have 25999 to pay for crafting XP costs, which at the 2x rate, is 12999 xp, and at the 1 to 5 XP to gold ratio, that equates to a max item value for Wish of 64997gp. So yeah, you can create a magic item that costs about a third of your WBL, give or take a bit. That's a powerful effect, but it costs you 2 levels worth of XP to do it.


Of course, that's assuming no XP reduction/mitigation is in play for casting Wish.

[MisterKaws]

There is no DM. It's a thought exercise.


If we're talking TO there's always the weirdo Soulbow/Kensai(Weapon:YOUR OWN BRAIN, A.K.A: The bow)/Legacy Champion(Mau-jehe) who can get something close to a +25-30 weapon by level 20, but it's usually very unlikely to pass a DM.

[Falontani]

Any masterwork item may be enchanted as a wondrous item or a universal item. If the item is an armor it can also be enchanted as such. Weapons can also be enchanted as weapons, and shields may also be enchanted as shields.
Armor spikes are a weapon attached to armor, and thus track their magical value, and masterwork status separately, so for all intents and purposes they are simply a separate item that is attached physically.
Shield spikes are in a similar vein.
Wand sheathes may be attached to many types of weapons, shields, rods, etc. The sheathe is a part of the item, but mundane in nature and thus do not count towards your maximum enchantment value. Wands placed inside are again simply attached so do not contribute towards the main item.

Elvencraft bows are both a bow and a staff. So any enchanting done to the staff counts towards your total enchantment value.

I can do more examples, but this has seemed to be how it works as far as I can tell. Actual text examples will take me a bit of time.

200k gp is maximum enchantment value of nonepic items, which only matters for rarity or if your creating the item. Ways to get over that amount: ancestral relic, free enchants (kinsai), item familiar, wish, miracle, epic feats.

If you are creating a wondrous item or a universal item and there is already an enchantment on the item then it takes up another 50% of the enchantment cost. Always enchant wondrous or universal first

[unseenmage]

Technically, with how the spell Wish is worded, you can use it to create magic item's without a price limit pre-epic. I'd personally ignore the epic handbook's existence anyway.

This may even be explicitly RAI, as they intentionally limit the price range of any non-magic items on the line just above the one allowing magic item creation. Not only this, it's one of the things Wish explicitly allows the players to do without allowing the GM to mess with the wording.
Technically Shapesand can make artifacts too. That doesnt make it a good idea. :smallwink:

[Promethean]

Technically Shapesand can make artifacts too. That doesnt make it a good idea. :smallwink:

Really? I thought you couldn't make anything magical with shapesand?

I'd defend the wish thing though. Firstly, You are paying through the nose for it in XP + the normal costs of wish. Secondly, It also explains some of the crazier item in D&D APs, like void-stone traps. Lastly, Wish has the safety net of allowing the GM to twist the wording if the player asks for something Too Crazy(Like trying to make epic items). I'd say it's balanced enough as is.

[Awakeninfinity]

Any masterwork item may be enchanted as a wondrous item or a universal item. If the item is an armor it can also be enchanted as such. Weapons can also be enchanted as weapons, and shields may also be enchanted as shields.
Armor spikes are a weapon attached to armor, and thus track their magical value, and masterwork status separately, so for all intents and purposes they are simply a separate item that is attached physically.
Shield spikes are in a similar vein.
Wand sheathes may be attached to many types of weapons, shields, rods, etc. The sheathe is a part of the item, but mundane in nature and thus do not count towards your maximum enchantment value. Wands placed inside are again simply attached so do not contribute towards the main item.

Elvencraft bows are both a bow and a staff. So any enchanting done to the staff counts towards your total enchantment value.

I can do more examples, but this has seemed to be how it works as far as I can tell. Actual text examples will take me a bit of time.

200k gp is maximum enchantment value of nonepic items, which only matters for rarity or if your creating the item. Ways to get over that amount: ancestral relic, free enchants (kinsai), item familiar, wish, miracle, epic feats.

If you are creating a wondrous item or a universal item and there is already an enchantment on the item then it takes up another 50% of the enchantment cost. Always enchant wondrous or universal first-hand

I did not know that; thank you...

I now know where to put my metamagic rods... XD

[ericgrau]

Hello playground,

I recently had a short discussion with a friend of mine about how much stuff can all be put into single objects. To be more specific, how much in the way of enchantments, enhancements, and effects can be put into weapons and/or armor?

The discussion started with using something like a staff of power as a quarterstaff. Pretty straight forward on its own, right? But can there be separate weapon enhancements on it? Wand slots? Augment crystals? Weren't there additional things that could attach to the weapons? what beneficial materials can we make it out of? Can the staff be elvencraft and let us go even further down the rabit hole. Then there's rods with the mace comparison. Or weapons that change shape or type.

I understand having items like this is probably cost prohibitive. By the time you can dump all that into a staff you're better off putting those resources into something else
Yes you can put all or almost all of those together simultaneously. As long as the group is allowing all those things individually, none of it is too much. It's a good idea whenever you can use both attributes simultaneously. Otherwise it's often but not always a bad idea. Like a staff that is both for spells and to use as a weapon is usually bad. But it could be nice on a gish, especially a monk gish. Likewise changing weapons are often but not always bad. Depends what you do with them. The rod of lordly might while entertaining is usually bad. There are some tricks people pull with the sizing weapon property and so on, but that's usually to get a specific mode they want not to repeatedly change modes.

So basic rules apply of focusing on one thing and getting multiple abilities to synergize. And also like everything else not optimizing beyond what your gaming group is comfortable with, for the other possible issue of making it too good.