Balance Question

[Glimbur]

So, items are cool because you can cast all sorts of spells and have other powers and they're just great. However, the save DC from them is sometimes sub-optimal. How reasonable of a houserule would it be to allow Ability Focus to apply to items? Should it work for all items, one kind of items (weapons, scrolls, wands, etc each separate), for one school of magic, or for one particular kind of item (wand of fireballs, probably a waste of a feat)?

[HunterOfJello]

Ability Focus boosts an ability DC by +2. I think a more appropriate feat would be one that improves a school of magic by +1 the same as Spell Focus does, but for magical items.

[Sinon]

Increase the cost of the magic item by calculating the cost based on heightened versions of the same spells.

[Gnomo]

Increase the cost of the magic item by calculating the cost based on heightened versions of the same spells.

This.

Just divide the cost of the item by its spell level, and then multiply this result by the new (heightened) spell level.

A +2 to all DCs from items with just 1 feat us a little bit over the top, but a +1 to all DCs from one type of item I think is balanced.

[Elfin]

Honestly, actually, I think +2 to DCs from items is pretty reasonable; feats are precious, and +1 just seems too low.

[Aharon]

There's a non-epic feat in the epic level handbook that allows you to apply your primary ability modifier to the DC of items. I think it's called Enhance Item. Some online repositories list it as epic, but the handbook itself specifically says it is not epic. For some reason, it didn't make it to the SRD, though.

[Kaww]

But it isn't precious if it applies to spellcasting?

[Glimbur]

But it isn't precious if it applies to spellcasting?

Spell Focus is a bad feat. That's the disconnect here.

Enhance Item is worth looking in to, I'm considering this for an Artificer so he should have good Int anyway.