Candle of Invocation Caster Level [Archive] - Wizards Community

Candle of Invocation Caster Level [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Narthon
11-26-07, 08:41 PM Does anyone know the caster level for determining hit dice for the Gate spell produced by a candle of invocation? Is it simply 17th, as the creation level?

Am I right in reading that it could be used to summon a controllable Solar, if it is a good aligned candle?
Nephlite
11-26-07, 09:51 PM Does anyone know the caster level for determining hit dice for the Gate spell produced by a candle of invocation? Is it simply 17th, as the creation level?

Am I right in reading that it could be used to summon a controllable Solar, if it is a good aligned candle?

Correct, the minimum is 17th level (most people make stuff at minimum). So yes, a Solar is possible.
Adrian_Crane
11-27-07, 02:04 AM ...and yes, it's a highly-abusable item. Be wary. :D
Narthon
11-27-07, 05:28 PM I plan to use it to take out a creature that killed the rest of the party last session. I feel it is a nuclear war situation.
Cifer
11-27-07, 06:46 PM I plan to use it to take out a creature that killed the rest of the party last session. I feel it is a nuclear war situation.
Tsk - one can use that candle to become Pun-Pun. What you're planning isn't so much nuclear war as a sandbox quarrel.
Witch
11-27-07, 06:55 PM There appears to be a law on this board. "Everything is considered petty, because Pun-Pun is better."
Scion of Coldshard
11-27-07, 07:05 PM It looks like technically the character would use its own caster level since the candle allows the character to cast gate. The character will lose 1,000 exp to call a creature using gate as per the normal casting of the spell.
NoldorForce
11-28-07, 10:09 AM There appears to be a law on this board. "Everything is considered petty, because Pun-Pun is better."Pun-Pun is congruent to Hitler modulo Dungeons and Dragons.

@ Scion of Coldshard: The XP cost has already been paid for in the crafting, as it costs ~8K GP rather than ~3K GP. Unless it says otherwise (this doesn't), magic items involving spells that require XP get it from the crafter rather than the user.
Scion of Coldshard
11-28-07, 10:24 AM @ Scion of Coldshard: The XP cost has already been paid for in the crafting, as it costs ~8K GP rather than ~3K GP. Unless it says otherwise (this doesn't), magic items involving spells that require XP get it from the crafter rather than the user.

The item says that it allows the use to cast the gate spell. When a character casts a spell that requires an exp expenditure they have to pay it.

As for the cost though, the candle is cheaper than a scroll of gate plus it gives a bunch of extra benefits (such as anyone being able to cast the gate spell, not only a caster of the appropriate flavor). That alone would seem to give the cost issue pause.

But, since the item says, '..allows the owner to cast..' then the owner must pay appropriate costs such as exp and material components.
NoldorForce
11-28-07, 12:39 PM The item says that it allows the use to cast the gate spell. When a character casts a spell that requires an exp expenditure they have to pay it.Not if it's from a magic item, they don't. Several scrolls exist for spells that have XP or material components. They literally allow you to cast the spell in question. And they just cost extra if they have such components -they don't require payment or anything at casting time.
Scion of Coldshard
11-28-07, 01:02 PM Not if it's from a magic item, they don't.

If the item is what is casting the spell, sure. Most items are activated and the spell happens from that. This item, however, allows the owner cast the spell. That is a big difference.

Scrolls are activated. Wands are activated. Most items are activated, such as the Cape of the Mountebank or Boots of Speed.

The candle of invocation allows the owner to actually cast the spell in question. Big difference.
Adrian_Crane
11-28-07, 02:40 PM I think I prefer SC's interpretation, since otherwise the Candle is made of cheddar.
NoldorForce
11-28-07, 02:51 PM I think I prefer SC's interpretation, since otherwise the Candle is made of cheddar.Just ban the item, then. Gate itself is made of cheese.If the item is what is casting the spell, sure. Most items are activated and the spell happens from that. This item, however, allows the owner cast the spell. That is a big difference.

Scrolls are activated. Wands are activated. Most items are activated, such as the Cape of the Mountebank or Boots of Speed.

The candle of invocation allows the owner to actually cast the spell in question. Big difference.Scrolls literally allow you to cast a spell. They're defined this way. Not so much of a difference.

Also, does a Cloak of Arachnida require you to have material components on hand? It uses the same language as the Candle, after all. Here, as with a few other magic items, "cast X" is being used synonymously with "produce a X effect". Which means that everything gets paid for in advance by the item's creator.
Scion of Coldshard
11-28-07, 03:08 PM Scrolls literally allow you to cast a spell. They're defined this way. Not so much of a difference.

Where does it say that for scrolls though?

The SRD says that you activate the scroll to get the spell over and over again, is the actual book different?

Also, does a Cloak of Arachnida require you to have material components on hand? It uses the same language as the Candle, after all.

If they require the owner to cast it, sure. Most items either simply give the spell to the wearer/user or cast it for them with a command word, spell trigger, or spell completion method. There are exceptions, such as the candle of invocation which says that it allows the owner to cast the spell (much like it allows the casting of spells that a cleric could not normally, unless you are saying that the same wording means two different things even in the same item description).

In the cloak of arachnida notice the difference between the first effect of gaining a continuous spider climb vs the last bit about casting web vs the censer of elemental control which is activated and works as if the spell had been cast.

If they had wanted it to work a different way there are several other wordings that they could have used instead all the way down to simply saying something like, 'when the proper command word is spoken by the owner of a lit candle of invocation the taper is immediately consumed and a creature of the same alignment as the candle is called as though a gate spell had been used'.

Instead though the candle gives the owner the power to cast gate.

This is all assuming that the SRD text is correct, however.
Cifer
11-28-07, 05:10 PM If they had wanted it to work a different way there are several other wordings that they could have used instead
You do realize the books were written by authors, not lawyers, do you? Authors who forgot to note that a dead creature can't take any actions...
Scion of Coldshard
11-28-07, 05:29 PM You do realize the books were written by authors, not lawyers, do you? Authors who forgot to note that a dead creature can't take any actions...

What does this have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that nothing in the rules can be trusted to actually mean what it says, ever? The comment about the dead creatures is doubly useless since it doesnt relate to the topic and it would seem strange to say that petitioners couldnt act on their planes.. an afterlife with no actions seems a little odd..
Narthon
11-28-07, 11:08 PM Well, if it matters at all, the Candle gambit was tried tonight. The + to saves helped my character get into the forbidance zone. Unfortunately, once inside, when he tried to use the candle to call the Solar, the candle just evaporated and the spell didn't go off (because of the forbidance zone of course). The assassin laid down some silence spells and guarded the door though, so my character was still able to silently greatsword the cleric to death.
abyssalmole
11-28-07, 11:23 PM so everything turned out ok in the end.

I kind of like the way your DM dealt with the problem.
Narthon
11-29-07, 07:51 AM Yep, it worked out fine. No more characters got killed, so that is a big plus.
Cifer
11-29-07, 12:39 PM What does this have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that nothing in the rules can be trusted to actually mean what it says, ever?
I am saying that when people say "no it's not [X]. If it was [X], the authors would have written [Y], but instead they wrote [something that sounds very much like Y but isn't Y]", they should realize that in several cases, this would lead to rather... strange rulings.
For example, your "allows the owner to cast a gate spell". Casting Gate has several requirements: you need to supply its verbal, somatic and XP components, you have to have the spell on your spell list, you have to have it prepared, you have to be outside zones that would interfere with the spell...
Which requirements would "this lets you cast gate" remove and why exactly those? The paragraph about cleric preparation is somewhat more specific, noting "He can even cast spells normally unavailable to him, as if he were of that higher level", thus naming precisely the requirement that is circumvented (spells/day and highest spell level).

The comment about the dead creatures is doubly useless since it doesnt relate to the topic and it would seem strange to say that petitioners couldnt act on their planes.. an afterlife with no actions seems a little odd..
While we're at it: The Dead condition (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#dead) doesn't say anything about an afterlife either, except for the fact that the souls of dead creatures leave their body (since the lich doesn't have it's soul inside it's body either, soul and creature don't seem to be equivalent). So there's still nothing in the rules saying a dead body stops moving, which is a reason why one should not rely on RAW alone, but add a little interpretation to it (like "when someone is dead, he should stop moving").
Scion of Coldshard
11-29-07, 01:25 PM It shouldnt really be necessary to provide more information than I already have to prove my point, but hey, sometimes people just need more I suppose.

If you look at the candle of invocation it does not list a creation price plus an extra exp expenditure unlike things like the tomes and maul of the titans. This difference signifies that the creator does not expend the extra increment of exp that a gate spell would take.

If we are to go by what some are saying here then no exp is payed for the gate spell to summon something. That seems a bit off.

I am not saying that the item is well written, it is in fact very poorly written, but we can only go by what it says and try to guess at the rest. As written it certainly looks like the owner of the candle who casts the gate spell is the one who has to pay the exp for the gate spell.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Narthon 11-26-07, 08:41 PM	Does anyone know the caster level for determining hit dice for the Gate spell produced by a candle of invocation? Is it simply 17th, as the creation level? Am I right in reading that it could be used to summon a controllable Solar, if it is a good aligned candle?
Nephlite 11-26-07, 09:51 PM	Does anyone know the caster level for determining hit dice for the Gate spell produced by a candle of invocation? Is it simply 17th, as the creation level? Am I right in reading that it could be used to summon a controllable Solar, if it is a good aligned candle? Correct, the minimum is 17th level (most people make stuff at minimum). So yes, a Solar is possible.
Adrian_Crane 11-27-07, 02:04 AM	...and yes, it's a highly-abusable item. Be wary. :D
Narthon 11-27-07, 05:28 PM	I plan to use it to take out a creature that killed the rest of the party last session. I feel it is a nuclear war situation.
Cifer 11-27-07, 06:46 PM	I plan to use it to take out a creature that killed the rest of the party last session. I feel it is a nuclear war situation. Tsk - one can use that candle to become Pun-Pun. What you're planning isn't so much nuclear war as a sandbox quarrel.
Witch 11-27-07, 06:55 PM	There appears to be a law on this board. "Everything is considered petty, because Pun-Pun is better."
Scion of Coldshard 11-27-07, 07:05 PM	It looks like technically the character would use its own caster level since the candle allows the character to cast gate. The character will lose 1,000 exp to call a creature using gate as per the normal casting of the spell.
NoldorForce 11-28-07, 10:09 AM	There appears to be a law on this board. "Everything is considered petty, because Pun-Pun is better."Pun-Pun is congruent to Hitler modulo Dungeons and Dragons. @ Scion of Coldshard: The XP cost has already been paid for in the crafting, as it costs ~8K GP rather than ~3K GP. Unless it says otherwise (this doesn't), magic items involving spells that require XP get it from the crafter rather than the user.
Scion of Coldshard 11-28-07, 10:24 AM	@ Scion of Coldshard: The XP cost has already been paid for in the crafting, as it costs ~8K GP rather than ~3K GP. Unless it says otherwise (this doesn't), magic items involving spells that require XP get it from the crafter rather than the user. The item says that it allows the use to cast the gate spell. When a character casts a spell that requires an exp expenditure they have to pay it. As for the cost though, the candle is cheaper than a scroll of gate plus it gives a bunch of extra benefits (such as anyone being able to cast the gate spell, not only a caster of the appropriate flavor). That alone would seem to give the cost issue pause. But, since the item says, '..allows the owner to cast..' then the owner must pay appropriate costs such as exp and material components.
NoldorForce 11-28-07, 12:39 PM	The item says that it allows the use to cast the gate spell. When a character casts a spell that requires an exp expenditure they have to pay it.Not if it's from a magic item, they don't. Several scrolls exist for spells that have XP or material components. They literally allow you to cast the spell in question. And they just cost extra if they have such components -they don't require payment or anything at casting time.
Scion of Coldshard 11-28-07, 01:02 PM	Not if it's from a magic item, they don't. If the item is what is casting the spell, sure. Most items are activated and the spell happens from that. This item, however, allows the owner cast the spell. That is a big difference. Scrolls are activated. Wands are activated. Most items are activated, such as the Cape of the Mountebank or Boots of Speed. The candle of invocation allows the owner to actually cast the spell in question. Big difference.
Adrian_Crane 11-28-07, 02:40 PM	I think I prefer SC's interpretation, since otherwise the Candle is made of cheddar.
NoldorForce 11-28-07, 02:51 PM	I think I prefer SC's interpretation, since otherwise the Candle is made of cheddar.Just ban the item, then. Gate itself is made of cheese.If the item is what is casting the spell, sure. Most items are activated and the spell happens from that. This item, however, allows the owner cast the spell. That is a big difference. Scrolls are activated. Wands are activated. Most items are activated, such as the Cape of the Mountebank or Boots of Speed. The candle of invocation allows the owner to actually cast the spell in question. Big difference.Scrolls literally allow you to cast a spell. They're defined this way. Not so much of a difference. Also, does a Cloak of Arachnida require you to have material components on hand? It uses the same language as the Candle, after all. Here, as with a few other magic items, "cast X" is being used synonymously with "produce a X effect". Which means that everything gets paid for in advance by the item's creator.
Scion of Coldshard 11-28-07, 03:08 PM	Scrolls literally allow you to cast a spell. They're defined this way. Not so much of a difference. Where does it say that for scrolls though? The SRD says that you activate the scroll to get the spell over and over again, is the actual book different? Also, does a Cloak of Arachnida require you to have material components on hand? It uses the same language as the Candle, after all. If they require the owner to cast it, sure. Most items either simply give the spell to the wearer/user or cast it for them with a command word, spell trigger, or spell completion method. There are exceptions, such as the candle of invocation which says that it allows the owner to cast the spell (much like it allows the casting of spells that a cleric could not normally, unless you are saying that the same wording means two different things even in the same item description). In the cloak of arachnida notice the difference between the first effect of gaining a continuous spider climb vs the last bit about casting web vs the censer of elemental control which is activated and works as if the spell had been cast. If they had wanted it to work a different way there are several other wordings that they could have used instead all the way down to simply saying something like, 'when the proper command word is spoken by the owner of a lit candle of invocation the taper is immediately consumed and a creature of the same alignment as the candle is called as though a gate spell had been used'. Instead though the candle gives the owner the power to cast gate. This is all assuming that the SRD text is correct, however.
Cifer 11-28-07, 05:10 PM	If they had wanted it to work a different way there are several other wordings that they could have used instead You do realize the books were written by authors, not lawyers, do you? Authors who forgot to note that a dead creature can't take any actions...
Scion of Coldshard 11-28-07, 05:29 PM	You do realize the books were written by authors, not lawyers, do you? Authors who forgot to note that a dead creature can't take any actions... What does this have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that nothing in the rules can be trusted to actually mean what it says, ever? The comment about the dead creatures is doubly useless since it doesnt relate to the topic and it would seem strange to say that petitioners couldnt act on their planes.. an afterlife with no actions seems a little odd..
Narthon 11-28-07, 11:08 PM	Well, if it matters at all, the Candle gambit was tried tonight. The + to saves helped my character get into the forbidance zone. Unfortunately, once inside, when he tried to use the candle to call the Solar, the candle just evaporated and the spell didn't go off (because of the forbidance zone of course). The assassin laid down some silence spells and guarded the door though, so my character was still able to silently greatsword the cleric to death.
abyssalmole 11-28-07, 11:23 PM	so everything turned out ok in the end. I kind of like the way your DM dealt with the problem.
Narthon 11-29-07, 07:51 AM	Yep, it worked out fine. No more characters got killed, so that is a big plus.
Cifer 11-29-07, 12:39 PM	What does this have to do with anything? Are you trying to say that nothing in the rules can be trusted to actually mean what it says, ever? I am saying that when people say "no it's not [X]. If it was [X], the authors would have written [Y], but instead they wrote [something that sounds very much like Y but isn't Y]", they should realize that in several cases, this would lead to rather... strange rulings. For example, your "allows the owner to cast a gate spell". Casting Gate has several requirements: you need to supply its verbal, somatic and XP components, you have to have the spell on your spell list, you have to have it prepared, you have to be outside zones that would interfere with the spell... Which requirements would "this lets you cast gate" remove and why exactly those? The paragraph about cleric preparation is somewhat more specific, noting "He can even cast spells normally unavailable to him, as if he were of that higher level", thus naming precisely the requirement that is circumvented (spells/day and highest spell level). The comment about the dead creatures is doubly useless since it doesnt relate to the topic and it would seem strange to say that petitioners couldnt act on their planes.. an afterlife with no actions seems a little odd.. While we're at it: The Dead condition (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#dead) doesn't say anything about an afterlife either, except for the fact that the souls of dead creatures leave their body (since the lich doesn't have it's soul inside it's body either, soul and creature don't seem to be equivalent). So there's still nothing in the rules saying a dead body stops moving, which is a reason why one should not rely on RAW alone, but add a little interpretation to it (like "when someone is dead, he should stop moving").
Scion of Coldshard 11-29-07, 01:25 PM	It shouldnt really be necessary to provide more information than I already have to prove my point, but hey, sometimes people just need more I suppose. If you look at the candle of invocation it does not list a creation price plus an extra exp expenditure unlike things like the tomes and maul of the titans. This difference signifies that the creator does not expend the extra increment of exp that a gate spell would take. If we are to go by what some are saying here then no exp is payed for the gate spell to summon something. That seems a bit off. I am not saying that the item is well written, it is in fact very poorly written, but we can only go by what it says and try to guess at the rest. As written it certainly looks like the owner of the candle who casts the gate spell is the one who has to pay the exp for the gate spell.