Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FlameLover 04-29-06, 03:10 AM	I won't cover why I need this (long and boring story) so i'll just cut to the crunch. I want to make a serious of items for a band of 5th level adventurers, but want them to get more powerful as they level up. I don't own Weapons of Legacy and so can't use the rules in that. What I thought of was to create a 20-level progression for these items that would say that it will give x if the wearer is level y or higher. I'll take a cloak made by a nymph for a knight as an example. 1 - Diplomacy +2 3 - Cha +1 5 - Charm Person 1/day 6 - Cha +2 7 - Diplomacy +4 9 - Cha +3 10 - Heightened (+2) Charm Person 1/day 12 - Cha +4 13 - Diplomacy +6 15 - Heightened (+4) Charm Person 1/day, Cha +5 18 - Cha + 6 19 - Diplomacy +8 Ok that's a pretty "bland" example but the concept is there. It'll do the following when they find it: Diplomacy +2, Cha +1, Charm Person 1/day. By level 13 it'll do this: Diplomacy +6, Cha +4, Heighened (+2) Charm Person 1/day. What I want comments on are the general excecution, the specific one done above, and anything I might have forgotten, etc.
FlameLover 04-29-06, 08:18 PM	No one want to help me with this? What if I just divided it into Minor, Moderate and Major stages? Minor (lv5) - Diplomacy +2, Charm Person 1/day (DC 11) Moderate (lv10) - Cha +2, Diplomacy +4, (Heightened +3) Charm Person 1/day (DC 16) Major (lv15) - Cha +4, Diplomacy +6, (Heightened +6) Charm Person 1/day (DC 20) To advance it to the mext stage you need to perform a ritual that lasts 1 hour and costs the price of the difference of the stages. You can then reduce that amount by say 1/5 and make them do some task to upgrade it, such as killing X or something. I know this is quite similar to Weapons of LEgacy and i'm fine with that. Is there a balance issue i'm not seeing though?
risner 04-29-06, 10:56 PM	No one want to help me with this? What if I just divided it into Minor, Moderate and Major stages? Minor (lv5) - Diplomacy +2, Charm Person 1/day (DC 11) Moderate (lv10) - Cha +2, Diplomacy +4, (Heightened +3) Charm Person 1/day (DC 16) Major (lv15) - Cha +4, Diplomacy +6, (Heightened +6) Charm Person 1/day (DC 20) To advance it to the mext stage you need to perform a ritual that lasts 1 hour and costs the price of the difference of the stages. You can then reduce that amount by say 1/5 and make them do some task to upgrade it, such as killing X or something. I know this is quite similar to Weapons of LEgacy and i'm fine with that. Is there a balance issue i'm not seeing though? I would calculate the price of the item for each stage and make sure it fits into maybe half of the wealth available to a character of that level. Then make them run "quests" for each level to upgrade (like go fetch this for the king, go kill the invading orcs and bring back proof, etc.)
Mitchell 04-30-06, 03:45 AM	If you have the BoED, you could use the Ancestral Relic feat. If you have the Complete Warrior, then you could use the Kensai ability as a guide. Basically, you want the item, whatever it is, to scale up in power as the characters do, but don't want to get too powerful or become too weak. The wealth by level guidelines can give you some GP values and you can work within these to figure out how powerful to make the items. This may require a slight adjustment to the characters other wealth, as this would be a bonus item for them, so figure out how much you want the item to be worth at different level milestones and work from that. Ideally, they will have an item that they enjoy having at all times, but doesn't consume so much of their wealth that they can't afford anything else.
FlameLover 04-30-06, 06:47 AM	Ok i've worked on this a bit and I've got this so far: Minor: Diplomacy +2, Bluff +2, Charm Person 1/day Price 3,500gp; Weight 1lb. Moderate: Charisma +2, Diplomacy +4, Bluff +4, Heightened (+2) Charm Person 1/day Price 34,200gp; Weight 1lb. Major: Charisma +4, Diplomacy +6, Bluff +6, Heightened (+4) Charm Person 1/day, +4 bonus on checks to avoid suffocation Price 106,200gp; Weight 1lb. Minor is level 5-9, Moderate is 10-14 and Major is 15+ To upgrade to moderate you must perform a ritual taking 1 hour, costing ((34,200-3,500)/2)gp (15,350gp) and ((34,200-3,500)/2*25)xp (614xp). The idea is that you use the crafting rules to advance the weapon, although you need not know the spells or have the feats you might need otherwise. Also, before you may advance to moderate or major level, you must fulfill one or more extra requirements. For this particular item it is to hold your breath for 3 minutes underwater withoud magical aid to get moderate. To get major you need to find and slay a thirteen-headed Hydra. Does that seem OK to you? I'll be handing this out next session so i'm hoping to get any kinks worked out before then.
Mitchell 05-01-06, 01:14 AM	Without breaking out any books, the only issue would be if the wealth was within a reasonable range. Obviously there is a large jump between "levels" of this item, so they may be a little rich at the low end, which is no big deal, really. I'm no pricing wiz, and certainly not without books, so I trust your costs. That's the only thing to watch out for. So much of the mechanic is set up around characters of a certain level having a certain amount of wealth, and then theoretically, investing that wealth into items, so if they ever get too rich or too poor, then it can really start to skew things. Good luck. :)
redgamer 05-01-06, 01:52 AM	Are you sure you don't have WoL? You mimic the book well. As long as you don't tell PCs the powers ahead of time you can just give them powers appropriate at the time.
FlameLover 05-01-06, 05:20 AM	Yeah i don't have WoL, although I've heard enough discussions about it and read the excerpt so I got a good idea how it's done in there. I'll have to re-do the costs as I forgot to take into account multiple abilities (x2 cost) but also dividing the spell-like ability by 5 (for only having 1/day use). I know they're only guidelines but I thought the price was a bit much at moderate and major levels...