Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Crystal Monk 04-23-06, 12:24 AM	First: this is a long post, so get comfy. Second: I know that some of you won't like this way of doing things. That's fine, I don't expect everyone to like it. However, if you feel that way, please, just move onto another topic. I'm looking for critique and suggestions here, so if you think it sucks and just have to tell me so, I'd appreciate it if you'd include a suggestion on how to make it suck less. :P :D ---------- Magic Item Creation Involving Ability Drain Instead of XP Loss Goal: to find a way to substitute physical ability drain for the XP costs of creating magic items. Main Idea: Wwhen creating a magic item, instead of draining the caster’s XP, it will drain the caster’s STR, DEX, and CON. The reason for the draining is twofold. First, I think it serves the same purpose of drain on the caster that a loss of XP does. Second, I strongly dislike the idea of PCs losing XP, as it would set them behind the rest of the group. The reason behind the physical-only drain is obvious, I think – there’s no way that a caster would put his/her required stat for spellcasting on the line. I was toying with the idea that all the stats but the spellcasting one would be drained, but I don’t think anyone would want to be around a caster who was deliberately draining their INT, WIS, and/or CHA. It’s just bad business. Mechanics: I need to find a way to fairly determine how much stat drain making a magic item would inflict. I’d like to base this off of a consistent factor in the items, as the XP system is, so I don’t have to create an entirely new system (any more than I already am). Current plan: Add up the item’s Caster Level, the total level of all the spells needed to cast (0th level counting as 1), and any other factors to be determined, and that’s the total amount of ability damage the caster takes while making the item. For example, creating a first-level scroll requires Caster Level 1 and a first-level spell, thus it would drain two ability points from the caster. The drain occurs over the time spent making the item, which is defined by the type of item made. All items but potions require one day per 1000 gp of the item’s cost to make, while potions take a single day each. The caster does not begin to recover ability damage until the item is finished; this recovery time begins when the caster goes to sleep/trance after the item is complete. No spells, items, or special abilities of any kind can keep a caster from being drained during the process of item creation, and the ability damage must be healed naturally – spells such as Restoration will not work. During the item’s creation, the caster may choose which stat gets drained. Thus, if a caster has an exceptionally high STR, DEX, or CON, he/she may choose to have that stat drained before the others. Ability drain from creating magic items cannot drain a stat lower than 1. Use of spells or items to increase the caster’s physical stats does not allow for greater draining; a caster using Bull’s Strength on him/herself would no longer be able to drain his/her STR when it reached 5 (1 + 4 from the spell). Essence: So, considering that the creation of some very powerful magic items would drain any caster well beyond their means, where could that extra power come from? With this system, any caster who can create a magic item (has the appropriate feat) can also drain magic from that type of item. Therefore, a caster with Craft Magic Arms and Armor could take the +3 dire flail that no one in the party wants and drain the magic from it, and then use that magic to create his/her own items. Magic drained from items in this manner is known as ‘Essence.’ Essence has no use other than in the creation of new magic items. Any special qualities the item had have no effect on the Essence taken from it. Essence taken from an item may be used to create any other item. Taking Essence from a magic item is an all-or-nothing process; it cannot be used to remove a single quality from a magic item. To remove Essence from a magic item, the caster makes a Spellcraft check, with the DC equal to 10 + the Caster Level of the item plus the total level of all spells needed to create the item. For example, a wand of Magic Missile (1st) would have a DC of 12 and grant 2 Essence, 1 for the CL and 1 for the spell, while an Immovable Rod would have a DC of 22 and grant 12 Essence, 10 for the CL and 2 for the spell. If the Spellcraft check fails by more than 10, the remove fails and the caster cannot try again with this item until he/she gains a level and at least one more rank of Spellcraft. If the Spellcraft check fails by 6-10, the remove fails but the caster can try again. If the Spellcraft check fails by 1-5, the caster has a partial success, and gains Essence from the item less twice the amount of his/her failure. For example, if the DC for removing Essence was 25 and the caster’s Spellcraft roll was 22, he/she would gain 9 Essence from the item: 25-(3*2)-10 = 9. The caster will always gain a minimum of 1 Essence. If the Spellcraft check succeeds, the caster gains Essence equal to the DC of the Spellcraft check -10. Essence must be used immediately or stored. Essence may be stored in gems worth at least 100 gp for every point of Essence. Storing Essence in a gem requires a successful DC 15 Spellcraft check. If the caster fails, the Essence fades by one point per minute it isn’t used. In the case of failure, the caster may not try again, but may pass the Essence to another caster so they can try. The caster may take 10 on this check if normal conditions for taking 10 apply. If a gem already contains Essence, it may not be used to store more Essence. Every point of Essence that a caster uses in creating a magic item reduces the total ability drain on the caster by 1. When creating an item, Essence is used first before the caster begins losing points to ability drain. Non-stored Essence must be used all at once. Stored Essence may be used one point at a time. A caster may pause to get new Essence while creating a magic item. For example, a caster creating high-level wands with no way to store Essence could pull Essence from a new low-level wand at the start of every day. When a magic item is drained of its Essence, it is as it was before it was made magical. Weapons and armor retain their masterwork quality and any qualities of their materials; rings are still precious metals and jewels, and so forth. Wands, staffs, and rods are mostly just nifty sticks, but may also contain precious metals or jewels. Making the Item: Item construction proceeds as normal, and takes the number of days as described in the DMG, which is 1 day per 1000 gp of the item, except for potions, which only take one day. The ability drain begins when the caster begins making the item, and does not begin to heal until the caster sleeps/trances after the item is complete. (Sleep/trance during item creation has no effect on ability loss.) During every day of item creation, the caster must take an average amount of ability damage, with days of greater damage happening first. For example: Mialee wants to create a Portable Hole. Doing so will require 20 days, as the item costs 20,000 gp. Under the normal system, this would drain her of 800 XP. Under this system, this would drain her of a total of 19 ability points – 12 for the CL and 7 for the Plane Shift spell. Mialee loses one point from STR, DEX, or CON every day of construction except for the last one, and begins healing during her trance at the end of the 20th day. Assuming she spreads the damage out equally, Mialee will be spending six days recovering ability damage. Another example: Regdar hires a warmage to create him a Shatterspike. Doing so will require 4 days, as the item costs 4315 gp. Under the normal system, this would drain the warmage of 173 XP. Under this system, this would drain the warmage of a total of 15 ability points – 13 for the CL and 2 for the Shatter spell. The warmage loses four points from physical stats every day of construction except for the last one, during which he loses three, and begins healing when he sleeps at the end of the 4th day. Assuming he spreads the damage out equally, the warmage will be spending five days recovering ability damage. ---------- Issues: As I’ve shown in the examples, there are some things that still need to be worked out. There’s enough of a discrepancy in the ability damage and time spent healing in those two examples that I think the system still needs some work, but I could be wrong. Also, I’d like to come up with a similar way to work out XP lost when casting particular spells and – oddly enough – additional XP lost when creating certain items. I’d also like to figure out why spells like Restoration won’t work to recover ability damage after the item is created – I made the rule to prevent abuse of this system, but I’d like there to be something more behind it. Finally, I’m debating on whether or not charged items should be able to have their Essence removed, as it would be far too easy to reduce such an item to one charge and then get full Essence from it. ---------- Thanks for reading all this; I'd really appreciate your feedback and critique. As I said, I know that some of you won't like this system and that's fine, but I'm more interested in ways to make it work better. I really want to make this work, thanks in advance for your help!
Mist of Shadows 04-23-06, 01:06 AM	Okay this sucks. Sorry I'm kidding. Just had to say it you know. Anyways I see several issues with your system. One creatures that don't take ability damage, undead, Gods and such things. Undead such as lichs. For another what about soul trap and switching bodies. For another ice assassin or simulcrum now have a problem. They now make rather nice magical item crafters. They rest up and such while you go off adventuring. Or they don't rest up and you just make new ones with the ignore material components feat. There is no actual cost to your character other then gold cost. And time, in other words magical items would become more common as there is no real drain. (not that there should be) But if the only thing it takes is bed rest then the price would drop. As the spell casters wouldn't be risking anything real. What happens if they spell caster doesn't have enough ability scores to drain? Such as a weak mage that is trying to make something impressive or well epic? I can see a mage being concerned and using essense. But do they know what it's going to require ic? As for why they can't fix the drain while it's happening probably have to be clean magically. As for why not after just say it's because of the nature of the drain. So something like that. Basically what they does is make physical stats not a stat dump. I'm personally a fan of this. What about stupid druids and wildshaping into a dire ape and item crafting? :) (mostly joking about the ape) Not joking about shapechanging into a different type of creature. What about Inherient bonuses? (Are those usable?) I mean at worst it allows you to use 15 (points worth of stat points more then otherwise) But they are your stat points.. How would feats and things that reduce xp cost reduce the ability drain cost. Okay about your idea for making ability drain replace general xp lose, two things. Scrolls of wish. I lose some ability points for a few days. I make another scroll in a few days. I make another scroll in a few days. I make another scroll in a few days. I make another scroll in a few days. Oh looky I make a magical item that grants continous wishes. Or a wish a day. I'm sorry to say that any attempt to pay for things with temp ability drain doesn't work so well. Now if you had a save or you permanently lost the drained scores that might cut that down. But you would still have people boosting saves with spells and using luck stones... So in other words you might have some issues balancing things. But I like your system better then the dmgs.
SilentOne 04-25-06, 08:18 PM	isn't ability drain already permenent? (barring magical regen). You're thinking ability damage, which comes back at 1/stat/day. I like it.
Mist of Shadows 04-26-06, 03:15 AM	yep, baring magical remidies, or say being a god or a lich or any other type of creature that doesn't suffer ability drain. It's not like restoration costs all that much. Besides there is still the jumping into anothers body to drain their body of strength and con. I mean call me the jumping wizard of drain dodging. It's also sort of unfair to punish the classes that don't have access to spells to heal drain verses the people that do. My two cents on the issues. Interesting idea though, and I guess there are always going to be people that look for broken things. (better to find them now then later.)
NightBreeze 11-25-06, 05:36 PM	:bump:
strange_person 11-27-06, 10:57 AM	At least one of the points against this seems easy to resolve: If you're immune to ability damage/drain, you can't create magic items from your own power alone in these rules. Gods and liches need to find an external source of Essence. Ice Assasin and Simulacrum already need a serious rewrite. Interesting concept, but less-than-perfectly executed.
Crystal Monk 12-29-06, 10:14 PM	holy crap, I had no idea people had even further replied to this. I've been meaning to revise this thing, I'll get started on it soon - my PCs haven't reached this point yet, so I set it aside. update hopefully within a few weeks. thanks for the thread resurrection!
Marrethiel 01-02-07, 09:44 PM	I've never like the idea that in the process of creating something that you become weaker in some way. In the real world when you create something you learn and get better at it. So... Instead of taking 1 day per 1000 gp to make something, make it one week or a month. And then give exp based on the level of the item as a standard enconter. Any player who rubs his hands in glee thinking about all the toys he can make will soon be out levelled by his companions that go of adventuring. Also, this allows for NPC item creators because making items levels them up. This would allow a PC to consign an item and go of and make it. Then, as a Player option, allow them to spend exp if they want to make something in the normal time and this will represent burnout because the item is being hurried.
strenoth 01-03-07, 04:05 AM	Just a thought: there's a reason why 3rd edition moved AWAY from the ability score reduction method for creating a magic item, whcih is the wya it worked in 1st/2nd edition. (for mages at least, clerics got to just pray a lot instead. But the item had to be ruled relevant to the gods interest first)