Help with magic item design ideas [Archive] - Wizards Community

Help with magic item design ideas [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Bead
12-16-06, 11:55 PM Hi guys!

My party and I have just found ourselves a nice white tower with a blue force shield around it (double points if you can tell me the name of this module) and have managed to empty it of all the creatures but the djinn-like creature in the treasure vault. We have decided to try and keep it as our own.

Needless to say it is a wizards paradise, but I would like to make it a bit more "homey" by adding a few creations of my own. My character is based on getting Craft Feats - to make magic items, and this will be a long-term project, so please do not let feats, skills, and level restrictions hinder your creative juices.

To give you an idea of the sorts of things I am talking about, here are some things that came WITH the place...

Easy chair - magic ink well and quill in the arm spring to life and take dictation onto a parchment that appears.

Bookshelf - this massive collection of thousands of books shifts and rearranges instantly upon the users request of information. (like Google!)

Bed - this is the most comfortable matress you have ever felt and requires only a few hours of sleep to be fully rested and ready for spell memorization.

Lamps - these table lamps have continual light (continual flame) cast on them.

Wardrobe - mends, cleans, and presses clothing items that are put inside it.

-----------

To get us started I am thinking about something like:

Dinner Table - creates dinner for up to 8, three times a day.

Bath Pool - creates hot water on command, empties when finished.

Please feel free to be as vauge or detailed as you like or expand on the ideas of others.
Khisanth Magus
12-17-06, 04:00 AM Although it is extremely cliche, cleaning tools that do the work for you are always useful, so your tower doesn't get super dusty.
tiercel
12-17-06, 09:08 AM Get unseen servants -- either the Wondrous Architecture type (Stronghold Builder's Handbook style), or a use-activated item (e.g. a hand bell). They can clean, move things, and generally act as a "personal assistant."

Prestidigitation is nice too -- it cleans, it warms up food, heats or chills your drink, spices your meal without an extensive (and expensive) spice rack. It makes temporary toys for kids. It lets you grab the salt shaker from the other side of the table or a sheet of eelskin parchment from the top shelf.

It's not a proper home if you don't have central heat and cooling. Consider crafting some kind of climate-control object you can install in each room, or like Wondrous Architecture, bind it to the room itself. You'll sleep better when it's not a cold wet miserable late autumn's evening or a sweltering bedclothes-sticking-to-your-flesh summer night.

You know some cold spells? Take the above idea a bit further and make one room/closet permanently cold. After all, you want to be able to preserve food and not have Jeeves run down to the local peon village for fresh supplies every frickin' day. (Sure, you can rely on a magical table to serve all your food needs, but it's good to have a backup, and even some variety in your diet.)

Decanters of endless water are very nice items, but perhaps overkill for domestic needs. Think "running water" and you can probably convince your DM to let you craft a cut-rate decanter that is fine for a water pitcher or to draw a bath.

Basically, one guide you can use to making your home comfortable is to think of all the conveniences of a real-life modern-day home, and replicate real-life technology with D&D magic.

You'll want to put a little effort into security as well, since your net worth as a PC is or will be more than many small countries. After all, you were able to take over the tower, and it's only a matter of time before some enterprising individual or individuals express an interest in doing the same. Traps are fine, but you have to be able to not worry about getting caught in your own traps of course, and you can't expect them to stop intruders with a good rogue or with enough hit points and/or savvy to not care. You'll want warning systems and mechanisms that will slow/harry intruders enough for you and/or your guards to efficiently dispose of them.
ressurrector
12-17-06, 03:18 PM A shelf of gentle repose in the pantry. (Food never spoils or ages)
Mechanical cat to kill off vermin.
stargate525
12-17-06, 05:18 PM cut out/add two vertical shafts that open out to every floor, preferably next to each other. One has slowfall constantly active in it, the other has levitation. instant elevator!
DracoPhoenix
12-17-06, 06:17 PM With regards to securing the place, invent AI - Arcane Intelligence. (Ok, not so much "invent" as "abuse" the existing rules on intelligent items)

It's all to easy to overcome traps, no matter how fiendish. After all that's how you got the tower in the first place.

But they are really going to have to work to convince the house that they are the legitimate owners when it knows damn well who the owner is :)
They want the water to run, fine. 2hrs worth of diplomacy checks and UMD to convince the AI that dispite it's locate creature ability tells it your in once place, that the guy turning the tap is also you.

Could even let it develop personality. Though for safetys sake, don't call it the Home Arcane Liaison.

addendum
Mechanical cat to kill off vermin.
would that require craft homonculus or craft effigy? :)
ressurrector
12-18-06, 01:44 AM Remember, when magically trapping your house:
Allways make the trap go off when the door opens, so knock sets it off.
Traps that have an area trigger set so that you set off the trap by getting close to it (it goes off before anyone can get close enough to search for it or disarm it)
DrMorganes
12-18-06, 01:56 AM On the subject of traps:

The most effective ones are in places one never expects to find them. Doors? meh. Locks? Been there, disarmed that. Corridors? booooor-ring. Most folks expect traps on the way in, by the way...
Dei
12-18-06, 05:59 PM I direct your attention to the 1001 minor magic items thread:

hxxp://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=480519
(change the xs to ts for the link)

If you can't find a host of nice ideas in there you're not reading the right thread. Enjoy :)
zzakk2to2
12-19-06, 01:59 PM dont just make traps make inteligent traps where instead of having the axe swing down when you are close have it swing at and attack when its not you.

also have a room with the floor 10ft lower then the door with spikes on the ground and put a solid illusion for a floor with a sign on the oppisite wall that says that the floors an illusion.

on a side not you could have unseen servants steel stuff from the invading party:D
ShadowDragon8685
12-19-06, 03:42 PM Here's one for you.

Enchant the whole tower so that it has a Burrow speed of about 30 feet per round.

Then name it Castle Figaro. :)
zzakk2to2
12-19-06, 05:58 PM give everything inteligence!!!

also another trap idea: instead of a pit trap have a portable hole trap where they fall in and it and it rolls up trapping them. another is them nifty ring portal things just have one in the corridor and one high up in the air.

for waste disposial use the same ring portal
stargate525
12-19-06, 07:05 PM With regards to securing the place, invent AI - Arcane Intelligence. (Ok, not so much "invent" as "abuse" the existing rules on intelligent items)

It's all to easy to overcome traps, no matter how fiendish. After all that's how you got the tower in the first place.

But they are really going to have to work to convince the house that they are the legitimate owners when it knows damn well who the owner is :)
They want the water to run, fine. 2hrs worth of diplomacy checks and UMD to convince the AI that dispite it's locate creature ability tells it your in once place, that the guy turning the tap is also you.

Could even let it develop personality. Though for safetys sake, don't call it the Home Arcane Liaison.

That's beautiful. I'm totally making an intelligent house now.

To prevent the HAL problem, you could just... you know... not let it control anything that could kill you, like traps, air circulation, the poison controls, the drains, etc.
Bead
12-19-06, 09:05 PM another is them nifty ring portal things just have one in the corridor and one high up in the air.

Or....have say, a round pit trap forty feet deep with the ring that teleports them at the bottom to the one that is twenty feet from the surface...effectively a bottomless pit.

And if you are mean, raise the bottom ring up one foot and add spikes that reach one inch above the ring...how many falls does it take to kill a wizard?
DracoPhoenix
12-20-06, 04:25 AM Here's one for you.

Enchant the whole tower so that it has a Burrow speed of about 30 feet per round.

Then name it Castle Figaro. :)

I see your idea and raise (/steal) you this:

Greater Teleport, Planar Shift, one of the various spacial compression jobbies (I think it's usually leo's secret chest), polymorph any object (/ shapechange?), nondetection, (optional:) major illusion:

TARDIS.
DracoPhoenix
12-20-06, 05:07 AM Or....have say, a round pit trap forty feet deep with the ring that teleports them at the bottom to the one that is twenty feet from the surface...effectively a bottomless pit.

And if you are mean, raise the bottom ring up one foot and add spikes that reach one inch above the ring...how many falls does it take to kill a wizard?

If you're gonna do a nasty endless portal trap, do it properly :):

1) AM field between the two portals - no Dimension dooring out of it.
2)

Redirect the initial trap portal to a another room with your portal trap,
the portals take up the whole floor area (though the floor only needs to be 10ft across
Poison tipped spikes covering the walls, poison to cause fatigue (no point killing them outright, that's what starvation's for)
AM field & Non-detection on the room / anyone entering the room (+Dimensional Anchor?).
An upside down sign saying this way up, pointing to the floor.
low temperature and a column of water falling between the portals.

3) Portal trap, doesn't loop, but sends them to the void.

4) Set it so it doesn't trigger until someone gets 3/4 the way across the room or 3/4 the party's total weight is needed.

It's a trap for monsters / NPCs, being avoidable isn't necessarily an expectation of the trap.

Other house ideas:

Have an emergency lock down function (command word / fire alarm (break glass type) runes) that floods all the interior with AMFs and non-detection, puts up forcewalls at key locations.

Those nice statues are actually vain gargoyles.

Contigent teleport - party recalled to "bunker" (permanent mages mansion with full armoury & supplies) on tower defenses breach.

Web traps as secondary traps (designed to go off if the primary is disabled / 2 rounds after primary) - more to harrass than be an actual trap

Permenant Symbols (Pain, sleep) are good - incorporated into art work, above doors etc. I suppose the type depends if you're going for incapacitation or removal .

Fog Traps, secret portals, force walls, dimensional anchor and know location jamming - running blind through a maze when you could endup walking straight through a portal with no way to know where you are or teleport out. (Add a rotating floor and lights that alternate between dancing about and static)

A portal in your bunker that leads to a heavily shielded roomfar below the bottom of the tower - the portal's the only way to get from the tower to the room.
The room has a mundane tunnel leading to the outside world. Trapped and concealed as much as you like.

Never underestimate the importance of a secret way in or out. Or the inherent security flaws usually placed on them. (How many BBEGs have fallen foul of this?)

6 hours after the breach (or just as they're setting up camp if you have AI & survaillence (sp?), spawn Nightmares as appropriate.

Bestow Curse Traps. Door handles. 'Nuff said.

I think that's a good start on the SRD spell list.

Now, can anyone advise on divination spells that could be used in conjunction with the Arcane Intelligence to really give it an edge against intruders? Or is that definately overkill?

(Have I thought about this too much? Are Players going to kill me when DMs read this thread?).

Remember, because the tower can gain levels, it's also entitled to feats. I can't remember if basement levels count as secret levels or negative levels though :(
(does anyone have a link to that thread? I think I deleted mine)
zzakk2to2
12-20-06, 09:13 AM have an "endless maze" by taking the ring portals and the first sends them to a room with 2 outgoing portals and 2 incoming ones(just have someting to block the incoming becuase you can go both ways) both the out going go to the incoming ones in another room that looks just like the last and have it so they can only pass on once the partys all the way through so that you can have some magic effect take and clean up the room by taking fixing any thing to mark it as something they had already visited so that they loop back and think they are in a very long corridor you can even have illusion of the next room. make sure they cant just teleport out though.

on a side note are we making a impenatrable tower or a home i say make your own demiplane only accesible from the tower where you have a house in a country side like setting with all the neat gadgets and stuff and make it all inteligent so that it can protect to a certain degree and do have everything in the tower and even the tower inteligent just make it so that it likes you above its own existence.
zzakk2to2
12-20-06, 06:13 PM sorry for the double post but brillience strikes. have a chess set and use animate object on the pieces so you can play without lifting a finger.
DracoPhoenix
12-20-06, 06:39 PM sorry for the double post but brillience strikes. have a chess set and use animate object on the pieces so you can play without lifting a finger.

Given the size of the pieces, prestidigitation might suffice - i can move up to 1 lb objects slowly.
zzakk2to2
12-21-06, 08:11 AM Given the size of the pieces, prestidigitation might suffice - i can move up to 1 lb objects slowly.

but can it be made permanent and even attack if needed?
DracoPhoenix
12-21-06, 09:37 AM but can it be made permanent and even attack if needed?

prestidigitation is a L0 spell so it would be pretty cheap to take a MW chess set and slap at will prestidigitation on it (maybe a discount as you only need the telekenisis part)
As for the attack, that would just be the pieces moving off the board etc. If you wanted proper combat, consider major / minor image as a spell component.
zzakk2to2
12-21-06, 02:07 PM apparently you not get but i said attack as in what you use most animated objects for but that idea of yours rocks so add the illusion for the chess.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Bead 12-16-06, 11:55 PM	Hi guys! My party and I have just found ourselves a nice white tower with a blue force shield around it (double points if you can tell me the name of this module) and have managed to empty it of all the creatures but the djinn-like creature in the treasure vault. We have decided to try and keep it as our own. Needless to say it is a wizards paradise, but I would like to make it a bit more "homey" by adding a few creations of my own. My character is based on getting Craft Feats - to make magic items, and this will be a long-term project, so please do not let feats, skills, and level restrictions hinder your creative juices. To give you an idea of the sorts of things I am talking about, here are some things that came WITH the place... Easy chair - magic ink well and quill in the arm spring to life and take dictation onto a parchment that appears. Bookshelf - this massive collection of thousands of books shifts and rearranges instantly upon the users request of information. (like Google!) Bed - this is the most comfortable matress you have ever felt and requires only a few hours of sleep to be fully rested and ready for spell memorization. Lamps - these table lamps have continual light (continual flame) cast on them. Wardrobe - mends, cleans, and presses clothing items that are put inside it. ----------- To get us started I am thinking about something like: Dinner Table - creates dinner for up to 8, three times a day. Bath Pool - creates hot water on command, empties when finished. Please feel free to be as vauge or detailed as you like or expand on the ideas of others.
Khisanth Magus 12-17-06, 04:00 AM	Although it is extremely cliche, cleaning tools that do the work for you are always useful, so your tower doesn't get super dusty.
tiercel 12-17-06, 09:08 AM	Get unseen servants -- either the Wondrous Architecture type (Stronghold Builder's Handbook style), or a use-activated item (e.g. a hand bell). They can clean, move things, and generally act as a "personal assistant." Prestidigitation is nice too -- it cleans, it warms up food, heats or chills your drink, spices your meal without an extensive (and expensive) spice rack. It makes temporary toys for kids. It lets you grab the salt shaker from the other side of the table or a sheet of eelskin parchment from the top shelf. It's not a proper home if you don't have central heat and cooling. Consider crafting some kind of climate-control object you can install in each room, or like Wondrous Architecture, bind it to the room itself. You'll sleep better when it's not a cold wet miserable late autumn's evening or a sweltering bedclothes-sticking-to-your-flesh summer night. You know some cold spells? Take the above idea a bit further and make one room/closet permanently cold. After all, you want to be able to preserve food and not have Jeeves run down to the local peon village for fresh supplies every frickin' day. (Sure, you can rely on a magical table to serve all your food needs, but it's good to have a backup, and even some variety in your diet.) Decanters of endless water are very nice items, but perhaps overkill for domestic needs. Think "running water" and you can probably convince your DM to let you craft a cut-rate decanter that is fine for a water pitcher or to draw a bath. Basically, one guide you can use to making your home comfortable is to think of all the conveniences of a real-life modern-day home, and replicate real-life technology with D&D magic. You'll want to put a little effort into security as well, since your net worth as a PC is or will be more than many small countries. After all, you were able to take over the tower, and it's only a matter of time before some enterprising individual or individuals express an interest in doing the same. Traps are fine, but you have to be able to not worry about getting caught in your own traps of course, and you can't expect them to stop intruders with a good rogue or with enough hit points and/or savvy to not care. You'll want warning systems and mechanisms that will slow/harry intruders enough for you and/or your guards to efficiently dispose of them.
ressurrector 12-17-06, 03:18 PM	A shelf of gentle repose in the pantry. (Food never spoils or ages) Mechanical cat to kill off vermin.
stargate525 12-17-06, 05:18 PM	cut out/add two vertical shafts that open out to every floor, preferably next to each other. One has slowfall constantly active in it, the other has levitation. instant elevator!
DracoPhoenix 12-17-06, 06:17 PM	With regards to securing the place, invent AI - Arcane Intelligence. (Ok, not so much "invent" as "abuse" the existing rules on intelligent items) It's all to easy to overcome traps, no matter how fiendish. After all that's how you got the tower in the first place. But they are really going to have to work to convince the house that they are the legitimate owners when it knows damn well who the owner is :) They want the water to run, fine. 2hrs worth of diplomacy checks and UMD to convince the AI that dispite it's locate creature ability tells it your in once place, that the guy turning the tap is also you. Could even let it develop personality. Though for safetys sake, don't call it the Home Arcane Liaison. addendum Mechanical cat to kill off vermin. would that require craft homonculus or craft effigy? :)
ressurrector 12-18-06, 01:44 AM	Remember, when magically trapping your house: Allways make the trap go off when the door opens, so knock sets it off. Traps that have an area trigger set so that you set off the trap by getting close to it (it goes off before anyone can get close enough to search for it or disarm it)
DrMorganes 12-18-06, 01:56 AM	On the subject of traps: The most effective ones are in places one never expects to find them. Doors? meh. Locks? Been there, disarmed that. Corridors? booooor-ring. Most folks expect traps on the way in, by the way...
Dei 12-18-06, 05:59 PM	I direct your attention to the 1001 minor magic items thread: hxxp://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=480519 (change the xs to ts for the link) If you can't find a host of nice ideas in there you're not reading the right thread. Enjoy :)
zzakk2to2 12-19-06, 01:59 PM	dont just make traps make inteligent traps where instead of having the axe swing down when you are close have it swing at and attack when its not you. also have a room with the floor 10ft lower then the door with spikes on the ground and put a solid illusion for a floor with a sign on the oppisite wall that says that the floors an illusion. on a side not you could have unseen servants steel stuff from the invading party:D
ShadowDragon8685 12-19-06, 03:42 PM	Here's one for you. Enchant the whole tower so that it has a Burrow speed of about 30 feet per round. Then name it Castle Figaro. :)
zzakk2to2 12-19-06, 05:58 PM	give everything inteligence!!! also another trap idea: instead of a pit trap have a portable hole trap where they fall in and it and it rolls up trapping them. another is them nifty ring portal things just have one in the corridor and one high up in the air. for waste disposial use the same ring portal
stargate525 12-19-06, 07:05 PM	With regards to securing the place, invent AI - Arcane Intelligence. (Ok, not so much "invent" as "abuse" the existing rules on intelligent items) It's all to easy to overcome traps, no matter how fiendish. After all that's how you got the tower in the first place. But they are really going to have to work to convince the house that they are the legitimate owners when it knows damn well who the owner is :) They want the water to run, fine. 2hrs worth of diplomacy checks and UMD to convince the AI that dispite it's locate creature ability tells it your in once place, that the guy turning the tap is also you. Could even let it develop personality. Though for safetys sake, don't call it the Home Arcane Liaison. That's beautiful. I'm totally making an intelligent house now. To prevent the HAL problem, you could just... you know... not let it control anything that could kill you, like traps, air circulation, the poison controls, the drains, etc.
Bead 12-19-06, 09:05 PM	another is them nifty ring portal things just have one in the corridor and one high up in the air. Or....have say, a round pit trap forty feet deep with the ring that teleports them at the bottom to the one that is twenty feet from the surface...effectively a bottomless pit. And if you are mean, raise the bottom ring up one foot and add spikes that reach one inch above the ring...how many falls does it take to kill a wizard?
DracoPhoenix 12-20-06, 04:25 AM	Here's one for you. Enchant the whole tower so that it has a Burrow speed of about 30 feet per round. Then name it Castle Figaro. :) I see your idea and raise (/steal) you this: Greater Teleport, Planar Shift, one of the various spacial compression jobbies (I think it's usually leo's secret chest), polymorph any object (/ shapechange?), nondetection, (optional:) major illusion: TARDIS.
DracoPhoenix 12-20-06, 05:07 AM	Or....have say, a round pit trap forty feet deep with the ring that teleports them at the bottom to the one that is twenty feet from the surface...effectively a bottomless pit. And if you are mean, raise the bottom ring up one foot and add spikes that reach one inch above the ring...how many falls does it take to kill a wizard? If you're gonna do a nasty endless portal trap, do it properly :): 1) AM field between the two portals - no Dimension dooring out of it. 2) Redirect the initial trap portal to a another room with your portal trap, the portals take up the whole floor area (though the floor only needs to be 10ft across Poison tipped spikes covering the walls, poison to cause fatigue (no point killing them outright, that's what starvation's for) AM field & Non-detection on the room / anyone entering the room (+Dimensional Anchor?). An upside down sign saying this way up, pointing to the floor. low temperature and a column of water falling between the portals. 3) Portal trap, doesn't loop, but sends them to the void. 4) Set it so it doesn't trigger until someone gets 3/4 the way across the room or 3/4 the party's total weight is needed. It's a trap for monsters / NPCs, being avoidable isn't necessarily an expectation of the trap. Other house ideas: Have an emergency lock down function (command word / fire alarm (break glass type) runes) that floods all the interior with AMFs and non-detection, puts up forcewalls at key locations. Those nice statues are actually vain gargoyles. Contigent teleport - party recalled to "bunker" (permanent mages mansion with full armoury & supplies) on tower defenses breach. Web traps as secondary traps (designed to go off if the primary is disabled / 2 rounds after primary) - more to harrass than be an actual trap Permenant Symbols (Pain, sleep) are good - incorporated into art work, above doors etc. I suppose the type depends if you're going for incapacitation or removal . Fog Traps, secret portals, force walls, dimensional anchor and know location jamming - running blind through a maze when you could endup walking straight through a portal with no way to know where you are or teleport out. (Add a rotating floor and lights that alternate between dancing about and static) A portal in your bunker that leads to a heavily shielded roomfar below the bottom of the tower - the portal's the only way to get from the tower to the room. The room has a mundane tunnel leading to the outside world. Trapped and concealed as much as you like. Never underestimate the importance of a secret way in or out. Or the inherent security flaws usually placed on them. (How many BBEGs have fallen foul of this?) 6 hours after the breach (or just as they're setting up camp if you have AI & survaillence (sp?), spawn Nightmares as appropriate. Bestow Curse Traps. Door handles. 'Nuff said. I think that's a good start on the SRD spell list. Now, can anyone advise on divination spells that could be used in conjunction with the Arcane Intelligence to really give it an edge against intruders? Or is that definately overkill? (Have I thought about this too much? Are Players going to kill me when DMs read this thread?). Remember, because the tower can gain levels, it's also entitled to feats. I can't remember if basement levels count as secret levels or negative levels though :( (does anyone have a link to that thread? I think I deleted mine)
zzakk2to2 12-20-06, 09:13 AM	have an "endless maze" by taking the ring portals and the first sends them to a room with 2 outgoing portals and 2 incoming ones(just have someting to block the incoming becuase you can go both ways) both the out going go to the incoming ones in another room that looks just like the last and have it so they can only pass on once the partys all the way through so that you can have some magic effect take and clean up the room by taking fixing any thing to mark it as something they had already visited so that they loop back and think they are in a very long corridor you can even have illusion of the next room. make sure they cant just teleport out though. on a side note are we making a impenatrable tower or a home i say make your own demiplane only accesible from the tower where you have a house in a country side like setting with all the neat gadgets and stuff and make it all inteligent so that it can protect to a certain degree and do have everything in the tower and even the tower inteligent just make it so that it likes you above its own existence.
zzakk2to2 12-20-06, 06:13 PM	sorry for the double post but brillience strikes. have a chess set and use animate object on the pieces so you can play without lifting a finger.
DracoPhoenix 12-20-06, 06:39 PM	sorry for the double post but brillience strikes. have a chess set and use animate object on the pieces so you can play without lifting a finger. Given the size of the pieces, prestidigitation might suffice - i can move up to 1 lb objects slowly.
zzakk2to2 12-21-06, 08:11 AM	Given the size of the pieces, prestidigitation might suffice - i can move up to 1 lb objects slowly. but can it be made permanent and even attack if needed?
DracoPhoenix 12-21-06, 09:37 AM	but can it be made permanent and even attack if needed? prestidigitation is a L0 spell so it would be pretty cheap to take a MW chess set and slap at will prestidigitation on it (maybe a discount as you only need the telekenisis part) As for the attack, that would just be the pieces moving off the board etc. If you wanted proper combat, consider major / minor image as a spell component.
zzakk2to2 12-21-06, 02:07 PM	apparently you not get but i said attack as in what you use most animated objects for but that idea of yours rocks so add the illusion for the chess.