Does a Spell Have to Directly Influence the Magic Item's Abilities? [RAW]

This thread got me thinking about quite a few things (please don't start that debate in here). A quote from that post is, "... spells don't have to have a direct influence in the abilities of the item."

My question is: Does an item's ability have to be linked to a spell that is required as part of the item's creation? Example: Could I use the spell Burning Hands to create an item that gives a +2 Luck bonus to AC?

It would seem logically that, yes, an effect the item produces would have to come from somewhere, but I'm not finding RAW for it. I know the highest level spell determines the item's aura (Link: "...detect magic identifies a magic item's school of magic, this information refers to the school of the spell placed within the potion, scroll, or wand, or the prerequisite given for the item." A bit later, "If more than one spell is given as a prerequisite, use the highest-level spell.") Some items don't follow this (Ioun Torch has an aura of Universal but Continual Flame is Evocation [Light]), so I don't know how iron clad that is.

I didn't find any other threads that asked this, so I apologize if this has already been answered.

It isn't required that the item precisely duplicate a spell or anything. Thematically, the spells will usually make sense for the item. I don't think it's an ironclad rule, but as a GM, I wouldn't let you pick prerequisites which didn't somehow make narrative sense.

I definitely agree with you, seebs. Some items are exactly the same as the spell effect while others are a bit more convoluted. The item Assassin's Dagger does not have an effect that is anything like the spell Slay Living used in its creation, but the effect is appropriate for the spells intention and the intention of the name Assassin's Dagger ("+1 bonus to the DC of a Fortitude save forced by the death attack of an assassin."). Still, I was wanting to know if there was an actual rule somewhere about it.

I want to make my +27 flaming vorpal sword of instant death from a mage hand spell.

Seriously, how can you craft an item that gives a +2 luck bonus to AC? I suppose it's also slotless, eh?

Magic items have guidelines more than they have "rules", but if you are not the GM, don't expect for any of them let you use any spell you want.

Creating magic items that don't otherwise exist is the purview of the DM. You won't find a strictly RAW answer because of that.

Guys, I'm not saying I want to actually do this. Logically effects should come "from" spells and have an appropriate price. However, I was looking for if there was text anywhere that mentions this, as I did not find it in the Magic Item Creation rules. The debate in the other thread had one side saying, "Even though the item uses an illusion spell for crafting and has an illusion aura, the item has a transmutation like effect because the item reads like it does." This is what prompted my question of whether an item had to be grounded in a spell and/or school for the item's effect to be valid. There is a rule that the item's aura has to match the highest level spell used to create the item (which I already quoted). Beyond that I didn't find anything.

The Ioun stone has an universal aura because that is the aura of the stone, and it has a CL of 12. The continual flame effect is a 2nd or 3rd level spell (depending on the class of the caster), with a CL of 3 or 5.: "This item is merely a burned out, dull gray ioun stone with a continual flame spell cast upon it.", so the stone stronger universal aura cover the aura of continual flame.

The spell used in a item construction need a thematic link with the final effect but placing all the possible combinations of spells and items in a book is impractical.

Magic items have guidelines more than they have "rules"

This was my point in the other thread. The items Pazio makes don't have to follow the rules and you sometimes get items that don't follow the template laid out in the creation section.

Diego gave me idea and I looked up Ioun stones. Look through those and you notice several don't fit the template. The Gamboge Nodule used a negate poison spell and it's a transformation aura. A Nacreous Gray Sphere uses bear's endurance and it's abjuration aura. The Turquoise Sphere uses longstrider and charm animal but only has a transmutation aura.

I do think that the majority of item will be fairly close to the spell used but it's no guarantee. Some are very lose in their interpretation.

On the sleeves, I think it possible that it was meant to be a low level item and they wanted it cheap, so they wanted a 1st level spell. There are no transformations that low that fit so they took what was closest, in this case an illusion spell. Ideally, they'd have changed the aura to the right one (transformation) like they did with the ioun stones but it's understandable that they put down the default.

Guys, I'm not saying I want to actually do this. Logically effects should come "from" spells and have an appropriate price. However, I was looking for if there was text anywhere that mentions this, as I did not find it in the Magic Item Creation rules. The debate in the other thread had one side saying, "Even though the item uses an illusion spell for crafting and has an illusion aura, the item has a transmutation like effect because the item reads like it does." This is what prompted my question of whether an item had to be grounded in a spell and/or school for the item's effect to be valid. There is a rule that the item's aura has to match the highest level spell used to create the item (which I already quoted). Beyond that I didn't find anything.

You can't find it because it doesn't exist. Magic Items work based on their rules text, not their crafting requirements. The answer though is "No, a magic item doesn't have to be grounded in a spell or school, because quite frankly that sounds like a chore and we'd rather just pick stuff that seems appropriate without worrying about it having some unintended side effect that a someone might harp on." OK, I admit I'm paraphrasing there, that's not verbatim.

Removed an unhelpful post.