I would like a rule that allows crafter-type characters to transfer the magic from one item to another. It shouldn't be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible either.
My first inclination is that it should be a feat.
Here's a start:
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Pre-requisites: any Item Creation feat
Benefit: When crafting an item, you can destroy another item of the same type (Armor, Weapon, Shield) in your possession. You may add the abilities of the destroyed item to the crafted item as though you had paid the materials cost and met all the requirements of crafting that item.
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This is probably insufficient, and riddled with exploits. Your thoughts?
For thoughts/discussion on a related topic, you might like to look at the *Arcane Anvil* thread from the first Superstar contest on the Paizo boards. The item was designed to move magic abilities from one weapon to another.
Wow. That was uncommonly helpful, thanks!
Dweomer Transfer
Pre-requisites: any Item Creation feat
Benefit: When crafting an item, you can destroy another item of the same type (Armor, Weapon, Shield) in your possession. You may add the abilities of the destroyed item to the crafted item as though you had paid the materials cost and met all the requirements of crafting that item.
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This is probably insufficient, and riddled with exploits. Your thoughts?
Not too bad.
I would add restrictions to layering one magical ability on top of an existing magical weapon. Otherwise a player could abuse this feat by making a +1 flaming sword, a +1 shocking sword, a +1 holy sword, a +1 defending sword, and a +1 vorpal sword. Then he could take a +5 sword and use this feat to create a +5 flaming shocking holy defending vorpal sword. And it would cost him only a tiny fraction of the time and gold require to craft that final sword the hard way.
What I think I would do, if you're mathematically inclined, is to calcuate the item your player wants to make. Determine the final GP and number of days to make it. Then calculate the item he is destroying and determine the GP and time of that item. Then subtract the costs of the destroyed item from the costs of the item he is making, and he must continue to craft for the reamining time and must supply the remaining cost.
This way, sacrificing a weak item to add its power to an already powerful item won't gain you much because you are looking at the total cost to make that powerful item and reducing it by the relatively small total cost of making the much weaker item you are destroying.
And, I might still work in a bit of a penalty. You might only get 80% of the value of the destroyed items (that's off the top of my head). This way the crafter still has to spend a little time working off the rough edges, and a little bit of GP to pay a few incidental costs in finishing his new item - even if he's destroying a +1 sword to make a +1 axe.
Otherwise, it seems to be a good feat. I might even steal it...
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For something as basic as getting a +1 'your weapon here' from that +1 fauchard-fork that you found in the dragonne's treasure, we've always allowed Polymorph Any Object to transform unattended magical weapons (and armor) into different weapons or armor items (that remain eligible to bear those enchanments. A +3 sword of sharpness turned into a mace becomes a +3 mace.).
We used this back in 2nd edition when someone would use an unusual weapon and find nothing appropriate as treasure.
In the one instance where a character needed weapon enchantments moved, we used Limited Wish, which is obviously kind of a last resort...
I figure that a spellcraft roll should be required here, probably same as the crafting DC, along with modifier for having or not having spell prereqs. If you are gonna take a dweomer, lift it off of one object and bind it to another, familiarity with the magic involved should definitely matter.
There should also be some kind of danger as well, perhaps if you fail by 5 or more the dweomer unravels and causes damage. If its a fumble it could cause damage and a spell mishap. Or maybe a curse! Perhaps the item you move the dweomer to becomes a cursed item and you have to make a save or become caught by its enchantment.
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I understand what you are going for - I like the polymorph approach.
My own solution to the problem was to have merchants exchange common magic items at face value, with the PCs paying the base price and a small markup fee.
For example, Fighterguy wants to trade the +1 short sword for a +1 greatsword. He pays the cost for a greatsword, plus a 10% (100gp) transaction fee.
The rule applies as long as the type of bonus being traded is the same.
For something as basic as getting a +1 'your weapon here' from that +1 fauchard-fork that you found in the dragonne's treasure, we've always allowed Polymorph Any Object to transform unattended magical weapons (and armor) into different weapons or armor items (that remain eligible to bear those enchanments. A +3 sword of sharpness turned into a mace becomes a +3 mace.).
We used this back in 2nd edition when someone would use an unusual weapon and find nothing appropriate as treasure.
In the one instance where a character needed weapon enchantments moved, we used Limited Wish, which is obviously kind of a last resort...
That's pretty handy, for when you're 15th level and someone in your group actually gains access to the spell. Unless you want to run around looking for a 15th level mage to whip that up for you in town.
Hiring a NPC spellcaster to cast this spell for you would cost 1200 GP minimum.
Using this spell, shortsword to longsword would be permanent, but shortsword to mace would only last 1 week.
I guess all that could be houseruled, but I suspect the OP was looking for a houserule that might let lower-level adventurers do this on their own, and probably without incurring so much cost.
I figure that a spellcraft roll should be required here, probably same as the crafting DC, along with modifier for having or not having spell prereqs. If you are gonna take a dweomer, lift it off of one object and bind it to another, familiarity with the magic involved should definitely matter.
There should also be some kind of danger as well, perhaps if you fail by 5 or more the dweomer unravels and causes damage. If its a fumble it could cause damage and a spell mishap. Or maybe a curse! Perhaps the item you move the dweomer to becomes a cursed item and you have to make a save or become caught by its enchantment.
The spellcraft roll is nice idea, but I don't think any danger is needed.
There is a pretty hefty risk in failing - you consume your magic item but are unable to transfer the dweomer. That's a lot of lost treasure that could have been sold for a pile of gold to help fund the creation of the item you're crafting.
Having the item poof for no gain on a failed roll is almost certainly penalty enough, in my opinion.
I understand what you are going for - I like the polymorph approach.
My own solution to the problem was to have merchants exchange common magic items at face value, with the PCs paying the base price and a small markup fee.
For example, Fighterguy wants to trade the +1 short sword for a +1 greatsword. He pays the cost for a greatsword, plus a 10% (100gp) transaction fee.
The rule applies as long as the type of bonus being traded is the same.
Yeah, I think many DMs do this, more or less.
Me, my craftstmen, merchants, vendors, storekeepers, etc., generally accept cold hard cash, but also readily accept barter. Nothing wrong with trading your +2 holy glaive for the vendor's +2 holy longsword.
I usually judge any markup in perceived value. The vendor knows that a +2 holy longsword will sell quickly and a +2 holy glaive will sit on his shelf for a long time, so he will charge heavily for the barter to compensate tying up his capital in an item that won't return his investment any time soon.
All this is limited, of course, to whether the PCs can even find a vendor with a +2 holy longsword for sale.
On the other hand, it might be nice for an adventuring party to be self-sufficient enough to whip up their own dweomer transfers, for little or no cost, maybe even out in a dungeon somewhere, without having to return to town, find a shopkeeper who happens to be selling what they want, and work out an equitable trade. Hence, the OP's feat.
Options are always good. With the feat, players might still find a storekeeper willing to barter, maybe even toss in some coin if the barter is in the vendor's favor (maybe your PC is looking for a +2 holy glaive and willing to trade a +2 holy longsword for it). That would be preferable to using the feat, especially if the feat comes with a spellcraft roll, a chance to poof the item for no gain, and some incidental costs.
I say, give them options!
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Options are always good. With the feat, players might still find a storekeeper willing to barter,
And with the feat existing in the game, even if no PC takes it, it helps to explain why the PCs can sell that +2 flaming gnomish double hammer that they got for the same half value that they can sell that +2 flaming longsword (which is gonna be *way* easier for the merchant to offload). The merchants themselves will have contacts that can perform this function, and so don't have to worry about 'eating' the cost of a magical exotic weapon that nobody is likely to buy, since they can move the enchantment over to a weapon that everybody wants.
Adding it into the background just helps 'make sense' of an assumption that's already built into the game, that NPCs will buy a magic weapon for fair value, even if it's something they could never sell.
It's like a built in retcon!
Might just do it as a penalty to the regular spellcraft roll for making the item if the ability is something you couldn't ordinarily make.
Oddly enough I was thinking about using something similar to this in place of the Artificer's Retain Essence ability in my conversion. I was even tentatively calling it Transfer Dweomer.
The thing that hung me up was that value wise, it gained me the same amount as selling the item (1/2 base cost). Unless it reduces the crafting time or the skill check there is no benefit over selling the item and putting the money toward crafting the new item.
Under the new crafting rules effectively* magic items = gold pieces + time. When the cost to make an item is equal to the amount you can sell it for it really limits your options for ways to enhance a characters item crafting ability.
We were discussing exactly this in the Artificer thread in the Conversion section.
To say that there's no benefit at all because the values are the same is not exactly true. It depends on the treasure used and the availability of magic items otherwise. For example, in my Rise of the Runelords game, the ability to take abilities out of giant and evil weapons and put them into more useful weapons is extremely beneficial, resulting in the salvage of hundreds of thousands of gold that would otherwise go to waste. That's a pretty clear benefit.
What about making this available to those who have a Craft magic item feat, matching ranks in an appropriate Craft or Profession skill, and the Master Craftsman feat? The idea being that if you have skill ranks, a Craft magic item feat, and the Master Craftsman feat all focused on one category of magic items that you are so focused on a particular category of items that you can pull this off.
Edit:
I am somewhat wary of allowing the use of such a process to stack abilities from one weapon on top of an already enchanted weapon.
Using a combination of skill(s) and/or feat(s) to 'transfer' all the abilities of one weapon to a 'blank', unenchanted, masterwork weapon is one thing, but collecting and stacking abilities from a variety of weapons to make one 'superweapon' I feel is another altogether.
Perhaps such stacking might be allowed by using a wish or miracle to do so (and with material components being required as part of the process equal to the difference in values between the 'starting weapons' and 'end result weapon'), but as a GM I would be reluctant to otherwise allow it.
Well there is already a process for adding enchantments to an already enchanted weapon. It is the crafting cost of the new weapon minus the crafting cost of the old weapon.
From the PFRD:
Adding New Abilities
Sometimes, lack of funds or time make it impossible for a magic item crafter to create the desired item from scratch. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place.
The cost to add additional abilities to an item is the same as if the item was not magical, less the value of the original item. Thus, a +1 longsword can be made into a +2 vorpal longsword, with the cost to create it being equal to that of a +2 vorpal sword minus the cost of a +1 longsword.