Item use and Crafting Questions


Rules Questions


A few questions:

1. USING STAVES
So my Diviner just picked up a Staff of Heaven & Earth. Wizards can cast Gust of Wind and Stone Shape, so according to the Spell Trigger rules, if I understand the right, I would be able to cast these spells, but not the other three spells, those being Air walk, Control winds and Spike stones, as these can only be cast by Clerics or Druids. Is that right??? If so, I will be encouraging the party to sell the staff because that rule makes it crap for me.

Would I be able to cast the other three spells using the skill Use Magic Device?

2. ITEMS USABLE BY A SPECIFIC CLASS OR ALIGNMENT
I like making items that are only usable by Good aligned characters, as I am a good character, and that just seems to make sense for good characters to do this. In which case the cost to craft reduces by 30%, which is a bonus. Does this mean that NO neutral or evil character can use the device? At any time? For any reason? Or does it just mean that they can get around it by using the skill Use Magic Device?

Also how does this combine with the type of item crafted. A sword, for example. How can you restrict the +3 nature of the sword to only be usable by a certain class or alignment, or does this restriction not impact “passive” / “ever present” / “non-triggerable” functions of an item. So can weapon and armour bonuses simply not be restricted in this way? But what about the bonus from a Belt of Strength?

3. REDUCTION CRAFTING COST
I have seen threads like this one - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?185391-Pathfinder-reducing-th e-cost-of-item-creation - where it appears on the face of it that someone has achieved truly ludicrous amounts of discount, but only because they are clearly cheating. Matamane says he is using Extraordinary Artisan, with a whole load of other things, but seems to miss the fact that Extraordinary Artisan clearly states that its discount cannot be combined with any other (belm).

So it seems to me that the best discount one can achieve is around 35% OFF, i.e.: a trait like Hedge Magician and then restricting the item to a specific class of alignment.

Are there any other legitimate non-cheating ways to reduce cost?

4. IMPROVING NON-STAFF SPELL DCs
The most MASSIVE benefit of staves is that they use the casters on level for all aspects of the spells stored within. It is MASSIVE because all other items use the minimum stat requirements for the spells they cast, which is a real bastard. I created a Bracelet of Fireballs, which allowed the user to cast 5 Fireballs per day, thinking the DC would be set at my own, which with 28 INT (due to investing all stat bonuses and a +6 headband), made the DC for my Fireballs to be fearsomely high. Sadly post creation I read to the end of the crafting of items and the DC for the item plummeted. Ho hum. I still get 5 free Fireballs a day.

Is there anyway (house-rules may be acceptable?) to improve these non-Staff items so a higher DC can be fixed at the time of creation? No doubt this would increase the cost of the item.

5. STAVES AND INTELLIGENT ITEMS
I had a conversation last night about recharging staves. Clearly a spell caster needs to sacrifice a spell slot on the day they want to recharge a staff.

What about making the item intelligent, with the ADDED power of being able to cast a spell once per day. Could that ADDED power (separate from the power of the staff and its spells), be used to recharge the staff, and therefore relieve the user of the need to sacrifice one of their own spells?

Any advice on the above would be welcome.

Cheers

Patrick


1) Correct. And yes for UMD.
2) They can get around using UMD. As for wearables, they simply cannot be put on if not matching the correct aligment or they will remain as a simple masterwork item if the requeriments are not met.
And you should ask your GM if you can do that (the table is meant for GM's), otherwise you are getting a cheap discount for all your items that arent justified. If you insist on that, be prepared to find lots of evil-only magic items on your adventures.
3) Yes, but as i said, avoid getting cheap discounts or it can be turned against you later.
4) By using Heighten Spell feat, which increases the spell level and makes the item cost skyrocket. For rods, wands and scrolls, the magi have Arcanas that allow you to use your INT to calculate the spell DCs.
5) The spells given to an intelligent item are spell-like abilities (uses per day), thus they cannot be used to recharge staves.


You are lucky that you get the 30% discount, most GMs won't permit it as it really isn't much of a restriction.

If you have the time you can get effective reductions by using the downtime rules from ultimate campaign. By converting your gold to Magic you effectively 1/2 the cost.
add in this feat and you can knock up to another third off.
EDIT:
found this useful feat too


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Restricting an item by class or alignment cuts the price of the item by 30%. The GM would be well within his rights (and I would) to say that it has no effect on the cost to create. (Yes, even though it's in a section talking about reducing the cost of items, and specifically says that the cost is generally half the price.)

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