Beck's_Crusaders's page

I am still rocking out the good old "pending". I was suppose to start the game tonight. Pretty bumbed. It is not often that I am wanting to throw my money at a company and they don't take it. I got the subscription thinking it would be easier... Well maybe not...

Scenario: Fighter has shield and sword, wants to drop shield and draw a thrown weapon. Two elements to this, first does the fighter use only half of his strength when throwing from his off hand. If so what action is required to switch sword from main hand to off hand and then draw the thrown weapon with his main hand?

Thoughts?

Free actions are taken on your turn; you cannot spend your turn Full Attacking with a greatsword, then activate your shield when an enemy walks up and starts to hit you. That is an Immediate action.

Further, you cannot simply hit with your greatsword then activate it at the end of your turn; this is effectively the same thing as hitting with a greatsword then donning a shield to get the bonus to AC.

The benefit of a Ring of Force Shield is twofold. When you decide you need more armor class for a round, you can do so without spending actions to do so. Further, it is a force effect, and works against incorporeal attacks that normally ignore armor.

What it is not meant to do is be a free bonus. The shield-hand is a tightly controlled balancing factor; if characters could somehow receive the bonus without using an action (Animated shield, also quite expensive), deciding to use their round defending (Ring of Force Shield), or putting feats or class features toward the ability (Two-Weapon Fighting) then all martial characters could be expected to buy the free AC boost, and the difference between offensive 2-hand weapon characters and defensive 1-hand weapon characters would disappear. An entire mechanical archetype would be significantly diminished.

That is fair. Okay.

If I was the DM I would totally allow such an item. But it works both ways, now all your encounters will have such items too.

In fact I would make them keyed to only the monster/NPC you are fighting. So when you loot them it would be useless. But that gives it a huge discount on crafting.

I will also add another restriction that it only works against you, so another bigger discount. The 4K wondrous item now costs only 1k for my creatures to make.

Besides the shield spell, they'll also have items that have continuous mage armor, continuous true strikes. However they only work for those creatures and specifically only against your character. So even if you loot it they are useless and worthless.

If you munchkin in my game, you will fight munchkin creatures only.

Really? I am glad to see that you have read the posts above that discuss the fact that our group saw this and thought it was wrong. So we brought it here, for discussion and thought. Not snide comments. If you can't be productive to the thread at least don't be mean about it.

I am not trying to break the game. I am trying to have a discussion on why this item should not be cheap and to determine a fair way to price the item.

I still think the MM immunity for 12k is a lot. It was discussed earlier in the post that it is rarely seen used against PC's. So lets focus on the cost of the shield bonus and leave the MM immunity out of it. As there aren't spell specific immunity items out there that can be used as a bases for comparison and I think the discussion could go on for days about what is fair for the MM immunity item to cost.

That said, I am sold on the need for a "shield" bonus item to cost more since getting a shield bonus is actually rather difficult. I think the thread agrees, for the most part, that the base cost of the item should be something in the range of [(Bonus)^2*2,500]*(Something).

The something is the thing I would like to talk about now. The something is going to be determined on whether the item "takes up a slot". How is this item any different then Bracers of Armor, concerning the slot it takes in relation to the bonus that it gives? Is the issue going to be that, like a Ring of Force Shield, the Bracers of Shield must have a kicker that you have to wield the shield they produce? If that is the case I think the item's cost is to high when compared to the Ring of Force Shield. If the character does not have to "wield" the shield, then how are the Bracer different from BoA?

1 ^2* 2500 * 1.5= 3750
2 ^2* 2500 * 1.5= 15000
3 ^2* 2500 * 1.5= 33750
4 ^2* 2500 * 1.5= 60000
5 ^2* 2500 * 1.5= 93750

I know the low end is still cheap. But the higher end looks better I think. I don't know perhaps the Something being 2 is more balanced.

Thoughts?

(Price of Brooch of Shielding) + ((Price of a Ring of protection + 500)bonus squared)

= 2500 + 2500xbonus².
+1 Bonus : 5000
+2 Bonus : 12500
+3 Bonus : 25000
+4 Bonus : 42500

That makes sense but I would present that the starting price should be lower and then scales up. Looking at an Ion stone (Dusty Rose) that gives an insight bonus to AC for 5k, the 5k starting seems really high. I realize the two-handed guys out there are going to lose their minds for this item, but the shield bonus does not stack with other shield bonuses and for that fact I am not sure that we can build this pricing structure with only the two-handed weapon warriors in mind. That is a very narrow sect of characters that are going to end up defining this item's cost.

So what I am thinking is: (Bonus^2*1,000)*2+2,500
+1 Bonus : 3,500
+2 Bonus : 10,500
+3 Bonus : 20,500
+4 Bonus : 34,500

And it still has to maintain an item slot. Like bracers or glove (???) or something. Then it tags with making the item Bracers of Shielding and Armor. The cost of the shielding plus the cost of the regular Bracers of Armor ([Base Cost*.75]*1.5.

This cost structure still makes it the fourth in line for the AC boost and even later in line on down the road.

Thoughts?

Well, it is nice to see that name calling and assumptions about people is not a lost art on the forum. Axl.

I am the player that had the question concerning the item creation as we have not used it much and it seemed that the rules that were listed where not clear as to how to deal with items that can be over powered and under priced.

First, the idea that Magic Missile immunity is worth 12k is absurd. The ability to be immune to magic missile is an aspect of the spell Shield. So if the item is created from the spell Shield there is no reason the item should not also include the immunity with it on top of the other AC increases.

The cost structure that I am seeing now after reading everything that has been talked about in this thread is that the item will follow similar rules like Bracers of Armor +4 (16k) plus the cost associated with the item not taking up an item slot (x2). That brings the price to 32k for +4 Shield bonus and MM immunity. I might even make the pitch that the (x2) cost is a bit much as this item's benefit cannot be stacked with other shield bonus items. Something along the lines of (x1.5) the base cost.

The other thing that I noticed when looking at the Ring of Force Shield is that to "wield" the ring it is a free action. That said, if a character is aware of the threat that is trying to strike him he could as a free action let go of the two-handed sword that he is wielding and use the ring. Characters with two weapons are still in a pinch.

Thoughts?