Great repository names are short and memorable. Need inspiration? How about animated-octo-wight.
Just thought this was worth keeping.
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Here's a little tool I made to help me properly format magic items. It's output types are currently fairly limited, but perhaps it'll still be useful to someone. https://sites.google.com/site/archmageomega/home/item-formatter One question though. I'm slightly confused between the OGL and the Community Use license whether or not I've got the right notices in the right places.
Well, looking at the Citizens mod, it may not be that simple. I suspect that without a lot of extra work, each creature is limited to a single skin (so you couldn't have two different kinds of zombie at the same time). I haven't really looked in to it too deeply though.
You'd just need to delete the trigger for the trap, although I keep forgetting the commands for that. Or you can put pressure plates down to mark the trap area. Wool blocks won't trigger things though so pushing enemies into the area would require a bit of manual work, but not too much. (Also, I have to remember to call for a perception check for the trap spotter.)
All that's handled pretty much the same way as for a tabletop game. That is, we don't actually use Minecraft's combat system at all. So the wizard just says I'm going to throw a fireball over here and I'll go and work out what enemies that hits, etc. There are some WorldEdit commands that can speed that up a bit (you can have it place a circle of blocks and then undo that so it doesn't mess up the terrain) but combat is mostly manual. Now, with Variable Triggers and some work, traps and such can be somewhat automated, which is kind of nice. Still not too sure if it's worth it in most cases, but the occasional pit trap out of nowhere is fun.
Hello again. I'm still kind of around despite my silence, and our Minecraft Pathfinder game is still going, although it's slowed down to biweekly. (I don't think I'll start posting logs again though.) If anyone was wondering, after playing for a while, here's what's been working for me. I'm using a bukkit server. The only downside is that bukkit often isn't updated fast enough to use the latest version of Minecraft, but the current launcher makes it easy to switch versions, so it's not a huge deal. With bukkit, I use the following plugins:
I'm sure there are other plugins that could be helpful (and there are a few I've disabled for compatibility reasons). It's also been nice to be able to code to get the most out of Variable Triggers and especially WorldEdit. I've made some fairly specific scripts such as one to place a hex grid on my world map or one to build some generic houses. If you take a 2x2x2 block cube to be a 5-foot cube, it gives a fairly realistic scale to the Minecraft characters' perspective. 1x1x1 would make things way too small (you'd look like you were 10 feet tall, doors would be too big and small passages wouldn't be passable) but there's ways you could make it work. 3x3x3 would make it look like your characters are about 3 feet tall, but it might actually work better. There'd be more room for detail and more room to get around the wool enemies in tight passages. Of course, it'd take longer to prepare for a game. (4x4x4 might work for a small character only game.) I originally thought of starting on a superflat world and building small vignettes on that, and if I were using an existing campaign, I might revisit that idea, but the world generator has been a decent time saver for the world map and wilderness encounter areas (although the new extreme height generator might be better for a world map). If you're doing vignettes though the 1x1x1 scale could still work. I've been thinking about writing a mod for character sheets (probably in conjunction with my dice roller), but it hasn't seemed to be worth the trouble so far. I haven't looked at what existing mods there are for that though.
Thanks for the comments on my Ersatz Twin. Like I said, I'm embarrassed I screwed it up so bad technically. This was my first time entering and I was kind of anxious and not really paying as much attention to details as I should have been.
I'm embarrassed to post this considering how bad my memory of the rules was by the time I got around to making my submission. It was only several days later I realized how badly I had messed it up. But rather than focus on that, I figure I might as well get some feedback on the concept itself. Ersatz Twin Aura varies; CL varies
Description These dolls are often crude imitations of humans made from dark wood or clay. Even the originals weren't much to look at. While they do glow under a detect magic spell, they can't actually do anything without some piece of a living being, typically a clipping of hair or a drop of blood. With that the doll can be transformed into an imitation of the person or animal the hair or blood was taken from. This imitation is solid but doesn't do much besides stand in place mimicking whatever the person it's imitating would do while waiting. It will attempt to return to its starting place if forced away, though any amount of damage will destroy it. Most observers would think an actual person was there at first glance, but the lack of any awareness will quickly give the illusion away once someone starts to interact with it. This copy lasts for 1 minute before dissolving into a shadowy smoke. The original dolls were created by Eges, an adventuring illusionist, as a means for him and his teammates to easily create a distraction, and they served that function quite well. However, once others started making and selling the dolls, a few more unscrupulous people found other uses for them, so some enchanters made a lesser version that can only be activated by the donor of the hair or blood used. On the other hand, some enchanters made a few greater versions of the dolls. These greater dolls retain the memories and mannerisms of the donor. The person that activates the doll has no special control over it but it does begin with a Helpful attitude towards them. These greater dolls last for 1 hour before dissolving into a puddle of water. None of the dolls make a perfect likeness of the donor and anyone familiar with that person will likely be able to spot that it's a fake, or at least a remarkable doppelganger, if they take more than a passing look. Lesser Ersatz Twin: faint illusion; CL 5; Craft Wondrous Item, shadow conjuration Ersatz Twin: moderate illusion; CL 7; Craft Wondrous Item, shadow conjuration Greater Ersatz Twin: moderate illusion; CL 11; Craft Wondrous Item, simulacrum Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, additional spells; Cost 375 (lesser), 700 (standard), 2,150 (greater)
That's exactly what the Animal Ally feat does. (Boon Companion raises it to full level.) I don't want to just hand out bonus feats because the other players aren't interested in an animal companion and I don't really have any reasons to be handing out other feats. Oh well. I guess I'll just offer a mythic path ability that gives those feats as bonus feats. It doesn't really seem particularly overpowered compared to Loyalty.
Any advice? Would offering Animal Ally (and/or Boon Companion) as a mythic path ability be reasonable? Which path would fit best?
I am the game master. I'm asking for advice on how best to allow the player in question to raise an existing pet to an animal companion. They already have the pet. They just want it to be able to level up so they don't have to worry so much about it dying randomly.
The biggest problem with loyalty is that the character in question doesn't have any reason to seek out an awaken spell, and it might actually be out of character to do so. (He's already got a mount, but wants to take it as a companion of some kind.) Would a mythic path ability that simply grants an animal companion be reasonable?
Any suggestions on how a mythic character who doesn't already have one could gain an animal companion, or something very close to one at least? There's the option of awakening it and then taking the Loyalty path ability. Or there is the Animal Ally feat, but that requires three feats to get up to a full progression. I would have expected there to be a mythic path ability that would grant an animal companion somehow, but I couldn't find any. Would a path ability that granted Animal Ally (and possibly Boon Companion) be about on par? I think that'd make the most sense as a Marshal path ability, but I could see Guardian (who gets lots of animal companion related abilities) or Heirophant (as the druid favored path) too.
No advice? I could use a second set of eyes on this as I'm having trouble coming up with good ideas for related objects that the deities wouldn't want as sacrifices. (BTW, you can see the list of what I've already got if you click on GM Notes at the bottom of the previously linked page.)
Once again, if you're one of my players, don't read this thread. I posted a few days ago looking for some advice about a series of trials my players were going to be going through soon. Since then, I've rethought the details and reduced things to one large trial that I think should make more sense story-wise. I still need a bit of help though. For the trial I need two objects for each deity. One is something that deity would appreciate as a gift/sacrifice and the other is something that would be related but wouldn't be appreciated as sacrifice. The list of deities is over here. Finally, each object will trigger a short vignette that the players will have to work through, but since there are so many of them, I don't mind if they can be dealt with with a just skill check or two. I've got a few things, but I'm running out of time to prepare, so any advice or suggestions are appreciated.
Most use-activate items (e.g. lanterns, like the lantern of revealing) don't get their price doubled for being slotless.
The idea of 14 different trials might actually work if I could come up with 3 or 4 general trials that I could tweak to fit the different deities. Unfortunately, that just leaves me back in my original predicament, although with better justification for having such generic trials.
I'm liking the ideas so far. I may not be able to use all of them, but they're all interesting. (Because weapons and armor see such a high turn-over, I don't think I want to include any in the final set.)
My players are somewhere in between the beer and magic missiles and the hardcore roleplay group. They seem to like some of everything but nothing specific. :P Anyway, the temple was built around this collection of artifacts. First someone went around and gathered these up and put them in one spot. Later someone built the trials to control access to the artifacts. Then someone built a temple around those trials. Much later, after the temple had been abandonded, various traps and safeguards were added. Then a small village grew up outside to protect the now-sealed entrance and keep records. Back to modern times and that village is abandoned and the whole thing is lost knowledge. The temple is built for all 14 deities in my pantheon as it was built around this collection of artifacts. Most of the deities are neutral, but there's more good than evil. There are likely multiple trials because deities/priests couldn't agree on one. For the same reason, the trials probably are somewhat generic. (Edit: Oh yeah. These are the same deities then and now. They've let this temple become lost, but have now sent the players on a quest to find it.) Now, it'd probably make sense to have 14 trials that you only need to complete 3 of instead of having 3 generic trials, but I don't think I'd be able to handle that.
If you're one of my players, don't read this thread. I need some help with some ideas for an upcoming session. The players are in an ancient temple looking for some divine artifacts. I plan on them having to get through three trials to get to those, but I'm stuck on what those trials should be. These trials were designed and built a long time ago to grant access to only worthy individuals. I was thinking of a trial of power, a trial of cunning and a trial of intelligence. Unfortunately, that's about as far as I've been able to get. There's plenty of combat without putting more into these trials, so I'd want to add something more if the was the main point of a trial of power. Riddles and the like sound like obvious candidates for a trial of intelligence, but those are notoriously unfun in practice. (I don't think my group would enjoy a straight-up riddle.) I also don't want the trials to devolve into just, for example, a few skills rolls like a stealth trial probably would. Any help, ideas or links would be appreciated.
If you're one of my players, stop reading now. It'll be much more fun if you find this stuff out as you go. So, I've written myself into a bit of a corner. Or more accurately, a wide open field. I need to come up with 14 different artifacts, one for each of the gods in my pantheon. On the one hand, I want each artifact to be somewhat unique. On the other, having some general template would make filling in the details much easier. The one thing they'll definitely all have in common is that they'll grant the players their first mythic tier. My best idea so far is to do something based on each deities' favored spell, but that still leaves a lot of conceptual room. I was also thinking that it might help if the full range of abilities aren't unlocked immediately, but appear as the players gain tiers (if they ever do). BTW, I'm counting on my players only taking one of these artifacts each, but I'm pretty confident in that assumption, and I can always throw in some conscious lightning bolts if they try anything too funny.
When trying to further enchant such items, you should try and break the price down into plus-equivalent and flat-rate prices, with the plus-equivalent being the more important of the two. So a Blade of Binding breaks down to either:
The new price would then either be 18,350 gp or 22,350 gp. I'm not sure which I'd got with, but I think most people would go with the latter. (If the price falls between +2 and +3, it's probably a +2 item with some extra, so you should probably add the difference to get it to a +3 item.) Edit: Alternately, you could consider it a +2.5 item, which works out to 12,500 gp plus the MW greatsword. Not exact, but workable. Then the upgraded item would be 24,850 gp. (Not too surprisingly, about half way between the +2 to +3 price and the +3 to +4 price.)
That's both interpretations in a nutshell. Ask your GM which yall are using since there's no official answer.
Almost all formulas follow a square progression, so doubling a bonus will usually cost about 4x as much (2 squared).
Lacking the CL isn't a +5 DC unless the item specifically calls out a caster level in the requirements line or it's a weapon or armor which have a separate rule (3x the enhancement bonus).
(No one has any suggestions, questions or comments?) Let's see. What would a pair of +1 daggers that became +2 daggers if you wield both of them be worth? Well, two +1 daggers are worth 4,604 gp. Two +2 daggers are worth 16,604 gp. The difference is 12,000 gp. So applying a 25% discount to the difference would give a final price of 13,604 gp. That doesn't sound too bad to me, but what about yall? An extreme case: a pair of MW daggers that were revealed to be +5 flaming burst daggers when wielded together. That'd be 604 gp for the daggers and 196,604 gp for the +5 flaming burst daggers, so the price would be 147,604 gp. That's a pretty big savings for agreeing to use the two together, but a major penalty if you don't. So, for my current high-magic game, this would be fine. But I want to try and come up with a price other people would also accept, so is 147,604 gp a fair price to yall?
There's a lot of examples (including several of my own) in this thread.
The class/alignment discounts are a whole 'nother discussion. And despite Aelryinth's assumptions, no one is trying to cheap the system here.
That's your opinion, which is valid at your table. My opinion is valid at my table. On the messageboards there is no right way to do it, only different ways. BTW, I'm pretty sure most people in this thread are focusing on shield because the OP asked about shield. As simple as that and nothing more.
So, my first pass at pricing these. For the pair of items, I'm tempted to use the slotless modifier in reverse but I think that's too much of a discount. (That'd be divide by 2 instead of multiply by 2.) That might be just barely OK if you had some items that took up 2 body slots, but even then it might be a bit much. Instead, maybe half that discount, so a 25% discount instead of a 50% discount. For plus-equivalents and things that apply to both weapons equally, I think you'd just take the difference between the two weapons individually and the two together and apply the discount to that difference. For other abilities, you'd just pay for the ability once and apply the discount to that. For the beast shape spell, I'm not so sure. I think that allowing some of the minor properties of a uses per day spell to be continuous shouldn't be worth too much, but I'm not sure what to count as a minor property. Maybe it'd be best to take a weighted average of the two prices, but that's a bit more math than most people would want to deal with. Maybe there's a way to extrapolate something simpler from the duration multipliers. For the duration, I'm still torn. I don't much like leaving it in one 7 minute block, but I'm not sure which division option would be the most fun to play.
Many more people have weighed in saying that your price is too high. This isn't a loophole. This isn't cheese. We just value different things differently. There is more than one right way to play the game. And you're going through the same cycle as the rest of us, if not leading the pack.
I'm trying to stat up an item and I keep getting stuck trying to decide how to handle of couple of the specific but less common details in pricing it. I'd prefer to work out some general pricing for each of the details rather than just a good price for the item as a whole though. First, the item in question is a pair of weapons. Part of it won't work unless you weild both of them. I feel this is worth some discount but I'm not sure how much. One one hand it doesn't seem like a huge drawback because you'd almost always just keep using them as a pair. On the other hand, it forces you to use up your off hand to get the full benefit. While it's not directly applicable to this item, making a general decision here is further complicated by the differences between, for example, the enhancement bonus going up (obviously this should count once for each weapon) vs. some extra abilities that apply as a whole rather than for each weapon (which probably shouldn't count twice). I'm also somewhat curious about item sets more generally, but that's probably a can of worms better opened in a separate thread. Second, the item grants a specific subset of the beast shape II spell, but it grants part of it all the time and part of it once per day. I'm also trying to decide if and how to divide up the duration. While I think it's fair to do so, I do agree with someone that said dividing a 7 minute duration into 7 one minute uses is worth more than dividing 7 rounds into 7 one round uses, but the latter is not worth anything according to several existing items. On the other hand, dividing 7 minutes into 70 rounds doesn't sound like a great idea for several reasons. BTW, if you want some specifics to work with, the items are a pair of +1 tekko-kagi. While wearing both, you gain low-light vision, scent and grab on attacks made with these. For 7 minutes per day (division still to be decided) you can transform into a Large bear gaining +4 strength and natural armor and -2 dex as per the spell. Again though, I want to apply both of these details to other items independently, so I'm not looking just for a price for this one pair of items.
If you were going to redesign the spell system, I think you should start, not quite from scratch, but by questioning some of the underlying assumptions like the relation between spell levels and caster levels. Honestly, I'd like to see casters just have spell slots with no level attached and all spells designed to be cast at any spell level. Casters would still have a caster level that determines how powerful the spells they cast are and spells would still have a spell level that determined how hard they were to learn, but the two wouldn't be related. That said, at best this would have to wait until PF 2.0 and even then I doubt it will happen just due to the massive amount of work that would be needed to overhaul every spell and magic item that ever existed, or even enough of them to fill out the core book.
The thing is, I'm not metagame cheesing anything. I'm the GM. I'm not out to get my player's. I'm not out to win anything. What am I cheesing here? How can I be metagaming when I am the metagame? While I agree that actually using three cloaks is cheesy (though not metagaming as that might be a reasonable if odd tactic in game), I don't agree that using that as a point of comparison is metagame cheese. So no, no double standard here. I still don't like the way you argue things.
It's odd they have that "must be 3xCL to make weapons" in the general rules, but not in the crafting requirements line of any specific weapons.
You know, this is my biggest problem with your argument. It's not entirely what you're saying (which I do still disagree with) but how you're saying it.
Adding the spell price and the +AC price together seems really odd. After all, you could just make a similar item without referencing barkskin and get a discount. (Or similarly make an item that gives a sacred bonus instead of a natural armor bonus and reference no specific spell.) Also, I don't think the duration modifiers aren't applicable to a uses per day item as they're already implicitly taking the duration in to account. In this case, the two happen to just about cancel each other out, so your price ends up about the same anyway, but it still seems like an odd way to use the guidelines.
I know. I'm referring to command word versus use activated. Like I mentioned before, I take use activated to mean either it requires a standard action or it's part of some existing standard action (roughly) and so the 10% difference is not applicable as the difference between that and a continuous item, which as you say needs to account for the duration, or a swift action item, which I don't feel is well covered in the guidelines.
Unfortunately there's not a lot of help I can offer in general. I can only really tell you how I do it and that any results would have to go through your GM anyway, or if you're the GM you should ask the basic questions here and decide on the edge cases for yourself (more or less). Edit: I have been thinking of making a tutorial thread for magic item creation, except that I know at least a few people disagree with my interpretation of the item creation guidelines, so I'm not too sure how generally useful it'd be.
I try to always work in purchase price for anything and only worry about the crafting price when it comes time to craft it.
And again, I'm not buying that, although again, I admit that's only my interpretation.
If you have some more specific questions, people here can help, although expect to get at least two conflicting answers. Which is the problem with getting a tool to do it. The final answer depends too much on how your GM feels about various cases that aren't clearly covered in the guidelines.
I'll say that I don't consider any use-activated item to be a free action to activate. I consider all of them to be a standard action (or possibly part of a more common standard action) with the 10% discount applying if you have to speak a command word which gives away your position and intention, etc. (I haven't completely decided how to handle move action or swift action items in general. Quicken is the obvious choice, but for many items it seems to give much to high of a price.) Now, I do admit that's only my interpretation of the guidelines but it gives prices that seem reasonable to me.
BTW, if it comes up later that someone wants to upgrade this item, you shouldn't charge more for higher CL of the plant growth spell as there's almost no benefit to casting it at a higher level unlike barkskin. (I mention it because barkskin gets a nice boost at just one level higher.)
17,400 is close to the total for a +3, not the difference between a +3 and a +2. The difference between a +2 and a +3 is 10,000.
This is somewhere in between. You could price it as +17,400 gp, a +1 property plus an extra 7,400 gp (a bit odd), or a +1.5 or +1.6 property (going from +2 to +3.5 is 16,500 gp, to +3.6 is 17,920), or you could round it up to a +2 if you want to apply some premium. Of course, if you just want a katana of life stealing instead of a longsword of life stealing, it's much easier. Just add the extra 35 gp (the difference between a longsword and a katana). But yeah, there's no RAW on this. It's all GM territory.
I guess it's fair to not use the slotless multiplier. If you don't you might want to use the multiple different abilities pricing Kudaku mentioned. Now, as for the CL, it's certainly reasonable to force everything to be the same CL but only staves have that as an actual restriction. (They're also the only thing that gets the multiple similar abilities discount that I've seen.) Look at the flame tongue. If you break it's price down, you get: Masterwork longsword - 315 gp
Which gives the total in the book. The listed CL is 12, the highest of any of its effects.
Well, the short answer is ask your GM. If I were your GM, in my current high-magic game this would go for 23,760 gp (purchase price, not creation cost). That's two command word spell effects priced at caster level * spell level * uses per day * 360, so 2 * 3 * 3 * 360 = 6480 and 3 * 5 * 1 * 360 = 5400. Because it's slotless, add the two together and multiply everything by 2 to get the total. Note that the two effects have different effective caster levels, so you only get barkskin for 30 minutes even though the caster level of the item as a whole is 5.
It should be pointed out that all those examples are in reference to a continuous true strike ability. Something that requires a standard action to use, especially if it has a charge limit, would be significantly less overpowered. Now, what price, if any, it'd go for depends on your campaign and GM.
I don't think I said what price to price it at. Personally I think the price of a lot of custom items are fine at the table prices but for those that aren't the final price is a GM/campaign specific issue so I couldn't really give much general advice. Also, magic missile does a lot less damage than most any other ranged weapon and can't benefit from most damage increasing feats. Again, which is more important depends a lot on what you'd be fighting.
Most of the direct damage items aren't terribly OP. They're basically another weapon and for the most part can be priced similarly. Also, no item is broken for every level. What may be broken at level 3 probably won't be at level 13. Magic missile's auto-hit is nice, but the damage won't be so impressive after a few levels. Even with a higher level version it'll eventually fall behind. CLW, for example, is always useful, but it's also something the party nearly always has available anyway. So compare what they would use anyway (wands, potions, etc.) and use that as a starting point. Now that's my general answer. You've put this in the Rules forum, so I won't go in to my houserules, but this will probably get moved as the mods don't consider any custom items to be rules questions.
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