OmniMage's page

Celestial armor is a magic item, not a special material. I think. Stat wise, its a little bit better than +3 mithral chainmail, especially in max dex.

I would pick Arcanist. They have plenty of flexibility for casting spells and the quick study exploit all but seals the deal. Their downside is them needing a 2nd ability score, charisma, for some of their abilities.

Unfortunately most magic items don't show the math that was used to make the item. A weakness of the dnd 3.5 system. It makes it difficult to copy or edit magic items, especially for those who likes crafting and customizing magic items.

Another thing to note is that some magic items don't follow any pricing rules. A handy haversack should cost 90,000 gp because it uses a 5th level spell (5 * 9 * 2000 gp), but instead they cost 2000 gp.

When it comes to making custom magic items, you are in some part playing rule maker as the price can play a big role of when you get a power or whether you get a power at all. For instance, the handy haversack and related items makes it easy to carry a lot of loot at low levels. The bag itself is 5 lbs, but can carry 120 lbs. 120 lbs is enough to encumber all but the strongest humans, but the handy haversack makes it trivial to carry that much. Even a weak wizard can easily carry 5 lbs without encumbrance.

I wouldn't rely on lore from other RPGs or fiction. World of Darkness vampires are very different from DND/Pathfinder vampires. One could write a book listing the differences.

I did some reading. I recommend that you use a buckler as your shield. You can use ranged weapons like a bow or crossbow with it without penalty. You can cast spells using your buckler arm but then you lose your AC bonus from your buckler for the turn.

Alternatively, you could wear a light or heavy shield, in which case you will need to drop your weapon or shield to cast spells or to use a bow or crossbow. Dropping a weapon is free action, but picking it back up is a move action. Dropping a shield is worse because it takes move action to drop and 2 move actions to pick up and ready the shield. Picking up an item provokes an attack of opportunity.

You really should have magic equipment at this point. What does your GM expect you to spend all your money on? I don't know if you can spend all your money without magic items. A +1 weapon will be about 2300 gp, and +1 magic armor will be at least 1150 gp, and a +1 shield will be another 1150 gp. There are many magic items that boost your stats by +1 ranging from 1000 to 2000 gp, or belts and headbands that boost your ability scores by +2 for 4000 gp.

Mithral can be used as a material for weapons. It counts as silver, so you don't need to worry about the penalties for using alchemical silver weapons.

I would recommend mithral armor for mobility reasons. If you can't reach your opponents quickly, or get in position to protect your spell casters, you don't matter in melee.

Ranged weapons are a must. A composite bow will be your best option.

I'm not sure if you can cast spells with a weapon and shield combo. You might want to use a 2 handed weapon instead so you could hold the weapon in 1 hand when you want to cast spells. Or pick spells that don't need somatic components.

The arcane sage bloodline doesn't give the sorcerer the means to make their own spell books. I think it would be handy to not have to rely on a wizard to write spell books for them.

As for Arcane Apotheosis, I think there should be some means to store excess spell levels when powering magic items with charges. For instance, if you use a 4th spell slot, you'd waste 1 level because you need spell levels in multiples of 3.

Staves always have a maximum of 10 charges (unless you are dealing with something that breaks the rules like artifacts such as the staff of the magi). You can recharge a staff by 1 point per day by spending a spell slot of the highest spell level used by the staff. Your class also needs to be able to cast at least 1 spell held by the staff.

The cost for the highest level spell is 800 gp * spell level * caster level. The cost for the second highest spell is 600 gp * spell level * caster level, and everything else is 400 gp * spell level * caster level. This is the price for every spell using only 1 charge per spell. If you wish to reduce the price, you can make spells use more charges. Divide the price by the number of charges the spell will use. The caster level for all spells in a staff must be the same, and must be at least 8th caster level (so staves are not for low level characters).

You may design staves that have metamagic feats added to the spells. Like metamagic feats applied to normal spells, the spells in a staff that are improved by metamagic feats are treated as though they were higher level spells. So an empowered fireball would be priced as a 5th level spell, not 3rd like it normally would.

For example, a staff with just disintegrate (6th level spell) would have a market price of 52,800 gp, and would cost 26,400 gp to craft.

Another example is a staff of fire has a market price of 18,950 gp. The factors going into its cost are Wall of Fire 8,533 gp (800 * 4 * 8 = 25,600 / 3 = 8,553), Fireball 7,200 gp (600 * 3 * 8 = 14,400 / 2 = 7,200), and Burning Hands 3200 gp (400 * 1 * 8 = 3,200) for a total of 18,933 gp (the writers must have increased the price by 17 gp since my number is off by that much). The cost to craft would be 9,475 gp.

This will probably be a 5th level spell. This for a multi target spell that would deal a maximum of 15d6 damage. If this is a wizard spell, then they would be able to cast it at level 9.

A Cone of Cold is a 5th level spell that does most of the things you want your new spell to do. Change it so it deals slashing damage instead of cold. It doesn't do bleed damage though, so you might want to bump up the spell to level 6 (requiring a 11th level caster).

Material component could be a normal slashing weapon. However, I think you aught to make it a focus instead. Require that it be a masterwork or magic weapon. Not just for my taste, but I think non magical weapons would be cheap and easy to carry for a 9th level adventurer (see bags of holding and handy haversacks). Just need to remember to collect 'spell components' after battle. So consuming the non magical weapon during spell casting would be only good for flavor as they don't really cost anything meaningful at that level.

Maybe the bleed damage for using a magic weapon as focus could inflict the enhancement bonus as the amount of bleed damage the targets take. So a +1 sword would inflict 1 bleed damage while a +5 would inflict 5 bleed damage. This would give incentive to upgrade your focus. Using a crit multiplier instead would make the focus cost 2300 gp (magic + masterwork) + x gp for the non magical non masterwork component. A dagger would cost 1 gp for x2 multiplier, a battle axe would cost 10 gp for a x3 multiplier, and a scythe would cost 18 gp for a x4 multiplier (to list common weapons).

What class? I'm guessing Bladebound Magus (its one of the search results on AoN).

When I hear tech arrows, I think of those explosive arrows Turok Dinosaur hunter had.

or use a wand instead

Can't. They need a command word to use.

https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=367

Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

*emphasis mine*

I don't know about that. Bards can't use the silent spell metamagic feat. Every Bard spell must have a verbal component. What are the rules for trying to use a scroll that is using a metamagic feat the spellcaster can't use?

If I had to make a ruling, I would say that the Bard can't use those kinds of scrolls. Must have a verbal component.

I was going to suggest keep a wand or two for an emergency, but you need command words to use wands (like many magic items) which wouldn't work in a silence effect. I think you're going to have to resort to use weapons while silenced.

Ahh. Misunderstandings happen. Thanks for clearing things up.

Paladin knows use magic device? * shrugs * Makes sense.

So where do the points come from? I could be mistaken, but its looking like you buy classes using the same point pool as ability scores. It seems odd that martials and 1/4 bab casters cost 22, and full casters cost 15? Why does full casters show up twice (most full casters have 1/4 bab)?

I think you should double check the shield spell. It has a range of personal, which means you can only cast it on your self. I don't think wands allow you to bypass that restriction.

Do you have a problem with doing math? I'm checking because I thought by giving you multiple examples, it would clear things up. I was thinking you would be able to do the math on your own at some point.

A maximized (+3) empowered (+2) fireball (3) would be an 8th level spell. Wands can only be for spells 4th level or lower. Even if it were possible, you would need the caster level to be 15 to cast the spell (9 would be too low). It would be 90k for such a wand (assuming it was even possible).

You seem to be having trouble with the math. Maybe giving you a bunch of examples will help. Unless otherwise noted, I'm assuming a wizard is the one crafting the wands.

The cost for a wand with a 2nd level spell at minimal caster level is:
750 gp * 2 (SL) * 3 (CL) = 4500 gp.

Note that some spellcasters get their spells a little later. The sorcerer for instance gets 2nd level spells at class level 4. So the minimum caster level for them is 4:
750 gp * 2 (SL) * 4 (CL) = 6000 gp.

If you wanted to increase the caster level to 6, then:
750 gp * 2 (SL) * 6 (CL) = 9000 gp.

If you wanted to add empower to a 2nd level spell, then it would increase its spell level and will raise the minimum caster level to 7:
750 gp * 4 (SL) * 7 (CL) = 21000 gp.

If you wanted a 4th level spell to cast at caster level 20:
750 gp * 4 (SL) * 20 (CL) = 60000 gp.

Yeah, it might be easier to craft with this feat. However, I don't know of many magic items that have other prerequisites though.

I don't see much value in taking cooperative crafting. Its another feat you don't need. The two crafters could get as much work done by working on separate items.

If we're asking for spellcasters that use different ability scores for casting spells, then I'm going to ask for an archetype for a cleric or oracle that use int as their casting stat.

I forgot to mention somewhere in my previous post: "Not every wizard can, or should, be a thassilonian specialist with an int of 20, giving them 5 spells per day at level 1. And +1 spontaneous spell for selecting bonded object."

I hadn't expected to start a debate with my previous post. I'm glad it did. It made for an interesting read.

I prefer builds that don't require system mastery. Dagger, club, quarterstaff, crossbow. In the event that the wizard is new to their job and screws up their spell selection, they could still fight. In fact, a crossbow can shoot further than most low level wizard spells. Wizards do well to have a good dexterity score. They get many spells that are ranged attacks.

Some of the weapons I mentioned are kinda like the magic items wizards (and other 9th level casters) will be using later in their carriers. Staves can be used like quarterstaves in combat, and rods (such as metamagic rods) are like clubs. I figured it okay if wizards get used to carrying such weapons early in their career.

With 10 bolts, that adds up to 12 pounds you’re carrying there before you add your other adventuring gear. I don’t dump my strength as much as most guides suggest and that’s still too much weight. As a wizard-type, I take 1 dagger and rely on acid splash and other spells for everything else.

Funnily enough, the last wizard I built carried their own load, literally. They didn't rely on the fighter carrying their food and camping supplies. All their stuff put them into medium load, but they could get to a light load if they dropped their backpack. I haven't got around playing them though, so giving a wizard a medium load might prove to be a really bad idea. I just don't know it yet.

I generally recommend that, at a minimum, every character should start out with a dagger, a morningstar, and a light crossbow. This will give characters the ability to deal damage for every damage type and a decent ranged weapon. The dagger can be either be used as a slashing or piercing weapon, while the morningstar is both blunt and piercing at the same time.

FYI, skeletons have DR 5 vs bludgeoning and zombies have DR 5 vs slashing to name a few monsters with DR vs damage type. Some monsters can eat you, so a small slashing weapon is what you need to cut your way out (being swallowed counts as grappling and you can only use light weapons in a grapple).

Though, not every class can use these. The Druid don't get proficiency with crossbows and will have to make due with a sling or some thrown weapon. Wizards don't get prof with morningstars, so they have to make due with a club or quarterstaff. One could even argue that Wizards should buy scrolls with their starting cash, or craft 3 for the price of 1 light crossbow.

Later you can upgrade to magic gear and alternate materials. Though some classes might only bother with gear you find as loot. Normal for 9/9 spell casters as they should only use weapons as a last resort.

Try not to play a blaster. Wizards are squishy and can't wear armor. If you make yourself into a threat, you'll be dealt with as the threat you are. This isn't a MMORPG where the tank can draw enemies to itself and away from you.

Also carry a bow or crossbow. They will have greater range than spells like acid splash. Helpful if you run out of spells (which is likely at early levels).

I found it a bit odd that Paizo opted to give undead the ability to use charisma as constitution, but then had to give zombies and skeletons cha of 10 so they wouldn't lose or gain any hit points. In dnd 3.5, they had a cha of 1 like they should. Basic and mindless undead shouldn't have much personality to them.

Yeah, it does seem to be a problem. Like you, I could not find a single caster class who has all the spells in the staff on their spell list.

I think a spell caster can use the staff even if only some of the spells show up on their spell list. They just can't use the spells not on their list. They'd have to figure out another way or not use them at all.

I think this staff exists because someone didn't check who could cast the spells. They probably thought that 3 light spells were good enough.

By the way, I had to do some editing to copy Staff Of Radiance and put it through AoN. For some reason, I drag or click on link for the title of thread instead of selecting it.

Its unfortunate to hear you've given up this quest. Maybe its for the best. Its unfortunate that its hard for arcane spell casters to use armor.

Buy an amulet of the planes and try a DC 15 Int check to get to the plane and location you desire. If you fail you have a 60% chance of getting to the right plane but wrong location. The remaining 40% chance dumps you to a random plane where you can try again. Hope you don't wind up some place dangerous like a volcano.

Magic items that grant feats tend to cost 5000 gp. To cover arcane armor training, you would need to 2 feats: light armor prof and arcane armor training, so 10000 gp. The GM is free to assign a different number, but I would argue that these feats should be on the low end of pricing.

Armor qualities tend to cost 50% more when its a flat number increase, so it'd be 15000 gp. Compare lesser ring of energy resistance (12000 gp) to the energy resistance armor quality (+18000 gp) and you see the mark up happening.

Pass. The immortality you offer is too extreme. There are situations where that kind of immortality would be a bad thing. A very bad thing.

You did not mention whether you are immune to cognitive decline. Many people don't make it to 100 without their mind going. I'd hate to see what it is like at 10 billion.

Another situation is getting captured and studied by those who would also like to have your immortality. Desperate even. They could go so far as to perform surgery on you frequently to try to figure out what makes you tick. I don't think that would be pleasant.

Living to be 10 billion won't be pleasant either. Somewhere along in that time, the sun will explode. I hope you are happy to fly around like a large clump of space dust. No air, really cold (or hot at times), vacuum of space, and having no sense of down or having anything to grasp or stand on.

I've come up dry. Sorry if I've wasted your time.

However, I did try to figure out the cost of a Staff of the Magi (lesser artifact). Its about 652,000 gp for the components that I could measure. I had previously tried to breakdown the costs of a staff of power, so I know that retributive strike would be less than 3500 gp. So what I don't know is the cost for its ability to absorb spells and the cost of its ability to store 50 charges.

The Codex of the Infinite Planes (greater artifact) is even worse. Many of its spells are over 500k in value, and the whole book itself about 3800k before you factor in its defenses.

So the Staff of the Magi over 650k gp, and The Manual of the Infinite Planes is even worse as it has a CL of 30 and is worth more than 3 million gp. At level 20, a character should have over 800k in gear and wealth. So I ask you, are you sure you want the players to have artifacts as their base item for their legendary items? They're wildly more expensive than anything players should own.

The rules for legendary items are different from what I recall. I was thinking it was like the capstone (With This Sword) where you simply add 100k worth of abilities to an existing magic item, for some strange reason.

I would allow for characters to make artifacts if they qualify.

I'm not sure what I would allow if player did make artifacts. Maybe I'll let them break a rule or two with powers. I'm still thinking it over.

I think the rules were written with the intent for players to make their own artifacts.

I could be wrong though. Its been a while since I last read the rules. I'm going to do some reading and think about it how the rules should be used.

I don't think you can use an artifact as your legendary item. Those don't follow the normal magic item rules and don't have prices. As a GM, I wouldn't allow it.

My thoughts are since there are no level 21 characters, therefore you will not be able to find or use one, therefore training times are doubled due to lack of a higher level trainer. This has been mentioned in thread already. I agree with that.

LunarVale. You sound convinced that a race with +2 bonus to all ability scores is balanced with the other base races. I'm not sure why we are still having this conversation. I'll still talk if you want to keep talking though.

I still think you're wrong. The effects of such a bonus across the board is still worth having many feats. Even SAD classes benefit from these effects. Everyone benefits from more hits points, better saves, and better AC. Wizards use strength as a bonus to deliver touch spells unless they have weapon finesse. Monsters sometimes target the more frail characters, so having buffs is always handy. Wizards do well to have magic belts that boost dexterity and constitution.

Perhaps instead of trying to claim a race is balanced because the worst possible characters of a race aren't much better than other bad combinations, you should consider it from the opposite direction and consider balance from the best possible characters of a race being much better than other good combinations.

An Azltani, without other traits, would be still be stronger than a normal human.

A +2 to str could be mimicked by a weapon focus feat. Also weapon specialization since a strength increase would increase damage as well. And these bonuses are not tied to any specific weapon.

A +2 to dex would give a +1 bonus to AC like the dodge feat. And it could mimic the effects of a weapon focus feat. And a bonus to reflex.

A +2 to con would be like the toughness feat. Also would give a bonus to fort saves.

A +2 to int would cover the loss of +1 skill points per level.

A +2 to wis would increase will saves.

A +2 to charisma... nothing comes to mind.

Oh wait, something comes to mind. The average human has mental ability scores of 10, 12 with their one +2 ability score increase. The average Azltani, with a +2 ability score bonus to all ability scores, would be 12 without any real effort. This means the average Azltani would be capable of learning level 2 spells of any spell casting class. Wizard, Cleric, Sorcerer, you name it.

So no, I don't think an Azltani would balanced with the normal races.

I've considered making a magic item that gave skill ranks (so I wouldn't need to keep changing headbands), but I can't seem to price it right. The problem is a basic +2 int headband is really cheap (4000 gp). A ring with a +5 competence skill bonus is 2500 gp, but +10 is 10000 gp, and +20 is 40000 gp. A +2 int headband is a scaling magic item; the skill ranks part that is.

No. Normally when you increase int, you get additional skill points. However, the headband does not do this. Instead, the headband gives you max ranks in 1 skill per +2 bonus. You don't get to pick these skills (unless you were the one to enchant the headband).

Thanks for the replies! Its unfortunate that making custom items isn't a thing. I was hoping to combine some items or design my own.

As someone who hasn't jumped into the 2E bandwagon yet, I'm wondering how good are the magic item crafting rules. Is it a lot of hassle? Can you design your own magic items? What about mundane crafting? Do you need to spend a good part of a year to craft full plate?

Feel free to add anything relevant in case I missed something.

I'm not fond of bonuses squared way of pricing things, at least for some weapons and armor qualities. I like it when we can get a flat bonus. Armor qualities like Energy Resistance is +18,000 gp (I should note that it costs 50% more when added to armor instead of using a ring).

The Javelin of Lightning isn't really a weapon. It doesn't have the base cost of a Javelin (though some weapons don't have a cost to begin with), it doesn't have the cost of a masterwork weapon, and it doesn't have the cost of a +1 weapon (ironically, it would be worth more than the Javelin itself).

If you really wanted a reusable Javelin of Lightning, I think a fair starting point would be 3 (spell level) * 5 (caster level) * 2000 gp (use activated) = 30,000 gp. I would even add the returning property as a freebie (as it would not be a good reusable tool if you could lose it).

I dislike. I like having options when crafting magic items. Its why my house rule reduces the number of feats to just craft magic consumables and craft permanent magic items. You don't need to spend a lot of feats to craft magic items under my rules.

My hard and fast pricing for this is:

1.5x(Most expensive magic effect) plus cost of (next most expensive magic effect) = Market price of new item

You might want to reconsider that quick rule. There are circumstances where that might actually be the cheaper way to price magic items. If you made a headband of mental superiority +6 that way, you would save 18k.

Normal way: 36k + 54k + 54k = 144k
Your way: 54k + 36k + 36k = 126k

diff of 18k.

I would say a magic staff could pull it off. Somewhat. You only pay the material component costs during construction (50 times divided by charges used). There after, every use of a spell is free. The downside is staves can only hold up to 10 charges and can not be recharged faster than 1 charge a day (and you can't recharge multiple staves for some reason). So there is a cap to how much you can abuse this.

You could alternatively make it a command word with unlimited uses magic item. The base price will start at 1800 gp instead of 400 gp for single spell staff. A magic item that could cast True Resurrection at CL 20 unlimited times a day would be 324,000 gp. As a GM, I'd probably block my players from making such a magic item unless it was a high power game.

Edit: The sorcerer with the arcane bloodline capstone could get around the number of charges per day a staff could make. The capstone allows the sorcerer to duplicate the effects of 1 charge per every 3 levels of spells they sacrifice to use the capstone. So the sorcerer could keep using the staff until they run out of spell slots. A small downside is that the sorcerer can't store excess spell slots, so if they use a 4th level spell slot when only a 3rd was needed, then 1 level worth of spells is wasted.

There is also an Arcane Battery which improves staves, allowing them to hold more charges and get recharged quicker.

Magic items interfering with each other might be the best answer you can give. If 2 or more magic items are too close to each other, then none of them work. To take this idea further, its not just a limit of 2 rings per person, its a limit of 1 ring per hand. However, this is not a perfect explanation as gloves and rings are really close to each other. Maybe they have different enough wavelengths or something...

There are ways to get around these limits. One of which is to stuff multiple magical abilities onto the same magic items. This raises the price of the added abilities by 50%. The exception of this is the most expensive ability on the magic item; it gets to keep its normal price.

Slotless is another option. It doubles the price of the magic item, but then you don't have to worry about slots at all. Ioun stones are a good example of this.

At least, thats how I rule it.