Obligatory "stop reading if you're my PCs." Especially Rion
His story in brief: He's a LN slayer who had dreams of joining a church dedicated to a goddess of protection and justice. After being rejected, decided to do his own thing but still uphold the law. What he doesn't know is that he's been marked from birth by a devil prince of the hunt. This devil has put situations and items in his path in an attempt to corrupt him. What better way than with a strong magic item?
It's a necklace of 5 large fangs. Each tooth gives a constant effect and can be activated as a standard action to give a temporary effect. Activating a tooth drains that tooth of its power until imbued again. It started inert and to imbue a tooth with magical energy he has to hunt and kill someone of some significance to him. He has to focus on this person, name them, and hunt them down. It can't just be some schmo goblin.
For instance, the first one on his list is a corrupt Captain of the Guard that threw him in prison when he found out the Captain's secret. He's been hell-bent on killing him for many sessions now.
Effects. I listed what I've come up with, but I'm sure there are lots of effects I didn't think of if you have an idea for a replacement. The higher level effects, for instance, don't seem quite powerful enough. But maybe if you take the item as a whole, fully imbued, it makes sense.
Level Requirement. I'm not sure if these minimum levels make sense. Since the effects are dependent on killing targets, I figure the Scaling comes from the required level of the target. So the first one requires a CR 5 kill, for instance.
Duration. For the activated abilities. Rounds per level? One minute? I'm not good with this kind of stuff. I figure one minute is good because that's pretty much for the duration of an encounter only.
Balance. I know this is a pretty crazy item, but I'm a DM who is ok with allowing strong magic items. I can always buff the encounters. Mechanically I'm thinking all of the +# bonuses are Profane bonuses but maybe that's too overpowered due to stacking?
This was created by a devil who relishes in hunting and killing, so I tried to stick to that theme. The five qualities of an effective hunter I could think of, in roughly the order of level required:
(Lvl 5) Focus:
(Lvl 7) Perception:
(Lvl 9) Preparedness:
(Lvl 11) Hardiness:
(Lvl 13) Lethality:
Last but not least is the ability to use up the whole necklace at once to cast Miracle. I figure he's getting it a little early (if you consider the necklace full at lvl 13 compared to a Cleric needing to be lvl 17 to cast the spell), but he also has to work really hard for the spell and can't just cast it once a day. Maybe I can make up a Limited Miracle since this is just a Devil and not a Deity. Or I could space the abilities out every 3 levels? That would make it start at 5 and end at 17. But 17 seems so high for just having Improved Critical. Maybe Improved Critical on all weapons with which he's proficient?