Hi everyone. I thought about putting this in the Superstar threads for peer review, but I just started working on it tonight and didn't want to cut in front of someone else waiting for a Clark review (me included!). So, I'm hoping for a little peer review here. While this item would work for anyone, I have it in mind for my group's paladin. He is presently trekking back to a large city in the middle of a dungeon crawl in order to have commune cast due to some rash actions on the part of another party member. I am so fortunate to game with dedicated roleplayers!
As the only divine-type character in the group, and being unable to cast commune on his own, I thought this might be a nice item for him. Hopefully not too nice though! :) The major concern is something else happening in the future in the party and him trekking back to a town again, which - while awesome - puts a pause in game play for everyone.
If you have the time, would you mind letting me know what you think of the item overall? How's the pricing, etc?
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Aura moderate divination and conjuration; CL7th
Slot -; Price 19,460gp; Weight -
Description
This small piece of parchment contains religious scriptures of the chosen deity. It must be placed inside a phylactery of faithfulness to function. Written by the hand of a planar ally faithful to the deity, it confers the additional benefit of allowing the wearer of the phylactery of faithfulness with the hieratic tract inside to ask seven questions of the associated deity or their representative as per the commune spell. The hieratic tract can be used in such a manner every fortnight (fourteen days).
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, lesser planar ally, commune; Cost 9,730gp
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Thanks for your help and opinions!
It definitely seems solid. I'm not so into the rites and rituals end of D&D religions, but my sense is you've come up with a pretty nifty, flavorful way to get your paladin in touch with his respective Big Guy (or Girl).
Mechanically, since the planar ally spell's base material component matches that of commune, casting one to accomplish the other seems both sensible and balanced.
Item price is a bit hard to judge, since the item alone doesn't do anything - it requires a fairly complex operation to make work. The limited use (once per fortnight, sheesh) seems like a big deal, but I expect most characters know better than to bug their deities more often than that anyhow.
In short - I think it could be substantially cheaper than you have it. Ten scrolls of commune (more than I'd ever use) would run about 16250 gp, would be simpler to use, carry no timing stipulations on usage, and wouldn't require the extra gp investment of a Planar Ally casting.
Thanks, Maeloke. I appreciate you taking the time to write down your thoughts. Yes, I agree that it would be much easier to have a cleric cast the spell. But, paladins never get the ability to cast 5th level spells, so I'm not sure he'd be able to carry around scrolls of it and cast it himself... Certainly not without some risk of failure at least.
As far as how often it can be used, I toyed around with the idea of tying it in to spending a smite ability or channel energy ability, but since those renew every day, I thought that would be a bit much. Once every 2 weeks felt about right, though I may switch it to once a month. I'm still on the fence about that one!
Edit: And I don't think I need to list conjuration in the aura because the item itself won't have that aura. Too late to edit my post though - whoops!