Orange Ioun Stone Questions...

[blueskydreamy]

I just had a few questions about the Orange Ioun Stones. 1) Do their effects stack? 2) If they don't stack and I wanted to make one that increased the effective caster level by more than just +1, how much would that cost? Any ideas on that? 3) Is there any limit to the number of them you can have active? 4) Would they fall under the magic/psionics transparency rule? I realize that it seems fairly obvious that they would, but an item that increases the manifester level seems slightly more powerful than one that increases the caster level to me. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

[Joana]

I've never really given that much thought to ioun stones. Here is a recent thread that might help with some of your questions.

[Majuba]

blueskydreamy wrote:

I just had a few questions about the Orange Ioun Stones. 1) Do their effects stack? 2) If they don't stack and I wanted to make one that increased the effective caster level by more than just +1, how much would that cost? Any ideas on that? 3) Is there any limit to the number of them you can have active? 4) Would they fall under the magic/psionics transparency rule? I realize that it seems fairly obvious that they would, but an item that increases the manifester level seems slightly more powerful than one that increases the caster level to me. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

1) No. Effects from the same source don't stack, unless specifically says otherwise (and there *are* now Ioun stones that stack).

2) While it's slightly iffy to increase this particular effect (caster level can get a bit out of control), in general you would increase the cost proportional to the square of the bonus. So a +2 orange prism ioun stone would cost 4 times as much (120k gp), +3 would cost 9 times as much (270k gp, which would be restricted to Epic if you use those rules).

3) No mentioned limit to the number of ioun stones you can have active.

4) Very insightful question about magic vs. psionic. Manifester level can increase save DCs, while caster level generally does not. However, since the power point cost would be increased as well, it seems reasonable to hadwave the difference. The Expanded Psionics Handbook applied ioun stones in an identical manner (except for listed differences). Psionics Unleashed! does the same.

[Maezer]

1) No. By RAW they would not stack.

2) I'd suggest following the same pricing scheme as most scalable items ala Cloak of Resistance or Pearl of Power.

+1) 1^2*30,000=30,000
+2) 2^2*30,000=120,000
+3) 3^2*30,000=270,000
+4) 4^2*30,000=480,000
+5) 5^2*30,000=750,000

3) No. But again by RAW they would not stack so not much advantage there.

[blueskydreamy]

Thanks for all the helpful replies! I think that the rules should specifically mention whether or not the Orange Prism Ioun Stones stack. As far as I knew, the general idea was that only typed bonuses didn't stack. (i.e.: Enhancement, Insight, Morale, etc.) The rules seem very murky on this one and open to debate. Regardless, the scalable cost makes sense. Also, when I mentioned psionics, my main concern was augmenting. Whereas a Fireball will only ever do 10d6 damage (sans metamagic), a Mind Thrust is only limited by how many points you can spend. It just seems to me that at higher levels a psion would be the greater beneficiary.