Personally I would say that the use activated True Strike weapon is out. The duration of true strike is your next attack or the end of next round (whichever is sooner) a single one use benefit rather than a continuous benefit. I would say that making it an activated rather than continuously functioning may be ok, requiring you to make a standard action each time you wanted to reap it's benefits.
Making it intelligent so the the item itself could cast true strike on you would also be legal (if exceptionly munchkiny!)
Technically, the answer is yes. However, as a GM, I would never allow certain spells to be available: one of those being True Strike.
I believe it was Jason Bulmahn and Stephen Radney Macfarland who shot this concept down in a conference at Paizocon. I can't remember for sure, but the audio is at 3.5 Private Sanctuary
I believe weapons do have a maximum GP value (though that might be something from 3e), so one should keep that in mind when designing such a weapon.
...Catch Phrase,
-Chris
No, dear gods no. All the cheese in Wisconsin would be but a candle besides the sun compared to this old, hackneyed and trite abuse of the rules.
So the answer is essentially that the rules allow it, but no sane GM ever should
-The custom magic item creation section doesn't have rules. It has guidelines. The same guidelines that tell you how you price out a use activated item also wave their arms around screaming "Danger will Robinson" when this item is brought up again. (its been around since at least 3.0)
So the answer is essentially that the rules allow it, but no sane GM ever should. I hear that. It's even more disgusting if it's done with Hand of the Marksman on a rifle. That would equate to every shot of the weapon being a nat 20, and the only roll you'd need to make would be a confirmation every attack.
You're reading the spell a little wrong there. Its +20 to the roll. It doesn't consider the roll to be a natural 20.
You gain temporary, intuitive insight into the immediate future during your next attack. Your next single attack roll (if it is made before the end of the next round) [b] gains a +20 insight bonus . Additionally, you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target. [/b]
There's 2 reasons this matters.
Wart, the 1st level wizard, gets involved an altercation with a higher level plate and shield fighter named Mr CLanky. On round 1 Wart casts true strike, on round 2 wart tries to hit Mr Clanky with his staff. It is not an automatic hit. He rolls and adds +20. If say, he rolls a 2, he has a -3 strength modifier, and Mr Clanky has an AC of 23 then the attack misses. Secondly, a crit chance only pays attention to the actual number that shows up on the D20 itself. An attack made at +4 does not crit on a 16.
As mentioned above, would anyone even consider it were it to be command word activated (usually a standard action) or charges per day (like, 3-5), as opposed to use-activated? Yes, that still makes for a powerful weapon, but not nearly as powerful as use activated.
No. True strike is more powerful than other spells specifically because one of its major limitations is that the spell is self only, and the people who can cast it are usually the ones you don't want to be making attack rolls. If you want to cast the spell, grab a level of sorcerer/wizard/magus/whatever.
I'd be even more careful with 3rd party spells. Alot more careful.
3/day or so items would be ok for True Strike. After all you're using your standard action this round to attack next round, and then it only applies to your first hit, even if you attack 8 times.
Don't think it would turn out to be terribly overpowered.
However the guidelines for pricing magic items are just that. Guidelines. There are spells that are alot more expensive than their level indicates, and some that are alot cheaper.
True strike would be one of those that I'd make more expensive.
I mean technically you could pick up a wand of it, and use UMD to cast it.
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Generally speaking, the farther into 3rd party territory you get, the more power creep and cheese you will find. Which isn't bad if you're playing with the fromage five :p
As far as magical items go, the rule is that if there is a better way to represent the bonus according to the formulas, you use that.
For bonuses to hit on every attack, you use the enhancement bonus.
Another rule is that you have to base new magical item prices on the items already in the book to find an appropriate price for the power level of the item. Done correctly, there is no way to *game* the system for great bonuses at low cost.
Done incorrectly, and it's the same as changing your characters stats to 18's, or fudging a dice roll. Since I'm sure that's not where you were going with this, I'd just suggest that you stay away from anything that seems TOO good, or at least check with your dm and make sure he/she knows how powerful it can be.
Like the true strike spell, or making an amulet of cure light wounds at will, there are many ways to get bonuses through the system that a dm might not be too happy about :)
That's True Strike. The spell I mentioned in my second post was Hand of the Marksman. They're two completely different spells. Hand of the Marksman is a 3rd level bard spell I found in the Pathfinder SRD, and is a spell created by a third party publisher, namely "101 Third Level Spells".
Whoops. Missed that. But yes, as someone else said, lie down with third party and expect to get cheese.
I'm sure I remember seeing an intelligent item that could cast true strike on it's wielder a number of times a day.
In any case, if you want to be able to spam true strikes all day just play a Magus with the wand wielder arcana and buy a wand of true strike.
Yeah, I thought it was overpowered, I was more curious if it was actually rules legal (something that is dubious as others are right in the fact that all the costs given are "guidelines" and not quite set "creation rules"). Still...if there's a consensus among players and DM that the intention of the campaign is to powergame with min/max aimed challenges...it might be kinda fun to have a game full of "cheese" like this, so long as everything is overpowered to match.
It could also be interesting to have such a powerful weapon have a DM custom curse tagged on as well, regardless of who crafted it or what their check was. An intelligent cursed item that redirects shots towards allies if close enough (for True Strike), or that stuns the wielder for a round by recieving equivilent pain (for Hand of the Marksman), or perhaps recieving non-lethal damage equal to half the lethal damage dealt to the target (again, for Hand of the Marksman). After all, with great power often comes a great price, and sometimes gold isn't enough of a price, no matter how much.
As for third party stuff, I think if it's sold by Paizo (as "101 3rd level spells" is), it's likely safe enough, though warrents some inspection first.
There are ways to get true strike or similar spell to work but it is most likely not cost effective.
As for 3pp, just because it is sold at Paizo or available at an open source site that features Pathfinder stuff does not mean it is endorsed or even looked at by Paizo. You should treat everything the same. Look it over and see if you want to allow it in your games. I don't use 3pp stuff because I have enough with Pathfinder that I don't feel the need. I don't assume it's bad or good. Just not necessary for my group.
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Well, it's hosted on the pazio site.
It's being sold by Rite Publishing.
You can find a comment from James Jacobs about the issue at this link here.
The important part is as follows:
We don't actually have an approval process or a review process for compatible products produced by other companies—that not only runs the risk of stifling and annoying other companies, but we simply do not have the time or resources to do that kind of micro-managing even if we wanted to.
So just because you can purchase it on the paizo site doesn't mean they've looked at it for balance or power creep or anything :P
True Strike is Personal, so an intelligent weapon may not cast it on you... nor benefit from this spell. As others spells "Personal".
Stepping up the cheese one level... what about an intelligent 'dancing' weapon which were able to cast True Strike on itself?
True strike is more powerful than other spells specifically because one of its major limitations is that the spell is self only, and the people who can cast it are usually the ones you don't want to be making attack rolls. If you want to cast the spell, grab a level of sorcerer/wizard/magus/whatever.
Well, at least in 3.5, it was quite effective in the hands of an Assassin... not that tis matters in Pathfinder :)
Item costs = Weapon costs + spell costs
Weapon costs:
+1 Longsword (Masterwork+Magic) ~2300G
Spell costs:
Command word (Spell level x caster level x 1800G) = 1800G
Charges per day (Divided by (5/Charges per day)) = 360 - 1800G
Second ability ( x 1,5) = 540 - 2700G
Item costs = 2840 - 5000G
Depends on the charges per day .. 2840G with one charge and 5000G with 5 charges.
I'd totally allow it.
True Strike Weapon. This +1 weapon activates true strike each time you attack.
For the pricing: A +1 weapon costs 2300 plus whatever the weapon costs. Let's say 15 for a longsword. 2315 for the +1 longsword part.
Now the true strike part: It adds +20 to your attack roll and bails you out of miss chance. You don't get the +20 to damage, so we'll half the price.
+20 to a weapon would be an epic enhancement and cost 20² * 20000 gp, so half off is 4,000,000 gil. Since I'm such a nice guy, I'll forget about the 2315.
So for the low, low price of 4 million gil, you get your true strike sword.
Not a copper less, mind you, since the formulae for magic effects on weapons are only guidelines, the GM has the final say, and trying to cheat the system like it's taxes and you have a great way to exploit some plot holes just doesn't work.