I'm playing a Gestalted Paladin//Inquisitor in my current game, and for kicks I wanted to see if I could make myself appear as if I was an arcane caster. I wanted it to be convincing with me looking, casting, and acting like a Wizard. I decided to create a magic ring that will allow me to do this. The only problem is I've never attempted this before so I don't know how it works. This is where I'm hoping you guys will come in.
Some questions I have:
1. Does the character wielding the item need to have Arcane Casting levels (I hope the answer is no...)? If they do is there anyway of getting around this so I can do my idea?
2. Does the entire ring have to have the same caster level, or does it vary per spell?
3. Does Use-activiated/Continous apply to damage spells? If so, does it mean the item basically becomes an At-Will caster?
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Lets start with the basics:
I'm assuming the Caster Level is the same for the entire ring.
1. Continous - Disguise Self (To Appear like a Wizard)
SL 1 x CL 9 x 2000 x 1.5 (Extend Duration Cost)
2. At Will - Magic Missle (To Attack like a Wizard)
SL 1 x CL 9 x 2000
3. Continous - Mage Armor (To Defend like a Wizard)
SL 1 x CL 9 x 2000 x 1 (Standard Duration Cost?)
4. Continous - Magic Aura
SL 1 x CL 9 x 2000 x 0.5 (Entire Day Reducation)
Total Cost: 63,000g
I might have done to much or to little, which is why I need help to see if it will accomplish the task.
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Is it possible to add on additional magic properties to rings.
Ring of Force Shield costs 8,500g, so can I just add 16,200g to get it to cast Magic Missle on-command?
I bet you could do it cheaper if you made an item that did Mage Armor, Magic Missile, and one other spell each one time per day. NPCs wouldn't catch on unless they somehow figured out how inflexible you were. Of course you would need to disguise your UMD roll with some kind of Bluff check.
If the ring grants the ability to cast a spell, typically the wearer only needs to know the activation technique (usually a command word) to cast the spell from the ring. So yes, if such a ring were worn, your paladin/inquisitor could cast the wizard spells therein.
I agree with crane, if the desire is simply to create an illusion of wizardliness, a finite use per day ring would be cheaper and should work just as well. Real wizards can't cast infinite magic missiles, mage armor or disguise self.
Wizards are prone to using wands as a way to conserve their prepared spells, especially for spells like mage armor or disguise self. So a few wands would do as well to convey this image as a costly ring would. You just have to have high enough "Use Magic Device" skill. As a paladin, that shouldn't be too terribly difficult.
My witch routinely passes himself off as a wizard, cleric, even an alchemist when he's in the mood. One of his best tools to emulate a wizard is his hawk "familiar" which is nothing but a standard hunting hawk trained with a few tricks to appear to be a familiar. That plus a few wands and potions are just about all it takes to fool the vast majority of people. Of course he's maxed out his bluff skills too, and took a trait that allows him to take bluff as a class feature. Pretending to be a wizard is mechanically determined by a bluff roll anyway, so if you want to do this reliably, you should pump up bluff, which is, again, a skill paladins should have an edge with.
Witches are very good at this sort of class mimicry.
Thanks, a bunch of wands and the ring to use a reasonable amount of spells per day should be sufficent. I'll probably only have Disguise Self and Magic Aura on the ring. I don't want people questioning why I have so many wands that relate to illusion. The magic missle and mage armor are commonly found as wands, so they might judge me more for NOT having them.
I now have a new question, this one is just for kicks.
FerinusCarnifexVox wrote:
Is it possible to add on additional magic properties to rings.
Ring of Force Shield costs 8,500g, so can I just add 16,200g to get it to cast Magic Missle on-command?
Thinking of a funny combo of the following:
1. Deactivate Shield [Free Action]
2. Cast Magic Missle [Standard Action]
3. Activate Shield [Free Action]
So I can just lob missles from a distance when needed (I'm strickly melee, so lauching 5 auto-hit 1d4+1 missles a turn isn't a bad way to put some damage up in ranged encounters). I also like the idea of making myself in the way a master of force damage.
This would make most incoporals cringe to fight me. Ghost Touch? How about I just put my sword down and kill you anyways? (Note: I'm assuming that all Force Damage harms incoporals, which I believe it does).
As an additional question I'm interested in knowing how many force related spells are available to put in a ring.
A paladin wouldn't try to deceive people into thinking they were an arcane caster.
Not deceiving is one of the main things about them.
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Cheapy wrote: A paladin wouldn't try to deceive people into thinking they were an arcane caster.
Not deceiving is one of the main things about them.
He only does it for the 50% of time that he's an inquisitor.
Cheapy wrote: A paladin wouldn't try to deceive people into thinking they were an arcane caster.
Not deceiving is one of the main things about them.
I forgot to mention it is an Anti-Paladin, that should clear things up.
Adamantine Dragon wrote: Cheapy wrote: A paladin wouldn't try to deceive people into thinking they were an arcane caster.
Not deceiving is one of the main things about them.
He only does it for the 50% of time that he's an inquisitor. I think your response beats mine.
You might be able to fool the rubes with those tactics. But anyone with decent ranks in Spellcraft, especially a true wizard... I wouldn't count on it.
LazarX, in my witch's case it's mostly about fooling the "rubes". But not entirely.
So let's say that my witch is impersonating a wizard, complete with faux hawk familiar and casts charm person from a wand. Are you suggesting that a spellcraft check would reveal that the spell had been cast by a witch instead of a wizard?
How about magic missile, a spell not on the witch's spell list, so the witch would have to use UMD to use the wand. Again, would a spellcraft check reveal that the caster had used UMD instead of just casting a spell from their own spell list?
Let's say my witch casts charm person directly from a prepared spell slot, instead of from a wand. Would a spellcraft check reveal that the spell being cast was not a wizardly casting, but a witchy one?
Would any of this be different if my witch was using a ring to cast the spells?
How, exactly, do you see a true wizard use spellcraft checks to identify the class of the caster in these situations?
Adamantine Dragon wrote:
How, exactly, do you see a true wizard use spellcraft checks to identify the class of the caster in these situations?
A lot of this has to do with how the GM views the game world and how he wants to convey it. At least I hope that is true. I'd gag on RAW covering this.
If the character is chanting a dead language, he is probably a wizard. If he is calling out in his own language to arcane forces, he is a probably a sorcerer. If he is praying in his own language, he is probably a cleric. If he holds up a voodoo doll and starts stabbing it with a sewing needle dipped in the blood of an ox slain under the full moon and whispering to elemental spirits, he is probably a witch.
UMD is a little stranger because the magic device doesn't care what you are, only that you activate it correctly. The activation would be in the style of its maker. The whole point of using UMD as a witch for a wizard item is so that the witch can say the wizards words. Unfortunately, the command word for the item isn't the same as the chant for a spell, so probably a DC 5 spell craft check to determine that you aren't casting a spell?
This is where you need to get tricky with it, if I were GM. What I would let you do is have the magic device crafted so that the command word is the same word as the last word of the real spell. Then, your character could learn the words of the spell, use the bluff skill to say them, and UMD when you speak the last word to activate the item.
Additional levels of deceit are possible, like having the magic device enchanted so that it doesn't have an aura for detect magic.
Crane, thanks for taking the time to reply.
I concur that a lot of this is up to the GM, but I also believe this is a rich roleplaying opportunity so I would hope that most GMs would look for ways to make this interesting.
The use of a wand by my witch isn't to pretend to be casting the spell as a wizard, the use of a wand is simply to mimic the fact that wizards also use wands. I frankly find it hard to come up with a plausible DC to determine if the wielder of a wand is any class, so long as they are using the proper command word and the wand doesn't malfunction due to a failed UMD roll. Witches using charm person wands should be functionally indistinguishable from wizards using charm person wands.
As far as the spellcasting from a prepared slot is concerned, there is precious little in the RAW that describes how the spells are actually intoned, what language, if any, is used or whether the words being used are incantations or invocations. I would say that almost all of that is left up to the GM.
Also, I don't believe witches have to manipulate their familiar to cast spells any more than wizards have to manipulate their spellbooks. One exception would be gravewalker witches using their class ability to deliver touch spells through their poppets. But those sorts of spells can also be delivered by touch, just as a wizard would.
Since the character attempting to pose as a wizard won't be casting cleric-type spells, it is unlikely that they would need to be brandishing their holy symbol for the spells in question either.
The only thing here that I think plausibly comes into play is the actual vocalization of the spell. If you rule that wizard spells are in a "dead language" and that non-wizards use their own language, well, what stops me as a non-wizard from deciding to cast my spells in a dead language too?
Adamantine Dragon wrote:
The only thing here that I think plausibly comes into play is the actual vocalization of the spell. If you rule that wizard spells are in a "dead language" and that non-wizards use their own language, well, what stops me as a non-wizard from deciding to cast my spells in a dead language too?
Nothing really. There was a teen titan spin off where there was a character who had natural spell casting talent through mutation, and used dead languages to focus her mind. This was the source for at least two Nightbane characters back in the day. The issue is the fluff. You can be sneaky here, take the linguistics skill, and write into your background that your character rebuked traditional wizardry for her own path after being trained in it. I'm sure there are a thousand paths of fluff that would make an excuse for your character being able to do this. All that matters is that the GM thinks this is ok.
I'd say that the chance of success on this has a lot to do with just the GM thinking it can work. It is like the "anyone should be able to deflect arrows with a ready action thread." Some people think it is stupid or stretching the rules while others think it passes because it is in the power level ball park and sounds cool. This is kind of the same. Can a witch really pose as a sorcerer and use other languages for casting spells? Maybe.
Funny thing, the Cleric in my last game started as a first level rogue and then took 7 levels of cleric as a worshipper of Hermes. Through the whole thing, whenever he wasn't doing an official priest thing, he stayed looking like a rogue. This style helped him a lot because NPCs almost always assumed he was some kind of charlatan priest / snake oil salesmen unless they really knew who he was.
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