Single Use, Use-Activated Magic Item Creation

[Baroh Steelcleave]

Random Thought that woke me up tonight, for some reason:

Can you add Cure or Inflict spell effects to firearm ammunition, as "Single Use, Use-Activated" items?

EDIT: other considerations include...

• touch of gracelessness
  
• chill touch
  
• shocking grasp
  

[laarddrym]

Not through item creation, no. Ammunition uses the magic weapon item creation rules, which means for 50 bullets the market value = bonus squared x 2,000 gold.

Single use, use-activated items are most commonly potions. Qual's Feather Tokens (wondrous item) are also single use, use-activated. The Qual's Feather Tree Token is a one-use item that activates when you drop it to the ground, and it creates an instant 10-20' tall tree.

Weapons & ammo are weapons, and can only be made with the weapon rules. There are spells that affect ammunition, for instance the spell Flame Arrow gives up to 50 pieces of ammunition the "flaming" quality so they deal an extra 1d6 fire damage.

Hm, that means then that an "Oil of Flame Arrow" could be spread over 50 pieces of ammo. That would be a single use, use-activated item. The price to buy would be Level 3 spell x level 5 caster x 50 gold = 750 gold for a single potion. I think your main restriction would be that "ammunition" or "target touched" would have to be in the target description of the spell. For instance the spell Deeper Darkness says "object touched" as the target, so an "Oil of Deeper Darkness" could be poured onto a single bullet, which would then be fired and the area of darkness would travel with (and be centered upon) the bullet.

For that matter, you could oil-rub yourself some tracer rounds. Light is a 0-level spell and lasts 10 minutes per level. So an "Oil of Light" would be 1/2 level x level 1 caster x 50 gold = 25 gold per potion. For 100 gold you could have 4 "tracer rounds" that last ten minutes, and if the GM is kind they might still stay lit after hitting the target. could be useful in an underground situation....

[Baroh Steelcleave]

So, if I'm understanding this properly, I would want to use the Spell Storing weapon ability for this type of effect?

For individual ammunition, instead of:
[spell level] x [caster level] x 50gp,

Use:
[+2 bonus] / 50

...then add spell-casting services to "charge" the ammo?

[DarkLightHitomi]

To answer the op's question, yes.

For magic weapon qualities and such use the rules provided but they don't deny you the ability to make single use, use activeted items (though you can only do this to one piece of ammo though since you are not using weapon qualities as outlined, you are in effect making a magic item that is activated by attacking with it, or rather by hitting something very hard)