Hi all! :-)
I am running a homebrew campaign with an evil bardic overlord. He a a very intelligent and cunning person, posing as a loyal subject.
Nobody actually knows he is a bard, and he is very intent on hiding his magical (and other bardic) abilities. So bluffing and leading others astray regarding his true motives is his primary objective - at least until his time has come.
So what I thought would be helpful is
a) amulett of glibnesss - ensure his bluff is so high that no PC can easily crack it
b) items (amulet? ring? ...) that let him communicate (1/day) like sending with his henchmen
It is very important that he cannot be discovered. A typical tactic that needs to be countered is a) detect magic and b) detect alignment.
So I thought of magic aura and misdirection, permanently on the amulett or cast by himself regularly presuming detection spells can still be foiled...
How would I go about pricing it? Would an amulett of glibness and magic aura register nonmagical?
I can go for the magic item tables, but I would like to hear from you what price you would feel acceptable for these items and if there are other items you would suggest for an NPC like that.
Thanks in advance :-D
A ring of mind shielding covers the not-getting-detected part of it. It probably would be reasonable to price an amulet of fake ID (say, something that presents him as LG-at-all-times) at about the same price. It's in the book.
A competence bonus to a skill is usually (bonus-squared x 100), so an amulet of glibness (+5 Bluff) would be 2500 gp; an amulet of trickster god glibness (+30 Bluff) would be 90,000 gp. There are a number of other ways to boost Bluff skill, and I suspect he has them all.
It's perfectly reasonable to have a deceptive magic item register as something else to a casual scan.
If he's high enough level he can probably cast some of these spells himself. If he's evil enough he might have made contact with some sort of evil outsider (say, an efreet or glabrezu) to give him a permanent aura of misdirection with a wish or two (one wish to have an ability, one wish to make it permanent) -- this avoids having to price a magic item and avoids you having to worry what happens if the players get hold of it.
Thanks for your feedback.
Mind shielding is a bit too expensive - he is not THAT high level yet :-P
Is that amulet of glibness a custom item or can I find it somewhere?
So the best way seems to be to get an amulet/ring that boosts bluff and have him cast magic aura on it? Alternatively it should work if he hides it under his clothes, shouldn't it?
I would probably - moneywise - go for a +10 item for bluff, costing 10000GP.
And yes, he got a lot invested into his bluff :-P