I'm having trouble seeing the point of the Inscribe Magical Tattoo (IMC) feat. It seems flat-out worse than Craft Wondrous Item.
You have limited slots on IMC that cost as much as unslotted items. Your tattoos encourage enemies to knife up your skin to destroy them, rather than just remove the item from your person. Tattoo Spells cost 4 times as much as a scroll, 1/Use Wondrous Items only cost twice as much. The Metamagic one might seem nice, until you realize it costs twice as much as a similar metamagic rod AND also uses up a swift action.
Hide the tattoos on your person? Well, Detect Magic is going to show them (and almost anything you can do to hide a magical item will work on non-tattoos too).
Don't need to pull it out of a bag? Well, there are plenty of items that let a caster handle that problem easily enough from efficient quivers to handy haversacks. Not worth the doubled price on everything.
It seems like it should be a cool feat, but I just can't find a reason anyone would ever want it beyond flavor (which you could argue for any bad feat, imho). It rather seems like it shouldn't even be a feat, just a unusual way to use Craft Wondrous Item.
Thoughts?
I looked for Inscribe Magical Tattoo, but I couldn't find one that talked about non-slotted costs and swift actions, so I must have been directed to an incorrect version. Can you actually give the description of the feat?
Knifed up skin isn't as easy to sell on the black market. Not is it as easy to harvest in a precise way that your average bandit, thug, whatever (who would usually steal your magical item) would waste his or her time on it. Also, not everyone is going to be detecting magic. They'll do that if you become highly known for the tattoos, or someone escapes from a battle and shares your tactic, but I can see why it's there. Flavor, a bit easier to hide, and a good deal harder to take from you than a magical item.
Pizza Lord wrote: I looked for Inscribe Magical Tattoo, but I couldn't find one that talked about non-slotted costs and swift actions, so I must have been directed to an incorrect version. Can you actually give the description of the feat? Sure, here's the link. It's from Inner Sea Magic.
ShadowyFox wrote: Knifed up skin isn't as easy to sell on the black market. Not is it as easy to harvest in a precise way that your average bandit, thug, whatever (who would usually steal your magical item) would waste his or her time on it. Also, not everyone is going to be detecting magic. They'll do that if you become highly known for the tattoos, or someone escapes from a battle and shares your tactic, but I can see why it's there. Flavor, a bit easier to hide, and a good deal harder to take from you than a magical item. It certainly isn't a good deal harder to take. And if you lack detect magic? A strip-search does the job. Given the magical tattoos are far from unknown in the setting, this is probably a sensible precaution at least with a spellcaster. A hundred times so if you have any visible tattoos. Of course, stripping you of all your gear is a good idea anyway if you capture adventurers, just to be on the safe side. Tattoos just mean they take a knife to your character -- eww.
The minor benefit if the DM tosses thieves at you that bypass all wards and protections to steal your stuff doesn't justify doubling the cost of pretty much anything you make with it.
I'm not saying I don't see why the IDEA isn't there (like I said in the OP). I'm saying that the mechanics of it are pretty awful.
It works great for adventure writers/DMs wanting to cheat PCs out of treasure.
I could totally see this used in Carrion Crown by the Bad Guys and even random Wandering Monsters, cause, ya know, CC is treasure light.
aaron Ellis wrote: It works great for adventure writers/DMs wanting to cheat PCs out of treasure. Well, there is a spell to transfer tattoos.
You can have a tattoo of ogre strength (belt slot) in addition to any belt and the same with other slots. So this feat nearly doubles the slots you have.
Yeah, i forgot about that spell. Might be worth picking up a scroll or two, but would probably never be taken as a spell known and only rarely prepped on an adventuring day.
Umbranus wrote: You can have a tattoo of ogre strength (belt slot) in addition to any belt and the same with other slots. So this feat nearly doubles the slots you have. It costs more than doing it normally.
Adding New Abilities wrote:
Sometimes, lack of funds or time make it impossible for a magic item crafter to create the desired item from scratch. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place.
The cost to add additional abilities to an item is the same as if the item was not magical, less the value of the original item. Thus, a +1 longsword can be made into a +2 vorpal longsword, with the cost to create it being equal to that of a +2 vorpal sword minus the cost of a +1 longsword.
If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character's body, the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection 2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5. A Magical Tattoo would be 2 times the price rather than 1.5.
Inscribe Magical Tattoo:
* is more limited than Craft Wondrous Items (since it requires a slot for most effects)
* becomes available two levels later than CWI
* requires five skill ranks to qualify (who invests 5 ranks in calligraphy?)
* costs the same as slot-less wondrous items
* costs double the price of normally slotted items
* costs quadruple the price of equivalent scrolls
* grants silent activation for scroll-like usage
* is inferior to similar crafting feats in almost every way
[edited for spelling and content]
Hmm, just initially looking over the feat I'm wondering how an Apparatus of the Crab tattoo would work. Would it require a specific description, such as 'Using the tattoo makes the Apparatus appear or disappear. If destroyed, the tattoo is similarly destroyed.'?
I don't see anything that says that the tattoo on the body slot must correspond to a slotted item that goes on the body slot. For example, I see nothing that says a magical tattoo of Striding and Springing must go on the boot slot. It seems like you could be wearing boots of the winterlands, have a tattoo of striding and springing on your feet, have a tattoo of (slippers) of spiderclimbing on your neck, and a tattoo of (boots of) elvenkind on your wrist and benefit from all of them (barring overlapping bonuses.)
I would say the additional cost is probably fair for the ability to use multiple magic items that a normal person could only use one of all at once. The key would seem to be figuring out what would work best for you.
Pizza Lord wrote: Hmm, just initially looking over the feat I'm wondering how an Apparatus of the Crab tattoo would work. Would it require a specific description, such as 'Using the tattoo makes the Apparatus appear or disappear. If destroyed, the tattoo is similarly destroyed.'?
I don't see anything that says that the tattoo on the body slot must correspond to a slotted item that goes on the body slot. For example, I see nothing that says a magical tattoo of Striding and Springing must go on the boot slot. It seems like you could be wearing boots of the winterlands, have a tattoo of striding and springing on your feet, have a tattoo of (slippers) of spiderclimbing on your neck, and a tattoo of (boots of) elvenkind on your wrist and benefit from all of them (barring overlapping bonuses.)
I would say the additional cost is probably fair for the ability to use multiple magic items that a normal person could only use one of all at once. The key would seem to be figuring out what would work best for you.
There are rules for adding additional properties like that to magical items. It's 1.5x the normal cost. So that's cheaper than the 2x cost of Magical Tattoos.
I'd note that nothing says you can necessarily make any Wondrous Item with Craft Magical Tattoo either. It just says it uses the rules as if they were wondrous items -- that might just mean pricing guidelines. It's a bit vague. Oddly enough, you could make a wondrous 1 use spell that was half the price of the "spell tattoo."
I thought initially this might be cool to have instead of Craft Rod, but with every use of it being super-expensive, it is hard to see the point.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Er, there's no point to a magic item that you can't easily lose, have stolen, or be disarmed of in combat? One that requires the use of a spell to tell from an ordinary tattoo?
Besides, you're a PC, more than likely you're carrying enough magic tchotches to light up the room even without Detect Magic. Who's going to be looking at your tattoos?
And if you're to the point where someone is breaking out the skinning knives you have bigger problems than the theft of a magic item.
I have a character with all magical tattoos and no other magic items. His backpack contains nothing but mundane items. Actually, I've almost never seen a PC/NPC captured before, as combat usually leads to death. If my character is dead, why would I care if my items were stolen from me, or carved out of my skin - I'd still be dead, it wouldn't matter. Sure it costs more, otherwise I don't see any concern at all.
It looks like you can put items in your ring slots with Inscribe Magical Tattoo. So it's more expensive to make items with it because it's Create Wondrous Item and early access to Forge Ring as well. At least I assume that was the theory.
You said it yourself; flavor. Well, and the fact that the GM finally gets to run his "Kingdom of the Nudists*" adventure. If it were mechanically superior, PCs everywhere would suddenly develop a 'lifelong interest' in skin ink; the current arrangement gives a few minor advantages and some considerable disadvantages, which keeps 'em an exotic discipline that most spellcasters don't bother with.
* I have seen things I cannot un-see! Quick, somebody cast 'destruction' on me!
One concept I realize with this is that it makes the idea of a Monk taking the Oath of Poverty more viable. Since a tattoo can't really be considered a possession, the Poverty Monk can get people to make tattoos for him to simulate the powers of magic items.
Im a tad confused on the wording of the feat. If u have the feat does that mean u can have 2 rings and 2 tattoo rings active at the same time or would it still only be 2 rings active at once like normal. If u can have both rings and tattoo rings active at once at the same time then it is worth it, for me at least, other wise im on the same page as most here.
The pricing is fine for 1st level spells considering the free Silent MM you get, and not horrible for 2nd level spells considering the same.
For somebody without Scribe Scroll and who likes the other uses, they might even use it for higher level spells.
The Caster's Tattoo is better than Rods of MM because there isn't a Rod of Still Spell in the first place, never mind Still+Silent, so there is no similar MM rod.
Reservoir Tattoo lets you totally evade chances of failing a Concentration check, or even situations which NEGATE spellcasting, or possibly even Globes of Invulnerability (even if it's effect is SUPPRESSED and duration suspended by the Reservoir, the spell is already cast and in effect?), and it acts similar to a mini-Stave of your spell of choice, but even better in some ways (benefits from full caster level at time of casting, AND all class features or other effects that might modify casting, e.g. Incense of Meditation).
And part of the point is that you can be doubling up on body slots,
If you would otherwise try to craft a normally Slotted Wondrous Item as Slotless, the price should be the same.
And this should work fine even in games where making custom magic items is not allowed.
If a Wondrous Item is normally Slotless, the price should be the same.
There is also the advantage compared to other random Wondrous Items of only needing Tattooing supplies to make them,
So while you are adventuring on the road you can cover alot of your Wondrous Item crafting needs with the same supplies.
Doing all of that with one Crafting Feat is pretty convenient.
I do think it could benefit from some more unique magical tattoos (like Reservoir is unique).
I guess they just expect it to be a niche type of thing, and if they create all these must have effects, everybody will get it.
Psion-Psycho wrote: If u have the feat does that mean u can have 2 rings and 2 tattoo rings active at the same time or would it still only be 2 rings active at once like normal. If u can have both rings and tattoo rings active at once at the same time then it is worth it, for me at least, other wise im on the same page as most here. Da Rulez wrote: Magic tattoos must be placed on a part of the body normally able to hold a magic item slot, but they do not count against or interfere with magic items worn on those slots. Yup.
Although you are limited to placing magical tattoos on the specific body slots (chest, ring, etc). I don't believe you're supposed to be able to make version of magical rings, it says you follow the crafting rules as if they were wondrous items, which I take to mean that (besides 'scroll' spell tattoos and the unique magical tattoos) you are able to emulate wondrous items only. There isn't really a way to make a Ring or Armor item by following the rules for Wondrous Item crafting, so I don't think it's allowed.
BTW, spelling out 'you' makes your posts appear more credible and respectable.
Quandary wrote: Psion-Psycho wrote: If u have the feat does that mean u can have 2 rings and 2 tattoo rings active at the same time or would it still only be 2 rings active at once like normal. If u can have both rings and tattoo rings active at once at the same time then it is worth it, for me at least, other wise im on the same page as most here. Da Rulez wrote: Magic tattoos must be placed on a part of the body normally able to hold a magic item slot, but they do not count against or interfere with magic items worn on those slots. Yup.
Although you are limited to placing magical tattoos on the specific body slots (chest, ring, etc). I don't believe you're supposed to be able to make version of magical rings, it says you follow the crafting rules as if they were wondrous items, which I take to mean that (besides 'scroll' spell tattoos and the unique magical tattoos) you are able to emulate wondrous items only. There isn't really a way to make a Ring or Armor item by following the rules for Wondrous Item crafting, so I don't think it's allowed.
BTW, spelling out 'you' makes your posts appear more credible and respectable. Thx and i know it does but all my post r from my phone so its just a lot easier to type this way.
Son of the Veterinarian wrote: Er, there's no point to a magic item that you can't easily lose, have stolen, or be disarmed of in combat? One that requires the use of a spell to tell from an ordinary tattoo?
Besides, you're a PC, more than likely you're carrying enough magic tchotches to light up the room even without Detect Magic. Who's going to be looking at your tattoos?
And if you're to the point where someone is breaking out the skinning knives you have bigger problems than the theft of a magic item.
The person who casts detect magic will see that the tattoos are glowing. Also, tattoo magic is a known quantity, so it is something people would look for in particular.
If someone is taking all of your items, then you are a prisoner. If that's the case, why wouldn't they inflict damage to destroy the the tattoos (and all the money you spent on them)? Leaving them there would be insane.
And the vast majority of magical items are not easy to lose or have disarmed -- particularly if we're talking about wondrous items. That leaves stealing, which there are a bunch of great and cheap defenses against. The DM has to try really hard to go with the stealing angle.
One concept I realize with this is that it makes the idea of a Monk taking the Oath of Poverty more viable. Since a tattoo can't really be considered a possession, the Poverty Monk can get people to make tattoos for him to simulate the powers of magic items.
I can't see anyone actually taking that serious. That's like an Oath of Povery Bionic Man -- really just away to try to ignore the limitations. Of course, PF Oath of Poverty is so awful one should allow anything to get around it.
Quandary wrote: The pricing is fine for 1st level spells considering the free Silent MM you get, and not horrible for 2nd level spells considering the same.
For somebody without Scribe Scroll and who likes the other uses, they might even use it for higher level spells.
Assuming you didn't take Scribe Scroll and your DM doesn't let you make one-use wondrous items. Because a Wondrous Item doing the same thing is half the price (e.g. an eggshell you break to release a spell).
Quandary wrote: The Caster's Tattoo is better than Rods of MM because there isn't a Rod of Still Spell in the first place, never mind Still+Silent, so there is no similar MM rod. I wouldn't say that makes it "better". It requires a precious swift action (no quickened spell), and it costs twice as much as a +2 MM Rod that was usable 1/day. Niche uses doesn't mean it is good or worth the price. So it's hideously expensive for what it does.
Quandary wrote: Reservoir Tattoo lets you totally evade chances of failing a Concentration check, or even situations which NEGATE spellcasting, or possibly even Globes of Invulnerability (even if it's effect is SUPPRESSED and duration suspended by the Reservoir, the spell is already cast and in effect?), and it acts similar to a mini-Stave of your spell of choice, but even better in some ways (benefits from full caster level at time of casting, AND all class features or other effects that might modify casting, e.g. Incense of Meditation). Standard Action to activate and it has to be a self-targeting spell. This is a 10k tattoo that a 9k Pearl of Power beats in general usefulness (the pearl lets you cast that spell, or another one, twice). Once again this has only truly niche uses.
Quandary wrote: And part of the point is that you can be doubling up on body slots,
If you would otherwise try to craft a normally Slotted Wondrous Item as Slotless, the price should be the same.
If you add those slotted effects to another slotted item, it is just 1.5 times the cost instead of 2, however. So in fact you are paying significantly more.
Quandary wrote: And this should work fine even in games where making custom magic items is not allowed. In a game where you can't have custom items, you're only going to be able to have a Caster, Reservoir, and Spell Tattoos. In games that allow effects from the book, you can enhance existing items with other book effects for 1.5 times the cost.
Quandary wrote: So while you are adventuring on the road you can cover alot of your Wondrous Item crafting needs with the same supplies.
Doing all of that with one Crafting Feat is pretty convenient.
Not that convenient considering the cost. It isn't that hard to plan ahead and after just a handful of levels you can teleport to grab supplies.
Quandary wrote: I do think it could benefit from some more unique magical tattoos (like Reservoir is unique).
I guess they just expect it to be a niche type of thing, and if they create all these must have effects, everybody will get it.
Are the effects unique? The text explicitly says Tattoos follow the Wondrous Item rules. Why not make a Wondrous Item that duplicates those effects? It would seem that there'd be no reason why this couldn't work.
So, like I said, it seems like a cool idea with a bad implementation.
Up thread someone mentioned that Transfer Tattoo would not be chosen as a known spell. My Witch would disagree. And used it to good effect in my last Rise of the Rune Lords session.
The tattoos are expensive, but as has been said before, it effectively doubles your magic items slots. And they look cool!
Don't forget that tattoos aren't necessarily easily visible - I've seen Thai buddhists tattooing protection from demons symbols on believers without ink. Hurts like hell (sorry for the pun) but is fairly invisible.
Sure, such a tattoo in a PF game still lights up with detect magic but to all intents and purposes, only the "wearer", the tattooist, any witnesses (and possibly in that case, demons) know that it's there.
Drachasor, it is quite obvious you have your mind made up about this, and are either ignoring points that have been made, or stretching things out of proportion, to defend your position that these tattoos suck. So what was the point of this post? You are obviously not interested in finding out how they could be useful...
In my published setting, monks aren't even allowed to wear to tattoos. Most tattoos are worn by rogues (ie: yakuza). So for those thinking that magic tattoos were for the benefit of monks - this isn't a universal concept. I've got a 3PP created tattooist wizard in Rite Publishing's Way of the Yakuza with some unique tattoo spells and a class archetype developed around this concept.
@Tempestorm
In my previous post, I was saying that prepared casters (wizards/witches) would rarely prepare the spell on an adventuring day and that spontaneous casters (sorcerers/bards) would probably never take that spell for one of their limited spells known slots. I should have been more clear.
karossii wrote: Drachasor, it is quite obvious you have your mind made up about this, and are either ignoring points that have been made, or stretching things out of proportion, to defend your position that these tattoos suck. So what was the point of this post? You are obviously not interested in finding out how they could be useful... I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything about its mechanics. It does not seem like I am. It seems that its usefulness is extreme corner-cases at best. Just because someone asks for the input of others mean they will or even should change their own. While I appreciate people trying to defend the feat, the fact is that it is thoroughly inferior to Craft Wondrous Item. It does a subset of things almost equally well (though it costs its own version of slots), overcharges for a bunch of other things, and the fact is that having items be a part of your skin is almost never going to come in handy.
What it has left are its 3 tattoos, which arguably are craftable as slotless wondrous items themselves. They are just not all that great given the feat cost and money expenditure.
Drachasor wrote: I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything about its mechanics. It does not seem like I am. It seems that its usefulness is extreme corner-cases at best. Just because someone asks for the input of others mean they will or even should change their own. While I appreciate people trying to defend the feat, the fact is that it is thoroughly inferior to Craft Wondrous Item. It's almost a strawman to try to compare anything to what is undoubtedly the most powerful and unbalanced item creation feat in the game.
Of course this is Theorycrafting Central and if a feat isnt' built around making oneself uberpowerful, it's got no place in a ROLEPLAYING game, right?
LazarX wrote: It's almost a strawman to try to compare anything to what is undoubtedly the most powerful and unbalanced item creation feat in the game.
Of course this is Theorycrafting Central and if a feat isnt' built around making oneself uberpowerful, it's got no place in a ROLEPLAYING game, right?
Not when the feat itself says "I'm just like Craft Wondrous Item (CWI), only worse." It's basically written into the text. CWI can't do the stuff Craft Arms and Armor can do, or Staves, or Wands -- I'll leave out Potions just because that's awful too and CWI can do better than potions (really they should have let potions be of any level and had it be the go-to for generic one-use items).
Part of why I am asking is that I'm making a crafter with my wizard. I can see the value in Craft Arms and Armor, Staves, and Wondrous Items. Those are obvious. I get scrolls for free (also has some nice uses).
Now here is where a strawman comes in. You assume that because I see Craft Magical Tattoo (CMT) as overly expensive that I don't see a value in roleplay. Not true at all. But when choosing between CMT and Bestial Speech...I really don't see what CMT is bringing to the table. If I want to actually use it, I'd have to spend a great deal of resources when I could spend equal or less using CWI. There are, in fact, lots of more powerful builds I could use for my Wizard, but I decided I liked the feel of a different route and also like being able to make stuff.
The problem with CMT is that it doesn't seem to have much of anything to call its own. It's niche is quite small. I freely grant that CWI is too powerful, but that doesn't excuse creating CMT as like CWI only worse. If anything, they should have redone the crafting feats when they released Pathfinder.
I find this whole response to me ironic. I was open to being mistaken about CMT -- maybe I had missed something. So I asked here. Now just because I didn't change my mind I'm being accused of being a close-minded powergamer. But just because I judge a feat to be poorly designed does not make me a power gamer. Nor does the fact that I like feats that provide real choices between their mechanics -- for mechanics are a important part of how a game feels and plays.
CMT just doesn't seem to do that. Is it useless? No. Is it remotely good compared to he alternatives? No. Also a black mark, I think, is that it makes people believe that it gives you extra item slots, when it does not. That's the kind of game mastery confusion you don't want to be adding to a game, imho (yeah, I dislike high levels of game mastery).
But if you want to disparage my thoughts and concerns about game design and feat evaluation further, then go ahead, I guess.
aaron Ellis wrote: @Tempestorm
In my previous post, I was saying that prepared casters (wizards/witches) would rarely prepare the spell on an adventuring day and that spontaneous casters (sorcerers/bards) would probably never take that spell for one of their limited spells known slots. I should have been more clear.
Ah, understood.
It is, for me, common practice with prepared casters to leave at least one slot open per spell level for such instances. This is what transpired in my last Rise of the Runelords game.
There is a flaw in almost every post, making a magic items can be anything, for instance get creative. Make a tattoo on yer butt slot that give he constant detect magic detect all the alignments and non-detection, holy crap tattoo from hell. That was an really over exaggerated, but you get my drift. You are not limited to the magic items in the book make up yer own and follow the crafting rules and confer with yer DM. You all think to straight, also non-detection the the best way to make yer items and person seem normal and mundane.
I said my peace.
Maybe you want to play a Celtic warrior.....a naked tattooed guy who runs screaming into combat? Buff in the buff.
TL;DR
I think the usefulness, to me, is in the following way :
I am a monk, I always want an Amulet of Natural Armor on. However, because I want to be able to change the type of energy I deal based on what I'm dealing with, I buy a bunch of amulets of might fists (energy). So I have a +2 AoMF I usually wear. Plus I have a +0 Flaming, a +0 Corrosive, a +0 Frost, and a +0 Shocking amulet. If I have 'merged' my AoNA into my +2 AoMF, I lose my AoNA if I put on the Flaming amulet. But if I've tattoo'd it into my neck (costing only 50% more than merging), then I can take off the +2 AoMF, and put on the Flaming if I'm dealing with Cold elementals, or the Frost if I'm dealing with Fire Elementals, etc.
It's basically a way to be flexible. It lets me put my 'christmas tree' item son permanently, and then have some flexibility to put other types of equipment into the same slot and mix and match them out as needed. I am seriously considering doing this for my Paladin in Jade Regent.
You could hypothetically have similar effect for the same price via a custom non-slotted version of a normally slotted Wondrous Item that does the same thing ('AoMF effect in an Ioun Stone') but that of course is a custom item. I honestly haven't played any games where custom items were "generally" allowed (such as anything can become slotless), beyond differential Dual-Stat Booster Belts/Headbands.
By using magical tattoos you are following the rules, and IMF versions of slotted items are 100% legit, AFAIK even in PFS where "all magical tattoos on page 16" are legal, and Wondrous Item tattoos are mentioned there... So you don't have to use "guidelines" for de-slotting "custom magic items", you just use the 100% legal Wondrous Item Tattoos as defined by the Feat. In home games, a GM could be more OK with IMT than custom non-slotted Wondrous Items because IMT is a separate Feat if you're making it yourself, there is limited tattoo slots vs. actual slotless items, and you can't really sell them or loot them (meaning their cost can never be recovered, and enemy NPCs can also have them without putting this loot in PC hands).
I honestly do hope that more unique Magical Tattoos are published sometime. The Tattooed Mystic PrC has some class-based tattoos that are clearly fodder for IMT, but there is unfortunately no pricing or other crafting details, even though they seem plausible for general IMT crafting, perhaps with the highest level versions off-limits to general IMT crafting to keep the PrC unique.
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