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Ok, so our group is about mid way through book 2 of the AP. we used a trick with the shard of pride to over come I guess what he called a mid boss fight, to fast for his liking.
The trick was use the Major Image ability of the shard to make an image of a much larger creature than the one we are fighting, so that it ether flees or "dies"(from believed dmg). My character used it twice before, once to fake cast a lighting bolt...the other to trick a room full of tower girls into believing that had just been breath weapon-ed by a gold dragon.
Now our problem is in trying to figure out what the DC would be on the shard abilities when they can be used against opponents & when the CL25 comes into play.
We took some time and really read through the stuff on the shards & we came across this:
The caster level for the Shattered Star is unusual. In its
current shattered state, the Sihedron draws its power from
the creature that carries the shards, setting the caster level as
equal to the owner's Hit Dice. All spell effects generated by
a Shattered Star shard manifest at this caster level. For other
effects, the shards have a caster level of 25th.
But I then found this:
All spell-like abilities cast from shards resolve at the base DC for the spell. In the case of major image, that's a 3rd level spell, so its save is DC 14. (10 + 3 for spell level + 1 for the fact that you need an ability score of 13 to cast it.)
which is right? and when does the CL25 of the artifact come into play?
CL doesn't actually change the DC of spells. This is the same for most magic items unless they're staves or exception.
If you want to argue that this seems odd for an artifact, it is a Broken artifact. It probably wasn't meant to be used in such a state.
The caster level comes into play when you determine the variables of the spell, not it's DC. For instance, in the case of major image, it means that the range of the spell is 400 + 25*40 = 1400 feet.
If a Shard were to allow you to cast, say, chain lightning (not saying one Shard does this), the damage would be determined by the caster level, resulting in 20d6 of damage, with a range of 1400 feet, and hitting up to 25 secondary targets. That would hurt…
Would we use the characters level or the CL of the artifact to over come Spell Resistance?
Would we use the characters level or the CL of the artifact to over come Spell Resistance?
"In its current shattered state, the Sihedron draws its power from the creature that carries the shards, setting the caster level as equal to the owner's Hit Dice. All spell effects generated by a Shattered Star shard manifest at this caster level." (emphasis mine)
For spell effects "cast" by a shard, the effect uses the owner's HD as the CL.
"For other effects, the shards have a caster level of 25th."
To dispel or suppress the constant effects (i.e., the ability bonuses) or the shard itself, the CL is 25.
And the DCs are like scrolls, that means the minimum possible.
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Would we use the characters level or the CL of the artifact to over come Spell Resistance?"In its current shattered state, the Sihedron draws its power from the creature that carries the shards, setting the caster level as equal to the owner's Hit Dice. All spell effects generated by a Shattered Star shard manifest at this caster level." (emphasis mine)
For spell effects "cast" by a shard, the effect uses the owner's HD as the CL.
"For other effects, the shards have a caster level of 25th."
To dispel or suppress the constant effects (i.e., the ability bonuses) or the shard itself, the CL is 25.
This is correct. For things like duration, range, damage or anything else that references the caster level within the duplicated spell effect, you use the character's hit dice as the caster level. The CL25 comes in, for example, when examining the aura of the item, determining any saving throw it might need to make, or the difficulty to dispel it (if you had a dispel magic variant that could effect artifacts, for instance).