Role-playing Crafting an Intelligent Item

[revloc02]

I've got a player that wants to craft an intelligent item. The rules are all there to do so, but it is all just formulas and numbers. I'd like to add some flavor to it.

1. Do any of you have special materials or rituals or quests associated with crafting magic items in general?

2. Or even better, cool ideas for role-playing/questing/material-gathering for crafting an intelligent magic item?

[revloc02]

Like in order to make the item intelligent the characters need to go and obtain the spiritual essence of the wizard that lived in the ruined tower.

Or, in order to make that flaming sword you either need to go into the volcano caves and find the fire-rubies, or go and find the hermit in the swamp that has some for sale and bargain with him.

Stuff like that. Anyone ever do this kind of thing for magic item creation?

[DirtSailor]

I'm all for the winging it concept. The numbers are always good to fall back on... but creativity and inspiration is what always draws ME to the table.

I think it would help if you gave a bit more info on what exactly it is he/she is trying to create. Is it a flaming sword? A shield that always seems to rise at the right time? A cloak that turns hard as steel the instant it feels a blade?

[Cevah]

I have done that a lot. Back in 2nd Edition.

Basically, it comes down to this: how much is essence of old wizard worth for the intelligent item? Is the quest to get pure water from a waterfall unseen by anyone else worth sufficient to reduce the price down to affordable?

Since PF went with 5gp where 3.X went with 1xp, you could say earning Nxp in a quest to make the item is worth 5Ngp towards its price. (cost?) Additionally, with hand picked special components, you could add "features" to the resulting item that are cantrip level or less, but add character to the item. The feature could even be personality quirks.

2nd Ed Spells and Magic did a fair job of describing components and rituals in terms of common / uncommon / rare. It then described item power in terms of needed rarity of components and rituals. You could use this as a springboard for your own homebrew rules.

/cevah

[Arlow]

You're looking for power components in the base books. Design an adventure to discover intelligent items creation, list of components, special ritual crafting, ancien text of awakening your craft on the wall of a millenia tomb or everything the you can think of.

Have every pc play a part in the creation of an intelligent item. The fighter blood of hair for martial proess. The cleric holy symbol to give it life. The favorite alchemist potion to temper the steel. A Sting of the bard guitare for charm.

Then it whould be the little baby of the party and they all get bragging right for something or another. And players can take turn to roleplay the item, leaving you whit one less npc to control all the time.

[revloc02]

DirtSailor wrote:

The numbers are always good to fall back on... but creativity and inspiration is what always draws ME to the table.

Yeah, I agree. That doesn't come easy to me, so that's what I am working on.

DirtSailor wrote:

I think it would help if you gave a bit more info on what exactly it is he/she is trying to create. Is it a flaming sword? A shield that always seems to rise at the right time? A cloak that turns hard as steel the instant it feels a blade?

Good point. So far he wants to use a Holy Avenger as the base item and then add Intelligence to it with some powers like Daylight at will, and Flaming.

Cevah wrote:

Additionally, with hand picked special components, you could add "features" to the resulting item that are cantrip level or less, but add character to the item. The feature could even be personality quirks.

Oooo, I really like this idea. A cantrip that is part of a personality quirk.

[DirtSailor]

Not sure if you're familiar with the Song of Fire and Ice series (and if not, WTF?!), But it brings to mind the Dawn Bringer. Its basically a sword that glows like sunlight and sets itself on fire (though I have a hunch that in the context of the book its fake as it puts off no heat).

Any who. If you want something that Good, I'm thinking rageants like feather of an angel, morning dew to quench the blade, can only be forged during dawn, and perhaps at some ancient precursor foundry that uses a series of intricate magnifying glasses to heat the steel instead of say... Fire and bellows. Got to put the effin SUN into it! Literally :)