On making a special amulet...

[Keydan]

For specific purposes, our party is in need of an amulet with the "PROTECTIVE PENUMBRA" constant effect. Now, crafting such such an amulet is not the hard part or the question I want answers...

The amulet must:
1) Change the allignment by 1 or 2 steps.
2) Had the property to drop the enchantment or re-start it on specific persons command, at a limited distance (but preferably any distance).
3) The amulet is so nice, the holder would never wish to take it off.
4) Possibly - self destruction.

What spells, and price would compose such an amulet?
Any ideas or advice?

[Imbicatus]

It sounds like a modified Jailer's & Prisoner's Ring. Although, most vampires have easier ways to control their spawn.

[Keydan]

Oh it's not for spawn, our party member became a vampire, and we want t take percussionist.

[Claxon]

Percussionist

Did you mean precautions?

Kill them, and then resurrect them.

As far as the changing alignment part...the closest we get is the helm of opposite alignment which is a cursed item (and no price).

Honestly, I'd probably say as a GM that an item such as you request is an artifact.

Alternatively, finding a way to cast geas on the vampire will allow you to control him if you can word a request appropriately.

[Movin]

So is the player in question aware you intend to outfit his now Vampiric PC with an explosive collar?
If not might as well kill them now and save on trouble later.

[Keydan]

Claxon wrote:

Percussionist

Did you mean precautions?

Kill them, and then resurrect them.

As far as the changing alignment part...the closest we get is the helm of opposite alignment which is a cursed item (and no price).

Honestly, I'd probably say as a GM that an item such as you request is an artifact.

Alternatively, finding a way to cast geas on the vampire will allow you to control him if you can word a request appropriately.

In 3.5 the helm was 4k gold I believe...

And the vampire doesn't know, he gave us money to craft the "collar", everything else is us, a NN summoner and a NG Magus thinking how to have a controllable Vampire. We don't want to control his will, just make him more reasonable by the fact that we can kill him if he goes on rampage.

[kestral287]

1. Not realistically priceable out of hand. Consult your DM.
2. Obvious, simply make the Penumbra a Command Word feature with unlimited duration. Unlimited range will require money though. And you'll need to be sure that he can't identify the command word in some way.
3. Charm Person targeted at the wearer. You may try to find some way to force him to tank his Will saves against it. Alternately and much more expensively, a Geas to keep it on.
4. Pick a high enough damage spell and point it at the wearer. Keep your caster levels in mind; while normally a Fireball is a 3rd level spell and as such requires caster level five, you're going to want at least caster level ten. And keep your damage scaling in mind, it may become less effective as he levels unless you shell for multiple uses (which would be far more expensive than a one-off). This is going to cost a lot of money. I'd advise using a Shocking Grasp as the base spell, ideally with a great deal of metamagic applied. Its low-level baseline will at least do something to keep your costs down, even if you have to Intensify it on top of Empower/Maximize.
5. Hope you never have to use it 'cause that'll divide a group real fast.

[Claxon]

Keydan wrote:

In 3.5 the helm was 4k gold I believe...

1) This isn't 3.5

2) You can't purposefully craft cursed items

[Keydan]

kestral287 wrote:

1. Not realistically priceable out of hand. Consult your DM.

2. Obvious, simply make the Penumbra a Command Word feature with unlimited duration. Unlimited range will require money though. And you'll need to be sure that he can't identify the command word in some way.
3. Charm Person targeted at the wearer. You may try to find some way to force him to tank his Will saves against it. Alternately and much more expensively, a Geas to keep it on.
4. Pick a high enough damage spell and point it at the wearer. Keep your caster levels in mind; while normally a Fireball is a 3rd level spell and as such requires caster level five, you're going to want at least caster level ten. And keep your damage scaling in mind, it may become less effective as he levels unless you shell for multiple uses (which would be far more expensive than a one-off). This is going to cost a lot of money. I'd advise using a Shocking Grasp as the base spell, ideally with a great deal of metamagic applied. Its low-level baseline will at least do something to keep your costs down, even if you have to Intensify it on top of Empower/Maximize.
5. Hope you never have to use it 'cause that'll divide a group real fast.

Yeah, kinda figured it would be pretty expencive to craft. We will probably go with the cost effective solution. GM is ok with it, as long as I provide solid math and rulins that soemthing like this can be made. Our action are pretty much logical as far as RP goes, the player was a hard to trust before vampirism, and now you just should not trust him as he became a vampire. Even if it was once your comrade, and we can't just kill him. We have evil party memebrs, but most are reasonable... this guy is CN, so we can't just let him go out and do whatever he wants.

He won't know, until the time he'll need to know.

Claxon wrote:

1) This isn't 3.5
2) You can't purposefully craft cursed items

1) Based on same open license and most parts are interchangeable, that's one of the "features" pathfinder has.

2) Cursed items are created as the result failed rolls. You can always choose to fail a roll, and augury may help to fail in the most favorable way.

[kestral287]

Aside from the alignment shift-- fundamentally unpriceable under PF rules-- and the self-destruct-- incredibly difficult to enforce at higher levels or if you plan to go to higher levels-- it's not all that expensive honestly.

What level are you, and roughly how high do you anticipate the campaign going? Also, what class is our intrepid vampire in the making?

[Keydan]

We are level 11, but kind of stressed on crafting time. We'll be getting at last 5-6 more levels. Our vampire is a Balckblade Kensai Magus, level 10, I believe.

[kestral287]

... He's a Magus and he wants to go Vampire? He might be doing you a favor; if your GM applies any sort of level adjustment that's one of the biggest nerfs he can take.

But okay. D8 hit dice, let's be generous and figure a Cha of 20 (something no Bladebound Kensai has any reason to have, but if he's been planning this then who knows). 108 HP, +9.5/lvl.

That's out of the range of what you can do with even an Intensified Empowered Maximized Shocking Grasp. It's only just in the range of a Fireball boosted with the same; once he levels once he'd be out of the kill zone. Realistically, the only way I can figure you can guarantee a kill with a single self-destruct switch is an 8th or 9th level spell (more realistically, a lower-level spell like Flame Strike with a heavy dose of metamagic and a CL of 20-- Spell Perfection could bring the spell level down but the CL is a concern). Even then, at 155 damage he survives it on a save. Also, good luck finding a properly kitted Cleric or Druid to help.

So unless his Cha is way lower, you're going to need multiple uses to kill him. That lets the first few count as a warning at least.

Presuming you stick with Shocking Grasp (which is both cheap for its damage after metamagic and offers no save), you'd need an Intensified Empowered Maximized Shocking Grasp (average damage: 60+5D6=77.5) with at least two uses per day, on a Command Word. That's 7 (5-6 with the right traits; one of you is a Magus so let's call it 6)*10*1800*2/5. 43,200 for the kill switch alone, and it'd likely suffer from the +50% hike for being a very separate ability than the baseline one. If you don't think two is enough, I'd switch out for a Charged item (50 uses), which is 50% cost instead of the 40% of 2/day. Just make sure you don't burn the charges off on threats.

Given that you're spending a minimum of a month on this capability alone (barring Cooperative Crafting but accounting for a rush job), I'd advise dropping the kill switch and just letting the sun do that job if need be.

[Keydan]

Yeah, we also did the math. Our party cleric became the third conspirator and will prepare a few cleric spells against undead, just in case.