Magic Item Creation - Feat Replication


Rules Questions


What would be a viable cost for a magic item that replicates a Feat? I'm considering allowing the PCs to buy or find Goggles of Precision, so someone without Precise Shot can fire into combat as if they had the Feat.


There's a couple Ioun Stones that grant their owners feats: White Pyramids grant a Weapon Proficiency, Dark Blue Rhomboids grant Alertness, and Scarlet Green Cabochons grant Endurance. Each of these cost 10,000.

To my knowledge, there aren't any slotted items which grant feats, but since slotless items like Ioun Stones typically cost double that of a slotted item, I would say 5,000gp is a decent price.


there is also a defrence between gaiing a feat with no other feat requirment(like weapon focus,alertness or endurance) to faets that need others to be taken.

the items prices are based mostly on the prices back in 3.5.
back then a "greater cleave" weapon would just give the user he cleave feat-a feat with 1 feat as requerment- power attack.
precise shot is also a feat with one faet requierment -point blank shot.
nither of them has any higher requirment like bab+6 or something like that . idk about goggeles but it would seem reasnable to ahve a weapon enhancment worth a +1 that give this feat.
heaving this as part of a weapon enhancment would mean that only those who really need it would take it,this would also prevent from players to just get it for everyone becuase it's too cehap and avialable which might lead to abuse.feats should not be easly bought by everyone.


5k sounds to cheap. when it's applicable to a weapon, +1 does seem reasonable as suggested. (I doubt there's as many feats that could properly be applied to armor that makes sense and also without being abuseable, but I suppose +1 on armor could work for that too, even despite the cheaper cost)

Otherwise I'd go with 8-16k depending on the feat. DM's discretion is pretty important here, and I wouldn't put any blanket rule that a player could use.


In general, it's a bad practice to give particularly useful feats through items. The ones that exist in game are usually relatively weak feats, and even then could be considered under priced.


Yes, but all things considered, I don't think Precise Shot is the most powerful of Feats. It's handy to have, but when you consider the classes most likely to take it - divine and arcane casters - you're also talking about classes with spellcasting capabilities.

I had thought of using the Scaling Magic Item rules for this - starting with Glasses of Point Blank Shot that scales up to Precise Shot at 5th level and finally Deadly Aim at 11th level... but while it is stylistic, I figure that would be TOO powerful an item (even with a high cost). An item that replicates one Feat is one thing (and I'd not realized about the Ioun Stones - that's a good point of reference to work from) but an item that gives an entire Feat Line, no matter how expensive, would be a different kettle of fish entirely.

Given Paizo stripped the Feat-providing Ioun Stones, I have to wonder if it's against the rules entirely. Then again, there are also spells that replicate Feats (for instance, Keen Weapon) which can then be placed on magic weapons so perhaps what I should look for is spells that replicate Feats and their use in magic items...


+1 enhancements seems fair to me too. More than a few precedents for that, with mighty cleaving, keen defending and merciful being among them. Not many of those have a feat needed to be taken first to take as a feat normally. I'd suggest the further down the feat path you need to go, the more you weigh the cost. Use those I listed as guides as to how much they really duplicate a feat.

Grand Lodge

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Tangent101 wrote:
What would be a viable cost for a magic item that replicates a Feat? I'm considering allowing the PCs to buy or find Goggles of Precision, so someone without Precise Shot can fire into combat as if they had the Feat.

Why? It's not a good idea to let money substitute for feats, especially tactically important ones like this.


Tangent101 wrote:
I'm considering allowing the PCs to buy or find Goggles of Precision, so someone without Precise Shot can fire into combat as if they had the Feat.

Keep it simple: incorporate Precise Shot into Point Blank Shot as a house rule. It's unnecessary feat tax anyway, and serves only to make ranged combatants suck in the early levels and reduce feat options in the future (by taking up the feat slot).

THAT aside, I agree with Joesi on the cost of a feat-replacing item and Claxon on the practice in general. Players should not be stocking up on feats from items. Comparing the effects/added functionality of feats with the effects/added functionality of items shows a some serious disparities (particularly with regard to level scaling). Feats that are static or generally not powerful are decent candidates, but not at the low price of 5k.

Precise Shot seems like a decent candidate to me, and it precludes players from using an item to satisfy prerequisites (especially if the player doesn't have PBS)


Ranged Combatants won't suck ever. Ever. There's a feat tax maybe, but it's a small price to pay for all the other benefits.

Shadow Lodge

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Precise Shot is tactically important, but mostly for ranged specialists. The Point Blank Shot prerequisite makes it too costly for melee-focused characters and even switch hitters (who are usually expected to be in melee in situations where Precise Shot is relevant).

Ranged specialists won't buy a Precise Shot item, either, because they will need the feat before they will be able to afford any reasonable price; the cheapest suggestion, 5K flat cost, is not affordable until level 5-6 when it is about half to one third your WBL. That's too long to be taking -4 to most attack rolls.

So this item would be purchased by characters that are using ranged weapons as a backup, whether their primary option is melee or magic. While it's useful to have a ranged backup, it also usually represents a steep drop in effectiveness because such weapons don't do a lot of damage without investing multiple feats (not just Precise Strike) in the combat style. Plus, it's not all that common to want a ranged backup to shoot into a melee. We're talking about a melee specialist who is somehow too injured or vulnerable to enter the melee themselves, a melee specialist who can't fly when another melee specialist in the party can, or a caster who has no useful spells but is too squishy for melee (rare for a well-built caster once you hit the mid levels we're talking about). 5K seems a fair price to suck a little less badly in these situations. That's the price of a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier (+1 AC and negate one crit/day).

The only other character that would be interested would be one with a significant number of spells with ranged attack rolls. While these characters would get a more consistent benefit from Precise Shot, most ranged spells are rays and make ranged touch attacks. Touch attacks are already fairly accurate at higher levels since monster touch AC doesn't generally scale as well as even a half-BAB attack bonus. If I had a lot of rays I might spend 8-10K on that item - but on the other hand, I might prefer a 3rd level Pearl of Power or a Lesser Persistent Metamagic Rod.

And if a ranged specialist ends up getting this item instead of the feat - either because you started at a higher level, or they suffered through 5 levels without Precise Shot - is that so big a deal? They end up with an extra feat, maybe Weapon Focus, maybe something not related to ranged combat. Bracers of Falcon's Aim would be a much better buy for such a character, and while the Bracers are underpriced at 4K I think it's hard to argue that an item granting about half their benefit (+1 attack from Weapon Focus, or crit range from Improved Critical) should be worth much more than 5K to such a character. Actually, Lesser Bracers of Archery, which grant +1 to attack and stack with Weapon Focus, do cost 5K.

I might suggest making two items, one for 5K which grants the benefit of Precise Shot with ranged weapon attacks, and another for 10K which grants Precise Shot with all ranged attacks (including rays). Maybe make the 5K version bracers instead of goggles since that's more likely to compete with other archery items.

Keep mind that although 5K sounds cheap compared to how expensive the big 6 can get, it's actually a significant chunk of WBL even until at least level 8 (when it represents 15% of your WBL). Most characters will have other priorities. And at high levels, the usefulness for most characters will diminish - the gap in effectiveness between your primary strategy and your ranged backup will widen, and casters will have an easier time hitting with their rays relative to most touch ACs.

Conspicuous wrote:
Precise Shot seems like a decent candidate to me, and it precludes players from using an item to satisfy prerequisites (especially if the player doesn't have PBS)

Relatively few ranged feats have Precise Shot as a pre-requisite, and all of those also require PBS so getting Precise Shot from an item doesn't help much with qualifying for feats.

Cavall wrote:
Ranged Combatants won't suck ever. Ever. There's a feat tax maybe, but it's a small price to pay for all the other benefits.

If you don't have two feats at level 1 then lacking Precise Shot is pretty painful. Evens out pretty darn quickly, though.


3.X pegged it at 10,000 for a feat, with +5,000 for each prerequisite skipped. Still subject to GM approval.

Quite a few feats are available in magic items. Scan the magic item database for them.

/cevah

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