| choyer7 |
So I've been toying with this quite potent but very dangerous to use magic item and I would enjoy hearing peoples thoughts on it.
I have two questions:
1: Does this magic item seem too powerful or too weak and it what aspects?
2: What should I price such a item at should the PC's attempt to sell it?
Ring of Flowing Sands
Aura moderate necromancy CL 15
Slot ring; Price ?; Weight -
Description
This beautiful platinum ring is crowned with the brilliant cut emerald that has a hourglass very faintly etched into it. This ring, considered by many to be the secret to immortality, allows the wearer once per week to project a 30 foot cone of aging that bestows two permanent magical age categories (Ref Half DC 16). This ring then removes that amount age categories from the wearer and any behind them in a 30 ft cone starting with the wearer and distributing evenly. Those behind the wearer may also attempt to evade, but the wearer gains no save. Wish, Miracle or Heal casted by someone of CL 16 or higher can reverse these changes.
Age categories are as follows
Infant (-6 Str, -4 All), Child(+2 Dex, -2 All) , Adult, Middle age, Old, Venerable
As an added penalty to the infant category the affected lose their memories and require serious aid in the form of a seprate Wish or Miracle to regain them.
If the effect pushes them to a age category not on this list they are immediately slain (no save)
Craft: Forge Ring, Sands of Time, Heal, Harm
| Bob Bob Bob |
That's an artifact. A pretty major one. For one thing, it grants effective immortality (unless "magical age categories" don't stack with each other). It's a Sun Orchid Elixir (another major artifact) on steroids. It's also got an AoE debuff and a no-save kill, because it was apparently not strong enough. The downsides of using it can be completely negated by swapping between two people (Bob uses it, is turned to a baby, but ages up Alice. Next week Alice uses it to return to her original age and also ages up Bob to his original age). Plus it's not that hard to use it so it doesn't hit your party members. Oh, and the de-aging effect is just as powerful as the aging one.
So I guess for the questions:
1. This is the kind of thing wars are fought over. World wars. Again, it grants immortality. It kills without saves. It can turn an elite army squad into a bunch of screaming children/babies. Oh, and there's always the possibility of using it to mass age babies to crank out soldiers faster.
2. Artifact. No price. Again, probably several kingdoms would send armies to take it. Maybe some extraplanar ones too.
| choyer7 |
They do stack. Been thinking about that swapping, maybe it should bond to the wearer to prevent that. I stated magical age categories because it would be possible to cure the owner of their age killing them if they were a long time user. Also perhaps a high will or fort save is appropriate for the kill effect. Maybe DC 20 or 25?
I should mention that it doesn't create longer life. Everything has to come from somewhere. If you want to Age a squad of people you are going to take a serious amount of youth.
Perhaps I explained the magic wrong. You add up the amount of magical age categories that you took using the age effect and apply that total divided by all the people in the youth Aoe to determine how many age categories each person loses.
If you hit a lot people you would need a sufficient number of people behind you so you wouldn't die.
I am also likely going to add to unique use magic device checks in that case. One to reverse the effect and one to exclude yourself from the effect. Likely DC 20 and DC 40.
It does mean that the youth Aoe has the potential to be way more dangerous or way less depending on the amount of people in both.
Maybe also change it to strong necromancy
| choyer7 |
I have updated the item based on Bob's suggestions. Here is the current item.
Ring of Flowing Sands (Major Artifact)
Aura strong necromancy CL 15
Slot ring; Price ?; Weight -
Description
This beautiful platinum ring is crowned with the brilliant cut emerald that has a hourglass very faintly etched into it. This ring, considered by many to be the secret to immortality, allows the wearer once per week to project a 30 foot cone of aging that bestows two permanent magical age categories (Ref Half DC 16). It then projects another 30 ft cone behind the wearer that includes themself that removes a equivalent amount of age categories, divided by the number of people in the cone from each person. Those behind the wearer may also attempt to evade, but the wearer gains no save. Wish, Miracle or Heal casted by someone of CL 16 or higher can reverse these changes.
Age categories are as follows
Infant (-6 Str, -4 All), Child(+2 Dex, -2 All) , Adult, Middle age, Old, Venerable
As an added penalty to the infant category the affected lose their memories and require serious aid in the form of a seprate Wish or Miracle to regain them.
If the effect pushes them to a age category not on this list they are immediately slain (Will/Fort 20 Negates), Resisting this effect puts you in stable comatose.
Use magic device:
Reverse the effect so that you age: DC 20
Remove yourself from the effect: DC 40
Destruction: TBD
| Bob Bob Bob |
Ah, so it steals age from the people you blast and forces it on the wearer and the people behind them. You missed a couple prepositions in the original post, I think. ...oddly enough, most of the complaints still stand. It still gives immortality, the youth version is still a super powerful debuff, you can still use it to crank out child soldiers (only now you're also transforming your grizzled soldiers back to the prime of their life). Honestly, the no save kill was just extra (though I can see people fighting over just that). Because it's 1/week you need someone who's already old before it'll hurt them but that probably would cover most rulers. What about great wyrm dragons, does it kill them?
Then a new abuse I thought up. How does it affect summons? Can you use them as disposable age/youth batteries? Ditto animal companions or purchased animals (they're pretty cheap). Not a good battle tactic but a great out of combat tactic.
That first UMD check is pretty low, you'd just be replacing the "switch between two people" with "switch which effect you use on yourself". Also how does the number of levels stolen affect it? Do you just age two categories or do you age equal to what you'd normally rewind? I don't know how easy the second UMD check is to do, by the time they can though we're back to "just avoid your allies and blast away with impunity". Again, "youth" is just as dangerous as "age".
The save on the death effect doesn't actually change much unless you explain what "stable comatose" means. If it means anything similar to what I think it does, then you just follow the age blast with a coup de grace and they're still super dead. Or if it doesn't heal without healing the "magical age", you just leave them comatose forever (CL 16 casters are somewhat hard to find). Oh, and since it's by aging, nothing except reincarnate can actually bring them back.
Oh, and the arbitrary caster level to heal the "magical age" is bad. It was bad in 2e and it needs to go the way of everything else like that and just become a straight caster level check.
So, yeah, honestly it's still a super major artifact, the kind of thing you base an entire campaign around. Especially with the weirdly specific CL needed to heal it (which strongly points to some specific NPC that can do it). I'm not sure what level you're aiming for but anything that grants immortality pretty much immediately guarantees it's an artifact. The failed save die make save you're in a coma on old+ people is also artifact worthy, but probably more like a minor artifact. The AoE unresistable debuff at least fits under standard magic items. Honestly, I'd never use something like this unless this is what the entirety of the campaign is about. It took me only a couple minutes to super-weaponize it with little to no downside.
Now, if that's not what you want, I'm going to need more information. What kind of power level you do want, what kind of effect you want, etc. But the original idea (stealing youth) is entirely unsalvageable as anything but an artifact.
| choyer7 |
I think I can safely say this is one of those items that turned out way stronger than I wanted it. Your right about the cl 16 though might just say wish, miracle and call it a day. Im not entirely sure how to make it much weaker though without a complete redesign so I will likely have to keep this one in the files for later and make somthing else. It worked for the campign i was running due to the lack of extremely important single targets, but I could see avenues for abuse I dont care for. Im going to save it as a super weapon for a high level boss then and find a diffrent item for right now.
| choyer7 |
It fits in line with some old dnd cleric spells. Maybe i should just make it way easier to cure and perhaps single target will negates and a minor artifact. Loses that hourglass cone flavor but thats not too important. No... then there is no risk involved in using the thing which was part of the point. Yeah im just going to use the ring i was basing this off of and save this for later.
| Bob Bob Bob |
So you want "risk", "aging and deaging", "somewhat permanent", and "not so super powerful". It would help if I had more specific information, but I'll see what I can whip up.
High Level Magic Item/Minor Artifact level:
Once a day this ring can generate a 30 foot cone of sand that saps the life of anyone in the cone, aging them two age categories (save half). They gain all the physical penalties but do not gain any mental bonuses. If this would kill them, they may save to instead stop at Venerable. This aging can only be cured by Miracle or Wish. For every age category aged, the ring gains 1 charge.
So long as the ring has 1 charge, the wearer is restored to the prime of their life. It loses 1 charge every day at dawn.
Every time after the cone of sand ability is used the ring has a cumulative 1% chance per charge of exploding, permanently deaging the wearer a number of age categories equal to the stored charges.
You might also consider making the explosion a 30 foot radius that divides the charges among everyone in range. Other than that I think it covers it nicely. It provides immortality (sort of) but only by stealing it from other people. You can store extra charges but more charges increases the risk of exploding and permanently deaging (and possibly killing) yourself. You could replace every instance of "day" with "week" and it'd work just the same.
Minor/Major Magic Item:Once a week you may turn this hourglass while choosing a target. There is a 60% chance that the target is aged one age category, gaining all of the physical penalties but none of the mental bonuses, and you are deaged one age category. The remaining 40% of the time you are instead the one aged one age category and the target is deaged one age category. This aging can be cured with Wish or Miracle. If this would age someone past Venerable they may make a save to not age at all.
This is the Gambler's Fallacy special, or "it was heads the last five times so it should be tails next". You can add a save if you think it's too powerful, you can tweak the percentages, lots of room for customization by fiddling with the numbers. It's not the same as true immortality because there's always a chance it just kills you. A fairly high chance, actually, since the people who most want to use it are probably already in one of the older age categories. In addition, if they get on a bad streak of aging they might just keep using it until they age into nothing. Since the cure is not readily available it's actually a significantly dangerous item to use. At higher levels it's slightly less dangerous, it might be easy to abuse it as immortality at that point.
This bag of sand is a splash weapon with a range of 10 feet. Any creature hit directly by the bag is aged one age category, gaining all the physical penalties but none of the mental bonuses. Any creature within 5 feet of the target is aged similarly if they fail a DC <whatever> save. This aging can be cured with Remove Curse
So this is the disposable version, where the risk is hitting your teammates. I changed the removal method to something less painful as this can be used at a much lower level (or in larger numbers).
I hope these are helpful.
| choyer7 |
I like the once per/day on the ring of drain youth. Since it is a artifact I'll have to figure out what they get on the identify which could lead to some interesting gaps in knowledge.
It makes it easy to get the immortality but takes out the ability to use it as a regular weapon due its ability to explode. I might switch it to 2% per charge however. If I ever give this item to the PC's I wonder how they will how they will justify its use. Question for you: If the ring loses all of its charges due they go back to their true age? Or do they just start aging again?
The hourglass is really good. I might want to tone down the cure to Heal or something around that level, but it gets that tension in breaking out a dangerous weapon that I'm trying to get. I like the percentages however. Maybe ill go from 2/5 to 1/4 but it seems decent. Abuse is a problem, but immortality isn't especially important for adventures, but highly sought by rulers.
The Dust of Decay has a lot of potential as a magical splash weapon and I can see quite a few uses for it. I think I can give it to Cult masters of a group I haven't introduced yet.
Thanks for all the help. I do like the flavor of aging spells and the manipulation of time and life-force, which is largely unrepresented in pathfinder. Ty for the help I wouldn't have gotten this far without your help and I hope you get something out of this as well.
| Bob Bob Bob |
If the ring loses charges or they take it off they should revert to their original age. The idea is that the ring is what holds the powers. If you want something more permanent maybe let them burn 10 charges at once to permanently deage one age category. You can tweak the numbers if you want, just keep in mind the more charges it needs the higher the chance the ring already exploded.
I originally had Remove Curse for the hourglass then realized that every king ever would have one. As long as they don't start at Venerable they can always just heal the damage and try again later. With Heal it would only be the largest kingdoms (anywhere with a metropolis) but if that's what you want, that's fine. The abuse would only crop up once players can heal the damage themselves. That being said, immortality is the only real abuse. At 1/week it's not spammable, it's not much stronger than Sands of Time in combat (since most opponents only last one combat), and by far the best use is probably hitting recurring villains with it before they escape.
Yeah, I have a feeling that they're poorly represented in pathfinder because age categories are a huge abstraction (and thus, not well-written) and abilities that deal with "time" and "life" tend to be "evil". All the cure spells used to be necromancy (which makes sense) until they moved them to conjuration (which makes no sense), presumably because necromancy is "evil". Sort of like Sands of Time is necromancy while Time Stop and Haste are Transmutation, because... reasons. Poor villains get all the discrimination.