Increasing Spell Item save DCs

[Leord]

(Hey, first post btw!)

After realising that very expensive items that have spells with DC are only useful against low level NPCs, I have looked long and hard on how to make items with higher DC. I was very surprised to find that the ONLY way to do this is to use Heighten Magic during item creation to increase spell level (you can look it up, but this is a fact according to RAW).

A Hat of Disguise for example then increases in cost by 19800gp to increase the DC by 2 (slvl_2 * clvl_3 * 1800 = 21600).

For reference, DC is: 10 + slvl + minimum ability mod to cast spell.

I'd like magic items in the game to MEAN something, and to try to make them a bit more mythical. If they are a doddle to save against, they are pointless. On principle many items should be more powerful than the players to add to the mythical feeling.

I have already littered my game with house rules and I am comfortable making more, but I'd like some advice as to not break things that I wasn't thinking of in trying to fix this "issue". I have tried out multiple iterations of how to square bonuses and spell levels for a decent cost progression.

My plan:

First: In my setting, magic items with a spell DC will have a flat inherent +2 bonus to spell DC, so the formula for items is: 10 + 2 + slvl + min ability.

Second: At item creation it's possible to add up to +3 enhancement bonus to DC by increasing the gold cost of the item:
bonus * slvl * 1000

ALSO: At item creation, the maker can still use Heighten Magic to boost the DC "the normal way" (by increasing slvl and clvl).

OR: Forego enhancement bonus to DC and make it an intelligent item, with its own ability score, which is surprisingly cheap. Though but with a max slvl of 4 for non-dedicated spells.

My question is if I am missing something obvious here? Could I completely break some spell items with these 2 changes in ways I haven't anticipated?

Has anyone else been through making some homebrew change in relation to items with spell activation?

[GM Rednal]

The biggest break I can see right off the bat is that the limited power of most items is intentional. Staffs specifically break the general rule by scaling with the user - if it's easier to raise the DCs with other items, you could largely invalidate an entire category of magic item.

What types of items do you actually want to increase the DCs for, and how many of them could be done as some form of staff (not necessarily in the form of a long stick, but probably something to be held) instead?

[Ciaran Barnes]

You could let the magic item user apply their own ability score mod to the DC, instead of basing it on the minimum necessary ability score.

[Wolin]

Staff-like wand is a kind of baseline for doing things like this. Although I personally feel like it's unnecessarily restrictive in its requirements (Level 13 to pick it up? Really?)

For Magic Weapons/Armour, a feat to add... something to the DCs would be good. Play it by ear to see what makes sense for a given item, but Cha for magical things or the highest of Str/Dex/Con for more just whacking people. Limit it by CL of the item and make it a tree if it seems concerning. Say, CL7- items for the first feat, 14- for second and then anything else.

Wands and other at will or easily spamable items want harsher prereqs to be able to increase DCs. Otherwise you'll just find that your PCs won't use any resources and just use their items.
Daily use items or potions could follow a fairly similar pattern to the arms and armour, but also add a CL7th prereq for the first feat and 14th for the second. Mostly since martials should get more nice things and a lot of magic arms/armour require relatively specific conditions to trigger.

[Leord]

Thank you for your answers! :D

GM Rednal wrote:

The biggest break I can see right off the bat is that the limited power of most items is intentional. Staffs specifically break the general rule by scaling with the user - if it's easier to raise the DCs with other items, you could largely invalidate an entire category of magic item.

What types of items do you actually want to increase the DCs for, and how many of them could be done as some form of staff (not necessarily in the form of a long stick, but probably something to be held) instead?

Well, things like candle of truth etc is essentially useless at higher levels. Which is fine for lower level cheap items, but basically I want items to "not feel crap", but still balance it with the game mechanics. Part of this is that there is value power in the ITEM itself, so just "staffing it" is not going to cut it for a non-caster UMD-specialist.

Ciaran Barnes wrote:

You could let the magic item user apply their own ability score mod to the DC, instead of basing it on the minimum necessary ability score.

Sure, but how would you price that to keep it balanced?

Wolin wrote:

Staff-like wand is a kind of baseline for doing things like this. Although I personally feel like it's unnecessarily restrictive in its requirements (Level 13 to pick it up? Really?)

For Magic Weapons/Armour, a feat to add... something to the DCs would be good. Play it by ear to see what makes sense for a given item, but Cha for magical things or the highest of Str/Dex/Con for more just whacking people. Limit it by CL of the item and make it a tree if it seems concerning. Say, CL7- items for the first feat, 14- for second and then anything else.

Wands and other at will or easily spamable items want harsher prereqs to be able to increase DCs. Otherwise you'll just find that your PCs won't use any resources and just use their items.
Daily use items or potions could follow a fairly similar pattern to the arms and armour, but also add a CL7th prereq for the first feat and 14th for the second. Mostly since martials should get more nice things and a lot of magic arms/armour require relatively specific conditions to trigger.

These are all good solutions to crafting the item. The player would need to expend feats. But then that should translate into cost increases of said items as well, just as metamagic feats applied to items do.

As mentioned, the item can be heightened, but at RIDICULOUS costs compared to gain.

[Leord]

Any way to do like @Person to show the people that replied in this thread that there are questions for them? :)