Custom Artifact: The Serpent's Embrace

[Joshua029]

The Serpent's Embrace is a Furyborn Scorpion Whip with a unique enchantment. At the beginning of each Turn, the wielder may voluntarily "feed" a number of hit points up to the wielder's character level, increasing the weapon's damage by 1d4 for each hit point so fed to the weapon that turn.

I don't know how I'd calculate the value of this.

[Andostre]

What do you need a value for? None of the artifacts that I'm seeing on the PRD have Cost values.

[Lazaryus]

Perhaps they're concerned about Wealth by Level problems.

While artifacts don't have cost values, under Ultimate Campaign, artifacts are regarded as being magic items worth 200,000 gp when gaining Fame or Honor.

[Joshua029]

Thanks. I was thinking about wealth-by-level.
But how do you feel about the relative power level of the weapon if given out at lower levels? I tried to make it so it would level with the player.

[Ryze Kuja]

You could give it to the PC at the early levels and have the weapon use a step progression that uses his Character level to determine how big the bonuses are. Something like:

Lvl1-4: +1 Enhancement Bonus, able to convert up to 1HP for 1d4 bonus damage
Lvl5-8: +2 Enhancement Bonus, able to convert up to 2HP for 2d4 bonus damage
Lvl9-12: +3 Enhancement Bonus, able to convert up to 3HP for 3d4 bonus damage
Lvl13-16: +4 Enhancement Bonus, able to convert up to 4HP for 4d4 bonus damage
Lvl17-20: +5 Enhancement Bonus, able to convert up to 5HP for 5d4 bonus damage

.

At level 20, he would convert 5HP to deal an average of 12.5 (5x2.5) extra damage per hit, and if he's a full BAB class, that's 4 attacks per round (5 attacks with Haste) on a full attack action, so that's an average of 50 extra damage (62.5 dmg with haste) assuming all of his attacks hit. I'd say that's pretty powerful and places this weapon appropriately in the Artifact caliber.