Anniversary Edition Artifact Question (Spoilers)

[GeoleVyi]

I have a question about a very late game artifact, and how often it can be used.

Spoiler:

How often can Karzoug use Scrying through the Runewell of Greed? Is it once every hour, as per the casting time of the spell, or, since it's described as an At Will ability of the artifact, can he spam it every round?

I'm a bit confused by the wording of magic item use abilities, and how GM's have dealt with this in the past. I can't find anything about situations where

Spoiler:

Karzoug has needed to scry on the party, but the party doesn't have any medallions on them

[ckdragons]

What happened to...?:

What did your party do with the Sihedron Medallion from Naulia.

Artifact:

To answer your question directly, the artifact would allow scrying at will. With that in mind, I've played Karzoug are arrogant enough that he wouldn't pay them any heed in books 1-2, then start checking in on them periodically in books 3-4. Once they get through the Runeforge and into Xin-Shalast, it would be at least daily, and eventually constantly when they enter Pinnacle of Avarice. When the party finally encounters him in the Eye of Avarice, he should be expecting and prepared as much as possible against everything the party should be able to throw at him. With a 35 Int, Karzoug should be more prepared than Batman.

[Jhaeman]

Yep, that's how I handled it as well.

[GeoleVyi]

ckdragons wrote:

What happened to...?

Funny story. The party sold two of them, but kept the one you mentioned. But because of roleplaying determination by the players (and a refusal to listen when I try to explain that sin and virtue magic are the same thing, just with a different ease of use) they kept trying to revive "virtue magic," and so in book 5, I gave them the option of making a series of checks to make "Virtue Forged Weapons" instead of the normal ones, using different items. They had to make roleplaying justification for the item choices, and one of the ones they used was the one you mentioned. So it got melted into a Charity Sword used by the party cleric.

I decided against this transferring the magic of the original item into the sword, because that would just be mean.

But it also means they'll have to hunt down one of the two they sold, so they'll have 4 items for book 6. I've got Events Happening though, and...

Spoiler:

The Shroud from the Sandpoint Campaign Setting purchased one as a memento of the players. Karzoug is manipulating her into bringing it to the players, by playing on events the players had with their in-game families. Mostly because I missed that the sihedron rings also have the description of scrying and manipulation in them, and he wanted to make sure he could keep tabs on the party and try to kill them.

And it's only been a potential issue since the end of book 4. I haven't been trying to force the problem early.

[ckdragons]

That's a cool and nice twist in your game. But you're PCs are going to be in for a surprise...

Pinnacle of Avarice:

There are auras at PoA that are quite painful. The Sihedron medallions and rings are meant to protect the PCs from those auras. They're going to have some interesting times there.