It's a fun little toy, but no more [or less] broken than, say, the Lyre of Building.
It allows your Channel Energy to heal Constructs and objects... so, like, 10D6... 12D6 if you have the Artifice Domain. If the object is only damaged, but not destroyed, then you can Channel Energy to heal and the object will be affected just like your allies [and every other living thing in the blast radius]. Channel Energy isn't the best healing method, so absolutely nothing associated with using Channel Energy to heal anything is going to be that broken, literally ever.
It actually is nice because Channel Energy kind of sucks for healing characters, but that little bit of HP recovery could really save a lot of gear if the GM likes using Sunder... and other things that consistently damage the PC's expensive/most important gear. All it takes is carrying around a 10,000gp brick, and Channel Energy suddenly sucks a little less. But it is hardly broken, in my opinion.
a wall might be an object, a door is an object. a building is not an object rather a collection of objects held together.
when you sunder a building you attack a part of it (look at breaking barriers rules) not he whole building (unless your talking kaiju which has specific rules for aoe attacks). same for fixing things. you can 'heal' a construct or an object. so if the door is broken, or the wall that is an object each. (which might both get effected by the same channel), but to fix a whole broken building will take a lot more.
also it calls for damaged objects, not destroyed. an object is damaged once it take damage. considered broken once the damage reach 50% of it's hp. and destroyed once it hit 0 hp (or in some cases if it get the broken condition after it already have the broken condition. depend on the situation). if you do break it into small enough pieces yet not totally destroy it. Id say that even if it's not destroyed, only one part can be fixed, same as for healing people.
if the building was in a fire, id would suspect parts of it would be destroyed not broken, so need to replace them, no help from magic that fix broken items.
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one last thing.
all that really change here is the amount of damage that the item fix. it does nothing that mending or make whole can't do. see 'broken objects' section on same link from above.
A damaged object remains functional with the broken condition until the item’s hit points are reduced to 0, at which point it is destroyed.
Damaged (but not destroyed) objects can be repaired with the Craft skill and a number of spells. (eg. make whole or mending)
so all in all it might be able to fix stuff faster, but nothing that a patient level 1 wizard can't do with enough time... (one break point at a time)
It's only overpowered in very unusual situations. Unless you have some reason to think you'll be in that situation (or have a friendly construct), it's not worth getting.
With non-magic items, Mending is a cantrip, so just about any level 1 caster can get the castle's armory in good condition with a little effort. And magic items don't usually rust.
A burning building isn't much of a threat to a PC rich enough to afford a 10,000gp item. In a castle siege situation, a wall of hewn stone typically has 540 HP. It would take a lot of channels to get one of those back to full health.
points up for mending and make whole then. they CAN restore destroyed items (only make whole can restore magic to the magic item though. mending can't). the magic brick say nothing for restoring destroyed items so it can't. it only talk about fixing damaged objects\constructs. (healing work on living things. dead is almost the same for living as destroyed to objects in this case).
but more to the point if the player miss a few parts of his weapon but that weapon is NOT destroyed he can fix that with the craft skill. as long as the item is just broken. broken magic items doesn't loose their ability until destroyed. so yea. take a bit longer but usually doesn't cost 10,000 gp.
so - if the item is broken and missing parts, you can use the brick or craft skill to fix it. (hack you can probably use high enough skill and fabricate to get the missing part and then mending\make whole it together. if fabricate by itself won't already be considered enough to put it together)
if it is destroyed and not missing parts. mending will fix non magic items. make whole will fix even some magic items. brick won't be able to help at all.
if the item is destroyed and missing parts, you'd need to fix it with the craft skill. and probably won't get the magic back without recrafting it. (and if it's a total lost, crafting is probably just making a new one anyway. as it goes by cost per hp lost 100% cost is a new item cost ). and again brick won't be able to help at all.
ether way, beside the missing bits limitation - which let's be honest. there is no rule that state that fire damage that doesn't destroy the item make any parts go poof- it's missing, so unless GM is out to get your items they should still be ok until destroyed. mending and make whole are better suited for this job then the 10k gold brick. (at least they can fix a destroyed arrow that hit the mark).
all in all. brick might have a leg up with 'non destroyed but missing parts' objects. but that is so rare that it shouldn't really matter. mostly when a major part is missing the item is most likely destroyed anyway and beyond the brick's help. (like with a rust monster attack etc).
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last point. if you got a broken item that is missing a part and is not destroyed. you can still use it until you fix it with craft skill. a weapon will get a penalty to hit and armor for ac but the item and magic (if it's magical)will still work. it's destroying an item that make it unusable.
so getting the brick just for the rare case of a broken but not destroyed item that you must fix now for not taking the penalty and can't wait to fix it at the blacksmith's store. sure go ahead and pay 10k gold. i think you over paid though. i'd stick to mending and hold my +1 greatsword with a broken handle until i get it to the shop. (actually with the 10k i saved it's probably +2 by now)
The value of this item varies greatly depending on perspective and circumstance. To an adventuring party on a day trip to a dungeon it’s probably of no more use than a paperweight. To an army deep in enemy territory far from their own lines of supply where even a handful of clerics (as the brick can just be passed from one to the next) can keep the men and their gear at full hp even during a pitched battle it could be priceless. Or to the commander of a keep where a literal army of orcs are pounding down the gates…priceless. Or on a warship that is on fire or taking heavy damage from siege weapons. On the flip side imagine trying to breach a castle where every time you make progress in breaching the wall it just heals in front of your eyes…a nightmare. To some this brick is just that a brick. To others 10k is a steal for this item. If I were the commander of any significant fortification or army I would happily drop 10k on it.
“If the bearer has the channel energy class feature, she can focus her power on the brick, allowing her to repair damaged constructs and objects as if they were living creatures. The item works whether the bearer channels positive or negative energy.” The items description does not specifically state that while focusing on the brick that the channel energy class feature ceases to affect living or unliving creatures while doing so. It could be argued that while focusing on the brick that the channeled energy affects both creatures and objects simultaneously. Not sure if this is the intent though but it’s a little ambiguous. Affecting both simultaneously would make this item much mor useful.
Torag's Variant Channeling [Forge] does the same thing for Constructs/objects made of metal.
Your Channel Energy affects Constructs/objects within the blast radius as if they were living... it [your Channel Energy] still affects living things within its blast radius. Just now, Constructs/objects are included with every other living thing.
The brick's main advantage is allowing Channel Energy to heal the party's equipmemt that has been damaged by Sunder. I have a strange appreciation for anything the party can use or have that allows me to throw silly things like Gatecrasher Half-Orcs with HornBows specialized in ranged Sunder at them without remorse.
Channel Energy is not that great for healing the party... but the party's equipment has less overall hit points, so that Channel Energy heals more in comparison. Equipment is expensive, and hostile NPC ranged Sunder archers are not going to be kind enough to leave your equipment at 1hp... they aren't worried about collecting your loot, they just want to live until dinner. So spending 10,000gp on a stupid red brick could end up saving you over 100,000gp replacing your prized weapon or armor.
I tend to use Break:T1 spell twice. Persistent and Bouncing make it more fun. You've never seen a gunslinger try to make a save so hard...
Oh, that spell is probably way easier. Lol. Of course there is such a spell. My elaborate mix of Holomog Demolitionist Investigator and Archer Fighter and Toxophilite Ranger is much more fun, though. Maybe... I bet it was fabulous making the Gunslinger sweat bullets worrying about making that save.
The power of the object depends quite a bit on how your DM interprets it. Are ruins merely damaged ancient objects, are trees objects or creatures, are structures objects or their own category, that sort of thing. It's possible that healing objects as if they were creatures means you can repair them despite being destroyed, since creatures can't be destroyed, but that's another unanswered question for the DM.
If your DM determines that you can't heal destroyed things, you could still pick up the third level vestige bloodline ability to treat destroyed objects as merely broken and heal it from there I think. But again, maybe your DM thinks the destroyed condition wouldn't be removed, only suppressed while in your possession and still present despite the object now having full hit points. This could be done with mending anyway, but you could fill a backpack with a bunch of objects and repair them in batches, so it's a bit faster.
So, the feat is broken in that your DM needs to figure out how they want it to work, and from there needs to make a bunch of rulings that could have far reaching implications for other spells.
It does make the quillbreaker defense feat much more useful, though probably not worth the effort of spiking everyone's armor and sharing the feat through the party.
As for buildings, I think it would heal them as a whole not each part individually, but only for the same reason that I think Jatembe's Ire attacks the whole building and not each part. Which sucks, because then you'd need rules for how the hp are distributed across the building.
There are rules for how buildings and structures are damaged/repaired... which probably is completely irrelevant considering the brick says your Channel Energy heals Constructs/objects as if they were living... the brick says nothing about healing buildings/structures as if they were living.
The Illustrious Urbanite alternative racial feature specifies structures and buildings, and Forge's Variant Channel specifies Constructs/objects... they seem to be listed separately pretty much everywhere. I do not think the brick allows you to heal buildings, at all... in any capacity. Buildings and structures have their own rules section, different and separate from the Constructs and objects rules. Vehicles and siege weapons have their own rules, too, and are generally referred to specifically [not as general objects].
Buildings and structures are generally divided into 10' cubes... not unlike what the spell Disintegrate destroys when targeting nonliving material. Each 10' cube can be damaged, breached, or destroyed. So even if you allowed the brick to make Channel Energy heal buildings and structures... it says "damaged", would it thus not heal breached sections?
I was looking at this recently, it gives hit points for buildings based on size for siege engine purposes. Siege Engine Rules
It says to put together multiple buildings of various sizes to make a large building, not just 10 foot squares. It also has separate rules for walls that aren't part of buildings. Unfortunately, it gives HP values that are different from those presented in the earthquake spell, so maybe the earthquake spell's damage needs to be adjusted.
As much as I'd like Jatembe's Ire to attack each wall separately, it looks like it would attack buildings, or maybe building chunks based on whatever size of chunk the DM broke it down to. I should probably do a check with my DM before I start casting it.
Ships and siege engines end up classified as objects for animate object. Disintegrate talks about targeting an object and then includes what happens when you hit an object or structure.
"When used against an object, the ray simply disintegrates as much as a 10-foot cube of nonliving matter. Thus, the spell disintegrates only part of any very large object or structure targeted."
It could be sloppy language, or it could be that structures are a type of object. Looking at other instances of "structure", it looks like it's used as a natural language term rather than a mechanical one, and changes frequently. You have things like "Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga" that are creature/structures, and things like alchemist's fire siege ammunition that switches between object/structure without distinction.
But, I think you're right, it helps to treat structures as a third in an object/creature/structure distinction.
It also states that it heals the construct or object as if it were a living creature. All Channel Energy does is to restore HP that is it. It does not regrow limbs or remove conditions, it simply restores HP. Channel energy also does not restore life. If I am injured and the injury imposes a permanent condition like the loos of a, channel energy does not remove that. Even a Heal spell will not do that. To regrow a limb requires regeneration which is a 7th level spell.
I would say that a building that had parts of it burned away would be the same as a person with a missing limb. Any item or building with the destroyed condition would be considered dead and would not be affected by the brick. So no the brick does not regrow missing parts of the building nor does it regrow affect any destroyed item or construct.
As far as I can tell, hp damage doesn't destroy material unless the attack specifically says it does such, as with disintegrate. HP damage also doesn't remove limbs unless using an ability that specifically says it does.
Shoddy items are specifically called out as being irreversibly destroyed when destroyed.
That said, it would be weird to have destroyed buildings restored by patience, faith, and a 10k holy symbol. The hammer of mending spell should work though, as long as you've decided that mending spells in general remove the destroyed condition from non-magical objects as well as magical.
Buildings have a lot of hit points. If they want to burn all their channels fixing one up, after spending 10,000gp on a magic item, I say let 'em.
Other things to consider:
- Channeling is a burst. It doesn't go around corners. So you probably wouldn't be able to heal a whole building by standing in one spot.
- First-floor walls of a typical city building have 90 hp
- A 10' section of city wall has 450 hp
- If you go by this, a 10x10 stone building has 200 hp. So they're going to be at it for a while.
well we have some things here to look at here:
i'm assuming the breath of life was cast right after the guy died, if it was one round too late, even if it was a nice looking corpse it was still a corpse too old for breath of life.
EVEN if you guys rule that corpses = objects. i'd still say the brick doesn't fix all of it, on the count of that the living person need to turn into a corpse to be an object, to do so it need to get damaged enough to die. as in the object 'corpse' in it's pristine condition is right when the person die. so the brick would only fix damage done after death, like mutilation.
for example in this case -chowing the corpse up after killing the guy (and then spitting). the brick would fix the chowing after the death damage, but not any damage dealt to lead to death.
all in all i would let the brick fix any excess damage up to the person negative con score. say he has 14 con then it would damage that would at most leave the person at -14 hp(and dead) if the breath of life can fix that and is cast right on the round following his death . he can come back. if the breath of life needed the brick to fix more then that, this won't work as the brick can only fix the corpse up to a corpse condition, not a living person one. and a corpse is at -con to start with.
(well that is if i allow the corpse to be considered a damaged object. Me, i say if it dies from hp damage, and not something like death effect, it's hp is a lot less then 0. even if it's an object it's a destroyed object. so no brick fixing, maybe mending)
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i'd like to just add to all this, 2 more things to remember about breath of life spell:
1. it doesn't need to bring the target to positive hp. as long as it's hp after the spell is more then 0-(his con score) then he's alive. if it's a negative number he's alive, unconscious and stable. if it's exactly 0 he's disabled and alive. if it's positive. he's awake an kicking...BUT do keep in mind the next part when you calculate all this, as there is a chance to bring some1 back to life only for him to die from the effect of this spell.
2. 'Creatures brought back to life through breath of life gain a temporary negative level that lasts for 1 day.'
that mean that after fixing the target, he gain a negative level (temp) which among the things it does has this littlie thing:
"the creature reduces its current and total hit points by 5 for each negative level it possesses"
- Yep, that mean that if after the breath of life spell the target end up with a total hp of 5 hp away from being dead (or less) - he just die again once the spell take effect (but hey, you can now recast breath of life and most likely bring him back with enough hp to matter).
- if he's at 0-4 hp the spell end with him dying.
- and if he's exactly at 5 he end up disabled.
They'd still be dead. They'd just be a corpse with no visible damage.
As a corpse(object) it jat hot points, but as an object.
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How mangled a corpse is after a giant killed the person by biting him isn't defined by the rules, so it is a GM call.
It can be a crushed ribcage, or a single rib in the heart, or death from loss of blood, or a bitten-off head.
After death, the corpse hit points are unrelated to the character hit points when alive. They are determined by the actual mass of the body (and material for constructs, plants, and other unusual creatures). The brick will repair the structural hp of the corpse, but that will not modify how much below his constitution value is the character.
All that for RAW, but when playing unusual and creative solutions usually increase the fun of the game, so rewarding them (at least some of the time) is a good thing to do.
How mangled a corpse is after a giant killed the person by biting him isn't defined by the rules, so it is a GM call.
(...)
All that for RAW, but when playing unusual and creative solutions usually increase the fun of the game, so rewarding them (at least some of the time) is a good thing to do.
I agree in principle - is only realistic that damage to a corpse makes revivication harder. In practise, the only spell where treating the object (corpse)'s HP as connected to the character's HP is Breath of Life, and the short time limit makes it unlikely to be relevant.