OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.(Edited2)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

See Invis is also See Ethereal.

[Jack Simth]

douglas said:
5000, eh? Let's see, that puts me 6532 away from level 17. Unless the wings I get as a class feature next level grow overnight (they're completely nonmagical, so that would seem a tad strange), I think it's about time for them to start growing.

Reasonable; that chain shirt would start getting rather... uncomforatable, until you had the appropriet holes put in it.

douglas said:

Custom magic item discussion regarding Goggles of See Invisibility:
Formula cost is 2*3*2000*1.5 = 18000 gp. A 7th level character is the absolute earliest a PC could afford that by the wealth by level table, and that's if you let him spend almost 95% of his gold on that one item. If you limit secondary items (and this would almost certainly be considered secondary in importance at best by most everyone) to 25% of character wealth maximum, that puts it at 12th level minimum. At that point, a wizard has had the ability to cast See Invis and Glitterdust for 10 levels, and the ability to cast Permanency with See Invis for 3, and the cleric's had Invisibility Purge for 8 levels. Even at that point, such an item is little more than a convenience for a wizard or cleric, certainly not something worth near 25% of his total wealth. Even for other characters, invisibility should not be a major concern at that level, not with almost any competent wizard easily able to neutralize invisibility as a threat. Certainly not anything I would consider worth 25% of a character's wealth. Now, at 15th and 16th level, it's down to 9% and 7% of character wealth, respectively, low enough for me to seriously consider it. Even so, it's still merely a convenience in most situations, as a 15-16th level party shouldn't have significant trouble with invisibility anyway. Around that level it's getting pretty useless for the PC's against a lot of appropriate CR monsters, and in most cases shouldn't be a problem for the PC's either. I don't think giving permanent See Invisibility to the party would make invisibility significantly less of a threat than it already is, outside of really unusual situations.

To sum up, the cost from the formula is prohibitively high for the levels where it would really be useful, and high enough that few characters would consider it until well past the point where the party should have plenty of counters to invisibility anyway.

Also it doesn't stop normal hiding (which I've used fairly recently). Well thought-out; you're right. If you want goggles or lenses of See invisiblity, you can commision them.

[douglas]

Jack Simth said:

Reasonable; that chain shirt would start getting rather... uncomforatable, until you had the appropriet holes put in it.

Now, do I know to expect this in character (dream vision from my deity or something) or not? I certainly don't have the ranks in Knowledge (Religion) to know from my studies that really powerful Favored Souls get wings.

Jack Simth said:
Also it doesn't stop normal hiding (which I've used fairly recently). Well thought-out; you're right. If you want goggles or lenses of See invisiblity, you can commision them.

Thank you. So, somebody hopped in the crafting portal back at the loot disposal city and made Goggles of See Invisibility and Darkvision for a 36k commission before we left, and Eldon got his goggles upgraded to the same for 27k (assuming he hasn't changed his mind), right?

Now, an item of continuous Protection From Evil by the formulas would be 1*1*2000*2 = 4000 gp for complete immunity to mental control. That is ridiculously low for an ability almost any character would love to have. Especially when you consider the deflection bonus it grants would cost twice that by itself, though it applying only to evil attackers would lower that a bit. I don't think I'm ever even going to try talking a DM into letting me have such a munchkinly item for any price, unless I have something like half a million gp just sitting around and no clue what to spend it on.

[Jack Simth]

douglas said:
Now, do I know to expect this in character (dream vision from my deity or something) or not? I certainly don't have the ranks in Knowledge (Religion) to know from my studies that really powerful Favored Souls get wings.

Never run a favored soul before, and it's not specified; pick whichever you think would make for better roleplay.

douglas said:Thank you. So, somebody hopped in the crafting portal back at the loot disposal city and made Goggles of See Invisibility and Darkvision for a 36k commission before we left, and Eldon got his goggles upgraded to the same for 27k (assuming he hasn't changed his mind), right?

Right, as that's the period of time you were thinking about it in character.

douglas said:
Now, an item of continuous Protection From Evil by the formulas would be 1*1*2000*2 = 4000 gp for complete immunity to mental control. That is ridiculously low for an ability almost any character would love to have. Especially when you consider the deflection bonus it grants would cost twice that by itself, though it applying only to evil attackers would lower that a bit. I don't think I'm ever even going to try talking a DM into letting me have such a munchkinly item for any price, unless I have something like half a million gp just sitting around and no clue what to spend it on.

As is an item of True Strike, and a handful of others; which is why, during the session, the response was a maybe, rather than a specific yes or no; limitless mundane ammo will save you a small amount of gp over the course of your character's career, and make endureance challenges simpler; see invisiblity, though, cuts down on the effectiveness of a number of strategies - it was one of those things that struck me as being potentially a problem, but not necessarily so; I wanted to see a little more than we had time for at the time, so put it in the "not right now" cateogry; your analysis filled that role quite nicely.

[douglas]

Hmm, if a fight with a creature with DR/special material lasts more than four rounds of shooting, the 20 of each I can put in the arrow compartment of my new quiver would run out. It would only take three rounds if I add in the etherial arrows too. Can I use the javelin compartment for arrows instead so I can cut down to just the one quiver without having to worry about that? Maybe specially made that way if necessary, since I did commission it as a custom item so further customization shouldn't be too hard.

Speaking of the Ring of True Strike, I don't think the semi-official price of 400000 is high enough. A +20 weapon would cost twice that by the non-epic pricing rules and True Strike only gives the to-hit half of the bonus, yes, but that's ignoring the *10 multiplier for an epic bonus, the fact that it works on all weapons you use instead of just one, that it stacks with an actual enhancement bonus, and the nifty little extra ability of ignoring concealment. I'd put it at 16000000 gp - 8M (cost of a +20 enhancement) * 2 (different kind of bonus, stacks) * 2 (not weapon specific at all) / 2 (only adds to attack rolls, not damage). The ability to ignore concealment is negligible by for anyone who can afford that, I think, so I wouldn't bother adding anything for it.

[NullAshton]

137,228 XP, which is just enough for level 17, right?

[Jack Simth]

douglas said:
Hmm, if a fight with a creature with DR/special material lasts more than four rounds of shooting, the 20 of each I can put in the arrow compartment of my new quiver would run out. It would only take three rounds if I add in the etherial arrows too. Can I use the javelin compartment for arrows instead so I can cut down to just the one quiver without having to worry about that? Maybe specially made that way if necessary, since I did commission it as a custom item so further customization shouldn't be too hard.

With a standard effecient quiver, you can put them in there, but the nondimensional containment is too long for them, and you're pulling them back out as per the "retrieve a stored item" combat action (move equivalent, provokes); you can carry extra arrows that way, (36 in the Javelin compartment, which is twice the listed number of javelins; 18 in the bow compartment, which is three times the listed number of bows), but you can't shell them out at five per round.

I'll let the custom work, with the same conversion ratios, so you can fit 114 arrows inside and draw them out as from a normal quiver; but then you can't fit a bow or javelin sized item inside; just arrow-sized items.

douglas said:
Speaking of the Ring of True Strike, I don't think the semi-official price of 400000 is high enough. A +20 weapon would cost twice that by the non-epic pricing rules and True Strike only gives the to-hit half of the bonus, yes, but that's ignoring the *10 multiplier for an epic bonus, the fact that it works on all weapons you use instead of just one, that it stacks with an actual enhancement bonus, and the nifty little extra ability of ignoring concealment. I'd put it at 16000000 gp - 8M (cost of a +20 enhancement) * 2 (different kind of bonus, stacks) * 2 (not weapon specific at all) / 2 (only adds to attack rolls, not damage). The ability to ignore concealment is negligible by for anyone who can afford that, I think, so I wouldn't bother adding anything for it.

Even with guideline of bonus squared * 1000 (as it's half the benefit of a +20 weapon), and ignoring that it stacks with weapon enchancement, it doesn't get to ignore the *10 epic tag:

SRD, Epic Levels, Epic Magic Items
While not truly an artifact, the epic magic item is a creation of such power that it surpasses other magic items. Epic magic items are objects of great power and value. The following are typical characteristics of an epic magic item. In general, an item with even one of these characteristics is an epic magic item.

* Grants a bonus on attacks or damage greater than +5.
* Grants an enhancement bonus to armor higher than +5.
* Has a special ability with a market price modifier greater than +5.
* Grants an armor bonus of greater than +10 (not including magic armor’s enhancement bonus).
* Grants a natural armor, deflection, or resistance bonus greater than +5.
* Grants an enhancement bonus to an ability score greater than +6.
* Grants an enhancement bonus on a skill check greater than +30.
* Mimics a spell of an effective level higher than 9th.
* Has a caster level above 20th.
* Has a market price above 200,000 gp, not including material costs for armor or weapons, material component- or experience point-based costs, or additional value for intelligent items.

(Emphasis added)
That's not a 400,000(x2) gp item, but a 4,000,000(x2) gp item.

Null: Yep, that's 1,228 xp into 17th, unless my math is off.

[NullAshton]

Sweet. So I can add another dragon hitdie for the skills? Wondering what the modifiers to the saves would be...

[douglas]

Jack Simth said:
Even with guideline of bonus squared * 1000 (as it's half the benefit of a +20 weapon), and ignoring that it stacks with weapon enchancement, it doesn't get to ignore the *10 epic tag:

(Emphasis added)
That's not a 400,000(x2) gp item, but a 4,000,000(x2) gp item.

Ah, but not all criteria for whether a magic item is epic or not trigger that multiplier. If the item gives a bonus beyond the limit allowed in for normal, nonepic magic items, multiply the portion of the market price derived from that characteristic by 10. Insight bonuses to anything do not have a listed non-epic limit.

I got that semi-official price from this article, written by Skip Williams aka The Sage, who I think is the primary author of the official D&D FAQ, among other things.

NullAshton said:
Sweet. So I can add another dragon hitdie for the skills? Wondering what the modifiers to the saves would be...

Dragon hit dice have all three good saves, and it's your second dragon hit die, so all three would go up by 1.

[Jack Simth]

douglas said:
Ah, but not all criteria for whether a magic item is epic or not trigger that multiplier. If the item gives a bonus beyond the limit allowed in for normal, nonepic magic items, multiply the portion of the market price derived from that characteristic by 10. Insight bonuses to anything do not have a listed non-epic limit.

I got that semi-official price from this article, written by Skip Williams aka The Sage, who I think is the primary author of the official D&D FAQ, among other things.

Ah, so you've never seen some of the historic "What the FAQ?!" moments where versions of the FAQ actually contradicted themselves (e.g., acid both ignoring and not ignoring hardness)? I belive they've weeded them out in the current version, but still not a document I exactly trust; when I find something in there that doesn't quite match up with one of the other rules; especially as a) the heading for that particular subsection of the Epic segment of the SRD clearly spells out that in general, if it even meets one of the criteria, it's epic - and 20^2 * 1,000 definately beats the 200,000 gp cap for non-epic items; b) there's exactly one listed core item over the 200,000 gp cap in non-epic - the Staff of Power; c) my take on the form of the article is that he's looking at which way to look at the guidelines, focusing on normal play - Epic's just a side comment, and I doubt he's thinking much about the little details on the Epic item pricing guidelines.