Loot and Artifacts: Gimme!

[Anastasia]

Byloths loot.

Shortsword+3, unholy.
Full Plate Armor+5.
Ring of Protection+4.

[Corwin]

I figured I'd use this arc to do an audit of our gear. I'm going to roll up several basic items together for me once some questions are resolved, probably, but for now let's focus on the others!

Amaryl

I want her to take Qualles. We've talked about this before, but I see she still isn't using it and it's gathering dust in our treasury.

Qualles: This cloak of elvenkind grants a +15 competence bonus to Stealth checks and a +6 enhancement bonus to Dexterity. When worn by an elf, they gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity (stacks with the enhancement bonus), a +2 to attack rolls with long swords or longbows and a +5 bonus to saves against enchantment spells and effects.

Sure. Bear in mind she already has a better stealth check bonus (+20) from her existing cloak and the other bonuses aren't huge for her, so it's more of a lateral trade up.

I do want to buff the stealth bonus to +30 competence. How much would it cost?

90k is the baseline, minus whatever a +15 booster cost.

Okay. So 90,000gp for the +30 variant, minus 22,500gp for the +15 variant. That comes down to 33,750gp/67,500gp.

Amaryl gets Qualles++

[Corwin]

Right, so let's cover some gear stuff.

Paying 20,000gp for them for now.
Remaining funds are at 41,558.7gp.

Old funds

Right, so purchases for divinely-created items (mostly a bunch of scrolls for posterity) were at 185,900gp. They're rolled back, and instead I'll just have Elle make Pearls of Power VIII and IX (72,500gp/145,000gp).

Other stuff I'm interested in are:

Boosting the Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows with Ki Straps to add +2 to stunning fist DC so maybe it'll actually work! 5,000gp x1.5 increase for multiple different abilities (3,750gp/7,500gp). You approved the item before, but I didn't go into whether you wanted a price increase, so asking properly here.

Getting the Ring of Arcane Might (10,000gp/20,000gp) and merging it with with the Firebond Ring (Grants a +1 bonus to the caster level of spells with the fire descriptor). Would you allow it? If so, would it be multiple similar abilities or multiple different abilities?

Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows++ get (7,500gp/15,500gp upgrade price).
Firebond Ring of Arcane Might get (40,000 x0.75 multiple similar abilities, 15,000gp/30,000gp upgrade price).

Cauldron funds: 41,558.7gp + 20,000gp (refunds) + 185,900gp (refunds) - 33,750gp (Qualles upgrade for Amaryl) - 72,500gp (Pearls of Power VIII and IX) - 7,500gp (Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows upgrade) - 15,000gp (Rings ugprade) = 118,708.7gp

[Corwin]

Are the following items possible?

Pearl of Power X
Pearl of Power XI
Pearl of Power XII
Pearl of Power XIII
Pearl of Power XIV

They may be, let me think about it and do the math over the weekend. Ask me in a post for a result on Monday.

Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl1-3
Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl7-9

Yes. I'd have to look up how I priced the normal one, but it's probably (not 100%, check) the same price as other +1 metamagic rods. Assuming I'm right off hand and fiery's +1.

Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl10-12
Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl13-15

Metamagic rods generally cap at epic, so those are out.

Reminder, I guess?

[Anastasia]

I figured I'd use this arc to do an audit of our gear. I'm going to roll up several basic items together for me once some questions are resolved, probably, but for now let's focus on the others!

Amaryl

I want her to take Qualles. We've talked about this before, but I see she still isn't using it and it's gathering dust in our treasury.

Qualles: This cloak of elvenkind grants a +15 competence bonus to Stealth checks and a +6 enhancement bonus to Dexterity. When worn by an elf, they gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity (stacks with the enhancement bonus), a +2 to attack rolls with long swords or longbows and a +5 bonus to saves against enchantment spells and effects.

Sure. Bear in mind she already has a better stealth check bonus (+20) from her existing cloak and the other bonuses aren't huge for her, so it's more of a lateral trade up.

I do want to buff the stealth bonus to +30 competence. How much would it cost?

90k is the baseline, minus whatever a +15 booster cost.

Okay. So 90,000gp for the +30 variant, minus 22,500gp for the +15 variant. That comes down to 33,750gp/67,500gp.

Amaryl gets Qualles++

Done.

[Anastasia]

Right, so let's cover some gear stuff.

Paying 20,000gp for them for now.
Remaining funds are at 41,558.7gp.

Old funds

Right, so purchases for divinely-created items (mostly a bunch of scrolls for posterity) were at 185,900gp. They're rolled back, and instead I'll just have Elle make Pearls of Power VIII and IX (72,500gp/145,000gp).

Other stuff I'm interested in are:

Boosting the Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows with Ki Straps to add +2 to stunning fist DC so maybe it'll actually work! 5,000gp x1.5 increase for multiple different abilities (3,750gp/7,500gp). You approved the item before, but I didn't go into whether you wanted a price increase, so asking properly here.

Getting the Ring of Arcane Might (10,000gp/20,000gp) and merging it with with the Firebond Ring (Grants a +1 bonus to the caster level of spells with the fire descriptor). Would you allow it? If so, would it be multiple similar abilities or multiple different abilities?

Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows++ get (7,500gp/15,500gp upgrade price).
Firebond Ring of Arcane Might get (40,000 x0.75 multiple similar abilities, 15,000gp/30,000gp upgrade price).

Cauldron funds: 41,558.7gp + 20,000gp (refunds) + 185,900gp (refunds) - 33,750gp (Qualles upgrade for Amaryl) - 72,500gp (Pearls of Power VIII and IX) - 7,500gp (Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows upgrade) - 15,000gp (Rings ugprade) = 118,708.7gp

Goes without incident.

[Anastasia]

Are the following items possible?

Pearl of Power X
Pearl of Power XI
Pearl of Power XII
Pearl of Power XIII
Pearl of Power XIV

They may be, let me think about it and do the math over the weekend. Ask me in a post for a result on Monday.

Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl1-3
Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl7-9

Yes. I'd have to look up how I priced the normal one, but it's probably (not 100%, check) the same price as other +1 metamagic rods. Assuming I'm right off hand and fiery's +1.

Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl10-12
Metamagic Rod (Fiery) lvl13-15

Metamagic rods generally cap at epic, so those are out.

Reminder, I guess?

We'll try the pearls, the formula is level of spell recovered squared * 1000. For example a level 10 pearl runs 100k, which would look like 10*10*1000. A level 11 spell would look like 11*11*1000 and cost 121000 gold.

[Ebiris]

Going to use my Unlimited Wealth to have Latha whip up some stuff.

Marie requests the following:

Fantasia

This gossamer gown cloaks the body with sheer unreality. As a standard action it can be made to appear in any style or colour that the wearer desires, although under the effect of true seeing it appears like a figure-hugging gown made of stained glass presenting limitless possibilities within its facets - anyone who perceives it in this manner must make a DC TBA will save or be dazed for as long as they can see the dress. The wearer also gains several potent benefits from its cloak.

+35 competence bonus to bluff, disguise, escape artist, sleight of hand, and stealth checks.
Concealment granting 20% miss chance, which can be activated or disabled as a free action (true seeing or similar effects defeat this).
+4 caster level to Illusion spells.
+20% bonus to the 'reality' of Illusion spells with the Shadow subschool such as Shadow Conjuration.

Fantasia is a major artifact.

As far as pricing goes, 183,750 x 5 for the skill bonuses, 24k for displacement, not sure on pricing for the CL boost or shadow spell boost. Minimum of a million gp easy. But it's an artifact so it's priceless!

Not sure on how to calculate the DC for the true seeing daze effect, obviously I don't want it to be an anemic 'magic item minimum CL' DC because this is an artifact. Could have it peg off the wearer's abilities, can you do that for artifacts? Either that or work out some kind of respectable number.

[Anastasia]

Before anything else, are you sure about the price of those skill boosts? I did the math and a +35 competence bonus is 122,500 gold by my reckoning.

[Ebiris]

I used the same price scheme as armour uses for skill boosting enhancements which is a +1.5x multiplier. Same as the multiple different abilities surcharge.

Though the item would go in the robe slot rather than be armour.

[Anastasia]

Right.

- Daze on sight.
- Bunch of skill boosters.
- Miss chance as a particular non epic item.
- +4 CL illusions.
- +20% bonus to the reality of shadow spells (Jessica sneezes).

Skill boosters are fine, as is the miss chance since I'm pretty sure that's a non epic item that you could trivially do with an SLA and/or alter reality. There's a few things that boost CLs of a particular school or subschool, but most aren't common, and at worst there are plain CL boosters to model it off of. Daze on sight, DC aside, isn't really moving the needle either. The only difficult one is the shadow spell booster. It's not really important here how much it costs, but my gutshot would be 'a lot'.

I confess, I didn't imagine 1m+ artifacts being the first request from this. I was thinking about skill boosters or a backup weapon or some item that fulfills a random hole in someone's setup. But that's okay - moreso because you've also passed up a lot of chances and treasure the way you've played this as well, so that counts for a lot of credit. You stuck to the premise of not needing money and you've cashed in on that, so fair enough. So possible balance issues aside, I don't really have any problem with this.

Just don't start popping out major, 1m+ artifacts all the time, all y'all.

Aaaanyway, with that boost, how crazy do Marie's shadows get? Walk me through where you're going with that mechanically.

Designwise for divine artifacts that have a DC, I usually assign a thematic and fitting DC without regard for the normal processes. For example, the alignment changing feature of Beezlebub's Impeccable has a DC of 70. There's no math involved, it's just the right number both for the numerology and the level of the deity. Likewise, the save DC of Bel's (possibly former) belt is 54, which is a little low for him but it was intentionally the result of 9*6.

Basically stick a reasonable number on there and call it good.

[Ebiris]

Honestly the skill boosters are all I really wanted, I just thought it'd be interesting to combine it all together in a cool artifact rather than having a bunch of slotless items.

Anyway I figure the shadow boost would be expensive since it's the sort of thing you only really get from focused prestige classes.

But you know what's really funny? Marie doesn't actually have any shadow spells. Not even one, not even in her SLAs from the Illusion domain. I just thought it needed one more ability to round it out as a meaningful artifact so went with that as being in keeping with its theme.

So lets drop it for a deflection bonus to AC equal to the wearer's charisma? Utterly meaningless to a deity but it's a nice prize if anyone ever loots her (or her avatar ever loans a copy out).

As for the DC on that daze, how about... 53? It's in the right ball-park power wise and it's a prime number, done.

Also should it be a major or minor artifact? I mean compared to artifacts we got back in B1 obviously it's way stronger, like seriously check out Nichtrusten.

Nichtrusten: This gray armor counts as a breastplate+2. In addition, the wearer gains their charisma modifier as a deflection bonus to armor class. This counts as an artifact.

But is it really major? Can something that was just made be major or does it have to accumulate meaning over time?

[Anastasia]

Honestly the skill boosters are all I really wanted, I just thought it'd be interesting to combine it all together in a cool artifact rather than having a bunch of slotless items.

Anyway I figure the shadow boost would be expensive since it's the sort of thing you only really get from focused prestige classes.

But you know what's really funny? Marie doesn't actually have any shadow spells. Not even one, not even in her SLAs from the Illusion domain. I just thought it needed one more ability to round it out as a meaningful artifact so went with that as being in keeping with its theme.

So lets drop it for a deflection bonus to AC equal to the wearer's charisma? Utterly meaningless to a deity but it's a nice prize if anyone ever loots her (or her avatar ever loans a copy out).

Sure, that's fine.

As for the DC on that daze, how about... 53? It's in the right ball-park power wise and it's a prime number, done.

Also should it be a major or minor artifact? I mean compared to artifacts we got back in B1 obviously it's way stronger, like seriously check out Nichtrusten.

http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,103088.msg1134909.html#msg1134909

An artifact is a divine or quasi divine magic item beyond the means of mortals to create in normal circumstances. It is not a matter of lost lore as a matter of purpose. In Creation, every artifact has some purpose, some meaning towards the greater search for the Answer. Minor artifacts are relatively trivial things, minor points of minimal importance. Many do not have any obvious connection to such matters, as they may address small questions or points rather than great matters of good and evil. Major artifacts always have a history and a clear purpose, something that works towards the Answer in some way - perhaps obliquely or perhaps obviously, but always towards that. Many artifacts, especially major artifacts, are aligned towards law, chaos, good or evil due to this.

I'd look at it and decide which of those fits better. It doesn't matter terribly much at the end of the day for Marie's purposes.

Nichtrusten: This gray armor counts as a breastplate+2. In addition, the wearer gains their charisma modifier as a deflection bonus to armor class. This counts as an artifact.

But is it really major? Can something that was just made be major or does it have to accumulate meaning over time?

It depends, but I'd call that a minor artifact.

[Ebiris]

Final version.

Fantasia

This gossamer gown cloaks the body with sheer unreality. As a standard action it can be made to appear in any style or colour that the wearer desires, although under the effect of true seeing it appears like a figure-hugging gown made of stained glass presenting limitless possibilities within its facets - anyone who perceives it in this manner must make a DC 53 will save or be dazed for as long as they can see the dress. The wearer also gains several potent benefits from its cloak.

+35 competence bonus to bluff, disguise, escape artist, sleight of hand, and stealth checks.
Concealment granting 20% miss chance, which can be activated or disabled as a free action (true seeing or similar effects defeat this).
+4 caster level to Illusion spells.
Add the wearer's charisma modifier as a deflection bonus to armour class.

Fantasia is a minor artifact.

[Anastasia]

Looks good all around.