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Coventry
2011-07-05, 04:01 PM
An idea that I have been batting around for a few years involves having a magical item that has the spellcasting abilities of a Wizard of level X built in. It started as a ring with the spells of a 6th level wizard, but mutated over time to a Socerer who transferred his personality into a staff.

I used the magic item creation rules to try to come up with reasonable numbers (each spell level had a pool of charges per day, charges in one pool could not be used to power a different pool, et cetera). I then built a spreadsheet, and tried to compute the numbers.

When comparing the numbers against the PC Wealth by Level tables, I ended up with an interesting result. Assuming no more than half of a character's wealth could be used to pay for the staff, the formula came out to be pretty regular:

PC Level = (3 * Staff Level) / 2 + 5.

I assumed minimum charisma in order to cast the spells on the staff (setting bonus spells and DCs), no feats, skills or innate intelligence in the item.

For example, a staff with the powers of a first level sorcerer could be afforded by a 6th level PC, a tenth level sorcerer staff could be owned by a 20th level PC, and a 20th level staff required a 35th level PC.

The power of a 20th level sorcerer does not seem terribly unbalancing for an 35th level epic character. The same goes for first level spells for a 6th level character (who has given up half his gear) or an 17th level character with an 8th level sorcerer on a stick.

Having the gold costs falls into a formula like that is almost too good to believe.

I am interested in opinions - does this "lose half your wealth to pick up the major talents of another class" seem reasonable?

Would you, as DM, allow

a 20th level fighter to use half his wealth to acquire a magic item that grants the skills and sneak attack of a 10th level rogue?
a 15th level Swordsage gaining the auras and breath weapon attacks of a 7th level Dragon Shaman?
or how about a 5 Wizard/5 Cleric/15 Mystic Theurge/10 Archmage the abilities of a 20th level druid?

Fizban
2011-07-06, 02:52 AM
I did some similar number crunching a while back. I was trying to see how many free wands a new base class should grant for a character of a certain level. It involved X number of Y level spells per encounter, assuming 50 charge wands, and finding how many wands would be needed to compete with a normal caster burning spells at the same rate. Then to compare with WBL, I totaled up the cost of the wands, and tried to see if it was possible to just out-buy the class. I don't remember my exact results (and I really don't want to dive back through all my notes), but I came to a similar conclusion.

I don't think it's too good to be true at all actually, I think it's one of the many hidden design points that weren't noticed by most players. Or failing that, a coincidence of the fact that all the component systems of 3.5 dnd are built on similar exponential curves. Basically, a character's WBL has always been meant as a stand in for how much magic is needed to survive. How many spells are needed per encounter, and therefore per level, and then covert number of spells into cash. Spells increase in power exponentially so magic items are priced accordingly, and thus the WBL table uses a similar formula (as does the xp table). It all lines up, even if it wasn't intended.

Bonus question to tack on to the OP: so, if you would allow them to buy the item, would you instead allow them to gestalt that many levels of the class? Why not use our convoluted calculations to convert WBL into extra class abilities and do away with magic items altogether? Could make for a good game if you got it right.

Bonus bonus: also, try comparing various numbers to the cost of constructs and other minions (another thing I did a bit of research on). You'll find they follow similar formulae, roughly convertible into fractions of a certain level of WBL. Everything is money.

Dryad
2011-07-06, 07:07 AM
Would you allow...
a 20th level fighter to use half his wealth to acquire a magic item that grants the skills and sneak attack of a 10th level rogue?
a 15th level Swordsage gaining the auras and breath weapon attacks of a 7th level Dragon Shaman?
or how about a 5 Wizard/5 Cleric/15 Mystic Theurge/10 Archmage the abilities of a 20th level druid?

No
No
No

I'd rather allow (all of the) players to roll gestalt characters.

Roderick_BR
2011-07-06, 07:37 AM
As a comparison, the DMG has a minor artifact that is a shield that grants the spellcasting of a 20th level paladin. So, anything that grants a huge number of spellcasting power (like, above that of a staff), would be artifacts, thus, priceless and nearly unique.

As dryad said, gestalt would work better. Unless you want to allow players to have minor artifacts that doubles as gestalt. Could make for an interesting campaign. (just don't use Legacy rules, as they are not really very good).

Prime32
2011-07-06, 07:53 AM
I'd say get a sorcerer cohort and turn them into a staff somehow.

I've done something sort of similar (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10411).

Coventry
2011-07-10, 10:23 AM
Thanks for the responses.

As far as allowing a character to gestalt into the other class - there are subtle differences (i.e. the staff can be taken away when the characters are arrested), but for my campaign the details would have almost no effect on game play. Hmmm.