Resonance Fork (transfer weapon/armor enhancements)

Nice synergy: Magic Item Crafting Incantations [Stycotl]
See also: Reverse Enchanting [DracoDei]

So, I had an idea for a magic item. I've never homebrewed an item before, so any thoughts you have would be much appreciated! The idea is that adventurers often pick up weapons or armor that are magically better than the ones they already have, but don't want to part with their current weapon, due to weapon proficiencies, size, other factors, or just plain nostalgia. So, I devised this:

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Resonance Fork (single use)
Forged with an alloy of silver and cold iron, this 18 inch rod resembles a tuning fork. This fork's power lies in its ability to transfer the magical essence between two items. To use, one must strike the fork against first one item--a piece of armor, a ring, a weapon--and then another, similar item. The rod is then planted in the ground between the two, and a circle is drawn around the items, with the fork at its center. Anything will do to draw the circle: chalk, a line in the dirt, blood. Once completed, the circle seals, and magical energies begin to fill it. After one hour, the resonance fork shatters, and the circle along with it. At this end of this time, any magical enhancements present on the items involved in the ritual are swapped between one another, unchanged. This is an all-or-nothing effect, the magical energies cannot be manipulated or changed, or combined in any way.

A resonance fork can transfer armor and weapon enhancements, armor and weapon abilities that are expressed as enhancements (the spell resistance (13) armor enhancement is counted as +1 enhancement), and armor and weapon abilities that are expressed as simple gold piece increases (the shadow armor enhancement costs an extra 3,750gp). Further, a resonance fork can transfer enchantments from other enchanted items (such as rings, wondrous items, etc). This allows you to change the slot that an item normally occupies. An amulet of natural armor, for instance, can be transferred to a headband of natural armor. A resonance fork cannot transfer the magic of artifacts, epic magical items, legacy items, or relics.

Any magical enhancement transferred through a Resonance Fork must be appropriate to the item, or else the magic lies dormant within. For instance, a Heavy Fortification enchantment CAN be transferred to a Shortsword, but while the magic lies within the Shortsword, it does not function. If the magic is ever transferred to another piece of armor, the magic awakens and functions normally. It should also be noted that a +1 weapon enhancement and a +1 armor enhancement are NOT interchangable.

A Minor Resonance Fork is capable of transferring the magical energies of weapons up to and including +3 and armor up to and including +4; armor and weapon abilities of up to +9,000 gp; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of up to 30,000 gp.

A Standard Fork is capable of transferring +6 in weapon enhancements or +8 in armor enhancements; armor and weapon abilities of up to +35,000 gp; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of up to 80,000 gp.

A Major Fork is capable of transferring +10 in weapon enhancements and armor enhancements; armor and weapon abilities of any price; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of any price.

Moderate Evocation; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, imbue with spell ability; Price: 500 gp (Minor), 2,000 gp (Standard), 8,000 gp (Major)

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Resonance Fork, Adamantine
As a Resonance Fork, Major, only the fork does not shatter after use.
Moderate Evocation; CL 12th; Craft Wondrous Item, imbue with spell ability; Price: 40,000 gp

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UPDATE

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Amplification Oil
(Admittedly I haven't fluffed this out or finalized the language, but the idea is simple)
This oil may be applied to an item before beginning the transference ritual of a resonance fork, and allows for the magical energies of one item to be added to those of another, rather than swapped. By coating the receiving item with oil worth the difference in gold between an item's current value in gold and the value of a magical item with an enhancement bonus equal to the combined enhancement bonuses of both items, minus the value of the base item's enchantment, the receiving item can be imbued and upgraded with magical energies from a sacrificial item.

Example: A resonance fork can move the +1 enhancement of a greatsword to a +2 long sword to create a +3 longsword with an application of Amplification Oil worth 10,000 8,000 gp. The greatsword is reduced to a mundane greatsword in the process.

Item creation feats can further reduce the cost to upgrade an item in this way, as the amplification oil can be created using the applicable [Craft] feat, despite being non-magical.

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[If people think this is too powerful, or too cheap, I had a thought on how to mitigate it--one of the items loses its magical enhancements entirely, as though it was the power behind the transfer. That way the old weapon can't be sold off.]

Bump. Anyone have any thoughts? Too powerful? Too expensive?

I like the idea, but I admit I have a very hard time judging it's price.
On the one hand for a one use item 3000 seem to much to me, but exchanging all the power betwen two item is strong. I don't know. You may at least precise that it doesn't work on epic magic item ?
As for losing the power of the old one, I don't think it's need you can only sell it for half the price so it's already a huge loss.

Do you think there needs to be Lesser and Greater versions of this? Say that a Lesser costs 2,000 gp, and can transfer anything up to +3, a regular one 5,000 gp, and can transfer up to +6, and a Greater 10,000 gp, and can transfer up to +10 enhancements? (I'm pulling numbers out of nowhere, with no real thought to balance at this point).

I'm going to argue the other end of this one. Swapping abilities is really only a hardware change, which is insignificant in most cases.

For example: Your character favors a longsword and carries a +1. While adventuring he finds a +2 heavy mace. At this point he has three four options:
1. He can sell the heavy mace for 4000gp and pay 2000gp out of pocket to enhance his longsword to +2.
2. He can decide he'd rather use the heavy mace, even though he's had this longsword for a good while and it fits his character flavor, and he possibly has feats centered around the longsword. The mace also has a smaller crit range. Probably not a great choice.
3. He can pay 3000gp and have their enhancement bonuses swapped using the item presented here.
4. Give it to the cleric.

This third choice seems a little expensive in the example given, but the bigger the difference in power, the greater the benefit. I'm for making this a cheaper item, like 1000gp. I think in the past I homebrewed an artificer infusion that basically did this. Its lost now though.

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Originally Posted by mhvaughan

Do you think there needs to be Lesser and Greater versions of this? Say that a Lesser costs 2,000 gp, and can transfer anything up to +3, a regular one 5,000 gp, and can transfer up to +6, and a Greater 10,000 gp, and can transfer up to +10 enhancements? (I'm pulling numbers out of nowhere, with no real thought to balance at this point).

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Jarrick made a very good argument it's mostly "hardware", perhaps 1000gp per +1 you want to exchange (either using multiple fork or bigger one), it's a really hard to price item.
One thing I just thoughts off, you may need to specify that you can't use the fork with unique magic item and/or legacy item and/or relique item, thing like that.

They should also likely have different prices for weapons and armor, since the enchanting price is different.

Alright, folks, I've updated the OP, creating a Major and a Minor version, as well as a version that doesn't shatter after each use. Read it and let me know what you think in terms of the prices I've set, and we'll try to get this finalized.

Seem fine, you just need to add guideline for when it's not used on weapon or armor (other sort of item are mentionned) and still need to add a limit (or not) for unique item.

Alright, added wording to cover wondrous items.

When you say "unique item," what exactly are you speaking of? Relics and artifacts?

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Originally Posted by mhvaughan

Alright, added wording to cover wondrous items.

When you say "unique item," what exactly are you speaking of? Relics and artifacts?

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Well, I'm thinking of at least three thing, legacy item (from the weapon of legacy book and a few other) who function in a very specific way and their power can't be quantified using only +1, I'm also thinking of relics yes, (Complete divine/champion mostly) because they are link to a deity so transfering their power just like that and the last one are less well defined but generally called specific magic item/armor/weapon who posses unique property like the sunsword in the dmg. And of course it should never work with artifact.

Meh, I kind of feel like unique items ought to be able to have their magic transferred to, unless there's something incredibly broken that I'm not thinking of? Maybe with the Major Resonance Fork...

But yeah, I suppose Legacy weapons ought to be out of the question. Ditto Relics (not familiar with them).

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Originally Posted by mhvaughan

Meh, I kind of feel like unique items ought to be able to have their magic transferred to, unless there's something incredibly broken that I'm not thinking of? Maybe with the Major Resonance Fork...

But yeah, I suppose Legacy weapons ought to be out of the question. Ditto Relics (not familiar with them).

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"Hey guys, check out my Shadowstaff!"
"That's a short sword"
"I KNOW RIGHT!"

Seriously. It's not that it's broken, it's that it's dumb. The Sword of Kas is a legendary item of hideous evil, with powers few can even imagine. You should not be able to suck its evilness and super magic out of it by poking it with a freaking fork.

You could argue that the Sword of Kas, as a +6 weapon, is an epic item. However, it is not explicitly epic, and therefore you could, theoretically, do this.

i think the changes are fine. some nitpicks though:

some armor/weapon enhancements that are priced at gp instead of +1 or whatever are pretty weak. it seems too costly to have to use a major fork in order to add a piddly +1,500 gp enhancement. i'd give a limit on each kind of fork (as detailed below).

i also agree about disallowing unique items as a default ruling, though the dm could certainly change that in some cases if he/she wanted.

you should specify that swapping some abilities from one item to another might make them useless if the ability doesn't work with the item in question (such as putting the keen ability on a hammer).

also, i think the formatting should be changed, as it seems a little confusingly worded to me.

maybe it should say something like:

A resonance fork can transfer armor and weapon enhancements, armor and weapon abilities that are expressed as enhancements (the spell resistance (13) armor enhancement is counted as +1 enhancement), and armor and weapon abilities that are expressed as simple gold piece increases (the shadow armor enhancement costs an extra 3,750gp). Further, a resonance fork can transfer enchantments from other enchanted items (such as rings, wondrous items, etc). A resonance fork cannot transfer the magic of artifacts, epic magical items, legacy items, or relics.

A Minor Resonance Fork is capable of transferring the magical energies of weapons up to and including +3 and armor up to and including +4; armor and weapon abilities of up to +5,000 gp; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of up to 10,000 gp.

A Standard Fork is capable of transferring +6 in weapon enhancements or +8 in armor enhancements; armor and weapon abilities of up to +35,000 gp; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of up to 70,000 gp.

A Major Fork is capable of transferring +10 in weapon enhancements and armor enhancements; armor and weapon abilities of any price; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of any price.

those price limitations are off the top of my head, using the weapon enhancement cost as a baseline.

and lastly, though you don't specify it, i'm guessing that the fork can transfer *all* enchantments up to the limits provided under each kind of fork (example: a major fork could handle a +6 equivalent set of armor that had eight different +3,750 gp abilities on it).

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Originally Posted by Jarrick

I'm going to argue the other end of this one. Swapping abilities is really only a hardware change, which is insignificant in most cases.

For example: Your character favors a longsword and carries a +1. While adventuring he finds a +2 heavy mace. At this point he has three four options:
1. He can sell the heavy mace for 4000gp and pay 2000gp out of pocket to enhance his longsword to +2.
2. He can decide he'd rather use the heavy mace, even though he's had this longsword for a good while and it fits his character flavor, and he possibly has feats centered around the longsword. The mace also has a smaller crit range. Probably not a great choice.
3. He can pay 3000gp and have their enhancement bonuses swapped using the item presented here.
4. Give it to the cleric.

This third choice seems a little expensive in the example given, but the bigger the difference in power, the greater the benefit. I'm for making this a cheaper item, like 1000gp. I think in the past I homebrewed an artificer infusion that basically did this. Its lost now though.

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He'd have to pay 6000. 2000 GP for the first +1. +2 is 8000, to go from +1 to +2 you pay to difference, 6000.

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Originally Posted by ForzaFiori

He'd have to pay 6000. 2000 GP for the first +1. +2 is 8000, to go from +1 to +2 you pay to difference, 6000.

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But he got 4000 from selling the item, so he'd have to fork over an additional 2000 of his own money to get an equivalent enchantment on his preferred hardware... Is what I was trying to say.

Updated to include Stycotl's wording.

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Originally Posted by Jarrick

I'm going to argue the other end of this one. Swapping abilities is really only a hardware change, which is insignificant in most cases.

For example: Your character favors a longsword and carries a +1. While adventuring he finds a +2 heavy mace. At this point he has three four options:
1. He can sell the heavy mace for 4000gp and pay 2000gp out of pocket to enhance his longsword to +2.
2. He can decide he'd rather use the heavy mace, even though he's had this longsword for a good while and it fits his character flavor, and he possibly has feats centered around the longsword. The mace also has a smaller crit range. Probably not a great choice.
3. He can pay 3000gp and have their enhancement bonuses swapped using the item presented here.
4. Give it to the cleric.

This third choice seems a little expensive in the example given, but the bigger the difference in power, the greater the benefit. I'm for making this a cheaper item, like 1000gp. I think in the past I homebrewed an artificer infusion that basically did this. Its lost now though.

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In this example, however, you are missing something my friend. Say you swap the bonuses on the mace and sword, you can then SELL THE MACE STILL. So yes, it'll cost ya 3k for the fork, but you then sell the mace for what, 2k? Driving the cost down to HALF the cost of enchanting your weapona s an upgrade :)

I think all of you are saying the same thing without realizing it.

Sell mace for 4000
Upgrade sword for 8000-2000=6000.
Net cost to upgrade sword = 2000.

Or you can use a resonance fork to transfer mace to sword for 500 gp and sell the now +1 mace for 1000, netting 500 gp on the process, and therefore saving you 2,500 gp compared with upgrading the old-fashioned way.

(Note that I modified prices after your debate first began.)

that looks good to me. but i just thought of something, the gp limits that i suggested were all based off of weapon/armor enhancements, but don't take into account that magic weapons/armor can have both enhancement abilities and gold piece-expenditure abilities at the same time, whereas wondrous items, rings, etc, just get gp-expenditure.

therefore, it is possible to use a standard fork to affect a +6 enhancement weapon, with another +30,000 gp worth of gp-expenditure abilities, for a total of around 100,000 gp.

while the same fork could only affect a wondrous item worth 70,000 gp.

so i'm thinking that we might want to up the wondrous item gp capacity some, maybe by +50% or so.

also, i screwed up the minor fork prices; i was thinking 10,000 gp as a base for a +3 weapon, but it is 18,000.

so it should probably read like this for consistency with the others:

A Minor Resonance Fork is capable of transferring the magical energies of weapons up to and including +3 and armor up to and including +4; armor and weapon abilities of up to +9,000 gp; and enchantments on non-armor/weapon items (such as rings and wondrous items) of up to 20,000 gp.

that is before any adjustment to wondrous item limits, +50% or whatever you decide.

Wikipedia-like Cross-referencing: Reverse Enchanting. (Not DIRECTLY related, but solves a related problem of "Found good loots... that we really can't use". Already added reciprocal link.

One issue I see with this is that it circumvents body slot affinities and the restrictions implied therein. Those restrictions, however, are purely monetary, so the problem with circumventing those affinities all depends on what rules you're using as far a character wealth by level is concerned.

Anyhow, interesting idea, I guess. Jarrick brings up a pertinent point in that weapons cost twice as much as armor, not sure if you've addressed this yet, feeling lazy with regard to reading the entirety of the thread. The transfer of non-compatible enchantments (fortification on a weapon, for example) is another you'll want to clarify if you have yet to do so.

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Originally Posted by Jota

One issue I see with this is that it circumvents body slot affinities and the restrictions implied therein. Those restrictions, however, are purely monetary, so the problem with circumventing those affinities all depends on what rules you're using as far a character wealth by level is concerned.

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i don't see much of a bid deal to changing up the body slot affinities as detailed in the books. that was mostly for fluff reasons.

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Anyhow, interesting idea, I guess. Jarrick brings up a pertinent point in that weapons cost twice as much as armor, not sure if you've addressed this yet, feeling lazy with regard to reading the entirety of the thread. The transfer of non-compatible enchantments (fortification on a weapon, for example) is another you'll want to clarify if you have yet to do so.

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yeah, that needs to be clarified.

Alright, clarified about magical enchantments needing to be on the appropriate type of equipment for it to function.

I added a little caveat to that requirement, though. If a bit of inappropriate magic is transferred, it lies dormant. It can be transferred to a proper item later and become functional again.

That way, if you find a Heavy Fortification Fullplate for your Rogue, you could transfer the magic to a mundane sword that weighs far less, cart it back to base, and then transfer it to something you could actually use. I don't know if such a scenario would ever actually be cost effective or more efficient, but I'm sure someone could come up with an interesting use.

looks finished to me!

A bag of holding generally does a better job of getting enchantments home than the trick with putting Heavy Fortification on a short-sword, if only because it is re-usable.