Help me balance an artifact

[Temennigru]

I have the concept for an artifact that scales as the players progress, but I'm having a hard time balancing it. Everything I try either makes the artifact underpowered or overpowered.

The ideas that I toyed with were:

Tinker's Crown

SR 15
Magic Missile at will (CL 1)
Whenever you absorb a spell targeted at you by a creature that poses a direct threat for you or your allies, the caster level for magic missile increases by one.

Tinker's Crown

SR 15
Magic Missile at will (CL 1)
Whenever you absorb a spell targeted at you by a creature that poses a direct threat for you or your allies, the caster level for the next magic missile cast with the crown increases by the level of the absorbed spell (stacks 3 times)

But I can't seem to get it right.

Could you help me crunch the numbers to get it balanced?

ECL is currently at 5

[Der_DWSage]

Well, your first issue is that this item doesn't exactly progress-it levels up a Magic Missile, and has some pretty low SR. I'm assuming it also has a standard activation time, so it's not just 'a nice extra' either. Really, the easiest way to balance it is to just let the item function at the same caster level as the character's level, and strip the (already nigh-useless) SR from it.

I'd strongly recommend looking into the Weapons of Legacy handbook in 3.5 and cribbing ideas from there-not taking the entire idea, mind you, just crib ideas. Make it so they have to perform grand deeds OR spend money OR take a hit to their stats in order to have the items grow, but not all three.

[Temennigru]

Well, your first issue is that this item doesn't exactly progress-it levels up a Magic Missile, and has some pretty low SR. I'm assuming it also has a standard activation time, so it's not just 'a nice extra' either. Really, the easiest way to balance it is to just let the item function at the same caster level as the character's level, and strip the (already nigh-useless) SR from it.

I'd strongly recommend looking into the Weapons of Legacy handbook in 3.5 and cribbing ideas from there-not taking the entire idea, mind you, just crib ideas. Make it so they have to perform grand deeds OR spend money OR take a hit to their stats in order to have the items grow, but not all three.

The thing is, if I put them to fight against a low level caster (like the ones I already have) he would suck up spells and the item would become strong.
If I buff the SR, the item would become too powerful.
If I take away the progression, it would become too weak.
The guy who is using the crown is already a caster, so just magic missile at will at your caster level would be too little for an artifact to do.

Perhaps I can have it only suck up spells from creatures with a higher HD?

[Der_DWSage]

The thing is, no matter what you do with this thing, it's going to cap at 5d4+5 damage, or an average of 16 damage. At 5th level, you already have better things to do with your action. Heck, your average fireball is a better use of your actions. I'd also argue pretty damn hard about this being anywhere near 'artifact' status.

This fails on three levels. The first is usefulness. Even at-will 9th level Magic Missiles aren't going to be all that useful, unless your party is far more unoptimized than what I'm used to. (And while my group doesn't go for uberchargers or Wizards of Win The Fight, we also don't go for Sword-and-board or 12-strength Monks that don't have a way to use Dexterity for damage.) And even if it is that unoptimized...it's still gonna fall by the wayside quickly, turning your worked-on item into just another piece of sale-bait.

The second is complications. You want it to grow with them. I get that. But you're either going to get them breaking it ('Okay Fighter, stand here while I shoot this wand of CL 1 Magic Missiles at you until it's fully powered up, you can take the damage.') or finding it completely useless. ('Huh. I've literally never had a caster fail to cast a spell at me. Probably has to do with how they're at or above level 5, or something.') I'd recommend finding a different growth method, or at least making it less...fiddly.

The third is being interesting. Magic Missile is just a damaging spell. One literally any Wizard could know, save for those that ban Evocation. This is boring. And it's still going to be boring if you make it any other kind of 'one-and-done just damage' deal, but at least it'd be more original if you let it shoot out a ray that did 1d6/2 levels worth of Force damage.

Make it change. Make it grow. Or at least give it something that's not already a spell. Make it so that it can mimic spells, similar to a Spellthief's abilities. Make it so that it can create small golems that deliver touch spells for you, since it's the Tinker's Crown. Have it drain Wands, Staves, and Scrolls to change the spell that's imbued into it. Let it steal spells by placing it on a rival wizard's head. Something besides 'Well, it gradually does a little more damage.'

So let's start with this. What do you want the player to find cool, interesting, and/or useful about it besides the fact that it grows with them? Are you sold on Magic Missile, or would any ability work?

[noob]

The whole concept of artifacts is not to be balanced it is to be mac guffins the villains wants and here it is not powerful for interesting any mighty creature so why would a mighty creature try to punish someone disjuncting it?
There is no reason a mighty creature near to divinity associate to this item an high importance except if it was "a gift he received when he was three years old" or other kind of memory attachment but then it should have an higher caster level because it would meant it was used at one time and so it is clear it was never used and that no powerful exterior have any reason of researching this artifact and so the rule about the effect of disjuncting it should be changed.

[Sagetim]

I have the concept for an artifact that scales as the players progress, but I'm having a hard time balancing it. Everything I try either makes the artifact underpowered or overpowered.

The ideas that I toyed with were:

Tinker's Crown

SR 15
Magic Missile at will (CL 1)
Whenever you absorb a spell targeted at you by a creature that poses a direct threat for you or your allies, the caster level for magic missile increases by one.

Tinker's Crown

SR 15
Magic Missile at will (CL 1)
Whenever you absorb a spell targeted at you by a creature that poses a direct threat for you or your allies, the caster level for the next magic missile cast with the crown increases by the level of the absorbed spell (stacks 3 times)

But I can't seem to get it right.

Could you help me crunch the numbers to get it balanced?

ECL is currently at 5

Well, first off...artifacts shouldn't have to worry about 'balance'. That's why they are artifacts. Players (generally) can't build them, as creation of them (usually) requires divine ranks and the correct salient abilities. So my normal suggestion would be: don't worry about balancing it, you're giving them an artifact.


I would stat it up as:

Grants SR 15+HD while worn.
Allows the wearer to cast Magic Missile at will (CL of this ability is 1)
For every hostile spell the wearer negates with SR within 24 hours, increase the CL of the Magic Missile by 2.
To be clear: There is no upper limit on the CL of the Magic Missile, but it still caps out at 5 missiles.
The Caster Level of this item (for the purpose of supressing with dispel and what have you) is 20.
For each magic missile that the crown fires when it's ability is used, one of the gems on the crown glows.

Bear in mind, this means the player has to be hit with at least 4 spells and resist with spell resistance in a day to have CL 9 magic missiles, and anything more than that pumps up his caster level...which is mostly just beneficial for punching past a target's SR if he has to. Hostile spells is a somewhat vague definition for a reason. If the players absolutely need to, they can get away with pumping the CL of the magic missile from this crown up by slapping the guy wearing it with attack spells and hoping he sr's them away. Not a smart tactic, especially if they accidentally kill him with a finger of death or what have you. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and if they need to put down a target with epic level SR pumping the crown might be their only option.

Edit: Also remember that most players don't want to get hit by spells if they can avoid it. Spells hurt. And most combats I'm in don't last more than 3 or 4 rounds (with some notable exceptions). In those handful of rounds, even in the longer fights, I don't see a lot of spells being slammed into my characters. Also...if a caster notices that someone keeps SRing their spells, they're not going to keep targeting that person with spells. Not unless they're super arrogant, insane, etc.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I have the concept for an artifact that scales as the players progress, but I'm having a hard time balancing it. Everything I try either makes the artifact underpowered or overpowered.

Out of curiousity, what's the intended purpose of this artifact? Infinite Magic Missile is achievable for only a few thousand gold, and, even with these extras added on, it's FAR below standard artifact level and will be effectively a last-ditch fallback as early as level 7-9.

What's the artifact's place in the world? We could probably make a much more evocative and interesting item that scales with the player if we knew a bit more about what the Tinker's Crown IS, and why it's supposed to be an Artifact-level magic item.

[Sagetim]

Long term item usability would also be helped if the caster level of the item scaled with the caster level of the wearer (that is, if the fighter is wearing it, it works as stated on the tin, limitless caster level 1 etc etc, while someone with an actual caster level, such as a level 5 wizard, could use their caster level as the base for the item's magic missile instead).

That would be an artifact level enchantment there. Well, tacked on with the rest of the description in my previous post it would be maybe suitable as a really low level minor artifact. For consolidation purposes:

Grants SR 15+HD to the wearer, where HD is the wearer's total hit dice.
Grants an at will magic missile usable by the wearer, base caster level 1, requires standard action to activate.
If the wearer has a caster level, it is used as the basis for the magic missile ability instead.
The magic missile spell on the crown goes up by 2 for every hostile spell that it's SR negates within 24 hours, and the caster level increase resets each day at (noon, dawn, sunset, midnight, etc. Pick a time).
The caster level of the magic missile on the item has no upper limit. The caster level of the magic missile effect is not the caster level of the item.
For each magic missile that would be generated by the crown when it's magic missile effect is used (1 at cl 1, 2 at cl 3, 3 at cl 5, 4 at cl 7, 5 at cl 9) one gem on the crown glows, to a maximum of 5 gems at 5 missiles for cl 9+.

The item is caster level 20 and weighs 3 lb.

[Temennigru]

Out of curiousity, what's the intended purpose of this artifact? Infinite Magic Missile is achievable for only a few thousand gold, and, even with these extras added on, it's FAR below standard artifact level and will be effectively a last-ditch fallback as early as level 7-9.

What's the artifact's place in the world? We could probably make a much more evocative and interesting item that scales with the player if we knew a bit more about what the Tinker's Crown IS, and why it's supposed to be an Artifact-level magic item.

I have a magister that gives away powerful magic items. This specific one they found on some dead guy's head that was ~5000 years old. I still haven't decided what is the relation it has with the story but I have plenty of time to do that (It will probably have something to do with turning yourself into a warforged).
I just wanted to have it do something extra that is not part of the story. Most artifacts do that. I also like to make players think before using an artifact for its actual purpose. I have another artifact that is a +5 Adamantine, Ornate, Holy Surge, Keen, Vorpal, Sanctuary, Radiant, Passage, Teleporting, Throwing, Valorous Greatsword that belongs to a very powerful being that they are trying to revive. If they chose to keep it, they could very well be dooming the entire world.