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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Elemental Gems [Magic Item]
« on: May 06, 2014, 06:23:30 AM »
Hi everyone, I was doing some homebrew lately for a world I'm working on loosely based on the Aarklash world from the wargame Confrontation or Rag'narok and in this world wizards and the likes use elemental gems to power their spells. As I'm not going to rewrite the magic system completely, I was thinking of having these magic items that let you power up your spells the more charge you burn.
Where I need you is about the effect and the price. In this setting these Gems can't be created only mined on the elemental planes (which are kinda hard to get to).
So here's the first draft
Elemental Gem :
Price: Base Price 6000 gp (small), 22000 (Medium), 54000 (Large)
Description: The Elemental Gems are critstallysation of the very fabric of the elemental plane. Each can be found in it's natural state in the right element. Air one are often found carried by the endless winds of the elemental plane of Air, or inside an Arrowhawk's gullet, the Earth are found in geods or inside some elder earth elementals. Fire ones are often found resting at the top of a lava pool or inside the nest of elder salamanders, Water gems can be found in some chunks of Ice floating around the plane, or on the shell of an adult tojanida or older. Finally the light gems can be found at the frontier between the positive energy plane and the fire plane (or in the Radiance Plane if you use the extended planscape setting) or embeded in the skull of a Couatl. And the Darkness ones are often found near the elemental plane of Negative Energy, or fueling the powers of a powerfull nightshades.
They appear as a polished rock, always leaking some of its element, and being of a color adapted to the element as well. The water gem could be a round saphire, always wet to the touch, the small fire gem would look like a small ruby, that, if left unatended could ignite a small fire on parchment and always hot when touched, the earth is a plain stone, twice as heavy as the over stones of this size, the air one a translucid stone, fresh to the touch and cloacked with a reaaaalllly small breeze. The light gem is a quartz wich radiate an inner light. And the darkness one could be onyx, without any reflect on it.
Activation : Free Action, As part of the casting of a spell, you can tap on the power of an Elemental Gem to empower your spell. The spell must have a descriptor in common with the gem used during it's casting for the gem to be useful (see the list below). For exempe a Scorching Ray powered by an Earth Gem would have no further effect.
Special: You need to hold the Gem in your hand while you cast the spell to draw power from it. Only one gem can be used to fuel a particuliar spell. Trying to use more than one gem on a spell result generaly by the spell exploding to the caster's face, overcharged with elemental energies. In this situation the spell is expended and the caster suffer 2 point of damage per spell level, of an energy adapted to the gem used (even positive or negative energy for light and dark gems, harm the caster, even if he should be healed by one of these energies).
Effect : Each Elemental Gem has 3 charges, and can be used on spells of a specific level, Small gems can be used to empower spells up to the 3rd level, Medium up to 6th and finally Large, Up to 9th. When a spellcaster cast a spell with a level compatible with the gem used, he can choose to use one or more of the charges to empower his spell. When he uses a charge, the spellcaster can choose between 2 effects, first he can raise the caster level of the spell by one for all the numerical variables, and the spell can go over the natural cap it could have (for example, a fireball cast by a 10th level sorcerer using 3 charges of a Small Gem would inflict 13d6 fire damages). Or he could raise the DC by one to resist the spell casted. Finally whatever choice he makes, for each charge used, the caster gain a bonus on the check to bypass the Magic Resistance equal to the number of Charges he used for this spell.
Special: The effects of a Gem are applied to a spell after the effects of the Empower Spell feat, if it's used during the casting of the spell.
Recharge Mechanic: When a Charge is used, it can be regained by letting the Gem in contact with its element for 24 hour. If multiple charges are used, the duration is cumulative (so 48 hours for 2 charges and 72 hours for 3 charges). You can for exemple put your Water gem in your water pouch during 24 hours to regain 1 charge, you let your Air gem in the open so it's in contact with ... the air. The most complicated ones are the fire and the light gems, basically the first one you can put it in contact with an ember or a small fire, but you'll need to keep it hot for 24 hours. And the light one.... I'm still wondering if I should tie it with the sunlight or if any kind of light suffice. After the use of 300 Charges or one year of being separated from it's elemental plane, the gem loses it's power.
Now the spells affected by each gem are :
Earth = [Earth] and [Acid]
Fire = [Fire] (who would have guessed?
)
Water = [Water] and [Cold]
Air = [Air] and [Electricity]
Light = [Good], [Healing] and [Light]
Darkness = [Darknesse], [Evil], [Death]
The gems are permanent objects not consumable ones, and it cannot be created, only purchased from natives of the elemental planes. They mine it on their planes and then sell it to some material mages specialised in comercing with them.
There is Medium and Large Gems as well, for the 4-6th and 7-9th range as well, i'm just wondering what the could be doing for the lower levels ?
I had an idea about the medium one giving 2 caster level per charge for the spells of 0-3rd level, and Large could give 3 caster level for the spells 0-3rd and 2 caster level for the spells 4-6.
Now, What are your thought about it ? Is it to much ? How should I price it ?
Thanks in advance for your replies, sorry if I did some wrong to the english language as it's not my native one
And read you soon:)
Where I need you is about the effect and the price. In this setting these Gems can't be created only mined on the elemental planes (which are kinda hard to get to).
So here's the first draft
Elemental Gem :
Price: Base Price 6000 gp (small), 22000 (Medium), 54000 (Large)
Description: The Elemental Gems are critstallysation of the very fabric of the elemental plane. Each can be found in it's natural state in the right element. Air one are often found carried by the endless winds of the elemental plane of Air, or inside an Arrowhawk's gullet, the Earth are found in geods or inside some elder earth elementals. Fire ones are often found resting at the top of a lava pool or inside the nest of elder salamanders, Water gems can be found in some chunks of Ice floating around the plane, or on the shell of an adult tojanida or older. Finally the light gems can be found at the frontier between the positive energy plane and the fire plane (or in the Radiance Plane if you use the extended planscape setting) or embeded in the skull of a Couatl. And the Darkness ones are often found near the elemental plane of Negative Energy, or fueling the powers of a powerfull nightshades.
They appear as a polished rock, always leaking some of its element, and being of a color adapted to the element as well. The water gem could be a round saphire, always wet to the touch, the small fire gem would look like a small ruby, that, if left unatended could ignite a small fire on parchment and always hot when touched, the earth is a plain stone, twice as heavy as the over stones of this size, the air one a translucid stone, fresh to the touch and cloacked with a reaaaalllly small breeze. The light gem is a quartz wich radiate an inner light. And the darkness one could be onyx, without any reflect on it.
Activation : Free Action, As part of the casting of a spell, you can tap on the power of an Elemental Gem to empower your spell. The spell must have a descriptor in common with the gem used during it's casting for the gem to be useful (see the list below). For exempe a Scorching Ray powered by an Earth Gem would have no further effect.
Special: You need to hold the Gem in your hand while you cast the spell to draw power from it. Only one gem can be used to fuel a particuliar spell. Trying to use more than one gem on a spell result generaly by the spell exploding to the caster's face, overcharged with elemental energies. In this situation the spell is expended and the caster suffer 2 point of damage per spell level, of an energy adapted to the gem used (even positive or negative energy for light and dark gems, harm the caster, even if he should be healed by one of these energies).
Effect : Each Elemental Gem has 3 charges, and can be used on spells of a specific level, Small gems can be used to empower spells up to the 3rd level, Medium up to 6th and finally Large, Up to 9th. When a spellcaster cast a spell with a level compatible with the gem used, he can choose to use one or more of the charges to empower his spell. When he uses a charge, the spellcaster can choose between 2 effects, first he can raise the caster level of the spell by one for all the numerical variables, and the spell can go over the natural cap it could have (for example, a fireball cast by a 10th level sorcerer using 3 charges of a Small Gem would inflict 13d6 fire damages). Or he could raise the DC by one to resist the spell casted. Finally whatever choice he makes, for each charge used, the caster gain a bonus on the check to bypass the Magic Resistance equal to the number of Charges he used for this spell.
Special: The effects of a Gem are applied to a spell after the effects of the Empower Spell feat, if it's used during the casting of the spell.
Recharge Mechanic: When a Charge is used, it can be regained by letting the Gem in contact with its element for 24 hour. If multiple charges are used, the duration is cumulative (so 48 hours for 2 charges and 72 hours for 3 charges). You can for exemple put your Water gem in your water pouch during 24 hours to regain 1 charge, you let your Air gem in the open so it's in contact with ... the air. The most complicated ones are the fire and the light gems, basically the first one you can put it in contact with an ember or a small fire, but you'll need to keep it hot for 24 hours. And the light one.... I'm still wondering if I should tie it with the sunlight or if any kind of light suffice. After the use of 300 Charges or one year of being separated from it's elemental plane, the gem loses it's power.
Now the spells affected by each gem are :
Earth = [Earth] and [Acid]
Fire = [Fire] (who would have guessed?
)Water = [Water] and [Cold]
Air = [Air] and [Electricity]
Light = [Good], [Healing] and [Light]
Darkness = [Darknesse], [Evil], [Death]
The gems are permanent objects not consumable ones, and it cannot be created, only purchased from natives of the elemental planes. They mine it on their planes and then sell it to some material mages specialised in comercing with them.
There is Medium and Large Gems as well, for the 4-6th and 7-9th range as well, i'm just wondering what the could be doing for the lower levels ?
I had an idea about the medium one giving 2 caster level per charge for the spells of 0-3rd level, and Large could give 3 caster level for the spells 0-3rd and 2 caster level for the spells 4-6.
Now, What are your thought about it ? Is it to much ? How should I price it ?
Thanks in advance for your replies, sorry if I did some wrong to the english language as it's not my native one
And read you soon:)
), i've played MtG a while back, Warhammer, 40k and a nice skirmish game named Confrontation.