Min/Max Boards

Nope. Unless it's obvious, like Enlarge Person or some sort of glowing magical effects. I'm probably am going to place some casters into the room as observers, for the purpose of weeding out magical effects, but they may be easily swayed (bribed) or distracted (wink wink).

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Can you, instead of casting a spell into a ring, use a scroll as the magical source for the ring?

I know the answer is yes, but I can't find the exact rule for that.  You could also have someone else cast it for you.

I could be wrong on this, but I think the spell is triggered/used EACH day during item creation.  So if you're creating something that takes 3 days, you would need 3 scrolls.

Yes, you're right. I just found the source for this:

A character relying on a scroll to provide the required invisibility spell would need at least 20 scrolls -- one for each day of working on the ring.

So it is possible to make a ring of almost any spell. Which seems a bit over powered. The rules don't state that there is much of a limitation on what can be put into a ring. So you can make a ring of continuous cure minor wounds for an effective spell equal to that of fast healing 1.

( Spell level × caster level × 2,000 gp ) / 2 = (1 * CL1 * 2,000 gp) / 2 = 1,000 gp.

Does this not seem a tad over powered? A point of reference would be the ring of rapid healing.

EDIT: Doing some research, I stumbled on to a page where someone claimed that instantaneous spells cannot be made continuous. Because the word 'continuous' is short form for 'the spell's duration is expanded to a 24hr period.' That's why there is a foot note in the page that states:

If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

Makes sense.

Quote from: phaedrusxy on November 12, 2012, 07:17:32 PM

I could see playing around with him a bit, but I'd suggest not royally screwing him over. He blew a feat on it. Why does he deserve to be punished for one of his feat choices? If you don't like Item Familiars, then don't allow them in the game.

this cannot be emphasized enough.

Don't get me wrong, this is not what I'm after. The campaign starts with this PC in prison, so naturally his ring has been stripped of him for a long time. Rather than the penalties resulting from this being permanent, I house-ruled that they are temporary until he gets his ring back. He only felt withdraw symptoms within the first week of being separated from the item. So a fetch quest begins here (and I'd like for it to be the only one, since they are tedious and offer nothing to a campaign).

However, after the fetch quest is done, what kind of stuff can I do to make the item a bit more significant? I was thinking, on occasion, using the spell Grim Revenge (BoVD), which basically rips his arm off and have the arm beat his silly. If the arm that contains the ring is removed, so is the ring's powers.

... The best thing right now is to embellish the chase as much as possible. Have near-grabs where the ring rolls away, falls into a cavern for a dungeon adventure. Inside they will fight a level-appropriate dragon, which probably means a wyrmling of some sort...

Basically, don't just make this a little, forgettable task. You have a plot on your hands.

This is a neat idea and it has inspired me to make into a chase. Your idea of using goblins and wyrmling fits well into what I have planned for the campaign. The drawback is that I cannot keep it away from him for too long. He is rather gimped without it, having invested spell slots and skills in it.

Because of the ego contest that ensues when an item like this is given to a new owner, I was thinking it might have a Lord-of-the-rings-esque twist on it. A Goblin comes to own it, the ego contest ensues and the item begins to taunt him and mold his inferior will. This 'Goblin Frodo' will then be convinced by a friend that it's imperative that it be destroyed, it's cursed they say! So they venture to some underground setting and try to destroy the item in a poor-man's-mount-doom type lava pool. This works well in Sharn.

This may not be as epic as the LotR books, but there is some detective work that needs to be done. Since the party is generally unscrupulous, houses may be broken into and knees might be bludgeoned to get some info.

I wonder how this would look to the characters, not the players. Like the ring being too powerful for the goblin to even hold...

Plus the player might boast "I can kill goblins with my ring" which is all sorts of wrong

"My precious?"

Ages ago, back in prehistory, I ran an evil campaign that was Undead only.  The premise was that each of the PCs were the great enemies of a given kingdom/region throughout history, and that they had been returned through some hocus pocus, presumably to resume their badness.  Good times (no pun intended).

This premise sounds so cool. If i was not committed to what I have already written, then this would be what I run. Consider your idea stolen.

They will object most vehemently, to greater effect, with the end desire of conquering the evil doer instead and taking his stuff.

You make a good point.

... Which left only the Super Villains to oppose their plans.

I think if I was to couple this with the previous quote, this would make an interesting twist on RHoD. Now, I have not read all of RHoD to judge that this is a good course of action, so I'm still open to suggestions. Evil based adventures are always welcome.

I'm starting up a new campaign. The players will be starting off at ECL 6 in the Eberron campaign setting, in the city of Sharn. I've been looking through published adventures to start me off in a direction, but all of them seem to focus on good aligned PCs vanquishing evil. When reading through adventure hooks and backgrounds, I tried to imagine what this adventure would be like if the players were on the evil side, and I came to the conclusion that it would be a tremendous amount of work for me to modify an adventure to be from the point of view of the evil dude.

So, fellow minmaxers, could you recommend any adventures that I could kick start my campaign with? Or if any published adventures could be easily modified to be from the PoV of the evil guy (ie. BBEG hires party to do his dirty work).

Pick a rather bland location, such as a sparse forest or in the middle of a field. How would you alter the environment, the enemy or the encounter mechanics so that the players are forced to fight in a way that is not a standard smash-and-grab?

My thoughts:
- Throwing a rust monster at the group is always interesting.
- Ditto for Acid.
- Wet weather might cause a field to be marshy, resulting in difficult terrain. Or perhaps heavy wind.
- A field could have boulders, invoking climb checks.

For the purpose of this thread, keep it at around CR 5.

I will be starting a campaign in the Warhammer 40K universe. The DM spent a considerable amount of time converting a GRUPS WH40K rulebook and modifying the d20 Modern rules to fit into it. Psionics is the bread and butter of the game and yours truly will be taking part in that. We are using a point buy system for EVERYTHING (feats, power points, skills, etc), where you exchange XP points for these things. He has also limited us to only the Psion abilities and powers.

So, given that I basically have a Psion and core non-psionic classes what are my options for making a rogue-like character with psionic powers? What kind of feats/powers should I invest in (Core books, plus complete psionic and expanded psionic books)?

As a side note, I'm in the process of asking if the Psychic Rogue variant is allowed. EDIT: This class is allowed.

I'm not quite sure what my thinking was at the time, but you do make a good point. A static DC should suffice.

I've been rather busy and have not be able to read your posts. But I've noticed that it may have been overkill when one player ended up at 1 CON after being unable to stabilize. So, I applied a slight fix:

Stabilization:
Instead of rolling a percentile dice, the player rolls a Fortitude save. The DC is 18 + # of HD the character has. Our Dwarven fighter took Great Fortitude and has very little trouble stabilizing. I also allow other players to aid the struggling character with a heal check (DC 10). Every point above DC will be added to the character's Fortitude roll, increasing his odds at stabilizing.

This modification has worked well and both I and my players are happy with it. Since the recovery rate of CON damage is longer, I give the players an opportunity to rest. Currently they're in prison and have many days of rest. Previously they were able to purchase rooms in a lavish Inn, giving them the ability to restore damage at 1.5 times regular rate. And, IMO, this is a harder campaign (players were not given many points to distribute and started off as commoners).

Maybe instead of con damage you can give penalties like dragon age and cure lights and above heal them one at a time?

The penalties were random so it may be more work than you were looking to do though.

Where does one find Dragon Age?

Except that makes death at low-levels extremely dangerous, and penalizes people for days for taking risks. Say the cleric just barely manages to get to the fighter after the fight against a kobold patrol.
Fighter has 2 CON.
Great.

No ability damage healers available before Level 4 or 5 in most parties.

I like it, but this major flaw is crippling

This may be true, but I find that the players become evermore ingenious with their tactics. When at full health, they charge into combat. When nearly crippled, they sneak, diplo, backstab, and use skills in ways that I never thought of. This, I believe, is what the game should be about. Though, I am very much aware that it can be stifling, so walking this fine line is tricky.