The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Efficiency I (2x): An Ancient can operate his magic items with such efficiency and optimization that any magic item continuous, spell-triggered, or otherwise operates at a magnification level of 2x in all aspects of damage, range, area of effect, duration, etc…
Overcharging I(3x): At this level, an Ancient can use multiple charges from items such as wands, staves, and rods (spell trigger items). This allows them to use several functions of an item simultaneously or to magnify the power of one function. When combined with Efficiency I + OverCharging I an Ancient can achieve a 3x affect, or can release 3 different affects from say a staff.
Compression I (4x): At this level, an ancient learns to concentrate and compress enchantments. An ancient can use this ability to enchant an item that could not normally be enchanted due to lack of quality. The effective cost of such an item can be as little as half of what would normally be needed for the desired enchantments. Additionally, this power can be used to magnify an item’s enchantments by doubling its powers’ strength. When combined with Efficiency I + Over Charging I + Compression I, an Ancient can achieve a 4x effect or can release 4 different affects from an item.i like bringing the 2x/3x/4x magnification into Ancients… but it should be noted that enchanting a low quality item would be limited to the 1x standard effect. still can’t push a cannon-ball out of a bb gun
Makes sense, easy to slap a restriction on it that says can only be done upon Epic or Ancient class magic items.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Item Absorption: An ancient gain the ability to absorb energy from magic items such as potions, scrolls, rings, rods, wands, staffs, etc… Absorbing potions directly into their systems allow ancients to (drink) any number of potions without ever having to check a potions compatibility with those already used. Absorbing scrolls allow ancients to cast the spell on the scroll instantaneously at their own level rather than the scrolls. Additionally, absorbed spells have no chance for spell failure when cast. Additionally, this energy can be converted to power the Ancients energy reserve. When combining the Class Abilities: Item Absorption + Magic Item Body an Ancient can replicate the effects of a merged magic item, for as long as he wishes to hold that active enchantment.
Magic Item Body: At this level, an ancient can enchant his own body as if he were a magic item. All enchantments are treated as being at the level of the ancient, regardless of what level he was when they were originally placed. Many Ancients at this level enchant themselves as a receptacle, allowing them to draw power out and cast spells as if they were a normal mage.
this is an old, weird holdover from the ninja document… where ancients couldn’t cast like normal.
Yeah wrong file again, this was suppose to be:
Item Absorption (Stage I)
Magic Item Body (Stage II) (and yes a Ninja hold over)
Magic Item Merge (Stage III) -
@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Item Alteration: You alter an item that provides a certain type of bonus so that it provides a different type of bonus to the same value or roll. For example, you could change a ring of protection +1 so that it provided a natural armor bonus to Armor Class instead of a deflection bonus, or you could change a cloak of resistance so that it provided a circumstance bonus on saves instead of a resistance bonus. Additionally, the Ancient can choose to alter the items enchantment ability to an alternate but equal value. Switching a flaming sword, to a frost sword as an example.
here comes your 200AC fighters, cloud… mebbe we should remind him this is supposed to be for 3.5 ?
The first part of item alteration -
"You alter an item that provides a certain type of bonus so that it provides a different type of bonus to the same value or roll. For example, you could change a ring of protection +1 so that it provided a natural armor bonus to Armor Class instead of a deflection bonus, or you could change a cloak of resistance so that it provided a circumstance bonus on saves instead of a resistance bonus. "
- is an existing 3.5 artificer ability that Kargin abuses regularly.
Its the last sentence that is new.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Creation Genesis: Through this difficult process, Ancients have discovered how to store pieces of their life force in gems; these creation gems allow the Ancients to create significantly more powerful magic items (Ancient items) with significantly less or no expensive material components. This process takes a lot out of an Ancient and some recovery time.
gonna need to define this Genesis ability more
Yeah its not even in the table, I figured that was probably a 30+ class ability, so planned to flush that out later.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Optimization I: An Ancient has mastery of metamagic when applied to channeling its effects through magic items. A metamagic feat level increase upon a spell is reduced by one when applying a metamagic feat to create or use a magic item. This may be applied to single or multiple feats (i.e. feat chain)
Optimization II: An Ancient has mastery of metamagic when applied to channeling its effects through magic items. A metamagic feats level increase upon a spell is reduced by two when applying a metamagic feat for the purpose of creating or using a magic item. This may be applied to single or multiple feats (i.e. feat chain).this is largely taken (swiped) from the Incantatrix’s Improved Metamagic fcheat (page 32, magic of faerun) and should be okay - with the added caveat that you cannot use this to reduce metamagic costs below 1 (as it states in the original).
There are a couple of classes that do this, I turned it into more of a class feature and figured Ancients would be more skilled at applying Epic Feats to magic items than others.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Magic Item Master: Any pre-epic magic item found or made by the Ancient works to optimized efficiency, while in the hands of the Ancient, it operates at the Ancients class level +2. Additionally, a pre-epic Ancient could only activate a spell-triggered item once per standard action or twice if duel-wielding wands; an Ancient with Magic Item Master can activate and perform three spell-triggered actions per standard action.
again, see notes on Ignore Level Limits… and ECL vs Ancient Class Level. your definitions need… defined
ECL is Effective Character Level, which is a bad definition as well since we don’t play with effective character level. Caster Level (CL) is essentially synonymous with Ancient Class Level definition probably should just keep it consistent and leave it CL.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Disrupt Item: An ancient can scramble the enchantments on a magic item by touching it. When touched the item must immediately make a saving throw vs. disintegration. If it fails, its magic is rendered inert, and the item essentially becomes nonmagical. An ancient with this power can repair the item restoring it’s powers given 1d4+1 turns. The power can be used greatly during combat; the ancient need only make an attack roll against ac. 10 minus any modifiers for dexterity to hit the item. Partly concealed items, such as a sheathed dagger, can incur an ac. bonus of -1 to –5 at the DM’s discretion. Items that are completely concealed, such as those in a character’s backpack, cannot be targeted. This ability extends to constructs.
i’d add non-intelligent constructs there… ones with free will it either won’t work on or it’d have limited effect… can’t go around TKO’ing Warforged with a tap on the ass
Good catch…I’ll note that.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Magic Item Hardening: At this level, an ancient gain the ability to permanently seal a magic item. This is a more powerful version of the permanency spell. An item that has been sealed with this power cannot be opened or re-enchanted. Any attempt to do so will either fail or destroy the item. The advantage to sealing an item like this is that they cannot be destroyed by area-of-effect spells or effects such as Mordenkainen’s disjunction and cannot be temporarily disabled by dispel magic or other similar effects.
hardened items can still be destroyed, it just takes a helluva lot more power than any pre-epic efx can generate. and hardened items take 4x longer to build, costing 2-4x as much as their unhardened counterparts.
Ahh ok, easy enough to remedy. I’ll make the edits.
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Ancient Creation: An ancient gain the ability to create Epic and Artifact class items. This power allows an ancient to create a magic item at 80,000gp/daytime and 1/4 the gp cost it would normally take for any ordinary caster. To meet an item’s prerequisites, an Ancient’s effective caster level equals his Ancient Class Level +6.
now hold on a damn minute… normal mages can do 1000 gp/day. an ancient might be the best at crafting magic items, but 80x normal ??? c’mon
(( and if ECL = Ancient Class Level +6, a 10th level ancient would only craft at 16th level… not even Epic ))Again, because of the way we multi-class (even in 3.5) there is no effective character level (ECL) unless your single class then its very simple. Because it does say in the power an Ancients effective caster level (CL) equals his Ancient class Level +6. So in Kargin’s case a 25 Artificer / 1 Ancient (going with the 26 levels, tier 2 model for the example), the CL would be 26; for purposes of Ancient Creation it would be 26 (CL) + 6 = 32 (CL) when creating magic items to meet the required spell prerequisites. Similar to the pre-epic Artificer who can do CL+2, basically making a fireball scroll at level 3, when everyone has to wait until level 5.
I think the words Ancient class level are throwing things off… I’ll make the change to Caster Level (CL).
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@dwarf said in The Ancient - Epic Prestige Class:
Ignore Level Limits: When an Ancient picks up a magic item that’s spell affect uses the Ancient level, not the level limit imposed on the magic item.
now here’s where things get a smidge hairy… see, magic items are created around a base core item - then modified to hold a magical “charge” or effect. when built correctly, you wind up with a wand/weapon/ring/whatever thats balanced to exude said effect for a limited time.
when you try to FORCE more magic thru that item, bad things often happen. kinda like trying to push a .50 cal into a .22 rifle - or a cannon ball outta a bb gun. she just ain’t made to handle that kind of charge.
an epic level item, sure - they’re overbuilt to unleash great honking swathes of magic… so they’ll hold together without complaint but non-epic items ? you could probably (ie safely) push about twice the level of spell thru one (so a 12 dice fireball outta a 6-dice wand, for example) but i don’t know much further you’d go before KABOOM happens…
(i reposted the End of the Powermaster story that talked about when Daren tried it)3.5 Pre-Epic staffs are able to do this, admittedly wands do not, at least not without a lot of feat twiddling. Didn’t seem like it would be a big stretch for a Ancient to do it.
Under Staff Descriptions - https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/staffs.htm
Staffs use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a staff if it’s higher than the caster level of the staff.
