Friday, December 14, 2007

Stones of Kaaliphaan - Minor Wondrous Items

Stones of Kaaliphaan: The Pashak’s of Kaaliphaan have always been amongst the most gifted wizards of the Aeonic States. Early in the Twilight Years, they found a way to imprint stones with magical essence, in order to make their clave defenders more powerful warriors. The essences combined to make their wielder’s even more puissant.

The four most common stones were made of red, green, lavender, or yellow marble or precious stone. Each stone must be worn at the throat, on the forehead, or at the wrist, taking up a magic item slot. The Red stone grants a +1 bonus to initiative. The Green a +1 to Reflex saves, the lavender +1 to Fortitude saves, and the Yellow a +1 to Will saves.

Wearing the Red stone with any other stone provides a +2 skill bonus: combining the Red Stone with the Green stone gives a benefit to Hide, with Lavender gives a benefit to Disable Device, and with Yellow gives a benefit to Move Silently.

Combining two the other colored stones provides a +1 to hit with one kind of weapon: Green and Lavender combine to provide a bonus with slashing, Green and Yellow with piercing, and Lavender and Yellow with piercing.

Having a red stone and two other stones provides 2 points of resistance to the kind of weapon the other two stones provide a bonus with.

Having all three stones that grant saving throw bonuses provides a +1 Dodge bonus to AC.

Having all four stones provides their wearer with +1d6 sneak attack damage when used on an opponent who deprived of her dexterity bonus to armor class. This damage stacks with sneak attack damage gained from class abilities or other magic items.

The table below explains various combinations:

Red and Green: Grants a +1 bonus to initiative and a +2 bonus to Hide checks.

Red and Lavender: Grants a +1 bonus to initiative and a +2 bonus to Disable Device checks.

Red and Yellow: Grants a +1 bonus to initiative and a +2 bonus to Move Silently checks.

Green and Lavender: Grants a +1 bonus to Reflex and Fort saves, and +1 bonus to hit with slashing weapons,

Green and Yellow: Grants a +1 bonus Reflex and Will saves, and +1 bonus to hit with piercing.

Lavender and Yellow: Grants a +1 bonus to Fort and Will saves, and +1 bonus to hit with bludgeoning.

Yellow and Lavender and Red: +1 Init, +1 Fort, +1 Will, +1 hit and 2 resistance Bludgeoning, +2 Move Silently and Disable Devices

Yellow and Lavender and Green: +1 Init, +1 Fort, +1 Ref, +1 hit and 2 resistance slashing, +2 Disable Devices and Hide

Yellow and Red and Green: +1 Init, +1 Will, +1 Reflex, +1 hit and 2 resistance piercing, +2 Hide and Move Silently

Lavender and Red and Green: +1 to saves, +1 to hit with weapons, +1 dodge bonus to AC

All stones: +1 Init, +1 all saves, +1 hit with and 2 resistance against all weapon damages, +2 Hide, Move Silently, Disable Devices, +1 dodge bonus to AC, +1d6 sneak attack damage.

Light alteration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, bear’s endurance, cat’s grace, or owl’s wisdom; Cost 750 gp each.

Treasure Value: 3rd
NPC Gear: 2nd

Math: pretty much all the bonuses are small, priced at 300 to 500 gp: limited save bonus, small skill bonuses, limited weapon bonuses, very limited damage resistance. The two bonuses that are hefy are the +1 dodge to AC and the sneak attack bonus, worth about 2 K each.

The combined bonuses of four stones are worth much more than 3,000 gp. I figured the fact that this would take up four magic item slots actually lowered their value, which I calculated at roughly (number of item slots taken squared)*2000 gp. It think these work as nifty scaling baubles.

If you use the new MI compendium pricing, which does not assume that stacking abilities scale up in value, then the loss of slots is probably more important. You might price the stones at 500 gp each.

If you don't use slots, they should probably be worth 2,100 or 3,000 gp each, post and pre magic item compendium.

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