Empowering Pre-existing Items Suggestion

Played around a good bit with this finally.

Love the system.

One idea.... a way to "preview" the price of an empowerment before it's actually done?  The script is obviously getting the price before doing the actual enhancing as it can tell you 'nuh-uh" if you go over your caster level GP limit.... it would be great though if there could be a "preview" commmand (something like ;;mi empowerprev nameofpropertyhere).  It's easy enough to add properties to an item until you bang into the cap, but for those of us who prefer more careful planning, it'd be nice to see what the final product price will be before there is a final product, especially given you can lower certain enhancements down to the bare minimum value, but not entirely remove it (lower a +4 dex enhancement on an item down to a +1 for example), which causes the "price" of the item to go up in general(just like in the toolset, multiple properties, even low level ones, on the same single item cost more together than they are worth as single properties on two separate items).

I vote for this!

At least have it display its sum before you press 'make it so'.

An excellent idea. Would save me using the toolset so much, especially when the item is pre-enchanted and I have no clue what I can even do with it.

Nice idea, I agree! ^^

smallish rant?:

In regards to specialist wizards - in NWN it was implemented terribly. The 'bonus' spell slots are only supposed to be for spells of your specialty school - but they can be used for any spell. The restricted schools are pre-selected (which stinks), and instead of being able to choose your *two* prohibited schools (except specialist diviners who only choose one) - NWN only prohibits one school and doesnt let you pick.

There were design reasons for this whole debacle, because they couldn't implement anywhere near the full list of arcane spells, and some schools either had too few spells in them, or had the spells that were most useful for handling challenges in the OC (try battling Mephistopheles with a specialist Evoker who cant use conjuration spells and therefore can't inflict acid damage - its not so much fun) - so Bioware adjusted things.

Take for example the two schools in default NWN which contain, I believe, over 90% of the arcane combat spells - Evocation and Necromancy. These two schools are available no matter what school you specialize in because an arcane caster PC without them would be ineffective in most fights.

Due to these details, if anybody asked me, I would *strongly* advise them not to specialize their Wizard. Too much is lost mechanically, and almost nothing is gained. If you wish to RP that your arcanist is a specialist in a school, I recommend simply taking all the spell focus feats for that school and always keep a lot of spells from that school memorized.

Back on topic - regarding crafting - I am pretty sure in PnP specialist wizards were able to craft an item that required a specific spell so long as they could get a scroll with that spell - but I vaguely remember that if they could not use the scroll, they would need someone to else to read it at the right point during the enchanting process.

A possible way for to address this, so that the crafting system is closer to PnP would be to make an additional check in the script so that if the crafter does not have the spell memorized and available currently, then it checks the crafting station for a scroll of the spell (and we could hand-wave that the crafter pays someone - maybe Bluebeard or something - a few gold to read the scroll for them).

This way the magic that is rare and restricted still remains so - either you have to hunt for a very rare scroll (which is just an awesome sort of quest for a spellcaster PC), or you have to pay another PC to scribe one (and this might encourage non-wizards to take the scribe scroll feat) - and yet if you invest in the proper feat, you will not be unilaterally denied from crafting any items except those that require you to follow a specific deity.

I agree that one should limit oneself by RP and choice rather than be limited by the imperfect engine.  That's what I've done with my wizard, whom I thought might never be able to use Fire spells, but eventually she did, and I'm glad there was no specialist school for me to make the mistake of choosing to limit that.

And, as Dave brings up, I'd also like to see the crafting use scrolls.  My Wizard discovered recently that the Great Purple Dragon god of our universe had changed the requirements for a certain craftable ring to a Cleric spell, so my Wizard can no longer make a ring she used to be able to make at will.  Finding or getting a scroll made would generally be much easier than finding a cleric with the feats and time available to make the ring.

That's all nice to say now, doesn't really benefit current characters at all however. If I had known about this system years back when I created my character I would have gone that way too (and yeah, I do keep as many illusion spells memorised for Anna from all spell levels, dave. Even ones like illusionary monster, etc which doesn't really benefit at all in combat for her. I also picked all the relevant epic spell feats XD).

I created Anna on a whim since I wanted a more focused wizard with Farstep Master PrC than what my elven AA could provide for me. I can't change it via relevel scales since wizard is the first level; that would have been my first choice. :V

Can School of Magi be changed with leto?

No idea about changing specialty with LETO - but if the crafting gets adjusted to use scrolls, then your choice will no longer penalize you.

I think adding the ability for the spell requirement to come from a scroll would be a great idea. It would possibly open the door for more classes to get into creating items. Having the correct feat, class, deity, materials, gold, xp AND spell is just (sometimes) too much hassle to create an item. It really needs to be thought out from character creation, and at creation (or new player) it might not have been a direction you was thinking of going... ...
Someone can always provide the materials and gold. If they could provide the required spell on a scroll it could make the whole process easier. No need to rest to set up the spell. It opens the doors for more sorcerers/bards/other casters to take up the crafting feats too, because with the limited spell selection they get, they kind of have to choose what item(s) they want to make.

The question I'm asking though is what is the current reason the system doesn't already use scrolls and instead needs the spell to be known/memorised ? I'm sure must have a reason behind his spell input method ...

Offhand I think specialziation can be changed via leto.

One issue I have had with leto is that it requires some editing to open aenea characters (if they have *any* aenea feats... which I believe even includes the player-tools granted at level 2 of every base class and level 1 of many prestige classes).

Such edits *are* possible though... one of of my last laptops, I had my DM avatar edited to included every feat, even the aenean ones.  I just don't have access to that hard drive anymore and can't recall offhand what leto files need to be edited to accomplish that again.

Specialization might be able to be changed with a server-side Leto edit (not as DM, but as server admin). I'd have to experiment with someone's character to find out for sure. I'll make a couple of testing PCs to do it.


Enchanting via scrolls was not implemented since I was building the system based on 3rd Edition D&D, which requires the spellcaster to have needed spells prepared (or known, in the case of sorcerers and bards).

Straight from the Dungeon Master's Guide:
- in regards to enchanting wands: "The creator must have prepared the spell to be stored (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard)..."
- for enchanting wondrous items: "If spells are involved in the prerequisites for making the item, the creator must have prepared the spell to be stored (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard)..."
- for creating rings: "If spells are involved in the prerequisites for making the ring, the creator must have prepared the spell to be stored (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard)..."

-- The same is said for every type of magical item. As I see it (and the game designers may have intended), an item enchanter should know a spell inside and out in order to bind it's power into an item (and not just use a bit of pre-enchanted paper that basically triggers the end of a spell).

Another suggestion for empowerment ....

could we get a method of *removing* properties?

I find that often when mucking about with empowering items, I'll put one one property (like +5 constitution), and then try to add another property, and the finished product value is too high. I will then try to fix that my re-doing the +5 con down to +2 con, HOWEVER, even though the +2 con is less value than the +5 con, and the +2 *replaces* the +5, when I attempt to lower it, the system is trying to add the replacing +2 con to the item's total value *including* the +5 con, so it registers as too high value to muck with.

I've also accidently mucked up items by accidentally adding a property to an item after forgetting to switch the target with the select too.... not so bad for easily replaceable items, but for rarer and irrreplaceable items (5th year rings being my most mucked up), that tiny mistake is a big one.... and there's no way to undo the mistake. Even if the item's value is low enough to allow me to reduce the incorrectly applies property down to it's bare min (+10 str down to +1)..... I still cannot remove that +1, so the item will always have the property. It would be better to just disempower that property off all together.

Don't think the disempowering would be much of an issue either.... 99% of the properties are bonuses, so the player would be simply removing a bonus. For that last 1%, the "usable by" sets of properties, this is simply a non-issue. A player removing a "usable only by evil" prorperty is no different than the player adding "usable only by good" and "usable only by neutral" properties (which cost nothing at all).

If the scripts can be re-worked to allow for removing things (hopefully at no cost, or very very low cost), this would allow for getting long-loved itdems down low enoug in value to add properties that have only recently become available and then DM upgrades to re-add the ones that were removed.

It seems like it would be a lot of work for , and also a good bit of work for the player.... but it might be preferable to those long-loved and heavily upgraded items never being eligible for having the new properties empowered on them due to the item being too valuable.

My vote also for removing properties.  Still haven't found another spawn of my Bone Leech sword to remake what I accidentally messed up and makes the item overcost for any other upgrade.  Fortunately my item is useable as is.  But I have found irremovability very annoying, for all the reasons listed.

Oh, yes, I'd be all over the remove properties ability!