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Arcana Evolved states that
AU/E also use a different set of item crafting feats. Most Wondrous Items, previously craftable by a 3rd level spellcaster if they had the aid of a suitably levelled caster or an appropriate item, now require a 12th level caster to take the Craft Constant Item feat. (See my Artificer class for one means of pulling this back the other way a bit).
Until recently I had not thought to sit down and calculate how much this might change the cost of some items, until I needed to know just how much of a discount the PCs might be getting through influence and prestige. A few oddities immediately appeared among relatively common items.
A very simple example is the Amulet of Natural Armor. In D&D3.x the pre-requisite is the Barkskin spell (Lvl 2, caster level 3 but that doesn't come into it) and the price for one of these is calculated as Bonus[squared] x 2000gp (DMG p285). 2000, 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000.
In AU the equation is spell level of the appropriate Beast Skin spell x caster level x 2000gp. 2000, 12000, 20000, 40000, 90000.
I'm having to fudge here a little too ... the rule is that
Speaking of the Ring of Protection. The prerequisite spell for this in D&D3.x is Shield of Faith (a Cleric only spell, which means all those rings out there had a divine caster/ deity involved in their making ...), a first level spell granting a short-lived +2 to AC.
There is no equivalent in Arcana Unearthed. In fact deflection bonuses are few and far between in the spell lists, exactly 3 spells, Magic Circle (Complex, 3), Energy Sheath (Exotic, 6) and Telekinetic Shield (Complex, 8). And Magic Armour 9a flat +1 or +2 heightened) doesn't really cut it as a replacement (apart from explicitly being unable to be incorporated in a constant item).
There are a couple of other deflection effects available to lowish level classes, specifically the Mage Blade's Shimmering Shield (at 4th level) and the Wind Witchery Wind Blade (could be chosen at 1st, 5th or 10th level before you can get the CCI feat at 12th).
So for now Rings of Protection remain one of those things, and at some point I will formally make Shield of Faith available as a 1st level complex spell granting +1 AC (+1 per n caster levels) for a period of minutes/level, diminished +1 to AC for a period of rounds/level, heightened lasting for a period of 10 minutes/level. I think that will be balanced against the AU version of Magic Armor. It will likely change the price of the ring in a similar manner to the amulet above, but not as drastically.
Another challenging item is the Ring of [Energy/Element] Resistance (or for that matter armour of this type). The D&D 3.5 Resist Energy spell (Level 2, grants between 10 points and 30 points DR against the specific energy depending on caster level) does not exist in AU in favour of the diminished versions of Protection from Elements and Protection from Energy (Simple, 3 & Complex, 4 respectively, absorbs damage from elemental attacks of the specified type up to a caster-level determined limit).
These spells /can/ be placed in permanent items, but if we consider the spell to be cast on the wearer every round the simplest of these rings created at minimum caster level would protect against 30 points of damage every round. (Which might or might not be preferable to protection of 10 points from every elemental attack depending on the situation.) My feel is that is overpowered.
A slightly more interesting take is that the ring recasts the spell whenever the existing protection expires, leaving a narrow window where some damage might actually sneak through, or has to be reactivated as an action like for example the Ring of Invisibility. As a uses-per-day item of course it works fine.
It is a trivial solution here to say that the prerequisite becomes the diminished spell and the effect when placed in an item differs, although there's still the matter of while Rings of Elemental Resistance now have the same caster level as D&D3.x, Rings of Energy Resistance (excluding Fire, for which one would use the cheaper spell) now have a higher caster level and could be expected to have a commisurately higher cost.
The easy solution is simply to say something like "there are recipes for these common items, and they use the DMG costs" but it all leaves me wondering how far through the possible issues Monte Cook and his team thought when they developed the AU/E and why they did not spend what could have been just a line or two of text to provide clarification.
Most items from Chapter Seven in the DMG are available ... with a few exceptions based on some simple guidelines
...
5. Any item whose main feature is an effect that does not appear in [AE] in any way,or that appears in a different version. The easiest thing to do is convert these effected to [AE] effects ... some effects ... do not appear in [AE], but you could incorporate them into the the game as special magic-item only powers."
AU/E also use a different set of item crafting feats. Most Wondrous Items, previously craftable by a 3rd level spellcaster if they had the aid of a suitably levelled caster or an appropriate item, now require a 12th level caster to take the Craft Constant Item feat. (See my Artificer class for one means of pulling this back the other way a bit).
Until recently I had not thought to sit down and calculate how much this might change the cost of some items, until I needed to know just how much of a discount the PCs might be getting through influence and prestige. A few oddities immediately appeared among relatively common items.
A very simple example is the Amulet of Natural Armor. In D&D3.x the pre-requisite is the Barkskin spell (Lvl 2, caster level 3 but that doesn't come into it) and the price for one of these is calculated as Bonus[squared] x 2000gp (DMG p285). 2000, 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000.
In AU the equation is spell level of the appropriate Beast Skin spell x caster level x 2000gp. 2000, 12000, 20000, 40000, 90000.
I'm having to fudge here a little too ... the rule is that
The character can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level must be high enough for her to cast the spell in question...., but there is no clarification of how this applies to diminished versions of the spell. Is it the caster level required to /prepare/ the normal version of the spell, or the caster level required to /have available/ a spell slot of the lower level used to cast it? I'm using the latter, or the +1 amulet would cost 6000gp (caster level 3) (the same as it presumably would if Craft Wondrous Item used caster level). For that you could upgrade your Ring of Protection +1 to a Ring +2 and have the additional +1 apply against more things. So I have gone with the latter interpretation.
Speaking of the Ring of Protection. The prerequisite spell for this in D&D3.x is Shield of Faith (a Cleric only spell, which means all those rings out there had a divine caster/ deity involved in their making ...), a first level spell granting a short-lived +2 to AC.
There is no equivalent in Arcana Unearthed. In fact deflection bonuses are few and far between in the spell lists, exactly 3 spells, Magic Circle (Complex, 3), Energy Sheath (Exotic, 6) and Telekinetic Shield (Complex, 8). And Magic Armour 9a flat +1 or +2 heightened) doesn't really cut it as a replacement (apart from explicitly being unable to be incorporated in a constant item).
There are a couple of other deflection effects available to lowish level classes, specifically the Mage Blade's Shimmering Shield (at 4th level) and the Wind Witchery Wind Blade (could be chosen at 1st, 5th or 10th level before you can get the CCI feat at 12th).
So for now Rings of Protection remain one of those things, and at some point I will formally make Shield of Faith available as a 1st level complex spell granting +1 AC (+1 per n caster levels) for a period of minutes/level, diminished +1 to AC for a period of rounds/level, heightened lasting for a period of 10 minutes/level. I think that will be balanced against the AU version of Magic Armor. It will likely change the price of the ring in a similar manner to the amulet above, but not as drastically.
Another challenging item is the Ring of [Energy/Element] Resistance (or for that matter armour of this type). The D&D 3.5 Resist Energy spell (Level 2, grants between 10 points and 30 points DR against the specific energy depending on caster level) does not exist in AU in favour of the diminished versions of Protection from Elements and Protection from Energy (Simple, 3 & Complex, 4 respectively, absorbs damage from elemental attacks of the specified type up to a caster-level determined limit).
These spells /can/ be placed in permanent items, but if we consider the spell to be cast on the wearer every round the simplest of these rings created at minimum caster level would protect against 30 points of damage every round. (Which might or might not be preferable to protection of 10 points from every elemental attack depending on the situation.) My feel is that is overpowered.
A slightly more interesting take is that the ring recasts the spell whenever the existing protection expires, leaving a narrow window where some damage might actually sneak through, or has to be reactivated as an action like for example the Ring of Invisibility. As a uses-per-day item of course it works fine.
It is a trivial solution here to say that the prerequisite becomes the diminished spell and the effect when placed in an item differs, although there's still the matter of while Rings of Elemental Resistance now have the same caster level as D&D3.x, Rings of Energy Resistance (excluding Fire, for which one would use the cheaper spell) now have a higher caster level and could be expected to have a commisurately higher cost.
The easy solution is simply to say something like "there are recipes for these common items, and they use the DMG costs" but it all leaves me wondering how far through the possible issues Monte Cook and his team thought when they developed the AU/E and why they did not spend what could have been just a line or two of text to provide clarification.
