User talk:FiddleSticks96/FS96 Sandbox:Items

Inconsistencies

I'll just say a couple things that you may want to take into consideration:

• What's up with the changing caster level? The stated caster level is 10th for the 1/day effects, many of which are what the SRD has as 8th and 9th level spells (note the wording there, since I do not think meteor swarm and its ilk in any way constitute 9th level spells) which would not be useable at said caster level. Then there is a caster level 20 for things like fireball which don't even give a lot of power. All in all, I find most of the powers that this item grants pretty weak when I imagine it as an artifact. Fireball and cone of cold are practically 1st level spells in power. No joke. So you may want to consider some other options (fire storm isn't a bad choice and there are quite a few solid homebrew effects if you are open to using those) and maybe set the caster level to a default 20 no matter what the effect is. This really isn't giving that huge of a power boost; it's just making it fair across levels and actually conceivable that the horn could create a level 9 spell.
• On that note, something as strong as an artifact should allow the user to control the elementals he summons (or, at the very least, prevent them from attacking him and his allies). As written, this could go from being a cool item to your party's downfall. And then it will never, ever be used again by that party and it will have lost all meaning if there was much risk of summoning a group of elementals who wreck them when they were hoping for something helpful. That inclusion is one of the reasons why I'm not a huge fan of chance; taking too many variables out of the players' control rarely enhances the game experience (unless by 'enhances', you mean 'cheapens' and 'demeans'). It just leads to too much frustration to be useful. That said, I would either improve the user's defenses against the effects or improve their control over it. Sure, it doesn't go well with your fluff, but fluff text is mutable.

That's all for the time being. Perhaps it will help. - TG Cid 04:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

How about now? I beefed it up and gave the caster control over the spells (but not protection). To offset the lack of weakness, I set it up so no one owner can keep it for very long. I don't know how to make a table so if you told me how that would be a big help. FiddleSticks96 20:14, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I think protection should still be part of the item's benefits, personally, especially given the text concerning the item's liking for its users (unless killing the user in an earthquake is and extreme example of tough love). I would suggest that, if you insist on having a mechanic to exhibit its favor and leaving its user, to give it a set number of charges (after which it is lost) or have it leave automatically after the time period expires. But during the time that it's there, the user should have high resistance (if not immunity) to most of its effects. I also added in the table for you, along with relevant links for all your effects. - TG Cid 23:02, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Can't argue with that logic. I don't want to give it a set number of charges but the immunity to the trumpet's powers make sense. I hadn't thought that far ahead after I changed how it worked. Thanks for putting in the table and the links but what is that "<no.wiki/>" thing? FiddleSticks96 02:20, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

The nowiki tags were intended to keep the asterisks from forming a bulleted list (which is what asterisks do by default when wiki-coded). Unfortunately, I messed up on placing the tags, so it came out much fuglier than intended. This has now been fixed so that it actually denotes the meanings of the asterisks as it was meant to do. In defense of the number of charges, a possible suggestion is that the charges automatically recharge after it changes owners (or when it disappears). That way, they are practically infinite but still maintain the desired flavor of never sticking to a particular owner. Just something to think about. - TG Cid 04:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)