Series: wondrous items, leveled

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Portable hole, leveled

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series wondrous items, leveled

Portable hidey hole: This is just like a Portable Hole, but a creature may enter the portable hole and seal it up behind them. Every day, the creature must make a Stealth check with a +10 bonus which is used against all Perception checks. A creature in the hole may make Perception checks at a -10 penalty to hear what’s going on outside.

My old houserules for leveling magic items mean that every piece of magical treasure has the potential to gain power in ways that the players can’t predict. Furthermore, WOTC recently invented the concept of the “rare magic item,” but we don’t yet have lots of examples.

While some items may get mechanically better (for instance, a +1 sword becomes a +2 sword), it’s more challenging to improve items that don’t have numeric bonuses. I thought I’d go through the Wondrous Items in the 4e Player’s Handbook and give examples of how each could gain powers that reflect their history.

Inside the hole it is cramped and dark, with enough air for one Small or Medium creature with no fire. It is possible to eat and perform other quiet activities inside the hole. Loud activities will grant perception checks to nearby creatures.

Portable ~~hobbit~~ halfling hole: This portable hole is not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it is a halfling hole, and that means comfort.

Notch’s Portable Mine Shaft: At the bottom of this Portable Hole is an unusually soft stone surface that, with proper mining tools, can be tunneled through quickly but loudly, in any direction, at a rate of 1 foot/hour. Tunnels and shafts can be excavated up to a maximum distance of 15 feet from the portable hole. If a tunnel breaks through into an area of open air in the real world, the digger can step through into that space. When the portable hole is removed from the surface, all tunnels are removed and the original surface is unharmed.

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flying carpet, leveled

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

This entry is part 12 of 13 in the series wondrous items, leveled

Intelligent flying carpet: PCs who solve a runic puzzle woven into their carpet might discover that it can not only obey voice commands, it can be trusted on independent missions. While it can’t communicate with the user (beyond “fly up for yes, fly down for no,”) it will happily follow orders to rendezvous at certain places at certain times. Furthermore, when its owner whistles, the carpet will speed to his or her side.

Roll 1d6 for personality quirk:

1: The carpet hates one person in the party. It will tip upside down if that person ever boards the carpet first.
2: It has knowledge of some ancient secret, knowledge which it can’t communicate verbally. It will occasionally disoebey orders and take the PCs to the site of important clues.
3: It’s feisty and protective of one of the PCs. It will butt attackers in the knees. It has a small chance of tripping opponents.
4: It has a bad sense of direction. Every time it travels independently, it has a 20% chance of getting lost.
5: It was once a war carpet. It quivers with excitement when it scents battle. It can charge, in which case you do an extra die of damage with lance and spear hits.
6: It is old and threadbare. It wants nothing more than to lie on a floor in a nice study. It rises from the ground grudgingly, often pretending not to hear its command word the first time.

Caravan carpet: The problem with most flying carpets is that they’re not practical transportation for a family. They can only hold 1 person, or at most 1 person and a princess plus monkey.

This carpet can be modified to hold up to 8 people in comfort on overstuffed chairs.

Sports carpet: If properly tuned by an expert weaver, this stylish red carpet’s speed permanently increases from 6′ to 12’+1d4. Every time the carpet is tuned up, reroll the 1d4. When the carpet travels at a speed over 6′, the swooshing note of its passage is audible within 100 feet.

Tags:equipment
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revenant ankh, leveled

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

This entry is part 13 of 13 in the series wondrous items, leveled

Last year I set out to create interesting variations on each of the thirteen Wondrous Items in the 4e Player’s Handbook. I wanted to add a little unpredictability to 4e magic treasure, which can sometimes feel dull because you often know exactly what you’re getting.

The Revenant Ankh is the last of the PHB’s Wondrous Items, and I’m converting it pretty much at the end if the 4e development cycle. From the recent Fifth Edition beta release, it looks like magic items will be more exciting in the new edition: the new “secrets” and “attunement” mechanics can provide the same sort of magic item improvement that I’ve tried to provide in these blog posts.

Let’s wrap up by providing three variations on the Revenant Ankh, a strange item that temporarily resurrects an ally for a few rounds. Some time after you obtain it, you could realize that your Revenant Ankh is actually one of these models.

Dark Revenant Ankh: If you die while clutching this revenant ankh, its powers operate on you. Your life is temporarily sustained by dark energy. If you manage to kill a humanoid creature (getting the killing shot) before you die, you absorb its life energy and you are freed of the effects of the ankh – you are now alive. However, you change faces with the slain creature until the next extended rest.

Revenant Ankh of Slavery: This ankh can be used on a defeated enemy instead of an ally. In this case, you control the creature: it is dominated. Elite or solo monsters and creatures with level higher than the user’s level get a saving throw at the end of each round: on a success, they die.

Revenant Ankh of Slow but Inevitable Revenge: Your risen ally rises with speed 4, +5 to all defenses, and +5 to hit against the creature that killed him.

Tags:level
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