Re: My take on 3e helms

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Tue 19 Jul, George Williams wrote:
> The portal Master Feat refers (I believe) to the multiple gates that exist
> around the Realms. This could well be considered a local effect without
> invalidating either my own thoughts or the feat mentioned. As I do not have
> the 3.5 Realms books (I play 3.5 Spelljammer/Planescape) I could be
> mistaken. This does dovetail with what I have garned of them from one of my
> players who DMs a Realms game.
>
> I still think that an item pretty much only distributed by the Arcane would
> probably have a few more prerequisites for its creation. Otherwise everyone
> would be making them, and that would run counter to the originally published
> version of the setting. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I
> try to build on that foundation rather than rewrite my baseline axioms. Both
> approaches are valid and make for DMing a good game, Im just pointing out my
> own approach.

As I understood the logic, the Arcane distribute Helms which work
better than a simple enchantment of the "Create Helm" spells
would give you, without say a 30th level enchanter. This is at
least the case as far as tonnage goes.

I believe it was also suggested that they seemed to be able to
sell Helms cheaper, than you would expect if they were just using
the conventional enchantment process.

Now, your choice would seem to depend on whether you have the
Arcane (Mercane) in your campaign.

If you do, and they supply most of the Helms, then they should
have some sort of edge, such as a Helm Forge in the core of a sun
in a highly magical crystal sphere.

If not, then you use their prices as the basis for the
enchantment process, and tweak the enchantment rules so that the
"Create Helm" spells on enchantment give you something equivalent
to the standard listed Helm tonnages, at the standard listed
costs for Arcane helms.

Maybe the Arcane are doing something akin to necromancy, and
transfering the ability to spelljam of a creature which has it as
a natural ability, into each Helm as it is made, killing the
creature in the process.

Maybe the Arcane have an artifact which assists them in the
creation of Helms.

Maybe you use bits of a broken crystal sphere as a component in
Helm creation.

Whatever, I would suggest the DM decide whether the Arcane have
an 'edge' in Helm making that extends beyond the influence of
their merchant empire, though it is not really needed to define
exactly what this edge is, unless this forms a possible campaign
scenario.

If they do have an edge, then work backwards from the Arcane
helms to the sort of quality you get from the 'standard' Helm
enchantment process, such as the low tonnage without an
extraordinarily high level enchanter.


Didn't the Vodani make their own helms in considerable quantity?
I don't know if considering this might give some sort of angle on
working out process and costings for Helm creation.


Cheers!

> On 7/18/05, Lawrence Morris <ray_morris@?????????.net> wrote:
> >
> > A note on the Craft Portal feat.
> >
> > In the 3.5 upgrade, they removed that feat and created a Portal Master
> > feat (I'm not quite sure of the name) in the Player's Guide to Faerun book.
> > The reasoning was that Craft Wondrous Item was good enough for the creation
> > of portals.
> >
> > The Portal Master feat (or whatever its called) cuts the cost of portal
> > creation. I think it would be better to go with this model. YMMV.
> >
> >
> > George Williams <george.williams.iv@?????.com> wrote:
> > A few comments on Craft Wondrous Item in relation to helms.
> >
> > In the Stronghold Builders Guide (A book that has a lot on wondrous
> > architecture which can be transposed to SJ) they include the Craft Portal
> > feat. This feat allows you to create a permanent gate to another plane in
> > your stronghold. It also requires a caster level of 17. Something like
> > this would, IMHO, be far mnore appropriate for making helms than
> > Craft Wondrous Item.
> >
> > Helms are extremely powerful magic, I would say minor artifact level. They
> > are only so common because of the Arcane (or Mercane if you prefer).
> >
> > I will try to write up a sample Craft Helm feat later, but dinner just
> > arrived and I am starving!
> > Peace,
> > George "Loki" Williams
> >
> >
> > Ray Morris

--
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/