OK, so I've started reading Salvatore's Cleric Quintet novels as I've finished all the books in the Drizzt series. I'm only about 70-80 pages into the first book so far but was intrigued by the Necromancer's Stone that Barjin is carrying. I thought a stone like it might make a nice item summons (like kithix). So here's my idea, comments welcome as I've never even tried to make an item before.

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It might be cool to make it loot found on one of the liches guarding kangaxx's body parts or the lich with the Nether Scroll.
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Necromancer's Stone

This powerful summoning stone has been carried by many evil spellcasters in search of greater power over the years. It's origins are a mystery but there is no doubt it is a powerful magical device. Once a day, when called upon, the stone can animate a fearsome skeleton warrior from nearby remains. This warrior follows the commands of the summoner until slain or unsummoned. In addition, this stone is capable of overpowering nearby undead and bending their will to that of the spellcaster. This ability will temporarily weaken the stone however and may only be used once per day.

1/day cast Summon Skeleton Warrior (as per the mage/cleric spell at 15th level)

1/day can use Turn undead like that of a high level evil cleric (don't know if this is possible but it would be great!)

Only useable by
Evil Characters
Spellcasters (mages, clerics, bards)
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Let me know what you think and if it would be possible. It might be cool even without the turn undead ability. If nothing else it would save a spell slot from skeleton warrior. Lata.

It would be pretty easy to use the 7th level Mage spell, Control Undead. And, of course, the Animate Dead is easy.

Of course, once you get to Spellhold and start to to use the

WARNING: DO NOT HIGHLIGHT UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT LIMBURGER
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cheese, you will never have to cast another Animate Dead in your game.

But, I guess there's not much difference between cheesing the Necromancer Stone and cheesing the Kitthix Figurine...

I would say it is a wonderful idea, though it would be a very easy to abuse.

[ 04-21-2003, 03:12 AM: Message edited by: Thorfinn ]

<font color=white> This is pretty easy to create (turn undead is even possibly).

Great idea ;) </font>

<font color="gold">Great idea, slim. And as Annatar said, this item can definetly be made without much effort. ;) </font>

Possible, how?

This is my turn ;) .

<font color=white> You have my blessing Vedran ;) [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

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ive made it now, but it still needs the finishing touch. hang in there

Hey! That's not nice!

I would suggest making a non-evil version, too. Evil already has quite a lot of sweet items, particularly within the item packs, where it seems most decent items are written for evil, or at least not restricted from them.

Sweet idea SlimJim, i like all the ideas here except the good version. the whole necromancy thing fits in with evil, and since i never play good, leave it evil!! :D

While I agree it fits in better with evil only, I am looking from the point of view of game balance. Right off-hand, all I can think of that evil can't use that is of any significance is Azuredge, though there are plenty of compensating items available nearly as early, like Neb's Nasty Cutter. Most of the great weapons and items are non-aligned, like FoA, CF (both), Foebane+FFlar, Sanchu, SotM, etc. For every good-aligned item I can think of, like Robe of Archmagi, there are variants of all flavors.

Seriously, how would you balance it out? What item would you add? Or would you do something like limit Imp Kitthix to good characters only?

Thorfinn... what about a certain Paladin only sword... ;)

<font color=white> Not to mention my custom katana [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

I thought about mentioning Carsomyr, but decided against it, since it is actually limited by class, not by alignment. While true that the class is limited to a particular alignment, that would be like saying that Scarlet Ninja-To is a Lawful-only item.

To prevent confusion here, let's compare items an evil mage can use vs. items a good mage could use. I am hard pressed to come up with something one can use that the other cannot, or at least that does not have a version for his alignment. With the exception of things the mage wouldn't use anyway, like Neb's Nasty Cutter, I can't think of any items which would give one one an advantage over the other. So if you are planning to give an item which casts one of the most useful summons to an evil mage, you should consider coming up with something to balance it for the good mage.

If you really want to limit Skel Warriors to evil, it seems to me you might want to limit Planetars to good...

Thanks for the replies guys. I didnt' even think of the mage spell control undead, that should work just as well. I was brainstorming some ways to flesh out the item. At first I thought to make it look like an ioun stone colored black or dark purple, but then thought maybe the sun gem colored black/purple instead. Either way i think it would look cool (if you can even change the color on an item?)

I'll do some more brainstorming to see if I can come up with a game balancing good summons too. I'll have to think about what kind of creature to call. Maybe a neutral one too so that all my bases are covered. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. Lata

Sounds good. Maybe if you designed a mod with it too, make it so Cespensar or Cromwell can forge it into something.. maybe a shield? i think that would be really cool, but it kinda takes away from the items speciality. its for necromancers. i say make it only available to necromancers.

Been doing some brainstorming the last few minutes about a good and a neutral only summons. Here is an idea with the intent of balancing the Necromancer Stone's skeleton warrior (one of the better summons in the game).
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Butter Knife of Balduran

Legends often speak of Balduran's Butter Knife. The hero would allow no other utensil to touch his condiments. It is believed that his mother gave the ornate butter knife to him as an eighteenth birthday gift. While outwardly the knife appears to be nothing but a cooking utensil, by utilizing proper command words, it becomes an artifact of great worth. Speaking one such word will cause the knife to extend into the form of a self floating sword of destruction. This sword has numerous resistances and is completely immune to physical damage. Another such command word causes a phantom blade to leap out of the fingers of the summoner. This blade strikes as a +3 enchanted weapon but does an extra +10 damage to undead.

1/day Summon Mordenkainen's Sword (as per 7th level mage spell)

1/day Cast Phantom Blade (as per 5th level mage spell)

Useable by:
Good Characters
Spellcasters (mages, clerics, bards)
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Well let me know what you think. I have no idea if Balduran was good or not but I thought it fit in with the idea of a good aligned summon item. I think it might be just a bit overpowered as Mordy Sword is a great summons plus adding the phantom blade. I never use phantom blade myself so don't know if it's any good but it seemed to fit with the idea of a sword summons. I guess you could substitute the cleric's flame blade instead of the phantom blade. Or if still to powerful, just do the mordy sword.
The Necro Stone used a level 5 and a level 7 mage spell and this summons uses the same levels 5 and 7. Oh well, enough rambling. Let me know what you think and I'll try to come up with a neutral oriented one.

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It might be kinda cool to put the butterknife on the table in Dradeel's room in the asylum. Don't know much about Balduran but I thought I read that Dradeel was one of his travelling companions. Would be cool for him to have the knife. They never took it away because they thought it was just a plain knife or something. Just another idea.

Damn! Cant seem to pass some problems with the stone. one the more annoying problems is that the control undead doesnt work the way i want! it allows saving throws and indeed cares a damn lot about resistances! there are also a few other minor problems i cant seem to fix. Ill keep trying though [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Cool, thanks for working on it Raistlin. I'm kinda pumped to see how it works!

Are you sure you want it to bypass resistances and saves? That is mega-powerful, particularly if you used it to gain control of key undead like the alhoon in the temple district sewers...

Oh, BTW, the butterknife looks interesting (there are a couple out there, though) but you don't need the phantom blade to balance it. One mordies sword is a great plenty.

[ 04-22-2003, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Thorfinn ]

Erm... Turn Undead doesn't allow any Save or Magic Resistance...

Erm... Turn Undead doesn't allow any Save or Magic Resistance... </font>[/QUOTE]<font color=white>It is indeed... level based (nullifying the Saves or MR) </font>

right, thats a pretty good point, even though the alhoon isnt an undead creature, its just a type of illithid. the only problem now is that using it will result the user casting the control undead spell through the stone repeatedly! i just want to figure out what thats all about before releasing it.

[ 04-23-2003, 08:03 AM: Message edited by: Raistlin Majere ]

S****! This thing is getting really frustrating! Either he "casts" it on one target without really doing anything, or then he casts it on every undead creature ONE AT A TIME! anyone have any clue whats going on?

<font color=white> Raistlin Majere, send it to mrsayang at hotmail dot com.. So I can have a look at it, and see if I can fix it for you (though I still find it rather strange that you took it on you to create it.. because Vedran already stated he would like to create it, but no harm done)

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Have you tried casting the spell itself a few times to see how it works? I don't recall it being all that great, certainly not enough to bypass a mordies for, but that was probably because the undead were saving or resisting.

And, yah, I know turning is level-based, but it seems to me that if you bypass save and MR, you retain the best features of both turning and spell casting, making it a cast-and-attackable version of turning.

Annatar, I guess I am not too familiar with the conventions here. Are you saying that once someone puts dibs on it, everyone else backs off? Wouldn't it be better to have several variations of the item, so that you can choose the most appropriate one? For instance, bypassing MR/Save might be necessary for ToB, but makes for some odd cheese in SoA, like controlling the lich in the Temple Ruins, and making him stand in the lava until he is near death...

Oh, look at that! i didnt really read the other posts that well(and i started making the item right after the post came out, i just didnt post anything), so i didnt noticed Vedrans posts. Im guessing his item will be better(if hes still making it), since i havent created many items before. just testing really, and cant seem to make it work the way i want, so ill be sending it to you so you can take a look at it, Annatar.

Sorry if i appeared to be rude, or something like that. it was totally unintentional [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Edit: Ive sent it now, Annatar. see if you can make it work properly, and let me know what you did to it, so i can prevent it in the future.

[ 04-23-2003, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Raistlin Majere ]

<font color=white> Raistlin Majere, I have been tinkering with it.. without succses (you want it to turn undead wasn't it? because the *.spl file was corrupted, we need the file a priest/paladin uses to turn undead.. this was something strange [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

I will continue tomorrow because Ive a serie to watch and school work to do.. I'll keep you posted. </font>

right. i couldnt find the turn undead ability so i used control undead, since it really does the same as a high level evil cleric turn undead(sheesh) ability. if you can change it to turn undead and still have it as an evil cleric type(that was how it was ordered, right), then be my guest. also, i couldnt name the abilites in the sub icon of the item(does that make any sense? what i mean anyway is the abilitie names like in the wand of fire). hope you can make it work [img]smile.gif[/img] .