New Feats

[danielmn]

Erevain has volunteered to make Craft ROd, Craft Staff, Forge Ring, our three missing crafting feats.

[Blindhamsterman]

They're made and sent over to AL.

They dont DO anything, but because they have a constant that can be called, a placeable would I believe be possible to check for them, I've noted on their descriptions that they require DM assistance to actually use.

[AcadiusLost]

These are in with the new hak update, applied last night (hak version 1.73, for anyone who is counting).

Craft Rods: available to anyone with Caster Level 9+
Craft Staff: available to anyone with Caster Level 12+
Forge Ring: available to anyone with Caster Level 12+

Inscribe Rune: 6 versions added, one for each divine caster class. (req. INT 13+)
-For Clerics, Druids, Favored Souls, and Spirit Shamans, available with 3 or more levels
-For Rangers and Paladins, available with 6 or more class levels.
By splitting up the feat, it correctly enforces Divine CL 3+, and is available regardless of the class actually being leveled into.

All are presently used via DM assist only. Please report any problems with in-game availability here so I can hunt down any bugs.

[darrenhfx]

Cheers Tom!

[Brokenbone]

Neat. Now someone post the full "how DMs govern crafting" thing, if that's ever been figured out (other than the old Admin thread about the topic which I've heard was being re-worked?)

Anyhow, as to all the Inscribe Rune business... is there any place (other than an ACR thread) to discuss what it is, and how well or poorly a Rune can get represented in game? Canon background too for those who don't have FRCS & Player's Guide to Faerun on hand.

[AcadiusLost]

In short, the canon source is the FRCS, which describes rune-based magic- basically it's "charging" an item with one use of a divine spell, which triggers either on touch or when the caster touches and wills it to release. Pricing for scribing a rune is similar to scribing a scroll, IIRC.

Practically in terms of ALFA, it'd likely amount to getting items retooled with a single-use Cast Spell property, and/or to place magical traps of the spell trigger sort on doors, containers or surfaces. These would have to be DM-adjudicated and/or toolsetted properly to work right in-game, so the uses would be limited in practice; but very useful for PCs involved in building fortifications in-character. I would expect any tooled trap-type uses of the feat would be 1) tooled in a way such that those with appropriate skills could still disarm them, and 2) tied into a persistent variable, such that they are inactive/gone after one firing, until/unless renewed / recast (re-paid-for) by another Rune Scriber.

For what it's worth, scribed Runes aren't "hidden" in the same way as standard mechanical traps; they ought to be pretty obviously marked, though PCs (and NPCs) may not realize the significance of the runes until having triggered one once.

Like most things crafting, it might be possible eventually to automate/script some of this, but there would be numerous technical and policy hurdles to clear beforehand which make it unlikely to bear fruit.

[Brokenbone]

The FRCS is home of the description of Rune Magic, the feat got slightly rewritten in the Player's Guide to Faerun, with the only material difference being about how pricing for these works. ALFA I'm sure could take its own spin though, as on all things pricing related.

Lots of interesting discussion possible about the easy applications (hey, I have ten rune scribed copper coins in my pack each with a CLW on it!) or harder (I want the walls of my temple to be scattered with bless runes that the faithful are allowed to touch on their wedding day). Didn't want to clutter your forum though! I don't think Inscribe Rune is found on generic D20 sites though PDFs of the source materials are readily available... illegally.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Inscribe Rune [Item creation]

Prerequisites: Int 13, appropriate Craft skill, divine spellcaster level 3rd.
Benefit: You can cast any divine spell you have access to as a rune. You must have prepared the spell to be scribed and must provide any material components or focuses the spell requires. If casting the spell would reduce your XP total, you pay the cost upon beginning the rune in addition to the XP cost for making the rune itself. Likewise, material components are consumed when you begin writing the rune, but focuses are not. See Rune Magic in Chapter 2 of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for details on runes and rune magic.
A single object of Medium size or smaller can hold only one rune. A larger object can hold one rune per 25 square feet of surface area. Runes cannot be placed on creatures, although they can be drawn on equipment a creature carries.
The rune has a price equal to it's spell level x caster level x 50gp (A 0-level spell counts as 1/2 level.) You must spend 1/25 of the price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half the price to inscribe the rune.

Player's Guide to Faerun, Page 40 (3.5 Edition)

[hollyfant]

You must have prepared the spell to be scribed

Does this mean spontaneous casters are out?
And can arcane spells be "runed" too, by a caster who has this feat as well as levels as an arcane caster?

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Benefit: You can cast any divine spell you have access to as a rune.

So that's a no on arcane casters inscribing runes with arcane spells.

This feat came out before we had Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans, which added an errata in the books those came in that for such Item Creation feats, they must know the spell and be able to cast it (in lieu of preparing it, since they cannot prepare spells).

[Brokenbone]

Since the Player's Guide feat description went up, may as well slap up the rest of it from FRCS, though the feat description business got overridden (50gp multiplier vs. 100gp multiplier).

Rune Magic
In the snowbound mountains of the North, dwarves and giants have dwelled for uncounted years as rivals and enemies, and their deeds are only rumored in human lands. In the lore of the shield dwarves, runes - carefully inscribed symbols from the secret characters of the dwarven alphabet - can be carved to hold spells of great potency.

Learning the Runes

In order to use rune magic, a character must learn the Inscribe Rune feat. Rune magic is strongly tied to the dwarven and giant deities and is thus the province of divine spellcasters. Some students of rune magic choose to virtually abandon the normal practice of magic in order to concentrate on their chosen medium, becoming runecasters of great power.

Creating Runes

If you know Inscribe Rune, any divine spell you currently have prepared can instead be cast as a rune. A rune is a temporary magical writing similar to a scroll. It can be triggered once before it loses its magical power, but it lasts indefinitely until triggered. A rune written or painted on a surface fades away when expended, erased, or dispelled. A rune carved into a surface remains behind as a bit of nonmagical writing ever after its magic is expended.
Inscribing a rune takes 10 minutes plus the casting time of the spell to be included. When you create a rune, you can set the caster level at anywhere from the minimum caster level necessary to cast the spell in question to your own level. When you create a rune, you make any choices that you would normally make when casting the spell.
You must provide any material components or focuses the spell requires. If casting the spell would reduce your XP total, you pay this cost upon beginning the rune in addition to the XP cost for making the rune itself.
Inscribing a rune requires a Craft check against a DC of 20 + the level of the spell used. The Craft skill you use is anything appropriate to the task of creating a written symbol on a surface (metalworking, calligraphy, gemcutting, stonecarving, woodcarving, and so on). You paint, draw, or engrave the rune onto a surface and make the check. (Dwarves usually engrave their runes in stone or metal in order to take advantage of their racial affinity for these items.)
If the check fails, the rune is imperfect and cannot hold the spell. The act of writing triggers the prepared spell, wheter or not the Craft check is successful, making the spell unavailable for casting until you rest and regain spells. This is, the spell is expended from your currently prepared spells, just as if it had been cast.
A single Medium-size or smaller object can hold only one rune. larger objects can hold one rune per 25 square feet (an area 5 feet square) of surface area. Runes cannot be placed on creatures. The rune has a base price of the spell level x caster level x 100 gp (a 0-level spell counts as 1/2 level). You must spend 1/25 of its base price in XP and use up raw materials costing half this base price. A rune's market value equals its base price.

Triggering Runes

Whoever touches the rune triggers the rune and becomes the target of the spell placed in it. The rune's creator may touch the rune safely without triggering it, or deliberately trigger it if they so desire. (Rune-makers often carry healing or restorative runes for just this purpose.) The rune itself must be touched in order to trigger it, so an object with a rune may be handled safely as long as care is taken to avoid contacting the rune. Triggering a rune deliberately is a standard action.
As with a symbol spell, a rune cannot be placed upon a weapon with the intent of having the rune triggered when the weapon strikes a foe.
Unlike the spell glyph of warding, the rune spell is not concealed in any way and is obvious to anyone inspecting the object holding the rune. A read magic spell allows the caster to identify the spell held in a rune with a successful Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell's level). [BROKENBONE NOTE, THE 100gp got changed to 50gp in the Guide to Faerun]

Disarming Runes

Runes can be disrmed or deactivated in several ways. A successful erase spell deactivates a rune (DC 15 + your caster level). Touching the rune to erase it does not trigger the rune unless the erase spell fails to deactivate the rune.
A dispel magic spell targeted on an untriggered rune can dispel its magic if successful (DC 11 + your caster level). Untriggered runes are not subject to area dispels. Finally, a rogue can use their Disable Device skill to disable runes (DC 25 + the spell's level), like any magic trap.

Net of this, it's like you're making REALLY FAST scrolls. Scroll writing time is silly as it is, based on 1000gp/day (generous DMs might let you make several cheap scrolls in a day all adding up to 1000gp, don't think the printed rules take note of this), this 10 mins per spell level business is lovely. Especially so if you thought you were heading into a situation where you were expecting to be silenced, or into a heavy combat scene where your big guns could be knocked out by failed concentration checks... again, really good only for buffs/heals, since while you could easily put a "Slay Living" or "Flamestrike" on a rune, enticing an enemy to touch it would be a tough sell. Having a dozen rune tokens of cure spells and whatnot distributed amongst your party is just ducky though, possibly even better than having potions since a rune can be any level, potions you have to stick to sub-3rd (absent master alchemist PRCs and other weird combos of feats).

Lucky dwarves and giants I guess! Still, cool stuff, especially if you're not only sinking a feat into it, but precious skill points as well... unlike potions/rings/wands/rods/wondrous feats, you don't need to do anything artsy/skillful with those.

[AcadiusLost]

My bad for not realizing the feat was updated in PGtF, I'll update the description accordingly with the next hak update, as I expect we'll use the PGtF (3.5E) pricing formula. I'd look at it as a different spin on the consumable (potion/scroll-type) crafting- lots of neat flavor-type things that can be done with it, so long as the crafting cost isn't somehow dangerously low.

More towards the Standards side of things, but could one double the crafting GP cost of one of these things (plus base item cost) and sell them in an NPC merchant? A masterwork shield with one runed charge of Magic Vestment, for example...

[Brokenbone]

Yeah, the PnP pricing might get totally overridden in ALFA was a problem I wonder if we'll have.

For all we know now, any "single charge" wondrous items out in the field right now, could, arguably, be Runes. What's the difference between a stone statuette with a single charge of "Light" created via "Craft Wondrous Item" and a stone statuette with a single charge of "Light" created via "Inscribe Rune"? None would be the answer, I just know you're guaranteed to have a touchable rune on one of them, and the other could be activated in some other way (command word, sing it a song, rub its belly, get it wet, don't know).

So maybe the market value will end up being the same. It's just that the time and cost going into something might differ, with essentially equivalent outputs. Also, once a rune is discharged, something loses a great deal of value, that stone statuette is just a paperweight later, but if you'd scribed a rune on a shield +1, later, you'd still have a rune-free shield +1.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

The difference is rarity. Rune Inscribers can put their product on items, yes, but as you said, tend to be Dwarves and Giants, who don't scribe Runes willy-nilly. Its a religious thing. Not sure they'd be readily available on the market except maybe in dwarven cultures.

[Brokenbone]

Priests of all pantheons seem to sell junk to adventurers, whether potions, enchanted arms/armor, wondrous items, etc. , although they might be cautious about not selling to enemies of the faith.

Same you'd figure would go for dwarves, they love creating all kinds of stuff. Arms, armor, magic goodies, etc.

*link possibly NSFW

But yeah, the FRCS calls out that this is for (a) the North, and (b) dwarves and giants mostly. So maybe that dictates the rarity is all. Except for the fact that ALFA represents a chunk of the North.