Superior Item Rules

Superior items are permanent items that grant special abilities, bonuses or qualities to characters that use them thanks to magic, alchemy, engineering or simply superior craftsmanship (mastercraft).

Superiority Bonus

Some superior items grant a superiority bonus to certain rolls and checks based on its wielder’s character level as follows:

Superiority bonuses do not stack.

All superior weapons grant their superiority bonuses to attack and damage rolls, all superior armor grants their superiority bonuses to AC, and all superior shields grant their superiority bonuses to AC and Reflex saves.

What other rolls and checks a given magic item are described in the individual item’s listing.

Superior Item Abilities

All superior items have special abilities. Some of these abilities are automatically available (listed as Base), others are only available if the item’s superiority bonus is at a certain level and must be upgraded to make those abilities available.

For example, if the item has an ability listed as Superiority +1, that ability becomes available when the weapon’s superiority bonus rises to +1 at or around level 4 at which point the item must be upgraded to have that ability.

Items that are not upgraded still grant the appropriate superiority bonus for the wielder’s level.

The saving throw DC of Superiority items is 10 + level + Superiority bonus.

Creating Superior Items

In order to create a superior item, a character must have the relevant ritual, schematic, formula, or have the appropriate Expertise to attempt to make a given superior mastercraft item. The length of time to create is either determined by the means used to create them such as rituals, or are based on the Expertise item creation rules.

The means of creating Superior items come in the form of instructions on how to do so. These are often closely guarded secrets, but can be for sale or even discovered in the course of an adventure.

The base cost of such items is twice the cost of a Superiority 0 version of the item. Creating a Superior item requires the base item (a weapon, clothing, piece of jewelry, etc) as well as materials worth three quarters of the base cost of the item (this can be adjusted by a Mercantile check to Haggle on the costs of the base materials).

Purchasing Superior Items

If a superior item is available for purchase, its base sale price is twice its creation cost. Shops will typically have items with a superiority bonus of +0 or +1, but at the DM’s desire may have stronger versions as well.

Items that are not upgraded still grant the appropriate superiority bonus for the character’s level, but do not grant the extra abilities for a superiority bonus they have not been upgraded to. (Example: A +1 satchel of endless capacity owned by a level 7 character makes calculations as if its bonus was +2, but does not grant the extra abilities of a +2 satchel.

Discovering Superior Items

A given superior item can be found in treasure is typically upgraded to the appropriate level of the user, but may have a higher or lower Superiority bonus depending on the DM and on the treasure.

Upgrading Superior Items

A given superior item can be upgraded so that it provides abilities up to the appropriate superiority bonus of their wielder.

Such upgrades can be performed by a player character as per the rules for creating superior items at a creation cost that is the cost of creating the item at the desired superiority bonus minus the cost of the item as it is currently.

Upgrades can also be purchased at a base sale cost equal to the cost of the desired superiority bonus minus the cost of the item as it is currently.

Adding Multiple Qualities

Multiple qualities can be added to a given item, but doing so is an costly process as the new crafter must work to preserve all previous work.

A new quality can be added to an item at the cost of 1.5 times the cost of the new quality with that cost being determined by the current superiority bonus of the item. Certain combinations, especially those that add bonuses to the same roll or check can and should be restricted by the DM at their discretion.

Any new quality also has a maximum Superiority scores equal to the Superiority bonus of the highest Superiority Quality minus the total number of qualities.

Example: If an item is Superiority 2 with one quality, a new quality can only be upgraded to Superiority 1 and another uality can be added at Superiority 0, but no other qualities can be added.