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PCs Controlling Rewards

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 114
In some cases, the PCs themselves can take on the responsibility of providing their own rewards, using character abilities and resources gained from their adventures to create exactly the weapons, armors, tools, and treasures they desire. While mundane items might be created using various Craft skills, many PCs set their sights upon more extraordinary goals, such as researching and designing new spells and crafting magic items.

Research and Designing Spells

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 114
The subject of designing spells is touched on only briefly in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. While some guidance on cost and time is provided, a GM needs to consider balance and design factors before allowing a PC to introduce a new spell into the game. As a first step, request a detailed write-up of the spell using the Pathfinder RPG rules. Based on this write-up, you can determine whether or not the spell is balanced for its level and appropriate for the game.

Spell Categories: When considering a new spell, first determine the category into which it fits. Spells can be divided into the broad categories of offensive magic (spells that deal direct damage, enhance combat abilities, or summon allies to fight), defensive magic (spells that protect the caster or her allies, control or impede enemies, or heal damage), and utility magic (spells of general use outside of combat, such as travel magic and most divinations). Some spells fit into multiple categories, such as teleport, with both defensive and utility applications.

Level-Appropriate: Compare the new spell to other spells in the same category and at or near the desired spell level. Pay close attention to “must have” choices like fireball, dimension door, and wall of force. If the spell is more powerful or more useful than other spells of the desired level, increase the level. If it seems weak, consider lowering the level. If there is already a similar spell in the game, pay particularly close attention to the new spell’s relative power.

Saving Throw or Attack Roll: Most spells that are usable against others should require either a saving throw or an attack roll (generally touch or ranged touch). Spells that are quite powerful for their level, like disintegrate or phantasmal killer, may require both, or allow two saving throws. Watch out for spells that effectively take the target out of the fight and are negated by a saving throw. Consider adding a minor effect even on a successful save, and toning down the result of a failed save. Spells that automatically affect the target should be higher level or limited in their consequences.

Components: Unless there’s a particularly good reason, almost all spells should require both verbal and somatic components, and most divine spells should require a divine focus. Spells with no verbal component are particularly rare. If the spell-as-designed lacks them, consider adding material component or focus requirements as a means of adding flavor. Expensive components and foci are a good way to adjust the effective power of a spell without changing the level.

Spell Components

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 115
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game handles most spell components in a fairly abstract fashion: the components are purchased as part of a spell component pouch, which is assumed to contain the required quantity of any components for any spell of which the caster has knowledge. For many GMs, this suits their needs, and other than having the player mark off some gold when his PC uses a more expensive component like diamond dust, that is the extent of attention spell components receive. The virtue of this system is speed and simplicity. A GM desiring more verisimilitude can instead require the PCs track down or prepare individual components, and even allow PCs to obtain enhanced components that improve their spells.

Even when tracking individual components, many reagents are so common they can be assumed to be easily found. Save the legwork for commissioning tiny silver whistles (for mage’s faithful hound), finding dragon scales (for form of the dragon), and things of that nature. Yet even then, don’t go overboard—while finding rare components can be a fun opportunity for side-quests, your players go grocery shopping often enough in real life, and obsessing over whether their leaves are fresh or their eggshell components got cracked in the last fall is a good way to bore your players and ensure nobody wants to play a caster in your game.

Wishes

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 116
The monstrous four-armed demon spoke in a surprisingly pleasant tenor voice. “And what, pray tell, is it you so desire?” Seltyiel paused, steeling his resolve. “I wish suffering for my family, tenfold for each wrong visited upon myself. I wish the lord mayor’s daughter and rank, and his head resting beneath my boot. I wish for such wealth that even a Qadiran merchant would weep with envy.” The demon’s laugh boomed throughout the cavern. “Is that all, little one? I expected ambition.”

More so than almost any other ability, wish and its cousin miracle have the potential to drastically change a campaign. When your players reach the upper echelons of the game at 15th level and beyond, you should consider whether or not you want to allow your players access to wishes, as even if they can’t buy them, they’ll soon enough be able to cast the wish spell themselves.

The easiest way to control wish is to restrict it to those options listed in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. None of these uses are game-breaking. However, by expanding the boundaries of wish and miracle, you open up roleplaying and story opportunities that can keep your high-level game fresh and exciting for many adventures to come.

Types of Wishes: One of the first boundaries to set is whether or not all wishes are created equal, and have similar constraints. Treating all wishes the same has the virtues of consistency and simplicity, and helps keep your game under control. Having a hierarchy of wishes gives fodder for the story in your game, letting PCs alter their local reality with their wishes, but leaving the option of seeking out higher powers to grant the wishes spoken of in legends. A suggested hierarchy is wishes from spells or magic items, followed by miracle, wishes granted by artifacts and relics, wishes granted by powerful outsiders like the efreet and djinn, and finally those wishes bestowed directly by gods and other entities beyond mortal ken.

Making Good Wishes: The best wishes are short, unambiguous, related to matters immediately at hand, and usually aimed at a simple (if powerful) task. A wish for a sundered mirror of mental prowess to be made whole or a wish to reveal the identity of the thief of the crown jewels is unlikely to go awry.

Making Bad Wishes: Wishes born of greed or vengeance have a way of turning sour. Attempts to guard against mishap with a list of conditions and qualifiers are rarely successful, most often resulting in partial fulfillment of the wish. Wishes that stretch the limits of the power granting them are always ill advised. If the wish is from a spell or magic item, failure or backlash is likely, while if the wish is from an outside source, the granter of the wish may be angered by mortal temerity and twist the wish or otherwise seek retribution against the wisher.

Twisting Wishes: Folklore is filled with tales of wishes gone awry, bringing heartbreak, misery, and perhaps eventually wisdom to the hapless wisher. The wishes most likely to be perverted away from the wisher’s intent are wishes granted by hostile outsiders, wishes from cursed objects, and bad wishes as described above. Evil outsiders in particular are loath to grant wishes that don’t serve evil ends, and take every opportunity to twist them toward harm and suffering. A wish for eternal life may leave the wisher imprisoned in a decrepit yet still undying body. A wish for a powerful magic item can be granted by stealing the item from a powerful and vengeful lord. Wishes are best turned awry by adhering closely to the letter of the wish, but violating the spirit.

Deferred Results: Rather than denying a particularly powerful wish, such as for the throne of a kingdom, the wish can be granted over an extended period. The wish subtly reshapes reality, guiding the wisher through seeming coincidence, good fortune, and the timely appearance of helpful NPCs. Success is not assured unless the PC takes advantage of her opportunities.

Making Magic Items

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 116
In every campaign, there comes a time when the PCs are no longer satisfied with the magic items available to their characters. Whether looking for a power to complement their skills, a new twist on an old favorite, or just the sheer joy of invention, creating a new magic item opens up new venues for a PC. It is also a great way to leave a mark on the campaign—after all, even the oldest magic items were once new to the world.

Pricing a magic item is more art than science. Guidance on item pricing is given in Table 15–29 in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, but a trip through the magic item section shows the formulas are often not applied exactly. An example is the ring of invisibility, with a calculated price of 10,800 gp, but a book value of 20,000 gp. This is because the at-will nature of the ring offsets the biggest drawback of invisibility, namely that it ends after attacking. When pricing new magic items, watch out for any item that counteracts a basic weakness of an ability, class, or spell.

The best test for item pricing is to compare it to “must have” items in the game, like weapons, armor, and stat-boosting gear. Also compare it to other items that share the same slot, and items with similar powers. As a rule of thumb, if you’d take the item in a heartbeat over a more expensive standard item, it is probably too cheap. And if you’d never consider taking a 10,000 gp ring over a belt of physical might +2 or even a +2 battleaxe, it might just be overpriced. However, it is safer to price items too high rather than too low. After all, the PC gets a new, custom magic item out of the arrangement, and that’s worth paying a bit extra.