Cerulean the Blue's Modding Frenzy

It is still called Leomund's Secret Chest. I just changed how it works, not the name.

 

My personal opinion on the matter is: Way to go Big C! And Ug, who despite his disclaimers is shaping up to be a quite handy fellow to have around.

It is certainly true that as described the new spell is not *quite* rules compliant.

Read the above statement again please...

And again...

Detecting any sarcasm yet? You should. Ladies and gentlemen, this ENTIRE GAME is not *quite* rules compliant. It is one massive kludge from beginning to end, much of which works ONLY because of this community's efforts to find some way, any way, to make things work which never worked properly from the beginning. As a real-life DM and real-life computer person, I have to say the path we've taken is the only sensible one...

...so, IF IT WORKS -- DON'T KNOCK IT.

And ponder the fact that this technique, one which I frankly admit I would never have thought of myself ("inventory manipulation through text conversion", perhaps?) has the obvious potential to give us a way to handle objects so mundane as regular boxes and bags, let alone bags of holding, portable holes, heck, maybe even packs for animal companions. Then, after pondering, figure out how to use this brilliant idea further.

Cerulean and Ugignadl, major kudos from me (a man not easy to please!) on your cleverness. It ain't perfect! But it's certainly close enough for ToEE work. Work which we shall continue, inspired by the progress you've helped us make.

Thanks for the new spell. I for one will be more than happy to use it as is.

--Blair
"The other one! That one is six grudniks too much."

 

That's a good question Ted. Right now the spell itself, as it is, does not require the presence of the material components. It checks to see if the caster has 5050 gp, and if he does, deducts that amount and "creates" the chest and the miniature. If the spell does that, why shouldn't the scroll?

No, this is not ideal, but until I can think of a reason why anyone in a backwater such as Hommlet would have a 5000 gp chest lying around (they shouldn't be able to make such a thing in a town like that) that is the way it stands. I suppose I could add in some way to order such a chest, or perhaps I could add it in Verbobonc (it should be possible to have one made there). I already have it planned out how I would need to change the script if the chest were available in the game. Now it just remains to be seen if I actually add it in.

Originally that is what I was trying to make. But since what I and Ugignadl have created is a script that creates a chest out of nothing, lets you fill the chest and send it back to the nothingness it came from, and then recreate the chest anywhere you are with the contents intact (more or less - keep in mind that it doesn't work for charged items or crafted arms and armor), I decided to call it Leomund's Secret Chest, since that is what it most resembles.

A bag of holding doesn't create a chest out of nothing. I can make the chest invisible, but I can't make the character open it, and if the player can't see it, then they can't open it either. I can create an invisible merchant that will automatically start bartering with the character, and use the same game items to text and back conversion method, but I haven't been able to find a way to make the merchant buy and sell the items for zero money. I can create an invisible NPC which gets added to the party (something I am thinking about doing with the chest), allowing the player to transfer the items to it's inventory, and then use the bag again to execute the conversion, dismiss and destroy the NPC, but NPCs have fewer usable inventory slots than merchants or chests.

As you can see, I put a lot of thought and work into this. I came up with what I thought was the best solution, a solution which in my opinion resembles Leomund's Secret Chest (a spell, I might add, I have never seen, in all my years of playing D&D, a player character use) much more than it does a bag of holding. The Rules Lawyers of this community (rightfully) found that my execution of this solution does not comply enough with the description of the spell Leomund's Secret Chest, so I am changing it to comply. These changes, I must admit, are pretty much rendering this mod more or less useless for the purpose it was originally intended, which was to allow a low level party (which most needs every coin they can gain) a means of carting every scrap of loot they find back to town in one trip. But hey, at least it will be rules compliant. I have even devised a way to make it one cast, one trip to and from the Ethereal Plane, which I am going to implement. Might as well make it as rules compliant as I can, since it is useless anyway, right?

Of course, at this point I expect a Rules Lawyer to pipe up and say "But if the player doesn't have to find or buy the material components, it's still not rules compliant." To this I would respond with "Then get off your lazy non-modding ass and put them into the game." I will get around to it when I come up with a logical and Rules Compliant way of doing it.

But no, Allyx, what I have made is not a Bag of Holding, or a Chest of Holding, or an Anything of Holding. I think the Rules Lawyers will agree with me on this. An "blank" of Holding does not create a chest out of nothing, allow you to fill the chest and send it back to the nothingness it came from, and then recreate it with contents intact wherever you may be.

Oh, btw, I have decided to make a wand of this spell, make it craft-able, and hide one of them somewhere a low level party might find, if they look hard enough. That will give you all twenty casts of the spell. Use them wisely.

 

Just a quick question. Would it be too much to ask to have this available as the result of completing a low level quest? Part of Fruella's dowry? Surely there has to be some way to put this awesome (IMNSHO) mod into the game such that it is useful. Without being too cheesy or stupid.

Would it be feasible for the jeweller in Hommlet to own a 5000gp chest?

 

And yes, I do realize that it is against the rules to have a wand that casts a 5th level spell.

 

Well, as there is a wand of chain lightning in the game already, so I don't think anyone will mind - also, IIRC, in previous editions of D&D, there were wands that did things like cloudkill and disintigrate as well.

Anyway, IMHO, enjoyability of game > rules compliance anyway.

Charles

 

Sorry Ted, I misunderstood your post. For a Spell like this, where the material components are the subject of the spell effect, rather than just being used to cast the spell, a scroll of the spell would still require them to be present for the scroll to be used.

Yes, one cast per one use would make the scrolls more of less useful only for copying the spell into your spell book. Thus the wand.

However, after I actually got it working as one cast per one use, I decided that it really wasn't worth the using of a spell number just to implement this bit of rules compliance. So I will leave it with the mini allowing unlimited use of the chest. I am still putting in the wand, with only one charge, to make it easier for low level parties to use this spell. Of course, the wand will be cleverly hidden, and the party will still need to have 5050 gp to be able to use it. If you try to use it without the gold the charge is used and the wand destroyed.