Improvements to Relic Enhance and Enchant

[merrychase]

The relic situation from what I have seen is readily available and affordable circle 4 relic in the necklace or ring slot. Off the shelf they have some decent but relatively minor static properties. You can spend sacrifice points to enhance and then enchant these relics to make them better. I see this as a way to invest in your relic, personalizing it and making it into a useful, durable item your cleric can use and revere.  Some balancing considerations are 1.) You have to equip it to have your spells 2.) They don't have aspects.


As a comparison, think of the puzzlers amulet for wizards. This item gives a wizard a bonus 1 slot and +1 will and an aspect and is commonly available. That is in many cases objectively better than a fully enhanced relic as I will explain below.


Enhancing: If in fact the vision is for most clerics to get the relic shop relics and use them throughout their life span, then enhancing could be the mechanic by which they make the relic into a quality item. Note, you are foreclosing a slot with an aspect, and you're also giving up some flexibility since you cannot routinely swap out equipment in this slot without losing your spellbook. As medium and large aspects often give something on the power rating of +1 a save, or +2 a save vs descriptor or even +X to ability scores this is a nontrivial opportunity cost.

Recommendation:
level 1: +2 to random skill is good.

level 2: change from random circle 1 to bonus 1 slot. A majority of the circle 1 cleric spells are really only good with higher caster level, plus your cleric is already by definition a 4th level or higher caster to use this ability -- this way the cleric can cast the spell (thematic even perhaps! more thematic than random at any rate) at its useful caster level..  Alternatively, go to random circle 2or subset of circle 2 and 3 spells (choose a subset of spells that are good when cast from items - clarity, resist elements, etc)

level 3: +1 random save vs. descriptor is to my eye not a very good capstone. Just make it a straight fort/will/reflex +1. If this is the item the character is likely to wear their entire life, then its on par with what one might find on some superior loot.


Enchanting: Enchanting a relic costs 3 points. Excepting circumstances in which your cleric has a ready and cheap supply of relics to sacrifice, this means you can enchant your relic once about every three resets. Once every three days you can add a nice property for rounds per consecration rank - this is 1-3 mins of a  positive effect. Some of the properties themselves are valuable, but the cooldowns and time domain aspects make this a very minor consideration (i.e. most of these effects are something on the power level of drinking a potion or a medium aspect effect, so as a rough comparison, this ability let's you drink a free potion every 3 days, or enjoy a medium/major aspect bonus for a couple of minutes every 3 days). Some property/slot combos might be largely irrelevant (+1 AC on a shield relic which likely already has +1? or +1 deflection on a helmet when that is nonstacking with other static deflection bonuses or shield of faith? Compares very unfavorably with say +2 reflex or 5% PI properties on other slots)

Recommendation: Increase the duration to be 24 hours or for the entirety of the reset. Consider also lowering the cost to 1 or 2 sacrifice points. This would translate into you could maintain the effect and stay sacrifice point neutral while still getting something out of the ability. Review and change properties that don't have good use case because of non-stacking, e.g. most non-starter shields are already +1, so bump this up to +2. Adding deflection AC to say a helmet is somewhat unlikely to really matter, unless its +2 or more, etc).

[aliceofthevoid]

I agree with the changes for enhancing there, though I would assume enhancing for slotless relics like the broken relic wouldn't be touched by that. Alternatively, maybe they could enhanced to greater effect through enhancing it further?

I never even used enchanting on my cleric, it just didn't seem worth it in my case.

[Mari]

I also agree here.

The +2 skill is cool.

The 1/day spell can be a little underwhelming. Some things you get can be good- elemental resistance. But you might also end up with 1/day cure light wounds.

The +1 spells versus thing on my relic ended up rolling a +1 saves vs disease which is about as underwhelming as you can get for a class with cure disease in the spellbook. I was expecting it to be +1  of Fort/Ref/Will by the wording on the wiki.

Also using Enchanting on a neck-slot item (which 99% of clerics are going to have neck or ring slot items) is a very cornercase effect that for some major domain turns just doesn't do anything for.

(Also if the 5 circle relics in the shop are supposed to be aspirational beyond flavor they could use a balance pass, some of them [Gellema, B'aara] are almost straight debuffs to use for normal clerics)

This is leagues better than the auld relic gatcha of v5, but it could use a little love.