Caster Level: 3rd, Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, cold/electricity/fire spells, enlarge, resist energy; Market Price: 36,805 gp; Cost to Create: 18,555 gp + 1,460 XP.
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Thunderstrike: This +1 triarc (cold, electricity, fire) shortspear
was created long ago in the Gulf of Storms in Amn (a valley full of iron
deposits and crystals that attract natural electrical strikes and
causes all electricity effects to rebound multiple times within it).
The haft is made from shadowtop wood, the head from old steel, with
four uneven spikes extending from the joint acting as crossguards. The
three lightning-bolt symbols of Talos glow dully on the blade, as if
with latent heat. If picked up by any creature (whether actually
carried in hand or held or transported some other way, its triarc
ability activates automatically, causing electrical sparks, minor bursts
of flame, and small pieces of ice to form in the air around the blade
and mostly obscuring its symbol.
The spear was created in 1358 DR (the Year of
Shadows, when the Time of Troubles occurred) by Reaver Maegral
Bloodtusk (Reaver is a Talosian church title indicating an ordained
priest with some experience, not quite a high priest), a half-orc
warrior-priest of Talos, who received a rare vision from Talos, telling
him to fell a shadowtop with a silver axe, cut its heart into a spear,
attach an ancient spearhead to the end, and bring the weapon to the
Gulf of Storms. Maegral did so, and after four days of prayer (during
which he was struck several times by electricity), a strange storm blew
in, created by wizardry and fueled by wild magic. Three bolts from this
storm struck the spear at once--red, gold, and blue-white, and when the
weapon cooled so that Maegral could touch it, he found the spear had
been infused with Talos' power. Naming it Thunderstrike,
he used it gather a horde of bandits and orc raiders and used it to
terrorize towns and villages in Amn and Tethyr for several years (the
burnt-out shells of several towns are testament to his willingness to
destroy all in the name of Talos).
It is believed that Maegral eventually went mad,
perhaps from exposure to too much wild magic (he spent much of his
non-raiding time searching for wild magic areas so he could visit them
with the spear, in the hopes of increasing its power), for in 1367 DR
he ran off screaming in the middle of a raid, leaving Thunderstrike
behind. One of the raiders picked it up and it has passed from one hand
to another in southwester Faerûn since then. Maegral may still be
alive, slowly transforming into something else due to wild magic
exposure, for a person matching his description has been spotted in the
Gulf of Storms as recently as 11 Marpenoth, 1372 DR, though his hair
was fire and his eyes just empty sockets glowing with electricity.
The triarc ability of Thunderstrike is particularly bright and lights its vicinity as if it were a torch; as the ability activates whenever the spear is touched, the only way to put out the light is to drop the weapon. Though it
normally is a shortspear, as a standard action its bearer can transform
it into a longspear or halfspear; if left untouched for more than 24
hours it reverts to shortspear form. It gives cold, electricity, and
fire resistance 5 to its wielder when held in hand.
Caster Level: 3rd, Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, cold/electricity/fire spells, enlarge, resist energy; Market Price: 36,805 gp; Cost to Create: 18,555 gp + 1,460 XP.
Pricing:
The item has a base plus of
+1, triarc is worth +1, for a total of +2, which is 8,000 gp.
The 3.5 DMG doesn't have a
value for energy resistance 5, but the pricing trend for the values we
do have (about 1,200 per point of resistance for the weakest version,
and getting more expensive going up from there) means we can price the three resistances at 6,000
gp each=18,000 total. All of these count as a secondary property (you
can use them all at the same time, and while they're all resistances
each effects a different kind of energy so they shouldn't count as
"multiple similar abilities"), so multiply that value by 1.5 to reflect
the 50% price increase, so 27,000 gp.
Changing weapon size I'm pricing as a flat 1,000 gp. Unlike the "virtual size change" ability of Thief of the Light,
which lets you treat the weapon as one of two types that's most
convenient for you, this one you actually have to change it to the size
you want. It takes a standard action to change so it's not like you can
use it as a reach weapon on one attack and as a non-reach weapon with
an iterative attack in the same round. As a secondary property,
increase this ability's cost to 1,500. Yes, I know that enlarge
is no longer a spell in 3.5, put I need a prereq and just because they
made a hole in the spell list when they changed the spell doesn't mean
I should make polymorph any object the prereq (you can enlarge a creature with enlarge creature, but there's no low-level spell to change the size of an object ... joy).
The "always-on" aspect of the elemental bit and
torchlight is a minor inconvenience and I'm not going to discount the
weapon for it.
Total magic price is 8,000 + 27,400 + 1500=36,500
Add in the 305 gp for a masterwork longspear (because
it's the most expensive of the spears) and you get the final costs.