Arcane Peacekeeper (3.5e Equipment)

Arcane Peacekeeper
''Palnor, during his time as head magister of the city watch in a major metropolis, researched the arcane peacekeeper to add some standard firepower for the lesser mages serving under him. The fact that it garnered more respect for his underlings from the warriors of the guard was just a nice bonus.''

This handgun appears to be of very detailed design, and constructed of the finest mithril. The arcane peacekeeper is a light weapon usually carried in a thigh, hip or shoulder holster; although some have chosen to conceal them at the ankle or back of the waist. When fired it makes a small popping noise, similar to the popping of a child's ballon. The peacekeeper is a magical handgun that fires small bullets, the bullets are a force effect. Expended bullets dissipate immediately after attack resolution. Sacrifice of an arcane spell or spell slot is needed to charge the weapon; each level of spell or spell slot used grants the weapon 3 charges. A peachekeeper holds a maximum of 12 charges, whether from a 4th level spell/slot or a combination or lower levels; spell slots above level 4 may not be used to charge a peacekeeper. The weapon cannot be over-charged, attempting to do so causes any excess charges beyond maximum to be lost. Charging the weapon takes one round per spell level expended; the process requires a DC10+ spellcraft or use magic device check for each spell, each spell level above 1 increases the difficulty by +2 (a level four spell would take 4 rounds to imbue and have a DC16, failure on the DC causes the imbue of charges to fail and expends the spell slot. The weapon can only hold charges from a single charging caster at a time, if charges remain the weapon will not accept new charges from a different caster. A caster may add charges to a peacekeeper that holds his own charges. Charges dissipate at the rate of one charge per day. Using the weapon expends a single charge, and requires a ranged touch attack to hit. The weapon does a base damage of 1d6 plus an additional 1d6 damage per three arcane caster levels of the charger. Note that damage is not dependent on the one using the weapon, but on the one charging it. Thus a peacekeeper charged by a 20th level caster would fire projectiles doing 7d6 damage (1d6 + (20/3)d6), no matter the person using the weapon. The weapon charges have a maximum damage of 7d6, this may not be increased. An arcane peacekeeper may only be fired someone able to cast 1st level arcane spells, or any spell of 3rd level. Firing the weapon is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Arcane peacekeepers may be further enchanted with weapon plus enhancements only; each plus providing an attack bonus only (no added damage), and costing half the usual amount. The weapon is crafted of mithril and of masterwork quality, providing a +1 to attack rolls even without enchantment; the masterwork bonus does not stack with enchantment bonuses.

Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Magic Missile

Cost to Create: 1250gp, 100 EXP, 3 days.

Metamagic Arcane Peacekeepers: The enchanter creating an arcane peacekeeper may choose to imbed the powers of metamagic feats within the weapon. The enchanter must posses any such metamagic feat to imbed it, futhermore no more than one metamagic feat may be imbed into the enchantment per six caster levels of the enchanter; thus a 20th level wizard could only imbed three metamagic feats in a single weapon. The first metamagic feat imbed in the item increases enchanting time by one day and increases cost by 1000gp & 40 EXP. Each additional feat imbed doubles the time and cost of the previous feat, thus imbedding three metamagic feats would require an additional seven days and cost 7000gp & 280 EXP. Each imbed metamagic feat (or level thereof) increases sell price by 1500gp. The effects of each allowed metamagic feat imbed into an arcane peacekeepr are as follows.
 * Energy Substitution: At the will of the user when firing, the damage may be changed from force to an energy type (fire, cold, electricity, acid or sonic). Each imbedding of this feat allows one type of energy to chosen.
 * Enlarge Spell: The range increment is increased to 50ft. The feat may only be imbed once.
 * Heighten Spell: This feat may be imbed multiple times (special), each imbedding increases the effective spell level of the effect by +1 (normal is 1), level may be increased to a maximum of 9th. This feat only counts as one imbedding, no matter how many times it is stacked; thus a 20th level enchanter could imbed this feat eight times (effective spell level 9) for an added cost of eight days and 8000gp, but still have used only one of his available three feat options.
 * Maximize Spell: The damage of the weapons effect is maximized to six points of damage per die.
 * Empower Spell: The damage is increased by +3 damage per die. This can be combined with an imbedding of the maximize spell feat, allowing damge to always be nine points per die (63 points for an 18th+ level caster (7x9=63)).
 * Subdual Substitution: Imbedding this feat requires that the energy substitution feat have been previously imbed. This feat allows the damage from the weapon to be subdual damage instead of lethal.
 * Quicken Spell: When imbed into an arcane peacekeeper, this feat allows the weapon to be used to make attacks of opportunity. The wielder may make as many attacks of opportunity as he is normally allowed. However, attacks of opportunity with an arcane peacekeeper may only be made on targets within 10ft, as such reflexive attacks don't allow time to propperly aim at more distant targets.
 * Extend Spell: Charges now dissipate at a rate of 1 per week. Persistent Spell can be imbed after extend spell to prevent charges from dissipating at all, other than by being used, without taking another feat slot beyond that for extend spell.

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