Spell Engine

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A spell engine contains a limited amount of casting ability, which can be activated by a caster as if the magic were their own.

Activation: Spell-trigger items activated by the one wielding the wand as a standard action. A caster's magic tradition must match the magical source of the spell engine, or else the caster must activate the wand through the Use Magic Device skill.

Details: A spell engine possesses a school feat, a caster level, and a small pool of spell points. The spell engine uses its own caster level and spell points to fuel its casting ability; under normal circumstances, a caster cannot spend their own spell points or use their own caster level when activating a spell engine. If a spell engine's effects call for a saving throw, the DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the item’s caster level.

A spell engine may be used to meet the prerequisites for creating other magic items.

Recharging: Once per day, a character with a spell point pool may spend one of their spell points to restore 1 spell point to the wand. A spell engine may only have one spell point per day restored in this fashion, regardless of how many casters attempt to do so.

Crafting: The simplest spell engine a crafter may create contains a school feat, 1 spell point, and a caster level of 2. This wand has a base price of 1,000 gp. When a crafter increases a spell engine’s caster level (to a maximum of their own), for every 2 caster levels a spell engine gains, the crafter may place a feat belonging to the school into the spell engine, or may increase the spell engine’s maximum spell point pool by 1.

A crafter must possess each feat to be placed in the spell engine, or else must have access to that feat through another caster. If a feat has a prerequisite caster level or prerequisite feat, the spell engine must possess that caster level or feat. Likewise, if a crafter possesses a drawback for the spell engine’s school feat (or simply wants to create a focused wand), that spell engine also possess that drawback, and gains either a bonus feat or a spell point in exchange.

Pricing: A spell engine’s pricing is determined by comparing it to the table below:

Caster Level	# of additional feats/ spell points	Price (gp)
2	0	1,000
4	1	4,000
6	2	9,000
8	3	16,000
10	4	25,000