|
Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30 percent
I was wondering if you could combine these for a greater discount:
- Class:Wizard - 30 percent off
- Class:Wizard AND Evil - ??
- Class:Wizard AND Evil AND Lawful - ????
On a lesser note, could multiple skills be required? Or a skill and a class?
Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30 percent
I was wondering if you could combine these for a greater discount:
- Class:Wizard - 30 percent off
- Class:Wizard AND Evil - ??
- Class:Wizard AND Evil AND Lawful - ????
On a lesser note, could multiple skills be required? Or a skill and a class?
Those rules were designed for DMs to pump up NPC's item budget. They're not intended for PCs to use to craft items.
Those rules were designed for DMs to pump up NPC's item budget. They're not intended for PCs to use to craft items.
Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30 percent
I was wondering if you could combine these for a greater discount:
- Class:Wizard - 30 percent off
- Class:Wizard AND Evil - ??
- Class:Wizard AND Evil AND Lawful - ????
On a lesser note, could multiple skills be required? Or a skill and a class?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
|
|
Kind of up to the DM, but I would say yes for Wizard, and Alignment. No for Alignment and more specific Alignment.
Also kep in mind, that the discount is not 60% total. It is 30% total and than 30% of that.
Yeah, I figured it would be sequential. Thanks for your answer :)
Those rules were designed for DMs to pump up NPC's item budget. They're not intended for PCs to use to craft items.
Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30 percent
I was wondering if you could combine these for a greater discount:
- Class:Wizard - 30 percent off
- Class:Wizard AND Evil - ??
- Class:Wizard AND Evil AND Lawful - ????
On a lesser note, could multiple skills be required? Or a skill and a class?
They're in the "Craft Items" section...
I tossed out that philosophy long ago after GMing Ars Magica. Key item on the magic item creation section there; These rules are intended as guidelines for PC magic item creation. The GM is free and encouraged to go beyond these rules for items created by NPCs So yes in my world there are going to be items your PCs can not duplicate whether its because of access to forbidden techniques, secrets lost with the drowning of Atlantis, or the item was created by the fey, etc.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If that works for your game, and your players are ok with it that is awesome. My experience when the GM starts using separate rules from the PC's is that it is a slippery downhill slope. Some people call it cheating at imagination.
|
|
I've found that if you allow layering of those discounts then PCs tend to end up with much more powerful magical gear than they should have. This isn't huge at lower levels, but when a high level PC has ~= 43%+ more than they should it gets to be a problem (and that's with only one discount, with class, alignment and skill they end up with ~127% more).
If you allow class, alignment, race and skill (for 0.7^3 * 0.9 of the total price, or a 69.13% discount) you can end up with 224% more money worth of gear than you should have. As a DM I've found allowing discounts to be a slippery slope as you then have to balance how much time they get to spend (which is me having to balance the feat manually by restricting time).
I've considered allowing a feat to add one type of discount (per feat) but have that feat reduce the time to craft as well. For now I've just temporarily banned using those discounts and declared them "for creative loot valuing only."
How would this be cheating? There are plenty of things that your Big Bad is going to do that aren't allowed to your PCs. And Artifacts by nature are magic items which are not created by standard processes, frequently being unique creations. This is nothing more than the logical extension of the core statement your PCs can not expect to duplicate every magic item that they might find.If that works for your game, and your players are ok with it that is awesome. My experience when the GM starts using separate rules from the PC's is that it is a slippery downhill slope. Some people call it cheating at imagination.I tossed out that philosophy long ago after GMing Ars Magica. Key item on the magic item creation section there; These rules are intended as guidelines for PC magic item creation. The GM is free and encouraged to go beyond these rules for items created by NPCs So yes in my world there are going to be items your PCs can not duplicate whether its because of access to forbidden techniques, secrets lost with the drowning of Atlantis, or the item was created by the fey, etc.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Unless I am mistaken you stated that your NPC's can create items your PC's can never create. That means you are giving your NPC's a stronger ability than the PC's ability. This means two identical characters with the same abilities are not evenly matched, the match is in the favor of your NPC, who is playing by a separate rule set than the PC's and can lead to player resentment which is detrimental to everyone at the table. I am not argueing against you making cool items for your NPC's, but a PC who invests in the same feats needs to be able to do equally as much with the same feat investment.
|
The way I always saw this was that the price you could sell it for( because it is more specialized ) would change, but the price to create it is the same. it doesn't really make sense that adding a magical safeguard into an item( can only be used by lawful good creatures ) would make it cost less to make. If you sold it? Sure. Not as many people could buy it from you.
So, price to create stays the same, but you get shafted if you want to sell it. Although people can't use it against you if put restrictions on it.
EDIT:
Besides the way you are describing using it, I'd have all the npc items be only useable by evil creatures. The pcs would get shafted because they couldn't use any of it and they wouldn't get as much for it if they can sell it at all.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
The problem with that logic is that a player and a DM are not the same thing. The pricing guidelines were designed for DMs in the original DMG. They were lumped together in PF, but the intent of the guidelines hasn't changed -- they're a guide for DMs to be used by DMs.
Regardless, think about it. Why wouldn't you customize each item to work with a specific race/alignment? That would make each item much cheaper with no effective drawback since they're typically being used by one character. It IS cheating to simply have a comparatively cheaper item by misinterpreting the intent of the pricing guidelines.
The rules were given for DMs to up the quality of NPC gear in the event that DMs wanted stronger gear for their NPCs without going over the NPC gear value guidelines. They can also be used to design special items where the restrictions make a significant difference. They shouldn't be used that often.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here's Sean K Reynolds input on this matter in an earlier thread.
1st post
When building an item, you calculate the cost to create it as if it were in the hands of an optimal user. Otherwise it's basically cheating. Observe:
Ezren makes a headband of vast intelligence +6. Cost to create: 18,000 gp
vs.
Ezren makes a headband of vast intelligence +6, but it only works for male humans (discount!) named Ezren (discount!) who are at least "old" age (discount) and were born in Absalom (discount!). Cost to create: ridiculously cheap, even though it works exactly like a standard headband +6.
For the OP's question:
Eagle’s splendor 2*3*1800/5 = 2160
Burning hands SL1 x CL3 x 1800/5 = 1080
Using the "multiple different abilities" guideline, we multiply the cost of the burning hands ability by 1.5 to get 1620
2160 + 1620 = 3,780Glowing with light at will is pretty insignificant--it's not as good as being able to cast light at will (because only the orb lights, rather than being able to cast it on a coin you can throw, an ally's weapon, etc.), so I didn't use the standard SL .5 x CL 3 x 1800 for an on-command unlimited cantrip. Furthermore, the caster level of an unlimited-use light cantrip has a negligible effect (the effect on the duration is irrelevant because it's an at-will ability, and the increased resistance to a dispelling attempt is essentially irrelevant). Plus, the option to light at will is something you get for free in magic weapons, so throwing it in here at something than the formulaic cost is fair. As the mathematical price of the item so far is a non-simple number, I rounded the price up to 3,900 gp (1) to take into account the cost of the light ability, and (2) to make the final gp price nicer.
Next post
The Multiple Similar Abilities guideline is mainly for staves, i.e., we have a bunch of themed attack or utilitarian spells (healing, frost, etc.) in an item that doesn't use a body space (you don't wear it), and odds are you won't be wanting to use multiple of them at once (you wouldn't cast charm monster and charm person in the same round, both of which are spells from a staff of charming). Thus, it's not like you're combining two useful magic items together for the purpose of avoiding the body-slot limitations, and thus you shouldn't have to pay extra for it.
The Multiple Different Abilities guideline is pretty simple once you realize it's addressing two different things:
(1) items with different abilities that don't use a body slot. An ioun stone that gives +2 Dex and +2 Con is functionally the same as two separate stones, one of which gives +2 Dex and the other gives +2 Con. This is because the stones don't take up any body slots, so by combining the powers of the two stones, you're not gaining any advantage by combining or splitting the powers of 1 or 100 stones. Thus, you just add up the costs and don't include any multipliers.
(2) items with different abilities that do use a body slot. A ring of protection +1 uses a ring slot, a cloak of resistance +1 uses a cloak slot; a ring that combines the ring of protection +1 and a cloak of resistance +1 is significantly better than wearing the two items because you've freed up an entire item slot; now you can wear a cloak of displacement and your ring of protection and resistance +1 at the same time. Thus, the item is greater than the sum of its parts, and you have to pay the +50% multiplier on all the secondary item powers.
(The second example also applies to most other items with use-based powers; a ring that lets you cast spider climb and cure light wounds once per day each is better than two items with one power each.
last post
That's pretty much the reason--and it's not me being a jerk, it's (insert evil race) being jerks.
And it makes people who max out Use Magic Device happy for their investment.
I still think they should have done something different, but I'm also not sure what that could have been. But theres an official word from one of the developers if that makes a difference to anyone.