Hi guys.
One of my players asked me for a magic shield with several properties.
Neither he nor I are very good at crafting items, so I'm asking for your help.
He would like a shield to protect him from area damage spells such a fireball, etc... something akin to Evasion. Also, his PC shield-bashes sometimes, so a minor improvement in the offensive department is welcome, although absolutely not mandatory.
Now a ring of Evasion costs 25000 gp.
The budget for this item hovers around 10000-15000 gp, so clearly we need to do something a lot less powerful.
I am not a fan of per-day uses on magic weapons, but seems to me it is one of the few viable ways. Another way could be a shield that increases Ref saves, but that seems a bit lame.
Can any of you suggest a rules-legal item, balanced for an 8th level PC, with the aforementioned budget, that can help against area damage spells?
Thank you very much for your help.
Easy enough, you already gave all the info needed:
Unlimited Evasion costs 25,000. Each "daily use" costs 1/5 of that. So Evasion once/day costs 5,000, twice/day costs, 10,000, etc. Interestingly enough, it is upgradable by just paying the difference, so he could start with once/day and later, for 5,000 gold, upgrade to twice/day or for 20,000 gold upgrade to unlimited.
But putting this on an item that occupies a different kid of slot adds 50% to the price.
So, for 15,659 gp you get a +1 Bashing light steel shield with the ability to use Evasion (as the rogue ability) once/day, activated as an immediate action. That is slightly out of the price range you requested. You could leave the Bashing off and save 6,000 gp, then add it later at any time, it would still cost the same 6,000 and 6 days time to be upgraded. (Side note, doing this should technically cause the 50% price increase to apply to the +1 instead of the Evasion, which alters the price slightly, but then it has to be readjusted when the Bashing is added later, so I would just ignore this for now unless you really want to be strict by RAW - in which case, also remember that if the price of better versions of Evasion is ever higher than the price of the shield's main enhancement and Bashing, then the 50% price applies to the enhancement/Bashing cost instead of the Evasion).
Break down:
9 - Shield
150 - Masterwork
8,000 - +1 Bashing
5,000 - Evasion once/day
2,500 - Price increase for Evasion on a shield instead of a ring
Thank you for your quick reply!
I do not understand why does "+1 bashing" cost 8000. shouldn't it be 4000?
I have mentioned that I suck at magic items creation rules, so if the answer is an obvious one, please bear with me...
Also, there really is no way of not making this a X uses/day item, is it?
Argh, you're right, I was doing that in my head and accidentally applied weapon pricing when this is armor (which is weird because I used the amror price for masterwork - I must be getting old and feebleminded - maybe you discombobulated me when you said "magic weapons" in your post and my brain never recovered).
Good catch. Too late for me to edit it. So knock 4,000 of my price which puts it nicely into the price range you wanted.
No, I don't see a way to not make it X/day, not if you really want Evasion at that price range. You already mentioned that you don't want a mere upgrade to REF save. Nothing else comes to mind other than Spell Resistance (which doesn't really limit itself to only Area-Effect spells and is quite expensive) or Energy Resistance (which could help but is limited to one kind, say, Fire, or whatever).
As I mentioned, he can upgrade the number/day, even paying the 20,000 to make it unlimited, but that puts it out of the price range you wanted.
Price varies a bit more depending on if you want to add restrictions to the shield. Say for example if the character is a Human, it could only function for humans and save you 30% of the item's cost.
So the breakdown would then be:
9 - Shield
150 - Masterwork
4,000 - +1 Bashing
5,000 - Evasion 1/day
2,500 - Different Slot
11,659 - Sub Total
-3,497.7 - Racial Restriction
8,161.3 - Total
Then he could pay 1,750 Gp for each daily use he wanted to gain after the base enchanting was done, (1,750 is 70% of 2,500 IIRC)
2,500 - Price increase for Evasion on a shield instead of a ring
2,500 - Different Slot
There are no slot affinities in Pathfinder, so there should be no cost for that. Making a Necklace or Headband of Evasion costs exactly the same as a Ring of Evasion.
However, adding Evasion to the shield would qualify as adding a different ability to an item, so would have the +50% markup. Which in this case (only 1/day), doesn't make a difference.
Multiple Different Abilities: Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that take up a space on a character's body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.
Adding 1/day Evasion to the shield would cost 7,500gp (5000 base, +50% markup). Making it 2/day Evasion would cost 15,000gp (10000 base, +50% markup). 5/day or unlimited Evasion would cost 37,500gp (25000 base, +50% markup).
Some DM's don't allow that. This shield as described could easily benefit any small or medium race so making it human-only while still using generic abilities is, frankly, cheesy. There would need to be a real reason for it to be human only. That kind of restriction really only applies on items when it makes sense. For example, a Cloak of Elvenkind might be enchanted to be elf-only and there could be a justification for it, but even that might be a stretch.
Assuming the DM allows this, each daily use of Evasion is 5,000 per day and 2,500 for the different slot, for a total of 7,500. You would need to pay 5,250 for each extra daily use with the human-only cheese.
2,500 - Price increase for Evasion on a shield instead of a ringThere are no slot affinities in Pathfinder, so there should be no cost for that. Making a Necklace or Headband of Evasion costs exactly the same as a Ring of Evasion.
However, adding Evasion to the shield would qualify as adding a different ability to an item, so would have the +50% markup. Which in this case, doesn't make a difference.
Multiple Different Abilities: Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that take up a space on a character's body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.Adding 1/day Evasion to the shield would cost 7,500gp (5000 base, +50% markup). Adding 2/day Evasion would cost 15,000gp (10000 base, +50% markup).
Aren't we saying the same thing? It's a 50% price markup because you're adding a different ability to an existing item instead of putting it on a separate item with its own slot. I was never trying to suggest that items had required slots, I was only comparing to the existing Ring of Evasion.
As I understand, the GM is the one asking for the help with making a shield for a player of his. I was simply showing another way to reduce the price to make it within the budget. You could easily switch the Human requirement to Paladin or Fighter only just as easily to fit character flavor. I really don't appreciate having a suggestion to help another person called "Cheese" when I'm only trying to help.
And sorry my math is off, doing this mentally without my books to double check price guidelines.
I wasn't trying to offend you. I wasn't saying you were cheesy or your idea is - the mere fact that it's in the CRB at all is already, mostly, cheesy, and using it only for cost reduction is definitely cheesy.
We're all trying to help. I'm sure the OP appreciates that. My contribution was to note that taking a generic item, or in this case a blend of two generic items (typical +1 bashing shield and a ring of evasion), and then limiting it to just one race or class or anything, without some reasonable justification, is cheesy. Especially if the only reason to do it is so it's cheaper to make.
If you think about it, if I make an item for myself there should be, and is, a price. But anyone could steal that item I made. If it's pretty cool, lots of people might want to take it from me. But if I add restrictions, it seems like it should take more time (I'm doing MORE than the usual generic item would require) and more effort and the item becomes less useful to everyone else so they have less reason to take it from me - all of this should make it more expensive.
But the rules say that it makes it less expensive. So why doesn't every magic item creator on the planet save himself 30% by simply restricting every item they ever make?
Any mechanic to do that for no reason other than to save money crafting the item is cheesy. Plain and simple. It's cheesy when a PC does it, it's cheesy when a NPC does it, it's just always cheesy.
Seriously, if you were a DM and a player came to you and said "I want to make a Headband of Intellect but I want to make it so only I can use it so I get half off the cost, right?", would you allow that? Really?
This shouldn't offend you. Your idea is probably quite valid and well supported in the RAW, and if the OP/DM wants to use it, I'm sure it helps him a lot. But it's remiss to throw it out there and not also point out the cheesiness of it.
Or another way to look at it, I don't think these rules are there for a player to cut costs. I think they're there for a DM to create interesting items with stories and purposes. One example would be the classic Drow magic weapons that literally dissolved in sunlight, thus effectively restricting them to subterranean use (or limited nighttime surface use). If a DM is planning an adventure against ogres, maybe he might have an ogre mage shaman who cranks out +1 greatclubs that only ogres can use, making them worthless to adventurers - except, instead of worthless, they're 30% cheaper. Those kinds of ideas have story purposes and are not cheesy.
Saving money by limiting a magic item you are making for yourself is cheesy. Again, sorry if that offends you, but it's true (insofar as an opinion can be true).
As soon as I saw the 3.0 creation rules back in the day, I house-ruled that restricting the pool of potential users would not reduce the creation cost by any percentage. Why would devising an item that could distinguish between users be - somehow - faster and cheaper than designing one without that additional magical property? It seemed like a flawed notion and got tons of abuse.
I'd always tell my players, "You can enchant an item so it can only be used by a beardless black-haired right-handed divorced half-orc with a lisp, but you don't save a nickel on it: all you get is a guarantee that any beardless black-haired left-handed divorced half-orc with a lisp who steals your item won't be able to use it against you."
(Of course, if the thief had Use Magic Device, he'd probably use it against them anyway, but that's a different subject.)
I LOL'ed. That beardless black-haired left-handed divorced half-orc with a lisp is gonna be disappointed...
But to the point, the only reason to reduce the price is for resale. Once that beardless black-haired left-handed divorced half-orc with a lisp kills you and takes this useless shield into town and tries to sell it, what merchant is going to pay full price for it?
OK, I doubt any merchant in the world would pay 3cp for that shield (unless the merchant himself happened to be a beardless black-haired right-handed divorced half-orc with a lisp), but if the restriction were something less comical, such as the proposed "human-only" shield, then certainly any merchant with human customers might buy it, but he also knows it's harder to sell to his non-human customers so he'll be stuck with it longer, his capital tied up and his shelf space occupied with an item that is harder to resell, therefore, he pays less for it.
So, maybe, the correct balance is to not let the crafter save save a nickel creating it, but still apply the 30% markdown as a resale penalty when someone tries to unload a restricted-use item on an unrestricted market.
I should point out that this has drifted into houserules area, but it's not the Rules Questions forum so I suppose that's OK, since it's stipulated. The RAW clearly allows restricted-use to reduce both the sale price AND the crafting price, even though that seems illogical and exploitable.