Magic Items that Increase Caster Level

[Pinewoodpine]

I'm thinking of introducing magic items that increases Caster Level (as in "+X Caster Level", not "+x Effective Caster Level vs. SR"). I'm thinking of introducing this items as variant staffs that increase CL in five flavours:
Type 1: Spells from a particular sub school (healing vs. good vs. summon vs. fire vs etc.);
Type 2:Spells from a particular school (abjuration vs. conjuration vs. etc);
Type 3:Spells cast by a particular type of caster (wizard vs. sorcerer vs. cleric vs. etc;
Type 4:Spells cast by a particular type of magic type (divine vs. arcane);
Type 5:All spells.

I need some advice for the pricing however. I know the closest item that actually grants bonus to caster level is the Orange Ioun stone, which is priced at at 30,000gp.

If I use the Orange Ioun stone as a bench mark, a Type 5 staff that increases CL by 1 will be priced at roughly 15,000gp. From this, the formula that I roughly worked out for a Type 5 is this:

X*X*15,000gp = Price of Staff, where X is the bonus to Caster Level.

Based on this, price for the staffs are (before adding in Masterwork Bonuses and stuff like that):
15,000gp for a +1 Type 5 Staff
60,000gp for a +2 Type 5 Staff
135,000gp for a +3 Type 5 Staff
240,000gp for a +4 Type 5 Staff
375,000gp for a +5 Type 5 Staff

When compared to the PC wealth table, only a level 16 and above PC character can ever afford the cheapest of a Type 5 staff. Fair enough. But how should I price the other types?

I am mainly concerned about the abuse coming from specialist casters: e.g. a specialist wizard can gain a lot from a staff that boosts his specialist school, so does a "glass cannon" sorcerer that specializes in a certain type of spells.

...or maybe I should just scrap the whole idea?

[Jeraa]

THe rules suggest a magic item that only functions for a specific class costs 30% less than one useable by everyone. That would cover your Type 3. Type 4 would therefor be somewhere in between.

Quote:

Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment to Use: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30%.

[kestral287]

Strictly speaking, the staff would cost the same as the Ioun Stone. Both are considered slotless. Whether or not you agree is different of course.

If you're pricing based on value, the difference between a Type 4 and a Type 5 should be extremely small, and Type 3 not far behind them. After all, only a tiny subset of characters will ever need to be casting off both arcane and divine lists, and only a few more casting off multiple class lists. A Type 2 is also extremely powerful, since honestly not all spells need a large CL boost (Walls? Meh. Blast evocations? Yes. Enchantments? Yes, because we like punching through SR). Really only Type 1s aren't great, if only because the ones getting use out of them are already sub-par (but fun!) characters.

Also keep in mind that UMD can be used to trick items; be very sure you keep in mind just where its limitations end to curb abuses on that front.

To be honest though, I wouldn't do this. You're really only going to highly centralize these items, pushing every caster to own one (or more than one, if the lesser types are significantly cheaper). A caster with one is going to be much more capable of bypassing SR, can easily dispel the tricks of casters without them (including monsters with SLAs!), and will see a notable, marked improvement in almost everything they cast. It's too good to not have.

[Adept_Woodwright]

Also, keep in mind the Otherworldy kimono and the Bead of Karma (from prayer beads). Both of these are significantly less expensive than what your formula would suggest.

And yeah, I second kestral. Upping caster level effects can be a huge enough deal to warrant significant expense. One of the limiting factors at the moment is actually the small number of ways you can get this benefit.

[kestral287]

Adept_Woodwright wrote:

Also, keep in mind the Otherworldy kimono and the Bead of Karma (from prayer beads). Both of these are significantly less expensive than what your formula would suggest.

Worth noting that neither one of them is a generic +X CL. Kimono is rather limited (so far as I know, you only ever really make CL /checks/ for Spell Resistance and Dispels), Bead of Karma is 1/day for ten minutes and is only meant to work for Divine casters (but poor wording makes it insanely exploitable).

[Adept_Woodwright]

So it is. Completely misremembered that. And yeah, the prayer beads are once per day, but the duration is long enough you can have one going for the majority of fights where you'll want it if you carry 4-6 around (effectively an at will item then).

Or, if you want to make it continuous, the formula for the item might go something like...

20000 (bead) x 5 (standard uses per day) x 1.5 (continuous 10 min/use) = 150000 for +4 cl to divine casters only. That's a pretty hefty discount for divine casters from the first method... and that's disregarding the fact you reminded us of, that most arcane casters can UMD it.

Still, I agree. You'd have to make it almost unreasonably pricy to make it so that not every caster wanted one eventually.

These would probably be better served as modifiers on special, uncraftable, minor artifact like items.

[Pinewoodpine]

Alright. I'm convinced.

Scrapping the idea and reserve it for more... "exotic" items.

But, for the sake of applying a value to it, here is what I think:
Removing type 1 and 4 completely.
Type 2 is roughly 70% the price of Type 5.
Type 3 is roughly 85% the price of Type 5.
I'm comfortable enough with 15k for a +1 CL staff though.

I've looked at both the Kimono and Prayer Beads beforehand, but the Ioun Stone was the closest thing that I want for the staff though. The Robe of Archmagi has the same effective CL checks too.