Pathfinder Player Companion: Magical Marketplace (PFRPG)

1. An armor enchantment that helps armor-using classes with their worst save and protects them from the most obvious way to remove them from a battle should be actually cheaper. +2 is too expensive for something that is a band-aid on your Achilles heel.

2. The sniping enchantment likely could be +1 instead of +2 but then again, nobody does invest in ranged sneak attack anyway.

Example: back in the Dragon/Dungeon days there were people vocally asking for an Art of Dragon/Dungeon book. So, Paizo made that book. It got solid reviews and is a really nice book. And now it's sitting on their shelves discounted to a silly price of 4 USD, because apparently not many people bought it. Turns out, a vocal group of people saying "please, do an art book" was nowhere close to an indication of what the market as a whole was interested to put money out for.

Thank you for reminding me. Paizo now has a few less of those to worry about ;-)

Not sure I agree that it should be cheaper. It's a very good ability, and basically good for everyone (besides Monk). Armor Enhancements tend to be less cool a lot of times, and being cheaper than weapon enhancements, I could see this being very popular across the board for anyone that can swing at least medium armor.

You can also get a similar affect with Clear Spindle Ioun Stone (4,000 gp) + Wayfinder (500/250 gp), but the armor seems to apply to everything (not just Evil).

I would say somewhere between a +2 and +3 looks about right, +4 maybe but kind of pushing it. If the armor specifically worked like a single version of Protection From _____, I think it would be also be a little more balanced.

I like the items in the book. As far as anachronism goes, it's not anachronistic in my setting :)

Gorbacz did you actually read the text there or are you just like that?
The armor enhancement doesn´t help, it makes outright immune to all spells of the enchantment school, doesn´t matter the alignment of the caster.

Items like this have a severe impact on scenario and adventure writing, because the authors have of course to look at such items, and this one will probably become the standard thing to go to for a lot of builds an classes i guess. Just taking out a whole magic school completely is really bad. Giving a bonus to saves is a different thing than complete immunity.

I'm thinking they intend it to work like Protection from _____, where it only applies to spells and effects that directly override your mind, but it does not specify in the item, so may or may not be the case.

FAQ

It also does not specify if it works on all alignments or just one, (chosen at the time of creation).

It's also a little unclear if

Gorbacz did you actually read the text there or are you just like that?

The armor enhancement doesn´t help, it makes outright immune to all spells of the enchantment school, doesn´t matter the alignment of the caster.

Items like this have a severe impact on scenario and adventure writing, because the authors have of course to look at such items, and this one will probably become the standard thing to go to for a lot of builds an classes i guess. Just taking out a whole magic school completely is really bad. Giving a bonus to saves is a different thing than complete immunity.

Paladins are immune to fear, disease level 3 on and charm from level 8 on. Monks get immunities to disease and poison. I'm not even touching the topic of people being able to make "immunity to X" items if the GM and their PC's pockets allow. I'm not seeing you around complaining that it breaks the game and forces adventure writers to stand on their heads. So, why now?

Yes, I've read it. No, I don't think it's unbalanced. Being immune to some (not all, read the item) enchantment effects is not something an adventure writer should be worried about, because you can't assume things about PCs apart from things like "low level characters usually can't fly" or "murder mysteries mus take speak with dead and blood biography into the account". And even those assumptions can fly out of the window is the party has a strix PC, cheap pun intended. I can't imagine any adventure/encounter that would suddenly become unplayable because a PC can't be charmed or hit with hold person.

On the other hand it's one of the few really "oooh, cool" armor enchantments I've ever happened across. So, no big one.

I see a difference there between class features and armor enhancements.

I'm on the fence about this one as well, Remove Curse seems rather odd for an item that thematically is supposed to purge the body. If Remove Curse was actually Remove Disease, I'd have no problem with it.

Read the Advanced Race Guide, specifically the human entry. There are about two or three nasty curse spells that are specifically nautical-themed. They go with the buccaneer gunslinger archetype.

More likely then not, that's probably why the item (which is sold by a former human pirate captain) removes curses.

So, while the book overall is written very nicely, i have some questions regarding two items and their balance. Namely the mind-buttressing armor enhancement and the sniping weapon enhancement.

Mind-buttressing seems a littble bit too powerful for me and an excuse for a lot of players to drop their WIS scores and willsaves even further, because for a mere 9000-10000gp you can become totally immune to enchantment spells.

Note the Will save bonus is a resistance bonus, so it does not stack with cloaks of protection. A cloak of resistance +2, which applies a bonus on all saving throws, is 9,000 gp. So, does is the armor ability worth a +2 bonus to Fortitude and Reflex saves? While charms and compulsions make up a large portion of the enchantment school, note that A) most Dex-based characters cannot benefit from this ability, as it requires medium or heavy armor only and B) enchantment is just as well-known for its buffs as its charms and compulsions. In addition, most GMs are somewhat apprehensive of brainwashing the party, so I actually see this ability as being a stronger option for a boss monster with the PCs likely selling the item if they manage to defeat the villain. Its certainly a good ability, but compared to the standard option (the cloak) I just don't see this as being broken.

Also, as Gorbacz points out, the armor doesn't make you immune to ALL enchantment effects; just the ones that basically end the fun for you. The mind controls and the dominates and so on. You can still use all of the wonderfully nasty debuffs like crushing despair, for example. There are a lot of great emotion-based debuffs that still work wonders against your armored buddy.

The sniping weapon enhancement on the other side is also +2, coming in for 18000-19000, let´s you make sneak attack at 45 feet, but doesn´t stack with anything, not even class features or feats it seems.

That seems very off to me.

For one, its letting you gain a rogue talent without needing to pick it. That's good. Also, things that improve ranged sneak attacking at all are so gosh-darn rare, its hard to call anything about this ability "off."

It's not so much "covering an achille's heel" as it is almost completely removing one of the intentional balancing factors for a wide variety of classes.

It's not so much "covering an achille's heel" as it is almost completely removing one of the intentional balancing factors for a wide variety of classes.

Not the monk. He's off crying in the corner again.

In addition, most GMs are somewhat apprehensive of brainwashing the party, so I actually see this ability as being a stronger option for a boss monster with the PCs likely selling the item if they manage to defeat the villain.

I can't see a party fighter wanting to sell the armour, to be honest. Resistances/immunities like that don't come along too often.

It does render any PC Enchanter wizard/sorcerers/whatever much less useful offensively against such individuals. Which is a problem if they're geared towards offensive-based enchantment magic, since if they're a wizard then they'll have to come back another day, and if they're a sorcerer, well, they're SOL. Perhaps the armour is intended to work similarly to Protection from Alignment spells, but then, those can be dispelled by an opponent.

I dislike that enchantment is so often an "all or nothing" approach, but that's a conversation for another topic, I think.

It's not so much "covering an achille's heel" as it is almost completely removing one of the intentional balancing factors for a wide variety of classes.

Umbalancing factor.

The art for the Laughing Sword seems a bit disjointed when compared to the rest of the book.

Question:

I really like this book and what it does. Some of you may know that I did a Witch Market discussion here along a similar if not much shorter format.

I am wondering if I may use either the bartering system or an expansion of it in a 3pp book I am going to be working on in the future. Is that a rule system that is open for such a project? How can I tell and find out if in the future I find other systems that I want to use?

Also, will we see anything similar to this in the future from Paizo? It does have some rough edges that could be worked out, but something more geared towards GM in the Setting line would get my money.

Can anyone who has this sourcebook please tell me if there is a Magnimarian magic shop detailed in it?

Some of the shops detailed in this book sells new weapon special abilities.

What if a PC asks one of the sellers to teach them how to use one of these weapon special abilities with their own item creation feat? Which would be the price?

There are no rules for knowing how to add a particular enchantment with crafting. If you meet the prerequisites (or take the +5 DC for missing components) and you know it exists you can make it. Anything else is DM fiat.

Some of the shops detailed in this book sells new weapon special abilities.

What if a PC asks one of the sellers to teach them how to use one of these weapon special abilities with their own item creation feat? Which would be the price?

Interesting question! Since the special enhancements represent trade secrets of the craftsperson, I would require the PC to improve the craftsperson's disposition/discount to at least the second best level. Then I would have the PC spend about half the cost of adding the enhancement as a training fee. That would translate to the first weapon enhanced costing about the same as if the PC had just purchased it, but from then on, he could make them at the discounted cost.

That said, the cost of a +1 enhancement varies based on the base weapon, so it requires a little judgment on the GM's end to determine a fair price. Perhaps base it off purchasing the enhancement on a +1 weapon.

There are no rules for knowing how to add a particular enchantment with crafting.

There are also no rules to teach feats, magus arcana or inquisitions, yet this is what some of the sellers in this book do.

And since they are sellers, I assume they sell their knowledge. Sadly, no price is defined.

I would require the PC to improve the craftsperson's disposition/discount to at least the second best level. Then I would have the PC spend about half the cost of adding the enhancement as a training fee.

Thanks for your help!