I just downloaded Pathfinder Beta and clicked on the Magic Items bookmark first, on a whim. So Jason went to all the trouble to reprint the DMG magical items, so there must be a good reason like repricing...so I went to the Fortification property which has always been a pet peeve of mine. Not because of the ambiguities it poses when coupled with Brilliant weapons, but because the price is inconsistent and for no reason at all. 25% to 75% to 100%...who wrote that out originally, some intern at WotC who passed his math classes from fifth grade onwards by bribing and sucking up to his teachers? For those of you who aren't math-heads like I am let me spell this out: if you have 100 percentiles to spread out among five bonus-equivalents, all you have to do is DIVIDE 100 BY 5. That gives you 20% per +1 bonus; it's basic frickin' arithmetic.
Okay, I realize this is a pet peeve of mine and nothing worthy of great public attention, even though it could have EASILY FIXED with half a minute of editing...whatever, I'm sooo over it... Hm, what's this...wait...no you didn't Jason...no, there aren't STILL SPECIFIC ARMS AND ARMOR?! This statement is for Jason and any other professional or amateur designers who might be reading: if you go to the trouble of creating a new and improved edition, DON'T LEAVE NEEDLESS COMPLEXITIES, AMBIGUITIES OR IRRELEVANT CLASSIFICATIONS in the rules! They're not charming and they only make the game harder to run. I can only assume that specific magical items were intended to be more special, but they're not. The 'specialness' of magical items is solely dependant on how the DM describes them and hands them out, regardless of whether he designs them himself or picks them out of a list of arbitrarily specific items. Specific items actually become less special than standard magical items because PCs are encouraged to sell them as the items' bonuses and powers become more and more trivial, rather than adding bonuses and powers to make the items cooler.
Okay, end rant. I realize these are just pet peeves of mine but that doesn't make it any less satisfying to get them off my chest.
TS
The fortification item wasn't likely priced by arithmetic it was likely decided that having 4 x the fortification value was worth a lot more than 4x the 25 percent price.
It is possible, but it sounds like a shallow reason to me. I mean if they based it on usefulness, why start with 25%? That's 'worth' half a bonus, at most.
Anyway, I am glad to see that Jason dropped the ridiculous +1 BAB prereq for Weapon Finesse, so kudos to him for that!
TS
Yeah, I don't really see what the big deal is with the fortification. Frankly I think the 25% is underpriced myself. I would have done 25%=+2, 75%=+3, 100%=+5. Being 100% immune to criticals and sneak attack (and skirmish and such I would assume) is pretty powerful, it should be pricey.
I don't understand what you're complaining about.
It just annoys me when I see things that could easily be patterns, but aren't. Like 2e's XP charts. It's a pet peeve, so it's not totally rational.
TS