Am I overthinking the Hat of Disguise?

[Watcher]

I have a couple players with these items, and I started to consider the benefits it describes.

The item description says it conveys the ability to change you appearance as per the Disguise Self spell.

Now if you read the description of the Disguise Self spell, that says it grants a +10 competance bonus to the Disguise Self Skill.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but does the Hat grant that skill bonus, or does it just change the features of the wearer per the spell description?

Because the description of the item mentions the one benefit, but not the other.

EDIT: If I use the cost as a guideline, I'd say it only changes the appearance of the wearer, but does not grant the skill bonus. It's an inexpensive item, priced on the spell level x caster level x 1,800 for a command word based use activated item.

But I wanted to throw it out there for other opinions.

[Enlight_Bystand]

As far as I was aware, the changing is what gives the +10, so the hat should give it.

[Beckett]

It does both, (if your asking what I think your asking). It allows you to change your looks to a certain point, and if someone tries to see through the disguise, you get a +10 to your disguise/bluff check (for maintaining that disguise).

[Ninjaiguana]

The short answer is yes, you're overthinking it.

The long answer is that the Hat of Disguise, is, as you've noted, costed as a command-word activated magic item. Its magical effect is to cast the disguise self spell at caster level 1 on command, granting all usual bonuses of the spell. The shakey part - and the part I tend to ignore as being too much trouble - is that each activation lasts 10 minutes, and so every 10 minutes you technically have to mumble the command word again.

[Watcher]

Okay.. That was my first take on it, but I began to second guess it.

Thanks for the help folks! I'll let them have the skill bonus as well as the spell effect.

[Morgen]

I think it changes your appearance as if you had the disguise self spell, it doesn't actually cast it so no reason to refresh it every 10 minutes.

Otherwise it'd be pretty useless as a disguise tool. After all, how do you know when 10 minutes are up? S'not like you have a watch.

[Ninjaiguana]

Morgen wrote:

I think it changes your appearance as if you had the disguise self spell, it doesn't actually cast it so no reason to refresh it every 10 minutes.

Otherwise it'd be pretty useless as a disguise tool. After all, how do you know when 10 minutes are up? S'not like you have a watch.

I agree that's how it should work, but by its cost and the rules, it isn't how it does work. Of course, several items in the DMG play fast and loose with the magic item pricings, how exactly they work, and so on. Plus, they don't spell out exactly how they do work, leaving you guessing. Compare this to, for example, the Magic Item Compendium, which explicitly states how all the items in it are activated and what action it is to activate them, and you can see how far magic item notation has come since the release of the core books.

[Dennis da Ogre]

Ninjaiguana wrote:

Morgen wrote:

I think it changes your appearance as if you had the disguise self spell, it doesn't actually cast it so no reason to refresh it every 10 minutes.

Otherwise it'd be pretty useless as a disguise tool. After all, how do you know when 10 minutes are up? S'not like you have a watch.

I agree that's how it should work, but by its cost and the rules, it isn't how it does work. Of course, several items in the DMG play fast and loose with the magic item pricings, how exactly they work, and so on. Plus, they don't spell out exactly how they do work, leaving you guessing. Compare this to, for example, the Magic Item Compendium, which explicitly states how all the items in it are activated and what action it is to activate them, and you can see how far magic item notation has come since the release of the core books.

Rule number one of pricing magic item is there are no rules. There guidelines and then there is the art of pricing stuff. Ultimately there are tons of items which don't follow the guidelines for one reason or another. For items priced in a sourcebook the pricing in the book and description trumps any guidelines in the dmg.