For what's worth, he also created Boots of Expeditious Retreat! Lol.. It was at the same time.
As a suggestion, perhaps you should inform the PC that just because you cast a spell into an object and make a magic item doesn't mean you get the spell's exact effects placed into that object. So trying to get a permanent +30 to your movement isn't going to happen just because you cast Expeditious Retreat onto an item.At least, he shouldn't anyway, people are going to play the game however they choose.
Besides, a Wand of Expeditious Retreat is cheaper.
For what's worth, he also created Boots of Expeditious Retreat! Lol.. It was at the same time. I remember I was extremely busy at that time during the campaign and had a lot of issues going on both in real life and with some other players. I got distracted and hand waved them through, along with the Bracers of Shielding. He only made one pair of such Boots and gave them to another player. That other player voluntarily nerfed them closer to Boots of Speed, because he felt they were cheesy.
In 3.0 Boots of Striding and Springing used Expeditious Retreat as its spell req, and it DOUBLED your movement AND gave a +10 competence bonus to jumping. And the kicker? they cost 2,500gp, making it one of the BEST purchases for any low level character. Because of this they radically changed it in 3.5 to use the less powerful Longstrider spell.
Now Longstrider, aside from providing smaller move bonus than ExPed, has one other major difference. Its duration is hours rather than minutes, which means its useful for overland movement, as well as being more closely balanced to a continuous use item. I have no doubt that the 3.5 developers had a talk about rebalancing the boots and ExPed in general.
I have a feeling that the spells that use minutes/rounds per level for their duration can be abused as continuous-use items. They were given short durations because they provide bonuses that dramatically effect combat or play in-general. Perhaps the duration multiplier should be stronger. Perhaps instead of just x2 and x4 for minutes/rounds, it should be x5 and time x10.
Expeditious Retreat is something of an odd spell. I actually think it's a bit too good as a 1st level spell for such a static effect. I think this is more a problem with the spell itself than with the magic item pricing formulas.
But that's entirely just a personal opinion. I wouldn't suggest changing it unless you just wanted to (I haven't bothered to change it in my games). If I were to change it, I would probably make it a +10ft bonus to speed, with an additional +5ft for every 2 caster levels above 1st (+15ft at 3rd level, and +20ft at 5th level, etc). However, I'd imagine a number of fighter/wizards or ranger/sorcerers would be less appreciative of such a change.
That way it would cost about 36,000 for a fully functional +30ft continuous movement magic item, using the Expeditious Retreat spell continuously, which is much more costly than otherwise. Plus casters would still get about the same amount of use from it, I would think (mind you I prefer to play casters most of the time, and I would be fine with this).
For a more direct route, may I suggest adding a formula to your magic item creation for speed enhancement items? It should likely be priced the same as enhancement bonus items, with a +5ft of movement being equivalent to a +1 bonus. The pricing formula should come out like this.
Speed Enhancement Bonus
+5ft / 1,000gp
+10ft / 4,000gp
+15ft / 9,000gp
+20ft / 16,000gp
+25ft / 25,000gp
+30ft / 36,000gp
Some would also suggest having the items function for one type of movement. That is, you would need multiple enchantments for land, fly, swim, and other movement forms. I probably wouldn't bother, but some would consider it fair given the restrictions on other forms of movement by spells like Expeditious Retreat and Longstrider.
To get a continuous +4 shield bonus, you'd have to have a minimum caster level which is significantly higher than level 1. The best guideline I can see is the bracers of armor guideline, which is 2 x bonus. Any item which grants a +4 shield bonus should at least have a minimum caster level of 8. The caster level of 12 for crafted armor is simply too high for these purposes.
Check: Continuous Mage Armor (1 hour/level duration) versus bracers of armor +4 (caster level 8). 1 x 8 (min caster level) x 2000 (continuous item) x 1 (hours/level) = 16,000, which is what we expect. . .
So for shield: 1st level spell x 8 (min caster level) x 2000 (base continuous item) x 2 (minutes duration) = 32,000 gp.
This seems high, but consider what's going on here:
* Continuous magic missile immunity
* Shield bonus without having an arm devoted to a shield
* Applies to incorporeal touch attacks
So 32k seems fairly reasonable.
Edit: Meant to use the continuous item stats and not the non-AC armor bonus. . .
Ah... it is getting worse! I fear there must be foul magic at work! A second post has been taken by the void!
(I wonder if anyone will even see THIS post?)
EDIT: Um. Nevermind. meabolex how did you thwart the foul magic? beast? whatever... :)
I guess I bugged the system enough |:
Folks,
Thanks for the wonderful discussion. There were a lot of great ideas, and some good pointers.
In the end, I don't think it's worth taking them back from the player, since he's had them for awhile. I think, for me, the sensible solution is Mistwell's. Let the player keep them, and let him know that he could not produce another pair for that price, or upgrade them.. and let it go.
...
I'm going to tell him that these Bracers of Shielding are a fluke, a lucky accident in magic item creation that are never likely to be reporoduced ever again for that price. Therefore they are something of a personal legacy to that character.
And I'll be much more thorough in my adjudication of crafted items that aren't in the book.
Sounds like a great plan Watcher.
For what it's worth, I'm with the Ogre - I'd call it at 34K for the shield bonus (+2 shield bonus from Ring of Force Shield @ 8500, multiplied by 2^2 since the bonus doubled (and then should be squared)). Adding on the magic missile immunity... I'd tack on a bit more. At this point I'd probably be nice and round it to 35K, but if we based it on doubling the brooch of shielding, there'd still be a +50% surcharge, for 4500, and a total of 38500.
Unencumbered shield bonuses (no ACP or ASP), and not having a floating target for sunder attacks and disintegrates, is a hefty advantage.
For anyone with a player trying to push a new "continuous-use" item, there's three main things to consider:
For instance:
Lenses of Fireball
You may shoot fireballs from your eyes at will (CL 5th).
Price: 3 X 5 X 2000 = 30000. Duration in rounds(?): x 4 = 120,000
Collar of Fire-spewing
You may breath forth a fireball, 5/day (CL 5th).
Price: 3 X 5 X 1800 = 27000.
Glad I read all the way through to the second page before posting almost exactly what Majuba just posted. ;)
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For what's worth, he also created Boots of Expeditious Retreat! Lol.. It was at the same time. I remember I was extremely busy at that time during the campaign and had a lot of issues going on both in real life and with some other players. I got distracted and hand waved them through, along with the Bracers of Shielding. He only made one pair of such Boots and gave them to another player. That other player voluntarily nerfed them closer to Boots of Speed, because he felt they were cheesy.
In 3.0 Boots of Striding and Springing used Expeditious Retreat as its spell req, and it DOUBLED your movement AND gave a +10 competence bonus to jumping. And the kicker? they cost 2,500gp, making it one of the BEST purchases for any low level character. Because of this they radically changed it in 3.5 to use the less powerful Longstrider spell.
Yeah, a lot of items were really broken in 3E... I remember having a discussion about Armor of Speed & Strength, which would have granted +4 Enhancement Bonus to STR and *persistent* Haste (not just for 10 rounds per day). Instead of adding to bonuses (and way more to the price), both qualities were just something like +16000 GP on top of the base price. If you consider that this in 3.0, it would have been a laughable price to pay for creating something that broken.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Using the Shield Spell on continuous duration.
If you priced it correctly, then it isn't a problem.
If you incorrectly priced it (say for instance if you allowed a CL * SL * some value calculation), then you have a seriously broken item and need to take it back.
In short, if you priced it this way (SL*CL*X) then you skipped rule #1 (similar items like Bracers of Armour/Ring of Force Shield) and rule #2 (dissimilar items of similar power) in item creation.
Nicely done sir!No it worked anburaid's post appeared.invisible post appear!Apparently your CL is not high enough! :)
Thank you! as you may or may not know, Warforged are immune to invisible posts ;)