Am I missing something in the rules?
Rule #1:
"The easiest way to come up with a price is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced, using that price as a guide."
So an item that duplicates Bracers of Armor +4 costs 16,000 gp. Similarly, a Ring of Force Shield costs 8,500 gp, but is only half as good as the Shield spell.
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Your player is trying to get the benefit of a 64,000gp item (Bracers of Armor +8) for about 1/20th the price.
The guidelines are just that: guidelines. If you are not comfortable enough with the magic item creation rules to see the problem, you should probably just make them stick to existing items in the core rulebook.
Which makes the approximate cost of continuous mage armor and shield equal to one bazillion gold pieces.
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I have a player in my group who wants a continuous Shield + Mage Armor item as a waist(belt) slot item. There is a wizard in the group with the appropriate feats and caster level to craft the item, as far as I can tell at least. I'm wonder from a RAW standpoint what the cost of the item should be. From what I can find (based on table 15-24 on p. 550 and the "Adding New Abilities" section under Creating Wondrous Items on p. 553) it should cost 7k. The Shield spell would be (cl 1 * spell level 1 * 2000gp continuous) * 2 for the usual duration of 1 min/level for 4kgp and the Mage Armor would be (cl 1 * sl 1 * 2000gp for continuous) * .5(for additional ability) for 3k for a total of 7k market value and a cost to create of 3.5k.
Am I missing something in the rules? How would other DMs handle this? It seems like a substantial benefit (8ac + immunity to magic missile) for the cost. Compared to an item like Bracers of Armor +4 for 16k which would provide the same benefit of the Mage Armor spell if taken as 4 armor (instead of using special abilities) I can't believe the price discrepancy. That's without the benefit of Shield.
That does seem ridiculously low. As a GM, I would maybe think about changing the caster level to 3, since that is the minimum caster level to qualify for craft wondrous items. makes it a 15k cost item. you could also make a home rule that you HAVE to charge the creator's caster level in place of them being able to lower the caster level on the item.
Your player is trying to get the benefit of a 64,000gp item (Bracers of Armor +8) for about 1/20th the price.
The guidelines are just that: guidelines. If you are not comfortable enough with the magic item creation rules to see the problem, you should probably just make them stick to existing items in the core rulebook.
Dito, i would go with 68.000 gp.
+8 Ac, saves from magic missles and tried to f~!% with the DM.
the cost of a permanent item with shield+mage armor just doesn't add up compared to creating magic items from spells VS existing magic items. This is something that needs to be calculated as a GM. It's not as simple as it SHOULD cost this or that. If it's too low a price then bracers and ring of force shield would be completely obsolete and everyone would be running around with that belt. If it's to high a price than the craft items system seems completely broken. I had this come up in a past game. I ended up making the mage armor item the same price of bracers with the same AC bonus but was a vest-used the appropriate slot. and a permanent shield item that was also the same cost of a +4 shield but bracer's-appropriate slot. if the player wanted to combine them-EX bracers of shielding and armor the cost would be that of a +4 shield and the cost of adding Mage armor to the bracers as well -would be X1.5 or 2x the cost(can't remember the exact formula for the cost of combining qualities on an inappropriate slot)
In the end this character took a dip into sorcerer and just bought some wands of shield and mage armor lol-for a fraction of the cost.
I mostly agree with everybody here,
though I don't think Bracers of Armor +8 w/ Wrong-Slot penalty cost is the ONLY valid approach:
Bracers of Armor +4 and Ring of Force Shield +4 w/ Wrong Slot penalty and Combined Effect penalty is reasonable as well, because the Bracers of Armor +8 is crucially stackable with a Shield Spell/ Ring of Shielding while the latter approach is not.
I don't know how much difference the cost between those approaches would be, but both options are certainly going to be more expensive than the OP's player's proposal :-)
In agreement with everyone for the most part with one exception.
A bracer of mage armor is not quite as good and a bracer of armor +4.
The bracer of mage armor must be activated, after which point it puts the mage armor spell on the wearer. The wearer gets hit is a dispel magic, or walks into an antimagic shell the mage armor drops and requires a standard action to activate. Similarly, someone wearing bracers of mage armor walks into a minor globe of invulnerability will have their mage armor suppresses while the bracers of armor +4 will continure to operate normally.
Based on this, I would give bracers of mage armor a 20% discount relative to bracers of armor +4. I would make bracers of shield the same price as bracers of armor +4 due to the magic missle shield effect.
So a combo item that did both would be 16k for shield effect + 1.5 * .8 * 16k for armor as a secondary shared slot effect = 35,200 gold
If they wanted to avoid having to activate the item and having the effect suppressed, it would cost 16k + 1.5 * 16k = 40k and it would not stop magic missles.
Those numbers are assuming they put the bonuses in an appropiate slot. If they want to put it in an inappropiate slot multiply every thing by 1.5
This one is easy...you are using the wrong formulas from the chart. This should use the Armor bonus (enhancement) line--Bonus squared x 1,000 gp--if the item will grant an Armor bonus, or the AC bonus (deflection) line--Bonus squared x 2,000 gp--if it will grant a Deflection bonus. So, you are looking at somewhere between 64,000 and 128,000 gp minimum, plus a bump if you want to throw in the immunity to magic missiles.
Only use the Spell Effect and Special sections if the top items don't apply, and then definitely use the advice above of comparing to existing items.
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Contributor
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I'd build this as:
+4 Armor bonus = 16000 gp (as bracers of armor)
Ring of Force Shield = 8500 gp
Brooch of Shielding = 1500 gp
So that's 26000 gp all together, give or take. I might make it closer to 35000 or 40000, just for the convenience of it being one item, but not much more than that.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Armor bonus (enhancement) bonus squared x 1000 gp plus shield bonus (enhancement) squared x 1000 gp x multiple different abilities (x1.5 of lower cost, but they're the same cost)
16000 + (16000x1.5) = 16000 + 24000 = 40000 gp. That buys you a body slot item that gives you +4 armor bonus and +4 shield bonus to AC. It doesn't stack with other armor or shields. It also doesn't protect you from magic missiles the way the shield spell does.
If you want that magic missile protection, I'd price that as a continuous shield spell, CL x spell level x 2000 gp x 1.5 for multiple different abilities, ad hoc x 1/2 since you're only taking the magic missile protection part of the shield spell. All told, an additional 1500 gp, about in line with a brooch of shielding.
40000 for the armor shield bonuses + 1500 for magic missile immunity = 41500, call it a nice round 42000 since unlike a brooch of shielding it'll never melt. I'd set caster level at a minimum 8 since bracers of armor require you to have CL of 2x the bonus granted.
Still cheaper than 64k bracers of armor +8, but also won't stack with other armor or shields.
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I think using the guidelines you should consider him wanting to create a magic item that does three things at once:
a) provides an armor bonus (force) of +4
b) provides a shield bonus (force) of +4
c) provides immunity to magic missile
So what would the costs of the individual components be?
For a), we have a pretty handy guideline in the bracers of armor. So we'll just use that and say it would cost 16,000.
For b), looking at the costs of other AC type bonuses, it should be armor bonus squared x 2,000. So the base cost of this would be 32,000. This is identical to the cost of an amulet of Natural Armor +4 or a ring of protection +4.
For c), its essentially a 1st level spell effect, albeit with a slightly lower benefit, which may warrant a cost reduction. So it would basically be spell level x caster level x 2000 for continuous use, which is 2000. Since its a spell thats measured in minutes per day we multiply the cost by 2 to reach 4,000. Compared to a broach of shielding that has a limited, but substantial, use, that seems about right.
So how much is it to put all these effects into one item?
These all seem to be multiple different abilities in a single item, so we'll multiply the price of the lower cost items by 1.5 and then add them together.
b) has the highest cost, so that will stay at 32,000
a) costs 16,000, so multiply by 1.5 to get 24,000
c) costs 4,000, so mulitply by 1.5 to get 6,000
And that gives a total cost of 62,000 gp.
That seems about right I think. Bracers of armor +8 cost 64,000, and both that and our item here provide a net AC boost of +8. The bracers will stack with more things since its just a single bonus type, whereas the designed item won't stack with armor or shields. And the designed item provides the additional effect of providing immunity to magic missile. So all together this seems to be on track.
Thus, we now have a belt that provides a +4 armor bonus and a +4 shield bonus and immunity to magic missiles. It has a cost of 62,000gp, a cost to create of 31,000gp, it would require Craft Wondrous Item, Mage Armor, and Shield, and would take 62 days to craft. It should have a caster level of 12 (3x the shield AC bonus).
Listen to your Father. He's right as rain on this one.