Basic magic pricing question

[yoippari]

My players are telling me that there is split opinion on how magic enhancements are priced. Opinion 1 is that +1 plus a +1 costs as a +2 (8000). Opinion 2 is that a +1 plus a +1 costs as 2 +1s (2000+2000=8000).

Personally that makes no sense in part because it ignores the +6 and higher part of the pricing table but also because I've never seen that argument and can't find this debate after a casual search. Of course they are saying that #2 is correct.

[Abraham spalding]

Opinion 1 is the correct one.

Now if you had a +1 weapon and you wanted to make it +2 (either with it being +2 or by giving it a power) the cost would be 6,000 gp. That is 8,000 (price for a +2 weapon) - 2,000 (price of the +1 weapon you already have) = 6,000 gp.

[James Jacobs]

yoippari wrote:

My players are telling me that there is split opinion on how magic enhancements are priced. Opinion 1 is that +1 plus a +1 costs as a +2 (8000). Opinion 2 is that a +1 plus a +1 costs as 2 +1s (2000+2000=8000).

Personally that makes no sense in part because it ignores the +6 and higher part of the pricing table but also because I've never seen that argument and can't find this debate after a casual search. Of course they are saying that #2 is correct.

Total up all of the effective bonuses and use that total to determine the final cost. A +1 effect and a +1 effect total up to be a +2 effect, and thus would cost 8,000 gp.

You can't have effects in excess of a total of +10.

This is basically what footnote 1 is saying on all of the tables; add the bonuses up then look at the main table to see how much it costs in all.

[DM_Blake]

Of course they say that.

Show them the rules for creating items at the end of the Magic Items chapter. There is a table there for figuring out the costs. It will show you the prices are actually based on simple formulas:

Armor: Bonus squared x 1,000 gp
Weapon: Bonus squared x 2,000 gp
AC: Bonus squared x 2,000 gp (like a ring of protection)

And so on.

[james maissen]

yoippari wrote:

My players are telling me that there is split opinion on how magic enhancements are priced. Opinion 1 is that +1 plus a +1 costs as a +2 (8000). Opinion 2 is that a +1 plus a +1 costs as 2 +1s (2000+2000=4000).

It's option 1.

That said I would suggest a house rule where it's closer to option 2.

There's little point in paying for a +3 weapon when you can get greater magic weapon cast upon it, and the same gp would give you a +X holy weapon instead (where X might even be higher than 3).

Instead of having the enhancement bonus specials (Flaming, Holy) compete with straight +'s I would have them go along side. Just charge normal (option 1) for a +1 whatever weapon, then add [bonus^2-1]*2,000 for the straight +'s.

The idea is that going from a +1 to +2 weapon would always cost 6,000gp and not matter whether the weapon was holy or whatever.

Likewise going from a +X flaming weapon to a +X flaming burst weapon would always cost 10,000gp.

It normalizes things out from an optimization standpoint. Think of it kind of like a single item with separate enchantments.

-James

[yoippari]

Quote:

It's option 1.

Like I said that's what I thought. I'm not a fan of the DM hammer but this is one time that it needs to be a bit hammer like.