Help with Custom Wondrous Item

[RavingRutabaga]

Hello, everyone. In my upcoming session, I wanted to give one of my players, a cleric, a magical item, but could not find any within the budget (around 4,000 gp) I had set for myself. After perusing the magical items I found none that fit the overall theme of the session. Out of boredom I took the liberty of crafting a wondrous item myself, but before I used it in my next game I wanted to see what feedback you guys had to offer regarding it. Oh, and I know it says Heironeous, but that is because I used the default 3.5 pantheon when I first started using Pathfinder and have yet to change to the standard pantheon.

Also, the last item power basically functions as the spell swallow your fear
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/swallow-your-fear

Here is the item in question.

GAUNTLETS OF GLORY

Aura faint enchantment and transmutation; CL 4th
Slot hands; Price 4,440 gold Weight 2 pounds

DESCRIPTION
Typically given to high ranking commanders within the church of Heironeous as a reward for exceptional valor, these exceptionally well-crafted bronze gauntlets have lightning bolts inscribed on both sides. If worn by a creature of good alignment, the gauntlets fill the creature with courage in battle, granting them a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls made as part of a charge and a +2 morale bonus to saving throws against fear effects. Creatures of neutral alignment do not gain any bonuses or penalties from the gauntlets. Evil creatures that wear the gauntlets are overcome with feelings of cowardice and are considered shaken until they remove them.

Furthermore, if Heironeous is your patron, as a standard action you may beseech him to bless a weapon you are holding to aid you in battle. The following spells (cast at caster level 4th) may be applied once a day to any weapon held within the gauntlets; bless weapon, magic weapon, and weapon of awe. Good aligned creatures with the ability to cast divine spells that do not have Heironeous as their patron may still seek his blessing if they have at least 3 ranks in Knowledge (religion).

Additionally, if Heironeous is your patron once a day you can use the gauntlets to lead your allies in a rallying charge. Once a day, when taking a charge action, you can as a free action raise a weapon held within the gauntlets and shout an inspiring battlecry (typically “For Glory!”). Each ally within 30 feet of you at the start of the round you initiate the charge that is suffering from a fear effect gains a +2 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution, a +1 morale bonus to Will saves, and a -2 penalty to AC. Likewise, if the subject is frightened at the time, they remain in place and gain the confused condition for the remainder of the fear effect. However, they treat all results of “attack self” as “do nothing” and treat “attack nearest creature” as “act normally.” If they are panicked, they instead remain in place and gain the confused condition for the duration of the fear effect. Bonuses (and penalties) granted from the rallying charge only apply when a target is affected by a fear effect. The effects of the rallying charge last for 10 minutes or until combat ceases, whichever comes first.

Good aligned creatures with the ability to channel positive energy that do not have Heironeous as their patron, may still lead a rallying charge using the gauntlets, but must expend a use of channel energy (as a free action) when leading the charge to initiate the effect. Positive energy channeled in this way has no additional effects.

CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, bless, bless weapon, magic weapon, weapon of awe, creator must be a paladin of at least 7th level and have Heironeous as their patron; Cost 2,200 gp

Is it too much for the price? Should I limit it to one of those spell effects a day instead of allowing one spell effect each day?

Likewise, would you be tempted to use something like this if you were a PC rather than vendoring it?

I could post the formulas I used for calculating the price, but will refrain for now.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Dragonchess Player]

That item is worth way more than 4,440 gp.

List of effects:

+1 morale bonus to attack rolls on a charge; closest equivalent is lesser bracers of archery (market price 5,000 gp)
+2 morale bonus to saving throws vs. fear; Save bonus (other) gives a market price of bonus squared x 2,000 gp or 2 x 2 x 2,000 = 8,000 gp*
*- because it only applies to fear effects, a 50% reduction seems reasonable to 4,000 gp

Note that constant bonuses always use the top part of Table 15-29 or an equivalent item to calculate market price.

bless weapon (CL 4) 1/day; Spell Effect/Command word gives a market price of spell level x caster level x 1,800 / 5 or 1 x 4 x 1,800 / 5 = 1,440 gp
magic weapon (CL 4) 1/day; market price 1 x 4 x 1,800 gp / 5 = 1,440 gp
weapon of awe (CL 4) 1/day; market price 2 x 4 x 1,800 gp / 5 = 2,880 gp
Quickened swallow your fear (make it a swift action; 5th-level spell slot) 1/day; market price 5 x 9 x 1,800 / 5 = 16,200 gp

As a slot item, the gauntlets use the Multiple Different Abilities guidelines on page 549. Market price = 16,200 + 7,500 + 6,000 + 2,160 + 2,160 + 4,320 = 38,340 gp; the alignment/class requirements reduce this to 26,838 gp, with the extra restriction on the weapon enhancing effects dropping it to 25,974 gp.

[RavingRutabaga]

Thanks for the reply. I suspected my math was way off and thank you for pointing out that I completely left out adding the price for the swallow your fear spell. I also realized I was giving discounts multiple times. For instance, I was giving an alignment/class restriction discount per ability rather than the item's total price.

That said, I was wondering if you knew of any guidelines on how to calculate an item's price if I gave it the option of the three weapon spells listed, but they could only use one of the spells a day.

Likewise, are you familiar with how to gauge the price of an item ability that would grant the effects of swallow your fear, but only to up to three allies? I'm guessing that would have to be at least caster level 8, but do you think having the requirement of spending a use of channeled energy would help to curb the cost of that? Oh, and after you pointed it out that it would be a quickened spell I would just drop it to a standard action to use the rallying cry.

I also decided to just drop the charge bonus and reduce the fear bonus to a +1 morale bonus in order to lower the cost and keep it in line with bless anyway.

Thanks again for your help, Dragonchess. It's been awhile since I've created a custom magic item (not since 3.5) and I just wanted to make sure I wasn't creating something grossly underpriced (which it looks like I was).

[RavingRutabaga]

So here is the revised item. It's right in the range I wanted it to be in (4,000-4,500), but I would appreciate any feedback on the calculations used to generate its new price.

Same as original post, but with the following changes.

Item powers...

Ability 1
Constant +1 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.
2,000 gold
Only applies against fear effects…50% off
1,000 gold
50% increase in price from taking up a slot (as per the multiple different abilities guideline)
1,500 gold

Ability 2
Once per day can affect a weapon held with bless weapon, magic weapon, or weapon of awe.
Without any guidelines to go by, I essentially combined the price of all 3 abilities at 1/day and then divided them by 3.

Weapon of awe (caster level 4)
Spell effect….14,400
1 charge a day…divide by 5…2880
2880 gold

Bless weapon (caster level 4)
Spell effect…7,200
1 charge a day…divide by 5…1,440
1,440

Magic weapon (caster level 4)
Spell effect…7,200
1 charge a day…divide by 5…1,440
1,440

All together…5,760
Divide by 3 (can only use 1 out of the 3 spells a day)
1,920
Only worth 75% (using multiple similar ability guidelines)
I considered this ability and the swallow your fear ability to be similar in that they both replicate spells.
1440

Ability 3
Swallow your Fear (caster level 8)
14,400 gold
1 charge a day….divide by 5….
2,880 gold (most expensive ability)

Total price before discounts…5,820

30% reduction from skill use/class/alignment restriction….1746

Final price…4074

With these changes in place I also decided to remove the need to burn a channel energy attempt for the swallow your fear power. Likewise, the swallow your fear power will require a standard action to activate.

[Goth Guru]

Since this is in homebrew you can handwave the "use cost of most expensive spell" thing in the RAW.