Pricing minor magic items

[Tinalles]

I've been working up an NPC who makes magical toys for children, and finding it hard to price things appropriately. For example, she makes items like:

- tops which change color as long as they're spinning
- candy that cleans your teeth better than a toothbrush
- dolls which say "I love you!" when you pick them up

All three of those are based on cantrips (Prestidigitation, Ghost Sound), and probably count as use-activated items. Per RAW, they would each cost 0.5 spell level * 1 CL * 2,000 gp = 1,000 gp each, which seems awfully steep for magical items which are essentially fluff. She needs some goods which are plausibly within the pocket money little kids of moderate means might be expected to have.

I could come up with dozens of other similarly fluffy items for adults. Cookware that cleans itself on command, say.

Can I reasonably drop the prices on these really low?

[Charender]

Yes, it falls into the rule of cool. If it is cool, then it is ok to break the rules.

Just be careful, clever PC have been known to come up with clever ways to use cheap items like this is unintended ways.

For example, a teddy bear that makes a sound when picked up could be used as a cheap alarm trigger.

[AvalonXQ]

The teeth-cleaning candy would be single-use and therefore much cheaper.

As for the other two, I probably wouldn't drop them to the level of kids' pocket money. The sort of thing a well-to-do parent could buy their kid, yes. So in the range of a few gp, not any cheaper.

As for the justification -- just say that it turns out that children's toys can be made in bulk like arrows, enchanting 100 with a single magical casting. Suddenly the 500 gp spent to make those dolls comes to 5 gp each, which isn't so unreasonable.

[AvalonXQ]

Charender wrote:

For example, a teddy bear that makes a sound when picked up could be used as a cheap alarm trigger.

Right. So don't make them any cheaper than a bell -- 1 gp.

[Tinalles]

Ahh, pricing them to match a mundane object with equivalent function makes sense. As does making small things in batches, particularly candies and the like.

Thanks!

[Abraham spalding]

Yeah I would say that these are limited uses of prestidigitation so a steep discount for limited use of that spell is in order. Also since prestidigitation is an hour per level spell you also throw on the discount for that.

Call it a total discount of 900 gp is fine in my opinion.

I would also like to add: Goodberry gumdrops.

[Charender]

AvalonXQ wrote:

Charender wrote:

For example, a teddy bear that makes a sound when picked up could be used as a cheap alarm trigger.

Right. So don't make them any cheaper than a bell -- 1 gp.

Most people expect a bell to make noise. A teddy bear, not so much.

[Skylancer4]

I wouldn't even make them magical honestly. We do have classes like the alchemist who could be making the candies, or using some alchemical substance to make tops glow when spun. This would put them into the realm of crafting mundane items and you could price them much cheaper.

[Halinn]

If you want them magical, you could throw on a hefty discount for only allowing them a limited use of the prestidigitation/ghost sound spell. If the item is single charged (the candy), you're looking at a base cost of 10 gp, before throwing in any custom discount