It appears that the RAW for pathfinder leaves a hole in the determination of exact price for magic items with multiple abilities when the item is a body slot item.
Example: If someone was making a ring that possessed invisibility, featherfall, and mind shield, what would be the cost?
Option 1: Featherfall X 100% + Invisibility X 150% + Mind Shield X 150%
Option 2: Invisibility X 100% + Featherfall X 150% + Mind Shield X 150%
Option 3: Mind Shield X 100% + Featherfall X 150% + Invisibility X 150%
This assumes all the pre-reqs are present.
The challenge I come across is that RAW makes it appear that the chronilogical order of how abilities were added are the adjudication for cost/price.
In theory this means that you could have three of the same item sitting side by side and the cost/price for all three would be different.
Has everyone been playing with the chronological pricing or has anyone found support for instituting a value based heiracrchy such as exists when crafting staves?
Vlorn
It's not chronological order: The most expensive abilities go first.
It's not chronological order: The most expensive abilities go first.
Can you point me to where I can find that in the Core Handbook?
This is the line that has my players and myself wondering:
Multiple Different Abilities: For items that take up a space on a character's body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.
Many Thanks.
I'm not sure that it is directly specified, but look at it this way: The biggest, most expensive power is 'primary'. Everything else is 'additional'.
I'm not sure that it is directly specified, but look at it this way: The biggest, most expensive power is 'primary'. Everything else is 'additional'.
I actually agree with this concept - it is just disappointing that Paizo would not have clarified something like this. Maybe errata ftw?
Thanks - V
If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character's body, the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection +2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5.
Your original method seems to be the one supported by RAW, as the example they give specifically has one paying 150% for the invisibility function (10,000 gp base cost) when adding it to a ring of protection +2 (2,000 gp base cost).
However, I have always done the most expensive = primary method, because using the chronological method it is faster and cheaper to just build an entirely new item by crafting it with the most expensive ability first, i.e. adding invisibility to the example above would take 15 days/15,000 gp, as opposed to making a brand new one in 13 days for 13,000 gold and still having the original ring to sell/redistribute to party member.
Also, if you use the chronological method, the ring will cost more, but the price would probably be the same as the cheapest version of the item - nobody's going to pay more for it because you made it bass ackwards!
I've always done it like this :
Take base item (Say a ring). If it cost 5,000 to make it, and I want to add a 10,000 cost ability to it, I figure it up the cheapest way possible :
10,000 + (5,000 * 1.5) = 17,500
Since 2,500 was already put into it, the remainder of the cost of enchantment is 8,750 - 2,500 = 6,250. So the remaining enchantment cost is 6,250. This brings the enchantment cost of the item to 8,750 total, and the value to 17,500 total. Same as if it had been made from scratch.