How much would a Necklace (for sake of argument) of Elemental body I that is limited to one form be? We'll say Air elemental for sake of argument.
In other words with this necklace you can turn into a small air elemental as often as you want, burn nothing else.
What would that cost? Would other elements cost more or less?
It's not going to be cheap. The baseline formula gives us 4 * 7 * 2,000 * 2 = 112,000 for something that casts elemental body at will. (We'll get to the one-form limit in a second.)
Let's reality check: changing into the small air elemental gives +2 dex, +2 NA, a 60-foot fly speed (perfect) and the whirlwind ability. It does, however, reduce your offensive options to mostly just an unimpressive slam attack, and you lose your normal armor bonus.
Wings of Flying cost 54k. (Other flight solutions are cheaper but not always-on.) An amulet of natural armor +2 costs 8k. A +2 Dex belt costs 4k, but that's an enhancement bonus. Goggles of Night (darkvision) are 12k. Those four things would take up four slots, though. On the other hand, they don't stop you from casting or using your gear or whatever, and you don't lose your armor bonus.
Eyeballed with a little bit of intuition, I'd say 100k is playing it safe. Other elemental forms might be cheaper. (Fire in particular is of somewhat less general utility, although that's a lot of fire resistance.)
Since it is a custom item, you can kind of mess with the price a little depending on who it's going to be for; a rogue, unless I'm missing something, is going to get dramatically more mileage out of being an air elemental than most characters are. If you think that air elementals can cast spells, it also becomes really good for spellcasters.
The PRD (since i'm too lazy to go find my hardcover) lists them as speaking Auran without giving any limitation as to only being able to understand it. That sounds like they can talk.
If you consider the information on what they can look like to be rAW- the PC can make them selves look like humanoids. (it basically says they can look like.. whatever. some are vortexes, others look like birds, etc.).
Its also important to note that they also get the Elemental traits not just the Air Elem traits.
while I have no idea how to price it-
they get immunity to crits and sneak attacks
they get immunity to breathing/sleeping/eating, stun attacks, bleeding effects, sleep and poison effects.
This is a pretty big effect for "always on". I mean- once its on the PC really has no reason to turn it off.
100k to never need to eat/sleep again with a great fly speed and immunity to crits and such? thats pretty dang sweet.
(also note, ALL elementals get those traits not just air.)
unless I missed something. can't seem to find that necklace listed.. but i'm probably just blind or something.
-S
Because of the way polymorph spells work in pathfinder you don't actually get the immunity to crits, sneak attacks, bleed and what not until Elemental Body III, which would make for a much more expensive item. 264k by my math (6 * 11 * 2 000 * 2 = 264000)
Oh.. I'm not blind, I'm a moron.
I assumed he already had a necklace of elemental body and wanted to limit it to 1 form.
explains why i couldn't find it in the magical items section though :)
sorry lol
-S