Wondrous Items - minor vs. medium vs. major

[Matthew Shelton]

When I make a wondrous item, how do I judge whether it should appear in a hoard as a 'minor', 'medium', or 'major' item? I can't figure out whether it has to do with the price of the item or its caster level, because the division between wondrous item groups in the Core Rulebook and Advanced Player's Guide are not consistent in either respect.

[Gauss]

minor, medium, and major only has to do with whether or not it is available in a town or city. It has no other purpose. To figure out which category it belongs to compare it to the pricing of those categories.

The only wondrous item that is incorrectly placed in APG is the Grappler's Mask. It should be on the minor table not the major table.

For wondrous items the breakdown should be: Minor (up to 7,500gp), Medium (up to 27,500gp), Major (anything after that).

- Gauss

[Quatar]

I think it mostly depends on price. If it costs 1000 gp then its minor, if its 100k then its major. If its in the overlap zone, you just make a judgement call.

Is it really that important though? Usually treasure is measured in gp-value not "x amount of minor/medium/major items"

[deuxhero]

Kingmaker and... I think that's it.

[Diego Rossi]

Kingmake, chances of finding a non standard item in a city (something that hasn't been published in the hardbound), deciding in what category something that you are producing will fall.

None of those is a major issue, all have some importance.

[Sekret_One]

Pretty sure it's mostly an organizational aid. No hard/fast rule for categorizing them.

[Matthew Shelton]

Here's some back-of-the-napkin math.....

8,000 X 3.5 = 28,000

28,000 X (3.5 X 2) = 196,000
close enough to 200,000 for government work?