Adamantine arrows arent required therefore they arent a material component. Frankly you only really need as many arrows as you can launch in a volley.
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Adamantine arrows aren't the material component. The spell requires a piece of ammunition as a material component, but it specifically duplicates ammunition taken from the container affected rather than duplicating the ammunition used as the material component. General rule: if the "Components" line of the spell does not list a material component with a cost defined within that line, the cost of the components is considered negligible and does not need to be paid when crafting an item that duplicates that spell.
How this works is that the character buys an Abundant Quiver without any ammunition and then buys at least one of each type of nonmagical ammunition he would like to have. If he buys at least one adamantine arrow (60gp if allowed to purchase a single arrow - you don't actually need to purchase a whole quiver's worth) and puts it in his quiver. He now can draw unlimited adamantine arrows from the Quiver as long as its magic is not suppressed.
"Quiver" isn't a slot, even though an Abundant Quiver prevents you from using the Efficient Quiver, so the cost will be doubled to 8,000 gp market value using strict item crafting rules, though the DM should approve this as with all custom items (perhaps using the Conserving property for comparison).
The powers of an Efficient Quiver can be added to the Abundant Quiver for +2,700 gp if you also want to hold staves and rods or a significant number of magical arrows in your quiver (the Abundant feature would not replace magical arrows drawn).
One small note: if you only buy one adamantine arrow, you would only ever have one. You fire it and it reappears back in the quiver at the end of the round (or beginning of the next round, I can't remember which). This means two things: you can't sell it more than once and you can only shoot one a round.
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Thanks, MagiMaster, I missed that. Because the ammunition is replaced at the beginning of the round and not after every shot, the character will want to purchase at least enough arrows for a full round's worth of attacks. 5-10 should be sufficient for most characters (300-600gp), but the player should check his build. A Level 20 Dex 26 full-BAB archer with Manyshot, Rapid Shot, Snap Shot, and Combat Reflexes could in theory use 16 arrows a round.
If your character is a ranger or has access to the spell Bow Spirit, then you will need one additional arrow of each type so that you can still make use of all of your arrows and still have one more for your Bow Spirit to use.
Rules as Written, Weirdo is absolutely correct.
For balance purposes, I would rule that-- in general, but especially for a permanent enchantment-- the material component for abundant ammunition is one piece of ammunition of the type the spell will replicate. Of course, if you're clever, this also means you can have permanent quivers of magical ammunition... if you pay for 100 shots first.
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I don't see unlimited (up to 10/round) adamantine arrows for 8,600 as being too unbalanced. That's almost 3 times the cost of an adamantine sword. Even if the character gets to duplicate cold iron and silver/mithril arrows in there as well, it doesn't strike me as OP. This is the ability to pierce material-based DR freely, which you can also get by buying a +3/+4 bow, which also gives you a bonus on to-hit and damage.
If we assume the player puts roughly 1/3 of their wealth towards a magic bow, 1/3 towards protective gear, and 1/3 towards this quiver with 10 of each kind of arrow, we end up with an 8th level character with a +2 bow who pierces DR/cold iron, silver, or adamantine. Or the player could get a +3 bow for roughly the same price and get a +1 to hit and damage on every arrow but be unable to pierce DR/adamantine (the +3 bow will be able to pierce cold iron and silver, assuming it's all straight enhancement bonus). Obvious choice? Probably not.
Where this item would be worth it is if the player wants to get a +1 Seeking Flaming bow or what have you, missing out on the +3/+4 weapon's abilities vs DR. Even then, depending on how often you run into DR and what types you run into it could be more effective to just buy 2-4K worth of special arrows and shove them in an Efficient Quiver, or get the Clustered Shot feat.
Yeah, I tend to forget that pluses overcome material DR now.
The game I'm running right now, the players are trying to get abundant ammunition magazines for their firearms.
Generally speaking if something is much better than a more expensive item, it's under priced.
Unless the more expensive items is overpriced. It happens.
In this case, it isn't the case however. Unlimited +5 XYZ arrows for 4k is a TAD bit underpriced. At lower levels it is reasonable, as things progress it constantly gets better. You cannot take a snapshot at one particular level to gauge the price, you need to look over the range of levels.
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First, as mentioned above the pricing is actually 8K for the quiver (since it doesn't take up a slot), plus about 10x arrow cost to give the archer enough for a full round of attacks. If the archer wants adamantine, mithril, and cold iron arrows that's over 9K for the package.
Second, that's only unlimited mundane arrows, not unlimited +5 Whatever arrows. It's an Abundant Ammunition effect, which doesn't duplicate magic arrows. Viktyr Gehrig did mention a variant that would duplicate magical arrows, but at a greatly increased cost.
Given the fact that it doesn't duplicate magic arrows, I don't see how the item gets better at high levels. If anything, it gets less useful, since a +3 bow automatically gives you the benefit of unlimited cold iron and mithril arrows and a +4 bow gives you the DR benefit of adamantine (though not the hardness). Also, at higher levels Clustered Shots becomes available, which greatly reduces the significance of DR for the archer and makes special materials less important.
Abundant ammo is awesome, probably broken. With permenant aa, you could start with poisoned arrows of a sort, and even when your enemies need to roll a 1-3 to fail, you're hitting them with 5+ poisoned arrows. Know what you're fighting? cast named bullet on your quiver for an almost certain crit per round for 10minutes per level (think that time is right) I'd add in a modifier with the type of arrows duplicated, or give nod for creative thinking on how to break things.
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Yeah something like..
Quiver of abundant adamant arrows.
Quiver of abundant Poison Arrows
Quiver of abundant Flaming arrows.
Each should be a seperate magical item for balance purposes.
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Having separate expensive quivers for each kind of arrow is a poor deal since it is prohibitively expensive to acquire a variety of arrows in that manner, interfering with the archer's ability to use the right arrow for the job.
Quiver of Flaming Arrows wouldn't work on permanent Abundant Ammo alone since magic arrows aren't replaced.
Personally, I might house-rule against the Named Bullet combo, since Abundant Ammunition was clearly intended to work with spells that enhanced multiple projectiles, not just one.
Poison's a good angle, and one I hadn't thought about. Still, I've heard people complain that poison is too expensive to be worth it in ordinary use, so maybe Abundant Ammunition would just make poison more reasonably affordable. Note that the archer still needs to pay for 5-10 doses of poison to get a full round of attacks in, so high-end poisons are still a significant investment. Also, multiple doses of poison just increase the save DC and duration of the poison effect, not the magnitude of effect and not the number of saves per round. If the archer is concentrating fire on one target the best-case scenario is that the archer keeps a target under the effect of poison for the entire combat. Splitting arrows across multiple targets allows a slightly greater effect, but increases the chance targets will make their saves and therefore be less affected by the poison.
Note also a range of opponents are immune to poison, including undead, constructs, demons, devils, elementals, oozes, high-level alchemists, druids, and monks, or anyone under the effect of Delay Poison or Heroes' Feast.
Our archer is a 10th level ranger. He has a BAB of +10, Dex 20 without gear, and has Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Weapon Focus, and Deadly Aim. No other abilities increase his number of shots per round or his attack bonus.
(1) No Abundant Quiver
Archer buys a +4 longbow (not composite), +3 leather armour, +2 Ring of Protection, +2 Amulet Nat AC, Belt of Dex +2, 550 gp of consumables. (Total: 62K) Archer full-attacks at +17 (double)/+17/+12/+7. Against a typical CR 10 monster (AC 24), Archer hits 65% of the time with his first three arrows, 40% with the middle, and 15% with the last – on average, he hits with 2.5 arrows. Ignoring crits for simplicity, his expected average damage is 30 per round. His AC is 25.
(2) Abundant Quiver, low investment
Archer buys an Abundant Quiver for 8,000 instead of the Amulet of Nat AC, and spends all but 50gp of his consumables money on 5 doses of Greenblood Oil. Since his to-hit is the same, he inflicts on average 2.5 doses of poison per round. If all arrows go to a single target, the Greenblood Oil DC will therefore be on average 18. If we generously assume the opponent has a poor Fort save (~+9 for a CR 10) they will fail their save on a 1-8 and take 1 Con damage 40% of the time. For a typical CR10 monster, HD~15, that's an average of 3 HP lost due to poison for one full-round attack. For a good Fort save of +13, this drops to 1.5 HP lost. Meanwhile, the Archer's AC is down by 2, which is a 10% increase in their chance to be hit in combat, and expects to take an average of extra 3-4 damage for every single swing that typical CR 10 monster gets at the archer. The archer is also missing a few useful consumables.
If Archer instead invests in Blue Whinnis (getting a loan from his buddy to cover the extra 100 gp), he gets an expected 3.4 HP worth of HP due to Con damage due to the slightly higher fort save, and gets a 30% chance of knocking the monster unconscious within 2 rounds (takes 2 consecutive failures but the second DC is about 5 higher). If the opponent has good Fort saves, this decreases to a 12.5% chance.
(3) Abundant Quiver, high investment
Archer decides to go big or go home and spends 15K on five doses of Wyvern Poison in addition to his Quiver. He now has a +4 bow, +2 leather armour, a +1 Ring of Protection, and 550 gp consumables. His 2.5 doses of Wyvern Poison now require a DC 22 to save, which the opponent fails on a 12 or lower, dealing d4 Con damage 60% of the time for an average Con damage of 1.5, or just over 11 HP worth per full-round attack. (7.5 for a good Fort) Archer's AC has dropped to 21, meaning he's got a 20% higher chance to be hit by any attack, taking an expected 6-8 extra damage for every swing the monster takes at him. Wyvern poison does also require 2 saves, making it more likely that the monster will stay poisoned over multiple rounds, especially as the Fort save drops. In my experience most combats are 2-4 rounds and the more effective later rounds aren't too much of a benefit. If Archer is lucky and the opponent fails every save HP loss to poison caps at an expected 18.75 HP/round.
Summary: An Abundant Quiver with arrows poisoned with high-powered poison would be useful, but probably not overwhelming. With a high expected value of 11HP in the first round with expensive poison and poor fort saves, it's still very close to that expected from a Flaming enchantment (average 11.25 when 2.5 arrows/round hit). D&D 3.5 priced a quiver that gave arrows the Flaming property at 15K compared to 23K for the quiver + 5 doses high-powered poison. If it only produced Wyvern Poison Arrows, the quiver is overpriced. If it includes the option to duplicate unconsciousness poison or DR-piercing arrows it's a better buy, though taking advantage of too many options would require the archer to stack an Efficient Quiver enhancement for an extra 2K (as well as paying for the extra arrows).