1) A player asked me how much an item able to cast "Magic Armor" would cost.
I searched through my DM guide and found these rules: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#Table-Estimating-Magic-Item-Gold-Piece- Values
Use-activated or continuous ---->Spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp2
(The ² tells me that a spell in hours per level makes no adjustment to the price).
So basically, bracers that would give him permanent mage armor would cost a measly 1 x 1 x 2000 = 2000 gold ?
What's the point of bracers of armor, then ?
2) Another player wanted to have gloves that would allow him to cast "gravity bow" 3 times a day, as a zen archer.
So that's the same formula as above (except that the price is doubled for a spell in minute per level) = 4000 gold to have a continuous effect.
Charges per day----> Divide by (5 divided by charges per day) = 2400 gold
This sounds dirt cheap again. Did I get something wrong, or does that mean that you can emulate some very powerful level 1 spells (lead blade, gravity bow, mage armor, shield...) with very little coin ?
Here's a last example I thought of: with this formula, a ring of permanent SHIELD spell would cost 4000 gold. So what's the point of the "ring of force" that cost 8500 gold and is half as useful ?
Don't go about creating custom magic items, the rules are a mess, the guidelines are very rough adn there is quite a lot of possible cheese involved.
My suggestion is to not go creating custom magic items, the existing ones should suffice.
As the others have said, "The price chart is just a sort of starting point. Sometimes it works, but it doesn't apply in the case of all spells." That is especially true of 1st level spells. That 1sl x 1cl = 1 can really make for items much too powerful for their cost when made continuous.
Thanks guys,
It did help ;)
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Beside what the other posters have said, you have missed the first part of the table:
"AC bonus (deflection) Bonus squared x 2,000 gp
AC bonus (other)1 Bonus squared x 2,500 gp"
When a item give bonuses that are already covered by the table you don't price it on the basis of the spell used, by the bonuses the item give.
So, for a item giving shield permanently, the base price is
AC bonus, (other) 4*4*.2500 = 40.000
Then you add the protection from magic missiles.
To get a price to the protection from magic missiles you look if there is a similar item. There is the Brooch of shielding. 101 point of protection against magic missiles.
About 29 missiles.
The table say:
Charged (50 charges) 1/2 unlimited use base price
So an item with 29 charges is 29% of a constant use item (a bit of a stretch calculating it this way, but it can work).
1500(price of the brooch) /29*100 = 5,172
As the shield spell is powering both effect I would call them linked effects and would not increase the price of the protection from magic missile effect fore being slottless.
Total price 45,172, rounded to 45,000.
Note that while this calculation depict the procedure to sue, other GM will give you different prices.
As an example, as the shield spell give a shield bonus to AC, some GM would compare it to a natural armor bonus, so the AC bonus cost would be 4*4*2,000=32,000 gp, for a final price of 37,000.
Or even compare it to bracers of armor, that have a AC bonus cost of 1,000*AC bonus squared.
Custom magic item creation is a art and a difficult art. pricing them is never easy.
It's questions like this (no disrespect to the OP, it's not your fault) that makes me wish there was a "spells with a range of personal cost triple" rider to the use activated/continuous magic item pricing guideline. At least they'd then end up in the right ballpark.
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It's questions like this (no disrespect to the OP, it's not your fault) that makes me wish there was a "spells with a range of personal cost triple" rider to the use activated/continuous magic item pricing guideline. At least they'd then end up in the right ballpark.One of the nice touchs of Monte Cook's spell list in Arcana Evolved is that each spell description came with a pricing formula for it's inclusion in various categories of magic items. If it didn't have one, than you couldn't put it in a magic item, period.
However at a certain point you reach a value per page limit.
If they do a new version, I am hopefully things like magic item creation are done outside of the core rulebook. I understand why they combined everything, given the situation the game was born into, but moving for the next iteration...
1) A player asked me how much an item able to cast "Magic Armor" would cost.
I searched through my DM guide and found these rules: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#Table-Estimating-Magic-Item-Gold-Piece- Values
Use-activated or continuous ---->Spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp2
(The ² tells me that a spell in hours per level makes no adjustment to the price).
So basically, bracers that would give him permanent mage armor would cost a measly 1 x 1 x 2000 = 2000 gold ?
What's the point of bracers of armor, then ?
2) Another player wanted to have gloves that would allow him to cast "gravity bow" 3 times a day, as a zen archer.
So that's the same formula as above (except that the price is doubled for a spell in minute per level) = 4000 gold to have a continuous effect.
Charges per day----> Divide by (5 divided by charges per day) = 2400 gold
This sounds dirt cheap again. Did I get something wrong, or does that mean that you can emulate some very powerful level 1 spells (lead blade, gravity bow, mage armor, shield...) with very little coin ?
Here's a last example I thought of: with this formula, a ring of permanent SHIELD spell would cost 4000 gold. So what's the point of the "ring of force" that cost 8500 gold and is half as useful ?
Doesn't any item that "lets you cast" a spell still require you to be able to cast it? A Zen Archer doesn't have a caster level, so you would have to make a Use Magic Device check every time you want to use it.
Since spells that have a range of "personal" only effect the caster, anyone who wants to use an item with a "personal" has to be able to trigger the spell. Otherwise, the spell would be on the guy who makes the item, not the guy who uses it.
Is that spelled out in the rules anywhere? It seems like the best spells are personal only, and you can't get items for those spells, so I'd expect there to be a rule specifically mentioning this.
Wondrous magic items don't require you to be able to cast the spell unlike spell completion/ trigger type items.
There are numerous items that allow non-casters to cast spells X times per day. There is also a formula/additional calculation specifically for these types of items in the magic item rules.
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It's questions like this (no disrespect to the OP, it's not your fault) that makes me wish there was a "spells with a range of personal cost triple" rider to the use activated/continuous magic item pricing guideline. At least they'd then end up in the right ballpark.
My solution of that problem has been to treat them as a spell 1 level higher when making items that can be used by classes that normally don't have that spell.
And even with that houserule I carefully check what the spell do before allowing the creation of the item.
Yeah, custom magic items are a problem. Creating a Cure Light Wounds wondrous item with unlimited castings is dirt cheap, if we'd just go by the creation rules.
what do you guys think about the 3x per day (not continuous) gravity bow?
I think it might be ok for it to be pretty cheap because it's 1 minute, 3 times per day ... which probably doesn't cover all of the encounters, and (more importantly) the guy will often have to spend a round of combat activating it instead of doing something useful.
Since command word items don't get the duration multiplier, you're looking at an item that at worst adds 1 point of damage (on average) to every hit, for 1,080 gp. When you start looking at longbows for medium creatures, that average jumps up 2.5 points (from 4.5 to 7). Since it only affects damage, not attack rolls, it shouldn't cost as much as a +2 enhancement bonus, and the use limitation makes it less useful, too.
I don't think I'd have too much problem with it as an item, and if I was sure the party would, on average, have at least 4 encounters per day, I could see it at guideline price (might double it, just to ensure its not a "must have"). On the other hand, if the campaign looks to be only having one or two encounters per day (most non-dungeon adventures, in my experience), that's way too cheap (since it might as well be continuous at that point, even with the activation). As such, I'd probably ballpark it somewhere around 3,000 - 5,000 gp (compare to Bracers of Archery, Lesser and Belt of Incredible Dexterity). Split the difference and set it at 4,000gp, with an option to reduce the price if a decent argument is made.
Someone said "dont make magic items".
I'd mend that to "Dont if youre inexperienced with pathfinder/3.5".
Allways when you make a magic item compare it to comparable thigns in the game world. Also, you learn by making mistakes.
I allowed a "Ring of vanishing" once for 3000 gold or so, turns out that its only marginally worse then a 20000 Invisibility ring, and apparently valuable enough to the character to jump after it into a sewer whirlpool.
If someone makes a perma-mage armor item 1st compare it to similar items, you need to know all the common magic items, if you dont know any you should look for them and think hard if you cant find any.
Mage armor perma is identical to the Bracers of armor item, just tell them they can just make that item instead of mage armor, if they insist you might allow an item that makes a force-field, the effect would be identical to mage armor and at a 10% discount from the bracers, the disadvantage arranting the discount would be that the force-field would be dispellable. Its a fair ruling that makes sense.
So long as the ruling makes sense, it cant go too far wrong.
I find that items that buff the players or work out of combat or infinitely need very carefull supervision, Items that harm/debuff the enemy however are easier.
Why?
Buff items are easy to activate or have a permament effect, they have no or little cost in battle action economy, played right the risk becomes 0% the gain becomes 100%. The recipient of the effect is yourself, youre allways present and can consistently use it.
Damage/debuff items must be used with actions, what item do you use? Is the item limited or risky to use? To use damage items there must be something that you want to damage present, and it may not just stand by and let you cause damage all you want, it might stop you.
So, by these standards:
A perma Cl1 Mage armor is OP at 2000gp. it is allways on, grants a good bonus at hardly any cost and it lasts all day and all night, every minute and every round.
An infinite source of CL1 magic missiles is fine at 2000gp, and perhaps that is too expensive even. It can only target creatures, so there is no utility, if youre targeting a creature you are most likely in a combat situation, so every action might be important to you, is magic missile the best damage effect for you at that moment or could you do something more effective? By no means are you going to use CL1 Magic missile every round, not even in combat.
2000gp might be too much for an infinite source of Magic missile, but is 1000gp too much for a Rod of frost? I say no, the rod can target objekts, which means you can break objekts and freeze things with it which is a lot of extra utility, a Fiery variant might be even more expensive.
Using your logic, a 6th level character with the rich parents trait can bring into the game a use activated Magic Missile (L9 Caster) item and blast a given target for 5d4+5 damage (not resistible) every round. Overpowered?