Eyes of the Eyebite:
"These glasses look like golden teeth holding a pair of green-tinted lenses.
The wearer may use eyebite 11 times per day on command, affecting one target for each use of the spell. The wearer does not need to use these rounds consecutively, but each activation is a standard action (unlike the spell, in which targeting a new foe is a swift action). If the wearer removes the glasses, the eyebite effects immediately end."
I have been reverse pricing items to see what is overpriced/underpriced (because I have lots of time to kill). This item's book price is 30,000g.
To make this item from the spell Eyebite (Caster Level 6 x Spell Level 11 x 1,800 (command word) x 11/5 (charges per day) = 261,360 g
Did paizo mess up when they wrote the description of this item? Did paizo seriously under price this item? Is my understanding of how to reach the price incorrect?
It got the "Convert swift action to standard" discount. Which is an entirely fiat-based one, but seems entirely appropriate.
A Command-word item (level 6, caster level 11) is estimated at 118,800. Since that gives you unlimited uses, and your item appears to give you eleven but seems more expensive, I would indeed be suspicious about something in your numbers.
At first glance, I thought this magic item cast eyebite eleven times per day (wow!), but it looks like it's more complex than that. I suspect it's supposed to give you a pool of eleven rounds of eyebite per day -- unlike the normal spell, you can split those rounds up kind of like Bardic Performance.
If that's the case, the writing could be cleaned up.
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@Mapleswitch
- eyebite allow 1 attack/round: "Each round, you can target a single living creature, striking it with waves of power. Depending on the target's HD, this attack has as many as three effects."
- it is a 6th level spell so it is cast at 11th level, so the magic item is the equivalent of 1 spell, with the added ability to split the power use
So the item price, in theory, should be;
Caster Level 6 x Spell Level 11 x 1,800 (command word) /5 (charges per day) = 23.760
Using that formula the item is overpriced, but that is justified by the ability to split the power use.
In any instance, the basic rule to price magic item is:
The easiest way to come up with a price is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced, using that price as a guide.
reinforced by:
The correct way to price an item is by comparing its abilities to similar items in the Core Rulebook (see Magic Item Gold Piece Values on page 549 of the Core Rulebook), and only if there are no similar items should you use the pricing formulas to determine an approximate price for the item.
so if a item official price is different from the price you get from the Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values table, the printed price take precedence.
You cannot use the formula for Charges per Day for anything that has more than 4 charges. For example, if we use the pricing in the book for this item:
Continuous UNLIMITED Eyebite item: 118,000 (6 x 11 x 1,000). The formula for daily charges is: "Charges per day = Divide by (5 divided by charges per day)"
So:
1 charge = 118,800 / (5 / 1) = 23,760
2 charges = 118,800 / (5 / 2) = 47,520
3 charges = 118,800 / (5 / 3) = 71,280
4 charges = 118,800 / (5 / 4) = 95,040
5 charges = 118,800 / (5 / 5) = 118,000 - this is the same as the continuous UNLIMITED item
6 charges = 118,800 / (5 / 6) = 142,560 - this actually costs more than the continuous UNLIMITED item
So, as you can see, limiting any item to a number of uses greater than 4 is just plain ridiculous. Nobody would ever do it. At 5 daily uses the price is the same as unlimited uses, so why would anyone spend the same cash to make an item they can use less often. At at 6 daily uses, the price is actually higher than unlimited uses.
So, while someone might think it's a good idea to make an item limited to 11 daily uses, just for kicks, it's ridiculous to think that doing so would cost him more then 2x the cost of making the same exact item with unlimited uses.
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All that being said, remember that (as others have pointed out), the pricing of many items in the official rules does not follow the price chart and that the official rules say to compare to other similar items FIRST and then only use the price formulas when no other comparison works.
