Homebrew magic Item input

[Morganstern]

A player in my most recent game made a character based around the concept of being a "tank", something he is used to from years of playing MMOs. The character is a Paladin that follows a homebrew deity based around protection and duty above anything, and he recently came into a large sum of money.

spoiler:

The party was ambushed and he held off the attack alone while they retreated. A few incredibly lucky rolls later and he had managed to defeat a group of 4 equal level opponents by himself. The group told him that he earned all the loot himself and he was told to keep it all.

He asked if he could use the money to make a set of magical pauldrons that allowed him to maintain an opponent's attention. Here's what he submitted so far for evaluation.

Pauldrons:

Guardian's Pauldrons
These metal pauldrons look worn and battered, but are still comfortable to wear. Every enemy that you close with sees you as a larger threat, and treats you as such. Whenever a creature you can see that you threaten makes an attack against one of your allies, as an immediate action before the outcome of the attack roll is declared, you can compel that creature to attack you instead. The creature gets a DC (10+1/2 your character level+ Cha modifier) Will saving throw againts this effect when you first threaten it and use this ability. As long as you threaten the creature it does not gain another Will save to resist this effect, but if it steps outside your threatened range you must use this ability again, granting it another Will save. A creature that makes its Will save is immune to this effect for 24 hours. This is a mind effecting ability. The pauldrons take 24 hours to attune to a wearer, and must be reattuned if worn by another person.

Compel Hostility (1st level Spell)
Base Cost: 12,000
Cost to Create: 6,000

Does this seem like a decently balanced item, or if not what would you suggest?

[chaoseffect]

I think it's reasonable except for the DC, as items tend to have a set DC instead of one scaling with your level. On the other hand, most of those items get passed up because of that (and because the DCs tend to be low anyway). I'd say raise the price a bit to compensate or give it a set DC.

[VRMH]

Looks fine to me, though personally I'd give the target a choice between attacking the wearer, or flee.

What kind of action is the activation?

Which body slot (if any) do you envision pauldrons to use?

[marcryser]

If the player wants an item that scales as he gains more power, why not enchant the pauldrons with the ability to grant the cavalier's challenge ability.

Challenge: Whenever an order of the shield cavalier issues a challenge, he receives a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls made against the target of his challenge if the target makes an attack against a target other than the cavalier. This bonus lasts for 1 minute. The bonus increases by +1 for every four levels the cavalier possesses.

The opponent could still perceive the paladin as the biggest threat but can still act according to what makes sense at the time. No saves, no DC.

[Morganstern]

VRMH: Pauldrons are the shoulder pieces of armor, so shoulder slot is the default assumption. They're an Immediate Action to use, to try and limit him from affecting more than one creature in the same round.

Marcryser: It's not about it scaling so much as it is about the effect described; He really wants to be able to force creatures to attack him instead of others.

Chaos: That's a pretty good point. going to talk with him about having a set DC and possibly making it have three tiers, such as lesser, normal and greater with each tier increasing the DC.