1) I am planing a campaign around a pseudo steampunk setting, a city of industry and intrigue. The main antagonist is an assassin that has a handy magic item procured fromone of his marks' treasuries. I'd like to know the estimated cost of a ring that would cast Animate Dead once per day, as well as sculpt corpse once per day (to hide the knife wounds). The reason a ring and not a wand or a collection of scrolls is so he can easily carry it on his person without it looking like a standard magic item, and thus pass a quick inspection.
2) Pricing of a ring of Gentle Repose, continuous, at minimum caster level. For the same campaign. And if you were building these rings en masse would you give a discount to your one buyer?
3) Separate campaign where I am the player: We rolled stats instead of purchased them. The GM will be adjusting the campaign to account for stat inflation. We're anticipating 2-3 other characters. I rolled 18, 17, 17, 16, 14, 14. Including 3pp, what suggestions do you have for class/race? I'm thinking 3/4 BAB utility character. The GM has said if one of us doesn't roll up a trap finder then he would.
There are a number of formulas (if you scroll down to the Cooperative Crafting section there's a table called Estimating Magic Item Gold Pieces) for pricing magic items. Keep in mind, these are all purchase price formulas, not crafting. Divide all by 2 for crafting price.
The formula for a command word activated item is:
Spell level x caster level x 1,800 gp
With a secondary for items with limited charges: Divide by (5 divided by charges per day)
Supposedly. The problem I have with this is that the example they give is the Cape of the Mountebank. Given the formula (CL 9, 4th level spell) it should cost 64800 (drops to 12960 given the charges per day caveat, dividing it by 5 for one charge 5/2 for two charges, etc.). The actual price is 10800.
Still, in the same ballpark.
Your Animate Dead ring is CL 5 (minimum), 3rd level spell. 27k divided by 5 (once per day) = 5400 gold to buy.
As well, it has a once per day Sculpt Corpse. That's a 1st level spell, minimum CL 1 for a total of 1800 gp. Divide by 5 since it's 1/day. 360 gp.
However, there is something else here for things with multiple abilities: Multiply lower item cost by 1.5
360x1.5=540. Add it up.
5940 gp to buy or commission the ring. Half that (2970) to craft it yourself. Not a bad price, all in all.
As for the Gentle Repose ring, it uses a different formula: Spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp
So, Gentle Repose is a lovely 2nd level (Cleric) spell. Minimum caster level of 3.
2x3x2k=12k gold.
6k to craft. No division this time since it works forever.
As for a discount for buying in bulk...it's not RAW but I'd probably allow it. Say, shave off an extra 1000 here or there for every 5-10 he buys. For reference, if he only needs the corpses fresh for a short time, a Use Activated (works as many times as you want, but has to be activated as a Standard) version costs the same.
For shats and gaggles, we can total up how much a Use Activated version of the first ring costs.
Animate Dead feature: 30k gold
Sculpt Corpse feature: 3k gold (after multiplying by 1.5)
Total: 33k gold for a ring that lets him cast a CL 5 version of Animate Dead and Sculpt Corpse as many times as he wants.
Rynjin already did an excellent job breaking down the magic item questions, so I will skip to 3.
While I don't know what kind of characters you prefer to play, I think a Magus would be a good choice.
Str 18
Dex 17
Con 17
Int 16
Wis 14
Cha 14
For race, pretty much anything.
Rynjin already did an excellent job breaking down the magic item questions, so I will skip to 3.
While I don't know what kind of characters you prefer to play, I think a Magus would be a good choice.
Str 18
Dex 17
Con 17
Int 16
Wis 14
Cha 14For race, pretty much anything.
I'd switch dex and int, though.
with stats that good play something that is normally too MAD to be a good option. monk immediately springs to mind... or a prestige class that combines classes with different good stats- a base aasimar or a diviner with the scryer subschool can take 1 level of a class that grants martial weapons, and 1 caster level and immediately go into Eldritch Knight at 3rd; an Idyllkin (aasimar variant) cleric with the trickery domain could take 1 or 2 cleric levels and 1 or 2 levels of any arcane caster class/variant and start leveling Mystic Theurge at 4th...
edit: you could idyllkin with (i think) and other aasimar or tiefling if you replace trickery cleric with wood oracle and take bend the grain at 1st.
you could switch idyllkin with (i think) any other aasimar or tiefling, if you replace trickery cleric with wood oracle and take bend the grain at 1st.
Rynjin forgot an important, and quite expensive, component of the item pricing rules (pun intended).
Animate Dead requires a spell component to cast, and the cost of the component must be added to the price of the item: "an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead". The awkward part here is that the price of the component varies, so we have to pick a component and this sets the upper limit of how many HD can be animated. If we set the component at 25gp, then the ring can never be used to animate anything that would have more than 1 HD. According to the Zombie template, even animating a gnome would get you 2 HD so your ring could only animate cats and mice and such. The absolute minimum component that would let you animate a human-sized corpse would be 2 HD, requiring a 50gp onyx component.
Now for the price:
"Spell has material component cost: Add directly into price of item per charge. If item is continuous or unlimited, not charged, determine cost as if it had 100 charges. If it has some daily limit, determine as if it had 50 charges."
So even at 1 use per day, you price it as if it has 50 charges. 50 x 50 = 2,500gp for those 50 onyxes.
This is added to the price of the item and is not divided by the daily uses. It is also not divided by two if you make it yourself. So the prices should be (I edited the following quote):
8440 gp to buy or commission the ring. Somewhat more than Half that (5470) to craft it yourself. Not a bad price, all in all.
I'm building an abomination, an aberration if you will. Frankenstein's monster. I'm using a 3.5 base, with an overlay of another 3.5 base for a single level of dip, then a PF 3pp base class to tie it in, with a custom PrC that gives basic class abilities of both the 3pp class and the 3.5 base.
Swordsage 2, Factotem 1, Malefactor 3, into Yla's Blade PrC (Malefactor and Bo9S classes Gestalt type PrC).
However, since game time is likely a month away, and one of the players changes his mind about his character class/build quite frequently, this is all subject to change.
I'm really looking forward to Paths of War though, mainly so I can edit Yla's Blade to fit there.
I've also been considering building a gunslinger, but I'm not sure what money is going to look like. This GM likes to take us away from town at level 2 to not come back until around 8 or 9.
-Correction Snip-
Oooh, good catch there. I never saw that clause before.
I figured the way it worked was it let you cast the spell, effectively, but you had to pay any outstanding material costs.
Still, hey, if he uses it at least 51 times it pays for itself, eh? 8440 for a utility ring still isn't half bad, just not as stellar as 5940.
Thank you. Sweet sweet loot. The PCs are going to enjoy this, especially when going up against that ravener and lich I have planned for them near the end of the campaign.