I'm creating a variant for Scabbard of Vigor and am trying to work out a reasonable price.
Instead of giving a standard enhance it gives an ability equal to that enhancement. I've written it for 4,000 gp but I'm basically guessing at this point. What do others think?
Thanks
Scabbard of Vigor - Enhanced
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Aura faint transmutation; CL 7th
Slot belt; Price 4,000 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
Description
Once per day, as part of the action of drawing forth the weapon held by the scabbard, the wearer can order it to endow the weapon with a special ability equal to an enhancement bonus of +1 to +4. The duration of the effect depends on the enhancement bonus of the desired special ability for the weapon. The scabbard has four +1 abilities, three +2 abilities, two +3 abilities and one +4 ability to choose from.
Bonus Duration
+4 1 round
+3 3 rounds
+2 5 rounds
+1 10 rounds
Construction Requirements
Craft Wondrous Item, greater magic weapon, all requirements for the abilities available in the scabbard; Cost 2000 gp
Scabbard of Vigor - Standard
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Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot belt; Price 1,800 gp; Weight 3 lbs.
Description
Once per day, as part of the action of drawing forth the weapon held by the scabbard, the wearer can order it to endow the weapon with an enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls. The duration of the effect depends on the desired enhancement bonus for the weapon.
Bonus Duration
+4 1 round
+3 3 rounds
+2 5 rounds
+1 10 rounds
Construction Requirements
Craft Wondrous Item, greater magic weapon; Cost 900 gp
First of all, the abilities need to be pre-defined for each Scabbard. A scabbard that will let me make an Undead-Bane Disrupting Ghost Touch weapon one day and a Holy, Evil Outsider Bane weapon the next is pretty crazy.
Second, the Scabbard of Vigor doesn't stack with a magic weapon. I assume your scabbard would, and that's a problem. Magic items should be priced for their best user; in this case, someone with a +6 (equivalent) weapon who now has a +10 equivalent weapon (And it would need to limit the total enchantment of the weapon to a +10 equivalent). If we go by the original Scabbard, it creates a +4 weapon out of a +0 weapon; a +4 weapon is 32.000, the scabbard is (overpriced at) 4.000 gp, so the scabbard is priced at 12.5% of peak value. In your case, that would be 200.000 (the price of a +10 weapon) - 72.000 (the price of a +6 weapon) *12,5%, or 16.000 gold. That doesn't seem like a crazy number; if I have a +6 weapon, I'm looking at 56.000 to upgrade it by another +2, so getting the ability I want for one fight per day as a (mostly) free action with no prep required for 16k is not a bad deal.
If you want a cheaper scabbard, you need to lower the ceiling to less than +10.
....aaaand apparently, I can't read while the cat is hungry.
Most of my original points stand. The multiplier is 5,625%, which tells me that that's not the formula that was used.
Anyway, you can't price this at 4.000 gp without setting a ceiling. It's one fight worth of Ghost Touch/Human Bane/Evil Outsider Bane/, or Disrupting/anchoring, or even one round worth of Brilliant Energy (imagine that in the hands of a pouncing barbarian).
Yes, the intent is that the Enhanced Scabbard would have the abilities set at construction. Not sure if it was clear but you only get one ability each day. So one day it's a Undead Bane weapon for 10 rounds and the next day it can be a Ghost Touch weapon for 10 rd. It doesn't get to be both at the same time. And the abilities would have to be on the list of abilities placed in it when it was constructed. If you have any suggestions for wording to clarify that I would be grateful.
I would point out that the Scabbard of Vigor does partly stack with existing enhancements already. It supercedes any existing lower enhance bonus, but special abilities aren't enhancement bonuses as far as I can tell so they would stay.
If you have a +1 Keen, Ghost Touch, Bane Dragon, Holy, Brilliant weapon and draw it from the Scabbard for 1 rd of +4 it would become a +4 Keen, Ghost Touch, Bane Dragon, Holy, Brilliant weapon (and yes this breaks the +10 limit). My understanding is that Magus's can use their Arcane pool to do similar tricks (unless I have it wrong, which is always possible :-) )
This could either be an enormously useful, almost necessary item or just an interesting kind of useful item. Depending on the abilities, you'd always have just the right solution to any problem (once per day, which is probably all you'd really need) or just a bit of extra damage.
For instance, if you could choose from among the various elemental damages as your +1s, maybe some kind of burst or holy as +2, nullifying/repositioning as +3s, and dancing as your +4, it would be a novelty item, useful but not must-have (although I think it'd still be worth more than 4000; it replicates, as you say, the magus arcane pool and items that replicated class features tend to cost at least 10k).
On the other hand, if you could choose ghost touch, keen, bane (untyped), courageous, or even just four different banes, or disruption, phase locking, anchoring, or speed, spell stealing, or brilliant energy, this is suddenly a different bag of cats. Something like that would run a bit more, I think.
The Bane ability would have to be typed.
So yes, you can have several Banes, but each bane is one of the +1 slots.
If I look at the Keen 3/day scabbard at 16k as a comparison which doesn't have the drawback of having to draw the weapon just before use
vs one use a day and need to draw the weapon at the start of combat but with a greater versatility, then I should probably be looking at approximately 1/3 the cost of the Keen Scabbard.
Costings been based on the theoretical 4 encounters a day (yes, I know that very few games actually have that encounter rate, but it is the benchmark for costing).
So at 6,000 gp would people consider it a "must buy", "over priced unless the perfect set of abilities" or "worth considering buying depending on what it has relative to the campaign, but wouldn't feel gypped by the GM if he gave it to me even without knowing exactly what it has". I'm aiming for the latter. While I'm designing for a NPC I follow the general rules "if a NPC can have it so can a PC" and of course they might kill the owner and take it as loot. :-)
Note: The Baldric Bane 10k gives the Inquisitor Class ability to get Bane on your weapon for 5 rds, but you can choose any bane, change the bane as a free action, and use the ability rd by rd. Also does more for an Inquisitor.
So overall the Baldric Bane seems better, but probably not hugely better. As you say, exactly what abilities does make a difference. So I think a 6-8k cost is the right ballpark. 4k is to cheap and 10k to expensive unless they just happen to be the perfect set of abilities for the particular PC/situation.
It would probably have to be limited to one ability at a time. So, no multiple abilities from the scabbard.
However, BANE is by far the most powerful of all Enhancements, if you know what you are fighting. +2/+2 and +2d6 for a +1 is incredibly powerful, and so this revised scabbard is far mightier then the original.
I'm not sure how to price it. You're never going to need access to Holy or the like if you have Bane.
Also note, that stacking has never been explicitly disallowed in the case of Paladin and Magus Weapon bonds, and has been explicitly allowed in the case of arrows.
The limits on the original scabbard control its power. Opening it up to the universe of +1 abilities makes it much stronger.
I'd probably have each ability mix pre-set. So, Bane (evil Outsiders), +2 is Holy (to get around DR), +3 is (Bane (Evil Outsiders + Holy) for when you are really pissed, and +4 is Brilliant for one rounding them pesky anti-paladins in heavy armor.
Simply customize the scabbard to a mix and pre-set it ahead of time, and you're better on the power circuit.
I'd still increase the price. Buying a thing that alters the secondary abilities of your weapon is far more powerful then something that grants an Enhancement bonus. you're going to out-grow the former, you'll never outgrow the utility of the latter.
==Aelryinth
Yes. Definitely only one ability at a time, and it is a once a day item.Although I guess you can wear several scabbard. :-)
As you say Bane is often the "choose ability" of choice but you can get that from a Baldric Bane 10,000 gp already and you choose the bane every round. This would be more limited in that aspect but have more non-bane options. So I figure it should cost slightly less.
So for an example with abilities rolled for randomly.
Rules for use.
1) Can only be used to give a weapon a special ability ONCE per day.
2) When used you can choose ONE of the special abilities for your weapon.
3) The effect lasts a number of rounds based on the strength of the ability. a +$ ability lasts 1 round, a +1 ability lasts 10 rounds (see chart)
An example of random abilities rolled up - These would be the abilities available for this specific scabbard. A different Scabbard would have different abilities.
+1 Might Cleaving
+1 Valiant
+1 Bane Dragons
+1 Bane Outsiders (choose subtype on drawing)
+2 Disruption
+2 Wounding
+2 Corrosive Burst
+3 Speed
+3 Repositioning
+4 Dancing
Obviously a PC might want a specific set of abilities but they would have to have a crafter with , or with access to, the feats/spells required for each ability.
So does somewhere between 6-8k gp sound right?
That's fine for the ballpark. I'd limit it to one Enhancement choice per plus, however.
==Aelryinth
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