Earth Elemental Belt Pricing Question

[Dark Lord Fluffy]

I wanted to make a custom item that gave uses of Elemental Body III or IV similar to the Earth Elemental Belt, though in my case it would fire. My DM is fine with it so I looked for a similar item to use as a base. I found the earth elemental belt and tried to break it down. The raw rules for pricing a magic item say that a 1/day use of a level 6 spell should be 23,750 gp (((6*11)*1800)/5). The belt only costs 24,000 gp total and is a +4 Con belt with force movement negation in addition to the elemental body effect.

I know not all items follow the pricing formula exactly, but that is a huge divergence. Most the items I found that gave you a polymorph effect had other abilities that made trying to figure the price of the polymorph part of the item hard, but they all seemed to clock in under the default pricing guideline. Is it because they lock you to a single form as opposed to picking per activation? Does anyone have a good example item to use as a base or know why there seems to be such a large discount on the effect. Insight and thoughts greatly appreciated.

[Lyee]

The pricing formula is the LAST resort.

To make custom items you do the following:

1) Check items with similar effects

2) Check items of similar power

3) Ask the GM if he has any idea

4) Try the pricing formula/table thing.

Some very, very silly/wrong things can be made with the price table. Avoid it when possible.

[blahpers]

Locking elemental body iii to the earth elemental form drastically reduces its versatility--no more flight, vortex, underwater breathing, and so on, though you do get earth glide. That probably accounts for its lower price.

As for a good example as a base, I'm not sure what you mean. You've already found an item close to what you are trying to make, along with some other related items that also follow the pattern.

[Dark Lord Fluffy]

That's my fault. I was being somewhat unclear on my full intent. My DM gives stat increases as part of the level progression, so I don't need the enhancement bonus portion of the belt. I was going to pair the effect with the Rage or Blood Rage spell, a kind of raging inferno theme (just realizing how puny that actually is). I started under the assumption that the elemental body would be the most expensive portion, but what I found doesn't jibe with that. I was hoping there was an item that gave you one of the polymorph spells as a per day usage by itself or with a single secondary ability to asses the price reduction. However what you said did ring a bell for me that I didn't see before.

If we work off the assumption that limiting it to a single element is only 1/4th the use of the normal spell that would bring the price to under 6k. It still doesn't account for both the surcharge of two abilities on a slotted item and the force movement immunity, but it makes a great deal more sense in my head. I'll run this past my DM and see what he thinks. Thank you both for your feedback.