The Iron Chest of Hathruman

[TBA]

My players think that this is all pretty and that, but now they want to sell it...

Anyone come up with a value for it? I can't see any valuation in the adventure. They're not looking for a side quest to find a specialist buyer either, they've got people for that already...

Any ideas?

[Skeld]

It's been several years, can you refresh my memory on what the chest does?

-Skeld

[TBA]

Short of writing out the entire prose of text (which I cannot do here), it's a legendary chest with 7 faces on it as a complex combination lock. Failure to use the correct combination triggers either Magic Missiles, Bestow Curse, Confusion or Phantasmal Killer, all at CL 15. Hathruman was a notorious arcane trickster, who only made one chest. This is it.

The full text is in SoS.

[Skeld]

TBA wrote:

Short of writing out the entire prose of text (which I cannot do here), it's a legendary chest with 7 faces on it as a complex combination lock. Failure to use the correct combination triggers either Magic Missiles, Bestow Curse, Confusion or Phantasmal Killer, all at CL 15. Hathruman was a notorious arcane trickster, who only made one chest. This is it.

The full text is in SoS.

Ok, I think I remember that now. Is it an artifact, or just a "regular" magical chest?

-Skeld

[TBA]

It's not referenced as an artifact (although it's power level is comparible)

[Luna eladrin]

You could rule that it is a minor artifact. It could attract all sorts of unwanted attention if they try to sell it. Also, there might be a previous owner from whom it was stolen and who wants his chest back.

[Skeld]

Luna eladrin wrote:

You could rule that it is a minor artifact. It could attract all sorts of unwanted attention if they try to sell it. Also, there might be a previous owner from whom it was stolen and who wants his chest back.

I think treating it as a minor artifact is a good idea. I'll have to go back and figure out what I did with it in my campaign.

-Skeld

[NPC Dave]

I am six years late in answering this question, but I think I have a reasonable answer based on the rules.

I got interested in this because I am building a list of high CR traps found in Dungeon magazine and other sources, and the Iron Chest of Hathruman is a CR 16 magical device trap. So we can value it that way by building it using the d20/3.5 rules.

First a chest is valued at 2gp, but we don't have a value for a masterwork chest. So let's just assume that this masterwork chest is valued somewhere around 25-150gp. We won't use special materials because Iron is in the name. BTW, although it isn't explicitly stated, I consider this chest to be a seven-sided septagon or heptagon because of the seven gargoyle faces.

Each gargoyle face counts as an amazing lock at DC 40, and amazing locks cost 150gp each. So the lock cost is 7 x 150 = 1050gp.

All four of the spells do not have any material components that are a significant expense(just nut shells), so that cost is zero. The trap is automatically reset, which greatly increases the cost in gold and XP for each spell.

Magic Missile costs
500gp x caster level x spell level = 500 x 15 x 1 = 7500gp
40xp x caster level x spell level = 40 x 15 x 1 = 600XP

Bestow Curse costs
500gp x caster level x spell level = 500 x 15 x 4 = 30,000gp
40xp x caster level x spell level = 40 x 15 x 4 = 2400XP

Confusion and Phantasmal Killer are also level 4 spells just like Bestow Curse, so they also cost 30,000gp and 2400XP respectively.

Now anytime the trap is triggered, somewhere between one and seven spells get cast, but the rules don't account for this so we will ignore that aspect.

So assuming 100gp for the masterwork chest itself we have a total of
100 + 1050 + 7500 + 30,000 + 30,000 + 30,000 = 98,650 gp for the chest.
Plus a cost of 600 + 2400 + 2400 + 2400 = 7800XP

So at nearly 100,000 gp, the Iron Chest is easily worth more than half the value of everything in Cold Captain Wyther's treasure chamber.

However, we aren't done. The rules also state that any XP components of the trap should be multiplied by 500gp to account for what the cost would be if you ask a spellcaster to burn their XP as part of crafting this magic device.

7800XP x 500gp/XP = 3,900,000gp

At about ~4 million gold pieces that pretty much makes it an artifact and priceless.