So how much would it cost to create a magic item that casts a spell 1/week or 1/month?
For example, how much would a rod that casts heal 1/week cost?
I'm just taking a stab at this.
Since there is no metric for doing an item with a 1/week or 1/month cost, I will start with a 1/day item and go from there. If we go with an item that can cast Heal once per day, it will cost as follows.
Command Activated:
Spell Level x Caster Level X 1,800gp
(6)x(11)x(1,800) = 118,800gp
Item has 1 charge/day (modifies the base price):
Base Price/(5/charges per day)
118,800gp/(5/1) = 23,760gp
Now, I would likely take this and further divide the price by 7 to see how much it would be for 1 charge/week.
23,760/7 = 3394gp 2sp 9cp (for 1 charge per week.)
If we go by month, lets say 30 days. Taking the price for 1/day down to 1/month... so divide by 30.
23,760/30 = 792gp.
If we compare this to just a regular casting of the spell from a temple, it costs 660gp to pay for a casting. Theoretically, this should be fine, but it would really depend on the GM and if they approve such an item. They might have a different idea for a pricing scheme or how to go about charging someone for this.
I probably wouldn't divide the "once per day" price by 7 or 30 to get a "once per week" or "once per month" price.
Sure, it would be irritating to only be able to use your healing item once per month. But what about a resurrection item? If you're resurrecting allies more often than once per month you might need to work on improving your strategy and tactics. A lot.
I would probably only drop the by 1/3 for weekly use and 1/10 for monthly use. That's just arbitrarily off the top of my head, but I am unaware of any guidelines for it.
THe situation is even more limited. Typically, you price things on value before formula.
An item that casts Heal 1/week is nigh worthless to an adventurer, but extremely useful to a church, which will rarely have use for a such a mighty spell.
The usefulness of a Heal 1/month and heal 1/week are almost identical to NPC's. They simply will rarely have need for such spells, and the rare occasions they do need it, it will be available.
Basically, this is a method to get high level spells out there into the hands of people for less money. 1/30th the normal cost for a meteor swarm? WHo cares if you only use it once a month, that bandit horde or boss monster is toast!
Basically, 1/week or 1/month is 'available in case of emergency', OR to put back up a long term spell, like Forbiddance, that would otherwise require a high level caster.
I'd probably go at most 1/2 price for 1/week vs 1/day, and 1/3 for 1/month vs 1/day. 1/year I'd do at most 1/4. I'd reserve the right to reprice, just so PC's can't afford a cheap boss-ending spell at high level, even if it's only 1/week.
Of course, these would be REALLY useful to rival NPC's who have less money, but only need buffs once in their lives...when they fight the PC's. Mmm.
==Aelryinth
Keep in mind for some like this, when looking at spells like resurrection, you need to consider material component costs. This sort of thing is easier to do when all you have is Verbal and Somatic components. If a spell has costly material components and was an unlimited use item, even with charges per day or week or month, it would require that you pay the material component costs for an item of 100 charges. So that 10,000gp diamond dust x100 would give a more reasonable cost of 1,000,000gp just for materials.
I have to agree that the 1/2 price for weekly and 1/3 price for monthly might be a better way to go. It would also be heavily up to GM discretion.
Except you run out of 12 scrolls, and the 1/month item keeps on trucking forever.
It doesn't have to reflect 12 scrolls at all, unless you run out after 12 uses.
==Aelryinth
I would say it depends greatly on the nature of the campaign (which is one reason you don't commonly see this kind of item.)
Some campaigns are a dash where the PCs are out adventuring every day and there is little or no downtime. In such a campaign, once a week would be a significant drawback. In others, there is a fair amount of downtime, with adventures taking place once in a while for a day or two. In this campaign a once a month would be just about as good as a once a day.
I personally wouldn't allow such a thing in any game I ran for the above reason. If it is something they periodically, but don't frequently need consumables like scrolls would be a better mechanic for it.
I will note that the first formula given gives a price for a 1/month item of 792, considerably less than the 1650 the same spell on a scroll would cost and with less requirements, that is clearly a bad number.
Another comparison would be a staff that could be charged up between adventures.
400 x SL X CL = 400 x 6 x 11 = 26400.
If we have the spell take all the charges, it would cost 2640, which is pretty cheap, but it has the downside of taking away a 6th level slot each day for 10 days to recharge. That may or may not be significant, but almost certainly is worse than not having that limitation.
I couldn't see pricing a 1/month at less than twice what the staff would cost, so around 5k and I couldn't see 1/weak being less that 4 times that price, or around 10k. That is roughly 1/4 and 1/2 respectively of the 1/day calculated price.
I will note that the first formula given gives a price for a 1/month item of 792, considerably less than the 1650 the same spell on a scroll would cost and with less requirements, that is clearly a bad number.
Let me second this thought. As seems to be so often the case, many of the thread participants are approaching item creation from the wrong end. It's not a question of plugging numbers into the formula, but a question of comparing its abilities to similar items.
A once per month item -- or even once per year item -- is obviously more useful than a scroll, because you don't need to be an appropriate caster to use it. If you don't expect it to be used more than once over the course of the campaign, then its value (to the party) is not much more than the corresponding single-use item, although its value to an organization like a church would be much higher because the church can plan for the long term.
So, using the example upthread, I'd start with the Spell level x caster level x 50 gp price of a single use item -- 3300 gp for the example item given. Even if the item works only once per century, it is at least that valuable. If the church thinks it will be getting more use than that,.... start there and go upwards.
Lets look at a published item with a 1/month use.
Price 48,000 gp; Aura strong varied; CL 18th; Weight 6 lbs.This glass sphere is 8 inches in diameter. The possessor can call forth all manner of weather, even supernaturally destructive storms. Once per day, she can call upon the orb to use a control weather spell. Once per month, she can conjure a storm of vengeance. The possessor of the orb is continually protected by an endure elements effect.
So there are 3 spell effects on this item.
constant endure elements: CL 1 x SL 1 x 2000 x 1/2 (footnote 2)= 1000 gp
1/day control weather: Cl 18(?) x SL 7 x 1,800 x 1/5= 45360gp
1/month [i]storm of vengeance[/1]: CL 18 x SL 9 x 1,800= 291600 x Y where Y equals the dividend for 1/month uses.
Item price is 48000. So likely 45000 is from control weather, 1500 is for endure elements (price x 1.5 for more abilities) that gets us to 46000.
So..... the 1/month Storm of Vengeance is only about 2000gp, or .007
If we recalculate the control weather for minimum caster level, that drops the price to 32760. Plus 1500= 34260. Now SoV costs 13,740gp.
13740 / 1.5 (remove price up for multi abilities)= 9160 or 3.1% or just a little less than 1/30th.
As Orfamay Quest suggested, single use items for SoV is 8100, so a little below price above.
Lets look at a published item with a 1/month use.
Price 48,000 gp; Aura strong varied; CL 18th; Weight 6 lbs.This glass sphere is 8 inches in diameter. The possessor can call forth all manner of weather, even supernaturally destructive storms. Once per day, she can call upon the orb to use a control weather spell. Once per month, she can conjure a storm of vengeance. The possessor of the orb is continually protected by an endure elements effect.
So there are 3 spell effects on this item.
constant endure elements: CL 1 x SL 1 x 2000 x 1/2 (footnote 2)= 1000 gp
1/day control weather: Cl 18(?) x SL 7 x 1,800 x 1/5= 45360gp
1/month [i]storm of vengeance[/1]: CL 18 x SL 9 x 1,800= 291600 x Y where Y equals the dividend for 1/month uses.Item price is 48000. So likely 45000 is from control weather, 1500 is for endure elements (price x 1.5 for more abilities) that gets us to 46000.
So..... the 1/month Storm of Vengeance is only about 2000gp, or .007
If we recalculate the control weather for minimum caster level, that drops the price to 32760. Plus 1500= 34260. Now SoV costs 13,740gp.
13740 / 1.5 (remove price up for multi abilities)= 9160 or 3.1% or just a little less than 1/30th.As Orfamay Quest suggested, single use items for SoV is 8100, so a little below price above.
Interesting, but I'm not sure how applicable this particular item is. Control weather and Storm of Vengeance are both very situational spells. I would imagine that a similar item, with say Summon Monster VII and Summon Monsters IX would be considerably more expensive.
That is part of where the art of pricing magic items comes into play, and the understanding that not all 'spells in a can' are equal, even if the same level.
Yeah, the only other "1/month" items are the Figurines of Wondrous Power. There is clearly no (workable) formula for those.