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Ok, let's be honest. At least half the people upset with the recent errata are upset about the nerf to the Jingasa. Thing is, it was long overdue.
Crit-negation is a very powerful effect, and every other item that grants it comes with a substantial price tag. The helm Greater Thremyr's Beard costs 42,250, and amongst other things allows the wearer to once per day force a reroll (not an auto-negation) of a critical confirmation roll. The Khepresh of Refuge is an amazing item that pulls double duty as crit-negation or save reroll three times a day, but costs a whopping 63,000. Even the basic crit-negation ability, fortification, will cost you at least 35,000gp for a 75% chance to negate a crit (alot more if you want more than a +1 enhancement on your armour, up to 75,000gp if you upgrade it fully).
Using those as benchmarks, the jingasa was ostensibly severely underpriced. Every PFS character I had either had it or planned to have it. In a PFS game I'm GMing for a level 12 party, it's already helped a character avoid death twice in as many in-game days. Add to that the fact that it's the only item that grants a persistent luck bonus to AC AND gets boosted by one of the best traits in the game (still one of the best traits even without the jingasa), it's little wonder it got nerfed.
The loss of such a powerful item hurt many of my characters, but when I saw the nerf, my reaction wasn't "OMG WTF ARE THE DEVELOPERS DOING", but rather "yeah that's fair, it was good while it lasted - what else can I do with that gold". When the loss of a 5000gp item is seen as a major nerf to your character, it's probably because you can't get anything similar for a comparative price, even after you've been permitted to re-sell the item at cost. That itself is an indication that the item was under-priced to begin with.
On a side note, I have more sympathy for those who argue that the jingasa should have been re-priced rather than nerfed. Way I see it, there are two ways to re-balance an under-priced item. You either revise the price or revise the properties. Either method is equally valid, they chose one over the other, that's their prerogative. Maybe they'll reintroduce the original jingasa as a Greater Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier in a later book. If we use the talismans as a rough benchmark for converting a one-use item into a once-per-day item, we'd be looking at around maybe 35,000gp approx (far more in line with Thremyr's beard and possibly making the Khepresh of Refuge a little under-priced). Personally, I'd still consider that item at that price, but I'd bet that alot of people used to having the "luck bonus once per day jingasa" at 5000gp would still complain about it anyway.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Except that most people were talking about increasing the price to 12,000 or 15,000.
Bracelet of second chances is 7 one time charges of crit negation for ~15000. (~2100 per charge, about the price of the crit negation on the jingasa)
According to the formula for pricing magic items, a 1 charge item is worth 1/100th of the price of a continuous use item. So an item that just prevented crits altogether would be worth 210,000gp
Once per day items are 1/5 the price of continuous items. So the jingassa as origionally stated, would price out at 42,000 + 2000 x 1.5 (for the luck bonus)
Or 45,0000.
Which leaves me wondering if someone just accidentally left the 4 off the front of it origionally...
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The problem isn't that they nerfed the item instead of adjusting it's price.
The problem is that the Pathfinder Design Team has a history of responding to perceived problems with a "nuke it from orbit" attitude, the net result of which is that vaguely interesting items which are cheap enough to be competitive with "big 6" number boosters are nerfed into oblivion. Jingasa, Quickrunner's Shirt, Cap of the Free Thinker and Gloves of Reconnaissance are some of the latest testaments to this attitude.
Jingasa and Quickrunner's are especially egregious, since both of them had two major changes, only one of which was needed to bring them into line. Jingasa would have been reasonable as either a +1 deflection bonus and a 1/day crit negation or a +1 luck AC bonus and a 1/ever crit negation, and Quickrunners would have been fine as a 1/day for a bonus move action(with 24hr attunement). But the Design team decided to go further and make sure those items wouldn't be problematic, even if it means that they become terrible instead.
Oh, and for the record, Fortification is much worse than a straight enhancement bonus unless most attackers depend on sneak attack. The opportunity cost of Lesser Fortification is +1 to AC, and on a character who otherwise gets hit 50% of the time, +1 AC corresponds to a 10% reduction in the number of incoming hits. If we assume that all opponents are falcata wielding crit fishers (17-20/x3), Lesser Fortification only negates about 8% of incoming damage. If you look at Greater Fortification vs +5 AC instead, it becomes 75% of crits vs 50% of all incoming attacks. Pricing an item based on fortification means you are aiming to create an atrociously bad item.
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Oh, and for the record, Fortification is much worse than a straight enhancement bonus unless most attackers depend on sneak attack. The opportunity cost of Lesser Fortification is +1 to AC, and on a character who otherwise gets hit 50% of the time, +1 AC corresponds to a 10% reduction in the number of incoming hits. If we assume that all opponents are falcata wielding crit fishers (17-20/x3), Lesser Fortification only negates about 8% of incoming damage. If you look at Greater Fortification vs +5 AC instead, it becomes 75% of crits vs 50% of all incoming attacks. Pricing an item based on fortification means you are aiming to create an atrociously bad item.
If your armor is at a level where all bad guys need a crit to hit you or you've already hit +5, crit negation is the next most valuable thing you can get.
If they had removed the AC bonus altogether, 5K would still be low for the 1/day Jingasa. Most days of adventuring for someone who is "unhittable", that is going to be all of the crits. The Jingasa would still be the BIS item for front-liners. (Which is not to say that BIS is bad, but people would pay more for that item.)
If they had removed the crit negation, and left only a +1 luck bonus, it would still be under-priced (and yes, I get that there's a chart proving what it should cost, but there has to be leeway for balance that accounts for some items needing to cost more). It would change where it falls in your armor upgrade plan, but it would still come before making your amulet of natural armor or ring of protection +2. The Jingasa would still be the BIS item for front-liners, even without Fate's Favored.
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I don't mind the nerf itself, I just think it was nerfed into the 'I probably wont ever buy one of these' range. Changing from Luck to Deflection is huge, IMO.
Im actually more annoyed that I need to go back and figure out how many, if any, of my characters have any of these things so I know what I want/need to sell back. :P
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