Item Value: Blademaster's Belt

[Weirdo]

I've designed an item for a PC who collects a variety of light blades for melee and throwing:

Blademaster's Belt: This item has a number of daily charges. When drawing a weapon from the belt, the wearer may expend one or more charges to imbue the weapon with an enhancement bonus equal to the number of charges expended. This enhancement lasts for 1 minute. In addition, the item functions as a Blinkback Belt.

I'd appreciate help valuing this item at 1, 3, 5, and 10 charges.

I'm also wondering if I should have the bonus granted by the item stack with any enhancement on the blade, making the item more valuable but encouraging the PC to value for example a +1 dagger over a silver dagger. EDIT: On second thought, I'm pretty sure I do want it to work this way.

[Amanuensis]

Isn't the whole point of having a blinkback belt that you can make a full attack with a single thrown weapon, so you don't have to keep every magic dagger you find?

Why not make it a use-activated item that grants a scaling enhancement bonus to thrown weapon attacks (similar to an amulet of mighty fists and priced accordingly)? That way, the character can collect a lot of different knifes and daggers for flavor reasons. And it would encourage the player to collect a few daggers with cool special abilities (which, unlike enhancement bonuses, would stack with the item).

[Weirdo]

The character isn't a throwing specialist - he is mostly a melee fighter. I want to keep his knife collection relevant at both ranges.

The blinkback belt feature is so that once he's chosen to enhance a particular weapon for a particular fight, he can throw it at any point he wants during that fight without having to then pull out a second weapon.

[Lady-J]

theres a class ability from somewere cant remember were tho that when a character throws one weapon all other weapons thrown in that round are given the same abilities so if he has a +2 keen, flaming dagger and throws it all his other throwing weapons become +2 keen and flaming

or you could give let them take a feat from path of war that causes a weapon thrown to bounce back to you captain america style and then just have him take an improved vertion to make it come back faster

[Amanuensis]

But the blinkback belt's 'returning' effect would only trigger in the round during which it is drawn, correct? I'm still having trouble getting my head around this.

But to answer your question:
As a starting point, I would price it assuming the highest enhancement bonus possible (all charges used at once) and divide it by 5 (usable once per day).
1 charge: 400 gp
3 charges: 3,600 gp
5 charges: 10,000 gp
10 charges: 40,000 gp (this should be limited to a maximum bonus of +5, which would reduce it to 20,000 gp).
That also comes pretty close to what a greater magic weapon would cost, though the duration of that spell is much longer.
If it stacks with an existing enhancement bonus, it should probably be more expensive, at least for the minor versions.

[Weirdo]

Amanuensis wrote:

But the blinkback belt's 'returning' effect would only trigger in the round during which it is drawn, correct? I'm still having trouble getting my head around this.

Ah, you're right, I missed that limitation.

For making the enhancement stack, I think it's safe to estimate that that the effect is an extra +1 (stacking with a +1 weapon with properties)? In that case maybe I should benchmark at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 charges. So that would make

1 charge 1,600
2 charges 3,600
3 charges 6,400
4 charges 10,000
6 charges 12,800 (twice 3 charges)
8 charges 20,000 (twice 4 charges)

Then add 5,000gp for the teleport effect*

Quote:

Blademaster's Belt

Aura moderate transmutation; CL 7th
Slot belt; Weight 2 lbs
Price: 6,600 (1 charge); 8,600 (2 charges); 11,400 (3 charges); 15,000 (4 charges); 17,800 (6 charges), 25,000 (8 charges)

Up to four light or one-handed bladed weapons may be hung from this belt. When drawing a weapon attached to the belt, the wearer may expend one or more charges to increase the weapon's existing enhancement bonus by the number of charges expended, to a maximum of +5. This effect lasts for 1 minute. If the wearer throws a weapon that is enhanced in this way, the weapon teleports back into its strap or sheath after the attack is resolved.

Construction: Craft Wondrous Item, teleport object, greater magic weapon.

*I'm expecting that the removal of the time limit on throwing roughly balances out the fact that the teleport effect only works if the blade has been enhanced.

Looks too cheap at high levels to me.

[Amanuensis]

I guess the fact that you can apply the bonus to any light or one-handed bladed weapon (not just thrown attacks) should be factored in somehow. Maybe x2?

I would recommend not making it stack with existing enhancement bonuses, which seems easily abusably. If I can use this item to turn my regular +3 weapon (18k) into a +5 weapon (50k) several times per day, there is no real incentive for me to acquire a +5 weapon (and that's not taking into account the benefits of golf-bagging).

[Weirdo]

I'm just fine with the character never getting a +5 weapon, and I'm trying to encourage at least a little golf-bagging. I'd like to see the the character carrying, for example:

Adamantine short sword
+2 dagger
+1 demon-bane kukri
Snakebite dagger

Which is 30,000gp worth of weapons or about as much as a +4 weapon.

And I'd like to have the character be able to spend some amount of additional gold to have an effective +4 equivalent weapon for their biggest fight of the day. I'm just not sure what a balanced amount should be.

I could also keep Greater Magic Weapon's "this does not improve the weapon's ability to bypass DR" clause such that the character would still need to be tactical about that (eg carrying at least one Holy weapon, at least one Adamantine weapon, and either a cold iron and silver weapon or a +3 weapon).