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Hi guys, I have a doubt regarding the ABP rules and I'd like to know what is the general consensus of them.
Here is the body of the rules. Emphasis mine.
All characters gain the abilities listed on the table below when they reach the appropriate level. Decrease character wealth by level to half the normal amount. The automatic bonuses are often more beneficial than that reduction in wealth, but characters have less flexibility, so the advantages and disadvantages balance out. Items that only grant bonuses to AC, saving throws, and ability scores don’t exist in this variant, and wish and similar spells never grant inherent bonuses to ability scores. Magic weapons and armor do exist, but grant only special abilities, not enhancement bonuses; calculate their prices with the table in the Magic Weapons and Armor section.
I believe it is pretty clear that magic weapons and armor only grant special abilities and to calculate their price we need to see the mentioned table. However, what about items that grant bonus similar to those covered in the ABP rules, but also grant other abilities, like Plague Rat Belt and Cloak of the Yeti?
What of these would happen?
1) Since they are not items that only grant bonus to AC, saving throws, and ability scores, they exist with no changes.
2) They don't exist at all.
3) They do exist but they don't grant the bonuses to AC, saving throws, and ability scores and I need to make calculations to find their new price?
I'm inclined to say that RAW it is option 1, and because of the "only" on the sentence mentioning the bonuses on non-weapon/armor items it seems to also be RAI.
Thoughts?
Since ABP is an optional rules set, I don't think there is much of an official response for this but I would subtract the cost of the Big 6 item from the item and use the leftover for the purchase price of the special ability.
So the Plague Rat Belt would be 1,200 gp and the Cloak 2,000 gp.
What Scavion said. It may not be RAW; but it's an optional system anyway, so who cares. The writers of the various subsystems in PU didn't have too much page count aviable from the looks of it, so I wouldn't be too quick with presuming some RAI.
#1 would either pervert what the ABP is trying to accomplish, or make those items too expensive to use.
#2 Would be just boring.
#3 Would make some such items cheaper and thus earlier aviable than intended, but I don't see a problem there.
I think #3 is the most "in spirit" with the ABP rules.
The purpose of the system is to eliminate the inclination of players to chase after specific gear because they provide certain bonuses. It kind of defeats the purpose of the system for anything to still exist that provides such bonuses.
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While I do agree that #1 could make an item too expensive for the system, I don't necessarily agree these items would defeat the purpose of the system. Some classes are dependent on more than one physical ability score at the same time (like the monk) and could be hard to play such characters if we are restricted to the ABP bonus improvement. Also, some itens that do have the "removed abilities" could potentially be to "meh" if they have only its other ability.
#3 could also open a new can of worms, since magic item calculations are not that straightforward as magic armors and weapons, so perhaps this is why RAW it appears that the answer is #1.
Take the following bits of rules from magic item creation:
Multiple Similar Abilities: For items with multiple similar abilities that don’t take up space on a character’s body, use the following formula: Calculate the price of the single most costly ability, then add 75% of the value of the next most costly ability, plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities.
Multiple Different Abilities: Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that take up a space on a character’s body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.
Item Requires Skill to Use: Some items require a specific skill to get them to function. This factor should reduce the cost about 10%.
Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment to Use: Even more restrictive than requiring a skill, this limitation cuts the price by 30%.
Knowing these rules exist, we can't simply subtract the value of the big 6 from a normal item, since when their price was computed these rules applied to them.
In the case of the Plague Rat Belt, it looks like the "multiple different abilities" rule was applied (4000gp for the stat + 800*1.5 for the disease part), so by removing the ability in question, the new cost would be 800gp and not 1200gp.
Thoughts?
ABP leaves a lot of the implementation to the GM. Like, we aren't told what to do with companion creatures. Unchained is basically a bunch of starting ideas for your own house rules, so the "RAW" doesn't really matter with regards to it.