Price for Moving Arcane Bond to a New Item

[Lanse]

I apologize if this is a dumb question, but further clarification would be useful. Arcane Bond says:

"If a bonded object is damaged, it is restored to full hit points the next time the wizard prepares his spells. If the object of an arcane bond is lost or destroyed, it can be replaced after 1 week in a special ritual that costs 200 gp per wizard level plus the cost of the masterwork item. This ritual takes 8 hours to complete. Items replaced in this way do not possess any of the additional enchantments of the previous bonded item. A wizard can designate an existing magic item as his bonded item. This functions in the same way as replacing a lost or destroyed item except that the new magic item retains its abilities while gaining the benefits and drawbacks of becoming a bonded item."

It seems pretty clear, but I just wonder about the cost. Do I need to pay for the cost of the item if I already have the item? That seems cost prohibitive and unnecessary. I get if I'm a 10th level wizard I have to spend the 2000 gold for the ritual, but if I found a cool magic super staff is it really necessary to add the 100K Gold for the item to make it my Arcane Bond?

[Ryze Kuja]

If you already have the item, you don't need to pay for the item. You just pay the cost to perform the ritual to make it your bonded item. So in your case as a 10th level wizard, you can designate your cool magic super staff as your bonded item for 2,000gp and an 8 hour ritual. If your current bonded item has enchantments that you've placed on it per the Item Creation Rules, those do not transfer to the cool magic super staff, but your cool magic super staff would retain any prior magical-coolness once it becomes your new bonded item.

[Belafon]

Lanse wrote:

It seems pretty clear, but I just wonder about the cost. Do I need to pay for the cost of the item if I already have the item? That seems cost prohibitive and unnecessary. I get if I'm a 10th level wizard I have to spend the 2000 gold for the ritual, but if I found a cool magic super staff is it really necessary to add the 100K Gold for the item to make it my Arcane Bond?

No. You have the cool staff, so you can bond to it for 2000 gp.

All "plus the cost of the masterwork item" is saying is that you can't create the item out of thin air; you have to have a base item to bond to.

[Lanse]

Ryze Kuja wrote:

If you already have the item, you don't need to pay for the item. You just pay the cost to perform the ritual to make it your bonded item. So in your case as a 10th level wizard, you can designate your cool magic super staff as your bonded item for 2,000gp and an 8 hour ritual. If your current bonded item has enchantments that you've placed on it per the Item Creation Rules, those do not transfer to the cool magic super staff, but your cool magic super staff would retain any prior magical-coolness once it becomes your new bonded item.

Thanks for the response folks, I thought that was the case but the wording was ambiguous enough that I had to be sure. Much appreciated!