are there any magic items you think are over priced?
Ones that come to mind...
Ring of Shooting Stars(50,000GP) for a limited use abilities only usable during certain places and times...also the cantrips should be at will.
Slippers of The Triton(56,000GP) for water breathing and swim speed 30ft, if you already have a swim speed it gets +10.
yeah, there's quite a few. but I'd have to search for one (can think of one of the top of my head)
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The Ring of Shooting Stars price was set in earlier editions when the characters had fewer hit points. Today, with a relatively easy save it is lackluster, but it still can potentially deliver 108 points of damage at 70'.
For the Slippers of The Triton, unlimited water breathing and a swim speed (that allow you to bypass most swim checks and grant a decent speed in water) aren't bad powers in the right campaign.
Notice that this applies, as it is part of having a swim speed: "This swim speed means the target also gains the standard +8 bonus on Swim checks and the ability to take 10 on Swim checks even while distracted or endangered. The target can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line."
Price-wise, it gives a constant effect equivalent to a 4th level spell with a CL of 7. Its price follows exactly the "Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" guidelines.
Sadly, the "magic market" rules make exchanging items for money and money for the standard items (stat enhancing belts and circlets, cloaks of protection, rings of deflection, weapons, and armors) too easy, so the prices are benchmarked around the utility and prices of the big six.
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The problem with Slippers of the Triton is that Pearl of the Sirines exists.
I agree that it is priced way, but using it has a steep cost:
clasped firmly in hand or held to the breast
As I read it, you need to constantly clasp it in your hand or held it to your breast (with a hand, I suppose).
Losing the use of one of your hands is crippling for several classes and it stops working if you are stunned or panicked (in both instances you drop what you held in your hands), or if you sleep.From the description, it doesn't seem possible to mount it on a brooch.
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Honestly I think the whole economy needs an overhaul I just have a mental hiccup when I look at the cost of adventuring ecoonomy items (anything magic) vs the non adventuring ones like a mug of ale (4 cp). There's just too large a gap between the two and it draws up common prices, devalues the gold piece and makes magic prices insane. I know its not what you were asking about but I feel part of the overpiring is that adventurer economy.
You need to pay X because Y is priced at T. A belt of strength is X gold therefore all other prices are based around that. Pull down the values so your looking at 10% (5,000) or even 1% (500) and have the gold piece worth more. It'll still be relatively expensive but looking at a magic item with a cost of 500 gold isn't to me as mind breaking as 50,000 which is more than the cost of the largest ship that can be purchased.
Honestly I think the whole economy needs an overhaul I just have a mental hiccup when I look at the cost of adventuring ecoonomy items (anything magic) vs the non adventuring ones like a mug of ale (4 cp). There's just too large a gap between the two and it draws up common prices, devalues the gold piece and makes magic prices insane. I know its not what you were asking about but I feel part of the overpiring is that adventurer economy.
You need to pay X because Y is priced at T. A belt of strength is X gold therefore all other prices are based around that. Pull down the values so your looking at 10% (5,000) or even 1% (500) and have the gold piece worth more. It'll still be relatively expensive but looking at a magic item with a cost of 500 gold isn't to me as mind breaking as 50,000 which is more than the cost of the largest ship that can be purchased.
Yeah but whit what you say can have no sense since that will mean that all items are not crafted manually but crafted in a ensamble industry where the cost of each part is reduced.
Magic always going to be high in price because it's only 1 person the only one who can create example a viking ship if a group of carpenter sailor create the boat how many you think it needs and how much time to craft in comparison to the magic crafters that it's alone creating the same boat but whit some magic implement
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The problem with Slippers of the Triton is that Pearl of the Sirines exists.I agree that it is priced way, but using it has a steep cost:
clasped firmly in hand or held to the breastAs I read it, you need to constantly clasp it in your hand or held it to your breast (with a hand, I suppose).
I get where you are coming from, and it definitely could have been written better, but that quote is taken out of context.
This pearl is worth at least 1,000 gp for its beauty alone, yet if it is clasped firmly in hand or held to the breast while the possessor attempts actions related to the pearl’s powers, she understands and is able to employ the item.
The pearl enables its possessor to breathe in water as if she were in clean, fresh air. Her swim speed is 60 feet, and she can cast spells and act underwater without hindrance.
You have to hold the pearl and attempt an action related to its powers (like, you know, going for a swim) and then you know how to use its abilities. After that, you can use the pearl's powers as long as it is in your possession. You don't have to be holding it.
An old-timer told me this item first appeared in AD&D 2nd edition. In that edition (which didn't have defined slots) it was explicit that after attuning the pearl just had to be within 10 feet of you to grant the powers. I searched online and that seems to be true. Since PF1 DID have slots, Paizo assigned it as "slotless" and shortened the description.
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Back to the original question (overpriced items):
Robe of the Archmagi (75,000 gp)
Wealth by level guidelines suggest you should be around level 15 before possessing a 75,000 gp magic item. At which point SR 18 isn't really doing much for you.
The bonus on CL checks to overcome SR is the one thing that isn't particularly easy to come by but it's not worth 75,000 gp.
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Honestly I think the whole economy needs an overhaul I just have a mental hiccup when I look at the cost of adventuring ecoonomy items (anything magic) vs the non adventuring ones like a mug of ale (4 cp). There's just too large a gap between the two and it draws up common prices, devalues the gold piece and makes magic prices insane. I know its not what you were asking about but I feel part of the overpiring is that adventurer economy.
You need to pay X because Y is priced at T. A belt of strength is X gold therefore all other prices are based around that. Pull down the values so your looking at 10% (5,000) or even 1% (500) and have the gold piece worth more. It'll still be relatively expensive but looking at a magic item with a cost of 500 gold isn't to me as mind breaking as 50,000 which is more than the cost of the largest ship that can be purchased.
Adventurer gear is specialized equipment.
Compare it to RL work gear.The lowest-priced new pick-up goes for around 25,000 $.
Used farm tractors (disregarding those older than 30 years and without spare parts) seems to go for 35,000 $.
Looking at top-notch equipment for photographers we see stuff like Nikkor 6mm Fisheye Lens – $160,000 or Carl Zeiss 50mm Planar F/0.7 – $23,100,000+ (10 were produced in 1960).
A hobbyist will spend ungodly sums on his hobby. If I look at my gaming library I am fairly sure that I have spent more than 100,000 € (converting older prices to today's prices) in 45 years.
Then we have the second factor that skeeves our perception of the value of money in Pathfinder: till the Industrial Revolution, the price of work was low and the price of materials was high.
Outside of the main rooms, the floors of the Royal Palace of Caserta are painted to resemble Prato green marble. Redoing it every few years was less costly than using actual marble tiles.
Today it is the exact opposite.
You could look at the prices of home appliances in the '50 and '60. A refrigerator price was equivalent to 2 months of pay for a skilled worker. Having one was a sign you were part of the well-to-do category.
All that notwithstanding, in my latest campaign (that is meant to last years of the character's lives and has a lot of downtime) I have increased the wages and cost of normal (nonmagical services) by x5 while keeping the price of normal items the same.
The idea is that the bourgeoisie will be able to afford some small magical trinkets and that there is a market for everyday life magic items (very recently I heard a conference on how trains, steamships, and better conservation methods changed the grain market, making it a commodity).
D&D/Pathfinder was never meant to be a "real" economy, the original prices in AD&D 1st edition were those of a boom town during the gold rush.
It was somewhat adjusted over the years, but it suffer from its original sins.
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Back to the original question (overpriced items):
Robe of the Archmagi (75,000 gp)
** spoiler omitted **
The price is close to "correct" for the abilities. The problem is that by the time you can afford 75,000 gp you've got better/cheaper options for some of the robe's benefits. Others aren't that useful. A first-level slot for mage armor will get you +4 armor for a full adventuring day, you've probably already got a cloak of resistance (maybe even +5) so you're losing some money there.
Wealth by level guidelines suggest you should be around level 15 before possessing a 75,000 gp magic item. At which point SR 18 isn't really doing much for you.
The bonus on CL checks to overcome SR is the one thing that isn't particularly easy to come by but it's not worth 75,000 gp.
The main problem with that item is the AC bonus (and it is the same problem Bracers of Armor have). As it is an armor bonus it doesn't stack with a lot of things and is priced like a +5 enhancement to armor.
Originally (AD&D 1 and 2) the Bracers and the Robe AC were equivalent to Armor, not to an Armor Bonus, and way less costly. They were way more stackable than today (and the spell equivalent to Mage Armor was way weaker, it gave 2 points of AC if I recall correctly).
While that system has its problems (at high levels, using bracers and magic items gave better AC than even the best magic armor) today Bracers of Armor and equivalent items are way overpriced.
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True but the average income is around 30 to 40 thousand or more for the people buying those hobby parts, in pathfinder its much less. I'm not saying magic items shouldn't be realtively expensive just that the boom town income combined with magic marts and being able to actually make your gear has resulted in a bizzare disconnect between income, supply and value. I know its an abstraction and why items all sell for half purchase price but it could use an overhaul in my opinion.
Well people need to understand the part of the material cost you only see in gold but in reality is the material expressed in money. Now some spell don't require expensive material so the cost is less but when you cast Mnemonic enhancement you need 2 material components really hard to get, ink from a squid (this mean costal city) and a pint of black dragon blood, now you need a lot of this material to create a item (since you need to cast the spell every day until the item Finnish, and who is the brave that is going to get the dragon blood. Of course most gm don't bother with the material components but in the game this is why the cost of most items are high
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In "The Phoenix and the Mirror" by Avram Davidson (great book) Virgil needed the wax coming from the Caucasus mountains and made by bees with flowers born from Prometheus blood. Getting that while living in Naples during the 1st century BC was costly and required almost a year of waiting.
That kind of detail when making magic items can be fascinating, but hardly playable in most campaigns.
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I've wondered if it would be possible to create a practical system for crafting using extremely specialized items in lieu of expensive components. The time cost would make it pretty much out of the question for PCs but I can see crafters hiring the PCs to get said components and I'm picturing an ancient wizard (perhaps drifting into inadvertent lichdom) working away in some lab on something that requires 1,000 tulip pedals from blooms that opened during an eclipse and have never touched anything from the animal kingdom.In "The Phoenix and the Mirror" by Avram Davidson (great book) Virgil needed the wax coming from the Caucasus mountains and made by bees with flowers born from Prometheus blood. Getting that while living in Naples during the 1st century BC was costly and required almost a year of waiting.
That kind of detail when making magic items can be fascinating, but hardly playable in most campaigns.
You find plenty of that stuff in Xanxia, but cultivators are long-lived or immortal, very different from the average Pathfinder character.
Going back to the original topic, I would say that "over-priced" is probably inaccurate for the example items cited. As mentioned for ring of shooting stars and slippers of the triton, it would be better to say that "not as useful in all campaigns/situations as in others." Which is a completely different argument; similar to bane (depending on how common certain creature types are), cunning (if a PC doesn't invest in multiple Knowledge skills and focus on critical hits), furious (if there are no PCs with rage or that commonly use the rage spell), ki focus (if there isn't a monk or other PC that uses ki), etc. weapons.
The robe of the archmagi is not "efficiently priced" but, as stated, it follows the pricing guidelines almost exactly. Combining the +5 armor bonus with the +4 bonus on saves frees up the shoulder slot for something like a cloak of displacement (always on 20% miss chance) or wings of flying (fly at will); the spell resistance isn't that impressive (due to the changes in the rules from 1st Ed AD&D), but it's more of an "ignore the riff-raff" spells from minions than a serious defense in 3.x/PF1. Personally, I prefer the otherworldly kimono and a +4 (or better) haramaki with various armor qualities.
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I think id prefer hard to find materials over x gold for a mechanic.
Sticking with the topic i suppose part of it is general applicability. It doesnt matter where an adventurer is plus 1 to armour class is plus 1 to armour class but a ring of water breathing while very valuable in a pirate themed game would be largely useless in a desert themed one. Likewise an item that find seams of precious metals you then have to dig up and process would be of little interest to most. So either you have our system with price based on universal formulas that pay no attention to context or you have to model a more complex system where a ring water breathing is cheap in the desert and expensive on the coast. Either the item seems overpriced because the cost is from the spells to make it combined with the slot it uses or a magic item you found might not be worth the effort to find a buyer.
My go to example of an overpriced item is the Fan of Flirting, a wonderfully flavourful item rendered useless by the way the DC for effects is calculated. 1700gp for an item that casts a 1/day hypnotism effect that the average peasant will resist half the time.
id go with stuff that costs a ton but has low dc or very strict usability.
say the eyes of doom :
constant deathwatch (2nd level spell) standard action to cast DOOM ( a very small debuff) at a target that fail 11 dc and once per week cast fear (dc 16) all for the low cost of 25,000 gp.
or the mute marionette:
standard action to maybe (dc 11) give a target 10% fail to cast spells for an hour (can't effect a target more then once per 24 hours) and once per day cast confusion (dc 16) at the cost of 16,500 gp. oh but the item only work on a specific race\subrace (as per favored enemy) determined when crafted!.
yep, i adore the trapping. (posted before of the pinball game one can use it for), it's cheap, versatile, uses immediate action and offer no save. money well spent!
Yeah, save DCs for magic items suck. Too bad you can't use your own or the item's, whichever is higher.
Staves you can but you can't for anything else.
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In regards to "this is X overpriced" please remember that magic mart is not how the game is supposed to be played. By the rules you have a number of options based on the town were you ask and those options are set until the GM decides its time to change them.
You cannot go and buy X specific magic item because X specific magic item might not be available where you are trying to buy.
Yeah that pearl is good, but are people in the town you are asking selling that pearl? If no, well you aren't buying that pearl.
The rolls generally apply for items above the community limit: Anything at or below that limit has a 75% availability chance (sure, it's not 100%, but it is still pretty good). The whole point of the 'magic mart' is that the PCs aren't entirely dependent on possibly random loot.*
Story 2: Recently, I played through Return of the Runelords on my Bloodrager and ended the final module with basically the same +2 weapon I received at the end of the first module because we never hit a 'not in horrible shape' community large enough to make +3 weapons freely available. While our GM was correct that we didn't really need better weapons, it's kinda sad to go something like 16 levels without a weapon upgrade (technically, I did replace the weapon around 9th level, but the enchantment level stayed the same as I replaced the mundane stats (+2 Halberd to +1 Furious Sansetsukon to +1 Furious Silversheen Greatsword).
Beyond actually buying the item, being 'overpriced' also impacts crafting cost (and time) if you want to make one and your 'wealth by level' calculation if you happen to find one and decide to keep it.
The items I always considered overpriced are any item with a 'additional function for worshipers of deity X' text since the pricing is based on an ability most characters can't actually use...
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[The items I always considered overpriced are any item with a 'additional function for worshipers of deity X' text since the pricing is based on an ability most characters can't actually use...
Any equipment that doesn't work for your class/feats/religion/alignment usually is overpriced for that character. For a barbarian a magical staff without a combat enhancement is an overpriced simple weapon, for a wizard a +5, speed, furious greatsword is only good for selling (assuming that there is enough money in the community you found to pay for it without a loss).
Your "Personal Campaign Annoyances" are partially linked to the GM not tailoring the loot to the group.
My players generally have several spellcasters that can craft magic items and when I am one of the players I generally take at least one crafting feat, so it is a problem we rarely encounter.
I am not a fan of the "magic mart" as I don't think that most merchants will buy and keep in stock for years extremely expensive magic items in the hopes of selling them.
One of two showpieces? Fine. Hundreds of items worth the equivalent of millions of $ each one? Improbable.
At the same time, there will be a market for that stuff, so it will be traded.
My solution is trade houses in the largest cities, willing to take the item and pay the seller when they are auctioned off (sometimes with a good extra payout on the standard price), or, alternatively, paying way less upfront.
The players could search for the interested buyer too. Finding him generally grants extra cash from the sale. That works even for mundane items.
To make an example, in a recent adventure, the characters have looted a Pharaon tomb. They looted everything they were capable to transport and moved the loot to a city a month of travel away to sell to an intermediary specialized in historical Osirian goods. Traveling was part of the adventure and the loot was sold for almost 3 times what they would ha made selling to local merchants. The intermediary became a permanent contact too.
Naturally, that kind of approach works if your campaign isn't fast-paced (in a lot of AP you will complete the first 3 modules in less than a month of character time) and if the players like that playing style.
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Also, local merchants can get stuff delivered from the big places. Order and wait for delivery, not on the shelves.
You can get items custom-made, potentially even with higher DCs, but that will cost well beyond the base price and will require time. The guys that can make +5 swords are very few and probably have a waiting list of years.
But it is all stuff that works only if you are writing your own campaign. Playing an AP that way is problematic.
Personally think that both rings of energy resistance and the energy resistance armor property should cost 10,000GP for res. 10, 20,000GP res. 20, and 30,000GP for res. 30.