Healing Belt in MIC = broken?

[aboyd]

A Healing Belt allows any character wearing it to heal 4d8, once per day. It has some other options too, but for now, let's stick with 4d8 1/day. Of course, it can be used every day, forever. It costs 750 gp.

A potion of Cure Serious Wounds, which offers roughly the same healing but only a one time use also costs 750 gp!

A wand of Cure Serious Wounds can heal up to 50 times, but then it's used up forever. It can only be used by spellcasters or high UMD types. It costs 11,250 gp.

I think there is a disparity there that makes me uncomfortable. In addition, I can't see how -- following the Wondrous Item guidelines -- to make a Healing Belt cost 750 gp. The cheapest way I can think of is:

• +2 to Heal skill = 400 gp as per "skill bonus" line on page 285 of DMG.
• Cure Moderate* spell = 2160 gp as per "command word" line divided by "charges per day" line on page 285 of DMG

Total = 2560 gp.

Can anyone explain how -- using normal magic/crafting rules -- you could make a Healing Belt for 750 gp?

I've heard that at one point the "cost to make" a belt was listed as 1000 gp (more than the selling price). I would have expected it to be fixed in such a way as to increase the selling price. However, in my MIC, they fixed it by reducing the cost to make (down to 500 gp). This perplexes me. Help?

* I really think it should be a Cure Serious Wounds spell, to match the amount of hit points healed. That would double the price, roughly. However, the MIC says that the belt is powered by a Cure Moderate Wounds spell, and I'm trying to be generous and figure out how in the world to follow the rules and still get that low price, so Cure Moderate it is.

 

[freyar]

Well, I'm not sure where the healing belt first came from or if it's an MIC original. But I think the real idea is that the designers of MIC felt that the pricing guidelines in the DMG were too expensive. So they repriced things downwards, and that might make a lot of items look broken for the price. I don't know exactly how I feel about that philosophy; I guess I haven't played quite enough with enough different groups to tell. For fun, I'm slowly reworking magic items that didn't make it into the MIC, but I haven't had much time for it, and I vary on how to price things.

Didn't notice that about the price of the healing belt and the potion. Kind of a curious coincidence!

 

[Runestar]

Healing belt only seems overpowering when you compared it with clearly overpriced items such as a potion of cure serious wounds (pitiful damage healed, and you provoke an AoO, so the damage you take likely offsets the hp healed). However, when you place it side by side with other more efficient modes of healing, it starts to pale in comparison.

In core, we have the wand of cure light wounds, which at 50 charges, heals on average 5.5*50, or 275hp. Or the wand of vigor, which takes somewhat longer, but can heal up to 550hp (twice that of a wand of CLW). Both cost just 750hp per wand. These are the yardsticks the belt should be compared with.

Before you start arguing that the wand will eventually be exhausted, while the belt will automatically recharge everyday, bear in mind that at 27hp/day, it will take 20 days before the healing belt starts breaking even with a wand of vigor. At 4 encounters a day (and 13.3 encounters to gain a level on average), your party will have gained 5 lvs at least before the belt of healing starts paying off. During which time you will likely have gained a lot more gold to purchase additional wands of vigor. And you can use the wands as often as you need healing. The belt is more limited (1/day), so it can only supplement your healing needs at most, not replace it.

The only time a belt of healing may be more useful is if you use it to "burst heal" during combat for 4d8 (when vigor would be too slow to make a difference, and the cleric is too far away) or use that 4d8 as a touch attack against undead (like incorporeal undead you have trouble hitting normally).

The belt is priced at 750gp because the designers believed that was a fair indicator of its usefulness. It deviates from the item creation guidelines because those have proven to be inaccurate when crafting certain items (and the healing belt is clearly one of them).

 

[aboyd]

So, Runestar, if I follow your comment to the logical conclusion, you're saying that the Healing Belt can't be priced at 750 gp using the DMG magic item rules, because the MIC authors decided to bypass those rules as too limiting?

 

[Runestar]

So, Runestar, if I follow your comment to the logical conclusion, you're saying that the Healing Belt can't be priced at 750 gp using the DMG magic item rules, because the MIC authors decided to bypass those rules as too limiting?

That would appear to be the case. The designers wanted to give the players a meaningful choice between the big six items, and other more utilitarian eq, and the only way they would ever opt for the latter were if they were priced more competitively (before, they would be too expensive if priced using DMG guidelines).

So they apparently just ad-hocced the priced based on what they felt would be appropriate. Which is just as well - the usefulness of these items are simply too variable to fall under the umbrella of a 1-size-fits-all formula.

 

[aboyd]

Got it. I'm just going to house rule it out of my game. Thanks for the help!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Got it. I'm just going to house rule it out of my game. Thanks for the help!

What?!?!

That's the kind of DM-fiat that I absolutely loathe. Instead of fixing the "problem" (which arguably isn't if you see the analysis done above), just "ban it".

If you've done any kind of research at all into magic item creation you'd know full well that the game designers have said time and time again that magic items should be compared to existing magic items to determine the appropriate price. There is no hard and fast rule or formula of item creation.

 

[Elethiomel]

So, Runestar, if I follow your comment to the logical conclusion, you're saying that the Healing Belt can't be priced at 750 gp using the DMG magic item rules, because the MIC authors decided to bypass those rules as too limiting?

There are pricing guidelines for custom magic items in the DMG. There aren't any pricing rules for custom magic items in it.

Also, those guidelines allow you to make a pair of infintite charge use-activated gloves of True Strike for 1 (caster level) * 1 (spell level) * 2000 gp.
If the guidelines can be so ridiculously wrong in one direction, why can't they be wrong in the other direction?

 

[aboyd]

What?!?!

That's the kind of DM-fiat that I absolutely loathe. Instead of fixing the "problem" (which arguably isn't if you see the analysis done above), just "ban it".

You know what'll make your head explode? I've DM-fiat'd tons of stuff, including a bunch of magic creation rules. Woah! My game must SUCK!

It's unheard of, I know. A DM thinks something is broken and doesn't allow it in the game. Crazy.

 

[aboyd]

If the guidelines can be so ridiculously wrong in one direction, why can't they be wrong in the other direction?

They can, in your game. In mine, not.