Heart of Gold (feat). Thoughts?

[anon]

Heart of Gold feat
At your choice, creating magic items may cost you 1/10 their market value in gold and 1/10 their market value in XP. For example, an item with a market value of 10,000 gold would cost 1000XP and 1000 gold. Normal: 1/2 market value in gold and 1/25 value in XP (eg 5000 gold, 400XP).

Bring this into balance for me...

 

[dave_o]

I'd stay the name is sorta poop. When I read it, I thought of characters like Sam Gamgee, etc. So maybe you could call it "Deep Pockets" or something more fitting?

 

[Jeph]

You divide the material cost by five, so you should also multiply the experience cost by five. That would work out to 1/5th the market value in XP.

 

[Velmont]

You divide the material cost by five, so you should also multiply the experience cost by five. That would work out to 1/5th the market value in XP.

Not necesserly. I think it looks like ok, but it is hard to evaluate a feat just like that.

 

[anon]

Dave_O, Deep pockets would be inappropriate because I was attempting to go for exactly the opposite effect. This feat would allow characters to put more of themselves (XP) into an item, and less of the world (gold). Mainly I had been thinking about items and characters where it didn't make any sense to pour a ton of gold into an item, but obviously there still has to be a cost.

Here's an example: a Wand of Entangle made by a druid. She gets the wood from a rare tree, then spends a day filling it with the magical energies of nature. I just don't see a place for gold in this situation. I realize that we can fabricate a scenario where the wood has to be purchased, but it seems like a stretch for me.

But, I do think you're right about the name not quite being right.


Jeph, I realize the changes aren't symmetrical, but XP is far more valuable than gold. As is, I'm not sure that the XP shouldn't be a bit lower.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Well, when you pay NPC spellcasters to cast a spell with an XP component, it costs 5 gp per xp. So use that conversion ratio. That 10 000 gp wand costs the equivalent of 7000 gp to make (5000 gp, 400 xp times 5).

With heart of gold it costs the equivalent of 6000 gp to make (1000 gp, 1000 xp times 5). Even though it seems like a bit of a deal, I think it might underestimate the value of experience.

I like "Heart of Gold" as a name. Maybe something relating to soul would be more to some people's taste. "Soul Treasure" or something like that.

 

[anon]

Cheiromancer,

I hadn't remembered that equation. I wonder whether I could use it in the feat.

Golden Soul feat
By putting more of yourself into an item you may reduce the gold cost for magic item creation. For each XP you sacrifice you may reduce the gold cost by 5. For example, a 10,000 gold item would normally cost 5000 gold, 400 XP, with this feat you could reduce the gold cost to 1000 gold, 1200 XP or all the way to 0 gold, 1400 XP.

I don't know how well it scales to very powerful items. But since our normal character levels are around 4-9 it doesn't affect me as much. I think this feat works at lower levels. What do you all think?

Also, does it scale? For example, would a 100,000 gold item be too cheap if it could be made for just 14,000 XP?