How much should it cost to make this item?

[Artoomis]

An alternate approach would be to roughly equate this with a continous item with a duration measured in rounds:

"If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4."

Since it is even better than that, multiply by 5, which then becomes 54,000, which does not seem too unreasonable. It is almost as much as the ring of regeration, but that one can also regenerates lost limbs and, while much slower, takes no action to activate.

Note that the party will ALWAYS heal fully shortly after any encounter, and that is a huge benefit.

On second thought, mutiply it by 10 - make it 108,000. That really does not seem too much.

That's the cost of about 110 doses of a Cure Moderate ointment per my last post.

Wait, on third thought, price it like 100 doses. This seems reasonable. So that's 100 x 960, or 96,000 gp.

That finally looks right to me.

 

[FireLance]

THe guidelines don't work for all spells. Some spells like healing it just doesn't work in the ghame to have unlimited amounts. Note that even in Complete Mage with all their new feats allowing casters to do things all day long Healing is not among them. I'd just be careful about allowing such an item in the campaign as it will alter things.

Unlimited healing changes the game, but I wouldn't say that it doesn't work. At worst, all characters will simply be at full hit points at the start of each encounter, assuming they have enough time to recover between fights.

Note that the binder from Tome of Magic can have unlimited healing at 7th level, and the dragon shaman from PHB II can restore the party to half maximum hit points from 1st level.

I do agree, however, that magic items that mimic the casting of spells with a duration of instantaneous, permanent, or 1 round are best priced using the x uses per day formula.

 

[Artoomis]

...Wait, on third thought, price it like 100 doses. This seems reasonable. So that's 100 x 960, or 96,000 gp.

That finally looks right to me.

BTW, this last bit has precedent in charging for XP or component for an item with unlimited charges as if it had 100 charges. It's not really the same, of course, but it is a useful precedent for charging 100 times the cost of a single charge.

Which is to say, the mutiplier of 100 is not entirely arbitrary.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Is there something I'm missing here?

Yes! Use cure minor wounds instead! It's a lot cheaper, if slower. But, hey, if you plan to use it out of combat, who cares how long it takes?

PS. Nice one, Bad Paper.

 

[SolosAddie]

Now, if you want to be suitably evil go with 3x per day with nopenalities, but allow more uses with some drawbacks.

Like each time past 3, the ring has a growing percentage to do one of the following

Blow Up: treat as same level inflict spell in 10ft radius.

Exhuasted temporarily: cannot use for designated amount of days. power level creeps slowly up, so after a week(or whatever) can heal 3x cure minor, more time then 3x cure light, etc.

Weakened Drain: cannot use for next X days, and when powers return ring heals at lower cure level.

Permanant Drain: You now have a pretty ring!!

This gives the character a nice option if they get over there heads but some things to balance against.

 

[Notmousse]

I'd base it off a (somewhat) similar item, the Helm of Glorious Recovery.

It's a slotted item that provides a single casting of Cure Critical Wounds per day (after being worn for 24 hours) at a cost of 5,600gp. It would seem to be spell level times caster level times 200gp per charge.

If we apply the unlimited use modifier of '100 charges' we'd come to a price of 120,000gp. This would seem to be a fair price to me.

 

[NuclearWookiee]

It's probably just best to stay away from combining instantaneous duration spells with "use-activated or continuous use" enchantment effects. And even then, require instantaneous duration spells with the "command word" enchantment effect to be treated as charges per day. If you go that route, then Caster Level 3 x Spell Level 2 x 1800gp = 10800gp for 5 charges per day, base. Using the charges per day calculation of "divide by (5 divided by charges per day)" you can adjust this up or down. So 10/day would cost 21600, base.

It's not the rules as written, but certainly is less disturbing to game balance I would think. And even then, the usefulness of exchanging 5-19hp for a standard action very quickly wanes in just a couple of levels.

 

[Stalker0]

Just give it an X/day cost, and you'll be fine. Even if its 10 times per day, it would still be a better balance then unlimited.

 

[shilsen]

Still, it seems like the item as written (though apparently OK by the rules) would make any character wielding it effectively invincible, right?

I disagree, since I think that's incredibly campaign-dependent. A character with this kind of item would be very dead, very fast, in my campaign. Cure Moderate Wounds is just not powerful enough to offset damage from a single strong opponent or a few weak opponents. And I do mean at the level you listed. A garden variety ogre puts out an average of 16 pts of damage, and a melee-focused CR4 creature can easily crank out 20+ damage a round.

And while the PC is standing there doing nothing but healing himself, the enemy will be teeing off on him. The biggest advantage will be to last a little longer and give one's allies a chance to act while one soaks up damage, but that's it. Also note that it'll get progressively less helpful as the character goes up in level, since enemies will be doing a significant amount more damage.

That being said, I think the suggestion to make it a "number of uses/day" item is the best way to go, if it seriously worries you.

 

[Nefrast]

Unlimited healing changes the game, but I wouldn't say that it doesn't work. At worst, all characters will simply be at full hit points at the start of each encounter, assuming they have enough time to recover between fights.

Yes, and this shifts power towards fighter types. Their hit points are their number one resource which gets used up at fights. They now can fight all day long whereas the spell caster get's quite useless after a couple of fights. Not funny if you are playing the later one.

Also the party can heal all wounds without using up any resources at all. That's extremely valuable.

And such items have big implications outside of a single adventure party too. Think of large scale battles, think of wars. The army which has some of such rings can heal all their wounded in a couple of minutes... and attack again. The side which doesn't have such items too, will fall against such an army. Or think of temples. They could afford to heal many many people each day, without using up their spells. They could even do it for free, becoming very popular amongst the wounded. Other churches would need such items too to stay on the same level.

I think there is neither a need for such items, nor are the consequences to the world desirable. But if someone things that it will enrich his gaming, go for it.