Pricing this Item (Headband of Many Skills)

[Stalker0]

Its a custom item, but all you item price gurus are usually in rules, so I put it here. This is an item I'm trying to get and I would like some pricing suggestions.

Headband of many Skills
This shining silver headband contains the knowledge of many different skills. Every morning at dawn, the user can attune the headband to any single specific skill. The user gains a +2 competence bonus to that skill while wearer the headband. The skill can only be changed at dawn each day.

Price: ?

A normally +2 skill item is 400, so how much for this one...x2, x5, x100?

 

[Nifft]

1/ Your title is terribly uncompelling. Describe or at least name the item.

2/ House Rules is ---> that way.

3/ Require that it be worn for 24 hours before it starts working, or the clever PC may buy two or three and swap them out. If it has that provision, then I'd say simply doubling the price would be fair enough (to 800 gp, or conservatively round up to 1000 gp). There are spells a-plenty which give a +2 bonus to one or more skills, including the ani-buffs and heroism, so IMHO the item isn't a particularly big deal. Also, headband is a valuable slot.

Cheers, -- N

 

[brehobit]

2/ House Rules is ---> that way.

I thought it was now the norm that pricing questions go here.

3/ Require that it be worn for 24 hours before it starts working, or the clever PC may buy two or three and swap them out. If it has that provision, then I'd say simply doubling the price would be fair enough (to 800 gp, or conservatively round up to 1000 gp). There are spells a-plenty which give a +2 bonus to one or more skills, including the ani-buffs and heroism, so IMHO the item isn't a particularly big deal. Also, headband is a valuable slot.

Cheers, -- N

I'd not worry about the swapping out, the once/day change thing is enough. I'd go with 2x in any case.

Oh, and as Nifft says, you need a better name for it

 

[Nifft]

I thought it was now the norm that pricing questions go here.

Is it? I had thought someone modular had decided the opposite... but I can't find a post to back that up. So I'll shut up about it until otherwise advised.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Storme]

Sigh...

Rules Lawyers are a strange lot...

I think that would be a pretty tough item to price. I would consider treating the item like something with a large money material component. That is, price +2 for, say, 10 skills, multiply that figure by whatever the multiplyer is for making a cost material "infinite." I don't know the figure, but its at the bottom of the item creation cost chart. Once you get that figure, divide it by 5 (1 charge per day), and divide that by two. I predict without doing any math, that you'll end upon in the 30K+ range...maybe less. But based on the Magic Item Compendium and what WoTC has been saying about magic item pricing, it probably should be much cheaper. I'd bet if you passed this idea by someone at WoTC they would price it at under 5k. Their new pricing system has yet to be revealed. I imagine we'll see it in 4.0.

Anyway, write it up and hand it to your DM. HE will then price it based on its powerlevel and what he secretly knows about the campaigne and you're on your way.

Oh...And the name of the item, "Headband of Many Skills" is quite cool and well in line with the D&D genre (Deck of Many Things, Decanter of Endless Water, et al). Not everyone around these boards excell in creative interpretation. Hehe. You should have seen these guys ripping into Tolkein when he posted here, "Hey, I've got an idea for a story about people called Hobbits. Whaddaya think?"

I like the name. Stick with it.


Storme

 

[Mistwell]

It's a +2 competence bonus. He could buy a handy haversack and a standard non-magical special tool for every single skill in the game for less than some of the suggestions here so far. For 30,000 gp you could buy 600 skill shards (or 150 greater skill shards for a +5 bonus)!

Seems like a 2000 gp item or so to me.

 

[Thurbane]

Well, it's significantly less powerful than a Circlet of Persuasion IMHO (continuous +3 competence bonus to ALL CHA based checks), and that weighs in at 4,500gp. 2,000 sounds about right to me.

 

[MadWand]

A masterwork tool costs only 50 gp, and gives a +2 bonus to a single skill. You could buy a +2 bonus to every skill in the game for 2000 gp in this way. Not only that, but this headband takes up a magic item slot, which a tool might not.

I think 300 gp would be fine for an item like that -- +2 to any character's favorite skill.

 

[brehobit]

I'll still go with 800 GP. It is strictly better than an item that gives +2 to one fixed skill (at 400GP) so I think 800 is pretty close. An item that gave +2 to _all_ skills I'd probably price at 3000-4000 assuming there was a "must have it on for 24 hours" restriction.

Mark

 

[Infiniti2000]

Can I hear 500gp?