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D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Belt of Enlarge
- Thread starter smetzger
- Start date
According to MIC, a belt of growth (enlarge person 1/day, caster lv 10th) costs 3000gp.
I suppose it can be cheaper if you lower the caster lv, but I guess the creator intentionally jacked up the price because he felt the price more accurately reflected its usefulness to a melee-type character.
I suppose it can be cheaper if you lower the caster lv, but I guess the creator intentionally jacked up the price because he felt the price more accurately reflected its usefulness to a melee-type character.
Sekhmet
First Post
While the DMG suggests the item would be ~2,000GP as a guideline, as a DM and looking at the overall effectiveness of the item (+dmg, -ac, etc.), I'd mark it up to double that worth at ~4,000GP; still a very obtainable amount of gold (even at mid levels), but reflective of it's overall benefit.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
IIRC, the MIC belt is a swift action to activate (spell is normally 1 round cast time). I think that was the reason for such a high cost...
Empirate
First Post
Never trust the DMG guidelines on pricing magic items. They're really only guidelines. If you allow a continuous Belt of Enlarge at 2,000 gp, solely based on the level of the spell, then next people will want a continuous Belt of True Strike for the same price.
Magic item prices must be determined by the DM, based on what he wants his PCs to get easy or restricted access to. There's really no useful way to calculate those prices based on a formula.
Magic item prices must be determined by the DM, based on what he wants his PCs to get easy or restricted access to. There's really no useful way to calculate those prices based on a formula.
It is a standard action to activate actually. Believe me, I was so disappointed when the DM pointed it out to me.
Though with the decent duration (10 minutes), you can afford to activate it prior to combat if you have sufficient prep time.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
Alright, well still then, it has an unnecessary 10th CL attached to it, it only needs CL 1 to cast and would still work for a combat. Dividing the price by 10 (based on the whole DMG guideline of multiplying by CL) would make that 300 gp for a 1/day CL 1 item. Definitely to cheap, clearly. But I've never paid 3k for that stupid belt and never would. You could have 60 potions or 4 fully charged wands (200 uses!) for that price!
Vegepygmy
First Post
Don't forget footnote 2 when using the DMG guidelines table. It would be doubled to 4,000 gp based on that alone.
But this is one of those cases where the DMG guidelines just don't suffice. A continuous enlarge person effect is way, way too potent for a mere 4,000 gp. The benefits of Large size, particularly reach, are major. I wouldn't let such a belt into my game for less than 20,000 gp.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
Of note, permanency has it as an option. 500 xp and a level 5 spell. So it'd cost 2500 gp for the xp component, as per the spellcasting services rules, for a total cost of 3960 gp for a CL 9 permanent enlarge person*. That's the most it could cost, if you're having some stranger cast it for you. If you have a party wizard whom you can just buy a scroll of permanency for and who's willing to freely blow one of his 1st level slots for you on a down time day, cost would drop.
Now, there is the super major pain in the ass of dispel magic screwing you over. But...still way more worth it than paying some ridiculous sum like 20k for a 1st level spell. Really though, potions are 50 gp and wands are 750, if it were me I'd never even bother with finding a permanent enlarge person anyway. Who wants to walk into ambushes and traps with a constant -2 AC, -5 hide, and -1 initiative? Much better to buff with it after combat's started, IMHO.
*I used CL 1 for the actual enlarge person spell because it's going to be permanent anyway and all CL affects is duration. But I'm not sure how permancied spells CL interacts with the CL of the spell being applied in regards to dispel magic, nowhere does it say you need to use the same CL for the permancy spell and the target spell, I always just figured dispel would go after permanency and not the attached effect. If not, add 80 gp to the above cost.
Now, there is the super major pain in the ass of dispel magic screwing you over. But...still way more worth it than paying some ridiculous sum like 20k for a 1st level spell. Really though, potions are 50 gp and wands are 750, if it were me I'd never even bother with finding a permanent enlarge person anyway. Who wants to walk into ambushes and traps with a constant -2 AC, -5 hide, and -1 initiative? Much better to buff with it after combat's started, IMHO.
*I used CL 1 for the actual enlarge person spell because it's going to be permanent anyway and all CL affects is duration. But I'm not sure how permancied spells CL interacts with the CL of the spell being applied in regards to dispel magic, nowhere does it say you need to use the same CL for the permancy spell and the target spell, I always just figured dispel would go after permanency and not the attached effect. If not, add 80 gp to the above cost.
Permanent enlarge person comes with its own fair share of problems. For example, by RAW, you cannot let go of your weapon ever, or it will shrink back to medium, and holding it again with make it bigger. Not to mention if you ever need to become normal-sized for any reason...
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