3 questions

[fl8m]

1. pretty simple, is the shield spells +7 cover bonus to ac effective against touch attacks or ranged touch attacks?

2. does the shield spell stack with a shield? the cover bonus should stack with a shields armor bonus but wouldn't they both be taking up essentially the same spot?

3. epic weapon creation (sigh) if I have a sword that has a total enchantment of +10 if i add icy blast (+6 bonus) does this cost 4,920,000 gp or do i simply add 720,000 gp? that's one heck of a difference i'm either wearing 5,120,000 gp worth of sword or 920,000 gp value!?

or if i have a +1 sword and i add the icy blast to it does my weapon cost 980,000 gp? or do i just add the 720,000 gp making my weapon cost 722,000 gp?

 

[Gaiden]

1. yes

2.shield bonus and cover bonuses stack - yes (unless using a tower shield)

3. i think the more expensive for both (not sure though)

 

[kreynolds]

3. epic weapon creation (sigh) if I have a sword that has a total enchantment of +10 if i add icy blast (+6 bonus) does this cost 4,920,000 gp or do i simply add 720,000 gp? that's one heck of a difference i'm either wearing 5,120,000 gp worth of sword or 920,000 gp value!?

or if i have a +1 sword and i add the icy blast to it does my weapon cost 980,000 gp? or do i just add the 720,000 gp making my weapon cost 722,000 gp?

AFAIK, you just add on the 720,000gp, but I'm not positive about that.

 

[AuraSeer]

You can't lower the cost of an epic item by adding abilities piecemeal. The market price is determined by the powers of the finished item, regardless of what powers it had to begin with.

Example:
You take a +1 weapon, and add an epic +6 enhancement to it. As an epic weapon with an effective +7 bonus, it has a market price of 980,000 gp. Since it only has 2000 gp worth of work in it to start with, you must do 978,000 gp worth of work to add the new epic enhancement.

If the rule didn't work this way, munchkins would craft their epic items piece by piece and get much lower prices.

 

[AGGEMAM]

If you add a +6 ability to your +10 it is a +16 weapon.

 

[kreynolds]

I think what threw me off is other items, like the belt example at the beginning of chapter 4.

 

[The Souljourner]

The way it works is thusly (I've recently been reading up on this, so I'm fairly sure of my answer) - if any one of the item's abilities are epic level (+6 effective bonus or more on weapons/armor), you use the epic level costs for the entire item.

[edit] ok... re-reading everything... this is the only part I'm that sure about... the rest, which in looking back, is the actual meat of the question, I'm not so sure about. I mean, logically, the answer I give below makes sense. However, there doesn't seem to be much to back it up in the SRD. It doesn't really give rules for adding abilities to weapons and armor, which don't have linear prices.

If you are adding an ability on to an item, you pay the difference between the final cost of the item, and the original cost of the item.

So yes, if you wanted to add a +6 ability onto a +1 weapon, you'd need to pay the difference between the +7 weapon (980,000) and the +1 weapon (2,000).

There are no shortcuts when making magic items.

-The Souljourner