A question about magic item creation?

[mseds99]

Hi all.

A player of mine is a very high level caster (Nearly epic) and wants to create two unbelivably high-powered magic items during the "down time" our gaming group is going to soon have. I'm having trouble determining what the price and other requirements to make something akin to borderline artifacts(in terms of power). Yes, he is the ultimate muchkin. It makes me laugh when he comes up with these ridiculous things.

The two items are...

Torque of Battle:

• Provides 100% Fortification
• Acts as Ring of Sustenance
• Acts as Ring of Feather Falling
• Acts as Ring of Counterspells x4


Ring of Warding:

• Is Intelligent: (90,000 GP base)
o Intelligence: 14
o Wisdom: 14
o Charisma: 10
o Alignment: Neutral
o Telepathy
o Speaks: Common, Draconic, Infernal
o Reads Magic
o Read All Languages
o Primary Abilities:
 Wielder has free use of Evasion
 Wielder has free use of Uncanny Dodge (as 5th level Barbarian)
 Cure Light Wounds on Wielder (1d8+5) 2/day
o Extraordinary Powers:
 Heal 1/day
 Teleport 1/day
o Special Purpose: To Defend Azzadar Kassul
 +2 luck bonus to saves, +2 deflection bonus to A.C., S.R. 15
o Ego: 19

 

[Pax]

The Torc:

Minimum price to get armor of Heavy Fortification woudl be 36,000gp. Double it, because it's being put into a nonarmor item; that's 72,000gp.

Add double the price of a Ring of Sustenance ("additional power, not similar"), so, 5,000gp.

Ditto for the Feather Falling ... level 1 spell, level 1 caster, use-activated, 2,000gp base price. Doubled to 4,000gp, for the same reason as the Sustenance ability above.

Ring of Counterspells (with four uses), well, double the cost of four rings. IIRC (I don't have my DMG to hand), the RoCS costs, what ... 50,000gp? Four of them could cost 200,000gp? Double that to 400,000gp. we have roughly 481,000gp. DM fiat, round it to 500,000gp.

Now, here's where you shut this silly thing down: it's market value is over 200,000gp, so you're witin your rights to declare it Epic ... and multiply the price by 10.

Thus, the Torc costs 5,000,000gp. Cost-to-create would be 2,500,000gp and 60,000XP; prerequisites would be Caster LEvel 21 (Epic, after all), plus ALL the non-feat prerequisites for each seperate function, plus Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Epic Wondrous Item ...

---------------------------------------------------

The Ring:

Ring of Evasion, base price 30Kgp.

Uncanny dodge -- I'd price it similarly to the RoEvasion, at 30,000gp. Then double it for "additional power, not similar". Thus, 60Kgp for this component.

The CLW 2/day would be Spell Level 1, Caster Level 5; I assume "Use" activated, as I'm betting he wants the RING to activate the power rather than him. So base price is 10,000gp, prorated to 4,000gp (2 uses per day). Then doubled (there's that "Additional power, not similar" again). Final price for this component, 8,000gp.

Heal once per day. Spell level 6, caster level 11, use activated again; 13,200gp; 1/5 of that (uses per day) would be 2,440, which then doubles to 4,880. Round it to 5,000 for simplicity's sake ... then laugh at the cheapness of a free Heal every day, and quadruple that number, to 20,000gp. DM fiat can be a wonderful thing, n'est-ce pas?

Teleport once per day; same pricing as the HEal, up until the GM fiat. Be kinder (it's less godlike in power), and only fiat the price to 10,000gp.

Special Purpose:
+2 Luck Bonus to all saves -- price 'em SEPERATELY for each save (this guy's munchkining you, be a bastard back at him ...). 15,000gp, then, doubled (again, additional-power-not-similar). 30,000gp.

+2 deflection to AC ... I believe this is the same as with a pair of BRacers, so 4,000gp, doubled to 8,000gp.

SR 15: SR costs 10,000 for every point over 12, so 30,000gp base. Doubled, it's 60,000gp.

All told, this ring costs 316,000gp -- again, that trips the Epic "over 200,000gp market value" line, so you can gladly multiply the price by 10 ... for a price of 3,160,000gp.

-------------------------------------------------

Oh, the final price: being beaten over the head with a stick. Those items are silly, foolish, and blatant attempts to win purely mechanical advantage, without any sense of flavor or storyline purpose. Bah.

 

[Spatzimaus]

How Munchkin is this? Let me count the ways...

Nah, it's not even worth getting into. The answer is NO. The item design rules in the DMG are guidelines for the DM to use when figuring out what's in his world, NOT a way for players to design whatever they want. Pax has good numbers for costs using the existing rules, but I'd just flat-out say "no, until you become a god you can't make things like that".

Oh, and one other note: the Ring of Warding. Maybe it's just me, but the way the DMG describes it, you can't CHOOSE to make an item be intelligent, it just sorta ends up that way. Or at least, that's how we've always treated it IMC. Creating an intelligence out of nothing goes a bit beyond a low-level item creation feat, wouldn't you say?

 

[SevenSir]

Wow. That was a thoroughly excellent analysis. It's really great to be able to use the chart in the DMG to make an itme pricing justified, and your suggestions go right to that chart, very nicely.

I noticed only one slight error (and you noted that it might be). A deflection bonus costs [bonus squared * 2000], twice as much as Bracers of armor, an armor bonus. So the Deflection component of the Ring of Warding would cost 8,000 * 2 (for dissimilar effect), not 4,000 * 2.

8,000 more to the price you found makes it 324,000, which can be nicely rounded to 325k, if the DM wants.

These items are pleny munchkinful, but if the player really wants things like the SR 15 and Deflection +2, he's not thinking very clearly. He should try to obtain a higher SR from something else ('cause they don't stack) and probably look around for a better deflection bonus too. But the Heal...wow.

 

[kreynolds]

Now, here's where you shut this silly thing down: it's market value is over 200,000gp, so you're witin your rights to declare it Epic ... and multiply the price by 10.

Are you sure about this? That would mean that no magic items of a value between 200,001 gp and 2,000,009 gp can exist. AFAIK, a magic item over 200,000 is simply epic, meaning you must be epic level (and have the appropriate feats, etc) to create it. Otherwise, you end up with the massive disparity previously mentioned.

 

[Pax]

For 924,000gp you could gt a Rune of Persistent Fortunate fate, a la the FRCS. Note that price already includes the Epic markup (as it's effectively an 11th level spell ... price calculated based on a 21st level caster).

DM Fiat, the Rune shoudl cost 1,000,000gp. Touch it every morning when you wake up, and have one self-Contingencied Heal spell standing on deck for the day.

I have to say, though -- obviously this fellow wants the ring to be intelligent, so the ring can trigger it's OWN spells, and not cost action(s) form the wearer.

That, personally, is where I'd put my iron-shod foot down. HARD. Personally, the Torc would be (barely) do-able if I were running an Epic campaign; but, the ring ... we're talking borderline "minor artifact" there, for all it costs less ... so it'd NEVER work right. Period.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Deflection bonus, though; I don't have my DMG to hand just now (nor T&B, I prefer the table in there, actually). So I had to do all that from memory ...

 

[Geoff Watson]

Hi all.

A player of mine is a very high level caster (Nearly epic) and wants to create two unbelivably high-powered magic items during the "down time" our gaming group is going to soon have. I'm having trouble determining what the price and other requirements to make something akin to borderline artifacts(in terms of power). Yes, he is the ultimate muchkin. It makes me laugh when he comes up with these ridiculous things.

The two items are...

Torque of Battle:

• Provides 100% Fortification
• Acts as Ring of Sustenance
• Acts as Ring of Feather Falling
• Acts as Ring of Counterspells x4

36000 + (2500 + 2200 +4000 x4) x2
=77,400gp

Ring of Warding:

• Is Intelligent: (90,000 GP base)
o Intelligence: 14
o Wisdom: 14
o Charisma: 10
o Alignment: Neutral
o Telepathy
o Speaks: Common, Draconic, Infernal
o Reads Magic
o Read All Languages
o Primary Abilities:
 Wielder has free use of Evasion
 Wielder has free use of Uncanny Dodge (as 5th level Barbarian)
 Cure Light Wounds on Wielder (1d8+5) 2/day
o Extraordinary Powers:
 Heal 1/day
 Teleport 1/day
o Special Purpose: To Defend Azzadar Kassul
 +2 luck bonus to saves, +2 deflection bonus to A.C., S.R. 15
o Ego: 19

I'm not sure I'd allow him to choose exactly what powers an intelligent item has, but lets see:

Read Magic: 1000
Comprehend languages: 2000
Evasion: 25000
Uncanny Dodge x2: 50000
CLW: 3600
Heal: 23760
Teleport: 16200
Luck saves: 10000
Deflection: 8000
SR: 30000

Total, doubling extra powers: 289,120 gp.
I'm not how much extra I'll add for the Ego, since that would be a big help if the item gets stolen or he gets mentally controlled(assuming that he is Azzadar Kassul); maybe round up to 300,000gp.

Geoff.

 

[Pax]

Are you sure about this? That would mean that no magic items of a value between 200,001 gp and 2,000,009 gp can exist. AFAIK, a magic item over 200,000 is simply epic, meaning you must be epic level (and have the appropriate feats, etc) to create it. Otherwise, you end up with the massive disparity previously mentioned.

That's straight out of the ELH, as for the pricing. I read it as "At the DM's option" ... and the x10 markup, I read as beign the result of beign an Epic item.

Obviously, not ALL items valued at over 200,000gp are Epic -- the Halruaan Skyship (~700,000gp IIRC). And Weapons/Armor are specifically excluded (they have their own +5-and-+10 tripline).

If someone came to me with an expensive item that wasn't incredibly powerful, but did cost over 200,000gp ... I'd decide to make it Epic or not based on it's power level. One example, an NPC of mine had a gauntlet that provided a +10 Luck Bonus to any Caster Level checks (especially SR checks). Very nice, very powerful within what it did, but ... also fairly narrow in it's applicability. I figured it for a very expensive nonepic item, and left it at it's calculated price (250,000gp).

Largely, a single-effect item is IMO less likely to warrant being declared "epic". Had that same gauntlet arrived at that same price, but through three or four different abilities ... I'd've bravely wielded my "EPIC ITEM" rubber stamp (with the pretty green-sparkly ink ) on it.

Essentially, I use the "it's Epic" list of tripwires to *ahem* "ruthlessly put down" overly-munckin-ish custom items -- essentially, by pricing them through the proverbial roof, and then calmly saying "so, yeah -- sure, if you can put the money together, you can probably commission one of those to be made for you, no problem" ... all the while knowing no (say) 10th to 15th level character will ever have 5 million or more GP to spend, at least not in my campaigns!

 

[kreynolds]

That's straight out of the ELH, as for the pricing.

Not exactly. The ELH states that a magic item that grants a bonus beyond those allowed in the DMG has a higher market price than indicated by the formula's presented in the DMG . Raising the market price to an epic market price because of the market price isn't part of the epic formula, and it doesn't make much sense either (mostly because of the large gap of nonexistant magic items). If you read the previous sentence a few times in a row, I think you'll agree.

Essentially, I use the "it's Epic" list of tripwires to *ahem* "ruthlessly put down" overly-munckin-ish custom items --

Well, that's different. Understandable, perhaps, but different.

 

[Geoff Watson]

For 924,000gp you could gt a Rune of Persistent Fortunate fate, a la the FRCS. Note that price already includes the Epic markup (as it's effectively an 11th level spell ... price calculated based on a 21st level caster).

DM Fiat, the Rune should cost 1,000,000gp. Touch it every morning when you wake up, and have one self-Contingencied Heal spell standing on deck for the day.

Wow, that's a lot more than I charged my PCs who wanted an item like that. OK Hong, you owe the Tymorans another 878,000gp.
The increased duration should cost a bit, but nowhere near that much, especially since it is 'or until discharged'.
That's not much for a million gp, especially since you'll lose it to the first greater dispelling each day.

Geoff.