Campaign Conundrum 2 - Magic Stuff Making

[Archade]

Hi all!

Another question from last night's eventful session. My PCs have a bard who wants to make a magic item or two.

1) If the bard has a wand/scroll/charge for each day of item creation, they don't need the requisite spell on their list, right?

2) Our bard wants to make Boots of Expeditious Retreat. That would be Expeditious Retreat (1st level spell) as a continuous effect (spell level x caster level x 2000 gp). The PC even increased the cost by 50% to make it 3,000 gp. That seems reasonable as a formula, but Boots of Striding and Springing only give an extra 10 ft of movement (and a jump bonus) and are 4,500 gp. Should I be arbitrarily marking up the cost of these boots, or is 3,000 gp for an extra 30 ft of base movement reasonable?

3) Our bard wants to make a magical crossbow that shoots glass globes with spell effects. I think that's a pretty nifty idea. The ammunition is easy - they're one shot items. However, what should I price the crossbow at? All it's doing is propelling glass globes. The Unapproachable East book has something similar -- the Thayan Bombard. They price it at 22,000+ gp but for the life of me I can't understand why. Help?

 

[Infiniti2000]

1. They do. Preparing the spells (or knowing them) is a requirement for making the item. Someone else could be present to provide that requirement, however. A wand or scroll will not suffice.

2. Be very careful about what you allow. After you follow the pricing GUIDELINES, check the price against similar items and what you feel would be balanced or unbalanced. As dcollins will point out, allowing nonstandard items is a house rule and if you don't want it in your game, don't allow it. The most common example to show that the pricing guidelines can be abused is a ring of cure minor wounds usable continuously. Don't underestimate +30ft to movement -- your player didn't and is trying to abuse the guidelines.

3. I have no response on this one.

 

[dcollins]

2) Our bard wants to make Boots of Expeditious Retreat. That would be Expeditious Retreat (1st level spell) as a continuous effect (spell level x caster level x 2000 gp). The PC even increased the cost by 50% to make it 3,000 gp. That seems reasonable as a formula, but Boots of Striding and Springing only give an extra 10 ft of movement (and a jump bonus) and are 4,500 gp. Should I be arbitrarily marking up the cost of these boots, or is 3,000 gp for an extra 30 ft of base movement reasonable?

Basically, yes.

Issue (a) is that you should be clear that you're invoking the "Variant: New Magic Items" on DMG p. 214. PCs don't automatically have the ability to invent new magic items by the core rules, and you should be aware what the ramifications are.

Issue (b) is that when pricing such a "new item", you are directed to first "match the new item to an item priced in this chapter and use its price as a guide" (see sidebar on "Magic Item Gold Piece Values"). Only if you cannot find anything remotely similar are you supposed to turn to those formula guidelines, as a last resort. In this case your PC should just make boots of striding and springing, end of story.

More on the subject: http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndfaq3.html

 

[JimAde]

That price for the bombard looks really excessive to me! Why doesn't he just use a sling? I know the range increment is only 50 ft., but he's probably only attacking against touch AC or a square anyway.

I actually have a magic item like this in my own game (I call it a Spell Jar) and people generally deliver them with slings or just throwing them like grenades.

 

[Veril]

1) If the bard has a wand/scroll/charge for each day of item creation, they don't need the requisite spell on their list, right?

Nope, you need to have somone who has the spell on their list.

2) Our bard wants to make Boots of Expeditious Retreat. That would be Expeditious Retreat (1st level spell) as a continuous effect (spell level x caster level x 2000 gp). The PC even increased the cost by 50% to make it 3,000 gp. That seems reasonable as a formula, but Boots of Striding and Springing only give an extra 10 ft of movement (and a jump bonus) and are 4,500 gp. Should I be arbitrarily marking up the cost of these boots, or is 3,000 gp for an extra 30 ft of base movement reasonable?

the +5 to jump costs 2500gp (bonus squared * 100) of the 5500gp of the Boots of Springing and Striding. That makes the movement bit cost 3000 for 10'. He want's 3 times the movement that they give, charge him 3 times the cost as a minimum. i.e. 9,000gp.
+30' is way way way better then +10'/+5 jump.

Any time a player want's to make a nonstandard item it's because they want more power.

3) Our bard wants to make a magical crossbow that shoots glass globes with spell effects. I think that's a pretty nifty idea. The ammunition is easy - they're one shot items. However, what should I price the crossbow at? All it's doing is propelling glass globes. The Unapproachable East book has something similar -- the Thayan Bombard. They price it at 22,000+ gp but for the life of me I can't understand why. Help?

There are two ways of looking at this, the first is that he is using 1-shot spell as you describe. It's the spell stores (the glass globes) that are the bits you spend money/xp on. He might require a 'specially' made crossbow to fire this ammunition, but heck, he could just as easily deliver it with a sling as described. The crossbow shouild about masterwork cost, perhaps as much as double, but no more than that.

The alternative is that he want's to deliver his normal bardic spells on the fly using this specially constructed crossbow...that's much more interesteing, in the first case you could point out to the player that he could do this with 2 levels of arcane archer (ignore the racial restriction, it's stupid, change the required weapon to crossbow and it's all OK). I'm betting he won't like that, so what you want is an item that grants range to spells.

Take a look at the Archmage - he sacrifices a 7th level slot to get arcane reach on all his spells.

Pricing by the DMG - 13th level caster, 7th level slot, continous
13 * 7 * 2000 = 182,000gp.
that's a lot of money....So lets suppose he want's to do it with just 1 spell a day
13 * 7 * 25 = 2275gp
That's a much more reasonable cost. I'd let him construct it based on that cost per spell per day he that want's to fire from his crossbow.
Notionally the range is restricted to 30' - that's what arcane reach does, so add anywhere from 50-100% to allow him the full range of his crossbow.

 

[JimAde]

As for the boots I think he'd be better off creating them as X/Day castings of Expeditious Retreat. Probably just as useful for combat, but much easier to cost.

The real value of the "always on" version would be overland travel, but he'd presumably be sticking with the party anyway.

Also remember note 2 on the magic item costing table:

2 If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

Expeditious Retreat is 1 min/level so double the cost for a continuous item.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Nope, you need to have somone who has the spell on their list.

No, you don't, so long as the Bard keeps making his UMD checks.

 

[blargney the second]

You should really look into getting The Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games. It gives you clear, consistent, and straight-forward rules for making any magic item you want. The prices come out quite close to the DMG on most core items, and it gives you actual rules for everything else!

-blarg

 

[Jack Simth]

3) Our bard wants to make a magical crossbow that shoots glass globes with spell effects. I think that's a pretty nifty idea. The ammunition is easy - they're one shot items. However, what should I price the crossbow at? All it's doing is propelling glass globes. The Unapproachable East book has something similar -- the Thayan Bombard. They price it at 22,000+ gp but for the life of me I can't understand why. Help?

A Spell Storing Returning +1 Dagger (+3 equivalent) would cost 18,302 gp. Distance it (+4 equivalent), and you get 32,302 gp. A spear or Short Spear would also be appropret to the bard. Cast a spell of 3rd level or lower into the weapon (standard action spells only), and it can go off when you hit something with it. Note that a Distance (Short)spear has a range increment of 40 ft, while a Distance Dagger has a range increment of 20 ft.

Spell Storing isn't available for ranged weapons, for some reason. Many thrown weapons, however, are still melee weapons, and are valid carriers of a stored spell.

 

[Hypersmurf]

1. They do. Preparing the spells (or knowing them) is a requirement for making the item. Someone else could be present to provide that requirement, however. A wand or scroll will not suffice.

That's not the case.

Prerequisites: Certain requirements must be met in order for a character to create a magic item. These include feats, spells, and miscellaneous requirements such as level, alignment, and race or kind. The prerequisites for creation of an item are given immediately following the item’s caster level.

A spell prerequisite may be provided by a character who has prepared the spell (or who knows the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard), or through the use of a spell completion or spell trigger magic item or a spell-like ability that produces the desired spell effect. For each day that passes in the creation process, the creator must expend one spell completion item or one charge from a spell trigger item if either of those objects is used to supply a prerequisite.

As Veril notes, a bard can't expend a charge from a spell trigger item if the spell isn't on his list.

As Patryn notes, ... unless he has ranks in UMD and succeeds at a check.

-Hyp.