Can I get a little hand-holding through magic item creation?

[hong]

Being a guy who loves the per-encounter balancing thing with all of his body including his etcetera, I'm not too concerned about lots of healing. Heck, I switched my current game to use reserve points so that people wouldn't feel compelled to play a healer. I prefer to have one or two big stand-up fights per day, without much of the usual dungeon slogging.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Yes, I missed a zero. I'm lousy with typos when I don't have my contacts in. 10,080 is still pretty cheap for the effect. It's actually disapponting if that was the sole mistake.

So, if the item was usable at will (infinite charges), then you'd just not bother with the 1/5 reduction?

Seriously? I can do the effect for 700 but 10k is pretty cheap? And to the infinite charges, yes.

And the wand is 20k...and to tell you the truth I've never seen someone go through an entire wand because they're always concerned about "saving the charges".

I think 10k for the item is totally fine. Sure it never runs out of charges, but you can only ever use it once a day.

And about the widget...say your party is down 100 hp (very possible as low as level 4). That's ten minutes you have to spend healing. At that level that's going to cut into your buffs something fierce. In fact I rather like the widget of cure minor because worrying about magical healing is silly. In core D&D you either A) have dedicated healing or B) go back to town after every fight.

 

[Felon]

Seriously? I can do the effect for 700 but 10k is pretty cheap?

Sorry, no idea what you're talking about there.

And the wand is 20k...and to tell you the truth I've never seen someone go through an entire wand because they're always concerned about "saving the charges".

That might be because 50 charges is too many--enough that most folks eventually stop keeping track and just treat it like it had infinite uses, and just stop using when they feel like they've outgrown its effect.

I think 10k for the item is totally fine. Sure it never runs out of charges, but you can only ever use it once a day.[q/uote]

Well, once a day is plenty for this spell.

And about the widget...say your party is down 100 hp (very possible as low as level 4). That's ten minutes you have to spend healing. At that level that's going to cut into your buffs something fierce. In fact I rather like the widget of cure minor because worrying about magical healing is silly. In core D&D you either A) have dedicated healing or B) go back to town after every fight.

That's a false dichotomy. There are actually some other options besides A and B. I play in groups that have no healing, and they don't go back to town after every fight (indeed, just assuming one always has the luxury to go back to town after every fight is a lot to take for granted).

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Scrolls of this spell cost 700 gp.

It doesn't matter if 50 charges is "too many". That's how many you get for 20k.

Is once a day really plenty? Your players always know when they're going to have an encounter, and it's always within 7 hours of casting that spell? Interesting. I, however, would say that a 24 hour duration would be plenty as it literally lasts the entire day and not less than 1/3 of it.

"False Dichotomy"? What is this, a debate? All I'm saying is that if you don't have a healer and you get punched up, you're not able to recover.

 

[Felon]

Scrolls of this spell cost 700 gp.

That kinda assumes you can actually cast the spell of the scroll...or you've got some investment in Use Magic Device.

Is once a day really plenty? Your players always know when they're going to have an encounter, and it's always within 7 hours of casting that spell? Interesting. I, however, would say that a 24 hour duration would be plenty as it literally lasts the entire day and not less than 1/3 of it.

Well, boots of speed give you a haste effect (CL 10), and cost 12k. I'd say an item that gives you stoneskin effect for 7 rounds should be costly by itself. Throw in the long-duration benefits, and it seems like a real winner for 10k.

But like I said, I am kind of soft on that one. I was a lot more aghast at how certain controls that are used to balance a spell get completely stripped out of the item creation process. Thre should be an associated mark-up in these guidelines.

"False Dichotomy"? What is this, a debate?

Sure, everything you say on a messageboard is a target for debate. C'mon, you know that.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Well I kinda assumed that since you said the player wants to create the item that he had the spell on his spell list and could thus cast it.

Let's not forget that Stoneskin lasts 10 minutes per level, and this effect lasts one round per level; and after that you lose all the other benefits of the spell!

Haste has a duration of 1 round per level, because haste is AWESOME. Stoneskin has a duration of 10 minutes per level because it is less awesome, and it also has a 250 gp material component (although truth be told I'd rather have a 1 min/level duration and no material cost...).

3rd level spell x 1st caster level (based on how long it actually lasts) x 2,000 gp use-activated / 0.5 for having 10 charges per day = 12,000 gp. Right on the money.

But more importantly...Heart of Earth is really not that good. The only static benefit is +8 vs. a few special attacks. That's fair enough for a 4th-level spell. The temporary HP will go away once lost even though the spell persists. You can't heal them. If you activate stoneskin, you lose your +8.

Also keep in mind if the item hasn't been used yet and it requires command word activation, it still takes a standard action to fire it up. This is not free. Make it use-activated and increase the cost to 11.2k if you want.

I guess I don't see what the big deal is, or why 10k is too cheap for something that is about half as effective as the same wand, which costs 20k.

The hard line on this spell (and thus item) is that for one fight per day, you get stoneskin for 7 rounds. With the wand, you can have stoneskin in every fight for the next 50 fights. Personally, I think Haste is way better than Heart of Earth for a melee character (which is what this sounds like since they are not a caster) and I would always take boots of speed over ring of heart of earth.

The price of this same item using the actual stoneskin spell (and having it work like the boots of speed which are awesome and way better than the suggested Heart of Earth item) is 28.5k including the material component cost. So that much for a stoneskin spell that blocks ONE HUNDRED points of damage per day, 10 points per round, and is activated as you need it, not for 7 rounds of one combat where you may or may not wind up needing all of it.

If you think the item is so bad, don't allow it. That's about all the more I'm going to say on the subject, aside from the fact that the item is meh at best.

It's also worth pointing out that this spell is not core and it's ludicrous to expect it to closely adhere to magic item creation guidelines published in a book released 7 years prior.

 

[hong]

The REALLY good thing about heart of earth is how it synergises with all the other heart of X spells. If you have all of them up, you get 100% fortification into the bargain.

That said, I don't see the item as that bad.