Cost to add +1 ability to Specific Weapon

[frankthedm]

MIC busts open the entire magic item creation system. Specifically. With big bold letters. All over the place, and not just with this one item. Heck, they even say in the book:

I think we are seeing some of the "shocked" part.

That is what they "say". What really is happeneing is wotc is dropping prices to sell the book to players who want to get items cheaper. Wotc knows many DMs will say "No" to the prices whether as a knee jerk, or after comparing to pricing ranges they agree with, but either way by that time wotc has already sold the book to said player.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I would have thought that the DMG line:

ADDING NEW ABILITIES
A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions.

... had this covered?

-Hyp.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post #20 in this thread. I thought that you said there (I'm paraphrasing you here) that you could not add crystal echoblade property to a club, or the frost brand quality to a battle axe, the reason being that they are specific items. I interpreted this as indicating that these qualities (and by extension, their items) were an exception to the general rule that you can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions.

If "crystal echoiness" or "frost brandiness" cannot be added to other weapons without restriction, why not? If the reason is that a frost brand or a crystal echoblade is a specific weapon, then why doesn't this specificity prevent new abilities to be added to them?

In any event, you can't price them unless you know if these are fixed gp costs (+2000 gp or whatever) or are equivalent to an item plus - perhaps a fractional plus, even - or a multiplier to the base enhancement cost, or a plus with a discount, or whatever. I think the fact that these are specific items indicates that maybe, just maybe, the pricing of the property doesn't fit well into the standard formulas. Otherwise they'd be listed in the standard lists of weapon properties, not in the specific weapons section.

[edit] I don't want these weapons to be unimprovable. Or for it to be sheer guesswork as to what the improvement should cost. But Mistwell is correct; at the beginning of the specific weapon chapter it says

You can increase the enhancement bonus of these weapons or add more special properties just as you would for any other item.

Which is quite mischievous, since to do this you would have to know what "plus" the weapon has. I guess the assumption is that all the special abilities are flat gp costs, not plus-equivalents.

 

[Mistwell]

Again, first paragraph in MIC under specific weapons clarifies this. I do not have the text in front of me to post it. Does anyone else?

 

[Cheiromancer]

Again, first paragraph in MIC under specific weapons clarifies this. I do not have the text in front of me to post it. Does anyone else?

Simulposting!

 

[Mistwell]

Simulposting!

Sweet, thanks for posting that! "You can increase the enhancement bonus of these weapons or add more special properties just as you would for any other item."

 

[pawsplay]

Because it's not circular, and more than three people have told you in return how it's perfectly logical and possible?

It is circular. What people have said is "I think this produces a good answer." But the rule cited by CustServ does not provide the answer they say it does.

You can upgrade a magic item to any other magic item. but you must know the cost of that magic item. The cost of a +2 echoblade is unknown. For reasons already stated, it is very suspect to assume echoblade is a flat +2000 gp property.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Perhaps I misunderstood your post #20 in this thread. I thought that you said there (I'm paraphrasing you here) that you could not add crystal echoblade property to a club, or the frost brand quality to a battle axe, the reason being that they are specific items.

Right.

But since the specific item exists, once you have it (the crystal echoblade longsword, or the frost brand greatsword), you can improve it without restriction.

-Hyp.

 

[Mistwell]

Right.

But since the specific item exists, once you have it (the crystal echoblade longsword, or the frost brand greatsword), you can improve it without restriction.

-Hyp.

Hence the question that started this thread. If I have a crystal echoblade (longsword), what does it cost to add a +1 special ability to it like flaming?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hence the question that started this thread. If I have a crystal echoblade (longsword), what does it cost to add a +1 special ability to it like flaming?

The cost is the difference between the market value of a Crystal Echoblade (which is known), and the market value of a Flaming Crystal Echoblade (which is unknown); hence the cost to add the ability is unknown.

Which is what pawsplay has been saying; given the rules and figures we have available, there's not enough information to answer the question. It's necessary to invent at least one piece of information before we can answer the question.

That's the difference between "If I have a crystal echoblade (longsword), what does it cost to add a +1 special ability to it like flaming?" and "If I have a +2 Holy longsword, what does it cost to add a +1 special ability to it like flaming?"

The second we can answer from the rules, and everyone will get the same result. The first requires us to make something up, and so everyone may come up with a different response.

-Hyp.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

... your problem is that

1 +A +1 = 2 +A

I don't NEED to know what A is to tell you that much.

The logic here relies on a systems of equations approach.

Known formulae:

Crystal Echoblade + Flaming feature = Flaming Crystal Echoblade
+1 Longsword + Echoblade feature = Crystal Echoblade

ergo
+1 Longsword + Echoblade Feature + Flaming Feature = Flaming Crystal Echoblade

Pawsplay's "problem" is that it doesn't seem to be a statement in the rules that allows you to do it because the Crystal Echoblade doesn't have a gp cost but yall found the statement that lets you work it.

I would have thought that the DMG line:
A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions.

... had this covered?

In other words, reverse engineering is generally possible.