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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1333857" data-attributes="member: 3051">Well, there are Feats like Magical Artisan that'd reduce the cost a bit.  Plus, there are always the alternate rules for Power Components if your DM allows it; he could say that if you go to Mount Doom to forge your ring and use the long-forgotten Ore of Eternity (acquiring this would be several adventures in its own right) as the material, the XP cost is cut in half.  And so on.But, to answer your question, I've never seen the x10 Epic item creation multiplier work well.  It's always ended up being prohibitive enough that the DM either needed to let them use special materials to lower the XP cost, or just deny it outright.What I don't like is that it's so... discontinuous.  An item whose book value would be 190k is still 190k, but add just a little bit more power and suddenly it jumps by an order of magnitude?  Why couldn't they just have required a special Epic-level Feat?Since this is the House Rules forum, let's find a better way.  For example, what if you did it stepwise:First, add up the cost of all the abilities to get the Item Value (IV).The first 200k of IV counts as normal towards Market Price.  Non-Epic characters can't exceed this range, and Epic item abilities can't be used.The second 200k of IV counts x2 towards Market Price, so an item with IV = 400k will have a Market Price of 600k (300k GP cost, 24k XP cost).  Additionally, any item in this range can use at most one Power Component.  Power Components are rare, inherently magical materials not found in any stores, acquisition of which is almost always an adventure in its own right.  Using a Power Component allows the creator to substitute GP for XP at a 10:1 ratio, to a maximum of 10k XP, but the item's XP cost can't go below 8k (the maximum cost of a non-Epic item) this way.  This extra GP cost isn't for the exotic material itself (which is priceless), it's for the other rare materials that have to be used to work it, or that must be fitted with it.(Example: I'm making an epic bow, and as part of the group's loot we received a branch from the Great Tree of the Goddess of Nature.  Using its wood will lower the XP cost, but I now can't string it with any old string, I need something rare and special, which will cost more.  And, I can't whittle the wood down with any old knife.)At the DM's discretion, he could say that these Power Components MUST be used, that Epic items simply can't be made without them.  Also, the DM can set a max XP for each Power Component; some might be better than others, and the 10k could just be an average.Each additional 200k of IV increases the multiplier by 1 and allows one additional Power Component to be used.  I didn't put a cap on this, so if an item goes above 2 million GP in IV, the multiplier exceeds x10, and if it's above 4 million GP, it'll actually be more expensive than before.  I suppose you could cap it at a nice number like x5 or x10.So, if the item had abilities worth 700k, it'd have a Market Price of (200 + 400 + 600 + 400 = ) 1600k GP, with a creation cost of 800k GP and 64k XP.  The creator could use up to three Power Components to change this to 1100k GP and 34k XP.  Much better than the 7000k (3500k GP + 280k XP) the Epic rules would require, right?</blockquote>

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