Cure Minor Wounds 1/Minute

[Lorgrom]

... Or, until an unlucky owner drops it into a pool of liquid hot magma.

I understand the argument, I just don't think it's entirely a propos for a "normal" game.

Agreeded, but then again this isn't a "normal" kind of item the players are asking for.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Don't you think that whoever is using this device is going to get tired of either gesturing or speaking the command word every minute for hours on end until they feel better? Don't you think the party would be even MORE annoyed?

It would be like adventuring with someone that had Tourettes.

DS

 

[Grog]

This is an item whose utility varies greatly depending on the level of the party using it.

At very low levels, it's a great item, because it wouldn't take that long to heal the PCs back up to full, and the party doesn't have to worry much about buffs expiring.

However, even at mid levels, it's not that great. 60 hp/hour isn't that much, even to a 10th level party. If you want to use this item for serious healing, even your 10 min/level buffs are going to expire. And at high levels? Take a 16th level fighter with 200+ hp; if he was badly damaged, it'd take three hours or more to heal him fully using this item. And if the entire party is damaged? Forget about it. You're better off just resting.

FWIW, I think the Ring of Regeneration is ridiculously overpriced, too.

 

[RainOfSteel]

For that price, I could buy 6,912 wands of CMW [...]

That may be a nice figure, hypothetically speaking, but you are never going to be able to find a place--or even a lot of places--where you can purchase or loot that many wands. Saying you could buy that many to "replace" the item proposed by the OP wouldn't work out in actual game play.

I wouldn't want the item the OP has proposed, for reasons already mentioned (by Sabathius42). It would drive you absolutely nuts trying to use it. Not to mention not working if you're unconcious.

 

[FireLance]

It's not at the item itself, per se. It's at players who see that magic item pricing guide, ignore the text around it, and try to make broken magic items of any type.

I am referring to serious pricing proposals that value it above 1,000,000 gp.

Does it threaten your preferred gaming style so much that it is beyond the suggested wealth level of a 20th-level character?

 

[anon]

5kgp
pebble of devotion: while holding the pebble for one minute and continuously murmuring the name of the god which granted the spell which powers it, the stone heals 1 hp

 

[Nifft]

Does it threaten your preferred gaming style so much that it is beyond the suggested wealth level of a 20th-level character?

Woah there! No more personal psychoanalysis, please.

In a word: sure. Why not? The magic items in the DMG should be the best that's available. PCs should be able to create new ones if they wish, but not better ones. Price is one way to make an item worse.


A price like that is just a way of saying "no", and that's something he's allowed to say.


It's hard for a good DM to say "no" to his players when they want to do something creative, even when the voice in the back of your head tells you that they're trying to pull something. This guy can go back to his group armed with the knowledge that many others not only agree with saying "no", but back it up with halfway reasonable math.

Personally, I'd just say "no" directly, and tell them to stock up on wands of cure light wounds.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Crothian]

I'd go about 15k. It is not that useful in combat and the players spending a lot of time out of combat to heal just means I can have more random encounters. Each time they use it I'd remind them of just how long everyone is sitting around while one person is healed.

 

[Grog]

In a word: sure. Why not? The magic items in the DMG should be the best that's available. PCs should be able to create new ones if they wish, but not better ones. Price is one way to make an item worse.

I'm not convinced this item is better than what's in the DMG.

Sure, it gives potentially unlimited healing.... But the time it takes to actually do the healing is a severe limitation on its power. In some situations, it might be very useful - but (for example) after the first fight in a dungeon, are the rest of the inhabitants just going to sit around for three hours while the party heals up?

Even if there isn't a time limit, per se, on an adventure, whenever you're dealing with intelligent foes, you don't have an unlimited amount of time to defeat them. The more time you give them, the more they'll either be able to prepare for you, or get the hell out of dodge (with their treasure) if they decide they can't deal with you.

It's almost always the case in an adventure that the faster you can get things done, the better. I'd much rather have a simple wand of CCW than this item. With the extra treasure I'll be getting because I didn't give my enemies a three hour head start to run away, I'll be able to afford another wand of CCW for the next adventure, and probably a lot more stuff besides.

 

[shilsen]

To take this in a slightly different direction, here's a question: Why exactly do the PCs want such an item? Are they trying to avoid the bookkeeping of buying lots of wands, tracking the no. of charges, etc.?

What I've done in my Eberron game (see sig) is simply stop tracking purchase and use of healing wands. The PCs are 11th lvl and each have 200,000+ gp worth of equipment. Tracking 750 gp wands of Cure Light, Lesser Vigor and Repair Light Damage is too trivial for me. So I simply rule that they pick up a few wands when they get the chance and when they have time after a fight, we assume they heal back up to full. If they are in a time crunch, then we actually track use of healing. It makes things much easier all around.

It may not be something you want to do, but I thought I'd mention it as an option.