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[+] Design & Development: Magic Item Pricing
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<blockquote data-quote="Nevvur" data-source="post: 7346030" data-attributes="member: 6783882"><p>Let me run you through the process to show you how I arrived at those numbers. The purpose isn't as a guide to creating magic items based on spells, but to regard spell resources as having certain thresholds where maintaining a given spell effect isn't prohibitively expensive. I actually ended up using the optional Spell Points system in the DMG rather than spell slots, since that provides a bit more flexibility with the maths.</p><p></p><p>Magic Weapon spell requires a 2nd level slot, or 3 SP. It has a duration of 1 hour. In a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, it would take 3 or 4 castings to have the effective equivalent to permanency (that is, you will always cast it when you need it). I'm going to err high since the final number will set the item level, and wealth is excessive under the assumptions of the OP. So that's 4 castings, or 12 SP. I'm arbitrarily setting "not prohibitively expensive" as half the caster's SPs. That means you need at least 24 SP to meet this requirement. Since you have 27 SP at level 5, the item is level 5.</p><p></p><p>Upcasting to a +2 weapon costs 6 points per cast, 24 per day for effective permanency, so 48 total SP to not be prohibitively expensive. You get 57 SP at level 9, so it's a 9th level item. </p><p></p><p>+3 takes 6th level slots, but you only get one 6th level spell per rest under SPs. The other 3 castings would require 7th, 8th, and 9th level SPs, for a total of 43. Double to 86 to not be expensive, and you're looking at level 15.</p><p></p><p>I used Flame Blade as the basis for creating a Flame Tongue. This spell only has a duration of 1 minute, so you'd need to cast it at the start of each combat to have an effective permanency. That's 8 castings for 3 points each = 24 SPs = 48 SPs to not be expensive = 9th level.</p><p></p><p>This isn't to say only level 15 casters can MAKE a permanent +3 weapon, only that they can, according to my 'expensive' threshold, make one effectively permanent (it's up when you need it, i.e. when combat breaks out) through repetitious casting without becoming useless throughout the adventuring day (ignoring concentration requirements, of course). This satisfies the "strictly a bonus" quality intended for magic items in 5e as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't really match up to actual play - a wizard missing all his spell slots from 6-9th is clearly going to be less effective than one using those slots to respond to different scenarios as they come up, but that's just one flaw among several in this approach. </p><p></p><p>It breaks down even more if you can't find a good spell equivalent to the magic item's effect. The lowest level spell that fits the "extradimensional space" quality of a Bag of Holding is Rope Trick. Since it's a 1 hour duration spell that requires an effective uptime of 24 hours/day, that's 72 SP. The caster must have 144 SP for this to be inexpensive, which makes it above a level 20 item. What's interesting here is if you instead use Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, another extradimensional space. That's a level 7 spell but has a duration of 24 hours, so it only needs 1 casting per day, a 20 SP expensive threshold, so level 5 item.</p><p></p><p>Like I said, it gets weird and complicated. Again, I'm only offering this as a springboard for other ideas, not a well-tuned system for appraising all magic items.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nevvur, post: 7346030, member: 6783882"] Let me run you through the process to show you how I arrived at those numbers. The purpose isn't as a guide to creating magic items based on spells, but to regard spell resources as having certain thresholds where maintaining a given spell effect isn't prohibitively expensive. I actually ended up using the optional Spell Points system in the DMG rather than spell slots, since that provides a bit more flexibility with the maths. Magic Weapon spell requires a 2nd level slot, or 3 SP. It has a duration of 1 hour. In a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, it would take 3 or 4 castings to have the effective equivalent to permanency (that is, you will always cast it when you need it). I'm going to err high since the final number will set the item level, and wealth is excessive under the assumptions of the OP. So that's 4 castings, or 12 SP. I'm arbitrarily setting "not prohibitively expensive" as half the caster's SPs. That means you need at least 24 SP to meet this requirement. Since you have 27 SP at level 5, the item is level 5. Upcasting to a +2 weapon costs 6 points per cast, 24 per day for effective permanency, so 48 total SP to not be prohibitively expensive. You get 57 SP at level 9, so it's a 9th level item. +3 takes 6th level slots, but you only get one 6th level spell per rest under SPs. The other 3 castings would require 7th, 8th, and 9th level SPs, for a total of 43. Double to 86 to not be expensive, and you're looking at level 15. I used Flame Blade as the basis for creating a Flame Tongue. This spell only has a duration of 1 minute, so you'd need to cast it at the start of each combat to have an effective permanency. That's 8 castings for 3 points each = 24 SPs = 48 SPs to not be expensive = 9th level. This isn't to say only level 15 casters can MAKE a permanent +3 weapon, only that they can, according to my 'expensive' threshold, make one effectively permanent (it's up when you need it, i.e. when combat breaks out) through repetitious casting without becoming useless throughout the adventuring day (ignoring concentration requirements, of course). This satisfies the "strictly a bonus" quality intended for magic items in 5e as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't really match up to actual play - a wizard missing all his spell slots from 6-9th is clearly going to be less effective than one using those slots to respond to different scenarios as they come up, but that's just one flaw among several in this approach. It breaks down even more if you can't find a good spell equivalent to the magic item's effect. The lowest level spell that fits the "extradimensional space" quality of a Bag of Holding is Rope Trick. Since it's a 1 hour duration spell that requires an effective uptime of 24 hours/day, that's 72 SP. The caster must have 144 SP for this to be inexpensive, which makes it above a level 20 item. What's interesting here is if you instead use Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, another extradimensional space. That's a level 7 spell but has a duration of 24 hours, so it only needs 1 casting per day, a 20 SP expensive threshold, so level 5 item. Like I said, it gets weird and complicated. Again, I'm only offering this as a springboard for other ideas, not a well-tuned system for appraising all magic items. [/QUOTE]
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