Eberron magic items

[Jason Horton]

Below are some magic items for my Eberron campaign but I would like some suggestions as to improving the formula for calculating the price for the items. The DMG does not have any mention of how to create magic items that grant or simulate feats. The items below perform this function.

Let me know your thoughts please.

Tools of the Magewright: This set of craftsman’s tools appears as a set of exceptionally well maintained tools of masterwork quality. When used to make an item they give the user a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks.
Faint Alteration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft; Price 1,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.

Tools of the Exceptional Artisan: This set of craftsman’s tools appears as a set of exceptionally well maintained tools of masterwork quality made from mithril or adamanitium. When used to make an item they give the user a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks and the effects of the Exceptional Artisan feat i.e. -25% on GP cost for item creation. The effect stacks with the feat of the same name.
Faint Alteration; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft, Exceptional Artisan feat; Price 3,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.

Tools of the Extraordinary Artisan: This set of craftsman’s tools appears as a set of exceptionally well maintained tools of masterwork quality made from mithril or adamanitium. When used to make an item they give the user a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks and the effects of the Extraordinary Artisan feat i.e. -25% on time taken for item creation. The effect stacks with the feat of the same name.
Faint Alteration; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft, Extraordinary Artisan feat; Price 3,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.

Tools of the Legendary Artisan: This set of craftsman’s tools appears as a set of exceptionally well maintained tools of masterwork quality made from mithril or adamanitium. When used to make an item they give the user a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks and the effects of the Legendary Artisan feat i.e. -25% on XP cost for item creation. The effect stacks with the feat of the same name.
Faint Alteration; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft, Legendary Artisan feat; Price 3,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.

Tools of the Master Artisan: This set of craftsman’s tools appears as a set of exceptionally well maintained tools of masterwork quality made from mithril and adamanitium. When used to make an item they give the user a +4 competence bonus on Craft checks and the effects of the Exceptional Artisan feat, Extraordinary Artisan feat and the Legendary Artisan feat i.e. -25% on GP cost, -25% on time taken and -25% on XP cost for item creation. The effect stacks with the feats of the same name.
Faint Alteration; CL 9th; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft, Exceptional Artisan feat, Extraordinary Artisan feat, Legendary Artisan feat; Price 9,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.

 

[Thanee]

(Belongs to House Rules, but I'll give you a quick comment, anyways.)

These prices (except the first) are way too low.

10k for an item, that let's you (together with the feats) save 50% in gold, xp and time from item creation!? You must be kidding!

Allowing them to stack with the feat is way too powerful (and generally the effect would basically stack with itself, tho, you could simply word that differently to avoid it, by removing the reference to the feat).

Even if they do not stack, the effect is far beyond what the price would suggest.

Prices should be about 10 times as high at least.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Jason Horton]

Thanks for your comments. I have scrapped the final item and removed the requirement for the feat in the item's creation. So the items now grant one of the feats when used. Do you really think a 10 times hike in cost is fair? Maybe twice as high? I don't know!

What would be a fair way to incorporate the cost of a feat in magic item creation?

i.e. Suppose I create a Sword +1 of Cleaving that grants the Cleave feat to the wielder

Would you even allow it?

Again suggestions are welcome.

 

[Thanee]

Well, you cannot compare every feat, of course. You cannot say, one feat is worth 2k, 10k or 20k in general.

These feats, basically, give you money and XP. If you buy them, once you get to the break even point, you have pure gain after that.

With a price of 2k for the feat, that's one item worth 16k and you got the cost you paid for this item. Afterwards you only gain more money than you should.

This break even point should only really be reached once you have done quite a bit of item creation. That would then be the limitation, that you need to use it a lot to actually gain that advantage.

And yes, I think 20k would be much more reasonable for one such feat in item form.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Elephant]

Tools of the Magewright are fine, though they need to be specific to ONE type of Craft check - as written, it looks like an alchemist, a saddler, and a carpenter can all use the same set of tools, and that just isn't right.

As to the other stuff...I wouldn't allow these in my game at any cost. They're far too powerful, given the benefits gained by saving that much on item creation. Well, perhaps as epic items they'd be OK. However, they'd have to cost at least 100k each.

 

[nookleer]

Pricing

Your pricing is very much off, it's just hard to see that.

I create items constantly in any campaign I play in, and items like this would be tools of inordinate amounts of abuse on my part.. but as for the pricing, I'll explain.

Tools of the Magewright is priced at 1600gp. This is assuming that you are squaring the competence bonus and multiplying by 100gp. You are mistaken. This would be for one SPECIFIC craft skill, not for EVERY SINGLE craft skill.

There is a spell that gives you a +5 competence bonus to craft skills (The MAGECRAFT spell I believe, I dont have the eberron book handy). Since I believe it has no duration (ie. one craft check) i will price it as if it lasted one round. That creates the following item:

Gloves of the Magewright: This pair of attractive leather gloves are covered in almost imperceptible runes and fit so snugly that it is difficult to feel them while they are worn . When worn while making something, they grant the user a +5 competence bonus on Craft checks.
Faint Alteration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft; Price 6,000 gp; Weight ½ lb.

Something that grants any one of the Artisan feats would easily be 5 times this price. I would put the price for those items at easily 20 times this one and it'd needs be epic.

Bands of the Extraordinary Artisans: This pair of mithril rings, while worn one on each hand, allows a magewright to craft items with inordinate alacrity and deftness, reducing the amount of time it takes to create an object by 25%. This time reduction compounds other abilities that may further reduce crafting time.
Strong Alteration; CL 18rd; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft, creator must possess Extraordinary Artisan feat; Price 625,000 gp; Weight * lb.

Note: do not ADD the 25% bonuses to get 50% time reduction. Instead, reduce the base amount by 25%, and then reduce that amount by another 25%. If I calculated correctly.. this amounts to 56.25% of the original time.

I believe this is much more like it.. Anyone disagree? I dont see why one may not be able to lower the level requirement.. it was arbitrary anyway... but beware what it may cause.

 

[nookleer]

Lol.. sorry.. I know this sounds dorky, but I impress myself with my crafting skill. My DM's run any new items past me just to make sure that they are "fair" items. Well.. except for any I might be seeing.

 

[Cabral]

The items are not bad, I would price the artisan items closer to 50k, but I would also change the wording so they granted the appropriate feat, if the character did not have it.

 

[Cabral]

Gloves of the Magewright: This pair of attractive leather gloves are covered in almost imperceptible runes and fit so snugly that it is difficult to feel them while they are worn . When worn while making something, they grant the user a +5 competence bonus on Craft checks.
Faint Alteration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft; Price 6,000 gp; Weight ½ lb.

I believe it is a 1st level spell so you can set the CL to 1:

1 (spell level) x 1 (cl) x 2,000 (use activated) x2 (tools: no space limitation) x4 (duration measured in rounds) = 16,000 gp.

or if you make it into gloves as you did,

1 (spell level) x 1 (cl) x 2,000 (use activated) x4 (duration measured in rounds) = 8,000 gp.

 

[nookleer]

If you are wondering if 625,000gp is fair for this item, think of it this way. If a character used a Brazier of Exceptional Crafts (you get the idea) to get a 25% cost reduction on crafting these bands, while possessing the relevant feat...

they'd cost an artificer 175,782 gold to make. Even if you sold them for half-price, he'd be making 136,718 gold in pure profit (as opposed to the 449,218 gold profit he'd make for selling them at full price). Think about just how much trouble this can cause to game balance, or even the economy of a country. ie. "Yeah, just give me 6 months to make the 3 million gold for my new castle.. nah it won't be a problem at all." or better yet "Damn we can't bring down that damned king, lets flood his economy with millions of gold pieces and throw his whole country into chaos"