Gloves of Crafting

[stonegod]

[A proposed item for magewrights, artificers, and other master crafters]

Gloves of Crafting
Price: 1000gp or 2500gp (see below)
Body Slot: Hands
Caster Level: 1st
Aura: Faint; (DC 15) divination
Activation: ---
Weight: ---

These heavy leather gloves smell of the forge. They have arcane sigils on the back.

Grants a +5 competence check on crafting rolls made will the gloves are worn (as under the magecraft spell [ECS]).

Prereqs Craft Wondrous Item, magecraft
Cost to Create 500gp, 40XP, 1 day or 1250gp, 100XP, 3 days

The main question here is the cost. As a wondrous item that is continuous/use activated of a 1st level spell (magecraft) with caster level 1 that has a 24 hour, its market price would be 1000 gp (1x1x2000x0.5 as the spell lasts a day). Alternatively, as a competence bonus of +5, that would be 100*5*5=2500gp.

So two questions on the proposals: Is it balanced/fair and what should be the price? Note, for the same price as the 1000gp cost, one can craft 200 scrolls (though the XP cost would be higher---so the same lower XP cost would be 40 scrolls for 100gp).

 

[Rystil Arden]

The by-the-books answer would definitely be 2500 for the +5 Competence bonus. On the other hand, it is true that the spell lasts 24 hours already and grants the same benefit. I think the thing that throws everything off and makes your scroll point valid is that the spell itself is too long (though I see why they did it that way--you need the whole day to work).

 

[stonegod]

The by-the-books answer would definitely be 2500 for the +5 Competence bonus. On the other hand, it is true that the spell lasts 24 hours already and grants the same benefit. I think the thing that throws everything off and makes your scroll point valid is that the spell itself is too long (though I see why they did it that way--you need the whole day to work).

Thus the conundrum. If we treat is as not a 24hr spell (you can only craft 8hrs a day), then the base 1x1x2000 price would be in effect, making it 500gp cheaper than the pure competence bonus version. But you can still get a lot of scrolls for that as well....

 

[Rystil Arden]

Thus the conundrum. If we treat is as not a 24hr spell (you can only craft 8hrs a day), then the base 1x1x2000 price would be in effect, making it 500gp cheaper than the pure competence bonus version. But you can still get a lot of scrolls for that as well....

The 2000 price is meant to be compromised, but the 2500 for skill bonuses is set in stone. The existence of a spell that jeopardises the cost efficiency of the skill bonus item is not a concern to me--I guess it probably just means we'll be seeing a lot more of the scroll. Also, do note that the scroll is usable by fewer people than the gloves (A random Expert artisan would love the gloves and have no use for the scrolls). I think in general, you can get a lot of mileage from expendable items that you UMD, which is one of the lures of the Artificer class (or Warlock).

 

[stonegod]

Of course, an eternal wand of magecraft will be a better bargin still for casting types who wish to use it often.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Of course, an eternal wand of magecraft will be a better bargin still for casting types who wish to use it often.

Yeah, Eternal Wand of Magecraft is going to kick the pants off any fair price for the gloves. Unfortunately, that is a flaw of Magecraft, so we can't do anything about it. An Eternal Wand of any 1st-level spell that lasts all day is bound to be a good deal simply because a 1st-level spell that lasts all day is, eventually once you have better things to do in combat, always a good idea to cast each day unless you are sure you will never use the benefits on a particular day.

 

[Erekose13]

The written in stone part of magic item pricing has been overruled in the Magic Item Compendium. Benchmarking is more important now and I think that magecraft is the important benchmark here. That and the fact that it has not direct impact on combat. However, rather than simply going with 1000gp, I suggest adding something small and flavorful on to it.

For example:
mending 1/day
or repair minor damage at the expense of a least mark of making.
either of those with an increase of say 250-300gp would make it more flavorful and closer to the original rules.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The written in stone part of magic item pricing has been overruled in the Magic Item Compendium. Benchmarking is more important now and I think that magecraft is the important benchmark here. That and the fact that it has not direct impact on combat. However, rather than simply going with 1000gp, I suggest adding something small and flavorful on to it.

For example:
mending 1/day
or repair minor damage at the expense of a least mark of making.
either of those with an increase of say 250-300gp would make it more flavorful and closer to the original rules.

Yeah, but I don't like MIC. Over half of the prices in that book are bad, and a good number of them are game-breakingly egregiously terrible. All in the direction of giving you game-breaking abilities at ridiculously low costs.

As to the Gloves, you could make 640 scrolls of Mage Armour with the price of a +4 Bracers of Armour, but people still buy Bracers of Armour. You could even buy 20 Eternal Wands of Mage Armour for the same price as Bracers of Armour, and you only need 8 to last all day (or less if you don't count sleep time). I don't think that's any reason to lower the cost of Bracers of Armour.