Help me price this item?

[Thurbane]

It's a bit rough around the edges, but here's the basics:

Rod of Woe

This rod functions as a +1 cold iron light mace, but has an additional power, activated on a successful critical hit. Firstly, the rod inflicts triple normal damage on a critical hit, rather than the normal double for a mace. Additionally, the target must make a DC 16 will save, or suffer 1d6 ability drain to a random ability (roll 1d6 for STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS or CHA). If a creature doesn't have the determined ability score, or is immune to ability drain, it suffers no additional effect other than additional damage. Each time a critical is scored, the rod loses 1 charge, regardless of whether or not the ability drain is inglicted. A rod of woe has 50 charges when created.

Moderate necromancy; CL 10th, Craft Rod, Bestow Curse; ***** gp.

 

[blargney the second]

Drain? Ouch.

 

[Wik]

Yeah, but drain is pretty much useless in the hands of PCs. I mean, if you drain a guy's con, that's bad, but he's gonna be dead in 3 rounds, anyways.

I'd consider just making it priced roughly equivalent to a +3 cold iron mace.

 

[Nifft]

The fact that it's a light mace is key here, because it means the character will not be Power Attacking or gaining an abnormally high critical multiplier.

What happens when the 50 charges are gone? It's just a normal +1 cold iron light mace?

The ability drain is nasty, but not necessarily dangerous. It's unlikely to affect the same score twice in one fight (unlike a Rod of Withering). The save DC is also lower than that of a Rod of Withering. And the 50 charges means it's not a danger for all that many fights (in the hands of the PCs).

Rod of Withering is 25k... hmm. 35k would be my guess at a reasonable price.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Wik]

Really? I was thinking a lot lower - 20k or so. After all, it is a limited-use item, can't be used for power attacks, and really kind of sucks in the hands of PCs. Maybe if it had some vampiric drain ability attached to it...

 

[Thurbane]

I was thinking it crumbles to dust after the last charge...

It's probably going to be a weapon in the hands of an enemy spellcaster my PCs will be fighting. If it drains one of their abilities it will scare them good, but it's not an uber-powerful item to fall into their hands.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I would consider dropping that Will save on the ability drain. Confirmed criticals with a light mace are rare enough as it is. Add a (relatively) low will save on top of that, and you have a cool ability that might never actually come off in play.

 

[Nifft]

I was thinking it crumbles to dust after the last charge...

If it crumbles to dust, then I agree with Wik -- if it sticks around, it should be expensive, since it's a permanent magic weapon you can create without using the Craft Magic Arms & Armor feat.

Cheers, -- N

 

[brehobit]

Eh,
I agree with pricing it as a +3 cold iron mace. The x3 multiplier is perhaps worth a +1 (but maces suck) and the drain thing is nasty, but not that nasty. So maybe 15,000.

Mark