Help me understand magic item costs

[CCamfield]

A Torc of Animal Speech (3.0; Masters of the Wild) costs 12k gp.
A Ring of Animal Control (3.5) costs 10.8k gp.

Both of these are spell-effect items based on 1st level druidic spells, with no material components.

The Ring of Animal Control is a command-word item (1800gp), with the effect of Charm Animal as a 3rd level caster (x3). That gives a value of 5400gp, half the listed cost. So there must be a factor that doubles the cost that I'm missing.

The Torc of Animal Speech is use-activated (2000gp) and listed as created by someone with Caster Level 6 (x6), giving a cost of 12,000gp. However I am baffled as to why the caster level would be 6, as a higher caster level has no effect on the spell. Of course, the creator of an item probably wouldn't normally have a reason to create an item at a lower caster level than their own, as it would sell for less, but on the other hand it would take 6x longer to actually make.

What am I missing?

 

[der_kluge]

Silly, didn't you know that WoTC's magic item creation rules make no sense? You're better off picking up Mystic Eye Games' Artificer's Handbook.

I can stat those out using those rules.

Ring of Animal Friendship -
unlimited-use, 1 hour per/level duration, spell level 1, caster level 3rd:

10gp(1 + 3 - 1) * 11^2 = 30* 121 = 3,630gp (creation cost) * 2 = 7,260gp


I need some info on that animal speech spell - what is its duration?
You mention use-activated (which for a torc makes no sense, anyway - how do you *use* a torc?) - is it unlimited uses?

 

[CCamfield]

Silly, didn't you know that WoTC's magic item creation rules make no sense?

Ah, that explains a lot, thanks.

The torc description says "Its wearer can use a speak with animals effect at will."

 

[Vanye]

The Ring of Animal Control is a command-word item (1800gp), with the effect of Charm Animal as a 3rd level caster (x3). That gives a value of 5400gp, half the listed cost. So there must be a factor that doubles the cost that I'm missing.

If it's unlimited uses per day, I'd say that's good for an effective cost doubling...

 

[James McMurray]

As always, the guidelines for item creation in the DMG are just guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Additionally, a quick perusal of the various spltbooks shows that their authors are often woefully ignorant in the rules for creating magic items, and seem to just throw costs out based on gut feelings. There's certainly nothing unbalanced in those prices though, so its probably easiest just to go with them.

For the ring made at 6th level, its quite possible that the creator of the item decided that 2,000gp was ay too cheap for an item that lets you talk to all animal, all the time. They then bumped the caster level as an ingame reason for the out of game desire to balance an item's cost with its effect.

For the Charm ring, I'd assume a similar price hike occured for balance reasons.

Of course, that' all conjecture on my part.

Be careful with die_kluge's book. From what I've seen, it can result in some fairly crazy things. Of course, the DMG item creation rules can also result in some crazy things. Basically I'm saying that all item creation should start with formulas (DMG, Artificer's Handbook, home brewed, or whatever). It should not be slaved to them.

 

[CRGreathouse]

What am I missing?

Not much. If it had a shorter duration there would be a multiplier, but it's 1 hour/level.

Remember, though, the formulae are from "Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" -- it's just guidelines, not hard & fast rules.

 

[CCamfield]

Remember, though, the formulae are from "Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" -- it's just guidelines, not hard & fast rules.

Point taken. But a 6x increase in cost for a writer's gut feeling is odd. If one wanted an item which allows Speak with Animals a couple of times per day, would you use the same increase in price? Sooner or later there's going to be a very big disparity between the cost of a weak item and a stronger one.

Or between this and other items. A Horn of Fog (another item which allows you to invoke a 1st level spell whenever you want) costs 2000gp. Is speaking with animals 6 times more valuable than being able to create fogs? That makes it as valuable as a Medallion of Thoughts... which lets you read minds!

The Artificer's Handbook sounds interesting but would be of no use to me in the WotC-book-only game I'm in.