Help with determining value/cost of a complex magic item

[Enkhidu]

My character had the good fortune of having a set of Boots of Striding and Springing in a 3.0 game. Then, in a bout of malice, my dice turned on me and said boots became damaged.

Now, the DM in this case ruled that the boots were greatly damaged - damaged enough that their magic was affected, if not damaged enough to be destroyed permanantly. After a while, I was able to figure out that the boots were now use activated.

Here's the current rulings on the boots: they provide for double movement and a +10 to Jump for 1d10 rounds 6 times per day. Its a Standard Action (no AoO) to activate them.

Now, we're making the transition to 3.5 as we speak, and I'm having trouble trying to figure out how much these dang things are worth as is (or possibly if the DM and I should just agree to make them like 3.5's Boots of S&S).

Can anyone with a better grasp on creating magic items help me out here?

 

[Enkhidu]

A bump, because I've been trying to figure this out for a few days now with no luck.

 

[Mal-2]

Well, I'd price them as if they were always-on, then reduce it to 1/2 price for being 'broken', since you can repair a broken magic item by paying 1/2 the base price for the enchantment.

As for the base value, +10 to the Jump skill is (10^2 * 100 gp) 10,000 gp. Assuming the double movement is normally a continuous Expeditious Retreat it would be (1 x 1 x 2000 x 2) or 4000 gp base cost. Since we're combining two abilities, which I would consider to be similar, the base price is the more expensive plus 75% of the next cheaper ability. That brings our cost to 13,000 gp.

Note that in 3.5, the cost for skill bonuses went up considerably. If the +10 to jump was reduced to +5 (like was done with elven cloak and boots), the cost would be only 5,875 gp (I'd round that to 6,000).

In either case, assuming the boots count as being broken, I'd reduce the market price to 1/2 that value.

I didn't show all my work, but this is based on the table talking about pricing magic items in the 3.5 SRD (MagicItemsI.rtf). Let me know if you want more details on my maths.

Mal-2