Sanackranib
First Post
sweetness
that is a sweet item thoug and I will try to get me one in my game
that is a sweet item thoug and I will try to get me one in my game
How much would you pay for a Helm of Protection from Evil?
- Thread starter Pielorinho
- Start date
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I recall reading in Wulf Ratbanes storyhour that exactly this item was created for him before tackling Heart of Nightfang Spire (on the basis of "who would you least like to become dominated by a vampire?".
You could email Dinkeldog and see what he priced the item at!
Cheers
You could email Dinkeldog and see what he priced the item at!
Cheers
Empirate
First Post
Grummer, excuse me for being blunt, but that formula is just by-the-book-dumb. Would you allow an item of continuous True Strike for the same cost? Formulae are mostly meaningless in magic item pricing. And even if you want to come up with a formula, the OP has a much more sensible approach (taking AC and save bonuses first and going by the table).
On to the OP's question: what is the reason your PCs cast Protection from Evil normally? In my group, the players couldn't care less about the low AC and save bonuses - but protection from charm and mind control, now that's a biggie! That effect alone negates a lot of monsters' (and spellcasters') schticks right there!
No risk of mind control at all, ever, that's the reason why somebody would want that Helm. And that's why I think this effect should be taken as the yardstick of said Helm's cost, no matter the fact that it's based on a lowly 1st level spell. We can still add in deflection and resistance bonuses and the summoned creatures thing.
(BTW, the "untouchable by summons" effect may be very situational, but it's extremely good whenever it comes up - full blanket immunity is always a good thing.)
Now what are comparable items?
The Cowl of Warding grants Mind Blank, wich is obviously much more powerful. It's also ridiculously expensive (200,000 gp IIRC), so let's forget this one.
A Periapt of Health grants continual immunity to disease (which is rare, and not that threatening), while the Periapt of Proof Against Poison grants likewise immunity to poison (which can ruin your day at lower levels, and isn't that rare). The Periapt of Health is 7,400 gp, while the Periapt of Proof vs. Poison is 27,000 gp. Can we measure the immunity to charms and mind control against immunities to disease and poison, respectively? I'd say it's much, much closer to poison - maybe even better, since poison usually ceases to be a concern at mid levels, while charms and domination can still turn your friendly neighbourhood Barbarian into a raving axe murderer at high levels.
The Scarab of Protection provides continual immunity to death effects and level drain. It turns to dust after 12 such attacks, however it also continually provides SR 20. It's 38,000 gp. If we say that the 12 charges thing and the granted SR cancel each other out (the SR is actually less useful than the deathward), we're looking at (roughly) 38,000 gp for blanket immunity to death effects and energy drain. This is probably underestimating the immunity granted, but death effects don't occur as often as charm effects, and I hope you don't fight Wraiths/Spectres more often than Mind Flayers/Succubi. So might 38,000 gp be a good idea?
The Horn of Goodness can produce a Magic Circle vs. Evil for 1 hour/day, costs 6,500 gp. We're finally getting somewhere: continuous items are obviously much, much better than command-activated, 1/day items, but Magic Circle is the AoE variant of the spell we're looking at. Still, you could probably make an argument that 24h/day protection should cost 24 times the price of 1h/day protection...
Based on the above ruminations, I still can't really put a price tag on your Helm of Protection from Evil. I believe that protection from charm and mind control alone are probably worth more than 30,000 gp. I haven't even figured in the AC and save bonuses into this. And the very situational immunity to summoned creatures is very hard to estimate as well. Really, I'd recommend just going with the following guidelines:
How highly do you rate complete protection from charm and mind control? If you think it's better than poison immunity (as I do), you're looking at 27,001+ gp already.
How often do your guys fight non-evil creatures? If it's less than, say, a third of the time, don't reduce the costs for AC and save bonuses significantly.
Do you ever plan on unleashing a dedicated summoner on the group? If not, ignore the protection vs. summoned effect when determining the Helm's price.
Hope that helps.
On to the OP's question: what is the reason your PCs cast Protection from Evil normally? In my group, the players couldn't care less about the low AC and save bonuses - but protection from charm and mind control, now that's a biggie! That effect alone negates a lot of monsters' (and spellcasters') schticks right there!
No risk of mind control at all, ever, that's the reason why somebody would want that Helm. And that's why I think this effect should be taken as the yardstick of said Helm's cost, no matter the fact that it's based on a lowly 1st level spell. We can still add in deflection and resistance bonuses and the summoned creatures thing.
(BTW, the "untouchable by summons" effect may be very situational, but it's extremely good whenever it comes up - full blanket immunity is always a good thing.)
Now what are comparable items?
The Cowl of Warding grants Mind Blank, wich is obviously much more powerful. It's also ridiculously expensive (200,000 gp IIRC), so let's forget this one.
A Periapt of Health grants continual immunity to disease (which is rare, and not that threatening), while the Periapt of Proof Against Poison grants likewise immunity to poison (which can ruin your day at lower levels, and isn't that rare). The Periapt of Health is 7,400 gp, while the Periapt of Proof vs. Poison is 27,000 gp. Can we measure the immunity to charms and mind control against immunities to disease and poison, respectively? I'd say it's much, much closer to poison - maybe even better, since poison usually ceases to be a concern at mid levels, while charms and domination can still turn your friendly neighbourhood Barbarian into a raving axe murderer at high levels.
The Scarab of Protection provides continual immunity to death effects and level drain. It turns to dust after 12 such attacks, however it also continually provides SR 20. It's 38,000 gp. If we say that the 12 charges thing and the granted SR cancel each other out (the SR is actually less useful than the deathward), we're looking at (roughly) 38,000 gp for blanket immunity to death effects and energy drain. This is probably underestimating the immunity granted, but death effects don't occur as often as charm effects, and I hope you don't fight Wraiths/Spectres more often than Mind Flayers/Succubi. So might 38,000 gp be a good idea?
The Horn of Goodness can produce a Magic Circle vs. Evil for 1 hour/day, costs 6,500 gp. We're finally getting somewhere: continuous items are obviously much, much better than command-activated, 1/day items, but Magic Circle is the AoE variant of the spell we're looking at. Still, you could probably make an argument that 24h/day protection should cost 24 times the price of 1h/day protection...
Based on the above ruminations, I still can't really put a price tag on your Helm of Protection from Evil. I believe that protection from charm and mind control alone are probably worth more than 30,000 gp. I haven't even figured in the AC and save bonuses into this. And the very situational immunity to summoned creatures is very hard to estimate as well. Really, I'd recommend just going with the following guidelines:
How highly do you rate complete protection from charm and mind control? If you think it's better than poison immunity (as I do), you're looking at 27,001+ gp already.
How often do your guys fight non-evil creatures? If it's less than, say, a third of the time, don't reduce the costs for AC and save bonuses significantly.
Do you ever plan on unleashing a dedicated summoner on the group? If not, ignore the protection vs. summoned effect when determining the Helm's price.
Hope that helps.
Celebrim
Legend
I usually a non-standard version of the item creation rules. In my game it would be worth 66000 gp (actually sp, since my game world is on a silver standard). Of course, my game is somewhat 'low power' and 'low magic', but I consider this value fair nonetheless.
In case you are wondering, the calculation for my game is spell level of a persistant version of spell that normally has a duration in minutes per caster level (in my game spell level +5), times the minimum caster level (11th), times 1000.
The persistant immunity to mental control is what makes the item so valuable IME. Compare to the cost of use activated Mind Blank in RAW, which is the effect you are most closely duplicating. The problem with the RAW is that they make no accounting of duration, so that making a use activated version of an item that duplicates a spell with normal 24 hour duration (like Mind Blank) is no different than duplicating one that has a duration in rounds (like Divine Favor). Of course the essential problem with that is that the writers of the spells took duration into account when balancing the spells such that, for example, Divine Favor is only a 1st level spell because its duration is so low. A spell that granted you divine favor all day long would have to be at least a 7th level (or even higher) to be somewhat balanced, so turning Divine Favor into a use activated item effectively gives you a huge amount of free metamagic enhancement.
By comparison, under my rules a item that granted you the spell-like ability 'protection from evil' three times per day as a 1st level caster would be only worth 1000 sp. Of course, now you have the issue of needing to be aware of a threat, spending an action to active the item, and having easily dispellable protection. Getting rid of such nuisances is expensive. You can imagine therefore what most wonderous items you find actually do; they don't give you permenent spells, they let you cast spells.
UPDATE: I strongly encourage you to read Empirates analysis above. He rightly states that the immunity to mental control alone is worth more than 38000 alone. I would suggest that its probably worth at least 45k just by itself. The other 3 useful occupying the same slot bump the items value up even further, by at least 12k. So even with somewhat minimal estimates of value, we are getting quite near to my suggestion of 66000.
In case you are wondering, the calculation for my game is spell level of a persistant version of spell that normally has a duration in minutes per caster level (in my game spell level +5), times the minimum caster level (11th), times 1000.
The persistant immunity to mental control is what makes the item so valuable IME. Compare to the cost of use activated Mind Blank in RAW, which is the effect you are most closely duplicating. The problem with the RAW is that they make no accounting of duration, so that making a use activated version of an item that duplicates a spell with normal 24 hour duration (like Mind Blank) is no different than duplicating one that has a duration in rounds (like Divine Favor). Of course the essential problem with that is that the writers of the spells took duration into account when balancing the spells such that, for example, Divine Favor is only a 1st level spell because its duration is so low. A spell that granted you divine favor all day long would have to be at least a 7th level (or even higher) to be somewhat balanced, so turning Divine Favor into a use activated item effectively gives you a huge amount of free metamagic enhancement.
By comparison, under my rules a item that granted you the spell-like ability 'protection from evil' three times per day as a 1st level caster would be only worth 1000 sp. Of course, now you have the issue of needing to be aware of a threat, spending an action to active the item, and having easily dispellable protection. Getting rid of such nuisances is expensive. You can imagine therefore what most wonderous items you find actually do; they don't give you permenent spells, they let you cast spells.
UPDATE: I strongly encourage you to read Empirates analysis above. He rightly states that the immunity to mental control alone is worth more than 38000 alone. I would suggest that its probably worth at least 45k just by itself. The other 3 useful occupying the same slot bump the items value up even further, by at least 12k. So even with somewhat minimal estimates of value, we are getting quite near to my suggestion of 66000.
Last edited:
anest1s
First Post
Make is a mask, and I would pay anything to get it....
However its not that good item...sure, it is continuous, but drinking a potion would be cheaper. How much would one give for the duration and the activation time? If I wasn't rich, I wouldn't buy it for 22k. Except if I needed it for a trip to hell of course. But this means that 22k are ok price me thinks
Now, what if it was one protection from good and evil item?
However its not that good item...sure, it is continuous, but drinking a potion would be cheaper. How much would one give for the duration and the activation time? If I wasn't rich, I wouldn't buy it for 22k. Except if I needed it for a trip to hell of course. But this means that 22k are ok price me thinks
Now, what if it was one protection from good and evil item?
Celebrim
Legend
It would only be marginally better, since most of value would be duplicated. I'd price it at about 74k by DM fiat, since it's hard for rules to deal with non-stacking effects fairly.
I'd personally compare it to the horn of goodness. The horn cost 6500 gold and is slot less and grants magic circle against evil which is a more useful effect. I'd say 2 hours is functionally equivalent to all day for most adventurers so I'd price it at 5000.
So I'd price it something like this:
6500 / 2 = 3250 # giving it a slot
3250 - 500 = 2750 # magic circle versus self only
2750 * 2 = 5500 # make it equivalent to 2 hours
So I'd price it at 5500. As a PC I'd never pay more then 2 horns of goodness for the helm. So to me anything over 13000 is a non-starter.
So I'd price it something like this:
6500 / 2 = 3250 # giving it a slot
3250 - 500 = 2750 # magic circle versus self only
2750 * 2 = 5500 # make it equivalent to 2 hours
So I'd price it at 5500. As a PC I'd never pay more then 2 horns of goodness for the helm. So to me anything over 13000 is a non-starter.
Empirate
First Post
Why not compare it to a Wand of Protection from Evil instead? That's also "slotless", and 1 minute is functionally equivalent to one fight, so it'll only be 4 charges a day! In fact, it's only 13.33 charges per levelup, of which there are 19. That means you'll need very close to 5 fully charged wands to see you through your whole adventuring career.
Assuming you get your first wand of Protection from Evil at first level, you'll pay only 3,750 gp for effectively constant Protection from Evil! And that's not even counting bossfights and story XP! Clearly, a slotted, continuous Protection From Evil item shouldn't cost more than 1,875 gp!
I.e., I believe your argument is bogus.
a) "slotless" means something different than you assume. The way you take it, potions, wands, scrolls, and weapons are also slotless. That makes no sense,
b) the horn takes a standard action to activate. It might be too late when you get to take that action,
c) if you can take an action at all, that is...,
d) 2 hours (or any limited period of time) is not equivalent to a full adventuring day in my experience,
e) "magic circle versus self only"? You mean, there's no magic circle at all, instead there's a targeted effect on only one person,
f) only 1/day seems rather risky to me.
Note that continuous items are a world apart from activated items. They carry no opportunity cost (the other cool stuff you could do with your valuable standard action instead), they're on even when you can't take an action (surprised, flat-footed, helpless...), they're not easily taken away by a Dispel Magic targeted at you (must target the item instead) and so on.
Assuming you get your first wand of Protection from Evil at first level, you'll pay only 3,750 gp for effectively constant Protection from Evil! And that's not even counting bossfights and story XP! Clearly, a slotted, continuous Protection From Evil item shouldn't cost more than 1,875 gp!
I.e., I believe your argument is bogus.
a) "slotless" means something different than you assume. The way you take it, potions, wands, scrolls, and weapons are also slotless. That makes no sense,
b) the horn takes a standard action to activate. It might be too late when you get to take that action,
c) if you can take an action at all, that is...,
d) 2 hours (or any limited period of time) is not equivalent to a full adventuring day in my experience,
e) "magic circle versus self only"? You mean, there's no magic circle at all, instead there's a targeted effect on only one person,
f) only 1/day seems rather risky to me.
Note that continuous items are a world apart from activated items. They carry no opportunity cost (the other cool stuff you could do with your valuable standard action instead), they're on even when you can't take an action (surprised, flat-footed, helpless...), they're not easily taken away by a Dispel Magic targeted at you (must target the item instead) and so on.
Similar Threads
