how to handle items with skill bonus

I played a rogue up to 12th-level, who bought several +10 to skill items, and it never unbalanced the game in any significant way. The rogue spent her money on a pair of Catspaw Gloves (+10 to disable device) while other party members were buying a Ring of Protection +1. The items in question also take up slots, or they cost double.

I just don't see a problem with it, really.

As far as jump is concerned, 45,000gp for a Ring of Jumping is just silly. My rogue fancied herself an acrobat, so I had maxed out jump, gotten the psionic feat Mental Leap and was able to jump vertically about 16 feet by taking 10. Not once did it ever mess up the game. Jumping just isn't very useful from a power gamer's standpoint. Why on earth should it cost more than flying?!
 

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I have made the cost for skill boosting items bonus^2*100 gp

Thus all +10 items cost 10,000 gp. And I capped non-epic skill boosting items at +10. So the ring of jumping stops at +10.

Winged Boots are limited in the time they function (2 hours/day)... a ring of jumping is not.

Thus the boots will probably be used with caution, while the ring will be used everytime there is an oportunity.
 

Why is everyone focused on destroying the ring of jumping? It only has a very limited use window between 1st and 4th level. It probably too expensive at 2000 gcs. As soon as there are enough rings to go around the ring of jumping gets thrown in the trash. Anyone at 5th level or higher would immediately pawn the ring to get a +1 armor item.
 

Archer said:
Why is everyone focused on destroying the ring of jumping? It only has a very limited use window between 1st and 4th level. It probably too expensive at 2000 gcs. As soon as there are enough rings to go around the ring of jumping gets thrown in the trash. Anyone at 5th level or higher would immediately pawn the ring to get a +1 armor item.

you make a lot of judgements about the characters in my game, and the frequency of rings in my game...

In fact, I find what you suggest rather ludicrous.

8 characters would require 16 rings in order to consider discarding one.

Forge Ring requires a 12th level spell-user. I bet rings are a dime a dozen...
 


The ring of jumping is not like the other skill boasters. It grants the person a permanent jump spell, which is very different. While I agree the +10 to skills are way underpriced, the jump ring needs to be priced in a different way, and then perhaps you'll get a fairer price that more agree with
 

+10 skill bonus for $2000 is pretty firmly entrenched in official WOTC products at this point. The Psionics Handbook items Third Eye Concentrate (+10 Concentration) and Skin of Nimbleness (+10 Tumble) pretty much seal the deal on the valuation of these items, even without Tome & Blood's explicite creation formula of bonus squared x 20gp. I hear all these claims of this being unbalancing, but I have yet to hear a report from someone who experienced their extensive use and felt the game was unbalanced because of it.
 

Stalker0 said:
The ring of jumping is not like the other skill boasters. It grants the person a permanent jump spell, which is very different.

In term of game mechanics, it's exactly the same. The reason the ring of jumping is cheap is because there are other ways of enhancing mobility at high levels, notably flight and teleportation. Thus jumping quickly becomes less important.
 


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