Incense of Meditation calculation

[bertman4]

Can someone please run my through how the cost of Incense of Meditation is done? My calculations aren't coming anywhere near what the gold cost should be. I guess it is possible that it's one of those magic items they fudged the cost, but it's not making sense to me. The reason I want to know is that instead of "maximizing" the spells, I'd like my players to find an Incense of Meditation Silent Spells. I'd like to know how much that would cost for reward balance issues. Thanks for any help.

Bertman

 

[the Jester]

Cool idea!

Since feats vary in their value, here's what I would do: since Maximize Spell is +3 levels, and Silent Spell is +1, I'd say Incense of Silent Meditation (or whatever you want to call it) would cost about a third of what the standard stuff costs. So about 1633 gp per block.

 

[bertman4]

Thanks for your input. That sounds okay but that doesn't really follow the standard rules. For most items, it's always caster level x spell level x standard cost. To be able to cast any maximize spell, which is a +3 level metamagic feat, you need to be able to cast at least 4th level spells, which means you need to be at least 7th level caster. A silent spell only needs to be +1 so you need to be 3rd level caster. So at best, and the easiest calculation, the cost of Incense of Meditation Silent should be 3/7 the cost of Incense of Meditation Maximize. There must be a formula somehwere for items that have metamagic feats. I took a look at Tome and Blood's Metamagic Feat Rods, but I don't know how they came up with those prices.

Bertman

 

[James McMurray]

Although not as powerful for dmaging spells, Silent Spell all day for no cost is much more versatile and universally applicable than maximize spell, since there's very few spells that won't be able to use it.

I'd say to just go with 2/3 price. I'm not sure you'll ever find a forula for it though. Its likely based on the prices for the Metamagic Rods. those don't have a formula, they were just priced based on their usefulness and combat worthiness.

The incense is exactly 1/27th of the price of a greater maximization rod. If that "formula" were to be used, Incense of Silent Spells would cost 907gp (rounding up to 1,000even wouldn't be too bad).