Magic armor bonus? Pffffft.

[Piratecat]

We were doing some magic item math last night while creating a variant robe of the archmagi (robe of the alienist!) and reached a surprising conclusion.

Magic armor bonus on a robe to reach +4 AC: 4 x 4 x 1000 = 16,000

Item of shield: gives a shield bonus +4, immune to magic missiles: 1 x 1 x 2000 x 1.5 = 3000 gp.

13K difference in cost, negates magic missiles, and stacks with mage armor! Is it just me, or is it almost always preferable to make an item with the shield spell?

Thanks for any comments you can offer. I've tentatively said that the character (Agar) can use a shield effect instead of an armor effect in the robe, but it's worth getting peoples' opinion on this first.

 

[hong]

Jeez, PC. I'd have thought that you, of all people, would know that blindly applying item creation rules leads to problems.


Hong "now let me introduce you to my amulet of divine favour, my sword of true strike, and my headband of protection from evil" Ooi

 

[Piratecat]

I'm not going into this blindly, Hong. I'm just seeing how much Alomir should have to bribe me.

It clearly seems like a loophole in the rules. I'm quite curious as to what shield bonuses in items should cost, and what an item of shield is really worth.

 

[Gnimish88]

Wellk, in the past I have had GMs tell me there was not a chance in all of the 333 layers of the Abyss with the Nine Hells thrown in that they would allow me to have such a good bonus for such a low price. There is a point that using the straight up magic item creation system gives you an item that EVERY adventure should get as early as possible, but that said item is over powered for the price.

I am interested to see what responses you get.

 

[hong]

For an always-on item, I'd price it as 4^2 * 1000 (+4 shield bonus to AC) + 5000 (immunity to magic missile, handwaved) = 21000 gp or thereabouts. Double it if you want to make it unslotted.

 

[Thanee]

We were doing some magic item math last night while creating a variant robe of the archmagi (robe of the alienist!) and reached a surprising conclusion.

Magic armor bonus on a robe to reach +4 AC: 4 x 4 x 1000 = 16,000

Item of shield: gives a shield bonus +4, immune to magic missiles: 1 x 1 x 2000 x 1.5 = 3000 gp.

You cannot make an item like that.

An item that grants an armor bonus MUST follow the above cost formula bonus² x 1,000 gp.

The continuous spell items only work (and obviously not always, even then), if no other cost formula applies.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Piratecat]

Thanee, is that supported in the text -- and are you including "shield bonus" with "armor bonus"? They seem not to have broken it out when they converted the tables to 3.5.

The ring of force shield seems to follow a different formula:

Force Shield: An iron band, this simple ring generates a shield-sized (and shield-shaped) wall of force that stays with the ring and can be wielded by the wearer as if it were a heavy shield (+2 AC). This special creation has no armor check penalty or arcane spell failure chance since it is weightless and encumbrance-free. It can be activated and deactivated at will as a free action.

Moderate evocation; CL 9th; Forge Ring, wall of force; Price 8,500 gp.

 

[Thanee]

The forceshield ring is even more expensive, tho.

Besides, the advantage of the forceshield ring is, that it's a shield, that doesn't need the hand slot and also works against incorporeal touch attacks. It's a very non-standard item by its very nature.

The table seems to have forgotten to count shield bonus as armor bonus in 3.5, here it would - strictly reading - be bonus² x 2,500 gp, which is of course way too much.

Here's the most important part of the item creation rules by far:

Not all items adhere to these formulas directly. The reasons for this are several. First and foremost, these few formulas aren’t enough to truly gauge the exact differences between items. The price of a magic item may be modified based on its actual worth. The formulas only provide a starting point.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Look at the brooch of shielding. 1500 gp, and just absorbs the magic missiles. Adding the +4 shield bonus ought to be significantly more costly. I'd treat shield bonuses like armor bonuses, personally, even though the revised table doesn't say that -- look at the prices for magic shields. (And the multiplier is 2, rather than 1.5, BTW, since shield's duration is 1 min/level).

Now if you're just going to have an item that stores the shield spell, fine, but it's limited duration, and requires a standard action to activate.

 

[Jeremy]

Many low level spells grant bonuses superior to what a cost similar item would give via the formula.

Pax or James McMurray would be great people to answer this question as custom gear questions come up a lot in Arena matches.

But generally a rule of thumb is, follow the spell formula if the spell does not provide a numeric bonus already covered in one of the other categories.

So for instance an item that provided mage armor would not be based on a first level spell, but instead a +4 armor bonus like bracers of armor. This avoids some sick things like a 3/day rune of divine favor for pennys on the dollar giving a +6 luck bonus to hit and damage for the wealthy fighter. Or similar problems with shield of faith. There are some real gems among first level spells for numeric bonuses.