new magic item idea - so obvious it must have been done before

[evilbob]

You can't tell me no one has thought of item before me. Am I the first to post it?
Comments, price discussion welcome!


Babelfish Glasses - 5042g
These bowl-shaped glasses fit comfortably over a generally humanoid-shaped creature's nose and have arms that reach back beside the head and around the ears. At the end of each arm is a tiny fish-shaped bulb. The wearer of these glasses can understand any spoken words or read any non-magical writing of any language. (It does not allow the wearer to speak or write any languages, nor does it decipher codes, reveal hidden messages, or translate non-languages, such as gibberish.) The wearer must touch the object to be read or be within 30 feet of the source of the words in order to understand them. This item functions constantly while worn.
Cost: 2521 gold, 202 XP

 

[CleverNickName]

You can't tell me no one has thought of item before me. Am I the first to post it?
Comments, price discussion welcome!

Well, there is the helm of comprehend languages and read magic, in the SRD. It's pretty similar:
[SBLOCK=Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic]Appearing as a normal helmet, a helm of comprehend languages and read magic grants its wearer the ability to understand the spoken words of any creature and to read text in any language and any magical writing. The wearer gains a +5 competence bonus on Decipher Script checks to understand messages written in incomplete, archaic, or exotic forms. Note that understanding a magical text does not necessarily imply spell use.

Faint divination; CL 4th; Craft Wondrous Item, comprehend languages, read magic; Price 5,200 gp; Weight 3 lb[/SBLOCK]

 

[evilbob]

Well there you go then! Except that item is a) slotted to compete with head items (important to those using it) and b) actually does two things - comprehend languages and read magic. My item should have the following after it:
Faint divination; CL 3th; Craft Wondrous Item, comprehend languages.

So not only does their item do twice as much, it also grants a +5 to decipher script. By-the-book pricing, this item should cost 3000 (languages - 1 x 1 x 2000 x 1.5 for 10 min/level) + 1500 (read magic - 1/2 x 1 x 2000 x 1.5 for 10 min/level) + 2500 (skill boost - 500 x 5) = 7000, but it's only 5200. Not only that, but it works in an unspecified way, which is far more powerful than the level 1 spell allows. I can see some price reduction using the new MIC rules in order to make it more competitive with headbands of Int, but this is an earlier item...

Either way, I think my item could be more useful since it uses a rarely-used slot; this is part of the reason it was a bit higher than 2k, along with the fact that it works out to 30' for hearing things (instead of "touch" as the spell works). However, you could probably just make a helm into a "face" slot without trouble since it's clearly within that slot's affinity; with this item out there, no one would buy my current item at its current price, so it should either:
- be reduced to around 2042g
- include reading magic as well and be priced at 4200g or lower
The former makes it useful to anyone and doesn't take a valuable slot, and the latter makes it more useful to wizards, even without the bonus, because their head is free. Although for a mere 1k more they could have a helm that gave a bonus to a very rarely used skill as well... Yeah, that seems pretty fair. On the other hand, I guess the spirit of this item is really more "useful to anyone" at a low cost, so I think I'm favoring the former.


Rewrite:

Babelfish Glasses - 2042g
These bowl-shaped glasses fit comfortably over a generally humanoid-shaped creature's nose (otherwise, they fit uncomfortably) and have arms that reach back beside the head and around the ears. At the end of each arm is a tiny fish-shaped bulb. The wearer of these glasses can understand any spoken words or read any non-magical writing of any language. (It does not allow the wearer to speak or write any languages, nor does it decipher codes, reveal hidden messages, or translate non-languages, such as gibberish.) This item functions constantly while worn.
Cost: 1021 gold, 82 XP. Faint divination; CL 3th; Craft Wondrous Item, comprehend languages