New Magic Ring

[Burn_Boy]

When I was first learning to play DnD (and being totally taken advantage of) and getting my feet wet with DMing, the person who taught me to play crafted this ring for his character. This ring, he said, would, every six seconds, a combat round, make a 5x5 block of stone (AC 3, Hardness 8, 225 HP) that would be basically on par with a small city's wall. He could also make two and then fuse them together, again in six seconds. Such a ring was very handy in combat as well since on his first round he could make about 50% cover for himself. All in all, I thought it was quite the piece of hardware.

Now, unless I was missing something from 3.5, such a ring was a custom item and he had it priced at 200 gp. Now, I know now that, that was just disgustingly wrong. What I want to know is how much you would charge for a ring like that. I looked for a spell to do the same thing but I can't find one. Could you help me out?

 

[dragonis111]

well it sounds like the spell wall of stone. SRD:Wall of Stone - D&D Wiki

and it fuses to other rock and the size of the made wall depends on the caster level of the person who crafted the ring.

 

[Dice1138]

Using wall of stone and the HP of the stone the caster level of the creator was level 10. Your friend took some liberties with the spell description. Mainly the “You can double the wall’s area by halving its thickness.”. He took this and assumed the inverse was also true. So you can half the area and double the thickness.


At level 10 you can create 10 5by5 foot sections with a total area of 250 sq ft. We also know that he was creating 1 5 by 5 foot section with 225 HP. By the formula 25 = 250/(2^n). He was dividing the area by 2, 3.321928 times or multiplying the thickness of the one 3inch section by 10. The 30 inch thick stone has 225 HP because the spell gives the stone 15hp per 2inches of thickness.


Sorry for that long winded explanation. Now on to cost.


As per DMG.
Cost = Spell level x Caster Level x 2000gp (for being use activated)
Cost = 5x10x2000 = 100,000 GP


There might be another multiplier imposed by the DM but the DMG has no special multiplier for instantaneous spells (like x4 for having a duration lasting in rounds)

 

[Salthorae]

100,000gp sounds right to me since the character is getting unlimited (standard action) use of a 5th level spell at 10th Caster Level, it may be on the cheap end for "usefulness" but if you bump it up much more no one would buy it because there are other way cooler items at those price points.

It's also not the "best" 5th level spell available, but it could be game breaking in a number of unforseeable ways if the PC is clever with it. So yeah 100k gp is a good price, that it also happens to be the correct one based on the magic item creation is just a bonus.

Keep in mind that the LOWEST CL for an item with a 5th level spell would be 9th so RAW the lowest price for this item would be 5x9x2000 = 90,000gp... unless you want to artificially lower the price as DM because you think the item isn't as useful at the 90/100k gp price suggests.

 

[Dice1138]

Yeah you can build the ring for 10k less and reduce the caster level to the minimum of 9. However to replicate the ring in question it needs to be level 10. A level 9 caster level ring of wall of stone would produce a 5 by 5, 27inch thick wall with 195hp. Again that would mean “You can double the wall’s area by halving its thickness.” is the same as "You can half the area and double the thickness.".

 

[Aramax]

This ring would make you a FORTUNE building Castles!I wouldnt allow it!

 

[Pielorinho]

This ring would make you a FORTUNE building Castles!I wouldnt allow it!

Indeed--that would be my worry. So you set the stone to decay over the course of 10 minutes, at the end of which it's turned to dust and blows away.

Wall of Stone is not, IMO, the correct comparison, even if it's the closest spell in the SRD. You need to imagine a different spell. A spell that created a temporary 5' cube of stone on a single surface would most likely be a first-level spell--why would it be any higher than that?

I'd set the price at the same as a ring of feather falling. Possibly a little more, given the ring's potential cool uses (10 minutes would still allow you to Minecraft your way across a chasm, or scale a castle wall, or do similar feats), but definitely less than a ring of invisibility.

 

[Munktar]

This ring would make you a FORTUNE building Castles!I wouldnt allow it!

I dont think any king would risk his castle being dispelled just cause is was easier to be made by magic... Noone in his right mind would buy a castle created like this...

 

[Pielorinho]

I dont think any king would risk his castle being dispelled just cause is was easier to be made by magic... Noone in his right mind would buy a castle created like this...

If it's based on Wall of Stone, taht's not a danger: WoS's duration is instantaneous, not permanent, and not subject to dispelling.

 

[Salthorae]

Indeed--that would be my worry. So you set the stone to decay over the course of 10 minutes, at the end of which it's turned to dust and blows away.

Wall of Stone is not, IMO, the correct comparison, even if it's the closest spell in the SRD. You need to imagine a different spell. A spell that created a temporary 5' cube of stone on a single surface would most likely be a first-level spell--why would it be any higher than that?

I'd set the price at the same as a ring of feather falling. Possibly a little more, given the ring's potential cool uses (10 minutes would still allow you to Minecraft your way across a chasm, or scale a castle wall, or do similar feats), but definitely less than a ring of invisibility.

If all the ring was capable of doing was a 5' cube of stone and the stone had a short duration rather than instantaneous I would in theory price it differently. Problem is that there are only two spells capable of doing this and both are 5th level, Wall of Stone or Major Creation

Major Creation allows you to create no more than 1' Cube/CL of Plant/Stone/Metal things. So you could easily create the 5' cube stone block with this spell, AND it has a duration of 1 hr/level.

I guess if you wanted to get into creating custom spells that are far less versatile to get the lower spell level you can do that, sure. Minor Creation is 4th level and only allows the creation of plant based materials at the same volumes and it's duration is 1 hr/level.

I guess what I'm driving at is that based on the spell levels of the things that do create matter, and their durations which are mostly balanced to the rest of the game, If you were to drop the duration so a base 10 min and it allowed you to create stone, I would probably put it at no lower than 2nd level certainly not 1st though...

So if you created this custom spell your cost would still be: 2x3x2000 = 12,000 gp. That's less than a Ring of Invisibility which was inflated because of it's usefulness, and more than Feather Fall!

Regardless, the player referenced by the OP was just taking advantage of a new DM getting this ring at 200 gp, there is no magical ring less than 1000gp in the SRD or MiC (3.5) and that is a Ring of Brief Blessing that makes your weapon count as magic & good aligned for 1 round, once per day. Or a Ring of Arcane Signets which allows you to imprint your signet onto things...

At a minimum I would probably make this item at least 10k gp if you created a custom spell, there are just too many cool applications. How much does a 5' cube of stone weigh? A Stone Horse as a magic item weighs 6000 lbs and occupys 5'x10' area, so half that for a stone cube of 5' annnddd 15d6 damage per 200 lbs (3000) + 1d6 per 10' dropped anyone?