Price an item that knows when you drop...

[Quidam]

Scarab of Recovery

With this ivory scarab pinned to one's chest, once a day, if a character's hit points drop below zero, he/she is magically healed of 1d8+3 points of damage. If this does not bring them above 0, it stabilizes them- as would any magical healing.

Caster Level 3rd
prereq: Cure Light Wounds, creator must have 5 ranks in Heal
Cost: Now that's the real question...

3rd level caster, 1st level spell * 2000 gives us 6000, divide by 5 for once a day to get 1200. How much extra for the ability to tell if you've fallen unconscious? A pretty simple ability- not even equal to a cantrip, really. I'd tack on 300 for it to bring it to 1500gp.

Does this seem like a fair price for an item like this?

 

[Archer]

Considering a vest of false life costs 10k, I don't think 1500 is a reasonable price. It would be the new must have magic item at that price.

 

[Crothian]

I think it should require an additional spell prerequite. Perhaps a higher level divination or something that allows this item to "know".

 

[Quidam]

I thought of that, but any spell higher than first seems like overkill for being able to detect unconsciousness, I mean, second level divinations Find Traps or Detect Thoughts, even first level divinations Detect things like Undead, Alignment and the function of a magic item. Simply detecting unconsciousness, especially if the item is already attuned to health, seems like it wouldn't be on the same level.

I think what really sets it apart is not the detection- it's not letting you detect, after all- but the effect being triggered by the detection. Perhaps that would require another prerequisite...

 

[BlackBart]

Perhaps Deathwatch would be an appropriate "detection" spell, 1st level cleric spell.

 

[misttar]

I don't know how this would add to the cost, but I wouldn't consider this a use activated 1/day item but a always on item. Its effects happens whenever you need it without you needing to spend an action.

I think that would bump the price up some.

 

[Quidam]

True, it's not use activate, but it's certainly not always on, otherwise you'd never fall! The second time you go down, you stay down. And besides, slippers of spiderclimb are always on and they're SL * CL * 2000.

Deathwatch certainly seems like an appropriate spell as an additional prerequisite.

 

[Blood Jester]

If X then Y...

Actually, the spell you are looking for is Contingency, and would increase your costs dramatically.

Sorry to be a bummer.

 

[Pax]

I would say ... about 4500, or round it evenly to 5000.

It's once per day, but not an item that will "wear out". As a scarab, it occupies a potentially key restricted slot (the amulet/brooch/scarab/periapt slot).

Compare and contrast to the Ring of Nine Lives, in Magic of Faerun: 70,000gp buys you a 9-charge ring, which pops full-on HEALS if you drop to 0 or less HP (burnign a charge to do so), plus you can use a charge up to re-roll a failed saving throw.

As for comparing to a Vest of Life -- the Vest of Life provides those 10 temporary hit points every day, and it does NOT wait for you to drop below 0hp before you get that benefit. Take two characters, one with the proposed Scarab, one with a Vest of Life. Both have 20hp before magic item effects, so the Vest wearer has 30hp, net.

Whack them with exactly 30hp. What happens?

For starters, the Vest wearer screams in pain, and drops to the ground crippled, at 0hp ... able, if s/he must, to fish a healing potion out of a potion belt, and save their own life.

The Scarab user, however, drops instantly dead, at -10hp. The Scarab futillely uses it's once-per-day healing ... which is pointless, since Curative magics don't help dead people.

And besides; 1d8+3 works out to a mean average of 8.5hp, a shade less than the vest anyway.

I like the idea, and I'd charge about 5K for it; that seems a fair, balanced amount compared to the Vest, IMO.

 

[Datchi]

As Blood Jester said, the spell you woudl need is contingency. I see what your trying to do, in fact the Paladin in our current group has a sword which does exactly what you're suggesting. However the only spell that lets you trigger another spell when something happens in contingency. The fact that you've choosen a relatively week spell to contingency with does not get around the fact that you need contingency to make it work