Pricing a "bonus teleport" item

[Piratecat]

Okay, I'd love suggestions. Picture a set of two rings. When one of the two people wearing one get teleported, the other person gets teleported "for free" (not counting against the per person limit) if he's touching the other ringwearer. Effectively, this allows two people to teleport as one.

Any ideas on cost? I'm thinking this is analogous to a second level spell, which would mean 12K. Because it makes logistics easier and more fun for my group, I'm likely to drop it to 8K. Too high, or too low?

EDIT: I'll slide this into house rules if the discussion veers towards the spell design. If it stays on cost, I'll leave it in Rules. No worries either way.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Since it's a custom item, and (assuming) you want them to have them, just wing it. I'd put some limitations on them to reduce the propensity for abuse (uses per day or charges) to cut down on the binking back and forth.

What you are really doing, though, is saving the mage 2 5th level spells -- the teleports he'd have to use to come back and get the remainder of the party and bring them to the destination. This kind of item would be much more powerful in a campaign with a lot of B/S/T ambushes. If the problem is that the party can't teleport because they'd have to leave someone behind, I'd be more inclined to either just let them bring one more, or give the wizard a magic item that enhanced his teleport limit by one or two.

This is the kind of item that's hard to price, because it's really dependent on how the party will tend to use it. If it's just a way to work around the annoyance of being able to teleport 5 people and having 6 in the party, it's relatively safe. If it's a way to B/S/T someone with 10 people instead of 5, it's brutal.

 

[Piratecat]

Excellent point. My group has B/S/T'ed only once, so I'm not worried about abuse there. More importantly, the item is for a cohort, so it won't even be a worry if he's not with the party.

I want them to have it, so I'll price it at 8K and add some sort of fun glitch to give it character -- the ringwearers always show up with birds sitting on them, or something equally unusual that won't affect game balance. Thanks.

 

[Jarrod]

Another way to look at it is a specialized caster level bump; most teleport spells can bring along X people, and you're making it X+1.

Powerful? Depending on your players, but there's always the Portable Hole of PC-carrying. Definitely makes life easier for them, and I'd look more on that positive side.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I want them to have it, so I'll price it at 8K and add some sort of fun glitch to give it character -- the ringwearers always show up with birds sitting on them, or something equally unusual that won't affect game balance. Thanks.

Have one piece of gear or clothing randomly switch between the two people wearing the rings. Even more fun if they are of different genders.

 

[Shadeus]

I would put a distance limit on it too. Otherwise it could be abused. Meaning, the characters have to be within 30' of one other or something. Otherwise say the cohort falls through a trapdoor and is separated from the party. These rings could be used to instantly move the cohort back to the party by teleport the PC 5' back or whatever. At high levels, I would blow a teleport in a heart beat to bring back a lost party member.

Just something to think about.

 

[shilsen]

I would put a distance limit on it too. Otherwise it could be abused. Meaning, the characters have to be within 30' of one other or something. Otherwise say the cohort falls through a trapdoor and is separated from the party. These rings could be used to instantly move the cohort back to the party by teleport the PC 5' back or whatever. At high levels, I would blow a teleport in a heart beat to bring back a lost party member.

Just something to think about.

For those situations you want a bracelet of friends, which incidentally costs 19k.

 

[Staffan]

You can teleport with people in a bag of holding, right (with them counting as part of the bag's encumbrance rather than the people limit)? If so, treat it as a very limited bag of holding since it only works in this specific situation, but with a bit of a surcharge because you don't have to do the actual hopping into and out of the bag. So, maybe something like 1,000-2,000 gp.

 

[Squire James]

Since Teleport adds 1 person per 3 caster levels, I'd charge for the item as if it were spell level 5 and caster level 3 (the other caster levels being supplied by the normal Teleport spell).

For the item to allow this at will, that'd be 3 x 5 x 1,800 = 27,000 gp. If you don't plan on popping around that much, a 1/day item would be 5,400 gp.

Does this sound reasonable?