Pricing a magic rod

[Voadam]

I'm trying to come up with a pricing scheme for a rod that can cast a wall of fire once every ten rounds, a fireball once every four rounds, and a burning hands once every four rounds. Can only be used by arcane casters with the apropriate spell on their spell list and uses the wielder's caster level similar to a staff.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Wow.

Okay, as a base, let's look at rods that have each of those as at-will abilities.

For command word abilities, it's spell level x caster level x 1,800. Staves have a minimum caster level of 8th, so we can assume using that minimum gives us the "at caster's level" effect.

So the raw costs are:
Wall of Fire: 4 x 8 x 1800 = 57,600 gp
Fireball: 3 x 8 x 1800 = 43,200 gp
Burning hands: 1 x 8 x 1800 = 14,400 gp

Now, staves actually reduce the cost of abilities after the most expensive, but they all draw from the same pool of charges. Other items multiply the cost of abilities after the first by 50% since it's all in one "slot" (effectively rods take the unmentioned "hand held" slot). But, since you can only do one of these at a time, and only every x rounds, I'd actually use the base prices and call it a wash. You can use the thing slightly more than ½ of your total rounds – six out of ten rounds, which I don't think is worth a true reduction in price (YMMV), but is good enough to make secondary abilities not cost more.

Or in other words, I'd say 115,200 gp.

 

[Voadam]

My goal was to turn a staff of fire (17,750 gp) into a recharge magic variant from Unearthed Arcana averaging out the recharge times instead of rolling them. The staff has a double charge for wall of fire, which I thought I'd translate into double recharge time. My goal is to make it a useful combat staff and figure out the price, not match the price by lowering the power.

One thing that caught my eye is that 50 charges (the base staff) are supposed to be roughly equal to 1/2 that of unlimited use. So my first thought was that just doubling the staff price would be enough, which leads to 35,500 gp.

Rod seems a good place to start for non charged command word stuff, though and the 8-level=caster level sounds like a good valuation.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Wall of Fire: 4 x 8 x 1800 = 57,600 gp
Fireball: 3 x 8 x 1800 = 43,200 gp
Burning hands: 1 x 8 x 1800 = 14,400 gp


Yep - that's the baseline if it is 8th level, but it doesn't have to be. The base item would be 7th, because you are dealing with a wiz as the creator, not a sor.

4 x 7 x 1800 = 50400
3 x 7 x 1800 = 37800
1 x 7 x 1800 = 12600

Undiscounted - 100,800gp for "useable at will"

The problem I have is that your item "recharges" so quickly that it doesn't warrant a discount for X uses per day.

 

[Jhaelen]

The problem I have is that your item "recharges" so quickly that it doesn't warrant a discount for X uses per day.

Well, what you end up with is the equivalent of a Wall of Fire usable 1440/day and Fireball and Burning hands usable 3600/day each.

Simply use that as the basis of your pricing

Seems nuts? That's because it is!

No way, I'd ever allow such an item IMC.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Yep - that's the baseline if it is 8th level, but it doesn't have to be.

Actually, it does have to be if the baseline is a staff like OStephens said.

Voadam, I'd suggest you simply figure out a recharge variant you're comfortable with rather than trying to price out an item like this. I think you'll find your players wanting a "rod" of cure serious wounds on the cheap, etc. I find it's better to stick with modifying/creating one rule at a time (not two like recharge times + restricted rod).

 

[Voadam]

Actually, it does have to be if the baseline is a staff like OStephens said.

Voadam, I'd suggest you simply figure out a recharge variant you're comfortable with rather than trying to price out an item like this. I think you'll find your players wanting a "rod" of cure serious wounds on the cheap, etc. I find it's better to stick with modifying/creating one rule at a time (not two like recharge times + restricted rod).

I'm implementing UA recharge magic in general and trying to figure out how it could work with staves. Recharge magic gives you one use every couple of rounds which seems more like a rod for the normal items to use as a comparison.

 

[Amitiel]

I'm implementing UA recharge magic in general and trying to figure out how it could work with staves. Recharge magic gives you one use every couple of rounds which seems more like a rod for the normal items to use as a comparison.

Magic items don't change under the recharge varient, they still function the same way. The only differance is that characters may 'recharge' items with charges/#of uses. Use/day items cannot be recharged as they already recharge themselves. (technically they could be but the gp/xp cost combined with the 1000gp/day work limit would make it a pointless effort)

The recharge varient is very 'charges' friendly it would probably be better to go that route.

 

[Voadam]

The only differance is that characters may 'recharge' items with charges/#of uses. Use/day items cannot be recharged as they already recharge themselves. (technically they could be but the gp/xp cost combined with the 1000gp/day work limit would make it a pointless effort)

The recharge varient is very 'charges' friendly it would probably be better to go that route.

Where is that part of the recharge rules? I only saw the part saying how wands are less useful:

There’s an obvious way for characters to compensate for the diminished flexibility: scrolls. In general, scrolls become more useful in the recharge variant game world, so they may be more prevalent. Conversely, wands are somewhat less useful, because every spellcaster can crank out his staple spells dozens of times. When a character can cast lightning bolt fifty times in the space of an hour, that fully charged wand of lightning bolt is much less impressive. If you use the recharge magic variant, consider reducing the percentages of minor and medium wands on Table: Wands by 5% and increasing the percentages of minor and medium scrolls by the same amount.