Pricing for a spell penetration item?

[Ridley's Cohort]

If it would be only one choice, I'd pick the cloak of resistance for sure.

But it's not about limited choice. An item like that is just like the headband of intellect... a complete no-brainer. It saves TWO valuable feats for the spellcasters, who don't really have feats to spare normally.

For those who want to ignore SR, it allows to raise their caster level by +8 total, if it stacks with the feats. If it doesn't stack with the feats, you could as well remove the feats from the list as noone would pick them over that item.

Your argument is wishy-washy. I could equally well "prove" that a Belt of Str +4 is too powerful because it stacks with a +2 sword, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization.

The point of limiting choice is for you to show you are serious by naming cool items you would happily trade for the proposed item. "Gee, I would want both," doesn't cut it. Either (1) show me other good spellcaster items that look weak in comparison at the proposed price, or (2) show extremely powerful synergies that would throw balance out of whack.

If I can list a number of standard good spellcaster items of similar gp value and the proposed item falls towards the middle in terms of play value, that is very strong evidence the proposed price is correct. The burden of proof is really on you, now.

Is it actually unbalanced for a spellcaster who spends 2 valuable feats and stacks that with a moderate priced item to cut through SR ~90% of the time instead of ~50% for a spellcaster who spends nothing at all?

 

[two]

Part of what makes this so tricky is that SR don't happen all the time.

What percentage of enemies will have SR? 50% at the most, at levels 5-20 or so. (my gut tells me it's not possibly more than 50%).

What percentage of these have SR that is so low it's automatically penetrated at typical encounter levels? Maybe 5%. (these are the "flavor" SR monsters).

What percentage of the time do you make a SR and FAIL, that you would have otherwise MADE with an additional +4 or so? (roughly 1/5 of the time).

So.. what is the price for an ability that will be in effect at most 45% of the time and, of that time, makes a difference only 1/5th of the time?

Tricky. But clearly it should be far lower than "on all the time" items like stat buffing.

 

[Scion]

strand of prayer beads: bead of healing, bead of karma, bead of smiting.

25,800 gp.

Now, for 10 minutes a day a caster can have +4 to effective spell level. Along with having a bunch of other perks from the other two beads.

+4 spell level, for a limited time, is worth a pretty incredible amount!

This doesnt really help the discussion too much, but I'd have to say that the cost for a +4 should be a lot less than 25k gp. Given the choice between a strand of prayer beads, or a +4 to sr, I'll go with the prayer beads 99% of the time (oh, and any caster can use the bead of karma with proper planning, so none of the 'but only divine casters can use it' nonsense )