Pricing horseshoes for a PC?

[Slaved]

For 'boots of running,' very easy. Boots of Expeditious Retreat. +30 land speed.

Base spell is Spell level 1, Caster level 1, 1 min/level, so 'continuous' wondrous item would be 4000 gp.

That looks good to me!!

The Animal Only Restriction on the Horseshoes of Speed makes sense.

 

[Slaved]

I think it would be fun to have a pair of Boots which could be Activated to Mount the Character on a Phantom Steed! Limit it so that the Mount could not be made for another Character and that the Boots need 24 Hours to be used by the Character. Fun!!

 

[frankthedm]

Actually, no. The horseshoes of speed only benefit an animal (and the Zephyr ones only a horse), and a centaur is not an animal. And I'd recommend keeping it that way. I've seen Centaurs with those horseshoes (of speed) have base speeds higher than most foes' charging speeds, thus allowing them with Ride-by Attack and Spiritual Charge to maintain a vicious game of keep away. (Yes, you can ready to attack, but a) a single readied attack vs. a spirited charge = lose, every time, and b) if you just stand there, the centaur can assume you're doing this very tactic, laugh and pepper you with ranged fire). With the advent of Strongarm Bracers, a great deal at 6k, any Centaur of mid levels can easily afford to carry a Huge composite longbow to a fight, for a base damage of 3d6 +str mod, allowing for painful attacks even just playing it safe with hit and run tactics with the bow, no ranged feats even required.

Sorry for the rant, but allowing centaurs to use those horse shoes, IME is a very bad decision.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#horseshoesofSpeed

Agreed

Originally Posted by Will
For 'boots of running,' very easy. Boots of Expeditious Retreat. +30 land speed.

Base spell is Spell level 1, Caster level 1, 1 min/level, so 'continuous' wondrous item would be 4000 gp.

That looks good to me!!

Pricing a magic item is not G.U.R.P.S. character creation. It costs a PC 5000 for +10 speed, any math that makes +30 speed cheaper is obviouly going againt the intent of the system.

 

[Slaved]

Agreed
Pricing a magic item is not G.U.R.P.S. character creation. It costs a PC 5000 for +10 speed, any math that makes +30 speed cheaper is obviouly going againt the intent of the system.

The Boots of Striding and Springing give a +10' Enhancement Bonus to Speed and a +5 Competence Bonus to Jump Checks and Cost 5500 Gold Pieces.

 

[MarkB]

The Boots of Striding and Springing give a +10' Enhancement Bonus to Speed and a +5 Competence Bonus to Jump Checks and Cost 5500 Gold Pieces.

The bonus to Jump checks is not worth a very large chunk of that 5500 gp.

 

[Slaved]

The bonus to Jump checks is not worth a very large chunk of that 5500 gp.

It is according to the Item Pricing Guidelines!

It looks like the Boots are 2500 Gold for the +5 Competence Bonus to Jump and 2000 Gold for the +10' Enhancement Bonus to Land Speed. The Speed Bonus would follow the Guidelines directly for placing Longstrider on an Item and then the extra +50% to Price for the Lower Priced Additions.

 

[Ambrus]

The bonus to Jump checks is not worth a very large chunk of that 5500 gp.

Actually, if we use the Estimating magic item gold piece values table in the DMG, the +5 to Jump checks does seem to be the more expensive of the boots' two functions. Check my math:

A +5 competence bonus to a skill costs 2,500 gp (bonus squared x 100 gp). Since the boots grant multiple different abilities, then the higher ability cost is multiplied by 1.5. That has to be the skill bonus cost since the opposite would result in the speed increase function only costing 2,000 gp by itself (2,000 gp x 1.5 = 3,000 gp: the amount once the skill bonus' 2,500 gp is subtracted from 5,500 gp). So since it's the skill bonus that is the higher of the two abilities' costs, we multiply it's cost (2,500 gp x 1.5) and get a total of 3,750 gp. Subtracting that from the boots' 5,500 gp price tag (5,500 gp - 3,750 gp) we get a final total of only 1,750 gp; the cost of a 10-ft. enhancement bonus to speed by itself.

So if we then use your original system of multiplying the cost by 9 for tripling the speed, we'd get a total of 15,750 gp for boots granting a +30-ft. enhancement bonus to speed, or 7,000 gp for a +20-ft. enhancement bonus to speed.

How's that sound?

Edit: Darn Slaved kind of beat me to the punch.

 

[Will]

Uh. Dude. +5 skill bonus is worth 2500 gp. Which is a rather large chunk of 5500.

Reverse engineering gives 2000 gp base cost for a +10 enhancement bonus to speed (because it's then +50% for a dual enchanted weapon, which makes the math square up). This is assuming the item is 100% accurately drawn up, but as it is consistent with a Longstrider continuous effect (CL 1, SL 1, hr/level, x2000 = 2000), it seems pretty reasonable.

So then the problem is this:
Do we take Longstrider as the core and extrapolate a squaring relationship, or do we just use a different spell for higher values? The first seems to be more consistent with the spirit of the game.

Which would mean +30 speed item should be 18000 gp; I'll revise my earlier statement. Now, reasonably speaking, they should be limited in some way similar to Boots of Speed or Boots of Teleportation; I frankly think boots of +30 speed costing 18k is a bit daft, but there are other items that are daft (I mean, heck, +10 Climbing gloves cost 10k).

I'm not sure what a good limitation would be; if you treat it like Longstrider the 'limited use' would probably measure in the hours, but at that point the 'restriction' is hardly noticeable.

 

[s-dub]

If you really want to go down the road of "straight DMG" pricing, then a +30 enhancement to speed would give you a +16 or +12 bonus on jump checks (if your base speed is 20, +16, otherwise +12). Now those same boots are worth an extra 19600 to 25600 gold because of the unnamed bonus to jump checks.

The intent of the rules for magic item pricing is to give a guideline where there is no other way to price. See this quote here:

"Many factors must be considered when determining the price of new magic items. The easiest way to come up with a price is to match the new item to an item that is already priced that price as a guide. Otherwise, use the guidelines summarized on Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Price Values"

This clearly indicates that when a previously priced item is available for comparison to use that first. IF there is none, THEN you should use the guidelines summarized on the table.

MarkB's reasoning behind a +5 competence bonus to the jump skill not being worth as much as a +10 enhancement bonus to speed is wise because a +10 bonus to speed is almost always more valuable in combat than a +5 to jump checks.

 

[Will]

That may be, but that is not reflected in the rules.

Boots of Striding and Springing give +10 speed and +5 Jump. +10 speed off of 30 base speed translates to a +4 bonus to Jump due to speed.

If one were to argue that the speed bonus to Jump should be tallied separately, you're talking 2500 for +5 and 1600 for +4 (if you somehow allowed the bonuses to be added side by side), or a total of 4900 (1600 is x 1.5), or 8100 for +9.

This just doesn't seem to hold water, given the cost of other items. The bonus to Jump that speed grants is an effect of speed, and isn't tallied separately. Similarly, when you have an item of Enlarge Person, you don't tally up the bonus to Strength and so on; it just doesn't work that way.