Retooling Epic Item Costs

[Sepulchrave II]

I've only just made a start - see what you think. It's got holes - SR items are gonna be useless as #2s pretty fast, but I think that's likely whatever happens. Undecided on where to put deflection/natural armor bonuses; ability bonuses might be too expensive; haven't even considered sacred/profane/luck/insight bonuses yet.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I'm kinda between a rock and a hard place as far as wealth goes. The rock is the treasure tables in the ELH; it would be nice if our wealth guidelines were closer to theirs. But that formula is more or less quartic (level^4 x 5 gp fits well enough). Our cubic formula aggrees at level 20, but gives only half the equipment value for 40th level characters.

The hard place is Upper_Krust's epic rules, which, for level 41+ assumes that wealth follows a quadratic law; level^2 x 10,000 gp. The x10 epic multiplier is reasonable then.

The problem is in between. How to get costs which are reasonable at the low 20s, but at around level 40 would segue nicely into the Upper_Krust's rules. Which are worth quoting:

Originally posted by Upper_Krust

Artifacts are powerful magical items created by the gods and invested with a portion of their immortal power. These receptacles of divine might are extensions of the deity and as the power of the immortal grows so too does the power of its artifacts. However, immortals are limited to wielding four artifacts at any given time, loosely representative of one per domain. The mechanical benefits of limiting characters to four artifacts is that you no longer need contend with a massive shopping list of items, which will only stifle the game. In addition it removes the requirement for pedantic wealth tables, which make less and less sense the more powerful characters become. The idea is also far more in keeping with the mythology, where gods are only likely to have a few signature items (if that) rather than dozens of impersonal objects.

While such characters are limited to four artifacts, they can wield any number of non-epic items (within the parameters of using magic items on the body) they acquire or create. However, few immortals choose to do so for the following reasons. Firstly, non-epic items do not function within anti-magic. If an immortal detects or suspects his opponent is reliant on non-epic items they will likely choose to erect an anti-magic field negating any such advantage. Secondly, if the immortal’s manifestation is destroyed on a non-native plane, only its artifacts return with it back to its home plane, any other items remain behind and are lost. Thirdly, non-epic items are far more prone to disjunction. Fourthly, most immortals have inherent powers or spellcasting abilities that already duplicate the effects of non-epic magic items. Lastly, the higher in power an immortal ascends the less impact having non-epic items will have upon their overall capabilities


QUICK EPIC EQUIPMENT RESOLUTION
To determine the power of artifacts/epic items, instead of resorting to wealth tables, simply apply the following guidelines:
ECL ÷ 2 = Total Enchantment Bonuses for Epic Items which are Bonus squared x 10,000 GP value (such as armor, belts of strength, bracers of armor, cloaks of resistance, shields etc.)
e.g. The demon prince Baphomet (39 HD) with full equipment would be ECL 69. So his bracers of armor are going to be 69 ÷ 2 = 34 (round fractions down) total enchantment bonuses. In this case simply bracers of epic armor +34.
ECL ÷ 2.8 = Total Enchantment Bonuses for Epic Items which are Bonus squared x 20,000 GP value (such as amulets of natural armor, rings of protection, weapons etc.)
e.g. The greater god Odin (118 Class Levels) with full equipment would be ECL 198. So his greatspear Gungnir is going to be 198 ÷ 2.8 = 70 (round fractions down) total enchantment bonuses. Typically half this figure is enchantment bonus and the other half is made up of weapon special abilities. So Gungnir could be a +35 holy power (8), unerring (25) greatspear of distance (1) and returning (1).
For items that are not necessarily measured in terms of bonuses (such as an Amulet of the Planes or a Rod of Rulership) simply determine the GP value of the item by working out the cost of one of the above item types. e.g. A +23 weapon would cost 10,580,000 GP (23 x 23 x 20,000).

At level 40 you should be able to have a +20 shield as one of your major items, and a +14 sword. Each is worth 4 million gp, and you have about 16 million gp total. 13.6 million according to the ELH- so either these items are worth 29% each, and he has 3 of them and a bunch of smaller items, or he has 18% more wealth than he should have. Close enough; but the cubic formula for wealth we are using says he has 6.4 million gp, and that probably isn't good enough.

However UK's wealth formula diverges wildly from the WotC formula for lower levels; it says a 20th level character should have 4 million gp, which is a little crazy. Of course if they did they'd have no problem paying for +6 swords.

Anyway, suppose we use a cubic formula for item pricing, and say it agrees with the quadratic formula (for shields, it would be bonus^2 x 10,000) at level 40 or 44 or so. With a constant so that low epic stuff is sufficiently expensive. For instance, 200,000 + bonus^3 x 200 would work- your formula for table 1.

Similarly, the formula for weapons should be 200,000 + bonus^3 x 400. Your formula for table 3. I'm not at all sure what SR should be priced at. Maybe it could be a quadratic formula. And I'm not sure how paranoid we need to be about the ability enhancements either.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Honestly, I'm not too concerned about creating a smooth interface with UK's current pricing rules - which are liable to change again, anyway. And I like the cubic wealth formula for epic characters. We simply need to determine what we deem appropriate/desirable for characters of a certain level to possess.

It would be nice if we could maintain a continuity in item pricing, though, i.e:

Type I:
Ability bonus (enhancement)
Armor bonus (enhancement)
Save bonus (resistance)

Type II:
AC bonus (deflection)
Natural armor bonus (enhancement)
Save bonus (sacred, profane, insight or luck)
Weapon bonus (enhancement)

Type III:
AC bonus (sacred, profane, insight or luck)

The cost ratio in the DMG is 25, and it would please me if we could maintain that. My only real concern is stat-boosting items which force higher spell DCs - I think that this could be problematic in conjunction with multiple Heightens from AMC. At the same time, I'm reluctant to cap them, and I don't want to price mental stat items differently than physical ones.

[I would suggest that we revisit the [augment] seed to see gain a clearer perspective, here].

I think bonus^3 x 200 : bonus^3 x 400 : bonus^3 x 500 might work - especially if we're looking at things in terms of 3 x 25% items, rather than 1 x 25% plus 3 x 10% items. Honestly, I think I'd prefer that anyway. I also think that they really should be 25% items, though - not 27% or 29%. Individual DMs can award whatever treasure they like, of course, but I think we should stick tightly to the guidelines.

I'll whip up a 30th-level fighter (armor x 200; weapon x 400) just for kicks, to see how it looks.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Charlie

Charlie's a 30th-level sword & board fighter-lite. Elite array, core only. I've equipped him according to the prices suggested above wrt. sword and armor, and used lvl^3 x100 wealth guidelines with 3 x #1 items; otherwise, he's by the book. I thought he might be a useful reference point, whatever we decide.


Charlie
Male Human Fighter 30; CR 30; Medium humanoid (human); HD 30d10+270; hp 440; Init +15; Spd 60 ft.; AC 48 (touch 21, flat-footed 37); Base Atk +25; Grp +35; Atk +48 (1d10+25/17-20x2, +7 speed bastard sword); Full Atk +48/+48/+43/+38/+33 (1d10+25/17-20x2, +7 speed bastard sword); SQ Evasion; SV Fort +31 Ref +23 Will +23; Str 30 Dex 24 Con 28 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 8

Skills: Intimidate +32, Jump +63, Tumble +47

Feats: Cleave, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword), Great Cleave, Greater Weapon Focus (bastard sword), Greater Weapon Specialization (bastard sword), Improved Critical (bastard sword), Improved Initiative, Improved Shield Bash, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Mobility, Power Attack, Spring Attack, Weapon Focus (bastard sword), Weapon Specialization (bastard sword), Whirlwind Attack.

Epic Feats: Overwhelming Critical (bastard sword), Devastating Critical (bastard sword) (DC 35), Epic Weapon Focus (bastard sword), Epic Weapon Specialization (bastard sword), Dire Charge, Superior Initiative, Epic Will, Epic Prowess (x2)


Gear (2.7Mgp)
3 x +5 tomes (Str, Dex, Con) (412,500)

+7 speed bastard sword (603,335) (#1)
+8 mithral heavy fortification heavy shield (640,420) (#1)
+13 mithral chain shirt (640,500) (#1)
Boots of swiftness (256,000)

Belt of giant strength +6 (36,000)
Amulet of health +6 (36,000)
Cloak of resistance +5 (25,000)
Ring of protection +5 (50,000)

Charlie has 245 gp left. He's cutting it close.


30th-level fighters sure get a lot of feats, don't they?

 

[Cheiromancer]

There might be a way of remaining faithful to the idea of the ELH multiplier while maintaining affordability for low level characters.

I wonder if, instead of slapping a x10 modifier on epic items all at once, like the ELH does, it can be gradually applied. Starting from about x3, and then going up to x10 by level 40 or 60 or whatever. That is, price the item as if it were a non-epic item, then multiply by an epic multiplier that scales smoothly to x10 when you get to high-epic levels.

Since there are different ways that an item can “go epic”, the formula might be complicated. For instance, the epic multiplier might be (half epic enhancement bonus, rounded down) or (1 + amount total bonus exceeds 10), whichever is higher. This multiplier is capped at 10.

So a +6 enhancement bonus on a sword will cost 216,000 gp (triple what the non-epic formula would yield). A +5 sword with +6 in special abilities will cost 484,000 gp (double the non-epic formula). A +6 sword with +5 in special abilities would cost 726,000 gp (triple the non-epic formula).

Items like armor, shields, and resistance bonus items cost half as much as a weapon with the same bonus. A +6 shield would cost 108,000 gp in this system, but I don't think that would be a problem. It's still more expensive than a +5 shield with 5 pluses worth of special abilities, and there's no reason why someone would buy a +6 shield rather than invest that cash into a slotless item that gives a +1 insight bonus into AC or something.

Anyway, with these prices I think Charlie will have to be 31st level to afford that sword. He’ll have 2,979,100 gp, and his best item could cost 744,775. E.g.

+6 speed adamantine bastard sword (729,335) (#1) (multiplier = 3)
+8 mithral heavy fortification heavy shield (677,020) (#1) (multiplier = 4)
+11 mithral chain shirt (606,100)[/i] (#1) (multiplier = 5)

Charlie’s AC and attack bonus is a little less, but he has 151,145 left to spend; he can surely make it up somehow.

This formula be tinkered with, of course. But I don't see why we have to have a cubic + constant if something playable could be derived that will mesh with the equipment in the ELH and UK's work.

[I would suggest that we revisit the [augment] seed to see gain a clearer perspective, here].

If we think that [polymorph] is OK, then it might provide some insight into buffs. [Polymorph] won't give much insight into the problem of high save DCs, but if everything falls into line, perhaps it will too.

But as far as equipment goes, I seem to recall that the item buffs were acceptable using the ELH formula. Since my suggestion converges on that formula, it might be OK too; an extra +2 DC or so won't break the system.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Do you know why UK switched from lvl^3*100 to lvl^2*10,000 ? Was it to slow down the acquisition of wealth by 100+ level characters, or to speed up its acquisition below that?

 

[Cheiromancer]

You'd have to ask him, but I think he decided to follow WotC precedent a little more closely; using the wealth charts in the ELH up to 40th level, and using their method of pricing epic items.

The notion that an immortal will have 4 artifacts each worth 25% of its total wealth is in there as well.

Finding out could be worth posting in the Eternity Publishing hosted Forum.

 

[Cheiromancer]

UK's formula gives some peculiar results for low-epic (and non-epic) characters. A 20th level character, according to the guidelines, should have an epic-priced +7 sword, +10 shield, +10 armor, and +10 ability buff. (4 items, divide by 2 for the bonus squared x 10,000 items, divide by 2.8 for the bonus squared x 20,000 items). I think that his formula should be the ceiling for whatever we decide. In other words, our item pricing and equipment guidelines shouldn't result in characters who are better equipped than Krust's Ascension rules would indicate.

Is that an acceptable rule of thumb?

If so, then that +11 weapon that Charlie has really can't be obtained until level 30.8 (actually 31.1, since the 2.8 is really sqrt(8) = 2.828). It has a multiplier of 1/10th this value (3.11), if you want the treasure to work out.

The formulas that give Ascension style equipment with cubic wealth is y^3 x 200 for shields and such, y^3 x 565 for weapons. (sqrt(32) x 100 = 565). Or you could treat these items as having multipliers of y/5 for armor and shields, or y x sqrt(2)/5 for weapons. This latter coefficient is 0.2828 (about 2/7), so for a +11 weapon the multiplier is 11 x 0.2828 = 3.11.

I would suggest that the multiplier be at least 3. You could increase the multiplier for higher bonuses; shields of total bonus 16 to 20 would be x4, 21 to 25 would be x5, and so on; every +5 bonus increases the multiplier by 1. For weapons anything up to 10 would be x3, 11 to 14 would be x4, 15 to 17 would be x5, and so on- every +7 bonus increases the multiplier by 2.

An approximation that wouldn't hurt would be the multiplier for epic shields is bonus/5 (minimum 3, maximum 10). The multiplier for epic weapons is bonus/4 (min 3, max 10). (I'm approximating 0.2828 as 0.25, here. ).

An 80th level character with four 12.8 million gp items should be able to afford a +28 sword. Assigning such an item a x7 epic multiplier we get a cost of 10,976,000. A +29 sword (with a +8 multiplier) is too expensive at 13,456,000 million, so there is virtually no difference. It's a trifle cheaper than it should be. Using 2/7 instead of 1/4 gives a price of 12,544,000. A lot closer. sqrt(2)/5 would be too pedantic, I think.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

If so, then that +11 weapon that Charlie has really can't be obtained until level 30.8

Charlie has a +10 weapon. Speed is worth +3 in 3.5. At 200K + bonus^3*400, he couldn't afford a +11 weapon until level 31 - I'm using the cubic wealth rules here, as well.

This is what I'd like to assume, in whatever system we settle with:

• Characters have 3 powerful items, each worth up to 25% of their total wealth.
• Characters have a bunch of lesser items, none of which is worth more than 10% of their total wealth.

i.e., the guideline in the ELH - of which, UK's four-artifact rule is a logical extension.

I'd like the system to be simple, and user-friendly.

Question: do you want to keep level^3*100 regarding wealth, or do you want to revert to the system in the ELH?

(200K + bonus^3 x 400) diverges from (level/2.8) at 36th level.

(200K + bonus^3 x 500) doesn't break until 50th level. At what point is the 4-artifact rule supposed to kick in, anyway?

 

[Cheiromancer]

This is what I'd like to assume, in whatever system we settle with:

• Characters have 3 powerful items, each worth up to 25% of their total wealth.
• Characters have a bunch of lesser items, none of which is worth more than 10% of their total wealth.

i.e., the guideline in the ELH - of which, UK's four-artifact rule is a logical extension.

I'd like the system to be simple, and user-friendly.

I agree on all counts.

Charlie has a +10 weapon.

D'oh! Why is it always the obvious things that trip me up? Then it would cost 603,035 gp. Bonus squared times 2000, times 3 epic modifier (3 is greater than the bonus divided by 4), plus 3000 gp for adamantine (includes masterwork costs) and 35 for the sword.

I think that is pretty simple; having a sliding modifier instead of a flat x10 modifier is a little more complicated, but for characters of 30th level or lower they'll probably just use x3 all the time. Even if they are using weapon bonus/4, shield bonus/5 that isn't too complicated. What do you think? I should figure out the bonus for a bonus squared x 2500 gp item too... bonus/3 should work fine.

Question: do you want to keep level^3*100 regarding wealth, or do you want to revert to the system in the ELH?

I don't like the table in the ELH; it is too irregular; I don't like tables that don't have an obvious underlying rule. I much prefer the cubic system. I was worried that it didn't mesh well with UK's system, but if we use the sliding multiplier it should work very nicely. UK's system doesn't work properly in the 20 to 40 range (as far as I can see) so it is not like it is a practical alternative. The cubic system gives less wealth than the ELH, but if we use a different pricing scheme characters will be able to get more epic items. Fewer non-epic items, but it should come out pretty close.

I am not sure how people will actually use our rules. If we fiddle with item pricing and/or equipment guidelines, then epic characters built under other systems (the ELH, for instance) might have to be rebuilt. Epic spellcasters will need to be rejiggered, of course (that's why we are doing this!), but I don't know how much of a hassle converting other characters would be. Their epic items will be cheaper, but they'll have less money, too. Maybe there wouldn't be any problems with just transferring them over, maybe there would be.

We should convert the equipment of some epic NPCs (done up ELH style) and see if their values are problematic if calculated in other systems.