D&D 5E Sane Magic Item Prices

[Hussar]

Yeah, Vicious weapons should probably key off of a crit. Only on a 20 is a bit lame. :/

 

[Saeviomagy]

Yeah, Vicious weapons should probably key off of a crit. Only on a 20 is a bit lame. :/

Even on a crit, it's a weapon that most characters won't consider to be special.

More examples of the problem with using 3e prices in 5e are in the original post of this thread: wings of flying in 3e were permanent, all day 60ft flying speed for 56,000 gold. Now they're 1 hour out of every 1+1d12 hours. Meanwhile the broom for 17,000 gold was a much poorer form of flight (worse manueverability) with slower speed (40 ft) for 9 hours a day. Now it's all day 50 ft flying speed.

Personally I don't think that those prices are anywhere close to being correct. The 3e prices fail in multiple ways.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hussar, perhaps you misunderstand.

When I talk about a 3e style magic item creation and pricing subsystem, I don't mean the exact 3e prices.

I mean a natural progression of that work; a new edition if you will.

Much like how 5e solves several issues with 3e, I obviously do not want ridiculously cheap flight or clw wands or whatever. Like any new edition: kinks straightened out, bugs fixed. And so on.

So please don't argue the entire system should go just because of individual bugs, Hussar.

We're talking about an entire play style here that 5E currently doesn't support, where adventure follows adventure with little or no downtime and where players love to spend gold on trinkets that make their characters better adventurers.

In complete contrast to the current system, which in my opinion not only threw out the baby with the bathwater but then threw away the bathtub too.

People who don't want this kind of system already got what they wanted. To honor their promise to provide conversion guides from previous editions, on top of my list for the 3E to 5E, is a new edition of a 3e style magic item creation and pricing ruleset.

 

[CapnZapp]

The magic item price rules have been compiled into an excellent pdf by Inconnunom.

Let's talk about flying items. There are a few items which give the ability to fly in the 5e DMG. Among the first I came across were the Winged Boots and the Broom of Flying. The Boots give a fly speed equal to your walking speed for 4 hours per day divisible into 1 minute chunks while the broom gives you a flat 50 foot fly speed all day long, decreasing to 30 feet if you are particularly heavy. Both are clearly very powerful, if you've got two sides in a combat one of which can fly and one of which can't the flying side has a huge advantage. If the other side also has no good ranged attacks the flying team more or less wins automatically. Yet both the Boots and the Broom are uncommon, they only cost 500 gold, pretty much any adventurer who decides they want one should be able to get their hands on one if they really want to.

Right under the Winged Boots are the Wings of Flying. The Wings give you a fly speed of 60 feet for one hour but then require a 1d12 hour cooldown period after each use before they can be activated again. Again, a pretty powerful item, but probably less useful than either the Broom or the Boots for most practical purposes. The higher move speed will occasionally pay off, but usually the ability to fly whenever you want will win out in terms of practical utility. At most, it's definitely not better than either the Broom or the Boots. The Wings of Flying are a rare item. They are worth 5,000 gold, 10 times what the boots or broom are worth.

The next item I found was the boots of levitation. These boots let you use levitate as the spell at will. Levitate moves you straight up or down only. It can never move you more than 20 feet off the ground or more than 20 feet up or down at a time. It has a similar weight limit to the Broom. It consumes your Concentration slot. You can't use it for longer than 10 minutes on end without returning to the ground. The boots of levitation are rare items. They are worth 5,000 gold, just like the Wings of Flying. 10 times more than the Winged Boots or the Broom.

The next item I found was the potion of flying. The potion of flying gives a fly speed equal to your walk speed the same as the Winged Boots do. It lasts one hour like the Wings of Flying, and can only be used once ever. The potion of flying is Very Rare. It is worth 50,000. 100 times what an item that gives precisely the same effect 4 times every single day forever does.

When the red mists had receded and I was once again able to speak in words other than the incoherent babblings of a shattered mind, I set about fixing this clear and present lunacy masquerading as legitimate rules text.

The fixed prices are located here. Please comment either here or there telling me what you think, if I've blatantly miscalculated the value of an item I'd like to know about it.

I haven't thanked you for doing this, so thanks.

Do you happen to have direct links to the discussion at other forums? I guess most of the discussion about how to price stuff happened elsewhere, since there's not much here...?

Thanks

 

[Azzy]

The magic item price rules have been compiled into an excellent pdf by Inconnunom.

casts animate thread

Have you had a chance to revise this or add in items from sources other than the DMG?

 

[NotAYakk]

I have played with those magic item prices. There are a number of really bad issues with it.

1) It makes shields suck by making them cost as much as armor. +1 armor is usable by basically anyone in any gear configuration. +1 shields are only usable by characters using 1 handed melee weapons. The only large advantage of +1 shields over +1 armor is that they stack with the superior option.

2) It under values attunement massively.

3) It under values the ability to summon aid wherever the PCs are significantly. It aat least admits thus.

4) It ignores how widely usable an item is in general. Bard instruments are priced based on how they would be usable to a generic spellcaster, for example.

5) It under values concentration. An item that lets you stack a concentration buff is very strong (ring/cloak of invisibility, potion of speed, etc).

6) By providing a menu of fixed prices, it hinders an important DM lever.

 

[CapnZapp]

I have played with those magic item prices. There are a number of really bad issues with it.

Compared to the official support for utility based magic item pricing, they are positively fantastic.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem is, that's not actually how the broom of flying works. The broom of flying doesn't even require attunement, and there's nothing in its rules text to suggest that it particularly requires either use of your hands or your concentration, at least no more so than doing anything in combat does. Yes, you CAN apply these sorts of spot patches to every magic item in the game, but by the time you're doing that , you aren't really saving any effort over what I've done.

At some point, though, common sense should come into it. If one of my players had his PC try to ride a freaking flying broom without holding on, it wouldn't be long before he was taking falling damage and then hoping that the party could track down the still flying broom.

Edit: I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize this was a thread necro.

 

[auburn2]

Both are clearly very powerful, if you've got two sides in a combat one of which can fly and one of which can't the flying side has a huge advantage.

Until they fall they do. Sleep at low levels and sapping sting, web, hold person, ensaring strike etc at all levels will cause most flying creatures to fall and take damage from the fall. Grappling and shove work for this too (although you have to get to them and are probably falling yourself after such).

If you can't do those things flying creatures will ruin your day.

 

[NotAYakk]

Compared to the official support for utility based magic item pricing, they are positively fantastic.

No, no prices are better.

Magic item sale and purchase should be run like finding treasure, not like a shop.

If the PCs want a magic poleaxe, they have to get "lucky" (as determined by the DM). Maybe hire NPCs to find people who want to sell magic items. Maybe befriend a merchant who knows where some are sold.

The price should be inconsistent. One NPC could sell a +3 flametongue for 5 gp, another may want 20k gp for a +1 dagger.

The price should serve the story/plot/genre/NPC motivations, and if you want the PCs to be rich or poor.

Finding a magic item for sale should be the same as finding one from a monster. The gp price is just fluff. If the PCs don't got the gp, they can steal it or not get it. Or they can bargain to do a quest to get it.

What more, when they sell magic items, there are few buyers. At a decent price that is. But maybe you can trade what you found for something else.

As a DM, magic items are a lever. If you find a PC is lagging behind in a way you care about, make available items they may find useful. And not as good/well customized ones for PCs who are over dominant.

The huge ranges and value guidelines? Better than this 3e esque price chart.