skill items 3.5

[Shard O'Glase]

off the compiled rvision thread

Skill bonus items are going up to bonus squared, times 100 gp. We all understand much better the significance of skills and skill boosts, and decided that these were worth more than what the 3.0 rules had priced them at.

Rather than dramatically change the prices of the items in the DMG, we've instead changed the bonuses so that the prices could remain close to the same.

Boots of elvenkind, for instances, now grant a +5 bonus and cost 2,500. That bonus is much more in line with the boots' low cost. (One could easily imagine an improved version that gave a +10 bonus for 10k, or even a +15 bonus for 22,500.)

The ring of jumping's bonus went down to +5 for 2500, but there's also an "improved" version that grants +10 for 10k. (FYI--The jump spell now starts at a +10 bonus and goes up by caster level to a maximum of +30 at caster level 9.) Those bonuses are certainly lower than they used to be, but it's still a significant increase in the character's jumping ability--+5 adds 5 ft. to a running long jump and about a foot to a running high jump, while +10 adds double that.


Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D

I like the basic premise these needed a boost in cost. The thing is I think some skills notably the skill mentioned Jump maybe should not follow the system t closely. Lets say you got yourself a boots of jumping really far +10 to jump 10x10=100 100x100= 10,000 GP. Ok 10,000 GP for a =10 to a skill I'm with it so far, though I think the squaring method is silly past a certain level.

The problem comes in with skills like jump that have much superior alternatives, such as boots of flying. The skills should take into acount the alternatives to pull off the effect when coming up with the cost even if it deviates from the formula.

And hey maybe they did by bumping up the costs of the alternatives, or maybe jump was just apoor example. But if they didn't then I see a problem.

 

[Henry]

I am suspecting they are bumping the costs of the alternatives.

After all, we know that Fly's duration was dropped to 1 minute per level, so it's cost as a magic item will likely be proportionately bumped.

 

[Psifon]

Actually it sounds like they are trying NOT to change the prices, so a more likely change would be to decrease the duration of the fly effect from 2 hours per day down to 20 minutes per day.