The "Price That Magic Item" Game!

[Mistwell]

Would your opinion change if the wand said "1 time per day" like the amulet did?



No, I'm not asking whether they would get a bonus if I tried to convince them again. I'm asking whether I even have to try--it seems plausible that they are already convinced from the phantom round before I used the amulet.



I disagree--preciseness is incredibly crucial in the writing of the rules. Anything else is careless. As it comes to my game, as I said, the unfairness of the exploit that they left into the rules is so obvious that I would immediately houserule it. My game is built upon minor houserules here and there to increase playability, so really, this strict constructionism is only useful as a common parlance when speaking across games, such as on an online forum. Using anything else in such a situation is meaningless.

I don't see any benefit to engaging this further. We all know what the item means. In my opinion, any time we all know what is meant, it wasn't careless writing. That's the only point of communication really, is to convey your meaning to someone else. They did that job. You can call it a houserule or RAW. In this case, the distinction between the two seems moot.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I don't see any benefit to engaging this further. We all know what the item means. In my opinion, any time we all know what is meant, it wasn't careless writing. That's the only point of communication really, is to convey your meaning to someone else. They did that job. You can call it a houserule or RAW. In this case, the distinction between the two seems moot.

It won't be moot when another rule interacts with it though, which seems increasingly likely with some of the interesting combo abilities WotC is brewing up. Imagine a feat

Charge-Happy: You love items with a limited number of charges per day. Whenever you use them, you get a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls for the next X time.

Would activating the amulet activate this feat?

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

It isn't clear, though. It is fairly obvious that this should be the case in a balanced game

As an aside, anyone else find this funny?

 

[Rystil Arden]

As an aside, anyone else find this funny?

Nope--I don't. It is fairly obvious that Orbs should allow SR and not pierce AMF in a balanced game and that Wraithstrike has no place in a balanced game in its current incarnation, but look how long those thread go You can find someone to argue against fairly obvious balance positions easily. Heck, I bet there's someone out there who thinks Divine Metamagic or the Dweomercheater of Mystra are fair, or that Pun-Pun is underpowered

Just becaise one interpretation is obviously more balanced doesn't mean it is any more clear. In fact, WotC, particularly in the FAQ or RotG, have come down on the unbalanced or unreasonable side of an ambiguity more than once.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Could we get some clarification on the Amulet of Second Chances? It seems like some people are assuming this sets things back an entire round, which means that everybody else's actions get undone as well as your own.

To me it just looks like an instant do-over device. You try something, it doesn't work (or doesn't work the way you hope) so you activate the amulet, scoot your miniature back, and say, "Oh wait, I try this instead."

That's not going to require a lot of book-keeping or disrupt the game for a long time while everybody remembers where they were a round ago, like I think Rystil is assuming.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Could we get some clarification on the Amulet of Second Chances? It seems like some people are assuming this sets things back an entire round, which means that everybody else's actions get undone as well as your own.

To me it just looks like an instant do-over device. You try something, it doesn't work (or doesn't work the way you hope) so you activate the amulet, scoot your miniature back, and say, "Oh wait, I try this instead."

That's not going to require a lot of book-keeping or disrupt the game for a long time while everybody remembers where they were a round ago, like I think Rystil is assuming.

You could definitely be right, but note that Mistwell said: "Affected creatures remain aware of the now non-existent turn, but free to make new choices in new turn." This makes no sense unless it sets you back the whole turn

 

[hong]

The amulet of second chances resets everyone's turn. It's like instant rewind to the top of the initiative order.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The amulet of second chances resets everyone's turn. It's like instant rewind to the top of the initiative order.

Right, that's what I thought. It's exactly the same as the Nomad-only 9th-level Psion power, without the XP cost and creatures other than you remember the last round.

 

[Wolfwood2]

1) 12500. This should pretty clearly be 1/4 the price of the Quicksilve Boots. 1/day half move is about 1/4 as useful as 2/day full move. Given the insane pricing in MIC, I expect to see 1000 instead.

But it's just not worth 12,500 in the eyes of your average player. What player would seriously pay that much for a little free movement once per day when they could buy some Boots of Speed instead? Nobody, that's who. At least, nobody who doesn't have some uber-combo of doom rules exploit built around the item, and the item should not be priced to accommodate those people.

2) 50000 Better than the 9th-level Psion power that makes you immune to everything because that Power is a standard action that can't be Quickened no matter what. However, it is still only 1/day. However, thanks to attunement requirements, I'll call it only 50000 (less than the 9th-level power 1/day would cost) assuming that it is reasonably discernable to enemies that you are immune to damage and to do something else. Multiply it by 1.5 if it completely blindsides them

I could have an Amulet of Natural Armor +5 for 50,000. I think for most characters I would rather have the amulet of natural armor.

5) 40000. This is effectively a Rod of Greater Twinning with several stricter requirements on what sort of spells will be twinned and who the second target will be. Also it uses a Swift action, so more like a Rod of Greater Quickening, I guess. I'm marking it down by a factor of 4 due to constraints, so 42,500, round down to 40000.

(whistles) Who would buy it at that price? I mean, I'd rather have the periapt of wisdom +6, you know? It doesn't seem like the actual good that would come from it is worth 40,000.

6) 350,000. I'm charging for the 9th-level Nomad-only Psionic power Time Regression. Note that it is a 9th-level discipline power, which tend to be extremely powerful because only members of that discipline can ever learn them, and even then it costs XP. That price is 311200 (most of it is the 250000 GP from paying the cost of the XP price in gold 50 times). I then round up to 350000 because this item is a pain in the ass to GMs and fellow players alike and makes the game a chore of bookkeeping exactly what happened during the last round at all times (since you never know when Mr. Reload Amulet is going to strike and slow your game to a halt). This is banned in my games for the annoyance reason more than anything else.

If hong is correct, you might well be right. I'd say the real solution would be to change it so it works like I thought at first. You could price it considerably lower then too.

9) I'd price this at around 170k. Wizards can pay 170k to do stupid-insane metamagic combos three times a day with the strongest greater rods, right? Well now so can warrior-sorts (or more dangerously, Bo9S classes with Strikes).

But shouldn't items be priced for your regular Fighter with Power Attack?

 

[Rystil Arden]

But it's just not worth 12,500 in the eyes of your average player. What player would seriously pay that much for a little free movement once per day when they could buy some Boots of Speed instead? Nobody, that's who. At least, nobody who doesn't have some uber-combo of doom rules exploit built around the item, and the item should not be priced to accommodate those people.



I could have an Amulet of Natural Armor +5 for 50,000. I think for most characters I would rather have the amulet of natural armor.



(whistles) Who would buy it at that price? I mean, I'd rather have the periapt of wisdom +6, you know? It doesn't seem like the actual good that would come from it is worth 40,000.



If hong is correct, you might well be right. I'd say the real solution would be to change it so it works like I thought at first. You could price it considerably lower then too.



But shouldn't items be priced for your regular Fighter with Power Attack?

I think your disconnect with me is that you price these for people who don't really want them instead of for people who want them--for instance, gloves that make every attack add your Sneak Attack damage are not as useful for the Rogue1/Fighter10 as for the Rogue11. Also, do recall that you can put the Natural Armour or Wisdom bonus onto the same amulet and have both. As to comparisons to Metamagic Rods--those Metamagic Rods are worth every penny, if not overpowered. Mistwell has said he doesn't agree on the Metamagic Rods, which is interesting. I'm willing to ask about them in another thread (I won't bring up the MIC items, just the Metamagic Rods).