The Noctuary (D&D 3.5e, Level 20+ Adventure)

[AvatarVecna]

Custom magic weapons and armors I almost certainly will have no issue with. Most others run them by me, I'll probably OK. For at-will or continuous wondrous items is where potential problems crop up. This is like, is a continuous magic item of transcend mortality really worth only ~300,000 gp, and that's before other modifiers reduce the cost further? A well-built artificer could probably grab this for as little as 50,000 gp.

This is one of those places where I would have to compare and contrast to what similar effects would cost normally, and my only sources are basically other published items. If you can make an argument that such a pricing is correct, and substantiate it in any non-spurious way, I'll accept it. I'm pretty sure a permanent transcend mortality is straight up an epic effect, for reference, so this is an example of something that shouldn't work.

I'm looking at pivoting to artificer since someone's already doing an archer, so quite relevant to me. I'll do some sample spells, and you let me know how off-base my reasoning is.

Spoiler: Haste

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Haste is a lvl 3 spell, cast at CL 5, with a 1 round/lvl duration. 3x5x2000x4 = 120000 gp. That'd be the normal pricing according to the custom rules, although there's cheesy ways to get it cheaper. But let's ignore that.

Haste gives the following effects:

• Attack +1 (untyped)
• AC +1 (dodge)
• Ref +1 (dodge)
• All speeds +30 ft (enhancement)
• 1 additional attack on a full attack

The cost for an AC bonus of a nonstandard type is 2500x^2, so this probably costs that much, even if dodge isn't explicitly on the list. The difference between AC +1 (dodge) and AC +1 (insight) is basically just fluff anyway. 2500 gp.

The cost for a save bonus of a nonstandard type is 2000x^2, but that's a bonus to all 3 saves. Ref +1 (dodge) probably costs 1/3rd of that. 666 gp.

Lesser Bracers Of Archery give proficiency with all bows, and attack +1 (competence). We're giving up the proficiency, and upgrading the bonus type from competence to untyped, so let's call that a wash and say that Attack +1 (untyped) costs the same as these bracers. 5000 gp.

Horseshoes Of Speed give +30 (enhancement) to land speed, but only for hooved animals. We could say this is roughly equivalent to "item requires a specific class to use", so double this would give us a reasonable price for land speed +30 ft (enhancement) for a single person. However, that's only applying to land speed, so let's double it again to apply it to multiple speed types. 12000 gp.

If you took a +1 weapon and applied Speed to it, the market price would increase by 30000 gp. If you took a +7 weapon and applied Speed to it, the market price would increase by 102000 gp. So applying the Speed properly to a weapon would increase the market price by an average of 66000 gp. Some people will basically always use one weapon, while switch-hitters and dual-wielders will use two frequently enough. So for one of them, continuous +1 attack per turn is worth 66k, for the other it's worth 132k; let's split the difference. 99000 gp.

2500 + 666 + 5000 + 12000 + 99000 = 119166 gp.

Conclusion: 120000 gp is probably actually a fair price?

Spoiler: Transcend Mortality

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First of all, an item of continuous Transcend Mortality is not 300k, even by the continuous-spell-effect rules. It is a lvl 9 spell, cast at CL 17, with a 1 round/lvl duration. [Spell Level] x [Caster Level] x [2000] x [Duration Modifier] = 9x17x2000x4 = 1224000 gp. But let's ignore that and see what things might cost if we actually tried to build this item out.

Transcend Mortality gives the following effects:

• DR 30/epic
• SR 38
• Energy Resistance 50 to all 5 energy types
• Saves +10 (enhancement)
• Immunity (eat/drink/breathe)
• Immunity (ability damage, disease, energy drain, poison, death effects)
• Immediately kills you if the spell ever ends

For DR we're gonna have to get tricky. There's a series of shirts in the MIC that give DR 3 with various bypass methods. DR 3/[bludgeoning/piercing/slashing] is 9000 gp. DR 3/magic is 12000 gp. DR 3/[alignment/material] is 15000 gp. We can maybe assume that DR 3/[epic/-] is 18000 gp. Assumig this follows the standard Nx^2 formula, this means DR/[epic/-\ costs about 2000x^2, so DR 10/epic or DR 10/- would cost about 200000 gp. This feels like roughly the price WotC would give it, especially as it compares to weapons. Thus, DR 30/epic costs either 1,800,000 gp or 18,000,000 gp (depending on if you think the epic x10 cost multiplier is silly or not).

Mantle Of Epic Spell Resistance is SR 40 for 290000 gp. This is more or less following the nonepic formula although it's slightly wrong, so I'll assume that's just a mistake or like a change in how the spell resistance spell changed between editions. Using the base formula, SR 38-12=26, and it's 10k per point above 12. 260000 gp. x10 doesn't apply here because we already know it doesn't because the epic item is following the nonepic pricing.

If we put Acid Resistance 10 on armor, it costs 18k. If we put AR 20 on, it costs 42k. If we put AR 30 on, it costs 66k. Each +10 to acid resistance increases the price by 24000 gp. Thus, Acid Resistance 50 would cost 114000 gp if we were allowed to extrapolate. Multiply that by 5 to cover all energy types, and we can price ER 50 (all) at 570000 gp.

Saves +10 (enhancement) is pretty straightforward. This is either 100000 gp or 1,000,000 gp, depending on whether you think the epic x10 cost multiple is silly or not.

Periapt Of Health: disease immunity for 7400 gp. Periapt Of Proof Against Poison: poison immunity for 27000 gp. Ring Of Sustenance: immunity to eating and drinking for 2500 gp. Necklace Of Adaption: immunity to need to breathe for 9000 gp. As for the rest...there isn't really effects that give all-day protection against these things except a hypothetical custom item of continuous Death Ward. Such a thing would cost 112000 gp if that price was allowed, which feels reasonable, but I don't really have any existing items I can point to that indicate what a reasonable price would even be. Like...ring of freedom of movement costs 40k, and that's comparable level/usefulness to death ward? Like I think death ward is definitely better than freedom of movement, but not like "pay more than triple price for it" better, you know?

Finally, the "kills you if it ever ends" part. 3.5 has no guidance for how a curse like this affects the pricing, but PF does. Really debilitating curses (like...gives you a negative level) reduces the item price by half, so let's go ahead and say that's what an "death if you ever remove this item" curse would do.

If the epic x10 cost multiplier is considered silly: [1800000 + 260000 + 570000 + 100000 + 7400 + 27000 + 2500 + 9000 + 112000] / 2 = 1,443,950 gp.

If the epic x10 cost multiplier is not considered silly: [18000000 + 260000 + 570000 + 1000000 + 7400 + 27000 + 2500 + 9000 + 112000] / 2 = 9,993,950 gp.

Conclusion: if you think the epic x10 cost multiplier is silly, 1,224,000 gp is maybe a bit cheaper than expected, but still somewhat within the bounds of a reasonable price. 1,440,000 is probably more appropriate, though - and roughly equivalent to Con +38 (enhancement) with no multiplier. If you think the epic x10 cost multiplier is reasonable, this costs about 10 million gp - roughly equivalent to Con +30 (enhancement) with the multiplier.

I'm personally of the opinion that the x10 thing only exists to keep "epic effects" unaffordable pre-epic, and that the actual effect it has on the game is further punishing noncasters (since caster level is like the only thing the x10 doesn't apply to, so scrolls and staves don't have to care about this nonsense but anyone getting a lot of +number items has to live with it). But you might feel differently.

EDIT: Transcend Mortality at-will would cost 306000 gp, which is still too high to buy pre-epic anyway, but also comes with the drawback of only lasting 17 rounds at a time before you have to spend a standard action to re-cast it, and also the drawback of killing you when the duration runs out, and also the drawback of turning every dispel attempt on you into a SoD.

EDIT 2: I found another helpful data point. Ring Of Ironskin is an epic magic item that gives DR 15/adamantine for 400000 gp. MIC has the Shirt Of Ironskin, which gives DR 3/adamantine for 15000 gp. 15 is five times as big as 3, so if we multiply the shirt cost x5 x5 it should give us the approximate cost for a DR 15/adamantine item. Which would be...375000 gp. So not only is this formula (1666x^2) reasonably accurate based on our two DR/adamantine items, but it also indicates that items giving DR don't have to deal with the epic x10 cost multiplier.

EDIT 3: I'll also say that, while I think this two particular prices are at least somewhat close to fair, there's a lot of spell effects that aren't anywhere close to a fair price, either being way too cheap or way too expensive. "Too cheap" is really easy to find when spells are made half-cost through artificer shenanigans replicating the casting of weird PrCs, for example. An item of Swift Fly is going to be cheaper than its effect should cost. But also like...Choose Destiny is another effect that hypothetically costs 1224000 gp, but because it's just 2d20b1 for everything (roughly +4 on everything, with crit fails less common/crits more common), it's like a hundred times worse than Transcend Mortality, even taking into account how TM kills you when it's over.