False Life on armor, is this in a splat book?

[Moginheden]

In DDO one of the common properties armor has is "false life" it gives bonus hp as long as you wear the armor, and can be healed with cure spells; effectively giving you higher total hit points.

It comes in 4 varieties:
-lesser false life (5 hp)
-false life (10 hp)
-improved false life (20 hp)
-greater false life (30 hp)

Is this made up for the computer game or is it in a 3.5 splat book somewhere?

If it's not from a splat book, what cost would you associate with each of these properties if you put them in a P&P game?

[HunterOfJello]

The MiC has a shield enchantment called Heartening which gives 5 temporary hp for 5 minutes that works 2/day.

Also, there is an item called the Amulet of Tears that gives a scaling amount of temporary hp (12 to 24) based on how many charges are used on it. It has 3 charges/day and the temporary hp last for 10 minutes.

~

There are a few other items that grant temporary hp, but I don't know of any that are Armor enchantments. I like the idea behind it and understand why it would be very useful in DDO.

I'm not sure if I would purchase a +hp enchantment in a tabletop d&d game instead of a +AC enchantment though. Both sound good, but not getting hit at all sounds best.

[ericgrau]

I can't say for sure but it seems made up since it's so video gamey. Other than the restriction of only being able to target yourself, personal range magic items cost the same as normal. That would be 3x2x1,800 gp = 10,800 gp for unlimited false life (per the spell not the DDO item), or 1/5th that (2,160 gp) for once per day. Either lasts 3 hours. That's 1d10+3 HP, or 8.5 on average. I suppose what you describe could be similar to a continuous effect for 3x2x2000 gp = 12,000 gp for 8 HP. But unless you fight in 5+ encounters per day and have access to cheap healing that's a bit of a rip off. Somewhere between 2,400 gp and 12,000 gp is fair for 8 HP. So... I dunno how to fairly price it but that's a starting point. But yeah I think it would have to be a custom item.

EDIT: Hmm, I think something like 100 gp x HP^2 might be in the ballpark.

[Claudius Maximus]

Since the HP can be healed into and all, maybe this would be better modeled by a constitution bonus?

The only other source of heal-able and losable HP I know of would be a few incarnum things. Soulmelds are similar to magic items, so maybe look into MoI?

[Abaddon87]

I would look at the armor crystals from MIC. Instead of one that does the damage reduction/- I would make a crystal that gives 10/20/30 (or whatever) bonus HP.