[3.5] Help with pricing of magic items

[yougi]

Hi!

I've created a couple of low level magic items for my low-level PCs, and I'd like to have some input on what they're worth in order to help me follow the Wealth-by-level table.

Here are my items, with my idea of an appropriate price in brackets. I'm looking to keep the prices under or near 1k gp, as the PCs are only lv3 (or will be at the end of this adventure). I would therefore appreciate either your idea of an appropriate price, or a change to the item which would put it in the target range.

Gloves of Elemental Strike [800 gp]
These gloves allows the wearer to, once per day, transform any damage done through a melee attack to elemental damage. Each pair of gloves is attuned to a single element: for example, a pair of Gloves of Elemental Strike (Fire) can only be used to cause fire damage, not acid or cold.

Vest of the Lucky Mage [750gp]
The wearer of this vest can, twice per day, reroll a single dice of a spell she just cast. The new result must be used, even if it is inferior to the previous one.

Headband of the Healer [900gp]
The first 3 cure light wounds spells cast by the wearer of this headband every day are considered to be Maximized, as per the Maximized Spell feat.

Lucky Short sword [1300gp]
Every time this masterwork short sword hits, the damage is rolled twice, and only the highest roll is counted.

Precise Shortbow [1000gp]
Once per day, the wielder of the masterwork shortbow can use the spell True Strike on itself, which will only affect attacks made using this bow.

[ShadowPsyker]

Gloves seem fine as does the vest. The headband is very close to what the Armband of Maximized Healing does (7,200 gp) from Magic Item Compedium with the exception that yours is the first 3 CLW (1st level) and the Armband is any 3 up to 6th. Still yours is literally 1/8th the cost. 1500-1800 gp seems more appropriate.

The Short sword... every time? I know you think it's cool cause the D6 is kinda small but what if he gets enlarged or giant-sized? As is = 3k. Think about it, would you rather have a 2000 gp +1 sword doing D6+1 or 2d6 pick the highest (not to mention if the "2d6 pick the highest" is actually cheaper!).

The bow... True Strike is a pretty Bada$$ spell. It ignores miss chances and basically says "I hit" on anything but a nat 1. Maybe 1500 gp.

[Khedrac]

The Headband - the limitation that it affects the first 3 is actually quite a drawback - but that will just encourage players to have their character take it off and then put it back on. You also need to think about the healer getting more than one and swapping them as they go through the day. Perhaps an attunement mode as some items have? The Headband looks as if you priced it from the Healing Belt (MIC) but that is one of the most underpriced items in the game and suffers badly from players carrying multiple belts even at medium levels (rapid out-of-combat healing without touching spells). Yes the headband is a lot weaker, but remember that a lesser metamagic rod of maximise pell is 14,000gp. I support ShadowPsyker's price.

As for the sword, I just ran the numbers and the average damage is 4.47 compared to 3.5 for a normal shotsword of 4.5 for a +1 shortsword. For a character fighting DR5/? it's a pretty good weapon. I would make is a +1 equivalent enchant, and then think about allowing it on non +1 blades. Also remember that a normal masterwork short sword is 310gp so you have priced the bonus at 990gp.

The Bow: True Strike is the THE most abusable magic item property in the game. So - looking at the spell it is a standard action to cast and affects the next single attack so long as it occurs within 1 round of casting. If the bow's property is the same then I probably agree with SP.

You have to answe the following question for weapons before you allow these near a game: "Can the players get the same effect put on another magical item?" If "no" then the items are OK as they are pretty low-powered items and will rapidly decrease in attractiveness as the characters level up; you will also have to be able to answer "Why not?" and "Can I enchant this weapon to +1 whatever?" If "yes" you need to price to reflect impact at all levels your campaign will reach.

Good luck!

Edit: I just looked at the numbers I ran for the short sword, whilst 4.4722222 is the average, the distribution is totally biased towards a 6.
There is one way to roll a 1 (2.8%).
There are three ways to roll a 2 (8.3%).
There are five ways to roll a 3 (13.9%).
There are seven ways to roll a 4 (19.4%).
There are nine ways to roll a 5 (25%).
There are eleven ways to roll a 6 (30.6%).
(Two dice so 36 possible results to provide these outcomes.)
Yes, nearly one result in three will be max damage!

Should they get this on a longsword 23.4% of results will be an 8 with an overall average of 5.81. For a greatsword is it best 2 from 4d6, best 2 from 3d6 or sum two lots of best 1 from 2d6?

[Duke of URL]

Lucky Short sword [1300gp]
Every time this masterwork short sword hits, the damage is rolled twice, and only the highest roll is counted.

Yeah, this is probably overpowered for the price -- I'd agree with a +1 equivalent as written. For that price, I'd consider making the weapon simply re-roll any 1's (which makes it effectively 1d5+1 rather than 1d6, for an average of 4.0 instead of 3.5, with an even distribution).


Precise Shortbow [1000gp]
Once per day, the wielder of the masterwork shortbow can use the spell True Strike on itself, which will only affect attacks made using this bow.

Again, taking out the masterwork bow costs, this is about 600-650 for true strike 1/day. Since true strike requires a standard action to cast, this means that once a day, the archer can take two rounds to fire one arrow that is a near-guaranteed hit. Seems balanced to me.