Custom Item Creation

[fishbrains]

A player in my game wants a Pen of Endless Ink and has asked the party Artificer to craft one for him. No one in our group knows of any existing item that does this, so it's up to me as the DM to come up with the item.

This is what I have so far:

Pen of Endless Ink
Wonderous Item (4,575 gp)

This miraculous pen never runs out of ink. The ink from this pen is magical, and never fades over time. The pen can be used on any solid surface, even in heavy rain or underwater. This pen cannot be used as a material for another spell (such as Illusory Script) and cannot be used to scribe scrolls or to scribe spells into a spellbook/prayerbook.

Cost to create: 2,287 gp 5sp, 183xp, 4 days
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, Illusory Script, CL 5th

Does this seem reasonable? Is the price too steep?

[Glimbur]

I would bring the cost much lower. It's a fun item, but the point of WBL is that you can face CR appropriate encounters. If someone spent all their money on ever flowing pens and bottles and tree tokens, then the party will be affected.

So, fun but dubious utility magic should be cheap. Call it 100 gp.

[inexorabletruth]

I think it should be a lot cheaper. And it should be allowed to be used to make scrolls, frankly, since a normal pen can do that.

I know that if you follow the guidelines in the DMG, pg. 285, you come up with a ridiculously overpriced item. But this is a relatively useless tool, something that an inkpen and a piece of chalk can do for coppers on the GP.

For a good ballpark on pricing, check out some other "never-runs-out-of" tools like the Everfull Mug (200 gp) or the Everlasting Feedback (800 go), Everlasting Rations (350 gp)

And we're talking about food and drink here... things that a low-level adventure might die without. For the pen, I say be nice... through the player a bone and hook them up with a 50-100 gp inkpen that never runs out of ink. That's still more than this humble DM would charge for it though.

[thethird]

http://www.dudelol.com/DO-NOT-HOTLINK-IMAGES/Russian-space-pen.jpg

[Flickerdart]

When making a magic item, you need to consider its usefulness vs simply having a ton of the mundane version. For that much money, you could get 572 vials of ink, which is 17 litres. At around 50 pages per vial (estimated here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-103962.html)), you will write 28,600 pages with that pen before breaking even. Assuming a very conservative 3 minutes per page, that's two continuous months of nothing but writing.

[Story]

You know the space pen thing isn't actually true, right?

[fishbrains]

Thanks all for the feedback. I thought it seemed to be too much. I did indeed use the custom item creation guidelines to come up with it. I'm glad I asked about it.

The reason I have the stipulation for it not being usable with scribing scrolls and spellbooks is because those usually require specially prepared magical inks to create, and this is just an endless supply of normal* ink. That and I have a player that's a wizard//archivist (it's a gestalt game) who is trying to find a way of obtaining every spell in existence with little to no monetary cost. He is not the one requesting the item, but I know he would jump at the opportunity to make a one time purchase that would forever cover the cost of scribing additional spells into his spell/prayerbook.

*well not actually normal since it doesn't fade and writes underwater, but you get what I'm saying

[Story]

Well Auaran's Spellshard/Blessed Book already reduces the cost to 12.5gp per page and Geometer 2 will make all spells take only a single page.

The main cost is obtaining the spells in the first place, not scribing them.

[lunar2]

at it's current cost, it should have the ability to scribe spells into books for free. without that ability, 50 gp, tops.

[thethird]

You know the space pen thing isn't actually true, right?

I'm not trying to claim that it is true. But I feel that it is a good example, an unending pen for 4575 gold pieces or a pencil for a few coppers? I take the pencil any time.

[Alphasez]

I'm going to second, third, and forth the motion to dramatically lower the cost of the item. It's just a flavor item, especially if youre not going to allow it to scribe scrolls. Which leads me to...

Why not let it scribe scrolls? Even if the character was actually trying to collect every spell in existence, what is he going to be concerned with? The few gp's for ink and paper? Or the actual cost of obtaining the spell in the first place..

I'm sure he is checking every arcane shop he comes across to see if they are selling a scroll of a spell he doesnt already own. Even if he doesn't have the pen, how nit-picky is he or you about making sure he has enough ink to actually write down the spell?

I'd say, price at 500gp, and let it be "magic" ink so he can scribe the spells. The cost of the ink and paper isnt what he's concerned with, I assure you.

[Flickerdart]

The few gp's for ink and paper?
A spell costs 100gp per page to write down, and each level of the spell takes a page. It's nothing like "a few gp".

[fishbrains]

As Flikerdart has stated, it costs 100gp per page so scribe spells into a spellbook. This is the cost of the special quills, inks and other various prepared materials for the process.

I am lowering the cost to 750gp, but I will not let it be used as a substitute for obtaining proper materials for spell scribing.

[lunar2]

then lower it to a reasonable price. 750 gp is too expensive for a pen.

do you realize how important ink is? the shadow caster gets a fundamental (the equivalent of a cantrip) that produces free ink. eventually, they can do it at will.

that's how important ink is. making it is the equivalent of a level 0 spell.


use activated items that duplicate 0 level spells? 500 gp according to the inflated prices in the dmg. 450 gp if it's a command word item.