Making an magic item with contingency

[Yora]

I have an idea for a magic item, but I'm not sure in what way to construct it to calculate the price.

Basically, it's a permanent wondrous item in the form of a tattoo. It does not occupy and magic item space on the body, but it can not be given away or sold, so I think the two should cancel each other out and not result in any increased or decreased price of the final item.
The tattoo can hold a spell of first (least), second (lesser), or third level (greater) that is cast on it for an infinite duration, and is released by the same triggers as a contingency spell. The person could cast the spell to be stored himself, but any other person who targets the tattoo instead of the character could too.

I think basically it's an item that can cast contigency an infinite number of times, but only one contigency spell can be active at any one time and only on the person who has the tattoo. Really unsure how to price that.
Also, the maximum level of spells to be stored is only 3rd (or 2nd or 1st) instead of 6th.

Any hints how to price this?

[RFLS]

I would recommend checking this out first. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/craft-contingent-spell--452/)

[Flickerdart]

"One at a time" is a property of the Contingency spell, so you don't get a discount for that. It's also already a Personal range spell.

Essentially, all this is is an at-will item of Contingency you can't remove. That gives you 6*11*1800*2+1500=239,100gp before you even add on whatever fiat cost for letting other people cast the spell to be made Contingent on you.

[Yora]

Limiting it to once per day should probably help reducing it a lot. Recharging it after every encounter would indeed be a bit cheesy.

Which would still be 48,000 gp.

Maybe I approach it like a scroll that is rewriteable and can only be used by the person who has the tattoo, even if he could not normally cast the spell from regular scrolls. Storing a spell would require the cost and time of scribing a scroll with that spell.
And it would also have to be triggered as an immediate action.

I'll have to do some digging around to see what similar items I can find to base it on.

[Psyren]

Any reason Craft Contingent Spell wouldn't work, as RFLS suggested? It seems tailor-made for this.

[Yora]

How about a tattoo that allows any spellcaster to craft a contigent spell on the creature without having the Craft Contingent Spell feat?

It's a wondrous item that grants a feat, just not to the person who is actually possessing the item. :smallbiggrin:

[Flickerdart]

A&EG prices feat-granting items at 10k (+10k per prerequisite feat) a pop, but those are just guidelines for other guidelines, which makes it only slightly more authoritative than DM fiat.

[Yora]

In the end it's like being able to take a single prepared potion as an immediate action. That shouldn't bee too expensive.

[Fyermind]

This item should be as to a spell storing item what a contingent spell is to a potion. In other words about twice the cost of a spellstoring item. I'd say being slotless doubles that price again, and being unable to have it stolen makes up for it being unsellable.

A spellstoring weapon is a +1 enhancement, or 6000 gp above and beyond and can store up to level 3 spells.

So lets price the greater version at 24,000 gp. If we used normal scaling rules for spell effects the lesser would cost 2/5ths as much (2/3*3/5) and the least would cost 1/15th as much (1/3*1/5) but that seems underpriced. I'd call them 16,000 for the lesser, and 4,000 for the least.

This puts them into a reasonable price range for when they will be most useful, and I would say having a contingent first level spell (say true strike for my next attack or shield next time I am attacked) is on the same level as a +2 bonus to a primary ability score.

[Psyren]

How about a tattoo that allows any spellcaster to craft a contigent spell on the creature without having the Craft Contingent Spell feat?

It's a wondrous item that grants a feat, just not to the person who is actually possessing the item. :smallbiggrin:

Well, you don't need the feat, the guy crafting the spell does. So you can just go find a caster who has it and pay him to CCS on you.

As far as items that grant feats, something like that could be useful to hand to someone, giving them the CCS feat for a limited time, and then having them scribe on you.