Help needed with a custom item

[Fruchtkracher]

So I want to implement a new item, mostly for my anti-hero team running around in hell while the PC's are still having trouble in the material world.
The basic idea is a or several scale/armor plate orbiting around the character, kind of like ioun stones but floating around your whole body. With two available modes. Something along the lines of

Scale Shield

This piece of magically enhanced scale attaches itself to your body, granting a +1 armor bonus to AC and touch AC (and flatfooted AC). While it doesn't stack with normal armor several Scales stack with each other.
When you speak a command word the Scales instead start orbiting around your body, granting a 5% miss chance against attacks and spells. If an enemy misses you one of the scales bursts and deals 2d6 points of piercing damage to the attacker and the scale ceases to function for 10 minutes, after which it is automatically restored. You can only evade area-spells if you have 5 or more scales, and every time one misses you 5 scales cease to function for 10 minutes.
The number of scales you can stack is limited by your base attack bonus minus the highest level of spells you can cast.


So, how high would you price these pretties?
Do you think the limitation is reasonably? This way non-casters and limited casters get way more use out of them than wizards and sorcerors, while I admit right away clerics and druids are less limited.

[jiriku]

Make them from metal and druids won't be a problem.

They should not improve touch AC. The whole point of a touch attack is that it ignores armor bonuses.

Since you didn't mention any, I assume these impose no movement reduction or armor check penalty?

I would suggest simplifying the miss chance so that you receive either a 50% miss chance, a 20% miss chance, or no miss chance. This regularizes the benefit with the bonus for concealment. This would suggest that the maximum number of scales is 10; 10 scales grant you a 50% miss chance, 5 scales grant you a 20% miss chance, and fewer than five grant no benefit when orbiting. Also, specify the range of the scale burst counterattack -- attacks could potentially be originating from hundreds of feet away.

If the pieces are mix-n-match, so that you can use found scales to improve your existing scale set, then a fair price would be 10,000 - 12,000 gp each. If they come in locked sets that can't be combined with other sets, then I'd say 35,000 gp for a set of 5 or 120,000 gp for a set of 10.

[Fruchtkracher]

Make them from metal and druids won't be a problem.

They should not improve touch AC. The whole point of a touch attack is that it ignores armor bonuses.

Since you didn't mention any, I assume these impose no movement reduction or armor check penalty?

I would suggest simplifying the miss chance so that you receive either a 50% miss chance, a 20% miss chance, or no miss chance. This regularizes the benefit with the bonus for concealment. This would suggest that the maximum number of scales is 10; 10 scales grant you a 50% miss chance, 5 scales grant you a 20% miss chance, and fewer than five grant no benefit when orbiting. Also, specify the range of the scale burst counterattack -- attacks could potentially be originating from hundreds of feet away.

If the pieces are mix-n-match, so that you can use found scales to improve your existing scale set, then a fair price would be 10,000 - 12,000 gp each. If they come in locked sets that can't be combined with other sets, then I'd say 35,000 gp for a set of 5 or 120,000 gp for a set of 10.

Thank you for your input. It really helps with a few points I had not considered.

Considering your advice I would change it to:

This piece of magically enhanced scale attaches itself to your body, granting a +1 armor bonus to AC and flatfooted AC. While it doesn't stack with normal armor several Scales stack with each other.
When you speak a command word the Scales instead start orbiting around your body, granting miss chance against attacks and spells according to the number of orbiting scales.

<5: no miss chance
5-10: 20% miss chance
11-15: 50% miss chance
>15: 70% miss chance

If an enemy within 30 ft. misses you one of the scales bursts and deals 2d6 points of piercing damage to the attacker and the scale ceases to function for 10 minutes, after which it is automatically restored. You can only evade area-spells if you have 5 or more scales, and every time one misses you 5 scales cease to function for 10 minutes.
The number of scales you can stack is limited by your base attack bonus minus the highest level of spells you can cast.

Each Scale is worth 10.000 gold pieces. However if you wish to apply more that 10, each additional scale has to be progressed in a special way, requiring an additional number of gold pieces equal to the new amount of scales x 1000.


I am kinda unhappy with the pricing, considering how at low amounts they would be really expensive (would take 40k to get the same AC as a Chain Mail) while at higher amounts the pricing falls apart in general, and would do so even more with a fixed price per piece (compare to Bracers of Armor +15, which cost over 2 million...)

[andreichekov]

I would charge 1500 total gp for the first 4.

Honestly, they are really bad. You can't wear armour with them, and they stop working if you use them.
And they don't provide touch AC. If these scales are floating around you, then they aren't touching you, so that can totally protect you from touch attacks. The point of touch AC is that its stuff like lightning that would just affect you through your armour. Your armour has to be touching you for that to take effect.

Right now, these do way more for sorcerers and wizards than anyone else, because sorcerers and wizards already can't wear armour, and there is no proficiency, armour check penalty, or arcane spell failure for using these. So, while they are strictly worse than armour, they are most definitely better than no armour.

How about his
Each scale always floats about your body, always granting +1 AC that affects touch AC. This item stacks with AC.
For every 5 scales you get a 20% miss chance
You cant have more than 5 scales at the same time as wearing armour. (this means that your AC can go crazy, but you don't get it with your armour enchantments, so nothing ridiculous actually happens.)
You must be proficient with armour to use them.
The price of each is the same as an enhancement bonus to armour. Scales form sets. Each scale will only work from another of its set. To buy a set costs the same per scale as armour enhancement bonuses cost per +1 bonus.

[jiriku]

The two most relevant items for comparison are bracers of armor and cloaks of minor and regular displacement. The scales should cost more than either since they effectively provide both benefits. Unfortunately that does mean that the cost scales linearly while the benefit increases in a very nonlinear way. You can avoid that by selling them in packages, but then they're limited in a way I think you're trying to avoid. It's a bit of a pickle, isn't it?

Also, you should clarify what you mean by "a miss chance against spells". If you're talking about spells that make attack rolls, that's covered under attacks and there's no need for a separate mention. If you mean a miss chance against spells that don't involve attack rolls, that's spell resistance, and should use the rules for spell resistance.

At 15 or more scales they have functionally become an epic item. This should be radically more expensive, say an extra 100,000 gp.

[Fruchtkracher]

Ok, let's try to simplify it a bit:

This magically enhanced scale works as a specialized shield. In its first mode the scale clings to the wearer's body, granting a +1 bonus to AC, flatfooted AC and fortitude saves against spells.
When a command word is spoken the scale starts to orbit around the wearer, granting instead a bonus to AC, touch AC and reflex saves against spells. In this mode, if the wearer is missed by an attack made from within 30 ft., one scale shatters and deals 2d6 piercing damage to the attacker. It then ceases to function for 10 minutes, after which it reforms itself.

Scales stack with armor and each other.
The first scale costs 1000 gp to attune to the wearer, the second 4000, the third 9000 and so on.


This should make it clearer and replace the miss chance, while also making it weaker, having to choose which save to improve.

Would this make it clearer?

[SinsI]

several Scales stack with each other.
This makes it impossible to assign price to it, as price for AC bonus scales as Bonus Squared. There's also Epic limit after which the price increases 10x.

[jiriku]

Yeah, that can work. If it functions as a shield, the AC bonus should be a shield bonus, rather than untyped. I'd also recommend assigning a type to the save bonuses as well, just because excessive bonus-stacking breaks adventuring parties. You could make it a resistance bonus if the item is intended to be less powerful/expensive, or a circumstance bonus if you want it to be more powerful/expensive.

I'd suggest increasing the proposed cost by a factor of x1.5 or x2, to account for the benefit of having two modes of operation and doing several things that regular magic armor doesn't do.

[Fruchtkracher]

So
This magically enhanced scale works as a specialized shield. In its first mode the scale clings to the wearer's body, granting a +1 deflection bonus to AC, flatfooted AC and fortitude saves against spells.
When a command word is spoken the scale starts to orbit around the wearer, granting instead the same deflection bonus to AC, touch AC and reflex saves against spells. In this mode, if the wearer is missed by an attack made from within 30 ft., one scale shatters and deals 2d6 piercing damage to the attacker. It then ceases to function for 10 minutes, after which it reforms itself.

Decided for deflection bonus instead of shield bonus, as a shield bonus typically doesn't protect against touch attacks. I also decided to keep the bonus to saves as a deflection bonus, since i specifically want it to stack with most bonuses as an additional layer of defense instead of a replacement.

And the pricing increases already quite a bit as you increase the numbers, considering that you have to pay the whole price for each. As in 1000 for the first, 5000 for the first two, 14.000 for the first 3, 30.000 for 4, 55.000 for 5 etc.
Which might make additional prohibitively expensive, but that should be fine.

I think I'm gonna keep it that way.
Thanks, jiriku :smallsmile:

[amy514]

thanks for sharing this. its really helpful