[3.5] Help Me Price This Magic Item!

[GreatDane]

First up: GRANET, NAFATIL, AND VALIA: GO NO FURTHER.

Heyo, Playground. I'm currently DMing a campaign with a dragon shaman character. Like many DMs with this class in their campaign, I was pretty stumped on magic items to give her. A little research revealed a few gems (dragon spirit cincture, caduceus bracers), but it seems like it falls to the DM to homebrew items that directly support the class's features.

That said, how would the Playground price a slotted item that increases the aura bonus of a dragon shaman?

[Sian]

... i think this would be better served in the homebrew department as Dragon Shaman is underdeveloped (and Marshal for that sake, since they for the argument also uses Aura's hence this should be a cross-reference point where both can use the same). So most items that you could get at would carry a certain ammount of homebrew beyond what the item crafting tables are geared for.

[Frostthehero]

Well, personally I just give dragon shamans nice armor and weapons, but that sounds like a really cool item. I may have to use that.

Anyway, I would price it at bonus squared x4000 (or higher). The aura bonuses can do a lot, and so I would try to limit the amounts they could get until higher levels.

[Hellborn_Blight]

Helm of Tactics, MIC pg208, is for Marshals, but it should give you an idea of what an equivalent item can look like. 2000gp for a swift action and lasting 10 rounds is pretty awesome. Rearguard’s Cape is similarly awesome and is on page 120, same book. You may have to gauge the "weight" of the Marshal abilities verses the Dragon Shamans, but as a player of mine recently finished Red Hand of Doom as 100% DS, I can firmly say that their auras would be very hard to break.

Also, if a DS becomes a Dragonborn of Bahamut and takes the breath weapon, then picks up meta-breath feats, he ends up actually being able to actively participate in combat in a very interesting way. Entangling breath is so friggen annoying to ground based minions. And the dude had a stupid amount of HP; his con was huge.

[GreatDane]

Well, personally I just give dragon shamans nice armor and weapons, but that sounds like a really cool item. I may have to use that.

Anyway, I would price it at bonus squared x4000 (or higher). The aura bonuses can do a lot, and so I would try to limit the amounts they could get until higher levels.
That's the usual strategy for equipping them, but I wanted to go the extra mile. I'm thinking I may price it very similarly to stat-boosting items - 4,000 gp for +1, 16,000 gp for +2, and so on.


Helm of Tactics, MIC pg208, is for Marshals, but it should give you an idea of what an equivalent item can look like. 2000gp for a swift action and lasting 10 rounds is pretty awesome. Rearguard’s Cape is similarly awesome and is on page 120, same book. You may have to gauge the "weight" of the Marshal abilities verses the Dragon Shamans, but as a player of mine recently finished Red Hand of Doom as 100% DS, I can firmly say that their auras would be very hard to break.

Also, if a DS becomes a Dragonborn of Bahamut and takes the breath weapon, then picks up meta-breath feats, he ends up actually being able to actively participate in combat in a very interesting way. Entangling breath is so friggen annoying to ground based minions. And the dude had a stupid amount of HP; his con was huge.
Both of those items are superb, and I'm thinking to simply let them apply to the dragon shaman's auras at the same rate. After playing through a few levels, I agree that the auras are pretty hard to break.

A character with two breath weapons gets a ton of mileage out of metabreath feats, since they get to breathe twice per encounter (the usual schtick is to layer on metabreath feats and breathe once per encounter with a 1d4+20 recharge time rather than hope to roll low on the d4, since combats only last ~3-5 rounds).