PDA

View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Help me price this magic item



CinuzIta
2015-11-09, 09:25 AM
Hello all!

I want to create a magic scarf that gives its user a limited flight ability:

Scarf of high jumps
The character gains a fly speed equal to twice her base land speed. She can only fly in straight lines (meaning she cannot turn, hover or do whatsoever in flight that is not moving forward in the direction she' facing) and start falling at the end of the movement (not the turn) if still midair, as if she had just jumped.
She can take two movement actions and fly for the equivalent distance, as normal, but she still falls at the end of the movement if midair.
For every purpose, this movement is considered to be a jump.

How much would an item like this costs?

Debihuman
2015-11-09, 01:37 PM
I am not understanding your action economy. Does the scarf give you an additional move action in a round? because I'd call shenanigans on that. With only 2 rounds of movement you don't really get to do anything other than ascend and land and you can move 60 feet up for a move action but then you have to spend your next move action coming down and you don't get anywhere Where does the 3rd move action come from?

Debby

Fii
2015-11-09, 03:13 PM
Is this supposed to be a once per day thing?

You may want to just approach this from a different direction.
Pathfinder: Ring of Feather Falling 2.2k + Cloak Shield 1k + Boots of Elvenkind 2.5k.

The logic is this: You improve your high jump to an ungodly point the old fashioned way. The higher you can get, the better. Feather falling is your plan for getting down. However, the -flavor- of the cloak shield is that:

The wearer of this rough, gray cloak can, as a move action, grasp the garment’s edge and cause it to harden. The wearer can use the hardened edge it as if it were a masterwork light wooden shield. Using the cloak in this fashion imposes no armor check penalty, but does impose a 5% arcane spell failure chance. The edge of the cloak can be dropped and made pliant again as a free action. Shield enhancement bonuses and special abilities can be added to the cloak as if it were a masterwork shield.

Presumably, you can make a similar item that is instead as a hangglider with the precedent: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/vehicles/air-vehicles/glider . Given a glider costs 500g, making it much more expensive that a MW wooden shield, I'd consider the cost to increase.

Glider Cloak 1.5k. It would require a running start (which is never negated by the ability to make a jump without a running start because the run speed determines the speed of the glider. No running start, no speed). The speed would be the speed at which you made the jump, and you'd still be at a DM's mercy. The running start would usually not help a high jump, given the direction of the forces being applied.

CinuzIta
2015-11-09, 07:45 PM
okay, I see now that without telling you what was the purpose of the item maybe I'm making it more difficult for you to see the point..I wanted this item to be an effective way to do high and long jumps for a character without having to bother with Jump skill's limitations and calculations..I thought that granting a flying speed, limited ad descripted, was a good workaround..

In detail, the character who's gonna use this is a Dragoon type of character; so he'd jump very high in the air and then just let himself fall and dive attack enemies with the Battle Jump feat

Debihuman
2015-11-09, 09:11 PM
Ummm the battle jump feat specifically barrs you from using flight spells and effect: " You can't jump from more than 30 feet above your opponent, nor can you effectively battle jump while under the influence of a fly or levitate spell or effect, as you have to hurl yourself down on your foe."

CinuzIta
2015-11-10, 04:59 AM
Ummm the battle jump feat specifically barrs you from using flight spells and effect: " You can't jump from more than 30 feet above your opponent, nor can you effectively battle jump while under the influence of a fly or levitate spell or effect, as you have to hurl yourself down on your foe."

That's why the effect ends at the end of the movement action:)

Debihuman
2015-11-10, 05:48 AM
Once flight ends, unless you have a move action left, you cannot jump down (you are just falling and take normal damage). This is why I'm not understanding how the PC can move in Flight and then have a move action left to jump. If you are allowing an extra move action for PC that round, then you should also allow the target to make a free move action to get out of the way. Because every other killer DM would just give a scarf to the monsters and watch the Players seethe as their PCs get roundly trounced from the damage of a flying/jumping down monster landing on them.

A PC jumping down on target from a height of 30 feet causes the target to take damage too. How much does that PC weigh with all his gear again? For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. So A 250-pound PC with 150 lbs of gear weighs 400 lbs., The target beneath him takes 2d6 of damage for every 10 feet if the jumper falls/jumps down. Note too that jumping down only allows you to negate 10 feet of falling damage. "If you intentionally jump from a height, you take less damage than you would if you just fell. The DC to jump down from a height is 15. If you succeed on the check, you take falling damage as if you had dropped 10 fewer feet than you actually did. Worse if you miss your jump check, you fall prone 5 feet from your opponent."

I'm an even more evil DM: I'd say that if your target has a free action available and has a weapon that does piercing damage, the target could just plant his weapon under the now falling PC to try to impale the PC. A Reflex save would negate (whew missed the sword and just landed on the ground). An impaled PC would take normal damage from the weapon (no strength bonus because its planted) and would need to take a swift action to remove the weapon (taking damage as the weapon leaves his body). Of course, now the PC has the target's weapon...but he still needs to stand up from landing prone.

Falling, impaling, lots of gore, and damage, I hope the PCs and the monsters have a lot of hit points....

Debby

brian 333
2015-11-10, 07:34 AM
Boots of Striding and Springing are listed at 2500, and appear to do what you want your scarf to do with the additional property of speed.

If it were up to me, I'd, alter the requirement to a Jump spell scroll and eliminate the Expeditious Retreat requirement. This would require a Masterwork Scarf, (10gp?) a scroll of Jump, (25gp,) and the Craft Wondrous Item feat. A Ring of Jumping costs 2000gp, so crafting such an item as an unlimited use per day Wondrous Item would cost 1000+10+25 gold pieces and 42 xp, requiring two days to complete. Crafting it as a limited use/day or charged item would be significantly cheaper, of course.

For role-playing purposes, I would have a visual requirement, such that the scarf 'billows in the wind' requiring the character to have room to use it. I would assume a 5' square clear of obstacles is enough space for the scarf to spread like wings while activated, and then use the jumping rules for the remaining mechanical requirements, such as how far one must run before the leap, how high one can go, and how far one can jump.

CinuzIta
2015-11-10, 09:34 AM
Once flight ends, unless you have a move action left, you cannot jump down (you are just falling and take normal damage). This is why I'm not understanding how the PC can move in Flight and then have a move action left to jump. If you are allowing an extra move action for PC that round, then you should also allow the target to make a free move action to get out of the way. Because every other killer DM would just give a scarf to the monsters and watch the Players seethe as their PCs get roundly trounced from the damage of a flying/jumping down monster landing on them.

A PC jumping down on target from a height of 30 feet causes the target to take damage too. How much does that PC weigh with all his gear again? For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. So A 250-pound PC with 150 lbs of gear weighs 400 lbs., The target beneath him takes 2d6 of damage for every 10 feet if the jumper falls/jumps down. Note too that jumping down only allows you to negate 10 feet of falling damage. "If you intentionally jump from a height, you take less damage than you would if you just fell. The DC to jump down from a height is 15. If you succeed on the check, you take falling damage as if you had dropped 10 fewer feet than you actually did. Worse if you miss your jump check, you fall prone 5 feet from your opponent."

I'm an even more evil DM: I'd say that if your target has a free action available and has a weapon that does piercing damage, the target could just plant his weapon under the now falling PC to try to impale the PC. A Reflex save would negate (whew missed the sword and just landed on the ground). An impaled PC would take normal damage from the weapon (no strength bonus because its planted) and would need to take a swift action to remove the weapon (taking damage as the weapon leaves his body). Of course, now the PC has the target's weapon...but he still needs to stand up from landing prone.

Falling, impaling, lots of gore, and damage, I hope the PCs and the monsters have a lot of hit points....

Debby


Darn, you're right: I hadn't thought about the fall/jump down mechanics and action economy...no dive bombing this way then, I'll have to move back to the Jump skill...


Boots of Striding and Springing are listed at 2500, and appear to do what you want your scarf to do with the additional property of speed.

If it were up to me, I'd, alter the requirement to a Jump spell scroll and eliminate the Expeditious Retreat requirement. This would require a Masterwork Scarf, (10gp?) a scroll of Jump, (25gp,) and the Craft Wondrous Item feat. A Ring of Jumping costs 2000gp, so crafting such an item as an unlimited use per day Wondrous Item would cost 1000+10+25 gold pieces and 42 xp, requiring two days to complete. Crafting it as a limited use/day or charged item would be significantly cheaper, of course.

For role-playing purposes, I would have a visual requirement, such that the scarf 'billows in the wind' requiring the character to have room to use it. I would assume a 5' square clear of obstacles is enough space for the scarf to spread like wings while activated, and then use the jumping rules for the remaining mechanical requirements, such as how far one must run before the leap, how high one can go, and how far one can jump.

Well there are tons of way to pump up the Jump skill, so the bigger numbers are not what concerns me (even though they're always handy); I wanted to make the whole mechanic easier but ad Debby pointed out, it'll simply not work the way I thought it

What about something like this:

High jumps scarf
While wearing this scarf, all the High Jump DCs of Jump checks made by the character are equal to an equivalent Long Jump dc. Also, the character is considered to always have a running start when using her Jump skill.

Would it be good? Jumping is a part of the movement action so a character can Jump while charging (as per the Leap Attack mechanics) and then attack, right? He still take falling damage if she falls from too high but that's another thing

Edit - also, same question: how much would this cost?

Debihuman
2015-11-10, 06:36 PM
Normal: High Jump
A high jump is a vertical leap made to reach a ledge high above or to grasp something overhead. The DC is equal to 4 times the distance to be cleared.

Magical high jump should reduce this to 3 times the distance cleared rather than swap the DCs for long jump because that virtually guarantees success as the DCs don't really compare. The DC for an 8-foot high jump is 32 and making it between 5 and 10 would be insane. You'd be giving the PC the equivalent of a + 22 bonus to jump check. That's an obscene benefit. But it's also going to be ridiculously expensive because it also has the wrong slot -- neck slot rather than feet so that adds 1.5X to the cost. The base cost is bonus squared × 100 gp. 22x22=484.
484 x100 = 48,400 x1.5 = 72,6000 gp.

Debby

CinuzIta
2015-11-11, 05:28 AM
Normal: High Jump
A high jump is a vertical leap made to reach a ledge high above or to grasp something overhead. The DC is equal to 4 times the distance to be cleared.

Magical high jump should reduce this to 3 times the distance cleared rather than swap the DCs for long jump because that virtually guarantees success as the DCs don't really compare. The DC for an 8-foot high jump is 32 and making it between 5 and 10 would be insane. You'd be giving the PC the equivalent of a + 22 bonus to jump check. That's an obscene benefit. But it's also going to be ridiculously expensive because it also has the wrong slot -- neck slot rather than feet so that adds 1.5X to the cost. The base cost is bonus squared × 100 gp. 22x22=484.
484 x100 = 48,400 x1.5 = 72,6000 gp.

Debby

Thank you! I think that you might be right and making the dcs equals would be too much..I'll make it so that the item only grant running start and halven Long Jump's dcs

Edit - however, how can we be sure about the correct pricing? I mean, the cost you have deduced is the result of taking in consideration the 8' Jump with a "bonus on Jump" of 22 thanks to the item but if we would have taken in consideration a 5' Jump with the same modificators, the "bonus" would be of only 15.
15x15= 225
225x100 = 22500
22500 x 1.5 = 33750
That is way cheaper of your result.

Likewise if we take in consideration an higher value, like those derived from a 10' Jump, the price would be way higher instead.

So how can we be sure of what is the right approach to the price?


By the way a +20 bonus on a Jump check, which you described to be an obscene benefit, can be attained by a 5th level caster with the 1st level spell Jump, that grants a +10, +20 or +30 skill bonus at caster levels 1st, 5th or 9th...considering this I don't think that such a bonus would be a great deal, especially for a mundane character, also considering that, by the time a character can afford such an item, a spellcaster can usually cast/spam fly spells without much thought

Debihuman
2015-11-11, 03:27 PM
Thank you! I think that you might be right and making the DCs equals would be too much..I'll make it so that the item only grant running start and halve Long Jump's DCs. That's doable of course.



However, how can we be sure about the correct pricing? I mean, the cost you have deduced is the result of taking in consideration the 8' Jump with a "bonus on Jump" of 22 thanks to the item but if we would have taken in consideration a 5' Jump with the same modificators, the "bonus" would be of only 15.
15x15= 225 ; 225x100 = 22,500; 22,500 x 1.5 = 33,750. That is way cheaper of your result.

When pricing magic items that have variable you price it as it has highest benefit. Sure you can make one that limits you to vertical jumps of 5 feet or less but then you can't use it to jump your maximum distance of 8 feet. Do you want to be limited to 5 feet or lower jumps? If so you can price it cheaper.


Likewise if we take in consideration an higher value, like those derived from a 10' Jump, the price would be way higher instead. Creatures can only jump twice their actual height. Medium creatures can reach 8 feet for free, but can jump to reach 16 feet. (There is a chart for this). This assumes vertical jump to reach a tree branch or ledge. You can't jump to 10 feet unless you are Large sized. However, if you are enlarged then you can jump higher but the scarf is priced for a Medium creature. This is why pricing magic items is so difficult. It's better to just price it with a static bonus to Jump.



By the way a +20 bonus on a Jump check, which you described to be an obscene benefit, can be attained by a 5th level caster with the 1st level spell Jump, that grants a +10, +20 or +30 skill bonus at caster levels 1st, 5th or 9th...considering this I don't think that such a bonus would be a great deal, especially for a mundane character, also considering that, by the time a character can afford such an item, a spellcaster can usually cast/spam fly spells without much thought

Having a spell that gives a temporary enhancement bonus for 1 minute per level is not the same as a magic item that gives you an enhancement bonus for a n limitless duration. Also, fly spell has a duration of 1 minute per level. Spamming fly spells at 20th level gives you 6 (all your 3rd level spells) for 20 minutes. You can fly for 2 hours big deal. Even if you have bonus 3rd level spells -- magical flight has limits. Now, the best item is a carpet of flying, which far more practical than a scarf of jumping.

Why bother with the scarf if the carpet is available?

Debby