Help on pricing an item?

[RatElemental]

This is my first serious attempt at a homebrew, and as such I have probably missed something important, and have no idea what to actually price this thing as. But I was reading through the libris mortis spells and the concept hit me, and I couldn't not try to make it a thing.

This magic item is a chunk of blackest obsidian carved into the shape of a heart, inlaid with gold and silver where the various veins and arteries would be on a real heart. When successfully implanted (replacing the original heart) into an undead creature (DC 15 heal check) or a living creature (DC 35 heal check, failure means death for the creature), it will begin to beat of its own volition, as a dark purple glow rises from within the stone. Attempting to implant a deathless invariably fails, as they are more directly powered by positive energy than even living creatures are.

An undead creature implanted will be subject to a continuous Spark of Life spell, and additionally any signs of rot will slowly fade as their flesh begins to regenerate as if they were alive. Living creatures will likely not notice much of a difference, other than having a significantly harder to pierce heart, though they will take damage from both positive and negative energy spells.

However, where the heart truly shines is that once it begins beating, it will never stop unless destroyed. An undead creature implanted with it that has been destroyed can be restored to their undead state by Raise Dead, Resurrect, True Resurrection and the like, as long as their remains are a valid target for the spell. Only by destroying the heart can their remains be raised as the living creature from which they were created.

When a living creature that has been implanted with the heart dies from any cause, they will rise from their grave 24 hours later. Apply the necropolitan template to them, but they otherwise appear as they did in life due to the heart's preservative properties, and they will begin to benefit from the heart's full effects due to being undead. If their cause of death was old age, then resurrection spells of any sort will not work on them, whether the heart is intact or not. Only spells that restore a destroyed undead creature to its state of undeath will work, and then only if the heart remains intact.

If the heart is destroyed or removed while the creature implanted with it is still alive/animate, then they instantly perish. The heart has a hardness of 10, and 10 HP.

Strong Necromancy; CL 15th, Craft Wondrous Item, Spark of Life, Gentle Repose; Price ???, weight 1 pound.

[rferries]

I'm not familiar with spark of life but it should be easy enough to price the heart as a use-activated item for that spell (spell level x minimum caster level x 1,800 gp); use-activated because you need the Heal check to implant it.

However, the ability to grant the necropolitan template (requires 3000 gp, a negative level, PLUS an additional 1,000 XP) really drives the cost up. To simplify the pricing I'd say the target creature suffers the level drain and 1,000 XP loss (so a creature that can't pay these costs isn't revived by the heart as a necropolitan), but the 3,000 gp is added to the cost of the item.

So, take the cost of a use-activated spark of life item and add 3000 gp. Technically you should multiply the gp cost of one of the effects by 1.5 by RAW but I've always hated that stipulation. Also, the ability to be raised as an undead or your original type is more a flavour benefit IMHO (and often coming back as an undead is LESS desirable than shedding undead LA when you come back as a living creature) so I wouldn't factor it into the pricing.

Nifty idea and I like the item description!

[RatElemental]

Oh, I feel a bit silly given how easy those guidelines were to find, now. According to the source I found though, it's 2000 gp, and in this case the cost would be multiplied by 4 because spark of life is rounds per caster level. I'm unsure of which spell level to go with, because druids and clerics get it at different ones, but I'll go with the lower I guess.

Under your guidelines, that puts the cost at 163800 (+3000 for the necropolitan thing), under the guidelines I just found it would be 728000 (+3000). I really only used necropolitan because it was the only template I could think of that added undeath and not much more than that.

As a side note, spark of life removes a good chunk of the immunties undead creatures get, including lack of need to eat breathe and sleep, but they're healed by both positive and negative energy. The entire purpose of this thing is really to turn an undead creature "alive" without actually destroying and raising them, useful in cases where the undead creature is a different persona from who they were when alive.

Anywho, I'll go ahead and update the description a bit:

This magic item is a chunk of blackest obsidian carved into the shape of a heart, inlaid with gold and silver where the various veins and arteries would be on a real heart. When successfully implanted (replacing the original heart) into an undead creature (DC 15 heal check) or a living creature (DC 35 heal check, failure means death for the creature), it will begin to beat of its own volition, as a dark purple glow rises from within the stone. Attempting to implant a deathless invariably fails, as they are more directly powered by positive energy than even living creatures are.

An undead creature implanted will be subject to a continuous Spark of Life spell, and additionally any signs of rot will slowly fade as their flesh begins to regenerate as if they were alive. Living creatures will likely not notice much of a difference, other than having a significantly harder to pierce heart, though they will take damage from both positive and negative energy spells.

However, where the heart truly shines is that once it begins beating, it will never stop unless destroyed. An undead creature implanted with it that has been destroyed can be restored to their undead state by Raise Dead, Resurrect, True Resurrection and the like, as long as their remains are a valid target for the spell. Only by destroying the heart can their remains be raised as the living creature from which they were created.

When a living creature that has been implanted with the heart dies from any cause, they will rise from their grave 24 hours later. Apply the necropolitan template to them, but they otherwise appear as they did in life due to the heart's preservative properties, and they will begin to benefit from the heart's full effects due to being undead. They also lose a level as if they were the subject of a raise dead spell, and then lose another 1000 XP on top of this. If they have no level to lose, or cannot pay the additional XP penalty, the heart's magic is not enough to revive them and it will burn itself out trying to, rendering it unusable.

If the cause of death of a creature revived by the heart was old age, then resurrection spells of any sort will not work on them should they be destroyed, whether the heart is intact or not. Only spells that restore a destroyed undead creature to its state of undeath will work, and then only if the heart remains intact.

If the heart is destroyed or removed while the creature implanted with it is still alive/animate, then they instantly perish. The heart has a hardness of 10, and 10 HP.

Strong Necromancy; CL 15th, Craft Wondrous Item, Spark of Life, Gentle Repose; Price 166800, weight 1 pound.

I went with the lower of the two prices I came up with, because this thing is probably not worth almost all of a 20th level character's expected wealth, and that puts it in range of (though still quite expensive for) a 15th level caster, the minimum I set for crafting it.

[rferries]

Whoops yes, I forgot about the rounds/level multiplier... I agree that this is a case where you can probably just handwave the gp cost as you wish then, it's too expensive for too little benefit otherwise.

I'd just go with 5th level (minimum for spark of life) for the item level, too.

[Xzoltar]

In Patyhfinder I would say 50 000 gp Based on a slotless Constant active spell ajusted for the Necropolitan effect ; Its really a very specific Magic Item so I would not price it higher than that.

[RatElemental]

I've been thinking about this, and there are a handful of effects I feel I could add that would maybe make this a more attractive item to use, which might affect the price. Namely:


An undead creature implanted with the heart that experiences cravings for or outright needs to consume things such as human flesh/blood or other such unnatural hungers may instead attempt to make a will saving throw equal to 20 + the Level Adjustment of their undeath granting template to forego doing so on any given day. For each day the heart has been implanted in them, they receive a +1 bonus to this roll. Successfully making the save for a week frees them from the hunger entirely, until they choose to indulge again, though if they do so after this point their bonus resets as they fall back into old habits.

and


An undead creature implanted with the heart receives turning resistance equal to the caster level the heart was created with.