should I allow this item? (and how much should it cost)

[King of Nowhere]

after getting a huge load of money for story reasons, my lead player expressed the intention of outfitting the whole party with items of permanent death ward, strenghtened with a wish spell so that they'd be immune to dispelling.

I don't know of a death ward item, but it probably exists somewhere in some splatbook. a ring of freedom of movement is 40k, so a ring of death ward should be a similar price. using a wish to make an item dispel-immune seem reasonable, and it is within the limits of what I allowed the spell to do in the past. Buying 5 wishes is not cheap, but it is possible, and within the party's finances.

On the down side, I run at an optimization level where caster superiority isn't that huge, and I already placed a lot of nerfs on them. metamagic reduction and CL increase severely limited, contingencies limited to 1, nothing to break action economy (besides quickened spells) or xp economy or monetary economy, no abuse of SLA from alternate forms or summoned creatures. I run a general guideline that nothing can screw you up without giving you some chance at counterplay. And I fear hurting too much npc casters, which are having troubles keeping useful against the party:
- illusions? everyone can see invisibility, and they have a couple of true sight effects
- mind influence? everyone is protected from evil, and what's left isn't that powerful. Plus, everyone has bought huge buffs to saving throws.
- summon monsters? nothing that will last even one round
- immobilizers? everyone has freedom of movement
- forcecage/walls? everyone has tattoos that grant single use teleportation
- buff yourself and go in melee? a single dispel will end that (no CL abuse = easier dispelling)

basically, the only thing left for casters to do (especially for clerics, which lack direct damage anyway) was spamming save-or-die and hope for a low roll. That, or being stuck fireballing the party for minimal damage. I am sure a highly optimized casters has more tricks up her sleeve, but not at the level of optimization we play - and if I pull too many new tricks on my more casual gamers, they would rightly cry foul.

On the other hand, casters still retain several area spells to potentially outdamage melees when used against a party, and they could use them to support their melee allies. It would mean throwing more mixed parties and less pure casters at the party, but feasible. and there really is no reason to not allow such an item except for metagaming balance reasons.

I could also go for something halfway: this item is imperfect death ward, it grants +10 to saving throw, not total immunity.
Or, it works just fine, but disjunction will still suppress it for 1d4 rounds - a big step up over permanently lose power, but still exploitable in combat.

This last one is the option I'm favoring at the moment. But I'd be curious to hear some opinion.

[JBiddles]

Just for starters, even if the Death Ward is immune to normal dispelling (is this a single-use item that grants a permanent Death Ward, or a normal permanent-emanation magic item?), Disjunction is explicitly not a dispel effect, and it defeats even Epic spells. It destroys artefacts. You can Wish all you like, MDJ is going to blow down your fancy-pants Death Ward.

As for whether or not this is overpowered: flat-out immunity to death effects isn't that powerful. Useful, sure, but not necessarily the end of the world. Magic items don't have to be dispelled or disjoined - they can be stolen or snatched away (or the limb in question amputated).

Your players, at the point where they might be going up against enemies tossing around MDJ, are bordering on demigods. These guys are making Gandalf look like a party magician and Aragorn an 8-year-old with a foam sword. They're Type Greens (http://www.scp-wiki.net/clef101). Enemies going up against them need to be smart. Teleport tattoos? Dimensional Anchor, then toss something nasty in the cage with them. Summoned monsters aren't there to kill the players, just to help dominate the action economy. Try handing your enemy casters Treantmonk's God Wizard guide. And if it really comes down to it, if players can scry-and-die, so can the bad guys.

[the_david]

There's a difference in the duration of Death Ward and Freedom of Movement. This would mean that a Ring of Death Ward would cost a third more than a Ring of Freedom of Movement. (53333 gold, 3 silver and 3 copper.)

Now when you use the formula from the DMG you would get: Spell level x caster level x 2000 x 2. That would result in 4 x 7 x 2000 x 2 = 112000 gold pieces. There's quite a difference between those 2 prices. It's up to you to make up a price, you already made a good start by comparing it with similar objects.

If you don't want your players to have such an item, you could just say no, or you could stick to the higher price to discourage your players.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Important question; immune to suppression by dispelling or immune to destruction by disjunction?

That out of the way, sounds like you need more dispelling enemies and more mass summons.

Their gear can be suppressed (except maybe this new stuff) with dispel magic or, far better, suppress magic (Magic of Incarnum, sorc/wiz 2 clr 2) to get around it being in the way. Smart casters know to do this if they know the target at all.

If any single summoned monster is just cannon fodder, feed the cannons. Cast summon monster X and conjure up several creatures from the summon monster X-2 list. The PCs either waste actions on the small fries or deal with them nipping at their heels through the rest of the fight.

Also, don't forget set-piece battles. Put crap in the way for both the PCs and the enemies to use to their advantage/ avoid as a hazard.

Hells, if you're feeling particularly mean, throw some gear eaters at 'em. If you want a good laugh, set them against an Aoa from the fiend-folio.

[Malimar]

Rule 1 of custom magic item pricing is "compare it to an existing item" (or in this case you could just use one of the existing items, there's plenty to choose from). The List Of Necessary Magic Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items) provides some examples of existing items:


Immunity to Death effects and/or energy drain and/or negative energy effects. (Lumped together because most things that protect against one of them protect against them all.)
Why you need it: Death effects kill you. Negative levels/energy drain are a very common, very wide-spanning debuff, which stack with themselves. Also, some of them cause you to permanently lose levels, which means you have to back-edit your character sheet, and no one wants to bother with that. All sorts of nasty things are caused by "negative energy".
Cheap:
Talisman of Undying Fortitude (MIC). 8000GP, held. Swift action activation, gives you lots of undead immunities for 3 rounds, including those that are relevant here.
Death Ward armor enhancement (MIC). +1 armor enhancement. Once per day, ignore Death effects, energy drain and negative energy effects as an immediate action.
Crystal of Adaptation armor crystal (MIC). 3000GP, armor crystal. Protects from the negative levels bestowed by visiting major negative-dominant planes.
Standard/Deluxe:
Soulfire Armor Enhancement (BoED). +4 armor enhancement. Total immunity to Death effects, energy drain, and negative energy.
Choker of Life Protection (MIC). 14000GP, throat slot. The cheaper version of the Bone Ring (below), requires immediate action activation, and can't handle ability drain, but is significantly cheaper.
Bone Ring (MIC). 20000GP, ring slot. Protects against three negative levels (or points of ability drain) per day, but not against Death effects or general "negative energy" effects.
Ring of Negative Protection (MIC). 36000GP, ring slot. Immunity to negative levels and negative-dominant planar traits, but not Death effects or negative energy effects in general.
Absorbing Armor Enhancement (DotF). +3 armor enhancement. Weird enhancement that allows partial protection against ability drain and "level drain". I'd hold out for Soulfire, but this is cheaper.
Not recommended:
Phylactery of Virtue (MIC), Scarab of Protection (DMG), Cornucopia of the Needful (MIC), Runestaff of the Undead Slayer (MIC), Cloak of Blackflame (MoF), Bone Bracers of the Death Deity (MoF)