Price of magic items

[Julio]

Hello community,
I am in doubt on the price of the Helm of Teleportation.

In the Official 3.5 edition site, it is 73.500 GP

wwwDOTdandwikiDOTcom/wiki/SRD:Helm_of_Teleportation (sorry I can't post links bc my post count must be 10 or greater :smallyuk: )

But in my DM guide (which is 3.0), the price is 48.600 GP.

Have the prices changed this drastically from one edition to another? We play mostly 3.5 (although a few rules we have kept as 3.0), but as far as magic item prices are concerned, I have basically been using the prices from my 3.0 book.

I was not aware of these changes. Do you guys know if it's for all items? Are the magic item price rules different fro one edition to another?

Thanks!

[KillianHawkeye]

Yes, probably a lot of magic item prices changed in the edition update. Most likely it's for balance reasons rather than a formulaic change, since many of the core magic items don't follow a specific formula for determining their market value.

You can expect basic items which closely followed a pricing formula (such as +X weapons and armor, rings of protection, or +Ability Score items) to have stayed the same.

[Thurbane]

Yes, I can confirm 3.0 DMG has Helm of Teleportation as 48,600gp (p.219), while the 3.5 DMG has it as 73,500gp (p.259), which is the same as the 3.5 SRD pricing.

[Julio]

Ok guys, thanks for the reply!

Like I said, I have been mostly following the prices from my 3.0 DM guide, so apparently it would be consistent to use this price (46.800) in my campaing (one my players is currently looking for such item).

But since the price has changed so drastically in 3.5, it must have a good reason fot that, right? In this case I would consider the reasons behind the price change and might use the 3.5 price. Specially if it's for balancing reasons - after all, it's a quite a game-changing item, right??? No one in my campaing has access to teleportation yet and it would really change the game - however, I don't want to be unfair or inconsistent with them. That's why I'm ponderign this so much.

I'd like to hear your ideas and opinions.
Thanks a lot!

[Mike Miller]

Hello community,
I am in doubt on the price of the Helm of Teleportation.

In the Official 3.5 edition site, it is 73.500 GP

wwwDOTdandwikiDOTcom/wiki/SRD:Helm_of_Teleportation (sorry I can't post links bc my post count must be 10 or greater :smallyuk: )
!

I just want to point out that dandwiki is not the official 3.5 edition site. Use the d20srd if you want something official. Anything goes on dandwiki...

[Jack_Simth]

Hello community,
I am in doubt on the price of the Helm of Teleportation.

In the Official 3.5 edition site, it is 73.500 GP

wwwDOTdandwikiDOTcom/wiki/SRD:Helm_of_Teleportation (sorry I can't post links bc my post count must be 10 or greater :smallyuk: )

But in my DM guide (which is 3.0), the price is 48.600 GP.

Have the prices changed this drastically from one edition to another? We play mostly 3.5 (although a few rules we have kept as 3.0), but as far as magic item prices are concerned, I have basically been using the prices from my 3.0 book.

I was not aware of these changes. Do you guys know if it's for all items? Are the magic item price rules different fro one edition to another?

Thanks!

Note: d20srd.org (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm) is a lot more quotable and linkable, as it's fairly strict about how it handles copyrighted material.

However... basically, it's following an updated estimation formula, and is *almost* perfectly following it. Command word item (1800 base) * Caster Level (9) * Spell Level (5) * per day limit discount (3/5) * 1.5 for being off-slot = 72,900 gets you a Helm of Teleportation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#helmofTeleportation). The other, equivalent item (Boots of Teleportation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#bootsofTeleportation)) are on slot, but work essentially the same: Command word (1800) * Caster level (9) * Spell Level (5) * per day limit discount (3/5) = 48,600 (vs. the printed cost of 49,000).

The Guidelines they're mostly following can be found Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm). The table with the specific formulas used is called "Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values", and do not overlook the section that says:

Not all items adhere to these formulas directly. The reasons for this are several. First and foremost, these few formulas aren’t enough to truly gauge the exact differences between items. The price of a magic item may be modified based on its actual worth. The formulas only provide a starting point. The pricing of scrolls assumes that, whenever possible, a wizard or cleric created it. Potions and wands follow the formulas exactly. Staffs follow the formulas closely, and other items require at least some judgment calls.

They actually mostly work... but there's some things to keep in mind:

First:
A limitation isn't a limitation if the person expected to use it meets all the criteria. Sure, the guidelines say that a widget for which use requires:
a) Ranks in Spellcraft,
b) Being a Wizard,
and c) Being neutral-good...
... should be worth a 70% discount. But if it's a Neutral-good Wizard with ranks in spellcraft making it for his own use... that's hardly a limitation. That makes a nice guideline on how hard it'll be to sell (market price), but probably shouldn't impact crafting costs meaningfully.

Second:
There are spells that give bonuses way out of proportion to their spell level, often due to the action costs and/or that it's on a chassis that can't make much use of it. The most commonly-cited offender for that is True Strike. A glove of True Strike that is "Use activated" (you make an attack roll using that hand - say, firing a spell from it, or swinging a weapon held in that hand) would, in theory, be 2,000 gp (base for Use Activated) * 1 (spell level) * 1 (Caster level) = 2,000 gp ... for +20 Insight and skipping miss chance on every attack you make.

Err... no. When you have a Wizard (personal spell) taking a standard action in the middle of a fight to get a +20 to an attack roll the next round, that's not so bad (there's a lot of things the Wizard could have done with that standard action, and most the things a Wizard does that require an attack roll will hit most level-appropriate things on a 5 [or less] anyway... because they're touch attacks). So you almost never hear about wizards casting True Strike (unless they're gishing, and it's Quickened). But if a wizard makes that glove for his buddy the Greataxe wielding Barbarian-7 ... that Barbarian can now Power Attack for +7, and be at +13 to hit and +14 to damage with his two-handed weapon. Which means those gloves are roughly the equivalent in terms of what they can do of a +13 weapon ... and stack with whatever enhancement bonus is actually on the weapon. Those gloves are off-the-charts (the DMG charts, anyway...) in their actual practical use. They shouldn't be available until deep epic, which tells you what sort of price they should have ("unaffordable at the supermajority of levels of play").

[ericgrau]

@^ Thx. So problem solved, hand out boots of teleportation instead for 48,600 gp.


Ok guys, thanks for the reply!

Like I said, I have been mostly following the prices from my 3.0 DM guide, so apparently it would be consistent to use this price (46.800) in my campaing (one my players is currently looking for such item).

But since the price has changed so drastically in 3.5, it must have a good reason fot that, right? In this case I would consider the reasons behind the price change and might use the 3.5 price. Specially if it's for balancing reasons - after all, it's a quite a game-changing item, right??? No one in my campaing has access to teleportation yet and it would really change the game - however, I don't want to be unfair or inconsistent with them. That's why I'm ponderign this so much.

I'd like to hear your ideas and opinions.
Thanks a lot!
It looks like they only upped the price for body slot reasons, not because of the power of the ability itself. By the guidelines 48,600 gp is exactly right. The only thing wrong with the helm is that it's in the wrong body slot. Really high level people who filled nearly all their body slots might exploit that. It's not at all because 48,600 gp is too cheap for lower level characcters.

Like Jack said the guidelines aren't always right. It's up to you to spot loopholes and prevent players from abusing them. But they are a good starting point. And for X/day command word spell items they are usually exactly right.

[Knaight]

I just want to point out that dandwiki is not the official 3.5 edition site. Use the d20srd if you want something official. Anything goes on dandwiki...

They've gotten better at separating out homebrew from first party rules*, though d20SRD is still better.

*Collecting homebrew that isn't garbage, not so much.

[Julio]

Thanks everyone for the replies!

Funny thing, I always recommend my players not to get stuff from DnD wiki because I too think it's not as reliable, and here I find myself doing it! LOL

So basically the price difference was from the slot type. Ok, but just a quick question then..."off-slot" means that the item has a different effect from what the affinity effects of that slot usually have?

For instance, head items are usually linked to interaction (hat of disguise), aligment/moral, ranged attacks or mental improvement (circlet of intelligence). But teleportation is a movement effect. That is what makes it off-slot and so much more expensive?

Cheers and thanks a lot, specially Jack Smith for the explanations :-)

PS: I was about to rant on my problems with them getting teleportation but I restrained myself and will leave it to another more proper thread! haha.

[Telonius]

For what it's worth, there were some changes between 3.0 teleport and 3.5 teleport. In 3.0, the spell had these caveats:

"Target: The character and touched objects or other touched willing creatures weighing up to 50 lb./level"

and

"This spell instantly transports the character to a designated destination. Distance is not a factor, but interplanar travel is not possible."

In 3.5, that changed to:

"This spell instantly transports you to a designated destination, which may be as distant as 100 miles per caster level. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent (see below) per three caster levels."

So back in 3.0, a 9th-level Wizard who'd just learned the spell could only teleport 450 pounds worth of stuff - possibly not the entire party depending on how heavily armored they are - but could go anywhere on-plane. In 3.5, a 9th-level Wizard could teleport three additional creatures, no matter how much stuff they have (up to their max load), but can only go 900 miles.