Pricing an Item of Continuous Plant Growth

[Maat Mons]

A Wu Jen can craft an eternal wand of Plant Growth. Or a Sorcerer with that ACF to gain access to Plant domain spells could do it instead. Or any arcane caster could take the Divine Disciple feat. Or an Atrificer could craft it. Anyway, the point is, an eternal wand of Plant Growth is very doable. And any arcane caster can use it.

Since Plant growth lasts a full year, one guy with that eternal wand could keep 730 separate 1-mile-radius circles constantly under the effects of Plant Growth. That works out to just under 15 gp per 1-mile-radius circle.

Of course, the item I'd actually like to price isn't restricted to arcane casters, and doesn't require anyone running around renewing the effect over and over.



A custom-built, 1/day item of plant growth would cost 5,400 gp. So a 1/year one would probably be worth 1/365th as much, a little under 15 gp.

Of course, the item I'd actually like to price doesn't require someone reactivating it once per year.



A custom-built, continuous item of a 3rd-level spell that lasts 24 hours per casting costs 15,000 gp. Which is kind of weird, because that's almost triple what the 1/day items costs. And on a spell with a duration of 24 hours, 1/day is the same uptime as continuous. I mean, it's convenient not to have to take a standard action once per day to keep it going. But is it 10,000 gp-worth of convenience?



Anyway, let's say it cost 25 gp. That's the minimum number that gives a round number for xp cost. And it's substantially more than some of my projections suggest it should cost. The litmus test is "would you buy it." As a PC, no never. Players don't farm.

A peasant farmer could never hope to save up 25 gp, so he's not buying it either. A lord would have to be a magic-fearing moron not to outfit all his holdings though. Increased productivity ultimately means he can collect more taxes, after all.

But then again, that 10,900-gp eternal wand is good for over 1.4 million acres. Which, for perspective, is about 1.5x the combined size of all farms in the United States. I feel like anyone ruling a realm of that size cold afford the price. And that he'd be pretty stupid not to seize on the chance to permanently increase the productivity of his lands by 33%.

So I guess it's hard to imagine a D&D setting in which farmland isn't generally benefiting from Plant Growth, whether this item exists or not.



I don't know. What do you guys think?

[JNAProductions]

I'd say just follow the pricing guidelines. Yes, you might be able to cover a positively STUPID amount of area with an item that works once a day, but that doesn't mean a continuous item would be cheaper to make. Plant Growth is still a 3rd level spell.

Also, you're entering semi-Tippyverse territory here. So... Ye be warned.

[Vaern]

Why not make a charged item that simply activates on its own when a specific condition is met? For example, a scarecrow which can be used to cast Plant Growth 1/day that recharges each morning at sunrise and discharges itself so long as it is staked into the ground. No character will have to interact with it after setting it up and it can be priced as a use-activated item that functions once per day, which can bring its price down to as low as 3,000 GP.

[Temotei]

I think for an item players don't want, you don't need a price.

[Maat Mons]

You all make very good points. But I'm probably just going to ignore you and do what I want.




I'd say just follow the pricing guidelines.

Okay, so your position is to use the continuous item price for a continuous item.




No character will have to interact with it after setting it up and it can be priced as a use-activated item that functions once per day, which can bring its price down to as low as 3,000 GP.

And your position is to not divide the cost by 365, like I had planned.




I think for an item players don't want, you don't need a price.

And, not to put words in your mouth, but this seems to imply that I could give it any cost I wanted, and it wouldn't matter, because it's just a piece of fluff in the campaign's lore.



So, how about this. We'll use the 15,000 gp for a continuous 3rd-level spell effect benchmark. But we'll chop the area covered to 1/15th what the spell normally covers, and corespondingly chop the price down to 1,000 gp.

Rounding a bit, that works out to a quarter-mile radius, or just a little over 125 acres. At 30 acres per peasant farming family (medieval English average), that would cover 4 fields. Except that overlap from a square grid layout would actually take it down to 80 acres covered per item. So let's say 2 households farming a respectable 40 acres per item.

At that price, do you feel it's reasonable to imagine that some lords would cover their lands with these items, while some lands would have none? It's an investment that pays for itself over time. And even if a given noble family just buys one every few generations to reward a peasant who saves a noble child from a wolf (or something), they last forever, so their going to accrue. On the other hand, an individual farmer is never going to be able to afford one. And minor lords might not have the spare cash or foresight to consider spending money for the long-term improvement of their holdings.

[Vaern]

I think for an item players don't want, you don't need a price.
That depends on the setting and circumstances. If your DM wants to set a wealth level for your cities and towns and say that no single magic item within that settlement should have a value exceeding, say, 10% of the town's total wealth, then it is important for an item to have a price to determine whether it's an affordable investment. If the players steal such an item and try to sell it, it's important to know how much the item is worth. If the players want to commission such an item - not for themselves, but as a gift or favor to an NPC who could make use of such an item - then it is important to know what it will cost.


And your position is to not divide the cost by 365, like I had planned.
It's also not quite accurate. If you considered it to be use-activated then I don't think its price is modified for having such a long duration, and it doesn't make sense to consider a continuous item to be restricted to a limited number of charges. This 1/day item would end up being 6,000 gp instead.
And that's probably as low as the book is going to get you. There aren't general guidelines in place for charges per week, per month, or per year. I could make an off-the-cuff suggestion regarding how to go about that, though.
For weekly charged item, a 1/day item may be equal in cost to a 5/week item, with a 1/week item costing a fifth of a 1/day item.
For a monthly charged item, a 1/week item may be equal in cost to a 3/month item, with a 1/month item costing a third of a 1/week item.
For a yearly charged item, a 1/month item may be equal in cost to a 10/year item, with a 1/year item costing a tenth of a 1/month item.

Take that 1/day item at 6,000 gp and scale it down to a 1/year item based on this suggestion and it comes out to 40 gp. If you don't mind cheesing the cost and cutting it in half for its high duration despite being a charged item, you get 20 gp.


So let's say 2 households farming a respectable 40 acres per item.

At that price, do you feel it's reasonable to imagine that some lords would cover their lands with these items, while some lands would have none?
Your version at 1,000 gold does make it cheap enough for a wealthy NPC to afford without making it so cheap that every peasant and their grandma would have one.
...As long as you don't google too much into farming yields, do a bit of math, and realize that an average farmer should be bringing in a lot more than the 1 silver per week suggested for commoners. For example, from what I'm skimming through right now, it looks like a tobacco farm can output 3,000-4,000 pounds of tobacco per acre, which sells for 5 silver per piece. Your household tending 40 acres of tobacco farmland would be bringing in 60,000-80,000 gold per year, or about 80,000-110,000 with the plant growth enhancement.

[rferries]

By RAW, a single-use use-activated item of plant growth would cost (spell level 3rd x caster level 5th x 50 gp) = 750 gp.

Therefore an item that allows it multiple times (even if only once per year), should cost more than 750 gp i.e. no dividing the cost by 365 ;)

This might make an intriguing quest reward - "Decades ago a friendly druid gave our village a scarecrow of the harvest, but now it's been stolen! It's not worth much to you wealthy adventurers, but please bring it back to us for some quest xp."

Scarecrow of the Harvest, a command-word item of plant growth with 1 use per day:
Spell level 3rd x caster level 5th x 1,800 / 2 for duration greater than 24 hours /5 for 1 use per day = 2,700 gp

Alternatively, the scarecrow could generate a static aura - if it's moved, the plants in the area instantly lose the enrichment effect.

[Maat Mons]

I think I screwed up my math earlier. It's 1/2 mile radius for Plant Growth, not 1 mile. So that's a little over 500 acres per casting.

If trying to blanket a large area in a square-grid pattern, overlap means you'll only really get 320 acres per casting. You'd get better efficiency with a hex-grid pattern, a little over 415 acres per casting.




Scarecrow of the Harvest, a command-word item of plant growth with 1 use per day:
Spell level 3rd x caster level 5th x 1,800 / 2 for duration greater than 24 hours /5 for 1 use per day = 2,700 gp

The 1/2 cost for long duration only applies to continuous items. And I don't really see how continuous and charges per day make sense together.




Alternatively, the scarecrow could generate a static aura - if it's moved, the plants in the area instantly lose the enrichment effect.

Well, yes. That's my plan. I don't want to create an item that has to be constantly moved around to give its full benefits.

So, let's say a scarecrow casts Plant growth at midnight every night, centered on wherever it's staked into the ground. I'd call that use activated, so 6,000 gp. Leaving the scarecrow to cast over and over on the same spot is completely pointless, unless someone keeps sneaking onto the farm to cast Diminish Plants, or otherwise dispel the effect. So any reasonable person would move the scarecrow every day, until he'd blanketed all the farmland he actually cares about.

So how much land is the scarecrow good for? Well it depends entirely on how frequently the owner is willing to move it. If he moves it every day of the year, he can manage over 180,000 acres.

I just refuse to believe that my item, which doesn't allow the effects to linger after it's removed, and thus actually only can benefits 500 acres, should be almost triple the cost of this hypothetical scarecrow that benefits several hundred times the area. I don't care how inconvenient making full use of the scarecrow is.




By RAW, a single-use use-activated item of plant growth would cost (spell level 3rd x caster level 5th x 50 gp) = 750 gp.

Therefore an item that allows it multiple times (even if only once per year), should cost more than 750 gp i.e. no dividing the cost by 365 ;)

If scaling the price down is a no-go, how about scaling the area up?

A continuous item that affects a 15-mile radius and doesn't leave lingering benefits when it's removed can affect about the same area of land as the 1/day scarecrow. The continuous item has the advantage or convenience. But the 1/day item has the advantage of shapability.