[D&D 3.5] Need help with magic items

[Intrary]

I'm playing with rogue and I'm looking for good magic item. And here's my question: How much would cost item, that adds dexterity mod instead of strength mod to damage of attack? And one more item. Something that once a day doubles damage of sneak attack? How much it should cost?

[Darrin]

I'm playing with rogue and I'm looking for good magic item. And here's my question: How much would cost item, that adds dexterity mod instead of strength mod to damage of attack? And one more item. Something that once a day doubles damage of sneak attack? How much it should cost?

Both of these item effects are unique enough that they don't follow any of the magic item creation formulas in the DMG, so you're drifting into deeper "make something up" territory.

However, adding Dex to damage is similar to a feat, Shadow Blade from Tome of Battle. And from the A&EG, we do get a different benchmark: a magic item that provides the benefit of a feat should cost around 10,000 GP. So that gives us a place to start. Then you have to look at the particulars of the feat you're trying to replicate: is it a general-use feat with no prereqs, or is it something complicated that requires a heavy investment of levels, skill ranks, and prereq feats? And Shadow Blade is something of a mixed bag, there... it can be taken at level 1, but there are a variety of prereqs, in that you have to know at least one Shadow Hand stance, which would require two feats from any character that wasn't a Swordsage.

It also restricts what weapons you can use with it: only weapons favored by the Shadow Hand discipline. The DMG suggests that magic items with restrictions on who can use it are supposed to reduce the price of a magic item, but in practice this is a really bad suggestion, as many optimizers will just use a bunch of PC-specific restrictions to reduce the cost of an item without actually putting any limitations on the character. If a Chaotic Good Elf Wizard is creating a staff that can only be wielded by a Chaotic Good Elf Wizard, how exactly is that a limitation? It's not, and you shouldn't reduce the price for that.

The restriction on weapons is more limiting, and it looks like what you're after is much more broad: any weapon, and you don't have to be in any particular stance. However, Shadow Blade *adds* your Dex mod to damage (along with Str) rather than replacing it, so what you're proposing isn't quite as powerful as Shadow Blade. It might even make the magic item useless to certain characters with high Str and low Dex. So as far as the restrictions/prereqs go... I'd say creating a magic item that is similar to the benefits of the Shadow Blade feat is a wash, so the power level is probably around 10,000 GP.

Finally, you'll want to consider an "eyeball" test, which is just take a look at the item at a particular price, and make a judgement on whether the cost "feels" too high or too low. Consider it from your PC's viewpoint, is that something he would want to buy at that price? Now consider one of his enemies buying it to use against him. Is that a fair price for his opponent?

My eyeball test... it feels like it should cost around 12,000 GP. Just my opinion, though. I can't really back that up with numbers.



Second item might be a little easier if we can tie it to a particular spell effect. In this case, rhino's rush in the Spell Compendium is similar... the spell effect doubles damage on a charge. However, there are some red flags on this spell... it's a 1st-level Paladin/Ranger spell and part of the Wrath, so it wasn't intended to be generally available to the game's primary spellcasters (Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard). It's also a swift-action spell with a 1 round duration, and these can be horribly overpowered when you use the DMG formulas to calculate the cost of a magic item by spell level. Case in point... a use-activated magic item that replicates a 1st-level spell that doubles damage 1/day has a suggested cost of 1 x 1 x 2000 / 5 = 400 GP. 1 round duration means we should multiply the cost by x4, so... 1,600 GP would be the suggested "by the book" price.

I am suspicious of this price... it feels low? So I check the MIC to see if I can find anything similar... and the closest I can find is Steadfast Boots. If you're wielding a two-handed weapon and you get charged by an opponent, you can treat that weapon as if it were readied against a charge, doubling the damage on an AoO. Doesn't quite fit, as it's not a 1/day item so you can use it multiple times, and you don't really get to choose when an opponent chargers you. Considering that... 1,400 GP for Steadfast Boots. So... maybe 1,600 GP isn't as underpriced as I thought.

I would consider adding a small downside to it, just to add a little more flavor. Maybe, if the sneak attacker rolls a 1, he's knocked prone or stunned for 1 round. If it happened often enough, that would reduce the price, maybe 10-20%.

[Intrary]

Both of these item effects are unique enough that they don't follow any of the magic item creation formulas in the DMG, so you're drifting into deeper "make something up" territory.

However, adding Dex to damage is similar to a feat, Shadow Blade from Tome of Battle. And from the A&EG, we do get a different benchmark: a magic item that provides the benefit of a feat should cost around 10,000 GP. So that gives us a place to start. Then you have to look at the particulars of the feat you're trying to replicate: is it a general-use feat with no prereqs, or is it something complicated that requires a heavy investment of levels, skill ranks, and prereq feats? And Shadow Blade is something of a mixed bag, there... it can be taken at level 1, but there are a variety of prereqs, in that you have to know at least one Shadow Hand stance, which would require two feats from any character that wasn't a Swordsage.

It also restricts what weapons you can use with it: only weapons favored by the Shadow Hand discipline. The DMG suggests that magic items with restrictions on who can use it are supposed to reduce the price of a magic item, but in practice this is a really bad suggestion, as many optimizers will just use a bunch of PC-specific restrictions to reduce the cost of an item without actually putting any limitations on the character. If a Chaotic Good Elf Wizard is creating a staff that can only be wielded by a Chaotic Good Elf Wizard, how exactly is that a limitation? It's not, and you shouldn't reduce the price for that.

The restriction on weapons is more limiting, and it looks like what you're after is much more broad: any weapon, and you don't have to be in any particular stance. However, Shadow Blade *adds* your Dex mod to damage (along with Str) rather than replacing it, so what you're proposing isn't quite as powerful as Shadow Blade. It might even make the magic item useless to certain characters with high Str and low Dex. So as far as the restrictions/prereqs go... I'd say creating a magic item that is similar to the benefits of the Shadow Blade feat is a wash, so the power level is probably around 10,000 GP.

Finally, you'll want to consider an "eyeball" test, which is just take a look at the item at a particular price, and make a judgement on whether the cost "feels" too high or too low. Consider it from your PC's viewpoint, is that something he would want to buy at that price? Now consider one of his enemies buying it to use against him. Is that a fair price for his opponent?

My eyeball test... it feels like it should cost around 12,000 GP. Just my opinion, though. I can't really back that up with numbers.



Second item might be a little easier if we can tie it to a particular spell effect. In this case, rhino's rush in the Spell Compendium is similar... the spell effect doubles damage on a charge. However, there are some red flags on this spell... it's a 1st-level Paladin/Ranger spell and part of the Wrath, so it wasn't intended to be generally available to the game's primary spellcasters (Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard). It's also a swift-action spell with a 1 round duration, and these can be horribly overpowered when you use the DMG formulas to calculate the cost of a magic item by spell level. Case in point... a use-activated magic item that replicates a 1st-level spell that doubles damage 1/day has a suggested cost of 1 x 1 x 2000 / 5 = 400 GP. 1 round duration means we should multiply the cost by x4, so... 1,600 GP would be the suggested "by the book" price.

I am suspicious of this price... it feels low? So I check the MIC to see if I can find anything similar... and the closest I can find is Steadfast Boots. If you're wielding a two-handed weapon and you get charged by an opponent, you can treat that weapon as if it were readied against a charge, doubling the damage on an AoO. Doesn't quite fit, as it's not a 1/day item so you can use it multiple times, and you don't really get to choose when an opponent chargers you. Considering that... 1,400 GP for Steadfast Boots. So... maybe 1,600 GP isn't as underpriced as I thought.

I would consider adding a small downside to it, just to add a little more flavor. Maybe, if the sneak attacker rolls a 1, he's knocked prone or stunned for 1 round. If it happened often enough, that would reduce the price, maybe 10-20%.

Wow. Thanks a lot. This helped me so much😀

[ShurikVch]

For dexterity mod instead of strength mod to damage of attack - Feycraft weapon (+1500 gp) with Fierce WSA (+2) = +19500 gp on a light or one-handed weapon

[Segev]

For the record, while ~1400 or 1600 ish sounds about right for a once/day sneak attack doubler, the x4 multiplier to general magic item pricing only applies to continuous or use-activated items. This would be a command-activated item, most likely (probably a swift action). That said, if you are thinking "use-activated," the x4 applies. The trouble with "use-activated" on an x/day item is that "use" is literally that: when you use it, it does its thing. It incorporates the activation command into the act of using the item for its normally intended purpose. If it's a worn item that has uses, command activation (even just mental) is the right way to look at it.

[Darrin]

This would be a command-activated item, most likely (probably a swift action). That said, if you are thinking "use-activated," the x4 applies.

Command-word items are always activated with a standard action as per the DMG. This wouldn't work for a sneak attack, as using a standard action to activate the item would prevent you from attacking that round. As far as I'm aware, there's no formula for creating a command-word item that does not use a standard action to activate. Hence why I said it would be use-activated and added the x4 cost multiplier. The MIC did go to great lengths to make a lot of magic items that are activated via a swift action, but it did not provide any formulas or guidelines for changing the activation cost of a command-word item to anything other than a standard action. We can reverse-engineer and make some guesses, but as far as I'm aware, you can't make a command-word item that's activated as a swift action (even though speaking is a free action).

[Segev]

We have examples of swift action Command items in the MiC from which we can work. Though we lack explicit rules.

[DEMON]

The restriction on weapons is more limiting, and it looks like what you're after is much more broad: any weapon, and you don't have to be in any particular stance. However, Shadow Blade *adds* your Dex mod to damage (along with Str) rather than replacing it, so what you're proposing isn't quite as powerful as Shadow Blade. It might even make the magic item useless to certain characters with high Str and low Dex.

I just want to point out that replacing STR with DEX is actually more beneficial to characters with a penalty to the replaced stat.
So, again, it's analogous with your Chaotic Good Elf Wizard, where a perceived limitation might not apply to the person in question.
You're right that it makes the item useless to a high Str/low Dex character, but it's not intended for those in the first place.

[Morty_Jhones]

interesting question with some good answers.


There is however an weapon ability that dose sort of wot you want

"Deadly Precision" p32 MIC

its a +1 ability that does +1d6 damage every time you use it to do a sneak attack/Sudden strike

the next bit is a bit fudgy so ask your gm

random magic items can't have duplicates of an Ability, but in the custom magic items creation rules it dos't say either way.............
................so you could commission a custom dagger with multiple copies of this on it for ridiculous bonus damage when you sneak attack, but it being pretty **** otherwise.

personally I would rather go for a Keen, Sacred Burst, Venomous, Wounding +X instead.