Rules about creating items with daily charges...

[inuyasha]

I love making custom magic items for my campaign, and I know that the 'rules' for it are more like guidelines, and sometimes you just need to come up with your own thing, but are there any pricing suggestions for items with multiple powers that share the same pool of daily charges? Like, say I were to have a magic ring with 3 charges in a day, one charge could cast Burning Hands, two could cast Scorching Ray, or all three used at once could cast Fireball. Does anyone know of a good way to price something like that?

[Saintheart]

The Healing Belt out of the MIC is a solid analogue for what you're doing: it has the idea of "blow more charges out of a pool to cast a higher level healing spell."

[Fizban]

If you just want charges with multiple uses, the multiple similar functions formula used for staves does it. The first (and most expensive) thing costs full, the second 3/4, and all additional functions half of normal. Staves are super expensive because you're literally paying multiple times the price you would for a single function item, because it has multiple functions.

By contrast, the change in pricing for a spell that costs multiple charges is just the multiplier. Stave spells that cost two charges are half price, and many example staves have higher costs that presumably follow the same line at 1/3 for 3 cost, etc.

Daily charged items are still charged items, and the daily charge cost uses the same simple division/multiplication for price based on number of daily charges.

So, a daily item with multiple functions ought to just be a 3 charge per day item, a 3 charge per day item at half price due to the effect costing two charges, and a 3 charge per day item at 1/3 price (which happens to be the same price as 1 charge per day). Whichever of those is most expensive is full price, then the second most is multiplied by 3/4, and the third by 1/2. Add those together and you have a formula-priced daily charge pool item.

Which I'll virtually guarantee you won't match any of the prices of similar published items, because the point where they started writing daily charge pools for everything is the point the stopped caring about their own pricing guidelines, and most of them don't even use specific spell effects.

[Saintheart]

By contrast, the change in pricing for a spell that costs multiple charges is just the multiplier. Stave spells that cost two charges are half price, and many example staves have higher costs that presumably follow the same line at 1/3 for 3 cost, etc.

Darn right it does. Over in the Rules of the Game (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041221a), Skip Williams blurts out that if you want something to take two or more charges, you just divide it by the number of charges required. This gets real hilarious if you want an ultra-cheap magic staff to fuel Eilservs School. Staff of Light, 50 charges, takes 50 charges to use staff once...

[Ramza00]

5.4k for your sample item. Math is below.




So a 3 Charge item where you can do the following combinations.

One a Day, cast spell C, C is 3rd level
One a Day cast spell B and cast spell A, B is 2nd level, A is 1st level
One a Day cast spell A 3 times, A is 1st level.

Those are the 3 combinations.

Well we have a formula for command word items is Spell level × caster level × 1,800 gp x (Number of Charges per day) with Number of charges of 1 a day you have 0.2 in the parenthesis, 0.4 for twice a day, 0.6 for 3x a day, 0.8 for four times a day, 1.0 for five times per day and if it makes sense that five times per day can be unlimited on a DMs call.

3x5x1800x0.2=5.4k gp
2x3x1800x0.2+1x1x1800x0.2=2160+360 gp = 2520 gp
1x1x1800x0.2 + 1x1x1800x0.2 + 1x1x1800x0.2 =360+360+360 = 1080

5.4k is vastly more than the 2nd and 3rd option so just price the item at that cost.

Even if you make option 2 and 3 have caster level of 5 it is still 5.4k. Option 2 would cost (3.6k+1.8k=5.4k) and Option 3 would cost (1.8k+1.8k+1.8k=5.4k)

[inuyasha]

Ah, heck, I meant to reply back here yesterday. Thank you all for all the feedback, it's gonna come in handy for an upcoming game :smallsmile:

I also forgot about how cheap the Healing Belt is... that's nuts.

[Fizban]

Oh, price for example item. Will vary by caster levels of course, and whether you decide that all effects must have the same CL or not. Later items generally set a single caster level (often failing to distinguish even when their more detailed effects are obviously based on different Cls, ha).

CL 5 Fireball with 3 charges costing 3 charges: 6,000gp (3*5*2000/5*3/3)

Scorching Ray with 3 charges costing two charges: 3,600gp (2*3*2000/5*3/2) or 6,000gp (2*5*2000/5*3/2)

Burning Hands with 3 charges costing one charge: CL 1= 1,200gp, CL 3= 3,600gp, CL 5= 6,000gp (1*CL*2000/5*3)

Note that at CL 5, they all have the same starting price due to the quirk of being 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells, being multiplied by 1/3, 1/2, or 1, relatively.

With all functions at CL 5, that's 6,000 +(6,000*0.75) +(6,000*0.5)= 13,500gp.

With CL 5 Fireball, CL 3 Scorching Ray (likely ignoring any note regarding SR for convenience), and say CL 3 Burning Hands, we get 6,000 +(3,600*0.75) +(3,600*0.5)= 10,500gp.

As you can see, reducing the caster level of the weaker effects makes the item cheaper, but as they were already cheaper to begin with, it's not by much. The effect will be even more pronounced the further apart the spell levels become. Though all the prices can be reduced by 10% by switching to command word.


For comparison we can look to the "best" example from MiC, the Storm Gauntlets. A pair of spiked gauntlets with 4 charges per day with caster level 9, producing Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, or a unique effect with four electric spheres that deal a total of 8d6 per round (effectively equivalent to at least a 4th if not 5th level spell). I don't recall where they're originally from- MiC has them at just a hair over 10,000, including their being a +1 magic weapon, and a bit of energy resistance, but I'mpretty sure the other version I found was at least 20,000, and may have had a lower caster level.

Or consider the Gloves of Flame, more easily found. In Magic of Eberron they're a whopping 19,000gp, which sounds absurd for a Burning Hands item. But it's Burning Hands at the full CL 5 (with the same average die result as a CL 5 Fireball), five times per day, with an alternate use that is clearly based on another 1st level spell at CL 5 in Produce Flame*, and also a continuous 1st level spell from Endure Elements. 1st level * cl 5 at 5/day is 10,000gp, alternate use another 7,500gp, continuous EE is 2,000*1/2 thanks to 24 hour base duration *1.5 for adding another ability, 1,500gp. Add them up and you get exactly 19,000gp, the MoE version is formula price (at least until you realize it also has a command word for a minor discount on some of the effects). Magic Item Compendium reduces the cost to 7,000gp, and I'll bet most people knee-jerk react at even that being far too much.

*An actual Produce Flame effect should have multiple touches based on the duration as the spell, but this is a common misinterpretation of Produce Flame.

For comparison, a 3rd level Eternal Wand is 10,900gp on its own. Or a simpler example, the Harrow Rod should have a formula price from 29,160 (if it's a 3rd level command word with mysteriously higher DC) to 54,000gp (for a 5th level spell 3/day), and yet is priced at 14,000gp. The Rod of Grievous Wounds would be formula price, if it weren't getting CL 5 and the ability to hit everyone in reach instead of a single target both for free. In short, damaging effects (as well as, ya know, most other effects) in MiC have completely arbitrary prices. No surprise as they proudly state is upfront that they just made the prices whatever they wanted, but yeah.


The problem of course arises from the fact that instantaneous hp damage and healing feel like they should be cheap. And in a lot of ways they should be cheap, as it is daily or continuous buffs that are the biggest concern, multiplying their effect by every fight they're used in, when an instant effect can by definition only affect one turn of one fight. But in the same way that non-fighters are expected to not be able to buy the ability to Fight effectively, non-casters expected to not be able to buy the ability to blast effectively. Which is then exacerbated by the fact that people look at an item with one ability they like and two alternate abilities they'll only use in the perfect situation, and thus expect the item to cost only a little more than the ability they actually want, when alternate functions are priced based on the idea that these are completely different effects and having the option matters. Except most variable charge items are the same effect at varying degrees of efficiency, so they actually aren't alternate functions at all.

And now that I've finished that:

5.4k for your sample item. Math is below.
5.4k is vastly more than the 2nd and 3rd option so just price the item at that cost.
There is no official support that I'm aware of for just adding extra abilities for free- occasional examples of what one might call rounding errors and plenty of gratuitously adjusted pricing, but this is not an item with a dozen fiat functions or one being given a flat round number. The item has three primary functions specifically set up in a variable charge system: the price cannot reasonably be the exact same as the price as an item of the most powerful effect without those extra functions: it has to be different, but instead of providing a reason why the most expensive ability is actually overpriced and thus some extra stuff can be added, you've deliberately accepted the one price and then ignored the others. It would be better to just use an entirely fiat price than starting with a formula concept and then ignoring 2/3 of the item's entry for any sort of cost estimate.


Darn right it does. Over in the Rules of the Game (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041221a), Skip Williams blurts out that if you want something to take two or more charges, you just divide it by the number of charges required. This gets real hilarious if you want an ultra-cheap magic staff to fuel Eilservs School. Staff of Light, 50 charges, takes 50 charges to use staff once...
Which isn't exactly why I've laid out the specific benchmarks- but Scepters make a point of being between Wands and Staves with up to two spells and the ability to have 2 charge costs, and published Staves never have only one spell nor do they ever lack a spell at a single charge: Since by the time you can actually afford to craft a spell trigger item above 4th you can already take Craft Staff, which has essentially zero downsides, I specifically rule that Staves must have two or more spells and at least one must cost a single charge. But Scepters can still have a single spell, and at 2 charges, letting you actually maybe craft a trigger item of a high level spell before endgame, as well as make an item with multiple low level spells without that massive cl 8 minimum.