Reverse engineering "Rapid Wrath"

[schreier]

It's a +1 mighty cleaving shortspear that also doubles the "speed of the creature carrying it" in Ghostwalk

It costs 11,702 ... a +2 shortspear (+1 and mighty cleaving) costs 8,302 ... a +3 is way more expensive so it seems clearly to be a "fixed cost" enchantment. 11,702 - 8,302 = 3,400

So 3,400 to double the speed seems very cheap ... thoughts?

Edit - sorry, I found other posts with the math -- but really the question is ... does anyone allow the item? Does it double all movement forms?

[Morphic tide]

It's keyed to Expeditious Retreat, which is a 1st-level minute/level spell that gives an Enhancement bonus equal to the "standard" land speed. As the formula there is SL*CL*2,000*2, you'd get 4,000 GP from the custom item guidelines, for a much weaker effect. Indeed, as a doubling, it stacks with Enhancement bonuses like the source spell. Though I think it only gives +1* to Run speed, where Expeditious Retreat would be 2.5* to the 3* to a (non-Dwarf, Run-feat-lacking) Heavy Armor wearer.

[Biggus]

It's keyed to Expeditious Retreat, which is a 1st-level minute/level spell that gives an Enhancement bonus equal to the "standard" land speed. As the formula there is SL*CL*2,000*2, you'd get 4,000 GP from the custom item guidelines, for a much weaker effect.

Ghostwalk is 3.0, and in 3.0 ER just gave a flat doubling of your move speed.

[Fizban]

It's a +1 mighty cleaving shortspear that also doubles the "speed of the creature carrying it" in Ghostwalk

It costs 11,702 ... a +2 shortspear (+1 and mighty cleaving) costs 8,302 ... a +3 is way more expensive so it seems clearly to be a "fixed cost" enchantment. 11,702 - 8,302 = 3,400

So 3,400 to double the speed seems very cheap ... thoughts?
As noted, it's a 3.0 item- where the formulas were often different or absent, and the spell being emulated worked differently.


Edit - sorry, I found other posts with the math -- but really the question is ... does anyone allow the item? Does it double all movement forms?
Generally when there is not specified movement speed type, the term "speed" refers to land speed. Or rather, land speed is just called speed, and other movement modes are called X speed (because this is a game written by humans, grown from a game based on combat between humans, where PCs are expected to be humans and basic fantasy humanoids, so things that humans don't do are different). It's so basic that even the Rules Compendium didn't bother making it up front explicit as they could (and maybe should) have, and yet the second of the two sentences describing "Speed," casually says, "Your speed while unarmored is your base land speed.", showing that speed means land speed, while continuing to refer simply to "speed" afterwards. I would have thought there'd be an FAQ entry, but apparently not- there might a Sage Advice article, but people whine about those as much or more than the FAQ.

So no, it does not double X speed mode, it only doubles speed, which is land speed. And even the, based on the 3.0 version of the spell, it doesn't really double your speed either, not in any sort of multiplication: it provides an enhancement bonus to your speed equal to your speed.

Is this a low price for the effect? Absolutely. And the 3.0 Boots of Striding and Springing were even cheaper at only 2,500gp for the same thing. This is a textbook example of a good 3.5 update, where they realized that (in a game written based on 20-30' land speed characters) they'd made speed boosts so cheap, and movement speed was so important to the tactical combat system, that those items became essentially mandatory while also destroying all sorts of expectations about combat (two forms of broken!). So they fixed it in the core books and assigned different bonuses and prices going forward. The item is missed on the list of changes in the 3.5 update for Ghostwalk, which means exactly as much as you decide it means, the same as them printing the item in the first place.

Would I allow it? No, obviously not.*

If you've got the kind of group where +30' constant speed for 2-3,000gp is already accepted as part of the game, you were already allowing it and you don't need this item, which is only notable as a loophole. A "RAW" item that is not just grandfathered in 3.0 material, which many "RAW 3.5" DMs would dismiss for not being "updated." Ghostwalk has an Official 3.5 Update, so naturally this means that just like all the RAW 1st Party Published Material, everything is 100% legal and perfect. If you have the kind of group where +30 constant speed is recognized as being way too huge for that price, then you don't need me to tell you that RAW "loopholes" don't matter. If you have a "RAW 3.5" group that has never before seen this loophole, congratulations, have fun deciding whether to accommodate the new paradigm or start making exceptions to "RAW." (The "you" in this case being rhetorical, as since you're asking the question it's pretty clear you're not being so straw-manningly obtuse).


*Actually this decision could go further, since it's not actually a flat-cost property or standalone item: it's a Specific Weapon. Which means that the effect is only available as part of that package, and is thus getting a special discount and/or special allowance to exist in the first place. The rest of the item, a spear (generally unpopular weapon) with +1 Mighty Cleaving (a terrible weapon property by almost any standard which I've never seen anyone stick up for), might make up for this. It is unlikely to work with an existing weapon specialist, and a character built to the base weapon will have certain reductions in base power (worse base damage and crit) than if they used a different weapon. Meanwhile if we accept Mighty Cleaving as worth nothing (or say, 3,400gp) , then the Expeditious Retreat property is actually a scaling +1 bonus equivalent, a minimum cost of +6,000 and getting more expensive as the game progresses- particularly since as a Specific weapon, you can't use any tricks to get this "property" on a non-weapon weapon (gauntlet, spikes, etc) to stack with your actual main weapon: you've got to carry a shortspear in your hand to get the effect.

Taking this into account, would I allow it? Still no, because any amount of constant +30 land speed is too disruptive on its own. There was a thread a while back about better pricing for speed bonuses, *searches*, ah naturally it started with Expeditious Retreat and went from there: link (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628205-Pricing-continuous-expeditious-retreat). I did a whole bunch of analysis ending in a pretty harsh price, before finally deciding that the formula Zaq made up was pretty good, with a note that it does still introduce an important new lever into common gear loadouts.

[Crichton]

Normally when I see your replies and posts, Fizban, I find myself nodding along in pretty much total agreement, with both the sentiment and content, but with respect, this time I gotta say I disagree with pretty much all of this except the idea that it's highly dependent on your own table/campaign






Generally when there is not specified movement speed type, the term "speed" refers to land speed. Or rather, land speed is just called speed, and other movement modes are called X speed (because this is a game written by humans, grown from a game based on combat between humans, where PCs are expected to be humans and basic fantasy humanoids, so things that humans don't do are different). It's so basic that even the Rules Compendium didn't bother making it up front explicit as they could (and maybe should) have, and yet the second of the two sentences describing "Speed," casually says, "Your speed while unarmored is your base land speed.", showing that speed means land speed, while continuing to refer simply to "speed" afterwards. I would have thought there'd be an FAQ entry, but apparently not- there might a Sage Advice article, but people whine about those as much or more than the FAQ.

You *might* be correct with this point, but I don't think so(I didn't deep dive to check for other possible citations), but even so, with regard to most spells or items that grant or alter speeds in game, it's a moot point.

Most (all?) spells or items that grant a movement mode other than land speed define it in one of two ways: as a specific number, or as a multiple of your base land speed. The former type are irrelevant, since they just set a number (which could be modified by something later), and the latter type use 'base land speed' as the anchor to define it anyway, so IF the term 'base speed' only applies to walking/land speed, as you've claimed above, is still irrelevant. Anything that modified (or even doubled!) your 'base speed' would also modify or double your other speeds that are defined in this way.

As for your RC text, that line is pretty clearly aimed the other direction - not defining the term 'speed' as meaning your land speed only, but noting that the number of feet-per-round your normal 'base land speed' is is what your 'speed' is until it's limited by wearing armor or changed by some other limitation. It's talking about how fast you can move when unarmored, not setting a rules-defined meaning for the word 'speed' in all contexts.



So no, it does not double X speed mode, it only doubles speed, which is land speed.
As above - yes, it does double land speed, at least for any movement mode that's defined as a multiple of your base or walking speed. Honestly I'm not convinced 'base speed' can ONLY EVER refer exclusively to land speed.

Barring a very clear citation somewhere else, something that says 'doubles your speed' or 'increases your speed by X' does exactly that, in the most simple way possible - by applying to any speed you happen to have.




And even the, based on the 3.0 version of the spell, it doesn't really double your speed either, not in any sort of multiplication: it provides an enhancement bonus to your speed equal to your speed.
This is patently false. What are you basing this claim on? It says right there clear as day in the text 'doubles the speed of a creature that carries it'. No mention of enhancement bonus, and items that have spell prerequisites DO NOT inherit any text or limitations from the spell required, so even if you used the updated 3.5 version of Expeditious Retreat, this item would still double your speed as an untyped increase, not an enhancement bonus, or any bonus at all, really.
It does what the text says it does. Period. Full Stop.





*Actually this decision could go further, since it's not actually a flat-cost property or standalone item: it's a Specific Weapon. Which means that the effect is only available as part of that package, and is thus getting a special discount and/or special allowance to exist in the first place. The rest of the item, a spear (generally unpopular weapon) with +1 Mighty Cleaving (a terrible weapon property by almost any standard which I've never seen anyone stick up for), might make up for this. It is unlikely to work with an existing weapon specialist, and a character built to the base weapon will have certain reductions in base power (worse base damage and crit) than if they used a different weapon. Meanwhile if we accept Mighty Cleaving as worth nothing (or say, 3,400gp) , then the Expeditious Retreat property is actually a scaling +1 bonus equivalent, a minimum cost of +6,000 and getting more expensive as the game progresses- particularly since as a Specific weapon, you can't use any tricks to get this "property" on a non-weapon weapon (gauntlet, spikes, etc) to stack with your actual main weapon: you've got to carry a shortspear in your hand to get the effect.
You've lost me here. I agree about the potential ruling on specific weapons only being allowed in their entirety being a good guideline for some tables, but that's a ruling, not a rule. Custom magic items are always subject to DM approval anyway, but there's not a rule in text anywhere I've seen that says that outright about specific weapons.
But where you lose me is when you're trying to use subjective value of each weapon property in the arithmetic of magic weapon pricing rules. Comparative desirability of different weapon properties listed in the same pricepoint table isn't in that formula anywhere. And then when you try to say that Mighty Cleaving, an already-defined-and-priced weapon property might be taken as a flat price package so you can artificially change the speed bonus to a scaling property? Where are you getting ANY of this? Best I can tell, and truly I mean this with respect, is that you're just tossing the magic item pricing rules out the window and making all this up to fit your predetermined idea of relative values?

The formula the OP used is the correct one from the rules. It might be silly, it might be broken and a good idea to disallow it for this item, but it's correct.




Taking this into account, would I allow it? Still no, because any amount of constant +30 land speed is too disruptive on its own. There was a thread a while back about better pricing for speed bonuses, *searches*, ah naturally it started with Expeditious Retreat and went from there: link (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628205-Pricing-continuous-expeditious-retreat). I did a whole bunch of analysis ending in a pretty harsh price, before finally deciding that the formula Zaq made up was pretty good, with a note that it does still introduce an important new lever into common gear loadouts.

Honestly given how many different ways there are to increase speed, I don't think that's a fair judgment. Yes, I agree that a big increase to combat speed is gamechanging and the combat system wasn't really designed for those numbers. But there are just so dang many ways to get huge speed, or even moderate speed, that this one way isn't that big a deal. Is it underpriced if you extract that one property from it using the magic item pricing formulas? Maybe? That's a subjective decision for the DM, and there are plenty of guidelines for that, the most important one being to compare it to other published items of similar effect.





To summarize -

Yes, Rapid Wrath does double your speed. No, it's not an enhancement bonus, or any type of bonus. It's not limited to only your land speed. And if the price is extracted to 3400gp by using the magic item formulas to reverse engineer the price, the question of if that's underpriced is subjective, but probably a yes.

Existing items that increase speed have prices with wild and inconsistent variation, so any reverse engineering we want to do to come to a 'standard' formula for speed pricing is gonna be messy



None of that is where Rapid Wrath gets called 'broken' though. It's when you apply a bunch of other increases to speed, then use it to double the sum total of them. That and the fun text that you don't have to wield or even hold on to the spear in your hands to get this bonus. You merely need to 'carry' it. Have fun with that one :D

[schreier]

Really interesting arguments. I think it will come into play more in non-combat than combat. From my experience, most combat is within range of a 30' move, let alone a 60'.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm on Crichton's side.
I also wanted to add that a specific magic item's effect may be stronger than the spell it is based of. This is very common in 3.5

The Spear's effect is imho very strong and thus shouldn't be reverse engineered. Especially if you consider that you don't need to wield it to profit from its effect. You sole need to carry it. So, imho you should pay the entire price tag if you want it (if I would DM). It still would be worth getting it, even if you would use other weapons for actual fighting. You could roleplay it as some kind of holy relict that you need to carry and may not wield (bonus points if you fight unarmed imho^^).


Really interesting arguments. I think it will come into play more in non-combat than combat. From my experience, most combat is within range of a 30' move, let alone a 60'.

While this is true, high mobility is still nice to have and can make a big difference for some builds. With enough speed you can outmaneuver the enemies frontline and go straight for the ranged/caster camp behind. Or get straight to the BBEG. And if you are flying, more speed is generally nice to have due to 3rd dimension sometimes causing you to need more movements to get to your desired destination.

Sneaky builds also profit heavily from this. Since you want to sneak ahead of your team (and sneaking slows your movement down) it's nice to have more movement speed than usual. And if your cover gets blown out, you can retreat faster and get back to your teammates.

Ranged builds can kite enemies better while still attacking/casting. If your movement speed is doubled, "normal speed enemies" (30ft) will have a hard time to catch you. Even with double movement actions in a turn they would need to run to catch up.

Imho speed is an undervalued stat that can be often used for strategical advantage.

[Fizban]

Kinda got two different discussions here so it's got long-


Most (all?) spells or items that grant a movement mode other than land speed define it in one of two ways: as a specific number, or as a multiple of your base land speed. The former type are irrelevant, since they just set a number (which could be modified by something later), and the latter type use 'base land speed' as the anchor to define it anyway, so IF the term 'base speed' only applies to walking/land speed, as you've claimed above, is still irrelevant. Anything that modified (or even doubled!) your 'base speed' would also modify or double your other speeds that are defined in this way.
Indeed, there are (usually player-focused class and/or magic based) abilities that grant extra movement modes with speed based on your walking speed, but they are by no means even the norm. It's relevant if the number being added only applies to a certain type of speed. And there's plenty of case to be made even for alternate modes that reference your land speed as to whether they should actually update when your land speed goes up. It's just not a well defined system, because it's not a unified system: there is speed, additional monster speeds, and then all sorts of things that work however they work.


As for your RC text, that line is pretty clearly aimed the other direction - not defining the term 'speed' as meaning your land speed only, but noting that the number of feet-per-round your normal 'base land speed' is is what your 'speed' is until it's limited by wearing armor or changed by some other limitation. It's talking about how fast you can move when unarmored, not setting a rules-defined meaning for the word 'speed' in all contexts.
I did not say it was a definition- I said that it essentially implied the definition should have already been obvious. If the phrase "unarmored speed," specifically refers to your base land speed, it follows that "speed" must have already meant land speed. It should also be noted that this RC text is not a direct adaptation of the original rules- it's clearly cobbled together in attempt to be more clear, and simply fails to actually be clear (not the only occurrence in the book). Making a term out of "unarmored speed" is itself rather unnecessary. I mentioned it only because it's what you find when looking in the place you'd expect to find the clarification: no actual definition, but a casual line that seems to already have inducted a previous definition.


Barring a very clear citation somewhere else, something that says 'doubles your speed' or 'increases your speed by X' does exactly that, in the most simple way possible - by applying to any speed you happen to have.
Which as I said is normally just land speed, to the point that the game very often refers to "speed" without specifying "land." I in turn can demand that you provide a direct citation saying that any reference to "speed" actually applies to all movement modes, and I'm pretty sure you can't provide that any more than I can the opposite. It's a badly defined system, but since the default unspecified "speed" of all creatures is (land) speed, and all instances of other movement modes must be specified, I see no reason to take the reading that the term "speed" used alone actually includes all possible movements. Meanwhile the Haste spell specifies that it applies to alternate movement modes, and Wings of the Sea (SpC 240-241)- which is the same +30 for 1/min level at 1st level as Expeditious Retreat, but only for swim speeds, both heavily imply the opposite: speed does not mean all speeds if they're not specified or else Haste shouldn't bother, and Wings of the Sea would have no reason to exist if Expeditious Retreat already doubled swim speeds.

You can say that the people who wrote the spells were wrong, but now you're trying to make a finicky RAW wording argument while ignoring Writers. You can say it's all piecemeal circumstantial evidence taken out of context, but it's more evidence than no evidence and as far as I know there is no direct statement contradicting it. And if I err, I choose to err on the side of less busted.


This is patently false. What are you basing this claim on? It says right there clear as day in the text 'doubles the speed of a creature that carries it'. No mention of enhancement bonus, and items that have spell prerequisites DO NOT inherit any text or limitations from the spell required, so even if you used the updated 3.5 version of Expeditious Retreat, this item would still double your speed as an untyped increase, not an enhancement bonus, or any bonus at all, really.
It does what the text says it does. Period. Full Stop.
The quote is- "Your speed and maximum jumping distances both double (see the Jump skill, page 70). These benefits count as enhancement bonuses. [3.0 PHB 202]" Thus, it very much mentions an enhancement bonus: an enhancement bonus equal to your speed. This may or may not change if something else changes your speed, depending on the DM's interpretation of whether such things should be "dynamic" or not- and I expect that's a part of why they changed it to a flat +30'.

Also, speed, singular. Not speeds. There is only one speed, singular, unspecified, multiple speeds would be speeds.

(Also I belatedly realize you're probably focusing on the text only in the Ghostwalk entry for this particular item, which I barely even care about because it's clearly referring to Expeditious Retreat: Any questions or confusion about the item should obviously be directed to the spell as standard practice.)


It comes down to the reading. I started in 3.0 with the PHB and DMG, internalizing that speed is speed, that speed singular means land speed, that the boots double "normal" speed, and this was only strengthened as 3.5 Haste specifies how it boosts all movement modes rather than just speed, and again Wings of the Sea must exist for a reason. (And not that random forumites matter, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this reading, and this is an old argument).

You're clearly working from an expectation that all terms are well defined and words with general applications won't have been used as specific terms, and as below you expect formulas to be reversible, an understandable expectation if you approach from an outside rules-lawyery/optimizing perspective, but that's just not how the game developed. There are human errors, things that sometimes must be understood without explicit definition, and the non-formula formulas that the DM uses to estimate things usually don't work both ways.

Or in short I expect my examples and analysis will not sway you, and neither will you convince me that the terminology is actually as clear as one would hope it would be (if you wish, you may of course restate your own side in laborious detail once more so we're even, it's only fair :smallwink:)


You've lost me here. I agree about the potential ruling on specific weapons only being allowed in their entirety being a good guideline for some tables, but that's a ruling, not a rule. Custom magic items are always subject to DM approval anyway, but there's not a rule in text anywhere I've seen that says that outright about specific weapons.
As you just said yourself, custom items require DM approval. A published Specific item has a specific level of RAW justification in that hey, they published this item, but that only goes as far as the item exactly as published.


But where you lose me is when you're trying to use subjective value of each weapon property in the arithmetic of magic weapon pricing rules. Comparative desirability of different weapon properties listed in the same pricepoint table isn't in that formula anywhere. And then when you try to say that Mighty Cleaving, an already-defined-and-priced weapon property might be taken as a flat price package so you can artificially change the speed bonus to a scaling property? Where are you getting ANY of this? Best I can tell, and truly I mean this with respect, is that you're just tossing the magic item pricing rules out the window and making all this up to fit your predetermined idea of relative values?
I'm being a DM. Formulas, RAW prices, etc, only matter as much as I decide they matter (and if you think the published material is any different, you should go read the sidebars in Magic Item Compendium, where they admit to doing far more with, I expect, far less justification than I put in my analyses). I could value the desired effect in any of several different ways, and indeed, if I'm doing my job right I should be analyzing them several different ways.

There's the original Specific item as written, there's the effective cost they added to the non-Specific part of that item, there's the "RAW formula" price for adding the continuous spell effect, there's formula price for the effect including whatever changes I think the "formula" and "spell" need to actually make sense (including questions of Personal spell range), there's Zaq's "bonus" style formula progression from the thread I linked, there's however I might set it up as a non-continuous effect, there's the comparisons to any and all other similar published effects, and all of those evaluations can be made twice (once for the true updated effect which ought to be +30', and once for a true "doubling"), and maybe even twice again (for both what I think is the correct (land) speed reading and the (any and all) speed reading you're using)- and there's even comparisons to feats and class features, and then somewhere before, during, or after all of that there's the simple question of whether I think a given effect is appropriate for my game at all.

Formulas are where item pricing begins (maybe), not ends. And the OP isn't even asking for pricing- they've specifically said they found a post with "the math." What they want is an evaluation, and there are dozens of ways to evaluate the question.

I don't really know how to say it any clearer. If you find non-formula evaluations of items offensive, you're gonna have to dump most of MiC, even lots of the DMG. I provided a non-formula line of reasoning that could be used for evaluating the given item the way it is- treating the (massive, scaling as originally written) speed increase as a sort of hidden +1 cost ability (and thus a proper scaling cost) by making it only available on a Specific weapon that must always carry a particular undesirable +1 cost ability, is the same as any other "feat tax" or "required dip" or what have you, while the extra flat cost could be taken as the writer's real evaluation of the value of Mighty Cleaving (or as a smokescreen, or to set a certain minimum total cost). I don't think this is actually the case of course, it's much more likely they just arbitrarily picked a price near that of the Boots of Striding and Springing, but there are tons of ways to make up item costs.

Masking an ability you wouldn't allow on just anything by trying it to a Specific weapon* with a "tax" is pretty clever I think, letting you do a thing for a certain type of character or idea without making it available to everyone (not without extra cost anyway), the same way you can make a feat/PrC/etc with prerequisite that most characters wouldn't have, but for a particular character was already on their to-do list. It may not always be useful for reverse-engineering, but it's certainly useful for evaluating and making your own items, Far more useful than slapping flat prices on everything, it gives you way to enforce a scaling cost without putting things on the +X bonus list that don't belong there.

*Specific item would have worked, until MiC really suck a shoe in the door on combining anything with anything. Slot exclusivity was never a fully realized system, but with ambiguity and the decisions left on the DM's side, they could simply allow acceptable substitutions while disallowing them when they wanted a slot conflict. And yet, MiC items cause more interesting slot conflicts.

The formula the OP used is the correct one from the rules. It might be silly, it might be broken and a good idea to disallow it for this item, but it's correct.
No, it's not. As you just said yourself, custom items are custom and require DM approval. There is no formula for removing the non-bonus valued abilities from a Specific weapon- there is only a rule regarding the additional enhancement of such weapons. A formula reversing that is not a rule- it's a new made-up price that the DM has to approve. And because the published version of the item is restricted to a specific base weapon with specific mandatory abilities, a standalone version at the same cost but applicable to any base weapon of choice with no mandatory ability restrictions, would in fact be objectively more powerful.

It may be common practice, it may be fine in many cases, but these are all DM judgements being made (or more likely handwaved away as not even being worth consideration, ha), not a rules based formula that can be claimed as "correct."



Honestly given how many different ways there are to increase speed, I don't think that's a fair judgment. Yes, I agree that a big increase to combat speed is gamechanging and the combat system wasn't really designed for those numbers. But there are just so dang many ways to get huge speed, or even moderate speed, that this one way isn't that big a deal. Is it underpriced if you extract that one property from it using the magic item pricing formulas? Maybe? That's a subjective decision for the DM, and there are plenty of guidelines for that, the most important one being to compare it to other published items of similar effect.
Are there really that many ways to increase speed? In that magnitude? At the price you saying is "correct?" No, else it would not be a significant question.

And you're not comparing to to published items of similar effect: the core item of similar effect was reduced to +10', the core spell of similar effect was reduced to +30', and there is only one (4th level, non-combat speed only) spell I'm aware of that actually doubles speed in 3.5. The only particularly easy way to get massive speed is to cast Phantom Steed, which is a 3rd level spell with extra drawbacks. Again, I'm pretty sure the only reason anyone cares about this item is specifically because it's an official loophole speed doubler, which purposefully does not exist in the 3.5 material.

This is the "well it's not a strong as something I imagine a wizard undefined spellcaster can probably do so it's fine" argument. Tell me how a character does the thing, and you may find it's not actually that easy when there's not a cheap item being allowed by circular spellcaster logic.

I will note that my phrasing of "any amount of +30' land speed is too disruptive on its own" was a poor choice, since I was linking a thread where I did have two acceptable prices: 27,000gp and 30,000gp. For doubling of tactical speed though, yeah I don't think there's any convincing me that's ever appropriate.



To summarize -

Yes, Rapid Wrath does double your speed. No, it's not an enhancement bonus, or any type of bonus. It's not limited to only your land speed. And if the price is extracted to 3400gp by using the magic item formulas to reverse engineer the price, the question of if that's underpriced is subjective, but probably a yes.
And to summarize the counter points:

Yes, it doubles your "speed," if you ignore the 3.5 update it clearly should have had, and choose to ignore the evidence/grammar clues that show non-land speeds must be specified. Meanwhile there is no such thing as a "price extraction using magic item formulas" for Specific items, and acting like there is only contributes to an environment where DMs are pressured to give in to "formulas" rather than do their jobs.

Heck, I almost care less about the actual assigned value than the means used to get there. If you (the rhetorical you) think it should be cheap, fine, but admit that it's you making that choice (or demand) rather than hiding behind non-existent reversed formulas. Nearly all the problems in the game stem from people refusing to take responsibility because blah blah some formula that doesn't even work the way they want it to to cover their rear. :smallannoyed:


Existing items that increase speed have prices with wild and inconsistent variation, so any reverse engineering we want to do to come to a 'standard' formula for speed pricing is gonna be messy
I mean, Zaq cleaned house pretty hard in that other thread just making up a formula out of thin air. The reason the published items are all over the place is because yeah, the writers are all over the place. They printed a 1,400gp swift action teleport item in MiC. Obviously depending on which writer you're dealing with, some are following conservative constant bonus concepts, some go formula magitech, and some literally just don't care and write "tactical" items at whatever price they damn well feel like. The messier it is, the more obvious it should be that "extracting" a price from something, not even using the price that the writer actually gave for game use but making up a lower unrestricted price, is going to make things worse.



None of that is where Rapid Wrath gets called 'broken' though. It's when you apply a bunch of other increases to speed, then use it to double the sum total of them. That and the fun text that you don't have to wield or even hold on to the spear in your hands to get this bonus. You merely need to 'carry' it. Have fun with that one :D
Which is why the DM should be doing their job in evaluating, altering, or disallowing items as needed. The obvious update gets rid of the "doubling" problem immediately. Again, if something is specifically well known for being a potentially broken loophole, why would anyone expect that item to be allowed as written? Or even worse, not as written, but at an even lower made-up cost? Thus, the OP's question.

[Crichton]

This is already getting too long and risking derailing the thread, so I'll be somewhat selective in what i respond to. Suffice to say we are looking at this from two different angles, and definitely disagree on at least one big point.





If the phrase "unarmored speed," specifically refers to your base land speed, it follows that "speed" must have already meant land speed.
But that phrase *doesn't* specifically refer to your base land speed. That's not stated anywhere, you're assuming and inferring something that is neither stated nor implied


Which as I said is normally just land speed
No, it isn't. "Land speed" and "base land speed" are just land speed. "Speed" is undefined


It's a badly defined system,
On this we can heartily agree!


but since the default unspecified "speed" of all creatures is (land) speed,
Again, it isn't.


and all instances of other movement modes must be specified,
Again, you're assuming and inferring something that is neither stated nor implied. You're imposing an outside, unstated 'must' condition that doesn't exist


I see no reason to take the reading that the term "speed" used alone actually includes all possible movements.
No, not *all* possible movements any time the word 'speed' is used. *Any* possible movements unless specific text or context in a particular instance restricts it otherwise (or as we've agreed, things are inconsistent and ill-defined)


You're clearly working from an expectation that all terms are well defined and words with general applications won't have been used as specific terms
No, I'm not. Quite the opposite, actually! If anything, you're trying to shoehorn a general-use term ('speed') into a rules-defined term's box ('land speed'). I'm saying the general term 'speed' is applied as a general term, not a restricted, defined term.






Just to toss out some counterexamples, plenty of other places specifically refer to 'base land speed' and 'land speed' too, but I don't see you mentioning those because they poke holes in your questionable claim that 'speed' has to only ever refer to 'land speed'

A couple obvious examples - Expeditious Retreat itself, Longstrider, the Quick trait, the psionic powers Burst and Form of Doom. Practically every race entry or monster entry that has an '___ as characters' entry uses the phrase 'base land speed'

Do these mean 'speed' is a well defined term and can only ever mean one thing? No, as I say above, I'm not the one trying to restrict its potential meaning in that way. I see 'speed' being used in a general-use sense, and only when accompanied by another restrictive term such as land, fly, swim, or burrow is it limited to that form of movement, unless some other piece of context in that specific entry comes in to mitigate that. So if something says it increases, or doubles a creature's "speed" without those terms? Then it increases their speed. Any speed they may have.











you're probably focusing on the text only in the Ghostwalk entry for this particular item
Yes. Yes I am. And you should be too. A magic item does exactly and only what it says in its entry, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't rely on the text of any spell prerequisites or anything else, and the text of said spell prerequisites cannot alter or impose any further restrictions on the magic item's effects in any way.



which I barely even care about because it's clearly referring to Expeditious Retreat
Again, magic item entries don't 'refer' to the rules of their spell prerequisites for clarification or additional restrictions. They very often even do things that the spell prerequisite itself doesn't do, or act much more potently than the spell prerequisite, or things the spell prerequisite isn't even particularly related to. Are we looking to the *other* 'referred' spell in Rapid Wrath, Divine Power, and suddenly saying the spear also increases your BAB and gives your strength and temp hp? No, we're not.










Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I ought to have been, as it seems you've focused on the wrong aspect of this section. Allow me to try to be clearer:





it's a Specific Weapon. Which means that the effect is only available as part of that package
You're saying this as if this is a rule. Is it? Or is this an assumption you're making and imposing as if it were an actual rule?



Meanwhile if we accept Mighty Cleaving as worth nothing (or say, 3,400gp)
My point was this - why are you taking a term that *actually is* a rules defined, priced weapon property, and contradicting that entry to instead impose your subjective value judgment on it? That is the DM's right, as always, but if you're going to just toss out the pricing info that is listed and clearly defined, just say that - 'I'm gonna ignore the info we do have about the aspects of this weapon that are defined in the book and what those are listed as being worth, and just make something up, as is my DM privilege'


you've got to carry a shortspear in your hand to get the effect.
To clarify, no, you don't have to carry it 'in your hand', you merely have to carry it. Anywhere it can count as being carried



Are there really that many ways to increase speed? In that magnitude?
Yes. In the magnitude of "any amount of +30' " or smaller amounts that stack, there are plenty.
Off the top of my head?

-Quick Trait - +10 increase to 'base land speed'
-Shaundakul's Boots - +10 untyped increase to 'base speed', with the option to 1/day 'double his base speed' for 5 minutes
-Footsteps of the Divine - +40 untyped increase to 'base speed'
-Expeditious retreat or custom item thereof (or gained at-will via Ronove of the Teeth of Dahlver-nar) - +30 enhancement bonus to 'base land speed'
-Armor Crystal of Alacrity - +5 morale bonus to 'land speed'

So assuming a normal racial speed of 30ft, your land speed is now 125ft. Took some significant investment to get them all, but that's without any doubling at all.

There are more, and entire handbooks have been written that list most/all of them. As we've said above, prices or other costs vary wildly, which is why this discussion exists in the first place





At the price you saying is "correct?
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn't say this was 'correct' in that it's the price a DM *should* charge/allow. I said it was 'correct' in that once you remove the known quantities in the price of the item, that's the amount that was left over for the undefined benefits.

As you state, this kind of reverse engineering isn't entirely supported in the rules. But the price of a +1 Mighty Cleaving shortspear is a known quantity, listed and defined in the rules, so it's only normal that a DM would use that as a starting point when examining this item and its other benefits. That's what I meant by 'correct' - that the math used was accurate to the known item pricing information.




the true updated effect which ought to be +30'

The obvious update

There IS NO update for the item, and the fact that the spell prerequisite got an update doesn't change the item's effects in any way whatsoever. The item you seem to be alluding to - a +1 Mighty Cleaving shortspear the provides a +30' enhancement bonus to base land speed as per the 3.5 version of Expeditious Retreat - doesn't exist outside of making a custom magic item. But Rapid Wrath does, and its effects were not changed by the game edition updating to 3.5







All that said, the thread you linked had some great discussion on what kind of pricing there *should* be for speed boosts, and it makes for a good resource for a DM to start with to implement some sort of sanity/consistency around speed pricing in their particular game.



And to schreier, sorry about the thread derailing, hopefully the discussion was helpful, and in direct answer to your questions - yes it doubles all movement forms, and personally yes I allow it, but only in 'mid to high op' games where that amount of boost isn't gamebreaking

[schreier]

All of the discussion was awesome ... the obvious takeaway is ... ask the DM :) But I see all sides as reasonable in this case, as long as it is understood the item's specific ability/cost is not clearly available outside a custom item but is pretty clearly stated in the 3.0 item (which may be out of date)

Thank you!

[Fizban]

This is already getting too long and risking derailing the thread, so I'll be somewhat selective in what i respond to. Suffice to say we are looking at this from two different angles, and definitely disagree on at least one big point.
That's usually the case- but if you're trying to be concise, just going through and saying "nuh uh" without new information does the opposite, particularly with huge swathes of empty line breaks. I don't see a response to my more specific examples, but I will presume that is what your choice of counterexamples is meant to be.


but I don't see you mentioning those because they poke holes in your questionable claim that 'speed' has to only ever refer to 'land speed'
No, you don't see me mentioning a bajillion other things because as much time as I apparently felt like putting into making DnD posts over my vacation, that does not mean I felt like checking every possible thing that references "speed." I traced the best examples that came to mind to show my line of reasoning, from the niggling surety in the back of my head.


Yes. Yes I am. And you should be too. A magic item does exactly and only what it says in its entry, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't rely on the text of any spell prerequisites or anything else, and the text of said spell prerequisites cannot alter or impose any further restrictions on the magic item's effects in any way.
As long as you never complain about any confusion or problems that causes, sure go ahead. But eventually there's always going to be something, and then you'll have to make a choice about how you're going to deal with it. I'm fairly certain that there is a line somewhere that does directly suggest checking the related mechanics such as the spells the item is based on when such questions or problems come up, but no, I'm not going to re-read half a dozen books searching for an explicit citation to prove I have permission to use common sense.


You're saying this as if this is a rule. Is it? Or is this an assumption you're making and imposing as if it were an actual rule?
Now I need a rules citation that says things are things? A Specific published weapon is what it is. It is not a license to tear the text apart by a made up formula and claim the result is officially supported. Custom items are custom. The RAW published item is the RAW published item. It's starting to feel like you're being contrary for its own sake.


My point was this - why are you taking a term that *actually is* a rules defined, priced weapon property, and contradicting that entry to instead impose your subjective value judgment on it? That is the DM's right, as always, but if you're going to just toss out the pricing info that is listed and clearly defined, just say that - 'I'm gonna ignore the info we do have about the aspects of this weapon that are defined in the book and what those are listed as being worth, and just make something up, as is my DM privilege'
I have already explained in detail how a DM could use all sorts of methods for pricing items, and evaluate existing items by any such method they might use to price one. The OP asked for evaluations of the item from other DM's perspectivse, I gave some.

You seem to be following a (false) binary: there is the Official Price, and there is "subjective value that ignores the rules because DM privilege." But the Official Prices are generated with subjective value judgements of writers who are no more perfect than I am, all over the place, which is confirmed to be the case for this item as soon as one finds that it does not immediately match a formula.

Ghostwalk came out in 2003, which is 3 years after the 3.0 PHB. Its writers had 3 years of experience since the initial finalization of the 3.x rules. It is now 2022. I have had some 20 years of experience with these rules, off and on. Whose non-formula value judgement is going to be more accurate? You don't have to agree with me, but continuing to apparently insist a 19 year old bit of text with no documentation is more important than actually doing the DM's job of evaluating items, is a bit insulting.


To clarify, no, you don't have to carry it 'in your hand', you merely have to carry it. Anywhere it can count as being carried
Fair enough, but naturally I would overrule that because items that vaguely say "carried" should not be generating free "slots." A weapon is meant to be wielded.


Yes. In the magnitude of "any amount of +30' " or smaller amounts that stack, there are plenty.
Off the top of my head?

-Quick Trait - +10 increase to 'base land speed'
-Shaundakul's Boots - +10 untyped increase to 'base speed', with the option to 1/day 'double his base speed' for 5 minutes
-Footsteps of the Divine - +40 untyped increase to 'base speed'
-Expeditious retreat or custom item thereof (or gained at-will via Ronove of the Teeth of Dahlver-nar) - +30 enhancement bonus to 'base land speed'
-Armor Crystal of Alacrity - +5 morale bonus to 'land speed'

Traits are a 100% optional system, so you're the one that added that as the DM, it's your own fault.
Shaundakul's Boots I've never even heard of -ah, they're from Magic of Faerun, at least that is contemporary with the comparison.
Footsteps of the Divine is a 3rd level spell that lasts 1 round/level, from Complete Champion, at the tail end of 3.5.
"custom item of Expeditious Retreat" proves nothing except admitting that there is no published item.
And +5 from the Crystal of Alacrity is a mere +5, which is nothing compared to +30, let alone "double everything."

So what I'm seeing here is circular logic and/or reverse justification (or should I just call it "char-op logic?"): you have one core spell, later spells that justified themselves based on that core spell, optional rules and custom items, which can then stack up to a total, as justification for why you should be allowed to skip straight to that total at lower cost. That's saying that because of things printed years later that don't actually do the thing, you should be able to do the thing cheap.


Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn't say this was 'correct' in that it's the price a DM *should* charge/allow. I said it was 'correct' in that once you remove the known quantities in the price of the item, that's the amount that was left over for the undefined benefits.
You can decide upon a particular operation and the math can be correct, but calling it the "correct price," particularly in direct opposition to someone else's evaluation, says a lot more than simply "your math has no errors."


There IS NO update for the item, and the fact that the spell prerequisite got an update doesn't change the item's effects in any way whatsoever. The item you seem to be alluding to - a +1 Mighty Cleaving shortspear the provides a +30' enhancement bonus to base land speed as per the 3.5 version of Expeditious Retreat - doesn't exist outside of making a custom magic item. But Rapid Wrath does, and its effects were not changed by the game edition updating to 3.5
This only continues proving my point about the item's significance being entirely as a missed update loophole all the more. The item has an effect, which is the same as a spell in its prerequisite, the spell was updated, the item should by any obvious objective reasoning be updated. But because they failed to do so you're standing there shouting about how there is NO UPDATE. Yes, I acknowledged that, while explaining why it should obviously have an update. If you want to run RAW loopholes, go ahead. The OP asked for DM evaluation, and my evaluation is that it obviously should have been updated.


sorry about the thread derailing, hopefully the discussion was helpful, and in direct answer to your questions
It's not a derail if it's the primary topic- it's just two people slinging walls of text at each other. If you think this was extreme, you clearly never saw the bad old days :smallamused: