[3.5] Ring of the Fanatic's Secret

[Peregrine]

This nasty little piece of work has been employed by a secretive cult (or two) against my players. Having just smacked down a whole bunch of cultists and looted their corpses, one of my players wants to know how much he can sell their rings for. Now, I'd pretty much felt that I didn't need to price them, since no-one in their right mind would want to wear one under ordinary circumstances... but hey, if even cursed items can have prices attached, so can these. I just need some help setting an appropriate price (not to mention the other item creation stats).

Ring of the Fanatic's Secret
This ring weaves tendrils of magic into the wearer's mind, granting it a +6 bonus to Will saves against any enchantment (charm or compulsion) effect. However, if the wearer ever fails such a save, they die (a death effect), babbling and gibbering. Should speak with dead or a similar spell be used on the body, it will elicit only this same gibbering.

Since the ring's benefit relies on setting its insidious web around the vulnerable core of the wearer's mind, any protection from or immunity to death effects also negates the bonus.

Faint necromancy; CL ?; Forge Ring, ?

[Mulletmanalive]

Given the death effect, they're probably quite expensive, probably requiring Finger of Death to manufacture.

They're effectively one/day items so a guess would be around 36k, simply because of the manufacturing difficulties
the actual price is around 50k but you'd probably be damn lucky to get 15k for them as its a buyer's market on stuff like this and the average player doesn't bother cleaning off the blood.

This assumes the rings have cult iconography, of course...

[Fizban]

It's a +6 untyped save bonus, but only to one save under specific conditions. Start with with 36,000gp for the +6, double it for untyped, then halve it for only working on one save, then take off another 1/3 for specific school and descriptors, and a final 1/3 for killing you when you eventually fail. So 1/3 of 36,000gp is 12,000gp to buy, and half that is 6,000gp per ring for your player. I still wouldn't pay that myself, but it is indeed a large untyped bonus and you can avoid those times you roll low by using other items and abilities to reroll before you actually fail.

[Tancred]

I agree with the starting price of 36,000, and halving it for only working on one save; but for the ring's creator, the death effect is a feature, not a drawback. It's equivalent to a once-off casting of Finger of Death with no save, which the DMG would price at:
Spell level × caster level × 50 gp = 7 x 13 x 50 = 4550gp.

This would give you a total price of 22,550, rounded up to 23,000 for clean numbers.

Given that your worthy adventuring party has just acquired 3 rings and has 4 party members that would be 8625gp each, plus the sell value of the others they found in that cultist basement but never got around to selling... Yep, sounds fair.

(In-Joke Disclaimer: I may or may not be the party member who wanted to know how much he could sell the rings for )