View Full Version : Help pricing a magic item

2010-07-24, 08:15 PM
I'm designing several trap and trick related items for a campaign, the most expensive of which would be a stopwatch.

Here are the item in question.

Stopwatch: casts time stop 3/day, that's pretty much it.

I also wanted to make a stamp of Explosive runes. unlimited use stamp which places explosive runes on an object.

How much do you think items such as those would cost?

Flame of Anor
2010-07-24, 08:21 PM
The stopwatch strikes me as a six-figure magic item. But there's a way to do this by the book--this is functionally identical to an endless wand of time stop. Just price it out for that, no matter that you're probably not allowed to have a 9th-level spell in an endless wand.

Also, I'd put a cap on the per-day of the stamp. That's just begging for abuse.

2010-07-24, 08:25 PM
It's for a long term antagonist. A gentleman gnome with a knack for traps.

He's my remedy for a kick in the door oriented no time to think party.

What I was figuring was 15000gp for the stamp, and 184000gp for the stopwatch.

2010-07-24, 08:35 PM
Based upon what I remember of item creation costs, the cost of that stopwatch comes out to about... well, it has to be epic unless you use the non-epic cap of 200,000 (that is the cap, right?).
The stamp comes out to 30,000.
On the other hand, those prices are fairly widely regarded as poorly balanced, IIRC.

EDIT: Stamp abuse is pretty likely. "Explosive Runes Bomb" and whatnot.

2010-07-24, 08:41 PM
The stop watch should be much more because there are endless charges
184,000 is equivilent to about 48 Time Stop Scrolls

I suggest 50 Charges of time stop for 200,000.
Assuming its still take a standard action to cast

2010-07-24, 08:47 PM
Take that stamp and a bag of gold coins. Go to a city.

2010-07-24, 09:07 PM
The stop watch should be much more because there are endless charges

You're forgetting. It's limited. This isn't the watch you can waltz into whatever you want and have each day last 1d4+1 times as long. It's limited to three uses a day.

On the other hand, those three times a day is exactly what a villain needs. I can't think of a time a villain would really need more than that. As such, I feel obligated to look (or type) at the OP and say this: Are you sure this is a good idea?

2010-07-24, 09:15 PM
Some quick calculations give 183,600g for the watch. However, I'll have to agree with drengnikrafe in thinking this probably isn't a good idea.

What level are these characters?

2010-07-24, 09:21 PM
Here's another question, why are you doing this at all?
Are the players having fun being a kick in the door, fire-balls blazing, group?
If so, why try and change that?

2010-07-24, 09:43 PM
If you want the flavor of something like this without the mechanical headaches, just have the gentleman be a wizard and reflavor his spells as traps/mechanical devices. Whenever he needs to use a somatic component, have him fidget with a device. When he needs a vocal component, have him give a command to an item or some such. This would solve the issues of having to price Stopwatches of Time Stop, and keeps the PCs from getting their hands on potentially abusable items.