Hello everyone! I'm hoping to get some advice on this topic. I need to properly calculate the caster level and price for a wondrous magical item being created and after reviewing the rules in the DMG I have come up with very little. I'm looking for some clear cut, official responses as to how this is done.
Caster Level:
When determining the caster level of a wondrous magical item don't you take the prerequisite spell for the device and go with the minimum level a spellcaster needs to be able to cast that spell?
For example, a magical item that uses Divination spell (a 4th level cleric spell) would have a caster level of 7 because it takes a 7th level cleric to cast Divination. So wouldn't a wondrous magical item using Divination as a prerequisite have a Caster Level of 7th?
When I use this formula and compare it to wondrous magical items it doesn't seem to match at all. For example, a cape of the mounteback is listed as a caster level of 9th. It uses Dimension Door as a prerequisite which is a 4th level spell. So why is it 9th instead of 7th?
Another example; Wall of Force is used as a prerequisite for cube of frost resistance. In the DMG the CL is 10th, but wall of force is a 5th level spell and therefore takes a 9th level person to cast the spell. So why is it listed as 10th level and not 9th?
I also found another item, the Mantle of Faith, that has a CL of 20th even though the prerequisite spell is stoneskin which is only a 4th level wiz/sor spell, in which you only need to be 7th level to cast.
I also found another item (can't recall what it was) which had a CL of 1 when you need to be at least level 3 to even take the craft wondrous item feat.
Clearly I am doing something wrong.....What?
Price
This is totally confusing. If I use table 7.33 in the DMG on page 285, for the command word entry under spell effects I get a total of spell level x caster level x 1800 gp, which in the item being created equals Divination spell (4th level) x caster level 7 (using my formula above) x 1800 = 50,400 gp. This is what it cost to make? The DMG then goes on to say that you double the value to acquire the market value, which in this case is 100,800 gp. This can't be right for a magical item that uses a 4th level spell as it's prerequisite. Another part of the DMG says to kinda estimate its value as compared to other items. It sounds like this is what they did when they wrote the DMG. They made up rules and then didn't follow them with the exceptions of potions and scrolls.
If you figure out the cape of the mounteback this way it's 50,400 to create and twice that when selling. The cape and my item both use 4th level spells. The cost for the cape in the DMG is 10,080 when you look under the actual magical item description on page 252. It's a huge difference.
I found very little in the DMG that followed their suggested formula than I did that matched. Is it intended to be an eyeballing thing completely or a formula of some kind? Do I have my formulas for Caster Level and Base Price all wrong?
I was hoping to enter the Paizo contest so if anyone is willing to explain to me how these rules (guidelines) work better than I am understanding them I would really appreciate their input.
Thanks! _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Designers not following their own rules?!?!? Heavens forbid! Yeah, there are a lot of mistakes and oddities in the creation of magic items by the DMG or the SRD. They even went over this on the Paizo boards in regards to the contest: that's part of being an RPG Superstar! - can you handle the "black art" of item design costs? Generally speaking, as I understand it, yes the CL is the minimum level to cast the necessary spell(s) for the item, even if that level is lower than that required to make the item (ring of feather falling, anyone?). The final cost is generally what it costs to make the item, and double that for its market value. Good luck on figuring it all out (its not easy), and good luck on the contest! _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Gargoyle:
Thanks for the response. What does SRD stand for? I saw this in the rules as well but wasn't familar with what it means. Could you direct me to the Paizo conversation about these topics, it appears that I missed them when I read things over. I'm still pretty fuzzy (not me just my thinking, if I was actually fuzzy I doubt I'd have a charisma of 18. It is hard to influcence people when you look well.....fuzzy). Anyway, still confused about the cost aspect. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
SRD stands for the System Reference Document (or Resource, I forget); its all the d20 open content WotC material for the OGL. Most of the PHB, DMG and MM are in the SRD, as well as parts of other books, but not everything. You can download the SRD from the Wizards' site, or use it online in html at d20srd.org. The main discussion about calculating costs is here: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/rpgSuperstar/general/itemCosting . I wish I could be of more help, but this is something I'm not 100% clear on, and I teach best in person. Hopefully some others will chime in here who have a better grasp of item costs than I do. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Thanks, I read a large portion of the forum entries, including what some of the judges had to say and that in itself said a lot. Glad to know I wasn't the only one with questions pertaining to this.
Your assistance is appreciated a thousand times over. Just for that, Istus wants to give you a free "dodge death" card. All you have to do is submit it to the DM in order to avoid an untimely character death. If you are the DM, well I guess you should consider it a discount death card useable through 2008. I believe it gets a total of 10 punches before being filled up so enjoy a long life.
Thanks again!
Anyone else out there with input on the nastiness of these rules? _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Eileen, the only real input I can offer is make sure you are very familiar with the SRD. I believe it can still be accessed through WotC's website, and it will contain all of the information usable by a third party publisher. _________________ Michael Erin Sandar Bard of Midwood
I sympathise with your dilemma, a year or two ago our group went down this road that you've embarked on. Its a minefield. The item generation tables don't correspond at all to the items listed in the DMG. After a lot of time spent trying to match items to formulas we found out that many of the items listed have randomly assigned values that don't follow any of the rules for item generation in the tables laid out in the DMG.
Skip williams wrote a 7 part downloadable article on the subject for wotc called magic items, which while laying out the process for item creation also indicated that the rules concerning item generation are a guideline and much of it is simply up to DM discretion and these randomly assigned guidelines seem to have been applied to the already written up items listed in the DMG making it impossible to apply formula to item.
All in all it was an extremely frustrating process for us. it is definitely one of the areas in 3/3.5 that could have been worked out a lot better.
If you cant find the skip williams articles, get in contact as I have them and I think you will find them useful.
Thanks for the responses. I checked out the Paizo sight link gargoyle gave me and the first question I saw regarded the poorly written rules. Erik Mona responded to the question by basically saying they know the rules are inaccurate and that a good designer will have to eyeball it. Thus I felt a lot better about taking this approach. I sent my entry in last night. Thanks so much for the responses.
This could be an area we could fix here on Canonfire. We certainly couldn't come up with a system that would match the DMG items but we might be able to develop one that lots of people could use anyway in order to save future frustration. Input was greatly appreciated. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
*****Caster Level:
When determining the caster level of a wondrous magical item don't you take the prerequisite spell for the device and go with the minimum level a spellcaster needs to be able to cast that spell?
For example, a magical item that uses Divination spell (a 4th level cleric spell) would have a caster level of 7 because it takes a 7th level cleric to cast Divination. So wouldn't a wondrous magical item using Divination as a prerequisite have a Caster Level of 7th?
When I use this formula and compare it to wondrous magical items it doesn't seem to match at all. For example, a cape of the mounteback is listed as a caster level of 9th. It uses Dimension Door as a prerequisite which is a 4th level spell. So why is it 9th instead of 7th?*****
For these preexisting items, I would say take a look at previous editions of these magic items, and I bet once you convert it to the current description, you'll find you need those caster levels for them to function as previously writen. Caster level beyond minimum is a matter of personal taste and desired effect mostly.
All that said, the Cape is one I don't get, because its priced as a 7th caster level item, and listed at 9. It may be a hold over from a previous version in another edition. I don't know. Or it could be simple errata they have yet to catch.
*****Another example; Wall of Force is used as a prerequisite for cube of frost resistance. In the DMG the CL is 10th, but wall of force is a 5th level spell and therefore takes a 9th level person to cast the spell. So why is it listed as 10th level and not 9th?
I also found another item, the Mantle of Faith, that has a CL of 20th even though the prerequisite spell is stoneskin which is only a 4th level wiz/sor spell, in which you only need to be 7th level to cast.*****
Mantle of Faith using Stoneskin makes no sense. Its description and effect would suggest Holy Word level magic (I can't remember the right spell at this moment), and for that effect 5/evil would require caster level 20, if I remember right.
*****I also found another item (can't recall what it was) which had a CL of 1 when you need to be at least level 3 to even take the craft wondrous item feat. *****
One of the rules for magic item creation is that you have to meet the prereq's for the spell being emulated, not necessarily the feat required to make said item. Or something very close to that in any case (my wording might be off, so be kind if I am). If the minimum caster level for a spell is 1, and I don't want to pay the extra cost for what is no real benefit to me. So I make it at 1st level.
*****Clearly I am doing something wrong.....What? *****
Basically, its less of a science, and more of a scientific art. Think cartography for a good reference. You do everything by numbers and specific measurements, but in the end, its your presentation and personal flair that makes a good map maker and a mediocre one. Same thing for magic items. Go into it with a clear idea of what you want it to do, concept before crunch. Then jam the rules into that concept. I want to be able to dimension door 750 feet like this old item could. Okay, we'll up the caster level and make it be able to do just that. Its over minimum, but that's okay. Since we went over the minumum, we'll jam in an extra special effect at no cost (the puff of smoke). Actually, we'll do that regardless, because I think its cool. Who cares, no one will squibble over a simple use of prestidigitation combined with a much higher level spell.
****Price
This is totally confusing. If I use table 7.33 in the DMG on page 285, for the command word entry under spell effects I get a total of spell level x caster level x 1800 gp, which in the item being created equals Divination spell (4th level) x caster level 7 (using my formula above) x 1800 = 50,400 gp. This is what it cost to make? The DMG then goes on to say that you double the value to acquire the market value, which in this case is 100,800 gp. This can't be right for a magical item that uses a 4th level spell as it's prerequisite. Another part of the DMG says to kinda estimate its value as compared to other items. It sounds like this is what they did when they wrote the DMG. They made up rules and then didn't follow them with the exceptions of potions and scrolls.
If you figure out the cape of the mounteback this way it's 50,400 to create and twice that when selling. The cape and my item both use 4th level spells. The cost for the cape in the DMG is 10,080 when you look under the actual magical item description on page 252. It's a huge difference. *****
If you look down the estimating magic item chart to special (uses per day) and divide it by 5 (5 divided by 1 use per day) you get the listed price.
If you'll post some more specific examples I'll help you dissect them so they make sense. In the end, all I can say is concept and history trumps crunch everytime.
Thanks for the post. This is defintely an area of the DMG I would have like to have seen done better. I don't have a problem with estimating cost. You called it "concept before crunch" which I think is a good way to look at the whole thing as its presented in the DMG.
I've kinda had to work with the caster level issue when having to determine additional details on magic items in the DMG. Some of the descriptions leave a lot to be desired. Comparing magic items against one anther sometimes works, sometimes not.
My concerns over these issues primarily had to do with coming up with a viable entry for the Paizo contest, which is why I wanted to be as accurate as possible. I wish I had gotten your post sooner, I might have been able to apply it towards my effort. I ended up going with the "scientific art" idea. Hopefully it was sufficient. It was pretty much what the judges offered for advice as well on the paizo site.
It never occurred to me that some of the costs could be a carry over from previous editions. I just assumed going into it that they designed a math formula and followed it. As I read more in the DMG and found out that they set an amount they thought was fair I was kinda disapointed that they didn't spend more time on the section.
If I run into more problems down the road it will be nice to review what you wrote and maybe send you a pm. Thanks again. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Eileen, the only real input I can offer is make sure you are very familiar with the SRD. I believe it can still be accessed through WotC's website, and it will contain all of the information usable by a third party publisher.
Not the one on the WotC site. Use a searchable html-ized SRD:
*****It never occurred to me that some of the costs could be a carry over from previous editions. I just assumed going into it that they designed a math formula and followed it. As I read more in the DMG and found out that they set an amount they thought was fair I was kinda disapointed that they didn't spend more time on the section.*****
No, I think the costs are new to the system, I think its the description that was retroed into the caster level. At 9th caster level, Dimension Door will take you 760 feet. I don't have a previous edition to check with, but I'll bet if you look at a first or second ed version, you'll find it will teleport you 750 ft in a straight line with line of sight, ie dimension door.
I agree with that they should have spent more time on it, but it would likely be countered that eventually they did. The Magic Item Compendium is a wonderful resource for understanding magic item creation. It's not perfect, but then neither is any gaming product ever. I know some don't like it that much, but I've found it absolutely a wonderful resource. Not only is it full of low level magic items, but it expands magic item creation, and codifies a few things. Ability bonus, all kinds of armor bonuses and resistance bonuses can be added to items at less than the cost of actually combining one of those items and another item. It makes customizing items not only feasable, but down right tempting.
Once the contest is done, post your creation so we can see it. I for one would be interested in seeing it.
The magic item compedium is one of the few books I haven't bought. It is on my list to get though. I wasn't aware that it had rules for item creation. Seems it's purpose just increased. I am so far behind getting all the magic items indexed into my campaign already that I thought I would wait with this book. Does it duplicate alot of items from other sources or is it original material?
I would be happy to post my wondrous item after the contest ends. If I don't make the first round it should be at the end of the month. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Likewise, I haven't bought the MIC yet. From what I've seen, it looks very useful, its just that money's a little tight right now.
Eileen, don't forget that part of the contest does state that any submissions become the property of Paizo, whether its chosen or not. I posted a couple of items I didn't submit on Eruvian.com; the Faithful Shield and the Gloves of Dahl-Nazir. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
No I hadn't forotten that Paizo will own the material. I'll have to check with them to see if it can or cannot be posted. Quite possibly it can't be. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Yes it does duplicate some items...in fact quite a few, but unless you own every book WOTC has put out in the last few years, and don't mind pulling from 15 or more books for one or two items each (oh yeah, did I mention they did errata on them, and knocked the power down on some, and up on others, in response to play testing and player response), then its pretty much invaluable.
For example, if you own Draconomicon, then you'll not need the entry for the goggles of draconic vision, for instance. Although MIC does have a wonderful picture of what they look like.
Its made previously psionic only items into dual items that could be made via magic or psionics. So you end up with what would have been useless items to anyone not using psionics suddenly becoming useful and used items.
And like I said, its the plethora of low level items that should inhabit the campaign world that impressed me the most. Yes, ultra powerful items are great for flavor, but lets face it, a life preserver looking ring for featherfall is a much more useful item as a one shot. And multiple people can use it too.
"If we jump we die!"
"If we don't that horde of troll berzerkers is going to eat us, slowly!"
"Hey I've got that life ring we bought back in Greyhawk, I knew it'd be useful!"
And it has a new type of magic item, the rune staff. Its like a staff, except it doesn't have any charges. You use your own spells to power it. Great for the sorcerer with limited spell lists, but a lot of spells.
The item sets are a neat idea, but in the end a bit too much diablo for me to use them, except as a plot device or a way to make a villain ultra powerful. Did I mention the dementia side effect? I'm sure I did.
And the random treasure charts (expanded and changed from DMG), and new random magic item charts, and discussions on when an item is appropriate (Item levels that have the same feel as CR for determining power level: not exact, but close enough an experienced DM can usually get close enough not to ruin the game).
And of course, the expanded magic item creation rules I previously mentioned.
If you post on ENWorld or do some searches there via google, I think that some folks there actually made a major revision to the CL/GP values for magic items after being so unhappy with how they were broken out in the rules.
This may have been in the 3.0 vs. 3.5 timeframe, though. I can't recall any names offhand, so a general query may be useful too. _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
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Yeah, there are a lot of mistakes and oddities in the creation of magic items by the DMG or the SRD. They even went over this on the Paizo boards in regards to the contest: that's part of being an RPG Superstar! - can you handle the "black art" of item design costs? Generally speaking, as I understand it, yes the CL is the minimum level to cast the necessary spell(s) for the item, even if that level is lower than that required to make the item (
