Pricing Magic Items - Part 2
For the final spreadsheet, check out Part 8.
In this part, I am going to be looking at pricing conditions and spell levels (and by extension spell scrolls). If you missed the first part, I have already covered magical weapons, item rarities, and damage with consumables. My goal here isn’t to create the definitive guide to magical item prices; but rather to uncover how to price magic items and create formulas that allow a GM to fine tune the costs of magic items to what they want. To that goal, I am creating a spreadsheet that can be used to automatically run through the formulas after you tell it what the magic item does.
I am excited to get prices set for spells and conditions as that is going to cover a lot of magic items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide - which will be quite helpful for uncovering the prices of other effects and abilities.
You can check out other parts by following the links here:
Part 1 / Item Rarity, Restoring HP with a Consumable, Damage with Consumable (no save), Damage with Consumable (with save), Magic Weapons
Part 2 / Spell Levels & Spell Scrolls, Conditions with a Save
Part 3 / Permanent Items, Magical Enhancements, Armor Class
Part 4 / Items with Semi-Permanent Damage, Permanent Damage, Increase Ability Scores
Part 5 / Pricing out the “A” items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide
Part 6 / Pricing of the first 100 items
Part 7 / Pricing all of Dungeon Master’s Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Part 8 / Pricing all of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the most up-to-date sheet
Spell Levels & Spell Scrolls
The easiest way to determine the cost of each spell level is to find a reasonable price for spell scrolls, as they are one-time uses of each spell restricted to someone who has the spell on their spell list. A magic item that grants anyone access to a specific spell makes it more powerful than a spell scroll, even if it is just a one-time use item. The reason being that ANYONE could use that spell in that situation.
With that said, at least we have a teensy bit of guidance on spell scroll costs. In Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, we are given suggested crafting costs though I have to balk at the idea of spending 250,000 gp to make a 9th-level spell scroll, even 5,000 gp for a 5th-level spell scroll seems rather high - but I see what they are doing. A 1st-level spell scroll is 25 gp, they then say that a 2nd-level spell scroll is 10x more valuable than that as it costs 10x as much gp. Weirdly, a 3rd-level spell scroll is only twice as much as a 2nd-level one, but then a 4th-level is five times as much as a 3rd-level scroll. It doesn’t quite follow that pattern through all of it, but it is strange how odd that pattern is. Part of that can be blamed on the rarity of the items, but let’s see if we can do something different.
The other thing we have to be aware of is that spell scrolls come with preset Save DCs and Attack Bonuses, just as magic items that give up spells will come with their own Save DCs based on the rarity of the item. The DC of the item will also help determine costs though it is tied into the rarity of the item, just like last time when we determined the following:
Common / DC 10 to DC 12
Uncommon / DC 13 to DC 14
Rare / DC 15 to DC 16
Very Rare / DC 17 to DC 18
Legendary / DC 19+
Spell scrolls follow this fairly closely, with a few oddities, but I see no reason why we need to change it up for weapons and other magic items. Scrolls can be wierd if they want.
We also have material components the spell would ordinarily require to cast. That one is super simple as we will just add the spells components cost to the cost of the item, after the rarity tax is accounted for.
Here is my idea for a formula for spell scrolls, and we are going to start with the idea that cantrip spell scrolls are 30 gp (15 gp to craft per XGtE, so a good base cost). After that, the cost of each additional spell level will be the same as how we figured out a magic weapon. Here it goes.
Cantrip (Common): (30 gp*(1[cantrip]) *1 (rarity tax) = 30 gp
1st (Common): (30*(1[cantrip]+2[1st-level]) *1 (rarity tax)= 90 gp
2nd (Uncommon): (30*(1+2[1st]+3[2nd-level]) *1.5 (rarity tax)= 270 gp
3rd (Uncommon): (30*(1+2+3[2nd]+4[3rd]) *1.5 (rarity tax)= 450 gp
4th (Rare): (30*(1+2+3+4[3rd]+5[4th]) *2 (rarity tax)= 900 gp
5th (Rare): (30*(1+2+3+4+5[4th]+6[5th]) *2 (rarity tax)= 1,260 gp
6th (Very Rare): (30*(1+2+3+4+5+6[5th]+7[6th]) *3 (rarity tax)= 2,520 gp
7th (Very Rare): (30*(1+2+3+4+5+6+7[6th]+8[7th]) *3 (rarity tax)= 3,240 gp
8th (Very Rare): (30*(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8[7th]+9[8th]) *3 (rarity tax)= 4,050 gp
9th (Legendary): (30*(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9[8th]+10[9th]) *5(rarity tax)= 8,250 gp
You would then add the material components of the spell, so a 3rd-level spell scroll would cost 450 gp, but a revivify spell scroll would be 750 gp as it requires 300 gp in diamonds.
While I’m fairly happy with our final cost, I know some people may not like that a 9th-level scroll is sub 10,000 gp, but they could easily change that base cost from 30 gp to 50 gp and get 13,750 gp for 9th-level scrolls.
Use By Others
So we have determined what a consummable like a spell scroll, which is limited to specific individuals, what about if anyone could cast or gain the benefits of a spell? Many potions have some sort of additional effect stacked with the spell they give, but the potion of haste is almost one-to-one except it doesn’t require concentration. If we followed the spell scroll rules, it would cost 450 gp, except the potion is very rare, so that increases its cost to 900 gp. While that might be enough, just due to the change in rarity, the change in rarity is kind of just arbitrary.
I think a 10% convenience fee is more than acceptable in this situation, so then you’d be seeing something like 990 gp for a potion of haste. For other one-time use spells that can be used by anyone, we have the following:
Cantrip (Common): 30 gp * 1.1 = 33 gp (round to 35 gp)
1st (Common): 90 gp * 1.1 = 99 gp (round to 100 gp)
2nd (Uncommon): 270 gp * 1.1 = 297 gp (round to 300 gp)
3rd (Uncommon): 450 gp * 1.1 = 495 gp (keep or round to 500 gp)
4th (Rare): 900 gp * 1.1 = 990 gp (keep or round to 1000 gp)
5th (Rare): 1,260 gp * 1.1 = 1,386 gp (round to 1,390 or 1,400 gp)
6th (Very Rare): 2,520 gp * 1.1 = 2,772 gp (round to 2,775 or 2,800 gp)
7th (Very Rare): 3,240 gp * 1.1 = 3,564 gp (round to 3,570 or 3,600 gp)
8th (Very Rare): 4,050 gp * 1.1 = 4,455 gp (keep or round to 4,500 gp)
9th (Legendary): 8,250 gp * 1.1 = 9,075 gp (keep or round to 9,100 gp)
So this is a good price point for any items that provide the powers of a spell (or very similar) and anyone can use. You might consider removing the convenience fee if the item requires attunement (though then that item probably will have multiple uses, which is something we will get into later).
Conditions with a Save
Our next big thing to think about is how much to charge for items that incur a condition effect. Now that we have priced out magic, we can rely heavily on the prices for spells and base our prices for conditions on them. For a brief reminder, below is each condition.
Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion (Lv1-6), Frightened, Grappled, Incapacitated, Invisible, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained, Stunned, Unconscious
There are 15 conditions we have to discover, and what I am going to do is find a spell at the lowest level that provides that condition (preferably on a single creature) and base the cost of the condition on it.
Blinded (spell: color spray (1st) - 1 round; blindness (2nd) - 1 minute) 90 gp or 270 gp
Charmed (spell: charm person (1st) - humanoids only 1 minute; hypnotic pattern (3rd) - 1 minute) 90 gp or 450 gp
Deafened (spell: deafness (2nd) - 1 minute) 270 gp
Exhaustion (Lv1-6) (spell: sickening raidance (4th) - save per level) 900 gp
Frightened (spell: cause fear (1st) - 1 minute) 90 gp
Grappled (spell: none)
Incapacitated (spell: hideous laughter (1st) - 1 minute) 90 gp
Invisible (spell: invisibility (2nd) - 1 hour) 270 gp
Paralyzed (spell: hold person (2nd) - humanoids only 1 minute; hold monster (5th) - 1 minute) 1,260 gp
Petrified (spell: flesh to stone (6th) - takes four failed saves) 2,520 gp
Poisoned (spell: ray of sickness (1st) - 1 round; contagion (5th) - multiple effects and takes three saves) 90 gp or 1,260 gp
Prone (spell: sapping sting (cantrip) - also deals damage; command (1st) - has other potential effects) 30 gp or 90 gp
Restrained (spell: entangle (1st) - 1 minute) 90 gp
Stunned (spell: contagion (5th) - includes being poisoned) 1,260 gp
Unconscious (spell: sleep (1st) - very limited; eyebite (6th) - 1 minute) 2,520 gp
So I’m pretty happy with most of these, except for a few things. Charmed is going to be 3rd level unless its restricted, and blinded is going to stick to 1 minute 2nd-level spell scroll costs as everything else was pretty close to 1 minute. Which also means, invisibile might be priced too high as a 2nd-level spell as it lasts for 1 minute and goes away on a specific trigger. That may be a tricky way to determine, but I’m going to drop it down to 1st-level for 1 minute - though that gives us the idea that if you want an effect to last longer, increase the cost by increasing the effective spell level cost.
Stunned is set to too high a price in my opinion, since paralyze is at the same level. I’m going to drop the cost of stunned to 3rd-level spell scroll (450 gp), the same I am going to do with Poisoned. Also, no spell grapples a creature! Need to give that a level, and since restrained is a 1st-level spell, I think grapple will have to be treated as a cantrip at 30 gp. Petrified also is nestled behind four failed saves, so that is going to have to be treated as a 7th-level spell effect. So our final total for each condition is…
Blinded (270 gp), Charmed (450 gp), Deafened (270 gp), Exhaustion (Lv1-6) (900 gp), Frightened (90 gp), Grappled (30 gp), Incapacitated (90 gp), Invisible (90 gp), Paralyzed (1,260 gp), Petrified (3,240 gp), Poisoned (450 gp), Prone (30 gp), Restrained (90 gp), Stunned (450 gp), Unconscious (2,520 gp)
These prices are all tied to saving against it, lasting for 1 minute, being a single use, and being restricted. For unrestricted, it would be 10% higher for each item. This can be useful for if a poison just gives you the poisoned condition for 1 minute, it would be uncommon (save DC 13 or 14) and cost you 450 gp if it was restricted in some way or 495 if it wasn’t restricted.
Conclusion…
So we have a lot of good prices going and have a firm understanding of the costs of single use spells and conditions. Next time, I want to look at the cost behind magical enhancements, like bonuses to armor and saving throws would be… and perhaps we can dive into figuring out how to price out multiple uses of damage, conditions, spells, and more. That will truly get us to about 80 to 90% of all magic items.
If you are curious to see a work-in progress excel file, you can check it out here.
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