Pricing Magic Items - Part 3
Header Art: Dungeon Master’s Guide by Wizards of the Coast
For the final spreadsheet, check out Part 8.
Continuing our project of pricing magic items, this week I want to focus on getting the price of magical enhancements to armor and saving throw. The issue we are going to run into is that we haven’t yet discussed permanent effects on items, only consummable damage and attacks. Again, this project is to simply show off my work and provide formulas for other people to use, not necessarily the specific price that I put for each item, that’s why you’ll find an excel file at the bottom of this article with all of the work so far that you can edit and add in your numbers to better reflect your world and table.
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
Permanent Items
In previous editions, there was a permanency spell we might lean on a bit for this, but sadly we will just have to find something that feels right. In the first post of this series, I said that x10 felt like a good amount to charge for something being permanent, but I think we can get a bit more granularity in there as not everything has the same permanency. There is limited permanency, something that happens once or twice a day, to something that has unlimited permanency.
A limited permanency item might be a wand that has spell charges, while an unlimited permanent item can be used to cast a spell over and over all day long. The unlimited permanent bonus will be the cap for how expensive a limited permanency item can be, cause, there comes a point where if you have 50 charges for something, that’s basically unlimited in game terms.
I like the idea of making it so that an item that has unlimited permanency is x10. That would mean that if an item could cast a spell of 3rd-level basically unlimited that anyone could use, you’d be dropping 4,950 gp (450 gp for 3rd level spell scroll x 1.1 convenience fee so anyone can use it x 10 for the permanent at-will use). That’s like a cap of water-breathing or a broom of flying. Sure, it’s expensive, but according to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, it isn’t something a character can afford until they reach Tier 2 gameplay and are between levels 5 and 10… and it has to be something they really want as they will take away a quarter of their total funds. You can read more information about how much gold characters should have here.
I’ll also say, if an item requires attunement, we will forgo the convenience tax associated with other items because attunement is restrictive.
So we have the cap, it should cap out at x10 on the price, but what about for per use items? Let’s look at a few options and go from there:
1 Use (x2.5) = 450 gp (3rd-lv scroll) *1.1 (convenience fee) *2.5 (1/day) = 1,237.5 gp
2 Uses (x2.5 +1.5 per extra use) = 450 gp *1.1 *4 (2.5 + 1.5) = 1,980 gp
5 Uses (x2.5 +1.5 per extra use) = 450 gp *1.1 *8.5 (2.5 +1.5*4) = 4,207 gp
This means that the difference between unlimited and limited charges, caps at 6 as that would be x10 - x2.5 for the first use per day, plus 1.5 x 5 for the additional uses per day.1 Use (x5) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 5 = 2,475 gp
2 Uses (x5 + 1 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 6 (5 + 1) = 2,970 gp
5 Uses (x5 + 1 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 9 (5 + 1*4) = 4,455 gp
This way also caps the difference between unlimited and limited charges at 6 uses per day, but it does mean that the item ends up costing more if it has less uses than before.1 Use (x3) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 3 = 1,485
2 Uses (x3 + .5 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 3.5 (3+.5) = 1,732.5 gp
5 Uses (x3 + .5 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 5 (3+.5*4) = 2,475 gp
10 Uses (x3 + .5 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 7.5 (3+.5*9) = 3,712.5 gp
15 Uses (x3 + .5 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 10 (3 + .5*14) = 4,950 gp
By having a smaller charge for each addition use per day, you can have it so that charges are valued for less gold. This means that the item needs to be able to be used 15 times per day before it caps out at the unlimited permanent cap - which seems like a lot of charges… thats probably too many charges to track.1 Use (x4) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 4 = 1,980 gp
2 Uses (x4 + 1 per extra use) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 5 (4+1) = 2,475 gp
5 Uses (x4 + 1 per extra uses) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 8 (4+1*4) = 3,960 gp
7 Uses (x4 + 1 per extra uses) = 450 gp * 1.1 * 10 (4 + 1*6) = 4,950 gp
This one was purposefully set up so that I could hit 7 uses and then consider the object to have an unlimited permanent effect thanks to such wands like wand of fireball or wand of magic missile. It also has a nice cost for a single charge and, we can also see that a wand of fireballs, which uses a 3rd level spell, would cost 4,950 gp… well, actually it’d be a bit more expensive as it is a rare item and so would cost 6,590 gp.
I think I have what I want based on those examples. The permanency for a single charge item will be a x4 cost, and then for each additional charge, we’ll increase that by 1 until you hit 10 and the maximum. This means that…
Wand of fireballs, 7 charges, rare, 3rd-level spell, attunement = 6,000 gp
Wand of lightning bolts, 7 charges, rare, 3rd-level spell, attunement = 6,000 gp
Wand of magic missiles, 7 charges, uncommon, 1st-level spell = 1,485 gp
Wand of entangle, 7 charges, uncommon, 1st-level spell, attunement = 1,350 gp
Wand of magic detection, 3 charges, uncommon, 1st-level spell = 891 gp
It is time I fess up to something though, those +1 magic weapons we priced at 750 gp… if we use this system above us, than they are way cheaper than they should be. Magic weapon is a 2nd-level spell, making a permanent +1 weapon would actually be 2,970 gp. Maybe that changes how you want to price such weapons, but… that’s up to you. (+2 weapons would be 9,900 gp, and +3 weapons would cost 27,720 gp)
Magical Enhancements
We can now look at magical enhancements, like a +1 armor or a ring of protection which is even better than +1 armor. Many people find that +1 weapons aren’t as big of a deal as +1 armor, and I tend to agree on that point. If a character is better at hitting monsters, it isn’t that big of a deal since they are supposed to anyways. If a monster becomes worse at hitting a character, it means that there is less risk, lower stakes, and the player will never get to use all of those fancy hit points they keep getting at level up.
There are a few spells we can look at, most notably warding bond. While it does some extra stuff, it does show us what a potential cost for a ring of protection could be. As a 2nd-level spell, we can easily determine what it would be look like as a permanent effect on an item - a ring of protection is rare, so we’ll have to adjust the rarity.
2nd-level spell: 30*6 = 180 gp*2 (rarity tax) = 360 gp*10 (permanence) = 3,600 gp
So the ring could cost that much, but I’d like to point out that there are other things going on with that 2nd-level spell, let’s see how much a ring of protection would cost if we strip out the extra parts of the spell and assume it turns it into a 1st-level spell.
1st-level spell: 30*3 = 90 gp*2 (rarity tax) = 180 gp*10 (permanence) = 1,800 gp
I think, I’ve decided what I’m going to do. If we strip out the rarity tax, we can easily see how much +1 to all saving throws should cost, as well as the cost for +1 armor.
2nd-level spell: 30*6 = 180 gp*10 (permanence) = 1,800 gp
We now can split that 1,800 gp, and be able to tell that, for a common item that grants a +1 bonus to saving throws, it will be 900 gp and a common item that grants a +1 bonus to armor class, it will also be 900 gp. So that means…
Ring of protection 900 gp (+1 saves) + 900 gp (+1 AC) * 2 (rarity) = 3,600 gp
Cloak of protection 900 gp (+1 saves) + 900 gp (+1 AC) * 1.5 (rarity) = 2,700 gp
+1 Armor 900 gp (+1 AC) * 2 (rarity) * 1.1 (convenience fee) = 1,980 gp
+2 Armor 900 gp (+1 AC) * 3 (1[bonus]+2[bonus]) * 1.1 * 3 (rarity) = 8,910 gp
+3 Armor 900 gp (+1 AC) * 6 (1+2[bonus]+3[bonus]) * 1.1 * 5 (rarity) = 29,700 gp
+1 Shield 900 gp (+1 AC) * 1.5 (rarity) * 1.1 = 1,485 gp
+2 Shield 900 gp (+1 AC) * 3 (1[bonus]+2[bonus]) * 1.1 * 2 (rarity) = 5,940 gp
+3 Shield 900 gp (+1 AC) * 6 (1+2[bonus]+3[bonus]) * 1.1 * 3 (rarity) = 17,820 gp
Conclusion…
Utilizing our previous work, we can quickly start getting things going for our prices - and now I’m wondering if I should have done spell scroll first… Regardless, next time we visit this topic, I’ll go over permanent damage and semi-permanent damage plus I’ll be going through the Dungeon Master’s Guide and see what else we are missing - and then, beyond weird things like a wand of wonder, we should have prices for almost every item in that book - though I could be forgetting a commonly used magic item mechanic that will throw off all of my plans like usual…
If you are curious to see a work-in progress excel file, you can check it out here.
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