Pricing Magic Items - Part 6
Header Art: Dungeon Master’s Guide by WIzards of the Coast
For the final spreadsheet, check out Part 8.
I’m having LASIK done this week, and I decided that I needed to start my post early to get it done or write about something easy. I decided, last night, that I’ll go ahead and rewrite the excel spreadsheet for magic items - which is neither me starting to work on a post early or something ‘easy’. What this did allow me to do is create a much clearer (in my opinion) spreadsheet and fix any weird formula issues that plagued the previous document.
Unfortunately, there are over 300 items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014) and I’ve only gotten the first 100 items added into the new sheet - next week, the rest of the items in that book will be completed and we will be done with this series!
Link for the new and improved excel spreadsheet!
Here are the previous posts in case you want to reference them…
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
Mistakes Were Made
In our last part, I had gone through and gave pricing on several items but I realized that I had messed up on the math. I had multiplied the total by the rarity modifier twice when I was grabbing how much each spell slot was supposed to be, so when you look at the new sheet, you’ll see a price difference for a few items.
Costs for Items
Adamantine Chain Shirt 5033
Adamantine Scale Mail 5033
Adamantine Breastplate 5610
Adamantine Half Plate 6188
Adamantine Ring Mail 5000
Adamantine Chain Mail 5074
Adamantine Splint 5280
Adamantine Plate 7425
Alchemy Jug 4950 based: create food and water
Ammunition, +1 297
Ammunition, +2 990
Ammunition, +3 2772
Amulet of Health 12600
Amulet of Proof Against Detect and Location 2700
Amulet of the Planes 32400
Animated Shield 2700
Apparatus of Kwalish 137500
Armor, +1 1980 Add armor cost for total
Armor, +2 8910 Add armor cost for total
Armor, +3 29700 Add armor cost for total
Armor of Invulnerability 69300 Add armor cost for total
Armor of Resistance 1800 Add armor cost for total
Armor of Resistance, Leather 1820
Armor of Resistance, Chain Shirt 1900
Armor of Resistance, Breastplate 2600
Armor of Resistance, Plate 4800
Armor of Vulnerability 0 Cursed, not priced
Arrow-Catching Shield 7200
Arrow of Slaying 267
Bag of Beans 0 Random, not priced
Bag of Devouring 0 Cursed, not priced
Bag of Holding 1485 based: floating disk
Bag of Tricks 0 Random, not priced
Bead of Force 9973 based: resilient sphere, add charges per bead
Belt of Dwarvenkind 8460 not included: advantage on CHA, dwarven language
Belt of Giant Strength, Hill 18900
Belt of Giant Strength, Stone/Frost 39690
Belt of Giant Strength, Fire 52920
Belt of Giant Strength, Cloud 113400
Belt of Giant Strength, Storm 141750
Berserker Axe 0 Cursed, not priced
Boots of Elvenkind 2970 based: enhance ability
Boots of Levitation 3600 based: levitate
Boots of Speed 1800 based: zephyr strike
Boots of Striding and Springing 1350 based: jump
Boots of the Winterlands 4050 based: freedom of movement minus 2 levels
Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals 5544 based: conjure elemental
Bracers of Archery 4050
Bracers of Defense 5400
Brazier of Commanding Fire Elementals 5544 based: conjure elemental
Brooch of Shielding 2700 based: shield for immunity
Broom of Flying 4950 based: fly
Candle of Invocation 28350 based: gate & unlimited guardian of nature
Cap of Water Breathing 4950 based: water breathing
Cape of the Mountebank 3960 based: dimension door
Carpet of Flying, 3x5 9900 based: fly, 1 creature
Carpet of Flying, 4x6 19800 based: fly, 2 creatures
Carpet of Flying, 5x7 29700 based: fly, 3 creatures
Carpet of Flying, 6x9 40590 based: fly, 4 creatures
Censer of Controlling Air Elementals 5544 based: conjure elemental
Chime of Opening 4320 based: knock
Circlet of Blasting 1188 based: scorching ray
Cloak of Arachnida 9180 based: spider climb, web
Cloak of Displacement 3600 based: blur
Cloak of Elvenkind 5400 based: enhance ability x2
Cloak of Invisibility 31500 based: greater invisibility, 2 hours = effective permanent
Cloak of Protection 2700
Cloak of the Bat 13200 based: enhance ability, fly, polymorph
Cloak of the Manta Ray 7920 based: water breathing & alter self
Crystal Ball 18900 based: scrying
Crystal Ball of Mind Reading 36000 based: scrying & detect thoughts
Crystal Ball of Telepathy 33300 based: scrying & suggestion
Crystal Ball of True Seeing 73500 based: scrying & truesight
Cube of Force 9000 based: resilient sphere
Cubic Gate 60390 based: gate & planeshift (charges based on highest level spell)
Daern's Instant Fortress 18480 based: magnificent mansion (minus 1 level)
Dagger of Venom 3230
Dancing Sword 5400 based: spiritual weapon
Decanter of Endless Water 1570 based: create or destroy water
Deck of Illusions 16200 based: major image, add charges based on cards
Deck of Many Things 0 haha
Defender 27000
Demon Armor 14400
Dimensional Shackles 9900 based: counterspell (plus 1 level)
Dragon Scale Mail 11100 based: locate creature
Dragon Slayer 2766
Driftglobe 2475 based: light & daylight
Dust of Disappearance 1980 based: invisible, x4 for AoE
Dust of Dryness 156 multiply total based on charges
Dust of Sneezing and Choking 0 Cursed, not priced
Dwarven Plate 18810
Dwarven Thrower 17164
Efreeti Bottle 32670 based: conjure elemental at 9th level
Efreeti Chain 69750 based: primordial ward
Elemental Gem 1040 based: conjure elemental
Elixir of Health 396 based: lesser restoration
Elven Chain 2200
Eversmoking Bottle 1485 based: fog cloud
Eyes of Charming 810 based: charm person
Eyes of Minute Seeing 2970 based: enhance ability
Eyes of the Eagle 2700 based: enhance ability
Clarifications
So there are a few things in here that I think might require a bit of discussion, but hopefully if you have the spreadsheet in front of you, it makes sense. There are notes for items where I specify what the price is based on, like how eyes of the eagle is based on enhance ability because that spell grants advantage on skill checks and eyes of the eagle grants you advantage on a specific skill check. It’s not 100%, as enhance ability has some ancillary things, but I think it’s close enough that spending 2,700 gp for the item feels worth it - of course, you might disagree and that’s OK - I won’t take it personally (this time).
There are also a few items that are just too random for me to really figure out a price, like bag of beans. By next week, I might have figured out a price for them, or I just might not provide prices for random items like that due to how obscure they can get - the same will be for the cloak of many things. I don’t know how I’ll price that, and that is next-week-Stephen’s problems.
Though, I’ll go ahead and state I’m not pricing out a deck of many things.
Here are a few of the items that I priced that might need more explanation in their pricing, I won’t go over every item so if you are curious about any specific one, please let me know in the comments.
Bag of Holding It’s basically the spell floating disk, except it’s a pocket. I could easily see this being based on a 2nd-level spell, which would increase its cost to 2,970 gp. The main issue I have with a bag of holding is that it is uncommon, meaning that merchants have probably bought every one they could find because it allows them to transport a lot more material in their wagons. These should pry be listed as rare, but wasn’t because it is such a loved item.
Boots of Speed so zephyr strike isn’t a great analog to what these boots do, but it’s close enough that I’m OK with it - plus, it’s a 1st-level spell.
Candle of Invocation What a weird item with all sorts of effects. You can either get a gate spell off with it or have an unlimited guardian of nature spell going. I ended up just combining those two prices, which is what I do for similar magic items like cubic gate which has two different options you can take but takes different charges.
Carpet of Flying This is a permanent fly spell with no concentration required. I priced out the bigger ones based on assuming you could fit another creature on them for each increase in size. It’s not a perfect analog, but think works well enough for our purpose.
Chime of Opening For this item, and others that will be like it, I had to create a new formula for dealing with them. This one is destroyed after it is used after a number of times, so while it has charges, they aren’t unlimited. All the formula does is multiple the spell level’s cost by however many charges it has, then you multiple the rarity cost and attunement cost.
Daern’s Instant Fortress This is basically a physical magnificent mansion… right? I just dropped the spell level from 7 to 6 and that seems to be fairly good. But… I imagine people might disagree a bit with me since castles cost more than this item.
Conclusion
Next week I will continue this and get the rest of the items sorted out. Now that the spreadsheet is in a better place, it is much faster to go through and add in the items. I’ve even updated a few of the formulas so it will be easier for others to come in and set up their preferred pricing. Hopefully, this can find some use in your games, even if you don’t sell magic items - it’s always nice to just get a ballpark idea as to how powerful one item is with another.
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