Pricing Magic Items - Part 4
Header Art: Dungeon Master’s Guide by Wizards of the Coast
For the final spreadsheet, check out Part 8.
This week, I want to go over items that deal permanent damage, semi-permanent damage, and items that increase a character’s ability score. By permanent damage, I mean an item with an effect that is constant and doesn’t require charges, like a flame tongue while semi-permanent are going to be items that have charges but the charges reset each day, like a dagger of venom. Just a reminder, this won’t be the end-all-be-all of pricing magic items, but rather a place where I can show my thoughts on how much items should cost, and then arm you with enough information to come up with your own preferred pricing structure to best fit your table.
I am going to be using a lot of the work we have already done in the previous parts of this. If you haven’t read through them yet, you can find them 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
Items with Semi-Permanent Damage
So as we have discussed before in Part 1, an item with a one-target Damage effect is 3.57 gp per point of average damage with no save, or 2.68 gp per point of average damage with a save (without looking at DCs or Rarity). We can then flip over to Part 3 where we discussed items with spells that recharge and that they will cost x4 more than a consumable; plus we will increase that x4 by 1 for every additional use beyond the first one to a maximum of 10.
Of course, if we are trying to track damage based on how many times you swing a sword or attack with a dagger, we are going to face a problem. Classes have different number of times they swing their weapons, making it so that if we tied it to the number of attacks in a round, a cleric might pay one price while a 20th-level fighter would pay a lot more. That type of wishy-washy isn’t going to fly around here, so we need some other metic. We could tie it to the number of rounds the damage lasts for, but most effects are going to either be on your next attack (not quite 1 turn), until the end of your turn (1 turn), or for 1 minute (more than a round).
I think the easiest way of handling it is to base it on how many minutes you get of that effect, so if it lasts for 1 action to less than a full minute, you are going to multiply the average damage by x4. If it lasts for 1 minute, it’ll be x5, 2 minutes x6, and so on until you reach x10 at which point the multiplier won’t increase but I suspect the price still will due to the item’s rarity. Let’s take the dagger of venom as an example, and I’ll show you the formula below. As a reminder, a dagger of venom is a rare +1 weapon, can deal additional 11 (2d10) poison damage once per day, and you get a saving throw to take half damage.
Dagger of Venom [2.68gp (damage with a save) * 11 (avg damage)] * 4 (semi-permanent multiplier) + 500gp (+1 weapon) * 2 (rarity) = 1,235 gp 8 sp 4 cp
For a rare dagger that deals a bit of damage, that isn’t too bad for an adventurer’s wallet. Of course, early campaign this thing would be very expensive, but I could see a rogue picking up one of these daggers for a just in case as they get higher level.
Quickly flipping through the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I couldn’t find another item with limited damage bursts, but I’m sure there are lots more outside that book. I’m going to create a quick example of an item just for an additional example for you. This will be a +1 shortbow that, once per day, deals an additional 1d6 piercing damage for 1 minute. We’ll call this an uncommon item and give it a funky name like… Hunter’s Shortbow. Perfect.
Hunter’s Shortbow [3.57gp (damage with no save) * 3 (avg damage)] * 5 (semi-permanent multiplier +1 due to length of effect) + 500 gp (+1 weapon) * 1.5 (rarity) = 830 gp 3 sp 2 cp
Permanent Damage
Now let’s check out items that offer a permanent bonus to your damage output, like the flame tongue or the giant slayer. We already have our two gp amounts (3.57 for no save, 2.68 for save) so we already have that figured out, and we are going to continue to take from Part 3 where we know that an effective unlimited permanency gets a x10 multiplier to its damage cost. So, this seems pretty straightforward, but I’ll be throwing a wrench into this in 3… 2… 1…
You see how I mentioned giant slayer up there? We are looking at a small problem as that axe only deals that additional permanent damage to giants. So maybe not that permanent? We also have things like the vicious weapon which deals damage only on a critical hit. That’s a permanent boost, but are you really getting 10 or more crits in a single day of adventure? Maybe… probably not though. It kind of feels unfair to charge them the full price of damage x10, but if we are trying to keep this simple and straightforward, we can’t keep making a bunch of side rules for a million different variations, but still…
Let’s go ahead and look at the flame tongue because it has more to it than free damage as it sheds light, like a super power light cantrip. I think that when a weapon or item has minor little effects like this, it isn’t going to be accounted for in their price. No one buys a flame tongue cause it can shed light in a dark corridor, they buy it for the damage and the fact it sheds light is just for fun. Same can be said for the frost brand, it sheds light in freezing temperatures and can extinguish nonmagical fires. No one buys it for those two specific properties, instead they buy it for the extra cold damage and resistance to cold. So when I price those two items out, I’m not including the extra fun bits, just the main reason why someone would want the item.
Flame Tongue [3.57gp (damage with no save) * 7 (avg damage)]* 10 [permanent multiplier] + 500gp [magic weapon] * 2 (rarity) = 1,714 gp
Frost Brand [3.57 gp (damage with no save) * 3 (avg damage)] * 10 [permanent multipler] + 500 gp [magic weapon] + 3000 (permanent 3rd level spell effect [protection from energy]) * 3 (rarity) = 10,821 gp
Hmm… That feels too low for me on the flame tongue, and the frost brand is so expensive because the resistance to fire damage is basically a permanent 3rd level spell on it. I think that the permanent multiplier for this should be increased to 20, let’s see what that looks like.
Flame Tongue [3.57gp (damage with no save) * 7 (avg damage)]* 20 [permanent multiplier] + 500gp [magic weapon] * 2 (rarity) = 1,999 gp (round up to 2,000 gp)
Frost Brand [3.57 gp (damage with no save) * 3 (avg damage)] * 20 [permanent multipler] + 500 gp [magic weapon] + 3000 (permanent 3rd level spell effect [protection from energy]) * 3 (rarity) = 11,142 gp
That’s looking slightly better, but I’m not sure I love it yet but I think it’s growing on me. This does, luckily, give me an idea for things like giant slayer that are only useful on a handful of types. Instead of using x20, we’ll do the original x10 for their price.
Giant Slayer [3.57gp (damage with no save) * 7 (avg damage)] * 10 [permanent multiplier] + 500 gp (+1 weapon) + 30 gp (prone) * 2 (rarity) = 1,559 gp
Vicious Weapon [3.57 gp (damage with no save) * 7 (damage)] * 10 [permanent multiplier] + 500 gp (magic weapon) * 2 (rarity) = 1,499 gp
These prices look a lot better to me, so I’ll go ahead and keep them like this.
Increase Ability Scores
The last thing we are going to look at this week are ability scores and how much that might cost. There are two ways to increase your ability score, either you get a flat bonus to your existing score or you set your ability score to a new number if it is higher than your current one. This means we will have two different ways of figuring out the price.
Set Score
If the item offers a set score to increase you to, like headband of intellect, we are going to have it set up to how we set up magical enhancements in Part 3. We will have a base price, I’m going to start at 30 gp, and then we are going to multiply that number by the cumulative modifier bonuses above 10 that the item gets you to. Let’s go ahead and look that over:
Headband of Intellect 30gp * 10 [+1+2+3+4] * 1.5 (rarity) = 450 gp
Yeah, that is much to low. I went with 30 gp just as a base to start with, since that’s what cantrips start at, and there aren’t any spells that increase an ability score. Though, perhaps we could instead take the enhance ability spell as our base cost. While it doesn’t increase your score, it does grant you advantage and in previous editions it would increase your score. A 2nd-level spell would cost 180 gp before the rarity modifier.
Headband of Intellect 180 gp * 10 [+1+2+3+4] * 1.5 (rarity) = 2,700 gp
Still too low in my opinion. If we add a x10 permanent tax on there, then you are looking at 27,000 gp which seems too high in my opinion, for the item. Looking at a few other spells, awaken catches my eye, so let’s see what a 5th level spell’s cost would do. A 5th-level spell costs 630 gp before the rarity modifier.
Headband of Intellect 630gp * 10 [+1+2+3+4] * 1.5 (rarity) = 9,450 gp
Looking at that, that’s not bad. I think that’s a pretty good ask for an item that increases your smarts from any negative modifier to +4 in just an hour of attuning. We could also have minor versions that bring you to +1 for your modifier, +2, or +5, or whatever. Here are some examples, some made up, others real.
Headband of Few Ideas (13, +1) 630 gp * 1 [+1] * 1.5 (rarity) = 945 gp
Headband of Smarts (15, +2) 630 gp * 3 [+1+2] * 1.5 (rarity) = 2,835 gp
Headband of Mostly Bright (17, +3) 630 gp * 6 [+1+2+3] * 1.5 (rarity) = 5,760 gp
Belt of Giant Strength (21, +5) 630 gp*15 [+1+2+3+4+5]*2 (rarity) = 18,900gp
Belt of Giant Strength (25, +7) 630 gp * 28 [+1+2+3+4+5+6+7] * 3 = 52,920 gp
Bonus to Ability Score
The other types of magic items in this section are the ones who provide a bonus to your score, typically up to a maximum of 20. The ioun stones are the ones that come to mind that provide this benefit, and, like before, there are no spells to mooch off of for this. We do have an easier time of this simply because they increase your score by 2, which means your modifier is only increased by 1. It’s a smaller bonus compared to something like a headband that gives you a 19, and so it is going to be a bit cheaper because the hardwork of having a high score must first be done by the character. This item just provides a small boost to that score. I think we can go ahead and use 630 gp as our base price, and just multiply it by the rarity to get our final total.
Ioun Stone Agility 630gp * 3 (rarity) = 1,890 gp
I’m not mad at that price, though that’s probably due to the rarity… But, I’ll take it!
Conclusion
We are slowly getting closer to the end of this. Next week, I will actually start at the beginning of the magic items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and start providing pricing for more items and start filling out our spreadsheet… until something else comes up that causes everything to come to a grinding stop. With that said, there are a lot of items that have one off effects or don’t appear anywhere else, like an alchemist’s jug which is… like, how do you price that? So some items are just going to have to be by feel.
If you are curious to see a work-in progress excel file, you can check it out here.
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