Author Topic: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?  (Read 5483 times)

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Libertad

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What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« on: October 19, 2011, 07:21:03 PM »
I heard that the Magic Item Compendium used its own pricing formula due to the high-priced and impractical values of standard DMG magic items.

What formulas does the book use, if any, and would it be a good fit for redesigning price guidelines for magic items in general?


Prime32

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2011, 07:54:58 PM »
The DMG rules for combining multiple effects into a single item say to add the costs together and multiply by 1.5

MIC modifies this so that straight bonuses (like the ones on a belt of giant's strength or ring of natural armor) don't count as additional effects, and you just add their cost normally. The stated reason was because you need these kinds of bonuses to keep up, but they shouldn't deprive you from more interesting effects.
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Sinfire Titan

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2011, 09:14:40 PM »
The DMG rules for combining multiple effects into a single item say to add the costs together and multiply by 1.5

MIC modifies this so that straight bonuses (like the ones on a belt of giant's strength or ring of natural armor) don't count as additional effects, and you just add their cost normally. The stated reason was because you need these kinds of bonuses to keep up, but they shouldn't deprive you from more interesting effects.

It also uses a different formula for premade magic item. The Healing Belt, for example, is considerably cheaper than it would be if it were priced by the DMG guidelines.


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Endarire

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2011, 06:20:43 AM »
The MIC generally said, "Ignore what we said about formulas!  Just eyeball it!" for nonstandard effects like stat/skill/save/AC boosters.
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Libertad

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2011, 06:32:10 PM »
It also uses a different formula for premade magic item. The Healing Belt, for example, is considerably cheaper than it would be if it were priced by the DMG guidelines.

What's the formula for premade ones?

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2011, 07:46:40 PM »
It also uses a different formula for premade magic item. The Healing Belt, for example, is considerably cheaper than it would be if it were priced by the DMG guidelines.

What's the formula for premade ones?
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Sinfire Titan

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2011, 07:48:38 PM »
It also uses a different formula for premade magic item. The Healing Belt, for example, is considerably cheaper than it would be if it were priced by the DMG guidelines.

What's the formula for premade ones?

Haven't the faintest. I've never been good at reverse-engineering those prices.


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Mooncrow

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Re: What pricing formula does the Magic Item Compendium use?
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2011, 08:19:26 PM »
There isn't really a formula per se.  They looked at the items people were actually using from the other books, and scaled the prices to be more in line. So, Healing Belt costs the same as Wand of CLW, the most used item of healing.  Things like that.