# Cost of custom crafted item with multiple enhancements spells?

I've been researching and learning the 3.5 crafting system for my upcoming artificer and I seem to have hit a snag in the pricing system.

I am aware that it is only for estimating values but cannot determine final cost with DM adequately if I cannot come up with an estimation.

I believe my questions boil down to 3 and I'll provide the current item creation as an example.

1. The WoTC SRD states

Multiple Different Abilities Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that do take up a space on a character’s body each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.

Essentially the item I am crafting is a warforged component similar to the arm bow. Instead of firing crossbow bolts made by it it fires any bolt put into it like a normal repeating cross bow.

A Small masterwork light repeating crossbow is 550 gp (250 gp for the base bow, +300 gp for masterwork).

Now I want this item to have 2 dissimilar spells on it.

Spell 1: Master's Touch $$Spell\ level \times Caster\ level \times 2000\text{ gp}$$ $$1 \times 1 \times 2000\text{ gp}$$

Note from the SRD

a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

So this should be 4000 gp as master's touch has a normal duration of 1 minute/level

$$1 \times 1 \times 2000\text{ gp} \times 2 = 4000\text{ gp}$$

And this item requires Craft Wondrous Item.

Spell 2: Use-Activated At-Will Magic Missle at caster level 5th

$$1 \times 5 \times 2000\text{ gp} = 10000\text{ gp}$$

Fires 3d4+1 magic missiles when firing the crossbow without a bolt.

If a crossbow bolt is loaded, magic missle does not fire.

Adding this together we get 14000 gp (Not including crossbow base cost).

This item is embedded so it does take up a slot on the body. Should this mean it goes up 50% as per the SRD note?

This would mean 21000 gp.

2. When making this item do I also need to have and include the cost of Enhancement bonuses?

Should I make a +2 enhancement for this weapon along with it?

2 spells 2 enhancements

+2 of course costing 8000 gp

If so it would be either $$29000\text{ gp} = \left(21000\text{ gp} + 8000\text{ gp}\right)$$

Plus the cost of masterwork weapon $$550\text{ gp}$$

How do I determine the damage on this?

Do the enhancement bonus's also give the +2 to hit/dam?

Or no because of the spells?

If someone could walk through the entire process explaining the reasons behind the decisions I would be grateful.

Think i finally got the price. Description of the item is

Artificer's wrist bow (+1)(CL5) Weight 1 ½ lbs. Range bolt 60ft/Missle 100ft(+10ft/CL) Damage 1d6+1 19–20/×2 Piercing

This metal bracer is covered with fine lines and filigree. When activated (a free action) the filigree unfolds into a small repeating crossbow.

When fired this Armbow fires magic missle or a bolt. This version only fires 3 missiles at 1d6+1 per missle though some artificer's have made stronger versions.

Any artificer, with experience in Clockwork creation, Is proficient the use of this custom built bow.

This Armbow takes up the wrist/bracer slot and is considered a ready weapon if the user chooses so. It can be paired with a second and even modified to use stronger magics at a higher cost.

Requires Artificer, And Knowledge architecture and engineering DC 15

Requires Craft Wondrous Item, craft Wand and Craft Magical arms and armor.

Cost 31250 market price

Cost are based on 250+ 750 (Light repeating mithril crossbow) (Masterwork included in mithril cost per DMG pg 284)

Enhancement bonus's +1 1x1x2000=2000 Hideaway Weapon Augmentation ( from RotW pg 171) Cost 7,500 go

Magic Missle use active, no limit Sl1 CL 5 1x5x2000=10,000

Masters touch SL1CL1 continuous (Originally 1 minute per level) 1x1x2000=2000*2(original duration multiplier) 2000x2=4000

Let's add it together. As the most expensive magic missle goes first. Then for each additional non similar effect were add the cost a 50% increase as per the creation guidelines.

10,000+(7500*1.5)+(4000*1.5)+(2000*1.5)= 30,250

Add in the base item at 1000 total

For 31,250 gp

• Are you playing Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition or 3.5? (I know that you've tagged this 3.5, but Tome and Blood is a Third Edition source.) – Hey I Can Chan Jun 28 '16 at 19:16
• (It's okay if you are playing 3.5 and consulting Third Edition sources—material therein is 3.5 legit unless updated—, but I want to confirm that answers should be in a 3.5 context before an answer second-guesses that context.) – Hey I Can Chan Jun 28 '16 at 19:20
• 3.5 context. I consulted tome of blood as it had additional explanations but was unaware it was 3.0. – Zakier Jun 28 '16 at 19:34
• For future reference. – Hey I Can Chan Jun 28 '16 at 19:49
• Ah I see. Good to know. I was able to check on the books I own. Thank you – Zakier Jun 28 '16 at 20:05

1. Your pricing of the small masterwork light repeating crossbow is correct.

Your pricing of the continuous master’s touch is correct per the guidelines. As a DM, I might not be so sure I like that price, however.

Your pricing of the at-will use-activated magic missile is correct. However, it would not fire missiles that deal 3d4+1 damage, as you seem to imply. It would instead fire three separate missiles that deal 1d4+1 damage each.

You have a mistake when you add them together: firstly, you dropped the $\times2$ multiplier from the duration note on master’s touch: it should be $10,000\text{ gp}+4000\text{ gp}$, not $+2000\text{ gp}$. Moreover, you missed this note:

### Multiple Different Abilities

Abilities such as an attack roll bonus or saving throw bonus and a spell-like function are not similar, and their values are simply added together to determine the cost. For items that do take up a space on a character’s body each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price.

For one weapon with two different effects, you need to pay half-again the cost of the continuous master’s touch. So the cost should be $10,000\text{ gp} + \left(4000\text{ gp} \times 1.5\right) = 16,000\text{ gp}$.

Finally, Eberron Campaign Setting has a page (268, to be precise) on warforged components. It includes statements like

A warforged component usually occupies the same space on the body that a magic item of the same kind normally would.

Likewise, armbow specifies that it

attaches to the arm of a warforged, completely covering the hand.

So assuming that this item uses up your character’s hand like the armbow does, it should cost $16,000\text{ gp}$. If it does not,

Components that do not occupy any space on the body cost twice what they would cost as ordinary magic items.

Thus that would be $16,000\text{ gp} \times 2 = 32,000\text{ gp}$.

Either way, the fact that the base cost is less than the price of the armbow, despite having significant extra features, suggests to me that your DM may very well dispute these prices. I would.

2. A magic weapon must have a +1 bonus on it before receiving any other special weapon properties. But you aren’t enhancing this as a weapon, you are treating it like a wondrous item. The rules don’t really cover this possibility; I would probably require the +1. But a +1 is all you need; after that, you’re free to put as much other magic on there as you want without needing a higher enhancement bonus (with the exception of the more powerful weapon augment crystals).

Any enhancement bonus on the item would add to attack and damage, yes.

For costing these, the fact that you’re adding features to a magic weapon means that you need to consider that 50% premium again. You have a $10,000\text{ gp}$ component (the magic missiles), a $4000\text{ gp}$ component (the master’s touch), and a $2000\text{ gp}$ component (the enhancement bonus, assuming you go with the minimum +1). The second and third each cost 50% extra because you’re combining them on one item. Like so:

$$10,000\text{ gp} + \left(4000\text{ gp} \times 1.5\right) + \left(2000\text{ gp} \times 1.5\right) = 19,000\text{ gp}$$

This adds onto the $550\text{ gp}$ cost of the base item, so your total is $19,550\text{ gp}$. Again, twice that if it’s not taking up your hand.

• That is a very good answer. Thank you for explaining so completely. I agree the cost seems low. My dm would agree and as we co GM our games and I both would agree a good limiter this is an additional +1 on the enhancement. It would increase the base weapons damage but it shouldn't increase the magic features damage. – Zakier Jun 28 '16 at 23:05
• The design is a middle ground between hanks energy bow (which is a bow and has more features than I need or can afford) and the arm bow which had that HP cost for more arrows. This was meant to be a middle ground. Less detrimental than the arm bow but not nearly as powerful as hanks bow while still being more expensive than hanks bow since it was way under priced for its abilities – Zakier Jun 28 '16 at 23:11
• Shouldn't enhancement bonus go first giving 2000 gp + (4000 gp x 1.5) + (10,000 gp x 1.5) = 23,000 gp? Anyway the order seems important. – Ols Jun 28 '16 at 23:13
• @Ols Most expensive first, and yes, the order matters. Though if you had a +3, the enhancement bonus would be the most expensive and so then it would be first ($18,000\text{ gp} + (10,000\text{ gp} \times 1.5) + (4000\text{ gp} \times 1.5) = 39,000\text{ gp}$). – KRyan Jun 29 '16 at 0:31
• @Zakier I should clarify, though, that usually weapons are not enhanced this way; adding spell effects is a thing that you do with wondrous items, not with weapons or armor. Those usually use their own special properties (like flaming or fortification), which tend to be priced as “enhancement bonus equivalents,” so for example a +1 flaming longsword costs the same as a +2 longsword and a +1 heavy fortification hide costs the same as a +6 hide. The rules don’t really address your case, I just applied the rule that seemed most sensible in the situation. – KRyan Jun 29 '16 at 3:03

First, note that you seriously need to talk to your DM about whether this will fly at all. Custom magical items slide easily into totally breaking the gold–power economy (consider the cost/benefit of a continuous Protection From Evil or use-activated True Strike item), and so this may all be an exercise in imagination. But skipping blithely past that:

The SRD, as reflected at d20SRD.org does not appear to precisely match the 3.5 DMG text. I'll pull from the DMG for his, because that's the more authoritative source.

The cost for a masterwork repeating light crossbow is 550.

Any magic weapon must have at least a +1 bonus: +2000

Master's Hand is a first level wizard spell. Use-activated, that's a base cost of 1*1*2000=2000, *2 for minutes/level = 4000.

Magic Missile could be at many caster levels to get different numbers of missiles. You said CL 5 for three missiles, so for use-activated that's 1*5*2000=10000.

This item does not occupy any of the slots listed on DMG page 288, so we go into the slotless pricing: magic missile is most expensive, it gets added at full price; Master's hand is cheaper, so gets multiplied by 0.75: 3000. It's not fully clear that enhancement bonuses are counted as powers, but it makes sense to me: it gets added at half price: 1000. That totals to 550 + 1000 + 3000 + 10000 = 14,550.

Finally, because it's slotless, multiply the entire item cost by 2, for a bottom-line total cost of 29,100 gold.

(If it's instead a non-traditional slot, you skip the divisions and multiply the highest power cost by 2, then the total item by 1.5, for a total cost of 39,825)

• It plausibly should be more, because Master's Hand has an expensive focus, but (a) the cost table only speaks to material component and XP costs, and (b) this uses the focus as the enchanted item anyway. – fectin - free Monica Jun 28 '16 at 22:32
• Master’s touch is a spell in Spell Compendium. It does not require any expensive component. – KRyan Jun 28 '16 at 22:35
• @KRyan Yes. But it does have an expensive focus (the masterwork repeating crossbow). – fectin - free Monica Jun 28 '16 at 22:39
• And since this item is attached or embedded to the wrist of a warforged as a warforged Component which does take up that slot is it still considered slotless? As far as the enhancement goes should I increase the number of Enhancement + to match the number of spells? – Zakier Jun 28 '16 at 22:45
• There is a specific list of slots. Unless warforged have something which says "this list replaces the DMG list" (or similar), it doesn't matter that the item is consuming a different limited resource. (And if you want a crossbow which is also a bracer, it's no longer a baseline crossbow). You don't need to add more than +1 enhancement, you just need to have at least that on any magic weapon. – fectin - free Monica Jun 28 '16 at 22:52