Believe it or not, I actually did what I said I was going to do two weeks ago. I assigned prices to all the magic items in the D&D DMG. But that’s not all I did. In fact, that’s the least interesting thing I did. Assigning prices was easy. I just finished designing the pricing scheme that’s already half-baked into D&D. I know lots of people scream about how the magic item prices in D&D are broken. In fact, I’m glad they scream about it. Because people who scream the word ‘broken’ generally don’t have anything useful or intelligent to say and I can just delete their comments. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that the prices in D&D aren’t really broken. I mean, they might be. But even if they are, it doesn’t matter. They’re the ones we’ve got. So, we’re just going to assume they’re not. But they ARE incomplete. And when I realized that, it made my job easier. And then, when I realized I was doing my job the stupid way, it made everything A LOT easier. Because it kept me from having to actually assign prices to every magic item in the game. I figured out a way to get them to assign themselves.

Meanwhile, while I wasn’t assigning prices to every magic item in the game, I was doing something a lot more interesting and fun. And that interesting, fun bit is what I’ll talk about… next week. Because this week, I’m talking about…

How to Price a Magic Item

In my last article on this topic, I explained that I had to design the AngryCraft system backward. I had to use the existing magic item list to help me define the materials that the players would use to craft magic items. Specifically, I had to figure out how much the materials should be worth based on the worth of the magic items they’d be used to make. And I had to do that based on the assumption that a magic item should require between three and eight units of materials to craft.

Unfortunately, while the DMG provides values for magic items based on their rarities, those values just wouldn’t work for AngryCraft. The magic items of a given rarity are just too varied to say they all have the same value. It’s crazy to think that eyes of charming are worth just as much as eyes of minute seeing and that both have the same value as a wand of secrets or a mithril chain shirt or a +1 longsword.

Now, although I explained all of that last time, there was something I didn’t mention. It wasn’t really important then, but it’s important now. And even if it weren’t, I’d still have to discuss because, if I don’t, people will keep reminding me of it. I didn’t forget that the DMG specifically mentions that consumable magic items are worth half as much as other magic items. It just wasn’t relevant to the larger discussion. Please stop f$&%ing e-mailing me.

Yeah. The DMG does distinguish between consumable items and items that last forever. And it says that consumable items are worth half as much as other items. This means that, whereas an uncommon item like a pair of eyes of minute seeing is worth 500 gp, an uncommon potion like a potion of acid resistance is only worth 250 gp.

Unfortunately, that’s still not enough to build a crafting system around. Especially because there’s more than one way to consume a consumable. But it does give some insight into how items might be priced more systematically. This is why I say the pricing scheme in D&D isn’t so much broken as unfinished.

What’s in a Magic Item?

The fact that the DMG acknowledges a price difference between consumable items and permanent ones implies there’s actually a systematic way to classify magic items and assign them prices. One that isn’t about analyzing what the items actually do and trying to compare the incomparable. Because that’s really the problem with assigning prices to magic items. Except within some very specific, narrow groupings, it’s hard to compare two magic items and determine which is more valuable. Obviously, a +2 weapon is more valuable than a +1 weapon. But how does a +2 weapon compare to a suit of +1 armor? Which is more valuable? There’s lots of ways to argue that point and that’s what keeps most D&D forums on the internet going. But whatever answer you give is going to be highly subjective and it’s going to be based on a lot of assumptions. For instance, most of my players have told me they prize magic weapons more highly than magic armor in the past. But, I have this one cleric of Mystra in my game who has a lot of damage-dealing cantrips. She’s a spell-blaster priestess. But she does end up near the front line a lot because of the party makeup and because I tend to make my players fight more groups of foes than lone monsters. If I give her a +2 morningstar, she won’t give a rat’s titty about it. But she’d LOVE a suit of +1 scale mail.

And that’s just a debate about two items that are kind of comparable to each other. They both directly affect the combat statistics of the wearer. How do those things compare to a marble elephant? Which is more valuable, a suit of +1 scale mail or Daern’s instant fortress? Which should be more expensive, boots of levitation or a +2 morningstar? The answers will vary. Greatly. Based on the playstyle of the players and the type of campaign. In a political intrigue campaign – one without a lot of physical obstacles to overcome – ropes of climbing and chimes of opening will be a lot less valuable than eyes of charming and rods of rulership. But in a traditional game of dungeon-crawling fun, the players will be selling off those eyes of charming the minute they get back to town.

The comparisons that can be made between items in D&D have already been made. And they’re part of the rarity system. That’s why +2 longswords are rarer than +1 longswords. And the designers already made a lot of subjective calls. +1 weapons are more common than suits of +1 armor. Which means that the designers think magical armor is more valuable, all else being equal, than magical weapons. So, they agree with my cleric of Mystra, but they disagree with most of my past players.

Hell, the guys behind the Sane Magic Item List that I mentioned last week had to go through the same s$&%. They basically had a group discussion about every single item and how each compared to other items and game mechanics based on various assumptions and from various points of view. They did a good job, but it’s still subjective as hell.

Me? I don’t care about getting sane magic item prices out of this. I just want to know how much the AngryCraft materials cost and how many ingredients should go into a given magical item. So, I’m sure as s$&% not going through the entire magic item list and arguing this all out in my own head. It’s not like my answers will be any better than anyone else’s. I just need to assign values that follow some kind of f$&%ing logic. And honestly, I’d rather just have a spreadsheet assign the values.

Fortunately, there’s more to a magic item than just a rarity and an effect. Magic items have certain mechanical qualities – certain traits – that can help nail down their relative values. There’s different types of magic items. And, as the DMG and thousands of my readers have pointed out, some are consumable. And as the DMG doesn’t point out for some stupid reason best known only to the octopus that lives in Jeremy Crawford’s brain and tells him what to do, magic items have different levels of impact on the game. There’s two different power levels of magic items.

Let’s break all of those things down.

As mentioned before, every magic item has a rarity. But rarity doesn’t really describe how rare the magic item is. It actually tells the GM which items to hand out or make available at which levels of experience. Rarity also determines the base price for a magic item. It’s value. Common items are worth 100 gp, uncommon ones are worth 500 gp, rare items are worth 5,000 gp, very rare items are worth 50,000 gp, and legendary items are worth a whopping 500,000 gp. Those prices are totally arbitrary. They could have been 100 gp, 10,000 gp, 1,000,000 gp, and 1,000,000,000 gp and it wouldn’t have mattered. Because you’re rarely ever going to be in a position where you’re comparing two items of different rarities or choosing between them. That’s just how the game works. The reason for the huge jump in price from one rarity to the next is just to make sure that, if the GM follows the game’s general guidelines, a party should not be able to afford a magic item before they’ve hit the level at which it should be available. At least not without giving up a LOT. What’s more valuable? Buying every member of the party a suit of +1 armor and a +2 weapon or buying one member of the party a +3 weapon. Because that’s roughly how it breaks down.

Rarity is thus useful for setting a very broad, base price for magic items based on experience level. And it’s useless for anything else.

In addition to rarity, magic items also come in nine different categories. The categories are armor, potions, rings, rods, scrolls, staffs, wands, weapons, and wondrous items. The category determines what form the item takes in the game, who can use it, how it’s used, and how many similar items can be used alongside it. Anyone with the proper proficiency can use weapons and armor, for example. You can only wear one suit of armor though, and you can carry just one or two weapons. Anyone can use their action to drink a potion. And you can carry lots of potions. Likewise, anyone can wear a ring and anyone can wear up to ten of them. Anyone can also use a rod, a wand, or a staff. You can carry a few rods or wands easily, but probably only one staff. Anyone who can read any language can activate a scroll. Wondrous items are a crapshoot. Some are items of clothing that you have to wear, meaning you can only wear one of a given type. Others are big items that you can only really have one of. Others are small enough to stick in your pocket. Some require certain proficiencies and others don’t.

Now, those are all general rules. Specific items and specific types of items have extra rules. While anyone who can read can activate a scroll of protection, only specific spellcasters can cast a spell off a spell scroll. And aren’t you embarrassed that you flew down to the comment section to REMIND me of that fact after getting only halfway through the last paragraph? Maybe you should let me f$&%ing finish before you start running your mouth.

Speaking of extra requirements, some magic items require attunement. That is, before you can use the item, you have to sit and snuggle with it for the length of a short rest. Only one creature can be attuned with a given magic item at a time. And you can only be attuned with three items at once. And you also can’t attune with two copies of the same item at the same time. Not only that, but some items can only be attuned with if you meet specific requirements. Anyone can attune with a robe of stars, but only a sorcerer, wizard, or warlock can attune with a robe of the archmagi. Basically, items that require attunement have extra restrictions and limitations on their use. And they can’t easily be shared around and benefit all the members of a party.

Because they place restrictions on their use, the values of magic items could be set based on their categories and their attunement requirements. All else being equal, an item that can be used freely by anyone and everyone – like a potion or a magic ring that doesn’t require attunement – is more valuable than items that can only be used by characters who have specific proficiencies – like weapons and armor – or items that require attunement – like that robe of the archmagi.

But, as I’m sure everyone is already screaming at their screen, there’s a difference between a potion and a magic ring. Potions have a pretty major drawback. They are one-and-done items. Consumables. Once you drink a potion, you can never use it again. And while the DMG does acknowledge that, it doesn’t acknowledge it enough. Because there’s more to the story.

There’s actually two different types of consumable items. First, there’s things like potions and spell scrolls which can be used once and only once. And then there’s consumable items that come with more than one use. Like the ring of three wishes. It can be used a number of times that is greater than two and less than four. Not just once. And consider the rod of absorption. Whose description is a f$&%ing nightmare to interpret, by the way. It can be used to absorb 50 levels of spells and then it can never absorb any more spells no matter what. It also gains energy for each level of spell it absorbs and that energy can be used in place of spell slots by a spellcaster. And once it has run out of energy and once it has absorbed 50 levels of spells, it’s a hunk of useless metal. Items like the necklace of fireballs and the necklace of prayer beads both come with a set number of beads that have magical uses. Once you’ve ripped all the beads off and used them, they’re just pretty little gold chains. And because you rarely find just one +1 arrow, I consider magical ammunition to work this way.

All else being equal – yes, I know I have to say that a lot in this article – all else being equal, an item that can only be used once is less valuable than one that comes with multiple uses. And we should distinguish between them. I’m going to call the former kind single-use items and the latter kind limited-use items.

But that’s not even the whole story. There’s another type of limited-use item. Actually, it’s somewhere between a limited-use item and a regular item. Charged items – for example, most wands and staffs – have an internal battery with a certain number of charges. When you use the item, you have to burn one or more of the charges. When the battery is empty, the item can’t be used. Periodically – usually once per day – the item regains a random number of charges, meaning it can be used again.

Oh, and if you use the last charge in such an item, there’s often a chance the item will break forever. It’s not a big chance. Usually, it’s 5%. But it is a chance.

Charged items are more useful than limited items. Effectively, they last forever – as long as you never use the last charge – but they can only be used a certain number of times a day. Or week. Or some other time interval.

The remaining items are permanent items. They just work. Forever. Either there is no limit to how often they can be used or they provide some kind of always-on benefit. Most magic weapons and most suits of magic armor are permanent items.

I’ll call this quality usage. And it’s either going to be single-use, limited-use, charged, or permanent. And when it comes to a magic item with multiple abilities, I’ll judge it based on the usage of its best power. And just because an item has charges, that doesn’t make it a charged item.

Consider the nine lives stealer on DMG 183. It’s a +2 sword with a random number of charges. When you score a crit with it, it forces the victim to make a saving throw or drop dead. That eats up a charge. Once it’s out of charges, it stops stealing lives, but it remains a +2 sword forever after. The nine lives stealer is a limited-use item. While it does have a permanent benefit, its best ability – and the one that sets its rarity – can only be used a certain number of times. And while it does have charges, it can’t ever get those charges back. Which means it’s not really a charged item at all.

In addition to the four qualities I’ve discussed – rarity, category, attunement requirement, and usage – there’s actually a fifth, secret quality in the DMG that the designers only revealed and explained in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. On XGE 135, the designers explain that magic items were placed on different treasure tables in the DMG based on whether they were considered minor magic items or major magic items. Tables A through E in the DMG contain the minor items and Tables F through I contain the major items. What’s the difference? Well, XGE is kind of cagey on that. It only says that major items shouldn’t be found as often as minor items. So, basically, it’s a secret, hidden rarity stat. Because the designers are taking cues from Pokémon mechanics now.

Basically, the difference between minor items and major items seems to be how much the item in question is likely to change your game. Its impact. It’s interesting to note that there are minor items of every category and usage in the DMG. And while there are also major items of every category, no single-use items are considered to have a major impact. Yet. Except for that fact, there’s no overlap between the impact quality – that’s what I’m calling it – and the other qualities I’ve described.

To sum up, we’ve got five different purely mechanical ways to describe and value every magic item. We’ve got rarity, we’ve got category, we’ve got attunement requirements, we’ve got usage, and we’ve got impact.

Turns Out There IS Such a Thing as Too Much Math

The existence of those five traits suggests a simple, obvious way to price magic items. Assuming an item’s rarity provides a range of possible values – as described in the DMG – the other four traits can be used to determine what specific value an item should have within that range.

Look at it this way. The most valuable item for a given rarity is a permanent ring that doesn’t require attunement and has a major impact on the game. The least valuable item is a single-use weapon that requires attunement and has a minor impact on the game. Holding everything else equal, that is. Every other mix of traits lies somewhere between the two. And you can come up with a mathematical system for figuring out precisely where it lies.

Basically, imagine you have a slider. The bottom of the slider is the lowest possible value for an item of a given rarity. The top of the slider is the highest possible value for an item of a given rarity. Each of the four other traits pushes the slider up or down based on what that trait is. Or, assuming you start the slider at the bottom, each of the traits pushes the slider up by a certain amount based on its value.

One way to do this would be to assign a weight to each of the four traits to determine how much of an impact that trait should have on the price of a magic item. For example, you might say that impact and usage are the most important factors in determining the price of a magic item. Each has a weight of 40%. Then, you might decide that attunement requirements account for another 15% of the value of the magic item. And the remaining 5% comes from the item’s category.

Then, for each trait, you assign percentages to each value of that trait. For example, there’s four different usages. There’s single-use, limited-use, charged, and permanent. So, single-use increases the value by 0%. Limited-use increases the value by 33.3%. Charged increases the value by 66.7%. And permanent increases the value by 100%. Of course, you have to multiply those percentages by the weights you determined earlier. Which means that a single-use item’s value is at the bottom. It’s 0% above the minimum. A limited-use item’s value is 13.3% above the minimum. A charged item’s value is 26.7% above the minimum. And a permanent item’s value is 40% above the minimum. Say it with me: “all else being equal!”

You add up all the weighted percentages for all the different traits, multiply it by the total range of prices for that rarity and then add the minimum and… are you bored yet? Me too. And I actually LIKE math.

If you didn’t follow all that mathemagical mumbo-jumbo, don’t worry. Because that isn’t how I’m doing it. I mean, I could. It works. It’s just taking a base price and modifying it based on a weighted average of four factors. In fact, I know it works because I did it. I assigned a price to every magic item in the game based on that system. And then I realized that it was the wrong way to do it. For two reasons.

First, there’s the fact that all of the weights for each trait and all the relative values of all the different possible traits are all totally subjective and arbitrary. It’s just another pile of incomparable. Obviously, major items are more valuable than minor items and permanent items are more valuable than charged items which are more valuable than single-use items. But how do you put the different categories in value order? Especially if you’re not allowed to consider anything that’s covered by another trait. For example, if you’re not allowed to consider that potions are single-use items, how do you determine if they are more or less valuable than weapons.

I’m not saying you can’t come up with an answer. You definitely can. I did. But no two people will give the same answer. I discovered that when I put the question to the Discord server I maintain for my Patreon supporters. And, amazingly, I’m the only one who realized that rings are the most valuable items given those conditions and that potions are way more valuable than magical weapons.

The second reason is that there’s absolutely no f$&%ing reason to do any of that s$&%. I’m ashamed that it took me as long as it did to realize that. That very precise – and yet still totally subjective and arbitrary system – will assign every item of a given rarity one of 144 possible prices. Or 126. It depends on whether you accept the possibility that there might, someday be a major impact item that can only be used one time. But I don’t need to slice the salami that thin. Because my goal was never to actually come up with prices for magic items. It was to come up with prices for AngryCraft materials based on the values of the magic items it could be used to craft. And I don’t actually need to know the values of the magic items to do that.

Eyes on the Real Prize

Let’s look at this whole problem differently. I decided that every magic item must be craftable with no fewer than three materials and no more than eight materials. Well, I might go as high as ten. That means that I don’t need 144 possible outcomes for the price of every magic item. I need, like, eight tops. One for two-material items, one for three-material items, and so on. I already know the value of the most valuable magic item of every given rarity. And I know those items will require eight materials. I just need a way to decide which items are the three-material items and which ones are the eight-material items and which ones fall somewhere in between. I just need one trait that has something like eight different values. Or close to it. Or two traits that, together, give me eight different values.

One obvious solution is to decide how many ingredients an item needs based on its category. That COULD work. It stands to reason that all potions would need the same number of materials. And all rings. And all wands. And given that I also want to establish patterns in the formulae based on the item categories so that all scrolls and all wands are made basically the same way, it’s very tempting. But there’s a few problems with going that route. First, it would mean that making a batch of +1 arrows – a limited-use item because I’d never make a craftsman make one arrow at a time – would require the same number of materials as a +1 greatsword. That’s just silly. And wondrous items would be a complete mess. A single feather would require the same amount of raw materials as a bag of magic dust or a magical book or a cloak or a helmet.

Second, there’s really no good, obvious way to connect an item’s category to its value and it’d be based on some highly subjective assumptions. Third, of all the qualities I identified above, an item’s category is probably the least important factor in its value. The value of any magical item is more a factor of its impact on the game, how often it can be used, and whether it requires attunement. And even attunement is kind of iffy.

While it’s true that attunement does place restrictions on the use of certain items, it’s there to balance out the fact that those items are pretty powerful. And while some of them are highly specialized and are only useful to certain characters, they’re pretty sought after by those characters. Attunement isn’t necessarily a quality that reduces the value of an item. It’s actually a signal that a given item is probably more valuable than most. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL.

That means that the best way to objectively measure the value of a magic item – and therefore decide how many materials are needed to craft it – is to look at the impact of the item and its usage. Is it a minor item or a major item? And is it a single-use item, a limited-use item, a charged item, or a permanent item? And doing that will still keep many patterns intact. Potions and scrolls are all minor, single-use items. So, they will all require the same number of materials. But now ammunition – a limited-use item – will require fewer materials than a melee weapon.

And so, this is what I came up with. Here’s how many materials it takes to craft a magic item based on its impact and its usage.

• Minor, Single-Use 3
• Minor, Limited-Use 4
• Minor, Charged 5
• Minor, Permanent 6
• Major, Single-Use 5
• Major, Limited-Use 6
• Major, Charged 7
• Major, Permanent 8

How did I set those numbers? Well, I knew that major, permanent items were the most valuable and would need eight materials. And I knew that minor, single-use items were the least valuable and would need three materials. I just stepped the numbers up and down accordingly.

And now I know that the most valuable items – major, permanent items – require eight materials. And I already knew – thanks to WotC and the DMG – how much those items are worth. So now, I can use a simple mathemagical trick called division to figure out how much one material is worth. Except that I have a problem. 500 doesn’t divide evenly by 8. Neither does 5,000. Or 500,000. WotC picked stupid numbers. And I don’t want materials to carry a value of 62.5 gp or some multiple thereof. That just looks ugly.

And yes, that is a worthwhile consideration. It’s an issue of presentation and approachability. Most people are intimidated by uneven numbers or numbers that are hard to work with. I know you – super genius that you are – are not one of them and thus you can’t comprehend how anyone else might be bothered by such a thing. But, it’s a sad fact that most people just aren’t as awesome as you. And it’s so weird that no one but you can see it.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this mathematical malarkey. This factor folderol. This divisor dilemma. This… sorry.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this problem. XGE presents alternate magic item values. I guess because the designers realized their numbers were stupid. The values have been dropped by 20% down to 400, 4,000, and 40,000 gp for uncommon, rare, and very rare items. Legendary item values were reduced to 200,000 gp. Common items are still worth 100 gp, though. And those numbers do divide evenly by 8. Except for 100, that is. So, I decided to use those numbers. Except I also decided to use the old numbers too.

Remember how I said that AngryCraft would have to allow parties that don’t have craftsmen in them to pay NPCs to make items for them out of the materials they find. And therefore, the actual value of a magic item would be the sum of the values of all the materials required to make it plus a premium? Well, that premium – crafting cost – could account for the 20% difference between the numbers. So, an uncommon magic item would be worth 500 gp, but the materials required to make it would only be worth 400 gp. And if the party wanted to have their materials turned into an item and didn’t have the skill, they’d have to pay at least 100 gp to get it done.

And if I apply that same logic to the values for common items and legendary items, I then conclude that a common item’s materials would be worth 80 gp. And the total price for a legendary item would be 250,000 gp. That includes 200,000 gp worth of materials and 50,000 gp for labor.

To sum it up more succinctly, here’s the cost breakdown for major, permanent items of every rarity and the cost of a single material of a given rarity:

 

And here’s the breakdown showing how to assign the material costs and total value to any item in the game:

The Next Part of the Current Step

With a systematic magic item pricing scheme in hand, I don’t have to go through every magic item in the game and assign it a subjective, arbitrary value. I just have to go through every magic item in the game and put it in a f$&%ing spreadsheet and classify it by impact and usage. And then I can use some spreadsheet magic to assign each one its proper price. And that’s actually not that hard. I know because I’ve already done it. I made the big ole spreadsheet. And not only did I record every item’s impact and usage, but I also recorded its rarity, category, and whether it requires attunement. And I even listed all the different varieties of every item as separate line items. Every kind of +1 armor. Every possible flametongue weapon. Every variety of potion of resistance. Because I’m going to need all that s$&% later.

Actually, I’m going to need it now. Because assigning prices to the AngryCraft materials was only half the job. The other half is figuring out what kinds of materials – what descriptors – I need to make sure every item is craftable with AngryCraft. And what better time to figure that out then when I was already going through every magic item in the game, recording their qualities, and reading their descriptions?

So, in the next AngryCraft article, not only will I be sharing the massive spreadsheet I made, I’ll show you how to describe every magic item in the game – and spell and creature – in twenty words or less.