[RPG] How much should a “button of Cure Light Wounds” cost (should it be available at all?)

dnd-3.5ehealingmagic-itemspricing

My fellow players would like to have a command-word or use-activated "button" of Cure Light Wounds at will, i.e. unlimited uses/day.

How much should this cost (if it should be available at all?)

Item cost estimation rules per DMG

The Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) contains guidelines on the value of custom magical items. This includes guidance on the estimated price of spell effect items, like the Cape of the Mountebank (command activated Dimension Door 1/day) and use-activated/continuous effect items like the Lantern of Revealing (continuous Invisibility Purge.)

The general formula for the cost of a command-word/use activated spell-effect item appears to be the following five numbers, all multiplied together.

  1. Base price 1,800 GP for command-word activated items, or 2,000 GP for use-activated or continuous items.
  2. Spell level × Caster level
  3. Factor for base spell duration – if a continuous effect item.

    If 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.

  4. Body slot factor – ×1.00 for an item taking up a body slot, ×1.50 for an item taking up a "strange slot" (i.e. Boots of True Seeing – see Body Slot Affinities), ×2.00 for an item that doesn't occupy a slot.
  5. Charges/uses per day – ×1.00 for unlimited uses per day, ×0.80 4 uses/day, ×0.60 3 uses/day, ×0.40 2 uses/day, ×0.20 1 use/day. Alternately, ×0.50 for an item with 50 charges.

Example: Ring of Friendship

Taking the example of the Ring of Friendship (10,800 GP, command-word activated Charm Animal (Clr/Drd 1st, CL3) at will), we have:

  1. 1,800 GP for command-word activated
  2. Spell level 1 × caster level 3
  3. Factor for base spell duration – N/A (not a continuous effect item)
  4. ×2.00 for Body slot factor – apparently ×2 because rings don't have a body slot affinity
  5. ×1.00 for unlimited uses/day

Cost of Ring of Friendship 1,800 × 1 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 10,800 GP, which matches the 10,800 GP cost quoted in the SRD.

Extrapolating to a Ring of Cure Light Wounds

Let's try and create a Ring of Cure Light Wounds, a command-word activated item which casts Cure Light Wounds (Cleric 1st, CL 1) unlimited/day.

  1. 1,800 GP for command-word activated
  2. Spell level 1 × caster level 1
  3. Factor for base spell duration – N/A (not a continuous effect item)
  4. ×2.00 for Body slot factor – apparently ×2 because rings don't have a body slot affinity
  5. ×1.00 for unlimited uses/day

According to these factors the Ring of Cure Light Wounds should cost 3,600 GP.

However, everyone in my RPG group has a different opinion.

  • Alice thinks the above cost (3,600 GP) is correct.

  • Bob thinks that the Ring of Cure Light Wounds is ludicrously overpowered and shouldn't exist. (It dispenses literally infinite healing out of combat – a major game balance issue.)

  • Charlie thinks that such an item is outside the rules given by DMG because the DMG gives rules for spell effect items based on spells with a duration, i.e. rounds/level, minutes/level, but gives no rules for spells with instantaneous duration (i.e. Cure Light Wounds.)

  • Dave agrees with Charlie that the rules don't cover spell-effect items for instantaneous spells, but rather than disallowing them entirely, Dave thinks the "duration factor" should be ×4 (as if Cure Light Wounds had a duration of rounds – the most expensive option that DMG allows for.)

  • Erin thinks that the DMG guidelines are flexible and we should consider the cost of the Ring of Cure Light Wounds in context of other, existing magic items. For example, the Ring of Regeneration is 90,000 GP. The Ring of Cure Light Wounds is at least as powerful (if not more powerful!) so it should cost at least 90,000 GP.

Who, if anyone, is right? RAW preferred, otherwise RAI.

For context, this came up in the context of a dungeon crawl à la Tomb of Horrors: frequent combat, little chance to rest, and no prospect of resupply.

Best Answer

Contextually, Bob's correct

If the campaign is a series of tombs of horrors, then that ring of cure light wounds is an item beyond price. If the party can't leave the dungeon to resupply and can't get down to one encounter per day (i.e. the so-called 15-minute workday) via spells1, that ring of cure light wounds is a literal lifesaver.

In other words, if the campaign is already on hard mode, the ring switches it not to easy mode, certainly, but to average mode. That's a legitimate concern for the DM. The DM's already decided the campaign's supposed to be difficult and the ring makes the campaign substantially less difficult. As the ring violates a central campaign tenet, the ring just shouldn't be available… or only available as a result of a heinous Gygaxian Faustian bargain.

For the game as it was likely envisioned, Erin's correct

The Dungeon Master's Guide would likely pick Erin's suggestion. If worry-free, constant healing is desired, everybody should pony up for rings of regeneration (DMG 232) (90,000 gp; 0 lbs.). Sure, each ring of regeneration costs as much as 120 wands of cure light wounds [conj] (PH 215–16) (1st-level spell at caster level 1) (15 gp/charge), but, y'know, the Dungeon Master's Guide says to "[u]se good sense when assigning prices, using the items in this book as examples" (282), and the ring of regeneration presents the example of the price of worry-free, constant healing, so that is the price of worry-free healing. In fact, an original magic item like a use-activated ring of cure light wounds—like a continuous item of true strike [div] (PH 296)—is such an anathema, I'm willing to bet were the year 2000 Dungeon Master's Guide a DM that it would laugh at the player who suggested a ring of cure light wounds and maybe have the next wandering monster attack him first just for asking.

For many games as they are now, Alice or Dave is correct

Many current players feel that constantly reacquiring wands of cure light wounds to have their characters freshen up between encounters is, at worst, a mere inconvenience, like tracking how many arrows remain in a quiver. In the same way that being short on arrows creates tension at low levels, managing healing resources at low levels creates tension. Many players, though, feel that by the time a character's reached a reasonably high level—say, 9 or so—that the character should have more important things to worry about than how many arrows he has left, and he shouldn't worry that he's burning party resources because he fell down a 200-ft.-deep pit. A Ftr9's Wealth by Level (Dungeon Master's Guide (203) 135) says that a wand of cure light wounds—that is, an entire wand, fully charged—is only about 2% of the gear he's toting. Seriously, after splitting four ways the take from a lone level-appropriate encounter, a Ftr9 can buy a whole new fresh wand of cure light wounds and still have gp left over.

If a DM has players like Alice and Dave, a ring of cure light wounds makes the game more fun because it cuts down on tracking charges from wands of cure light wounds, and the DM should probably allow it—either at low levels at Alice's price or higher levels at Dave's price—unless the DM's vision of the game differs substantially from that of the players' vision.

A brief history of the ring of regeneration

As the sole item that grants continuous healing in core Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, the ring of regeneration is terrible and using it as an example of what continuous healing should cost is terrible. I'll explain.

Building as they were in 2000 from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd Edition, the ring of regeneration included in the Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition probably looked fine to the original core rules' authors. The changes made to the ring of regeneration were a much needed nerf to improvement over Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd Edition's ring of regeneration, which, for the record,

restores 1 point of damage each turn [10 minutes] and eventually replaces lost limbs and organs. It will bring its wearer back from death…. Only total destruction of all living tissue by fire, acid, or similar means will prevent regeneration. Of course, the ring must be worn, and its removal stops the regeneration process.2 (Encyclopedia Magica, Vol. 3 993)

Such an item was highly coveted in both Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (where it functioned similarly) and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd Edition, and for good reason. One's character could lose limbs and organs. ("Why, hello there, sword of sharpness!") Dying was really painful instead of the speed bump that it typically is in Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. And healing was, itself, extremely valuable, the province of classes that often weren't much fun to play and rarely advanced beyond level 6 through actual play.3

So when the time came to include the highly-sought-after ring of regeneration in Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition, the price was set very high because legacy yet the ring's actual functionality plummeted. Creatures no longer lost limbs except under extremely rare circumstances. Creatures now healed their levels or HD in hp per 8 hours rest instead of just 1 point per day of rest. And gone was the jazz about the ring bringing the wearer back from the dead. The only improvement Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition made to the ring was proportionate healing (that is, Third Edition's heals a creature's level in hp)… and then Third Edition multiplied the ring's healing increment by 6.

Anyway, the current ring of regeneration seriously sucks as useful measure by which to gauge unlimited healing.

1 By, after the first encounter, hiding in, for example, the space created by the 2nd-level Sor/Wiz spell rope trick [trans] (Player's Handbook 273), the 5th-level initiate of Gruumsh (CR 24) spell pocket cave [conj] (Champions of Ruin 33), or the 7th-level Sor/Wiz spell Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion [conj] (PH 256).
2 Okay, a similar means to fire is heat. Sure. I get that. That's a thing. But what's a similar means to acid except, like, better acid? I hope whoever wrote that spent his $0.10 from those words wisely.
3 I find the experience level chart for the cleric or priest, respectively, in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd Edition—when compared to classes' experience level charts—hilarious.

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