Scaling Item Qualities (3.5e Variant Rule)

Scaling Item Qualities
In 3.5e D&D, magic item qualities are designed in a very static way. A flaming weapon will always deal 1d6 points of extra fire damage on hit for the price of an effective +1 increase in the weapon's enhancement level, regardless of the weapon's base enhancement level. Adding this quality to a +1 weapon costs 6,000 gp. Adding it to a +5 weapon costs 22,000 gp. Regardless of the order in which qualities and enhancements are added to an item, you might end up wondering if the end result was worth it. You could always add the flaming burst enhancement on top of your epic God killing outsider-dread axe of unbridled carnage for another half a million gold, but that only cranks the cost up further for yet another quality that doesn't go anywhere either.

The solution is simple; scale the effects of an item quality to the effective price you pay for them. Adding a '+1' quality to a magical weapon increases its value by 6,000 gp (+1), 10,000 gp (+2), 14,000 gp (+3), 18,000 gp (+4), 22,000 gp (+5), and so forth, which means that the actual price you pay for making your sword flaming is a base cost of 2,000 gp, plus an additional cost of 4,000 gp &times; the weapon's current enhancement bonus. It follows that prices in terms of '+X' are (disproportionally) linearly dependent to the magic item's base enhancement value. The least one can do to fix this discrepancy between cost and effectiveness is to at least make the effects of a magic item quality proportionally linear.

Example 1: Take the flaming quality again. Make it deal 1d6 points of additional fire damage for every point of raw enhancement bonus the weapon has. A +2 flaming weapon would deal +2d6 fire damage on a successful attack. A +5 flaming weapon would deal +5d6 fire damage. Consider the base cost of 2,000 gp the actual price of stacking the quality on top of a magical weapon, and you have 1d6 points of fire damage for every 4,000 gp you effectively invest in having the quality. Note that, due to the increasing nature of the quality, it should probably no longer be possible to stack similar damage-based qualities (like flaming plus shocking) without some sort of compromise happening.

Example 2: Take a quality that allows for a saving throw, such as disruption. Normally these things have static save DCs (DC 14 Will, in this case). Change all non-static weapon quality save DCs to 10 + ½ BAB + 2&times; base enhancement bonus. This makes the power of the effect depend on the two things it should depend upon; the character's level and the weapon's base enhancement level.

Example 3: Have a quality that can't be scaled, like vorpal or returning? Give it a cost based on gp instead of enhancement.

Needless to say, this concept is still very bare bones. My intention is to eventually rewrite, in part or full, the way magic item qualities work, including a comprehensive list of magic item qualities, both modified and new. I welcome any comments and suggestions on the talk page of this article, as this is still very much a work in progress.