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Originally posted by xaeyruudh

For me, sleyvas, I hadn't considered the +6 category yet. I had seen persistent spell written as a +4 metamagic feat, so that's where I'd stuck it in my table. I wanted to expand the metamagic rod listing to include other spell levels, rather than just 3/6/9, and make rods with more/less uses per day. So that's why I wanted to understand where they got the numbers from... just so I could pick it apart and add my own custom items.

In general I like your idea. There are two small problems though. Not trying to be a jerk, at all. Just saying we don't have the right formula yet. All of us have good ideas for ballpark estimations though, and that's really what counts.

1. If the set price for +1 metamagic rods is 2750, then the 9th level rod would be priced at 9x2750: 24750. There's never going to be a good reason for that to get rounded down to 24500. And other values need to be rounded up to reach the DMG numbers, so it's not a matter of consistently rounding down. But my idea kinda relies on WotC having made some rounding errors too, so of course I think this is a pretty small problem. Ayrik gets brownie points though, for bringing something that wouldn't require rounding because it's built into the formula.

Now I want brownies. Or fudge. Or both.

2. Does a 4th level +1 rod have the same price as a 6th level +1 rod? Ideally the formula could differentiate each spell level.

2-and-a-half. The only way to end up with a set price of 35000 for the +4 rods is by adding 16000 to your calculated 18875. Not that there's anything wrong with higher cost accompanying higher power, but why do we add to +4 (and higher) rods but not the lower rods? It's the most powerful (published) rod but that seems like a pretty flimsy reason for WotC to artificially inflate the prices. They did it on a grand scale with epic items in the ELH, but that's a demerit for their mathemagicians rather than a gold star. I think, and I admit that this is probably just my bias, there should be some consistent way to come up with all the factors that go into the equation.

We seem to have approached the formula from opposite directions. I see the lower level rods as offering some fraction of the full-power item's power, meaning that the formula would be based on the level 9 items. You're coming at it from the other direction, using the 3rd level item as a base and multiplying by a factor for the higher level items. I'm not calling either one a mistake or anything; I just think it's cool that we're covering the bases and coming up with ideas from both directions.

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Originally posted by xaeyruudh


N can remain 0,1,2
M=500,1500,2500,3500

For "+1" I get 3000,11000,24500... cool.
For "+2" I get 9000,33000,73500... the second and third values are off by 500. Not a huge discrepancy but it gets bigger.
For "+3" I get 15000,55000,122500... consistently "over" by 1000 and I don't see a way to lower all the values by the same amount using your formula.
For "+4" I get 21000,77000,171500... which appears to be high by 1500... at least our ideas agree on one point: the 35000 in the DMG has to be wrong. :P

Feel free to correct me if I'm doin' it rong.

I'm not dismissing the idea that the formula could be something like this, or at least more complicated than what I have above. I'm just not seeing the right numbers yet.

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