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Champion of Autumn: This +3 keen scimitar
is made of mottled bright steel. The hilt is extremely long and made of
a magically hardened ceramic, painted and polished to appear similar to
a spiral unicorn horn. The end of the hilt can actually be unscrewed from
the main part (a move-equivalent action), revealing a dagger. The dagger's
hilt is also hollow, and the end cap can be unscrewed (a move-equivalent
action), revealing a space large enough to hold a single potion flask.
In addition to its standard abilities, upon command,
once per day each, the scimitar can invoke a cure serious wounds
and a magic fang spell. The weapon's most unusual property is its
ability to transfer all or some of its standard properties (its enhancement
bonus and keen property) to the dagger, similar to how a defending
weapon's enhancement bonus can be used for offense or defense. For example,
the wielder could transfer a +1 enhancement bonus and the keen property
to the dagger, leaving the scimitar with a +2 enhancement bonus, or transfer
all of the standard properties to the dagger, leaving the scimitar as a
masterwork weapon with no enhancement bonus and the ability to cast its
two spells (the dagger is treated as a masterwork weapon when it is not
bearing any of the scimitar's properties). Either weapon must carry at
least a +1 enhancement bonus in order to carry the keen property.
The weapon was created in 1342 DR by a ranger-wizard
of Mielikki named Surlaren Whitefalcon of Silverymoon. Shortly before his
death he passed the weapon on to one of his students, an Aronar Thaeglos
(NE male human Rgr4/Ftr4 of Malar), who turned to the service of Malar
and has not been seen since 1365 DR. It is possible that the scimitar and
dagger have been split and have two different owners, neither knowing about
the companion weapon.
Caster Level: 9th; Prerequisites:
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, cure serious wounds, keen edge,
magic fang;
Market Price: 62,617 gp; Cost to Create:
31,617 gp + 2,480 XP.
Pricing:
This is a weird one. Let's
ignore the two spell powers for now.
If it was just a +3 keen
two-bladed sword with everything on one side and nothing on the other,
it would be 32,400 gp. If it we consider that most of the time you'd keep
a +1 on the small end and everything else on the big end, it would be +2
keen/+1,
or 18,300/2,300 just for the magic. So, really, the versatility of this
weapon shouldn't be too much more expensive than the all-or-nothing cost,
since if it were a split weapon or two weapons, it would be much
cheaper. So, If I went for the all-or-nothing cost as if it were a two-bladed
sword, and then stuck a "virtual" +1 dagger on it, it would be 32,400 gp
+ 2,300 gp, or about 35,000 gp, and that's a nice round number, so that's
what I'm going to go with.
A +3 weapon has a minimum
caster level of 9th (+3 x 3, it's in the DMG), so that affects the costs
of the other items, since all effects have to have the same caster level.
Cure serious wounds
on command 1/day is 3 x 9 x 1800 ÷ 5=9,720, doubled for being
the second property on an item=19,440. Note that even though
this weapon was created by a ranger and the cost to create for that
character should be based on that class' cost (so it should be 4 x
7 x 1800 instead of 3 x 5 x 1800), in general a generic ("off the shelf"
or "found treasure") item should be marked-priced at the cheapest cost,
because that's what the market will pay for it (clerics can make scrolls
of neutralize poison, a 4th-level spell for them, but they won't be able
to sell them for more that what a druid sells them for (for druids it's
a 3rd-level spell)).
Magic fang on command
1/day is 1 x 9 x 1800 ÷ 5=3,240, doubled for being a second property
on the item=6,480.
Total magic price is 35,000
+ 19,440 + 6,480 gp=60,920, which I'll round off to 62,000 to make the
math cleaner and assuage my guilt about the guess at the weird power-transfer
proprety.
Half of that is the cost to
create, or 31,000 gp.
1/25 the magic price is the
XP cost, or 2,480.
Add in the 315 gp for a masterwork
scimitar and 302 for a masterwork dagger and you get the final costs (I'm
going to assume that the hollow-hilt for the dagger can be covered by my
rounding the above figures up).