Talk:Mechanical Eye (3.5e Equipment)

So....any comments, questions, or concerns about the Mechanical Eye? What do you think of it? Too Strong, too weak, poorly developed, not enough variation? My creations usually become better when I know what people think of them. I made up this item after my Rogue lost his eye from getting caught stealing. Back when the idea formulated, it was much more basic and didn't even involve the changeable lenses and the ungodly prices for everything. (Believe it or not but my Rogue bought this item for only 1,000gp at first. It had darkvision and low-light vision, telepathy, and see invisible 5ft. I think it's better now.)Omen 19:14, 18 May 2009 (MDT)

About the ungodly prices... the cost for this whole apparatus is 53,500 gp. A ring of x-ray vision cost 25,000, and yours does that and more, without any drawback. Here's a breakdown of what the price should be as I can best figure it:

Darkvision = 2 x 3 x 2,000 = 12,000. This seems a little high. I've seen a ring that grants darkvision to 120' listed for 8,000, so let's go with that, to be kind.

Note: I used the always active variant for pricing since flipping back and forth between lenses is a free action.

Detect Magic = 0.5 x 1 x 2,000 = 1,000

True Seeing = 6 x 12 x 2,000 = 144,000 (seems appropriate since a gem of seeing gives half an hour per day and cost 75,000)

X-Ray Vision = 25,000

Life = 2 x 3 x 2,000 = 12,000 (nothing definitive, I just went with deathwatch and figured the effect would be second level or so)

Detect Poison = 0.5 x 1 x 2,000 = 1,000

Sum = 166,000 x 1.5 (multiple abilities - honestly this could be more since it combines six or so)

= 249,000 gp

I'm not trying to take away anything from your creation, I just think it is extremely underpriced given its power and versatility. -- Jota 19:47, 18 May 2009 (MDT)

This was exactly what I was looking for when I meant poorly developed, so I'll change it to conform to the prices. I went over the true seeing spell once again and to be honest, I don't think that anything enhanced with true seeing should cost that much. The components are about 20gp and the spell is a 5th level Cleric spell. Unless casting the spell endangers the caster I really don't see why it costs so much to make something enhanced with true seeing. I'll change it nonetheless. You only gain the effects of the lens you are using so it's only Darkvision and one other effect at once. If I made changing a lens to a move action, would it have a large effect on the price? Omen 05:55, 19 May 2009 (MDT)

The thing about true seeing is it takes a whole school or magic and pretty much tears it a new anus, in addition to doing a few other nifty things. It is incredibly powerful from my perspective. As for the move action thing, probably a little bit. If you went with command word activation rather than continuous you would go down to about 224,000. If you consider than command word are probably swift actions or something like that, I think a move action might knock it down to about 187,000 (nothing definitive in the math there, just: command word = 1,800; move action = 1,500 - a best guess), but it is still pretty expensive. If you wanted it built one lens at a time you could build up to that price, since true seeing is about 85% of the price. True seeing could also be computed a bit lower since you only give one-third the range, maybe 5 x 10 x 2,000 (if you're going cleric version), which knocks a bit more off the price. Generally, from a DM perspective, I would be against doing so, but that could take you down to 137,250 for the lenses. -- Jota 13:01, 19 May 2009 (MDT)

True Seeing continuous effect = 5 (5th level cleric spell) x 9 (9th level cleric casting it) x 2000 (continuous effect) x 2 (duration is 1 minute per level) + 250 x 100 (material component) = 180,000 + 25,000 = 205,000. If a wizard is going to make it, it is going to be 289,000. --Aarnott 10:30, 20 July 2009 (MDT)

It was supposed to be that expensive but the range is 1/3 the normal distance, so it gets a large reduction despite it's power. Omen 15:14, 20 July 2009 (MDT)

The range is the smallest consideration for its power. Seriously. It could be 5 ft. and the continuous effect should still be very expensive. --Aarnott 17:32, 20 July 2009 (MDT)

Ok I upped the cost to 184k, leaving only 20k to dictate the distance. However, why would the materials cost so much? A ruby doesn't cost anywhere near that much and the mushroom, saffron, and fat shouldn't either. Omen 06:31, 21 July 2009 (MDT)

Well, when crafting a continuous use item, it uses 100x the cost of the material component of the base spell (you have to cast the spell 100x to make it presumably). If you are curious why the base material components might cost so much, it could be rare mushrooms (like Truffles) and saffron is very expensive in the first place (see Saffron). --Aarnott 08:24, 21 July 2009 (MDT)

Reminds me of the Thief video game series. The main character has a mechanical eye with similar abilities. Also, the Arms & Equipment Guide lists saffron as costing 65 gold pieces per ounce, and I bet truffles aren't any cheaper. Atypicaloracle 11:08, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

costs too low

wouldn't the costs need to be doubled for the lenses since the lenses have no space limitation? the whole eye takes up the eye slot, but the individual lenses don't.