How much is the returning property of Raptor Arrows worth?

[AnonymousPepper]

Say I wanted to rip that off of them, ignoring the auto-bane (although you'd need to figure that out too, I suppose, but I'm actually not that interested), and apply it to, say, a crossbow bolt (naturally, I ask because I have an artificer built around a Great Crossbow and I want to know for Science(tm)).

If we were to extract all this in the same way that we take apart, for example, Hank's Energy Bow... what am I looking at here?

[Slipperychicken]

Well, first I'll list some parts of the pricing.

One MWK arrow = 6gp
+1 Returning Bane Weapon (+3 equivalent) = 18,000gp/50 shots = 360gp per arrow

=366 per arrow accounted for by item creation guidelines.

6,006/0.7 (because of the -30% for alignment restriciton) = 8,580

8,580 - 366 = 8,214 per arrow unaccounted for. That cost includes the modification to Bane, the non-destruction, and modifying the Returning property to work for arrows.

[AnonymousPepper]

Well, first I'll list some parts of the pricing.

One MWK arrow = 6gp
+1 Returning Bane Weapon (+3 equivalent) = 18,000gp/50 shots = 360gp per arrow

=366 per arrow accounted for by item creation guidelines.

6,006/0.7 (because of the -30% for alignment restriciton) = 8,580

8,580 - 366 = 8,214 per arrow unaccounted for. That cost includes the modification to Bane, the non-destruction, and modifying the Returning property to work for arrows.

So what is what from there?

I would assume the self-adjusting Bane would be the most expensive bit by far.

[Slipperychicken]

After that, I'm not sure. I don't know of any rules guidelines to break it down further than that.

[NoACWarrior]

The bane quality is odd in that it will work for any targeted creature - its not really a +1, its more like a +1 which can be enchanted as a free action.

Or just a +5 or something like that (quicken +4 on the effect, applies to breath weapons or spells).

Also I'd say the returning quality adapted to ranged weapons would make it +2 (other enchantments are increased by +1 when applied to a ranged weapon from a melee weapon).

This would cause the weapon price to be that of a +8 arrow, which is 2560, and still very short for the not being destroyed after hitting something.

Edit: clicked post instead of review...

[AnonymousPepper]

The bane quality is odd in that it will work for any targeted creature - its not really a +1, its more like a +1 which can be enchanted as a free action.

Or just a +5 or something like that (quicken +4 on the effect, applies to breath weapons or spells).

Also I'd say the returning quality adapted to ranged weapons would make it +2 (other enchantments are increased by +1 when applied to a ranged weapon from a melee weapon).

This would cause the weapon price to be that of a +8 arrow, which is 2560, and still very short for the not being destroyed after hitting something.

Edit: clicked post instead of review...

I would think the nondestruction would simply be part of the special returning property, wouldn't it? After all, Returning (or, if you wanted to go with the objectively better choice for this, Teleporting) would be useless if it didn't have nondestruction added to it. Otherwise it'd just return the broken, sundered fragments of your arrows to you.

[Fouredged Sword]

In the past, I have let players make permanently enchanted arrows that return to their quiver for 10X the cost of normal enchanted arrows. This means that for the cost of a +X weapon, you got 5 +X returning arrows. It worked out fairly balanced.

Now, note, this was E6. YMMV.