Pricing of the Bloodfury Tattoo in Gold

Hello Guys,

I have a question regarding pricing of the Bloodfury tattoo.

A little bit backstory about why I am asking.

My friends and I are currently playing the Waterdeep Dungeon of the MadMage Campaign and are currently level 10. We ruled that, since we are in a big city (Waterdeep) we can spend out money on pretty much every magic item there is.

My friend is planning to buy the bloodfury tattoo for hid character while I am planning on buying the Wakened Dragon‘s Wrath Sword (from Fizban‘s).

We are using the sane cost pricing for most of our magic items, which changes a how things are priced, but whenever items aren’t listed in the sane cost lists we‘re going off what the internet says.

I have looked up the Wakened Dragon‘s Wrath Weapon and it is priced 11.000-12.000 Gold according to sources that directly quote the Fizban‘s source book (although while reading through it I wasn’t able to find it - maybe i missed it)

Now here is the issue I have:

My friend is planning on buying the bloodfury tattoo and says that according to the internet it should be priced at 11.000-12.000 Gold. He also argues that since it is dealing the same damage as the Dragon‘s Wrath Weapon Version I am planning on buying the price would be more than justified.

I personally am of the opinion that this is way too cheap.

Here is my reasoning:

1. ⁠It is the same damage as the used weapon but an additional damage which can be applied on top of a weapon hit. (So you might be able to use a magical weapon which gives a +1/2 etc.)

2. ⁠It heals for the necrotic damage dealt.

3. ⁠It gives attacks as the reaction

4. ⁠Compared to the breath attack of the wrath weapon the healing feels a lot stronger

5. ⁠It is a legendary item

6. ⁠Some sources in the internet price it at 100k or higher

While I do have this opinion I don’t want to ruin my friends fun or put the item in a bad light. I just can’t let this thematic go because I feel like I am not wrong.

I would be happy if you guys would tell me your opinions.

Thank you so much in advance and have a nice day!

(Idk if that matters but we are playing 2024 characters with 2014 rules)

Most of the sources on the internet is 3rd party, so use them with a good grain of salt. But a Blood Fury Tattoo is a legendary magic item, while a Wakened Dragon's Wrath is a very rare weapon.

Using the 2024 magic item pricing rules, your very rare weapon would cost 40k gold + the weapon's normal value. A legendary magic item would cost 200k gold.

D&D Magic Items are priced by their rarity. See Magic Item Values by Rarity. This can is also used for crafting items if you meet the requirements to craft the item.

A Blood Fury Tattoo is a Legendary Item and would be 200,000 GP. This is the official price of all Legendary items that are not consumables. It doesn't matter if they are the weakest legendary item or the strongest, it's 200,000 GP.

Quote from GammA_ccT >> 

We are using the sane cost pricing for most of our magic items, which changes a how things are priced, but whenever items aren’t listed in the sane cost lists we‘re going off what the internet says.

I don't know what the sane cost pricing is. I can't really help you with house rules. 

Quote from GammA_ccT >>

(Idk if that matters but we are playing 2024 characters with 2014 rules)

I don't think this is generally advised. However, in 2014, magic items were priced exactly like 2024, but the table isn't available on D&D Beyond.

If we do a side by side comparison:

Dragon Wrath Weapon: +2 attack/dmg + 2d6 damage to every attack + 1/day ~Fireball equivalent AoE (attunement)
Blood Fury Tattoo: +0 attack/dmg + 4d6 up to 10 times per day (that also becomes healing) or reaction attack up to 10 times per day (attunement)

Really what matters here is the number of combats per day, for long adventuring days the Dragon Wrath Weapon is significantly better, whereas on short days the Blood Fury Tattoo is better. The Blood Fury Tattoo can stack, but realistically it will only be with a +X weapon due to attunement limitations which just makes is on par with the Dragon Wrath Weapon, though I suppose if they are a total power gamer they could stack it on a Flametongue which would definitely be game-breaking damage output. 

I'd say they are roughly equivalent offensively because necrotic damage is frequently resisted by enemies, whereas Dragon Wrath you can make it Force damage which maybe one or two enemies in the whole game are resistant/immune to. But the potential for stacking and the healing for the Blood Fury bumps it up quite significantly. The total healing is ~140 per day which at level 10 is probably doubling their hit points so I'd price it as at least triple the cost of the Dragon Wrath.

Giant in the Playground (D&D web comic writer) wrote up the "Sane Magic Item Prices" a long time ago.  It is a far superior pricing method than anything WoTC has come up with.

Here they are:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XAiXpOfz9cMWt1RTBicmpmUDg/view?resourcekey=0-ceHUken0_UhQ3Apa6g4SJA

To all looking at using Sane Magic Item Prices, I can agree that the majority of the items are priced well but there's a number of items either way too low or high, so gauge it for your table.  And most importantly, you CANNOT use the DMG crafting crafting rules for time and cost and Sane Prices without significant rework.

So dmg says magic items are priced based on their rarity. I believe the only reason "same" prices exist online is because some magic items in the DMG are gjven an inappropriately low rarity.

The Flying Broom is listed as uncommon, which is just crazy. Any magic item that grants a flight speed should be at least rare. 

So, as a dm, my campaigns come with rules that tweak the rarity of a few items to be more appropriate. And then we just use standard dmg pricing.

If an item seems a tad weak or a tad more powerful than "average" items of thr same rarity, i may lower or raise the price by up to 25%. 

Regardless of how.much gold my players have, i follow this chart in the dmg:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#MagicItemsAwardedbyLevelTable

No one can purchase or find a magic item of a specific rarity until rhe party reaches a level where the table show at least 4 items of that rarity for their level.

The table says 2 legendary items for tier 3. So no one can have a legendary item until the party reaches tier 4, level 17.

 I tend to give my party money so they can spend on things like bastion upgrades and so on

Quote from JJOC >>

To all looking at using Sane Magic Item Prices, I can agree that the majority of the items are priced well but there's a number of items either way too low or high, so gauge it for your table.  And most importantly, you CANNOT use the DMG crafting crafting rules for time and cost and Sane Prices without significant rework.

I would prefer updating the 3.5 crafting and pricing. I probably wouldn't be too hard to get the base framework in place, but the individual item tweaking would be a pain.