There are many different types of magical defenses available to those with the time, money and inclination to research them. The Ring of Resilience is no different. It offers some clear benefits to anyone that wears it, but is most powerful when combined with certain key abilities.
Ring of Resilience
This wide hematite ring is set with small rubies and has an almost mirror finish that is commonly mistaken for being metallic unless handled. When worn, it allows you to resist certain energy damage and convert anything not resisted of that energy type into nonlethal damage.
During the creation, the enchanter specifies two energy types that apply to this ring. Once worn, the ring confers 10 points of energy resistance (per the spell) to each of these energy types. Any additional damage actually dealt to the wearer of those two energy types is treated as nonlethal damage.
All other energy types are treated as normal damage in regards to this ring.
Moderate abjuration; CL 3th; Forge Ring, resist energy; Price: 31,500 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Cost to create: 15,750 gp, 1,260 XP
A Quick Look At Pricing
All by itself, the ring of resilience is neat, but not uber powerful. At first glance, it looks like a double ring of resistance that applies to two energy types plus the bonus of those energy types only dealing nonlethal damage. By itself, that would only cost 21,000gp:
(CL3 x SL2 x 2,000) + (CL3 x SL2 x 2,000)*0.75 = 21,000
The other ability - turning any other damage by those two energy types into nonlethal damage is very hard to price. It’s akin to an immunity, but it’s clearly not, since you can still be rendered unconscious if brought to below zero even by nonlethal damage - so you do take the damage.
Given that I couldn’t find anything to compare it to, I just added a value to the price of the ring that I thought seemed balance. This is the unfortunate nature of magic item pricing - there’s not always a formula for what you want to do. For this very reason we need to make sure that all items are priced according to their power - not just blindly following a formula.
That’s why I just decided to simply add +50% of the current cost of the ring since the effect is clearly based off of the energy types currently being resisted and it is clearly protection-oriented. Without a clear base price to add, I figured this seemed to work for the ring.
21,000 + (50% x 21,000) = 31,500
Using The Ring Of Resilience In Your Campaign
When would you want to introduce one of these rings into your campaign? They certainly do seem “fun”, but would a PC rather spend 28,000gp on a major ring of energy resistance for 20 points instead of 10 points to two? If I were a mid-to-higher level PC, I’d probably go for a major ring of resistance (fire). As we know, fire is one of the most-often used energy types.
So what’s the point of this ring?
Honestly, I created this ring with regenerating creatures in mind. Here’s some of the details of the regeneration ability that should clear up my train of thought:
Damage dealt to the creature is treated as nonlethal damage, and the creature automatically cures itself of nonlethal damage at a fixed rate per round, as given in the creature’s entry.
Certain attack forms, typically fire and acid, deal damage to the creature normally; that sort of damage doesn’t convert to nonlethal damage and so doesn’t go away. The attack cannot be of a type that automatically converts to nonlethal damage.
As such, the typical ring of resilience will likely be of fire and acid and will likely be found on a creature that has the regeneration ability.
Imagine the surprise on the face of the PCs after they “kill” and loot the Troll King and head on their merry way only to find out a day into their trip what this ring does. It will open up the very real possibility that the Troll King will return - and be none too happy about what happened.
I like magic items that fill in obvious and well-known deficiencies in defenses. This is just one way to do that for regeneration.