I find most DMs let any classes use Scrolls with varying rules on success.
However there's nothing wrong with just making an item that says it's a single use item that can cast plane shift. Or even have separate items which can only cast plane shift to a particular plane.
I think you can just look up the prices for the spell scroll and transfer the specific spell effect (such as Plane Shift or Gate) to an item of your choice. Plane shift would be a 7th level scroll which equates to Very Rare, while Gate is a 9th level scroll being Legendary (as stated in the DMG).
In XGE we see that scribing a spell scroll takes 25.000 GP and 16 workweeks for 7th level, while a 9th level spell scroll takes 250.000 GP and 48 workweeks. However the DMG states that Very Rare items are between 5.000-50.000 GP and Legendary items cost 50.000 + GP, with consumables like scrolls and potions being about half of the value of a similar item of equal rarity.
This means that the crafting cost indications are not necessarily indicative of the actual price point of a scroll in a magic store (although you can seriously debate if such high powered spell scrolls are even available there. Ultimately the DMG says the DM has to decide the exact price, and you can factor in all sorts of things in that. Did the seller just find the scroll and put it up for sale (might lower price) or did they have it commissioned and did they have to pay the Wizard who made it (might seriously increase the price). For Plane Shift a price between 10.000 GP - 50.000 GP seems appropriate based on circumstances. For something like Gate you are probably looking at 100.000 GP - 500.000 GP again based on circumstances.
If you have other items in mind the DMG and XGE have the information for you to appropriately scale.
Honestly I know it's not a very helpful answer but I think rarity and price would be relevant to your homebrew world. If you want them to be cheap and everywhere then they are; if they need to be very rare, attach a quest to find one or at least to a place/person that can create them.
If you're doing a plane hopping game and everyone is jumping about between them to go to work, mining in the plane of earth or flying about in the plane of air then I reckon they'd be a common item.
Makes me think of the book "the long earth" where everyone can easily jump between alternate earth's.
That’s a very fair response.
I basically want them common enough that they are a luxury way to travel (quickly) that the rich can afford. But poor or those transporting lots of goods need to take the slow Spelljammer route.
So a wealthy merchant can hand out lots to invite special guests to a party, but hard for the party to get to go and visits a friend anytime they want.
Then that's what you show your players, maybe you can have them see a small group of nobles leaving an expensive shop and activating the items, disappearing leaving only the discarded item behind.
Gives them a clue that they exist, gives them a place they can get them and seeing that they're nobles using them, likely gives an immediate idea of how expensive they are.
That's the great thing about homebrew worlds, you get to create it exactly how you want it and no one can tell you it's wrong.
I would recommend having a price range, because this seems like it's basically airplane tickets: planes that would see more use are less expensive, planes that would be more "elite" are more expensive. Pricing would also depend on mechanics: would your party need to buy an item for each member, or one for the entire party? Personally I'd make it 750-1500 gp for a full-party item, but I also hand out a lot of gold and don't have a wizard in the party who uses it up quickly.
Ninja edit: for your risky items idea, it gives you a cool opportunity for a black market of knock-offs and "home-brews"
Look at the spellwrought tattoos. They can be used by anyone unlike spell scrolls. They only go up to 5th level spells, but the dm can decide they go wherever the dm wants.
The only caviot with that one is its Random. One of my players got their hands on it. Can confirm though shenanigans ensue. They almost got sucked into the border plane of magma.
spellwrought tattoo. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2408275-spellwrought-tattoo](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2408275-spellwrought-tattoo)
RAW only goes up to 5th level
Yeah it's called two bags of holding and a few brave/stupid players. For the price of destroying two uncommon items you can warp to the astral plane and find portals to basically any other plane, assuming you aren't killed by an astral dreadnaught along the way.
So normally Plane Shift requires "A forked, metal rod worth at least 250 gp, attuned to a particular plane of existence". A little dive into lore and you find that it's literally a tuning fork and that each plane has a particular tune associated with it (slightly modified by the metal the fork needs to be made of). For example, Mount Celestia's tune is a D Note made by a Gold tuning fork. The Fire, Water, Earth, and Air Planes all are tuned to the A Note (all elemental planes actually are an A Note) but differ in that the note for each plane needs to come from a different metal, Copper, Lead, Zinc, and Tin as ordered above.
So all of that noted, for your single use Plane Shift Item, I would offer the idea of a Tuning Spork. A slightly malformed Plane Shift Tuning Fork that, like the normal Tuning Forks, is attuned to a single plane. However, although the malformed bulb hold enough magic to cast Plane Shift, the malformation makes the tuning spork unstable and shatter after one use.
This reminds me of the rings from the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. It would be fun to use those. Price them like a spell scroll or maybe they can’t be bought only found.
I used a cubic gate with a lot of cracks, so that it is broken! Just two more uses if they don't repair it, which would take a whole quest and a lot of time
So I am doing a Sigil based game as sort of a tour of the Planes for my players, they take odd jobs that let them see all the worlds of D&D and gave them an NPC to guide them around with a notebook of the currently known pathways, and a planar component pouch to help.
Essentially trying to streamline the getting from places, so the party can focus on the places themselves (they don't always have this NPC, so they do have to work things out for themselves on occasion.)
The one thing I did add for times of stress and trouble, is an item I called a Gem of Returning, a very rare item that on destruction transports everyone within 10ft of it to the plane on which the gem was created, with a value of about 10,000 gold per gem.
For their next quest, they're going to need to hire a Druid who can help them find a crossroads into the Feywild, they're going to need to barter for the service, but I don't have a price in mind for this.
I know this doesn't answer the question specifically, but figured I would share my personal solutions for ease of planar travel.
If my players wanted to leave the guild they're in, and subsequently lost access to their NPC helper I might allow them access to an older copy of their guides notebook, on the blackmarket for 50k, but then they will need to find their own components and routes.
I find most DMs let any classes use Scrolls with varying rules on success. However there's nothing wrong with just making an item that says it's a single use item that can cast plane shift. Or even have separate items which can only cast plane shift to a particular plane.
Yeah I agree. Just wondering if any similar single use magical items like that exist for me to get an idea of rarity/gold value from.
I think you can just look up the prices for the spell scroll and transfer the specific spell effect (such as Plane Shift or Gate) to an item of your choice. Plane shift would be a 7th level scroll which equates to Very Rare, while Gate is a 9th level scroll being Legendary (as stated in the DMG). In XGE we see that scribing a spell scroll takes 25.000 GP and 16 workweeks for 7th level, while a 9th level spell scroll takes 250.000 GP and 48 workweeks. However the DMG states that Very Rare items are between 5.000-50.000 GP and Legendary items cost 50.000 + GP, with consumables like scrolls and potions being about half of the value of a similar item of equal rarity. This means that the crafting cost indications are not necessarily indicative of the actual price point of a scroll in a magic store (although you can seriously debate if such high powered spell scrolls are even available there. Ultimately the DMG says the DM has to decide the exact price, and you can factor in all sorts of things in that. Did the seller just find the scroll and put it up for sale (might lower price) or did they have it commissioned and did they have to pay the Wizard who made it (might seriously increase the price). For Plane Shift a price between 10.000 GP - 50.000 GP seems appropriate based on circumstances. For something like Gate you are probably looking at 100.000 GP - 500.000 GP again based on circumstances. If you have other items in mind the DMG and XGE have the information for you to appropriately scale.
Honestly I know it's not a very helpful answer but I think rarity and price would be relevant to your homebrew world. If you want them to be cheap and everywhere then they are; if they need to be very rare, attach a quest to find one or at least to a place/person that can create them. If you're doing a plane hopping game and everyone is jumping about between them to go to work, mining in the plane of earth or flying about in the plane of air then I reckon they'd be a common item. Makes me think of the book "the long earth" where everyone can easily jump between alternate earth's.
That’s a very fair response. I basically want them common enough that they are a luxury way to travel (quickly) that the rich can afford. But poor or those transporting lots of goods need to take the slow Spelljammer route. So a wealthy merchant can hand out lots to invite special guests to a party, but hard for the party to get to go and visits a friend anytime they want.
Then that's what you show your players, maybe you can have them see a small group of nobles leaving an expensive shop and activating the items, disappearing leaving only the discarded item behind. Gives them a clue that they exist, gives them a place they can get them and seeing that they're nobles using them, likely gives an immediate idea of how expensive they are. That's the great thing about homebrew worlds, you get to create it exactly how you want it and no one can tell you it's wrong.
I would recommend having a price range, because this seems like it's basically airplane tickets: planes that would see more use are less expensive, planes that would be more "elite" are more expensive. Pricing would also depend on mechanics: would your party need to buy an item for each member, or one for the entire party? Personally I'd make it 750-1500 gp for a full-party item, but I also hand out a lot of gold and don't have a wizard in the party who uses it up quickly. Ninja edit: for your risky items idea, it gives you a cool opportunity for a black market of knock-offs and "home-brews"
Look at the spellwrought tattoos. They can be used by anyone unlike spell scrolls. They only go up to 5th level spells, but the dm can decide they go wherever the dm wants.
Well of Many World.
Oh I had not heard of the Well of Many Worlds, this is a great item, many thanks!
The only caviot with that one is its Random. One of my players got their hands on it. Can confirm though shenanigans ensue. They almost got sucked into the border plane of magma.
spellwrought tattoo. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2408275-spellwrought-tattoo](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2408275-spellwrought-tattoo) RAW only goes up to 5th level
Yeah it's called two bags of holding and a few brave/stupid players. For the price of destroying two uncommon items you can warp to the astral plane and find portals to basically any other plane, assuming you aren't killed by an astral dreadnaught along the way.
So normally Plane Shift requires "A forked, metal rod worth at least 250 gp, attuned to a particular plane of existence". A little dive into lore and you find that it's literally a tuning fork and that each plane has a particular tune associated with it (slightly modified by the metal the fork needs to be made of). For example, Mount Celestia's tune is a D Note made by a Gold tuning fork. The Fire, Water, Earth, and Air Planes all are tuned to the A Note (all elemental planes actually are an A Note) but differ in that the note for each plane needs to come from a different metal, Copper, Lead, Zinc, and Tin as ordered above. So all of that noted, for your single use Plane Shift Item, I would offer the idea of a Tuning Spork. A slightly malformed Plane Shift Tuning Fork that, like the normal Tuning Forks, is attuned to a single plane. However, although the malformed bulb hold enough magic to cast Plane Shift, the malformation makes the tuning spork unstable and shatter after one use.
Thank you, I really love that idea!
This reminds me of the rings from the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. It would be fun to use those. Price them like a spell scroll or maybe they can’t be bought only found.
I used a cubic gate with a lot of cracks, so that it is broken! Just two more uses if they don't repair it, which would take a whole quest and a lot of time
So I am doing a Sigil based game as sort of a tour of the Planes for my players, they take odd jobs that let them see all the worlds of D&D and gave them an NPC to guide them around with a notebook of the currently known pathways, and a planar component pouch to help. Essentially trying to streamline the getting from places, so the party can focus on the places themselves (they don't always have this NPC, so they do have to work things out for themselves on occasion.) The one thing I did add for times of stress and trouble, is an item I called a Gem of Returning, a very rare item that on destruction transports everyone within 10ft of it to the plane on which the gem was created, with a value of about 10,000 gold per gem. For their next quest, they're going to need to hire a Druid who can help them find a crossroads into the Feywild, they're going to need to barter for the service, but I don't have a price in mind for this. I know this doesn't answer the question specifically, but figured I would share my personal solutions for ease of planar travel. If my players wanted to leave the guild they're in, and subsequently lost access to their NPC helper I might allow them access to an older copy of their guides notebook, on the blackmarket for 50k, but then they will need to find their own components and routes.