Discounted Broom of Flying?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

IMC one player wants a broom of flying for her PC, and it's very in-character, but it's a little expensive. Looking at the items powers, I figured a lower-powered version would still suit her needs and be less expensive. Anyone have an idea how to discount this magic item? Here are the reduced features we are considering:

* Speed boost with less weight--reduce to a constant 30' speed.
* Max weight of 400 pounds--reduce to 200 pounds
* Comes when called--remove
* Travels without you--remove
* 9 hours of use per day--reduce to 6 hours

What would each of these reductions do to the price? I'd like to get them all priced individually, so the player can mix and match to see what she wants.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

That's a tough one. Few of those abilities are easily priced.

The one thing that does come to mind is the carpet of flying. The 400lb capacity version costs 35000, and the 200lb capacity version costs 20000. So that's a big decrease in price just by limiting it to 200lbs. If you follow the same scaling, that's around 10000 for a 200lb capacity broom.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Okay, that makes sense. If you keep the speed boost with less weight option, that means it has a speed of 40 with less than 100lbs. Alternately, you could say it has a speed of 40 all the time, but over 200lbs it just won't fly at all. I guess the latter seems more logical given the Overland Flight spell.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I guess for the rest, I just need to ballpark it. How about this:

* Comes when called--remove
I'd say this is about as valuable as the training of a riding animal, so this drops the price by about 1000gp--the standard training for a pegasus.

* Travels without you--remove
Much more valuable. This is closer to the independence value of the pegasus, which is 3000gp for a young one. I'd say it's the same, given that you don't have to feed the broom.

* 9 hours of use per day--reduce to 6 hours
Obviously this would drop the value by 1/3rd.

Put them all together, and you have a broom that carries 200lbs of rider for 6 hours per day, all for 4000gp. Is this too low?

[alhoon]

Actually, I think it's a lower caster level fly spell since it's less weight and less duration.
So I would suggest 300lbs for weight, and 6 hours duration is about 2/3rds of the price. With the speed reduction and all, I would say 1/2 the price of the original seems fair.

For 4000 gp... yes it's too low IMO.

Compare it with this: 3rd lvl spell x 6th caster lvl x 1000 for 50 charges = 18000 gp for a magic item usable by everyone that flies for 50 hours like the fly spell (and takes an item slot).

And don't fall in the trap to compare it with an unbalanced item that has fly constantly on and costs just the double price. Fly is too powerful to have the Sp lvl xcaster lvl x 2000 gp apply to it.

My suggestion: This broom can fly for more than 50 hours but for just 6 hours/day. So I would say 20-25K seems good enough as a market price.
I.e. creation cost 12.5K gold +1000 XP.
If that's too much for your player how about creation cost of 9K + 700 XP?
If that's again too much, how about a short trip to forlorn to pick up some of the materials she would need to buy, giving her a discount of 2500 gp and having her face an encounter with some ettercap or Goblyns or whatever?