While I am not certain if the Cloak of Greater Pernicity is still attainable via quest *, there is an easy explanation for them showing up in the Bazaar to this day: Players who were wearing one BEFORE the Attuneable change are removing them for sale.
I know this for a fact because I HAVE one on a lower level Paladin and never unequipped it. The item does NOT say NoTrade. This was intentional when they made the change so players who were unhappy with the stats or item in general could trade or sell it to another character.
When this cloak was first seen (late 2002-early 2003) there was no level restriction and the stats were different:
Cloak of Greater Pernicity (2002 version)
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: BACK
AC: 12
STR: +25 STA: +10 CHA: +25 HP: +50 MANA: +50
WT: 0.5 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL except BER
Race: ALL except FRG DRK
In 2005 they added Endurance +50.
Then after a patch in October 2005, the HP / MANA / END were increased to +120 each and Disease +25 was added. The change to this item was unintentional. Quickly recognizing the glitch (120 HP/Mana/End on an item a level 1 character could use), SOE planned to revoke the stats. This created a furor in the forums from people who had spent large amounts of platinum to buy the new cloaks. Backpedaling a bit, SOE then added the Recommended Level 60 and ATTUNEABLE flag the following month (November 16, 2005 patch). Any character wearing one BEFORE the patch could unequip and sell/trade it as long as they did not re-equip (and thus Attune) the cloak.
This patch also introduced the Cloak of Lesser Pernicity which restored the old stats and quest reward with a new name. A subsequent patch added a hand-in quest to allow exchange of the "new" cloak for the old one:
"After the next patch you will be able to turn in the 120 hit point Cloak of Greater Pernicity to Aid Fimli and he will hand you back the Cloak of Lesser Perncity which has the exact same stats as the old cloak." (Gordish, SOE Moderator, 11/18/2005) *
One unfortunate incident was the temporary replacement of the Aid Fimli quest reward during this time (prior to the Nov. 16, 2005 patch). Players who completed this quest received the Cloak of the Wise. As far as I know, SOE did not make provisions for players to exchange this for the true quest reward. *
Since then both cloaks have been made ALL/ALL and the Cloak of Greater Pernicity has had its TRIBUTE value removed.
Now, if you look through the quotes and links below, there seems to be an indication of a "symbols" quest that may still reward you with the Cloak of Greater Pernicity, complete with the 120 HP/Mana/End. I have no further information on this and if anyone out there does, feel free to post it here.
There are other minor changes to the original cloak but these are the significant ones. I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
* REFERENCE LINKS
1. SOE Thread Bug or upgrade?:
10/28/2005 03:01:54 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
It's a bug and will be fixed.
11/18/2005 20:57:25 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
After the next patch you will be able to turn in the 120 hit point Cloak of Greater Pernicity to Aid Fimli and he will hand you back the Cloak of Lesser Perncity which has the exact same stats as the old cloak.
11/18/2005 23:22:55 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
The Cloak of Greater Pernicity mishap was a bug. We tried to come up with the best possible solution to fix the bug without causing problems with everyone involved.
2. SOE Thread Aid Fimli:
11/01/2005 18:27:34 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
The problem was that we fixed one of the quests from PoP. When we fixed it the reward that was on the quest was the Cloak of Greater Pernicity. Looking at the risk vs. reward of the other quest we upped the stats on the reward to match what you needed to do in order to complete the quest.
As you know the cloak was also a reward for a much easier quest in the Plane of Knowledge. So after the last patch you now have this much better item that is being rewarded from a much easier quest. Players were doing the quest to farm cloaks to sell them on the market.
We put the cloak of the wise on that quest for now until we can get a better fix in place. The issue is that the better fix requires an items update to the servers and the servers will need to come down for that. Unfortunately we were in the middle of changing a lot of the Depths items and we couldn't do an items update last night when the servers came down.
Once we do the next items update there will be an item that will be rewarded from the quest that was an exact copy of the old Cloak of Greater Pernicity but it will have a new name.
3. SOE Thread I am starting to doubt Cloak of greater pernicity will really be nerfed:
11/02/2005 18:58:28 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
After the next items patch to live the quest from Aid Fimli will drop a Cloak of Lesser Pernicity. It will have the same exact stats as the old Cloak of Great Pernicity.
The Cloak of Greater Pernicity will remain in game as a drop from the symbol quest that was fixed. The stats on the cloak will remain where they are at currently but the item will have a recommended level of 60 on it and it will become attunable.
The cloak of the wise was placed there temporarily to stop people from farming the Greater Pernicity cloaks until we could get an items update to live and fix it properly. Unfortunately we can not return the new quest item for those who have completed Fimli's quest while the cloak of the wise was being dropped.
I apologize for the issue with the cloak, it was a mistake on our part and I hope this solution will be fine with everyone.
11/02/2005 21:10:12 - Gordish (SOE Moderator)
People who paid 100K plat for a 120 hp/mana item is not getting what they paid for if I reset the items back to 50/50. The solution that I'm going with will allow anyone who purchased a 120hp/mana item to keep it and not be on the losing end of a mistake on our part. Anyone else who does the Fimli quest will be rewarded with the original item minus the new name.
With the items being attunable the Greater cloaks that were gotten for "free" without doing the harder quest, will eventually work themselves out of the system.
Edited, Mar 19th 2008 2:22pm by Kuponya