Spending Your Downtime

Aratrok wrote:

Limiting item crafting by level is frustrating. It's going to warp the setting monstrously if you can't have a lot of items on the market without a large number of high level characters supplying them.

Paizo: "We aren't changing the setting."

Mechanics of new game: "Yes we are."

Me: "Oh, so this is an alternate reality Golorian. Got it."

Nowhere in any setting book do you have low level people crafting epic items. Or pulling CLW Wand abuse. Or most other changes that are being made.

Player Behavior =/= Setting Assumptions, and it's the first that's being forced to change, not the second (or at least not mostly).

I think it's partly selection bias. You don't hear about the powerful crafters because they aren't the focus. There's (probably) a level 20+ Alchemist who has supported the economy of five or six city states through crafting for about three millennia.

We actually have heard of this guy. The Alchemist in Thuvia who makes the Sun Orchid Elixir and has the whole country's economy based on him.

There are high level NPCs in the world. There have been a lot of fallen and lost kingdoms. So a Kingdom that had some high level crafts in the pass, and armed their rank an file foot men with plus +1 weapons, their captains with +2 weapons, high level officers with +3, and generals with +4 weapons. A few small kingdoms like this and that would explain a lot of the magic items in the world. These would be rich kingdoms for their size and latter after the powerful persons who created the items have passed on, the rich kingdom is now target of conquest.

When the kingdom falls, many of the people will flee with the most valuable items they can take with them, others items are taken in the conquest, and other items are lost, to be found later by adventures.

Remember that magic items are tougher than normal items, and are harder to replace and thus more likely to be repaired. Also a lot cheaper to repair as well, with spells like mending, and make whole.

In the end I think the question is not where are all of these magic items coming from, but where have most of the magic items gone?

QuidEst wrote:

I think it's partly selection bias. You don't hear about the powerful crafters because they aren't the focus. There's (probably) a level 20+ Alchemist who has supported the economy of five or six city states through crafting for about three millennia.

We actually have heard of this guy. The Alchemist in Thuvia who makes the Sun Orchid Elixir and has the whole country's economy based on him.

Ah, sorry, it's only "probably" because he doesn't get out much, and he might not still be alive if he just passed the secret on to an apprentice or something.

Ah, sorry, it's only "probably" because he doesn't get out much, and he might not still be alive if he just passed the secret on to an apprentice or something.

Ah, gotcha. Either way, whoever's making that stuff has gotta be pretty high level.

I like where this is going. I understand we don't have the details of it just yet. Some part of me though, is saying--what if we tied this to encounter rules?

This both simplifies it, and would offer characters new and varied ways to advance, no matter their story. What doesn't a master craftsman learn from the forge? Or a bard from their street performance?

I know we don't have the details, yet. I know that. So, some of what I share below may well be covered, or unneeded. I apologize in advance and offer: this is wholly off the cuff.

So go with me here. If we break down the PF1e rules, there's essentially set rewards per encounter, with level-based rewards. I suspect that PF2e will have the same, because it's still a level-based system, yeah?

1. To start, tie quality to skill and level. This isn't a change. This rule, however, addresses both story and balance.

Anyone might swing a sword, but it's the fighter who really, truly knows how to use it. Likewise, anyone might swing a hammer, but it's the master blacksmith who is the artesian.

2. Secondly, all Downtime Activities **offer rewards** that scale around Encounter Tables. For purposes of discussion, say 1 Activity Slot (or whatever we'd call them) is worth 1/4th of an Encounter Award. Obviously, this is just a working number.

This means that PCs would earn experience AND gold, based on existing scales.

However, it would also let the GM set aside a number of "floating Activity Slots" that can be snatched up via Downtime Activities. This has further story benefits, which I'll explore, below. Maybe you can think of some, too.

3. Third, Activity Slots costs might be adjusted based on:
* Complexity (crafting a sword might require 2 Activity Slots at minimum)
* Access to additional help or resources

The above general rules could be presented in a table, as guidelines to reduce or increase slot costs by a +1 or -1, +2 or -2, and so on. We'd need to play with/test this.

4. By using the encounter tables as the base, awards auto-level to the character, and Downtime is more tightly integrated into how PCs level, anyway.

5. Downtime rewards could be storied/set as a discount on the item, or a bonus-when-purchasing. I'm a little fuzzy on the details here, but the framework's present. :D

In effect, the above just means that PCs can advance in even more ways. Shoot, even the 1e PHB talked about receiving awards from roleplay. With the different A La Modes, why not standardize how to earn XP/GP across them, and truly let PCs level through story, however that story happens to be told?

Example: The party hits a break, and the GM declares that they have enough Downtime for 3 Activity Slots. This number could be based, story-wise, on time available, resources, and so on.

The characters then, have 3 "Activity Slots" they can fill. Crafting a sword would take 2 of those. Rewards, remember, (or item discounts) are based around those Encounter Tables.

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Examples with Napkin Numbers
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So, I just realized this could be simplified, further. Here's an example with numbers.

Say in the new system, a standard encounter at Level 5 is worth 100 XP and 400 gold (every level is 1,000 xp, remember).

A standard Downtime Award might be worth 25 XP and 100 gold at that same level. A GM would then say, "You have up to 3 Downtime Slots available."

This means that a PC could combine whatever Downtime they wanted to participate in, up to that number of Slots, and gain up to 75 XP and 300 gold from it.

This ties Downtime into the overall system, and makes Modes more interchangeable; a scene could then, be composed of any Mode and PCs still learn/advance from it.

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Why do this?
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1. The time it takes to accomplish an Activity becomes flexible according to the story, and how much the GM wants/needs to allow advancement at that point in the tale.
2. We cut down the number of individualized rules significantly.
3. It works no matter the downtime, and could even work in a "living world" setting.
4. It awards developing your PC in their own way, however that PC plays or functions.
5. Rewards automatically scale based on existing rules.
6. More possibilities of "layering" adventures. It would be easy to toss a few Downtime Slots along the middle of adventures.
7. It includes cooperation/aid and resource rules right off the bat, just by adjusting slot costs.

Anyhow, I know we don't have all the details, so I apologize if I've repeated things, here. This is more inspired by, I suppose?

I'm fine with 4 days as an approximation. It's too long for some things and too short for others, but it's workable and fun for a game (which the added complexity of making everything have a 'crafting complexity' would not be).

We actually did have a term called complexity that would multiply out the time it takes to Craft something particular large-scale or complicated, but we discovered that there was nothing in the playtest that definitely needed a complexity other than 1, so we cut it (at least for the playtest since it wasn't needed yet).

Excaliburproxy wrote:

It seems to me like the game will still have issues with balancing crafting for GMs that want to run campaigns that take place over a short period of time, but at least crafting skill feats no longer compete with combat effectiveness.

It's a lot better in that regard, in that a +5 weapon takes 50 days to craft in PF1 (perhaps up 200 days to craft a +5 vorpal or similar weapon), while now it takes at most 4 days to craft an item if you need it right away, the extra time just helps get more discounts. While it's certainly true that some campaigns are so fast-paced that even 1-4 days of downtime is too much to ask, I submit that those campaigns probably just won't use downtime and so shouldn't need to worry about crafting. Whereas campaigns that wouldn't give you 50-200 days off probably number a large majority of them, and they still might be using downtime extensively even so.

So far, some APs have light treasure and not much room for downtime. Are APs going to be designed going forward with downtime considered?

I like where this is going. I understand we don't have the details of it just yet. Some part of me though, is saying--what if we tied this to encounter rules?

This both simplifies it, and would offer characters new and varied ways to advance, no matter their story. What doesn't a master craftsman learn from the forge? Or a bard from their street performance?

I know we don't have the details, yet. I know that. So, some of what I share below may well be covered, or unneeded. I apologize in advance and offer: this is wholly off the cuff.

So go with me here. If we break down the PF1e rules, there's essentially set rewards per encounter, with level-based rewards. I suspect that PF2e will have the same, because it's still a level-based system, yeah?

I had a little trouble following your post, but assuming I got it in the end, you might be on to something. I imagine exploration mode will involve various skill checks and skill challenges akin to the social combat, research, and wilderness exploration rules from Ultimate Intrigue and Ultimate Wilderness. Those challenges might well result in XP, it would be interesting if downtime likewise did.

Parenthetically, that was the one disappointing thing I saw on this blog. I would rather Gather Information be a skill challenge measured in hours during exploration (assuming I understand the three modes correctly), not days during downtime. But its hardly something I'm going to make waves over.

My guess is "follow up on a rumor" is something that can be done in exploration mode, whereas "acquire a rumor to follow up on" is something done in downtime.

MuddyVolcano wrote:

I like where this is going. I understand we don't have the details of it just yet. Some part of me though, is saying--what if we tied this to encounter rules?

This both simplifies it, and would offer characters new and varied ways to advance, no matter their story. What doesn't a master craftsman learn from the forge? Or a bard from their street performance?

I know we don't have the details, yet. I know that. So, some of what I share below may well be covered, or unneeded. I apologize in advance and offer: this is wholly off the cuff.

So go with me here. If we break down the PF1e rules, there's essentially set rewards per encounter, with level-based rewards. I suspect that PF2e will have the same, because it's still a level-based system, yeah?

I had a little trouble following your post, but assuming I got it in the end, you might be on to something. I imagine exploration mode will involve various skill checks and skill challenges akin to the social combat, research, and wilderness exploration rules from Ultimate Intrigue and Ultimate Wilderness. Those challenges might well result in XP, it would be interesting if downtime likewise did.

Parenthetically, that was the one disappointing thing I saw on this blog. I would rather Gather Information be a skill challenge measured in hours during exploration (assuming I understand the three modes correctly), not days during downtime. But its hardly something I'm going to make waves over.

Haha, yeah. I'm not doing well at explaining, here. I'll try again?

Assume the following to be true:
1. In PF1e, it's possible to break award numbers down to a "Per-encounter" basis. Say, 1 encounter for at 4th level PC at their CR is worth about 300 xp and 287.5 gold.
2. Assume that PF2e can be broken down similarly. Say that 1 encounter for a 4th level PC at their CR would be worth 100 XP and 300 gold (I'm guessing and rounding for simplicity; we don't have the numbers.)

Therefore, couldn't we take Downtime Activity and award it based on encounter numbers?

We don't want 1 Downtime Activity to = 1 Encounter, exactly. That would also be boring. So, we would do something like:

1 Downtime Activity = 1/4th Encounter Award

This fractionalizing also lets a GM set "Downtime Activity Slots." This "Slots" mechanic lets us account for task complexity, resources, and so on. But, knowing how many "Downtime Activity Slots" are available, PCs could then arrange their Downtime Activity however they saw fit.

This would be an example:

A GM could say, "You have roughly enough time for 3 Downtime Activity Slots," basing that number off of things like:
* Resources available
* Time available
* How much the GM wants the PCs to be able to level

Either way, the PCs can then decide to fill those "Slots" with whatever activities appropriate to their PCs. Making a sword might require 2 slots.

All of this would mean that rewards for Downtime are based on existing Encounter Rules, because it's all based on the Encounter Tables in the end.

In our example, assuming that:
* A 4th level PC completing a standard encounter at their CR would earn 100 XP and 300 gold (I'm guessing; we don't have the numbers.)
* 1 Downtime Activity = 1/4th Encounter Award
* 3 "Slots" are available, as declared by the GM

...each of these 4th level PCs could earn up to 75 XP and 150 gold, by doing *whatever Downtime Activities were storied to their PC*. That is, it rewards whatever concept you want to develop, from opera performer to whatever. This benefit could be themed as a discount on the crafted item, money to purchase it. I'm still working on that, but it is pretty flexible. :3

A GM who didn't want to award specific numbers could just award slots in sets of 4, or whichever. So, 4 Downtime Activities = 1 Encounter.

This doesn't preclude having pre-reqs for certain Downtime Activities, or for skill in an Activity reducing its slot cost. A PC could also choose to "spend" more slots to get a better result (such as in Gathering Information, crafting a better item, writing a better play, etc.). It all awards up to the limit set by the GM/adventure, but obviously a skilled PC would get more out of fewer slots.

Another idea is that the rulebook could include rules for increasing/decreasing slot costs due to: Aid, Resources, Task Complexity (and these would end up being simple adjustments, such as +1 slot, +2 slots, or -1 slot, -2 slots). This is actually pretty easy; it's all based on Encounter Tables.

The benefit here is that it makes Downtime flexible, it reduces rulecount, and it ties it all into the same reward system. Most of all, it makes how you adventure, and what you do on that adventure to advance as a character and in your story very, very flexible. A system like this could be its own Mode, or layered on top of and within, other Modes.

...I may not be explaining well. Maybe someone can give it a try?

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I'm fine with 4 days as an approximation. It's too long for some things and too short for others, but it's workable and fun for a game (which the added complexity of making everything have a 'crafting complexity' would not be).

We actually did have a term called complexity that would multiply out the time it takes to Craft something particular large-scale or complicated, but we discovered that there was nothing in the playtest that definitely needed a complexity other than 1, so we cut it (at least for the playtest since it wasn't needed yet).

no repeating crossbow in the playtest then?

Side benefit: Going Slow, Medium, or Fast leveling would adjust Downtime Awards automatically. So, rewards for street performance and so on would match the overall pace of the campaign.

Again, I may just be repeating things that folks have already thought of, but it might be fun. :)

Dragonborn3 wrote:

Aratrok wrote:

Limiting item crafting by level is frustrating. It's going to warp the setting monstrously if you can't have a lot of items on the market without a large number of high level characters supplying them.

Paizo: "We aren't changing the setting."

Mechanics of new game: "Yes we are."

Me: "Oh, so this is an alternate reality Golorian. Got it."

Nowhere in any setting book do you have low level people crafting epic items. Or pulling CLW Wand abuse. Or most other changes that are being made.

Player Behavior =/= Setting Assumptions, and it's the first that's being forced to change, not the second (or at least not mostly).

They're also changing class features and racial traits which are pretty directly translatable to the setting.

For instance, paladins with an aura of courage now are merely resilient to fear rather than outright immune to such effects.

And I can see many favourite clerics no longer being setting-accurate with the new restrictions on cleric alignment by deity-approved list rather than the old one-step away and you're good.

Some gameplay mechanics don't shape the setting and are clearly a removed abstraction. Action economy is a good example there.

Some rules and mechanics are more directly tied to the setting and shape it, and what stories we can tell in it (for another example; spells, I'm gonna be somewhat saddened if the X person line of humanoid only spells and my Native Outsider Sylph Magus' pet peeve/rant trigger with their naming scheme goes away)

If potions require channeling magic energy to power all of a sudden then that's a major setting change.

If Paladin's can't use a Spell-like ability that mimics Detect Evil anymore then that's a major setting change.

And if you have to be an epic level adventurer to craft high-end magic gear when previously any level 10 Expert could do almost all of it. Then that's also a major setting change.

No matter how little it matters what systems we use to determine whether we dodge that fireball or hit with that sword or how hard that barbarian hits with his axe, or how we arrive at those numbers. They're still changing the setting my altering the systemic parameters for what's possible.

It's fine, it's par for the course with a new edition that some things might have to get retconned into an alternate universe.

But I'd still miss my Sylph being pissed at whoever did the naming for those spells not considering her a "person".

On another note, there's two things I see missing from the list of downtime activities in the playtest, and from the blog post at all.

1) Adding spells to your spellbook. Possibly because this isn't time consuming enough for a downtime activity. Which means downtime definitively needs to have rules for:

2) Spell Research. AKA the reason to play a wizard in the first place. (and what you do when stupid human(oid)s fail to create an adequate and properly descriptively named shrinking spell)

tivadar27 wrote:

Hmm, I'll have to see the system more, but I'm not sure how I feel about the notion of the price of an item having variance on the success of a roll. We've taken rolling out of character creation and leveling (fixed stats/HP), why is it being introduced to really the only other permanent thing affecting a character, wealth?

The item's price is unaffected by the roll. The amount of price you can reduce per day (the discount) depends on the roll, in much the same way that you might make more money from a great Performance on a critical success.

Crafting an item requires you to spend half its Price in crafting materials. You might find or acquire these sorts of materials, and most of them you can buy directly with currency, if you need to.

You have to spend at least 4 days crafting an item of your level, and you can reduce this if your level is higher than the item's. Once that time is up, you have two options if you succeed at your check: complete the item right away by supplying the rest of its Price in materials (a great option if you have the money for the item but can't find one on the market), or spend more time on your crafting to reduce the Price through your superior skill. You can stop crafting at any time and complete the item by providing the remaining amount of its Price. If you got a critical success on your skill check, the discount is better!

I have a problem of verisimilitude with that mechanic. The crafter pay 50% of the price of the final item in materials, then he work 4 or more days to produce an item he will sell to a merchant at the same price as the components?!

The old version of the rule, where the cost of the raw materials was 1/3 of the sell price of the item seem more appropriate.

Excaliburproxy wrote:

It seems to me like the game will still have issues with balancing crafting for GMs that want to run campaigns that take place over a short period of time, but at least crafting skill feats no longer compete with combat effectiveness.

It's a lot better in that regard, in that a +5 weapon takes 50 days to craft in PF1 (perhaps up 200 days to craft a +5 vorpal or similar weapon), while now it takes at most 4 days to craft an item if you need it right away, the extra time just helps get more discounts. While it's certainly true that some campaigns are so fast-paced that even 1-4 days of downtime is too much to ask, I submit that those campaigns probably just won't use downtime and so shouldn't need to worry about crafting. Whereas campaigns that wouldn't give you 50-200 days off probably number a large majority of them, and they still might be using downtime extensively even so.

This seem to conflate "making a masterwork weapon" with "making a enchanted weapon". In PF1 those where very different activities, while in PF2, AFAIK, "getting a non magical enhancement bonus" is part of making the weapon, special abilities are part of "enchanting a weapon", magical plusses are part of "enchanting a rune".

graystone wrote:

"You can craft items of your level or lower": I'm not sure I like this much. This means long lived races with hundreds of years of experence at their craft can't make items without also being high level: master craftsmen are always higher level meaning learning to quilt well means you can kick someone's butt by default...

EDIT: I forgot to say the rest seems good. ;)

Fortunately, pretty much all standard quality mundane items are at most level 1 items (or rarely level 2), so pretty much anyone can craft them. They just might not be able to craft a +5 sword (this was already the case in PF1; weapons had a caster level requirement based on the enhancement bonus).

An easy to bypass caster level requirement.

John John wrote:

So what about the whole if I can make magic items cheaper=my pc gets more poweful issue?

Or is it basically a non issue through a combination of the minimum level requirement, the fact that only 3 items give you numeric bonuses and resonance?

That's always going to be true to some extent whenever the PCs gain additional wealth. But the playtest downtime system makes the value gained during a day of downtime much more predictable for you, rather than PF1 where magic item crafting generates 500 gp per day of value for any old schmo who can perform it while even someone who decided to spend so much effort in Profession that they had +90 (is this even possible in PF1? It's far beyond the skill bonuses of most demigods in any case) earns roughly 50 gp per week. So that way you can more easily predict how much value you'll be adding to the party based on how much downtime.

Only for items that someone in the party actually use. It generate 0 value for items that are sold (unless you use a lot of the rules from Ultimate Campaign).

So far, in the AP I am currently mastering the level 3 PCs have "found" a cloak +1, a ring +1 (both put immediately to use), 3 wizard scrolls (put away for future coping), 1 +1 M sized breastplate of strange design, 1 tiny sized +1 returning dagger, 1 small sized longsword, una M sized bastard sword, 1 S sizes hide armor, some S sized arrows and a 1st level wand of magic missiles.

As all 4 characters are humans, the tiny and small weapons will be sold, as the party is 1 wizard, 1 cleric of Abadar, 1 blackblade and 1 monk, the M sized weapons will be sold, too. Maybe the breastplate will see some use, but seeing its unique appearance, I doubt it.

Similarly, in our Reign of winter campaign we are in the my druid hasn't found any amulet of mighty fist (we are at the end of part 4). For protection from cold we have found a very interesting

To make jet another example, in our Giantslayer campaign my cleric of Cayden hasn't found any rapier (not a surprise), nor any simple weapon of an useable size (again, not a surprise). Finding someone that can sell an appropriate, useable magical weapon has been equally impossible, so I have learned Craft Magic Arms and Armor simply to have a magic weapon. So, way too often, having the magic item crafting skills isn't a matter of wealth, it is a matter of staying equipped.

Those that have found a pearl of power in a recent adventure can raise an hand please? Very useful item for the spellcasters that memorize spells, but I haven't found any in the recent years.

If you loot a lot of cash, enchanting magic items will increase your wealth, but if you find a lot of semi-useless magical items it is needed to stay on par.

The magic items we find playing are generally appropriate for a "generic" party, very rarely for our specific group.

johnlocke90 wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

graystone wrote:

"You can craft items of your level or lower": I'm not sure I like this much. This means long lived races with hundreds of years of experence at their craft can't make items without also being high level: master craftsmen are always higher level meaning learning to quilt well means you can kick someone's butt by default...

EDIT: I forgot to say the rest seems good. ;)

Fortunately, pretty much all standard quality mundane items are at most level 1 items (or rarely level 2), so pretty much anyone can craft them. They just might not be able to craft a +5 sword (this was already the case in PF1; weapons had a caster level requirement based on the enhancement bonus).

As I understand it, You could bypass that with a +5 to the crafting DC, which was not difficult to do for someone who specializing in crafting.

Only if it didn't say like "MUST Be Level/Caster Level X".

Example, Basically every Construct is barred by this "Must have Caster Level X".

Meanwhile look over at Wonderous Items or just Magic Weapons/Armor and I think the list of "Must be Level X" is far smaller.

So with a hard level cap, crafting might not be as busted. Unless there's a way around it but I'm hoping there isn't. Above level stuff should be doled out by GM.

Wen we compare PF1 to PF2 we should know how things work in PF1:

Crafting and Bypassing Requirements: What crafting requirements can you bypass by adding +5 to the DC of your Spellcraft check?

As presented on page 549 of the Core Rulebook, there are no limitations other than (1) you have to have the item creation feat, and (2) you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting their spell prerequisites. So racial requirements, specific spell requirements, math requirements (such as "caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus"), and so on, are all subject to the +5 DC rule.

posted February 2013

They're also changing class features and racial traits which are pretty directly translatable to the setting.

The setting is Golarian. They're not making sweeping setting changes like the spellplague. Now, they might be making more changes to your setting, where the distinction between a Paladin being "fearless" vs. "literally incapable of fear" is important, but the setting itself had one-step Clerics as rare exceptions, and didn't have 10th level experts forging +5 swords.

Something like the change in potions doesn't have a major setting impact because it was never part of the setting that people guzzled a dozen potions in a day. What was the old explanation? Potions cost money, so people don't. What is the new explanation? Potions cost money, and it doesn't work anyway, so people don't.

If potions require channeling magic energy to power all of a sudden then that's a major setting change.

And if you have to be an epic level adventurer to craft high-end magic gear when previously any level 10 Expert could do almost all of it. Then that's also a major setting change.

A level 10 Expert theoretically could, was there any examples of ones doing so?

Edit: ninjaed by QuidEst

Yeah, there are a few low level characters who make extensive use of wands, but I have yet to find one that couldn't manage to make it through a single normal combat with pretty close to their listed tactics.

And Paladins still can get Detect Evil, while there were already Archetypes that traded that ability away. So it's still available and was never universal.

Really, almost all the stuff effects the setting almost not at all. It effects PCs and stuff common to them in some cases, but PCs are not the setting, and it effects the listed NPC stuff almost not at all.

I don't see any of these "setting" changes to be more "setting" changing than any new mechanics introduced over PF1Es lifetime. Was the release of new classes every Ultimate book a spit in the face of the setting?

This concerns me as being too "gamey." Granted, we haven't seen the final rules, but arbitrary rules for the purpose of balance tend to break immersion. I see a few possibilities and a few red flags.

1. I really think Return needs to break magic in some way. Way too many changes to the way the world works otherwise. Heck, maybe whatever they do throws so much magic into the air that it is why non-magic people can do craft it now.

2. It is explained and it is a giant abstraction. Explain how a fighter can no craft magical stuff.

3. There are exceptions and they make sense. There do need to be ways to craft beyond the guidelines, otherwise logic breaks. While the level mechanic simplifies a lot, it really can't be a hard cap.

4. It also doesn't make as much sense in Golarion as Starfinder. There are a lot more underlying pieces and parts to Starfinder that make it make more sense (everyone has tech, there's always food, most people aren't in danger of dying all the time, there are giant police organizations of a scale far beyond anything in Golarion). It makes sense that a level 5 character would find their level 20 particle cannon and confiscate it lawfully. No one is going to confiscate a +5 sword a fighter got a hold of somehow. At least not without violence.

Long story short, all of this is potentially fine, but it needs explaining with flavor that makes sense. And there need to be exceptions so every master blacksmith doesn't need to be a level 20 Fighter or something.

Master blacksmiths only need to be level 7. 15+ is legendary, remembered for generations, crafting new national treasures.

As for why Fighters can craft magic items, it’s no bigger change than “Master Craftsman is being removed as a feat tax”.

That was kinda an odd feat to begin with. It also tended to still make non-magical crafters operating at a logical disadvantage since they would never have access to the appropriate spell. It also was quite specific. This (so far, with imperfect knowledge) sounds like there will not be much, if any, difference for most crafting across classes (alchemist excepted it sounds like).

I feel like "martials don't have access to spells" has been already shot to hell by the addition of rituals.

This concerns me as being too "gamey." Granted, we haven't seen the final rules, but arbitrary rules for the purpose of balance tend to break immersion. I see a few possibilities and a few red flags.

1. I really think Return needs to break magic in some way. Way too many changes to the way the world works otherwise. Heck, maybe whatever they do throws so much magic into the air that it is why non-magic people can do craft it now.

That's really not necessary. As noted below, non-magical people have been able to do this since the PF1 Core Rulebook (with Master Craftsman).

2. It is explained and it is a giant abstraction. Explain how a fighter can no craft magical stuff.

Again, this has always been doable.

3. There are exceptions and they make sense. There do need to be ways to craft beyond the guidelines, otherwise logic breaks. While the level mechanic simplifies a lot, it really can't be a hard cap.

It's not a hard cap according to anything we've seen. All it seems to actually govern mechanically is what level you need to be to Craft items of that level. There are zero indications it means anything else in-universe (in a meta sense, it's also a guideline for what items a GM should give their players, but that isn't a setting issue).

Long story short, all of this is potentially fine, but it needs explaining with flavor that makes sense. And there need to be exceptions so every master blacksmith doesn't need to be a level 20 Fighter or something.

Uh...you only need to be higher than 7th level for Legendary stuff. Legendary stuff should be rare.

That was kinda an odd feat to begin with. It also tended to still make non-magical crafters operating at a logical disadvantage since they would never have access to the appropriate spell. It also was quite specific. This (so far, with imperfect knowledge) sounds like there will not be much, if any, difference for most crafting across classes (alchemist excepted it sounds like).

Well, it sounds like crafting Wands or Scrolls or other spell completion/spell trigger items still requires the spell in question (and that kind of requirement seems to no longer be easy to get around), so the Fighter isn't gonna be doing that too much.

And crafting either Magic or Alchemical Items requires a Skill Feat (two if you want to do both). That's...actually not that different from Master Craftsman.

I mean, it's mechanically better (being a Skill Feat) and avoids a Feat Tax, but it's not too different conceptually.

I feel like "martials don't have access to spells" has been already shot to hell by the addition of rituals.

Indeed. For the record, this is a PF1 addition, not one in PF2.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

No retraining class levels ? :-(

It mentions retraining character options in the blog. As to specifics, who knows? Maybe it will allow swapping out an entire level of one class for a level of another class, maybe it will only be for stuff like feats.

MerlinCross wrote:

So with a hard level cap, crafting might not be as busted. Unless there's a way around it but I'm hoping there isn't. Above level stuff should be doled out by GM.

It wouldn't break the game to be able to make stuff 1 or 2 levels above your character level. Just like how in Starfinder, the rules let you buy items a couple levels above your own level and that works fine.

It's generally good to avoid stuff 5+ levels above the party except by GM fiat, though.

As a Starfinder player, the rule felt pointless there because items 3+ levels higher were also very expensive. You weren't going to by a 10th level item at level 5 regardless.

Honestly I found it worked pretty well because of the costs involved it was a pretty soft rule that rarely got bumped into as people mostly would not be able to afford a big jump up without really crippling themselves elsewhere. Originally I felt it may be to restrictive but once in play it became pretty obvious the level limit was more or less a solid common sense rule of thumb of what you should be aiming for gear wise as anything at a bigger jump is just not wise to attempt.

The details of the game determines the setting. In a game such as this the setting and world changes and grows based on what is presented. When the APG comes out and adds new abilities (like new classes and alternate class features) that changes things, some of it's minor (like Totem Shaman half-forms). Some of it's major (like the entire concept of the Oracle class).

When they're reformatting the game that's bound to lead to setting changes. Some minor (this spell doesn't exist, these spells are now replaced by these spells, this ability does the same but in a slightly different way). Some Major (Magic items are now powered by your inner force-of-personality-fueled ambient magic rather than by their own magic, Gods accept entirely different alignments for their priesthood, money works differently).

It's par for the course that the discreet setting changes in a lot of minor and some major ways. But just because it's rare for something to have an effect (like feeding an 8 charisma villager two potions in a day to save their life twice, or certain cleric alignments no longer being valid) doesn't mean it's not a major change. Things like Resonance, Anathema and missing class abilities (like IMMUNITY to all fear, no matter how great, no matter what the source. As opposed to quickly diminishing of all fear.), these change the setting in a pretty big way. It doesn't have to be super large scale, it doesn't have to be felt in every town across the setting, but anything that redefines how or what you can do or how and why something works/doesn't work is a significant change to the setting.

To my setting, where I'll want to consider new Anathema and allowed cleric alignments for my own new gods and figure out the overall role of force-of-personality-fueled ambient magic.

And to Golarion, where those things are set in stone.

And to both, where Paladins can now become frightened by a sufficiently terror-inducing source, where you can now wear as many rings as you can fit on your fingers (RIP Hand of Glory), where non-Spellcaster Gnomes can have familiars and where familiars can be more weird and interesting as a baseline (one setting change I'm looking forward to), and plenty others.

It'll be interesting to see where those changes take the game, the worlds it takes place in and the stories told through it.

But for the sake of ending a bit close to the topic at hand. It's also a pretty big setting change if you have to be amazing at combat and adventuring to craft the rarest, most powerful magic items when before you didn't.

I feel like in general we should never have expected the rules, which are an approximation of diagetic (meta)physics to dictate the possible actions of all people everywhere. I mean, if we expect every farmer on Golarion can be represented by low level PC-analogues, it would be impossible to feed everyone.

So just because your PCs in your PF games only wore 2 rings, and the Paladins in those games were immune to fear, etc. doesn't mean everyone in the world was subject to the same restrictions and has always been so.

Mark Seifter wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

Hmm, I'll have to see the system more, but I'm not sure how I feel about the notion of the price of an item having variance on the success of a roll. We've taken rolling out of character creation and leveling (fixed stats/HP), why is it being introduced to really the only other permanent thing affecting a character, wealth?

The item's price is unaffected by the roll. The amount of price you can reduce per day (the discount) depends on the roll, in much the same way that you might make more money from a great Performance on a critical success.

Blog wrote:

Crafting an item requires you to spend half its Price in crafting materials. You might find or acquire these sorts of materials, and most of them you can buy directly with currency, if you need to.

You have to spend at least 4 days crafting an item of your level, and you can reduce this if your level is higher than the item's. Once that time is up, you have two options if you succeed at your check: complete the item right away by supplying the rest of its Price in materials (a great option if you have the money for the item but can't find one on the market), or spend more time on your crafting to reduce the Price through your superior skill. You can stop crafting at any time and complete the item by providing the remaining amount of its Price. If you got a critical success on your skill check, the discount is better!

I have a problem of verisimilitude with that mechanic. The crafter pay 50% of the price of the final item in materials, then he work 4 or more days to produce an item he will sell to a merchant at the same price as the components?!

We can't assume that the crafter is the final seller, so for him to earn something from his work he should sell the item at a price that is above the materials cost.
But the norm for a merchant is to buy an item at about 50% of the sell price. If he don't do that he will be unable to make any profit.

The old...

I actually see it the other way around : if I want to make a net gain when selling my products, I reduce their cost by spending more time crafting them

I guess the issue I have with "high level crafters are around and available to the rich and powerful" is that then the way to limit the really rare stuff is via the scarcity of its ingredients, which sort of implies an arms race-

Sure, plenty of people could craft Sun Orchid Elixir, but the flowers are hard to get to... but if the Level 20 Alchemist is friends with someone who can teleport, then they's not... but the Flowers are guarded by powerful divs... Who should pose little threat to the level 20 alchemist and his level 20 pals, and so forth.

I prefer to avoid these sorts of arms races by having high level folks be exceedingly rare, personally.

The solution is to have crafters who aren't high level combatants.

In PF1, a level 7 alchemist could craft pretty much anything, but he would need to hire adventurers to get the ingredients.

I actually see it the other way around : if I want to make a net gain when selling my products, I reduce their cost by spending more time crafting them

AFAIK, that is not how the rules work. Unless the crafter sell directly to the general public and there aren't merchants, general stores or people moving marchandise from a location to another.

The minimum cost to produce something is 50% of the sale price, but if you sell to a merchant or any form of middleman they will never pay full price. Generally, even in the real world, they will pay half of the sell price.

Doing otherwise would reduce the merchant profit to 0.

I'm willing to bet that if you just want to Craft for profit (as opposed to making something you actually want to use), you'll just roll Craft checks and treat them like using a Lore skill to practice a trade.

I didn't get a chance to respond to this over the weekend. But I wanted to say I love pretty much everything in the blog post. Not a single bit of criticism and nothing I would change. Looks like a great clarification of the game.

Benchak, that is true for the player point of view, but I am considering how the world work.

A question I haven't seen so far is ho much is the cost of living vs the earnings. A common laborer generally earn enough to marry and raise a family, albeit at a poor lifestyle. How much would earn a person with a single skill point in a lore in PF2?

A question I haven't seen so far is ho much is the cost of living vs the earnings. A common laborer generally earn enough to marry and raise a family, albeit at a poor lifestyle. How much would earn a person with a single skill point in a lore in PF2?

This is an excellent question, but one we lack an answer to at the moment.