Would it be ok for a crafter pg to make his allies pay full price for objects he crafts?


Advice

1 to 50 of 532 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>
Silver Crusade

Disclaimer 1: this is something I've been thinking for a long time, so this will be looooooong. Continue only if really interested.

Disclaimer 2: before you reply with random variations of "Pathfinder is a cooperative game", "There's no I in team" and "You greedy power-player!", I'd like to specify that this question arises from a MECHANICAL and BALANCE issue. Also, my personal opinion is that a discount should be applied, but in a rational way. So, please, let me explain.

I'd like to start with an example. Let's consider two identical, non-human, allied 1st level Wizards: A wants to be a dedicated summoner, B wants to be a dedicated crafter. Let's assume B doesn't charge A for the items he crafts.
- At 1st level, they both take Spell Focus (Conj): now their Conj spells will be identically harder to resist.
- At 3rd level, A takes Augment Summoning, while B takes Craft Wondrous Items: A's summoned creatures are now much more powerful than before AND A also benefits from discounted magic items (crafted by B); B on the other hand only benefits from cheaper magic items.
- At 5th level, B takes Superior Summoning and Balanced Summoning, while B takes Craft Magic Arms and Armors and Craft Wands: B is now able to reliably summon 3 strong creatures (SupSumm and BalSumm should stack imo; it doesn't matter if they don't though, it's just an example, please don't go off topic), and he also gets a wand of Mage Armor and an enhanced mithril shield at half the price. B, again, only benefits from discounted items.
- Repeat.

As you can see, in the end B doesn't grow in performance compared to A. If you compare the two characters, B practically LOSES (almost) all his feats. Even if this benefits the entire group, this puts B behind compared to his allies, which can cause not only balance issues, but also a bit of frustration in the player.

By making pay the crafted items full price (or at least more than the raw cost), B could afford more powerful items and/or creatures (Craft Constructs), compensating for his effective loss of feats and increase his performance to level those of the party. All in all, with any other build, the party would have paid full price anyway, so no damage is actually done to the other players.

On the other hand, this might create issues the other way around, by increasing B's effective WBL disproportionately compared to the party. In fact, let's assume the party is composed by 3 people, A1, A2 and B (crafter), and they both have 4k gp. A1 and A2 give their 4k to B asking for a +2 headband/belt. B now has a total of 12k, 4k of which will be spent to craft the two items (2k + 2k). B now has 8k, which can be used to craft items worth 16k, that is 4 times the party's average WBL (this number will be referred as "WBL-boost").

Of course, this applies only if B can craft EVERY objects. Moreover, if A1 and A2 must pay full price and WAIT for two items that they can get instantaneously from a merchant at the same price, they will probably opt for the second option, which sort of moderates the WBL-boost. But let's assume the party doesn't care of waiting or can't reliably buy from a merchant: this will give us an overestimate of the WBL-boost (i.e. B's effective WBL won't be higher than this maximum value; so if we are good with this theoretical value, we are good also with the real one).

The WBL-boost grows with the size of the party (4x for 2+crafter parties, 6x for 3+crafter parties, etc), and decreases if a discount is applied according to the relation:

WBL-boost = 2Na^2 - (N - 2)a

where N is the number of allies OTHER than the crafter, and a is the price coefficient: 1 means that allies pay full price, 0.5 means that they pay half the price, i.e. only the raw cost (of course it can't go outside this range). As you can see, if a=0.5, the WBL-boost is always 1, independently of the party size, which means that B isn't getting any extra resources. If a=1, the boost changes proportionally to the party size. You can find an interactive version here, where N is x, and a is a parameter.

Once the party size is fixed (usually at the beginning of the adventure), the choice of a defines the actual WBL-boost. Now, my question is:

In your opinion, what do you think is the right trade-off between effective loss of feats and effective increase of WBL?

If you think that the crafter shouldn't "charge" whatsoever, this question is of course moot. But if you agree with my argument, this mathematically defines the "right" amount of discount that B should apply. For example, if you believe that B should get twice the WBL of the party, and the party is composed by 3 characters + crafter, a will be somewhere near 0.67.

Some guidelines for the answers. You've already read all this wall of text, please read also this final lines:
- No matter what, stay on topic.
- Yes, I'm a physicist. I enjoy the mechanical and statistical side of the game as well as the roleplay. Please don't reply with "PF is done for having fun, this is boring", "roleplay > rollplay", etc.
- I don't have much experience with late game, so I don't know how WBL interacts at 10th+ levels, that's why I'm asking you.
- Please be respectful. Whatever the general consensus will be, I think that this can nonetheless induce an interesting discussion because it involves critical thinking, which is always good.
- Sorry for the length of this post. I had fun writing it, I hope you'll have fun reading it as well :)

Silver Crusade

Sorry guys, Paizo went down for some minutes just while I was submitting my post, and apparently it was submitted 4 times (post-boost lol). I should have deleted the duplicates by now.


My personal experience:

Unless the campaign has excessive amounts of down time, you won't have enough time to craft for your own character much less someone else.

That said, nothing in the RAW dictates character interaction.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

The few times I've run a crafter in Pathfinder, I've always charged 75% of the list price for the items I made for party members. That way, we both benefited. Nobody has ever complained (they actually all seem to enjoy the 25% discount), and nobody ever expected my character to make items at cost.

Silver Crusade

Let's remove time from the equation. B (and the party) has all the time he needs to craft all the objects he wants. This is a general estimation: let's keep it simple.


16 people marked this as a favorite.

Is this assuming spherical casters in a vacuum?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
Sorry guys, Paizo went down for some minutes just while I was submitting my post, and apparently it was submitted 4 times (post-boost lol). I should have deleted the duplicates by now.

I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way


1 person marked this as a favorite.

But B doesn't lose his feats. He spends them on a specific benefit - the ability to craft large numbers of magical items for himself and his party. This benefits the party in a number of ways. A spends his feats on monster summoning, which also benefits the party (providing meatshields and damage in combat, primarily). The fighter spends / "loses" his feats on Power Attack and Cleave, dealing damage, and the Rogue spends his on Skill Focus, increasing his contribution with skills.

All of these things work together for the benefit of the entire party. The crafter charging for his contribution is like the Cleric charging for healing spells, which he is "wasting" on other PCs to no net mechanical benefit to himself.

How do you measure the balancing issues if you can't use "contribution to the party" as a yardstick?

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
quibblemuch wrote:
Is this assuming spherical casters in a vaccum?

Also no friction :P

Rothlis wrote:
I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way

Do you realise you just ignored everything I wrote after "Disclaimer 2"? :D


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
Is this assuming spherical casters in a vaccum?

Also no friction :P

quibblemuch wrote:
I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way
Do you realise you just ignored everything I wrote after "Disclaimer 2"? :D

Uh... I didn't write the second part.

Grand Lodge

7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Quote:
Would it be ok for a crafter pg to make his allies pay full price for objects he crafts?

Only if he wants to pay for the spellcasting services the cleric/druid/oracle/whatever provides.

Silver Crusade

Reverse wrote:

But B doesn't lose his feats. He spends them on a specific benefit - the ability to craft large numbers of magical items for himself and his party. This benefits the party in a number of ways. A spends his feats on monster summoning, which also benefits the party (providing meatshields and damage in combat, primarily). The fighter spends / "loses" his feats on Power Attack and Cleave, dealing damage, and the Rogue spends his on Skill Focus, increasing his contribution with skills.

All of these things work together for the benefit of the entire party. The crafter charging for his contribution is like the Cleric charging for healing spells, which he is "wasting" on other PCs to no net mechanical benefit to himself.

How do you measure the balancing issues if you can't use "contribution to the party" as a yardstick?

No, it's not the same thing at all. That's why I made the A-B example. Of course all the party benefits from the item creation feats and grows in performance as a whole, but in the end this introduces also disparities WITHIN the party. This whole discussion is to understand if there is a good equilibrium between individual- and party-growth. For example, if the crafter could build an amazing construct thanks to the WBL-boost, wouldn't the WHOLE party benefit from it in the same way?

Silver Crusade

quibblemuch wrote:
Gray Warden wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
Is this assuming spherical casters in a vaccum?

Also no friction :P

quibblemuch wrote:
I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way
Do you realise you just ignored everything I wrote after "Disclaimer 2"? :D

Uh... I didn't write the second part.

Edited. Happy? :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
Is this assuming spherical casters in a vaccum?

Also no friction :P

quibblemuch wrote:
I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way
Do you realise you just ignored everything I wrote after "Disclaimer 2"? :D

I didn't ignore it you are ignoring the fact that if you are playing a god wizard you say you are "throwing away your feats" and I'm saying you are wrong as the crafting aspect of your character has a 9th lvl supremely versatile god wizard attached to it so your use of feats is not a loss in power for you it should be a net gain for whatever team you are on


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
That's why I made the A-B example. Of course all the party benefits from the item creation feats and grows in performance as a whole, but in the end this introduces also disparities WITHIN the party.

How are these disparities within the party measured? What defines the disparity?


On a more serious note, however, there is a difficulty in establishing a correspondence between WBL and "a feat". That is, it presumes that there is a given gold piece value for a feat (which, in theory, translates to some abstract "power" or other scalar value). However, I don't think this presumption is necessarily warranted. Feats are difficult to assign value, and their value is not consistent. Even the same feat (e.g., Augment Summoning) can have significantly different effects on the game, depending on the caster class and level (e.g., a 1st level summoner benefits from that feat for a full minute, while a wizard has to be 10th level to benefit for a minute).

It also presumes that 'character benefit' is a discrete and individual value. However, you have to account for the fact that my wizard does, in fact, reap some character benefit from giving the barbarian a +1 greatsword or +2 belt of giant strength. It's not a zero sum game. A crafter does see some marginal benefit from crafting for companions, even if that is not 100% of what they would realize by crafting only for themselves.

Disregarding time also glosses over an important factor in the game. In all but the most down-time-heavy campaigns, there are going to be time restrictions on what can be crafted vs. what can be found and bought vs. what can be looted. This arguably makes the in-party crafter all the more valuable, since they can (if a settlement already has a crafter), double the effective availability of magic items to the party.

Also, the WBL itself ignores the situation value of having exactly the right magic item. While the "Big Six" are almost always handy to have around, there are many times in the game when having exactly the right magic item is worth significantly more than its generic value. If you know you're going underwater, having someone to produce a couple bottles of air is really useful. And as a crafter, the value to me of having companions underwater with me to fight whatever lurks there is potentially high enough (depending on the companions) that giving them said magic items for free is worth it.

In short, simplifying the question to one of WBL assessment misses some key considerations.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
Gray Warden wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
Is this assuming spherical casters in a vaccum?

Also no friction :P

definitely not quibblemuch wrote:
I think looking at the item creation feats as a "feat loss" is the wrong way to look at it the summoning wizard is bad unless they take Academy graduate if you are building an item crafter I look at it as a net power boost for the whole team also you seem to be forgetting you are still a god wizard even if you "throw all of you feats a way" charging your team is just greedy imo it's disruptive enough that an item crafter doubles the groups WBL any way
Do you realise you just ignored everything I wrote after "Disclaimer 2"? :D

Uh... I didn't write the second part.

Edited. Happy? :)

Happy? Well, I suppose... but that's a lot to ask of a message board post. :)

Silver Crusade

Rothlis wrote:
I didn't ignore it you are ignoring the fact that if you are playing a god wizard you say you are "throwing away your feats" and I'm saying you are wrong as the crafting aspect of your character has a 9th lvl supremely versatile god wizard attached to it so your use of feats is not a loss in power for you it should be a net gain for whatever team you are on

A and B are both "god"-Wizards. The difference is that A benefits from both B's feats and his own. So it doesn't matter B's class. Moreover, B can be a Cleric, a Forgepriest or a Skald, it is just an example.

Reverse wrote:
How are these disparities within the party measured? What defines the disparity?

By comparing B with A.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Why should A buy from B, paying full price, with a wait, and a risk of failure, when he can just go pick it up on the open market? After all, he is not getting credit for his increased combat effectiveness with a larger share of the loot is he?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Set aside the fact that these are magic items for a moment and consider the following feat:

You are a Bard
prerequisites: not a bard
benefit: You gain inspire courage with an effective bard level equal to your hit dice. You gain no benefit from this performance. It affects only your allies.

Say your wizard took this feat in place of crafting feats. His personal power does not increase at all (explicitly even). However, no one would dispute that this is a strong feat.

It is part of the character building game for you to decide how you will contribute to the party. Some people choose to do this by dealing damage, others boost their allies etc.

I think that each doubling of wealth by level is worth approximately +1 to everything you care about. This just flows from the fact that all the item formulas ask you to pay bonus^2*X gp. Where X is some flat value. If you have a crafting feat double a characters wealth by level, you would need to be ok with the following feat:

More Awesome!
prerequisites: Have a regular quantity of awesome.
benefit: Add +1 to all rolls you make and all DCs of your spells and abilities. Add +1 to all daily resource pools. Add +2 AC.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Knight Magenta wrote:

More Awesome!

prerequisites: Have a regular quantity of awesome.
benefit: Add +1 to all rolls you make and all DCs of your spells and abilities. Add +1 to all daily resource pools. Add +2 AC.

Aw... I wish I had a regular quantity of awesome. A man can dream...

Silver Crusade

Daw wrote:
Why should A buy from B, paying full price, with a wait, and a risk of failure, when he can just go pick it up on the open market? After all, he is not getting credit for his increased combat effectiveness with a larger share of the loot is he?

Just to clarify

- Full price: nope, that's why I've introduced a.
- Wait: depends. Moving from the small village to the big city to buy expensive items takes time as well.
- Failure: nope, a truly dedicated crafter can craft anything he/the party can afford at a certain level by taking 10.

But in the end it doesn't matter. A is free to buy stuff from merchants if he can and wants. B is not going to get offended since he offers virtually ANY object described in the books, ANYWHERE: this is his perk. If his allies want to benefit from this flexibility, they can. But they are not forced to.
Btw, as I explicitly wrote, this is a LIMIT case: the overestimation was wanted. With every probability, items are NOT going to be crafted at full price.

Please, stop with this passive-aggressive tone though :)


I have generally seen it work such that the party members pay 60% or 75% of full cost to the crafter. The crafter pockets the 10% or 25% for things like scribing spells or buying consumables.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Here's a thread from a couple of years back.
Some players believe that parties should work together to maximise the success of the team as a whole - a caster who doesn't do his level best to craft for his buddies for free is little better than a traitor.

Others favor characters with personal goals that may not match that of the group, enjoy moderate internal party conflicts, or believe that it's important that casters not craft loot for the entire party for game balance reasons.

Going by that thread, this is one of those RPG things you can have an opinion about that will make other people hate you.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Your party being well equipped can only help your end goals. It's best to be as cooperative as possible. If you're charging full price they have no reason to go to you except maybe convenience. It's not a value added service to facilitate party survival.

Perhaps just a small 5% surcharge or something equally minor so you make a little money, the party cant get it cheaper elsewhere by a long shot, and it still helps with party survival. Also, you'll come across as far less of a douche.

Even better take that feat/trait (I forget which) that lowers the cost to create specific magic item types by 5% then just charge the standard 1/2 cost. Then you're making money and the other party members are none the wiser.

My 2C


1st. Its perfectly ok from a roleplay perspective. I write apps but that doesn't mean I'm going to sit there all day making some for my buddies for no cost

As for how much WBL increase he should have I would compare it to how much it costs to buy a feat. Problem is feats vary in price. Also items do not count for meeting perquisites

8301 will buy a combat feat in the form of a +1 training gauntlet
10000 will buy an Ioun stone with alertness or endurance
etc.

Another method would be looking at the best case scenario then breaking down how many feats you would need. I am going to be a bit liberal with the numbers to show how much the craft feats are worth in good conditions. Lets say you can cover roughly 95% of your items costs max with all the crafting feats you need. That would give you a WBL of 190% max. Of course this assumes you get everything in GP. This would be reduced significantly by getting loot in items. IE: compare 4000gp vs a 4000gp item. With crafting 4000gp is basically 8000gp but the item is still 4000gp. I am going to assume 50% in items and 50% in gp for simplicity. So assuming you can craft 95% of items you want you end up with 47.5%

Obviously for this we would need Craft Wondrous items. If you are a caster you would want Craft Rod. If you are anyone else you would probably want craft magical arms and armor. Assuming you never need revival magic and are extremely frugal with other items you can reasonably end up with that 47.5% extra WBL for 2 or 3 feats. Breaking that down is hopeless though Craft Wondrous would probably be carrying most of that %

As a dm I'm cool with an extra 25% per feat. It gets a bit wonky at high levels but high levels were made to be broken

Silver Crusade

Knight Magenta wrote:
It is part of the character building game for you to decide how you will contribute to the party. Some people choose to do this by dealing damage, others boost their allies etc.

You are right.

But here's a challenge of the sake of the discussion: what if I wanted to build a "Construct-master" Wizard? I want to contribute to the party with the best constructs I can craft, hence by dealing lots of raw damage and controlling the battlefield. Which is exactly what a good summoner does. However, Craft Constructs also requires Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms and Armors, so, unlike the aforementioned summoner, as a side effect I could craft such items as well. Why in the case of the summoner it's ok for the party to pay 100% the price of items, but in the Construct-Master case it's not ok to pay, say, 90%, despite the role I want to play is the same?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
Reverse wrote:
How are these disparities within the party measured? What defines the disparity?
By comparing B with A.

OK, then I compare the level of contribution towards party success B and A. It's equal - if different - so neither deserves to be paid extra for existing.

Unless you want to work out a complicated formula of how much each contribution is 'worth' to the party in a net GP formula. DPS, healing, tanking, survivability, bardic buffing, skills, etc... you could, theoretically, make some complex math out of it if you were so inclined. Absent of that, I don't know why the particular crafting character should get extra pay for their contribution, but nobody else is entitled to it.

I suspect most tables are happy with "equal shares" rather than doing this much work.

Silver Crusade

Reverse wrote:
Gray Warden wrote:
Reverse wrote:
How are these disparities within the party measured? What defines the disparity?
By comparing B with A.

OK, then I compare the level of contribution towards party success B and A. It's equal - if different - so neither deserves to be paid extra for existing.

Unless you want to work out a complicated formula of how much each contribution is 'worth' to the party in a net GP formula. DPS, healing, tanking, survivability, bardic buffing, skills, etc... you could, theoretically, make some complex math out of it if you were so inclined. Absent of that, I don't know why the particular crafting character should get extra pay for their contribution, but nobody else is entitled to it.

I suspect most tables are happy with "equal shares" rather than doing this much work.

Is that a challenge? ;)

Of course I'm not going to do that (still, it's not impossible at all: many videogames managed to simulate this aspect quite successfully), but to me it seems clear that if A benefits directly from his own feats plus those of B, and B only benefits directly from his own, there is some disparity. Moreover, I think that this disparity not only affects B alone, but may affect the the whole party as well.

If you think that this is negligible looking at the big picture, I accept that. However, you must admit that you can't prove that rigorously as well. It's ok though; this thread wants to promote discussion about the topic rather than get a rigorous answer.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Tldr; no price markup: if I'm a dedicated crafter I know how freaking awesome I am when my party wins.

It all depends on your point of view/personality. A gets both their feats and items so in a given combat they do actions that help more than B... but how is that different from a Fighter getting their feats and Haste? We praise the Wizard that casts Haste and the Fighter that lands the killing blow, even though Haste did no direct damage to the enemy. The wizard might get a bit bored casting Haste to start each combat as they are not blasting megadeath craters or summoning dire titanium elementals, but they are still contributing massively.

Its like the crafter has the following ability:
MEGABUFF
Each ally in your party has double WBL, with every item they want configured exactly as they want it. Replaces the feats normally gained at levels 3,5,7,9, (11?).

In many ways its better than the haste example, because its an always on ability: you're breaking action economy! Buffing your teammates in every fight without even needing an action! Elite system mastery.

So I say, relish every success that A (and the rest of the party) has. You've made them possible.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
Knight Magenta wrote:
It is part of the character building game for you to decide how you will contribute to the party. Some people choose to do this by dealing damage, others boost their allies etc.

You are right.

But here's a challenge of the sake of the discussion: what if I wanted to build a "Construct-master" Wizard? I want to contribute to the party with the best constructs I can craft, hence by dealing lots of raw damage and controlling the battlefield. Which is exactly what a good summoner does. However, Craft Constructs also requires Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms and Armors, so, unlike the aforementioned summoner, as a side effect I could craft such items as well. Why in the case of the summoner it's ok for the party to pay 100% the price of items, but in the Construct-Master case it's not ok to pay, say, 90%, despite the role I want to play is the same?

Because feat-chains are dumb. The reason is the same if Craft Construct required my "You are a Bard" feat: because craft arms/armor is a party support feat and you should use it to support the party.

Ultimately this all breaks down because how much to charge allies is very much a role-playing choice. Its hard to say in character "I am charging you 75% because that is just how the world works!"

That being said, here is my opinion on your actual question: In certain open-world games where you don't have a constant party and where individual contribution matters far more, I feel that crafting feats should probably not give you more then +50% wealth by level. Regardless of how many you have.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gray Warden wrote:
... but to me it seems clear that if A benefits directly from his own feats plus those of B, and B only benefits directly from his own...

But I see that B benefits directly from A's feats as well. B doesn't get his head stomped in during combat because there's A's Augmented Fire Elemental standing between him and the enemy. B absorbs less damage, the enemy dies faster, etc. It's at least as direct a correlation as 'A gains +2 Charisma because of the Cloak B made him".

Silver Crusade

Thaago wrote:

Tldr; no price markup: if I'm a dedicated crafter I know how freaking awesome I am when my party wins.

It all depends on your point of view/personality. A gets both their feats and items so in a given combat they do actions that help more than B... but how is that different from a Fighter getting their feats and Haste? We praise the Wizard that casts Haste and the Fighter that lands the killing blow, even though Haste did no direct damage to the enemy. The wizard might get a bit bored casting Haste to start each combat as they are not blasting megadeath craters or summoning dire titanium elementals, but they are still contributing massively.

Its like the crafter has the following ability:
MEGABUFF
Each ally in your party has double WBL, with every item they want configured exactly as they want it. Replaces the feats normally gained at levels 3,5,7,9, (11?).

In many ways its better than the haste example, because its an always on ability: you're breaking action economy! Buffing your teammates in every fight without even needing an action! Elite system mastery.

So I say, relish every success that A (and the rest of the party) has. You've made them possible.

Well, Thaago, the whole point is that I don't think MEGABUFF is that awesome given its cost.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

I think you should think of your party companions as your personal mod-able constructs, that way everything you craft for them is a direct upgrade to your own power.

Silver Crusade

Ridiculon wrote:
I think you should think of your party companions your personal as mod-able constructs, that way everything you craft for them is a direct upgrade to your own power.

I should invest more into Dominate Person/Suggestion-like spells then :P


In the form of pizza and beer yes, or whatever snacks your party prefers


1 person marked this as a favorite.

This thread needs data. More data. Somebody cast summon anthropologist!

Seriously though, it really could use some data. The abstractions and equations sound compelling, but without a sense of how the game is typically played, they're pretty much just spun fantasies in a mathematical mode. Not that I object to spinning fantasies, mind you, but I'm wary of assigning them the adjective "correct".


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Ridiculon wrote:
I think you should think of your party companions as your personal mod-able constructs, that way everything you craft for them is a direct upgrade to your own power.

This is largely how I think of my friends, yes.


Craft wondrous items covers probably 75% of what you really need for most characters. With feat retraining, you can theoretically craft most everything with one feat slot.

I would never pay another pc to craft me items. Others might pay, so charge what you want.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
quibblemuch wrote:

This thread needs data. More data. Somebody cast summon anthropologist!

Seriously though, it really could use some data. The abstractions and equations sound compelling, but without a sense of how the game is typically played, they're pretty much just spun fantasies in a mathematical mode. Not that I object to spinning fantasies, mind you, but I'm wary of assigning them the adjective "correct".

I guess we could go through every possible character concept and algorithmically assign power/gp values to every feat based on their relative value to each build. I think you will earn the dorkiest nobel prize ever if you do so (and thats coming from a compsci person who hangs out on this forum). Its probably a pretty close run with the traveling salesman problem for complexity. especially since new stuff keeps coming out...


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Quote:
Well, Thaago, the whole point is that I don't think MEGABUFF is that awesome given its cost.

I think this is where players need to agree to disagree, because this is the crucial crux upon which this conversation rests.

Some people enjoy support roles - myself among them. I LIKE being the social and magic focused bard that lends support to the team with song and spell rather than focusing on ways to bolster my damage through the roof. I LIKE being the Aid Another Fighter that makes all the other martials feel like gods. I LIKE being the buff-specialized wizard that doesn't cast save-or-die or fireball but instead turns the party's beatsticks into gods of war via magic. I LIKE playing the Paladin with Oath of the People's Council because I enjoy making everyone else's numbers go up. And I LIKE being a crafter that can give his party a 50% discount on all the toys they'll ever want.

If you like that sort of playstyle, then use it. If you don't, then... Don't. Do things you enjoy. Let others play the support role. This game is designed to let everyone play the concepts they enjoy, and it's pretty good at simulating all kinds of characters.

Now, if you're set on playing a golem crafter or an item crafter and you want to know how much to charge your party... I'd say 60-75% is good roleplay-wise. You can say "I'm going to give you a substantial discount on what you're buying since our survival depends on each other - but I certainly don't mind having a few extra coins, so please don't expect this to be free of charge."


Ridiculon wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:

This thread needs data. More data. Somebody cast summon anthropologist!

Seriously though, it really could use some data. The abstractions and equations sound compelling, but without a sense of how the game is typically played, they're pretty much just spun fantasies in a mathematical mode. Not that I object to spinning fantasies, mind you, but I'm wary of assigning them the adjective "correct".

I guess we could go through every possible character concept and algorithmically assign power/gp values to every feat based on their value to each build. I think you will earn the dorkiest nobel prize ever if you do so (and thats coming from a compsci perosn who hangs out on this forum). Its probably a pretty close run with the traveling salesman problem for complexity. especially since new stuff keeps coming out...

This is my objection to science as a whole. More new stuff keeps coming out. I can't keep track of it all. Nine planets? Sure, that I could remember. I even had a helpful rhyme involving pizza. But now they tell me there are thousands?! And there used to be four elements. Four. A nice small number whose properties you could easily knock out in a weekend of hard thinking. Now we've got 118 and don't even get me started on the valley of beta stability...

Come on scientists. Cut it out. The cosmos doesn't need any more system bloat.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Even FOOD gets new flavors. Someone decided to make this flavor called "Umami." What the Hell even IS Umami?

DAMN YOU, SCIENCE!


eh, the new stuff will require a restart of the algorithm to add it every time, but i guess a few more years wont make much of a difference since the run time will be in the 100's of years range to start lol


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I had roughly the same question in the Iron Gods AP I was running. My character was a dedicated crafter rogue/wizard wyrwood. It took my a while to discuss both IC and OoC with my fellow PC to convince that my services should be paid. I did the same calculation and ended up with the same "tax" on the raw cost of the crafting. All but one of the players agreed that it was fair and use my price, whereas one of the player found it outrageous and refused to use any craft from my character.

So, I believe that, even if you can work out the equation to smooth out the disparity within the PC team, it is also a OoC issue that may need to be discussed.

I am also a physicist. Sometimes, it is hard to convince people that something is in the best interest of everyone, on a equal basis :)

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I have never been in a game where -anyone- cared about the WBL rules. Most of my friends, DMs included, looked at those back when they came out and felt they were stupid.

It is up to the DM to send appropriate challenges at the party, based on party makeup, items, environment, and situation.

If one person helps the group by casting 'I hit it with my axe' and another helps it with crafting items, and yet another by scouting ahead - They all contribute.

When we kill the dragon, and there is a magic longsword glowing with holy power worth more than everything else put together, we don't insist on selling it to share the wealth evenly. Our eyes light up as the paladin draws it, and everyone is grinning at him.

It's meant to be a story. Not some itemized accounting game.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

The only answer to this is talk to your group. If they hate the idea , and will hate your character and you will spend time argueing and generating Ill will then it is an awful idea . If they don't mind then it's up to you.
There is no arguement you can get on the internet which will prove you right to your freinds who hate the idea, and mo mechanical proof you can provide. So talk to your fellows and make sure that you all have fun.

In my experience not even my party of evil characters would consider this a good idea, if a crafter has spare time after crafting items for their own use then the players consider it reasonable to craft items for other pc's at cost , but we as a group don't like conflict among players , your group may well be different

1 to 50 of 532 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Would it be ok for a crafter pg to make his allies pay full price for objects he crafts? All Messageboards