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This is exactly true, well said :) I wish you had entered the conversation earlier. Although "Guideline" in terms of Item Pricing is restricted to one of two choices. Just to honor the suggestion made by the good man above, Dictionary.com define's "Guideline" as the following:
"A statement or other indication of policy or procedure by which to determine a course of action: guidelines for the completion of tax returns."
"a principle put forward to set standards or determine a course of action"
"guideline - a rule or principle that provides guidance to appropriate behavior
guidepost, rule of thumb
rule, regulation - a principle or condition that customarily governs behavior; "it was his rule to take a walk before breakfast"; "short haircuts were the regulation"
Awesome, except this is actually what is at Dictionary.com
guide·line[ [gahyd-lahyn] Show IPA
noun
1. any guide or indication of a future course of action: guidelines on the government's future policy.
2. a lightly marked line used as a guide, as in composing a drawing, a typed page, or a line of lettering.
3. a rope or cord that serves to guide one's steps, especially over rocky terrain, through underground passages, etc.
4. a rope or wire used in guiding the movement of stage sce
rule[ [rool] Show IPA noun, verb, ruled, rul·ing.
noun
1. a principle or regulation governing conduct, action, procedure, arrangement, etc.: the rules of chess.
2. the code of regulations observed by a religious order or congregation: the Franciscan rule.
3. the customary or normal circumstance, occurrence, manner, practice, quality, etc.: the rule rather than the exception.
4. control, government, or dominion: under the rule of a dictator.
5. tenure or conduct of reign or office: during the rule of George III.
There are guidelines on how to price and design custom items.
There are rules about pricing and design about custom items.
And that isn't the same thing.
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You're asking for game designers to achieve levels of coherency and consistency that no legal system has ever achieved. Good luck.
As usual, you are over exaggerating. Nobody is asking for perfect consistency, the current magic item can be improved so pretending that you either need to reach perfection or it cant get any better is just deceiving yourself.
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Let me personally lay out a few goals I would have for an crafting system.
1. Narrow the crafting feats to at least some level of equivalency. Craft wondrous items is way, way to broad a category. Narrow that down, and you solve a ton of problems.
2. Unless they plan on specifically making a crafting class or two (gnome tinker would be cool for example), crafting should be focused for personal use with crafting for the party secondary.
3. You shouldn't be able to take 10 to craft. Having some failure chance, regardless of how small, offsets the cost advantage.
4. Base the maxes of what you can craft off of skill at crafting that thing in addition to level. Just because you are 10th level doesn't mean you know anything about how to make a specific item. This might be a good way to put limits on what you can make if it is also tied to having some skill at making a specific thing.
5. Crafting shouldn't feel like a hobby you do while adventuring. It should be an integral part of a class. But it should also be available to anyone willing to make the investment. If a fighter takes craft arms and invest skills in crafting so he can make his ubersword, that seems more interesting to me than asking his wizard friend to do it for him.
What do you want in a crafting system?
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But this is exactly what's happening. Many people have said they like the rules as they are now. Others took the time to give examples on the limitations of crafting vs. the benefits gained.
It seems like those arguing the rules are broken are making statements of opinion that they expect others to take as fact with no examples to back up their claims. You're saying the rules need to be changed because you don't like them. This doesn't make them broken.
The rules are "ok"
The guidelines are open to exploitation, but that is fine so long as everyone understands that they are guidelines to come up with something to get GM approval of and not rules that if you follow you are then entitled to have X thing you made.
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Cueball, instead of admitting he underestimated the game, instead believes the failure is in the game itself. The title text indicates that Cueball attempted to suggest revisions to the rules of chess. Given that Cueball has no experience as a chess player, it is likely many of the changes are illogical or ridiculous. In the face of hundreds of years of history, it is not surprising that the chess community is ignoring them. The last major changes to the rules of chess occurred more than 400 years ago when, among other things, the pawn was given its two-space starting move and the queen was made into the most powerful piece (previously it was the weakest). The chess community's ties to the traditions of the game and their refusal to accept Cueball's suggestions are written off by Cueball as "emotional bias" suggesting his changes are logical, but that the community is letting their emotions cloud their rational decision making abilities.
The comic may also be a jab at competitive online games whose fans call for "buffs" (power additions) and "nerfs" (power reductions) to characters they believe to be underpowered or overpowered, often with inadequate knowledge of those characters. (On the other hand, some online games and multiplayer computer games in general are unbalanced since they lack centuries of history to balance themselves, unlike chess.)
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]
Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. David Dunning and Justin Kruger conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others".[2]
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Let me personally lay out a few goals I would have for an crafting system.
1. Narrow the crafting feats to at least some level of equivalency. Craft wondrous items is way, way to broad a category. Narrow that down, and you solve a ton of problems.
2. Unless they plan on specifically making a crafting class or two (gnome tinker would be cool for example), crafting should be focused for personal use with crafting for the party secondary.
3. You shouldn't be able to take 10 to craft. Having some failure chance, regardless of how small, offsets the cost advantage.
4. Base the maxes of what you can craft off of skill at crafting that thing in addition to level. Just because you are 10th level doesn't mean you know anything about how to make a specific item. This might be a good way to put limits on what you can make if it is also tied to having some skill at making a specific thing.
5. Crafting shouldn't feel like a hobby you do while adventuring. It should be an integral part of a class. But it should also be available to anyone willing to make the investment. If a fighter takes craft arms and invest skills in crafting so he can make his ubersword, that seems more interesting to me than asking his wizard friend to do it for him.
What do you want in a crafting system?
1) I'll definitely agree that Craft Wondrous Item is a little broad. On the other hand, I think most of the crafting feats are too narrow. Personally, I'd like to see something along the lines of Forge Magical Arms, Armor, and Ring (weapons, armor, rings), Craft Consumables (potions, scrolls, wands, single use items from the current Craft Wondrous Items), Craft Staffs and Rods (staffs, rods. Thematically, wands would fit here, too, but I do like having consumables be separate), and Craft Wondrous Items (non-consumable wondrous items).
2) I'm not sure this is really a big problem, as long as time is treated as a resource. There's a certain opportunity cost involved with crafting something for your party members instead of yourself. Sure, they'll end up more powerful than they would normally be, but you've burned a feat and aren't getting items for yourself to make up for it.
3) I actually very much disagree with this. Why on earth would I spend lots of time for any risk of losing all of the money invested in an item, when I can pay a bit more for guaranteed instant gratification? The option of rolling is there for anything that you can't make by taking 10, and I could see an argument to disallow taking 10 when crafting while adventuring. But if I'm sitting in a lab? And this ignores the potential issues with keeping the party balanced wealth-wise if the crafter makes even just two bad rolls.
All of this is very much personal preference, though, I think. I don't think it's even possible to come up with a default crafting system that would satisfy even a majority of people.
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Rules you must follow. Guidelines are best practice. It isn't an opinion. I literally posted the definitions.
Items listed in the book you can make unless your GM houserules no.
Items not listed only exist if your GM says you can have them. If the GM decides to let you have them, they are advised to looking at existing items for pricing and then there are a set of guidelines to consider.
There are also a set of monster creation guidelines in the bestiary, but I don't think many people are arguing they can use those as hard rules to make PC's.
And I think most people would agree the same comes into play with the race creation guidelines in the Advance Race Guide.
Why some seem to perceive more entitlement from custom item guidelines than other guidelines in the book is beyond me.
Diego: I may have missed a post (though to be fair that thread sounds like a FAQ and not a complaint about how bad crafting is.) The point is made though that there is maybe a post here and there but hardly the thousands or even hundreds AD claimed, that was a bold lie.
Shallowsoul: "A GM can actually do that with any rule so what makes the current magic item rule so special?" is what you ask. The thing that makes this system so wonderful is it adapts and evolves. You have standard items which require no fiat at all they are craftable by the rules and coupled onto this is a well thought out system of guidelines ultimately overseen by GM fiat for when the players want something not covered by the rules. Those very guidelines are there to help inexperienced GMs make those fiat calls without feeling like a fish out of water.
You haven't convinced more than a few that the system is broken. GM's fiat isn't a fix, it's a feature.
Magnuskn: The system doesn't ONLY work by GM fiat. GM fiat is there (complete with a wonderful set of guidelines) for when players wish to do things not already defined by the rules. The crafting of a Ring of Protection +1 is well established by the rules and needs no GM fiat for example, the crafting of a Ring of Purple Bunnies needs GM fiat.
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Im sorry but the above is not a fix nor was it meant to be. Changing a rule because you dont like it is something completely different than needing to change it because it has elements that dont work.GM fiat should never be used to fix something.The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
But this is exactly what's happening. Many people have said they like the rules as they are now. Others took the time to give examples on the limitations of crafting vs. the benefits gained.
It seems like those arguing the rules are broken are making statements of opinion that they expect others to take as fact with no examples to back up their claims. You're saying the rules need to be changed because you don't like them. This doesn't make them broken.
You are mistaking "the rules are fine" with "I dont mind GM fiat to keep it under control".
There have been many examples that have proven how broken the magic item system is and the designers have even acknowleged them.
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I don't think he is speaking of PC. The problem that that rule generate are the questions:
- why rich kingdoms don't have piles of wish granting gems whit unlimited uses if it cost less than 1.5 millions to make them and they can be made by 5th level wizards?A castle is worth more than unlimited wish. People really need to get off this wish nonsense. It's not that special. Everyone keeps mentioning wish like it was cool. Why not mention a spell that's actually kind of awesome?
Wish is awesome for the versatility and because it can substitute for spell that would be great to have but don't exist as the spell lists are targeted for adventuring, not for a day to day use.
You can use a gem of wish to cast several Plant Growth spells, enrichment version, with a increased area of effect every day. That would benefit any kingdom. Or use it as a enhanced fabricate, turning unworked stones and basic materials in large completed walls. There are spells that can do that, often with higher efficiency, but usually a magic item would have 1 function, a wish gem would instead cover several options.
The cost of producing the statues granting greater magic weapons would be decidedly smaller, but they would not help against a blaze or a flood.
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You are mistaking "the rules are fine" with "I dont mind GM fiat to keep it under control".
There have been many examples that have proven how broken the magic item system is and the designers have even acknowleged them.
I still think most of this thread is mistaking "the magic item system is built to different expectations than my own" for "the system is broken".
Things that I have noticed:
1) Time is not considered a resource for the party to spend by many people. The designers set up magic item creation to burn through time as a balancing factor (if not, why does it take time to craft items?). Of course the system is going to be "broken" if you don't pay attention to all of the costs presented.
2) Misunderstanding of the benefits of crafting. Yes, a crafting feat can effectively double a portion of your wealth by level (namely, the portion that can be crafted by that particular feat), but this effectively ends up being about a +1 across the board in the stats affected by that feat. If you choose to sacrifice some stats to improve a single stat, this can be closer to the range of a +3 to +5, but the cost is a net -1 to other stats when compared to the expectations used for calculating CRs. These tradeoffs are pretty closely in line with the power of other feats, except crafting also requires time.
3) Misconception that crafting feats providing the ability to craft a large number of items is the same as providing the PC with those items. Even though Craft Wondrous Item provides a lot of flexibility, none of it materializes until time and gold are spent. Compare to Power Attack, which provides its full (and extremely useful, given how many melee builds take the feat) benefit immediately, and even scales as the character levels with no further investment required.
4) Pathfinder as a whole is designed with a relatively high magic setting in mind. This is shown particularly well in the baseline expectations for PC magic items when determining monster CRs. That the system does not make it easy to recalibrate those expectations is unfortunate, but not a sign of a broken system. It simply means that if you're looking for a low magic game, Pathfinder is not necessarily the best system to choose.
Im sorry but the above is not a fix nor was it meant to be. Changing a rule because you dont like it is something completely different than needing to change it because it has elements that dont work.GM fiat should never be used to fix something.The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
And in my opinion the rules for creating magic items doesn't work. When you can enchant something easier and quicker than what it takes for the item to be originally made there is a problem.
And in my opinion the rules for creating magic items doesn't work. When you can enchant something easier and quicker than what it takes for the item to be originally made there is a problem.
Why is that a problem? For the low low price of 25000gp, I can move 30 feet and bend reality to my will using Wish or Miracle, all in the span of 6 seconds. Why is it faster to enchant than build? Because magic.
Not to mention that there are plenty of arguments that the Craft skill rules make it take way too long to actually make things.
Removed another post. Keep it civil.
I would love to see an alternate rule set in a book that allowed the big six magic items to be "purchased" through points issued from the character leveling chassis. The magic item system could then be altered to offer magical properties instead of pluses all over the place. It would be easier to run a low magic campaign as well.
Of course, there would need to be some alteration to a number of magical properties that assume enhancement bonuses, like a courageous weapon would need to function off number of properties rather than enhancements. It would also mean that you could reduce the absolutely absurd amount of money players are expected to carry around.
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Nope. Can't say I'm mistaking anything. Seems pretty straight forward when it says follow the table and the GM has the final call....Im sorry but the above is not a fix nor was it meant to be. Changing a rule because you dont like it is something completely different than needing to change it because it has elements that dont work.GM fiat should never be used to fix something.The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
But this is exactly what's happening. Many people have said they like the rules as they are now. Others took the time to give examples on the limitations of crafting vs. the benefits gained.
It seems like those arguing the rules are broken are making statements of opinion that they expect others to take as fact with no examples to back up their claims. You're saying the rules need to be changed because you don't like them. This doesn't make them broken.
You are mistaking "the rules are fine" with "I dont mind GM fiat to keep it under control".
There have been many examples that have proven how broken the magic item system is and the designers have even acknowleged them.
Actually you are. The rules as written do not work and has already been proven.
You going to keep denying it?
Wish is awesome for the versatility and because it can substitute for spell that would be great to have but don't exist as the spell lists are targeted for adventuring, not for a day to day use.
You can use a gem of wish to cast several Plant Growth spells, enrichment version, with a increased area of effect every day. That would benefit any kingdom. Or use it as a enhanced fabricate, turning unworked stones and basic materials in large completed walls. There are spells that can do that, often with higher efficiency, but usually a magic item would have 1 function, a wish gem would instead cover several options.
The cost of producing the statues granting greater magic weapons would be decidedly smaller, but they would not help against a blaze or a flood.
Technically, wish wouldn't be very useful against a blaze or flood. Miracle can protect 1 community from a disaster however. The argument that being able to cast a spell off of some spell list is the reason wish is amazing seems suspect to me. The uses you describe would be better served by other means. For a fraction of the cost you could have plant growth cast. Not to mention metropoli have spellcasting services up to 8th level for much, much cheaper.
Honestly, the ability to cast a wide variety of spells via one spell is more useful to an adventurer than it is a city in terms of cost vs reward. As I said before, it's much more effective for communities to make liberal use of lower-level magic than try to get silly things like infinite wishes.
Paulcynic, (and others who agree with his comments),
It is true that Pathfinder rules are more complex than Chess. But to compare them with civil code is actually even more of an exaggeration to the other extreme.
Let's agree that there is a lot of complexity to the game and that complexity is hard to manage. So, no, I'm not saying that the developers were "unreasonable" or "not intelligent". However, I am saying that they are human and that there are parts of the rules that are better, and parts that are worse. Any sufficiently complex system is going to have issues somewhere.
Because I am critical of the magic item system from concept to errata does not mean that I think the rules in general are poorly done. I wouldn't play the game if I felt that way.
The problems with the magic item system have been laid out in detail and there seem to be a significant fraction of PF gamers who agree with the points and a significant who disagree. In a case like this, the fact that such a significant number of people agree that the magic item rules are problematical is something that I, as a game design company, would take very, very seriously. Because Pathfinder is a product. It's an imperfect product. Taken overall, considering all the rules, all the support, all the content and all the available gamers who play the game, Pathfinder is the best option out there, so that's why I play it.
But not so long ago, that was what people said about TSR.
Sure, Pathfinder can listen only to the people who like the current rules. Or they can keep trying to improve the game system. Based on Pathfinder's changes in reaction to other user comments and complaints, I will put "willing to listen and adjust based on customer feedback" on the list of things that make Pathfinder a superior gaming option at this time.
So, since I believe they listen to their customers, I'm telling them my opinion. And as I said, I seem to have a significant number of people who agree with me. What Pathfinder decides to do about that is their deal. I hope they continue to be the best option because it's a pain to adjust my gaming world to a new system and I'd rather not.
But, as has been shown by my conversion to Pathfinder, I obviously will change if I feel there's a better option out there.
That's pretty much my whole perspective on this debate.
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Diego: I may have missed a post (though to be fair that thread sounds like a FAQ and not a complaint about how bad crafting is.) The point is made though that there is maybe a post here and there but hardly the thousands or even hundreds AD claimed, that was a bold lie.
Aranna, that thread is a Dev reaction to plenty of thread explaining problems with item pricing, the concepts behind items availability and so on. In this forum I have been in a good number of threads about problems with the crafting of magic items. From the Kingmaker forum, where there is people saying that t-shirt of constant shield for 2.000 are perfectly fine to all the discussions about WBL.
Several others I have read or skimmed. So it is a problem for a good number of people.AM statement was: "However, it is my opinion, and that opinion is supported by hundreds, perhaps thousands of threads on this and other RPG boards which identify exactly the problems I am talking about, that the current magic item system is broken from concept to implementation."
Checking my posting history I have been in 22 threads where people did expressed this concern in the last 3 years. Considering that Paizo is 10 years old and that I haven't participated in all the relevant threads, I think that in this forum alone we have close to 100 threads about the unbalancing effects of magic item crafting.
As AM said "hundreds, perhaps thousands of threads on this and other RPG boards" and I think he has solid grounds for that.
Before repeatedly calling someone a liar check your facts.
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Locking thread.
Gaming is subjective, people. What works for one GM and their group won't work for others. Accept it and move on.
If you have your own ideas about how magic item creation should work, fantastic—you should post them in the Homebrew forum.
If you have a question about how magic item creation functions in the rules as written, great! Post about it in the Rules Question forum.
But getting angry at other posters for differing opinions and interpretations does nobody any good. Please continue to use the flagging system to alert moderators of posts that don't follow our guidelines, but most importantly, flag it and move on.