Enchanting armor while traveling

If you are using the rules to enchant armor while adventuring and you are working on making your fighters +2 (currently +1) over the course of a few days - can he wear it when you are not actively working on it?

Per the Magic Item Creation rules:

If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours’ worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night.

To answer your question: Generally, yes; however, if the party is attacked "during lunch, morning preparation, [or] during watches at night" then the fighter will not be wearing armor at the start of combat.

Also note that if the armor is broken, then it will need to be repaired. ("A character can work on only one item at a time. If a character starts work on a new item, all materials used on the under-construction item are wasted.")

Personally, I would not allow it in a game I run. First of all, when you are creating or even repairing something you may have to put it into a nonfunctioning state. This often involves replacing parts of the items with new ones or modifying the parts when they are disassembled. Let’s say part of the process of enchanting magic armor writing magic runes all over the armor that disappear when the final process is done. Getting hit with a weapon would probably damage those runes. Another reason that I would not allow this is that I feel that being exposed to other magic interferes with the enchantment process.

This is my opinion not based on any rules, but this is the advice forum not the rules.

Rules say you can, I don't allow it. IMG you need a proper workshop and/or magic lab to work on something like this and it needs to be left alone until finished.

Upgrading armor from +1 to +2 requires 3000 GP worth of work, or the equivalent of 24 working hours. A PC on the road can only log 2 hours of work/day during an adventuring day. For the GMs that house rule around the stated mechanics, what you're saying is that the armored PC needs to be mechanically inconvenienced for 1-12 adventuring days for the privilege of this upgrade.

With all due respect, why? Please help me understand what is either game breaking about an armored PC continuing to use the armor they'd been using for some time, except during those 4 hours it is being labored over, or what the mechanical advantage is to the GM resulting from this penalty.

If this is all down to a sense of realism, couldn't that realism be achieved by utilizing the narrative to accurately describe those times the armor is off the PC, being worked on? If instead your realism demands that the armored PC has to completely "power down" their power armor during the 24 hours worth of upgrades, help me understand why that is necessary to the verisimilitude of worlds where a homunculus construct can continue to function, if it is the Familiar of a PC, and yet is constantly in a state of "upgrading" from being bound to it's master/mistress.

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to play and certainly NOT trying to disrespect anyone here. If I've offended anyone I am genuinely sorry. I just am trying to wrap my head around the functional use of such a restriction on such a small niche function of an item creation feat.

When you allow magic item creation but then don't let characters work on items while adventuring, all you've accomplished is make the players stop the campaign whenever they want to craft something. I don't see how that's a good thing.

Do you like stop-and-go traffic so much that you want to emulate it in your game?

Well, to be fair DL what folks have been saying is sure, you can upgrade your stuff while you travel, you just can't USE that stuff while it's being upgraded. In other words, there's a consequence for working on your gear while you travel.

That's the part I don't get though. Why penalize the players and their PCs for using the abilities they have? There's already the penalty that upgrading an item requires 4 hours of work but only yields 2 hours of actual completion, PLUS the PCs still have to pay the costs for the upgrade and everything.

Making house rules usually solves an issue or something. What issue is being solved by not letting an item be used while being upgraded?

Well, to be fair DL what folks have been saying is sure, you can upgrade your stuff while you travel, you just can't USE that stuff while it's being upgraded. In other words, there's a consequence for working on your gear while you travel.

Yeah, the consequence is that you cannot do it at all while traveling unless you have backup options - but if you routinely find suitable weapons, armor, etc. so that you won't lose much during crafting, you don't need the crafting feats in the first place!
So it ends up as a "I don't want crafting on the road, but I don't have the integrity and honesty to admit that, so I'll just enforce a house rule that technically allows crafting on the road, but makes the option unusuable in practise".

If you dislike crafting, just ban it. And/or use Automatic Bonus Progression, which automatically improves the PC's main magic items without any "but you never entered a magical forge!" issues (among many other good things). I don't even have an issue with people banning crafting on the road (although I think it's stupid, for the reasons given in my last post) - but be honest about it.

Unlike I Mark Hoover 330, do disrespect everyone who wants to nerf something, but isn't man (or woman) enough to admit that it's a nerf-by-houserule. If I've offended anyone I am not sorry at all.

When you allow magic item creation but then don't let characters work on items while adventuring, all you've accomplished is make the players stop the campaign whenever they want to craft something. I don't see how that's a good thing.

Do you like stop-and-go traffic so much that you want to emulate it in your game?

Some of us have games without non-stop adventuring. Some of us have downtime. Some of us have games where the PCs aren't murderhobos (murder-go-out-for-a-bit-then-home-for-supper-s?). Some of us like having crafting something you do in a dedicated environment instead of wherever you hole up for the night.

I let my players to upgrade armor on the travel and also use them during this process. Simply because they spent a feat for it and it's RAW. I also don't see anything which speaks against it.

It already has a MASSIVE drawback (four times the time) so why add another one?

What is the reason to not allow it? The missing "workshop"? What happens once a wizard can cast tiny hut, Mage's Magnificent Mansion or the cleric has it's own demiplane the group spent the nights-rest on?

What is the reason to not allow it?

We like it don't mind this way, or at least understand the reasoning and don't mind it.

The missing "workshop"? What happens once a wizard can cast tiny hut, Mage's Magnificent Mansion

I'm pretty sure these don't come with a workshop.

cleric has it's own demiplane the group spent the nights-rest on?

Might have a workshop but if you disturb the magic while its settling the effort is wasted.

Some of us have games without non-stop adventuring. Some of us have downtime.

And in such games, you don't really have a reason to craft on the road, so where's the argument?

Some of us have games where the PCs aren't murderhobos (murder-go-out-for-a-bit-then-home-for-supper-s?).

I think this qualifies as an ad hominem. It has nothing to do with the topic, and only serves to make the other side look bad for unrelated reasons.

Some of us like having crafting something you do in a dedicated environment instead of wherever you hole up for the night.

As a player, you can limit yourself to only crafting during downtime. As a GM, you have the right to change the setting to fit your vision - but you should be honest and upfront about your changes. Don't act as if you're interpreting the rules, don't allow things but make it impossible to benefit from them, and say so at the start of the campaign, not just after a player has picked an item creation feat.

Derklord as I pointed out this is not the rules forum , it is the advice forum. People are expressing their opinion on what they would or would not allow, which is appropriate for the advice forum.

Most of the time in real life when you repair or upgrade something you cannot use it during the process. To me this is like browsing the internet on a laptop you are upgrading. Often when you upgrade something you tear it down and rebuild it. So, in order to update the armor, you may need to render the enchantment nonfunctional.

More than likely this is not going to happen during an active dungeon crawl, but rather during travel or other lulls in the game. What is so bad about having to use a spare set of armor during a period of usually boring travel? Anyone not wearing their armor for extended periods of time during an active dungeon craw while not sleeping deserves what they get.

Honestly, if the build/travel time is short enough most games just straight up skip it. So "not having it for a while" because mechanically meaningless, even if theoretically you could be attacked.

But the reason for that rule is that it offers characters a trade off.

* P.S. The rule says that you work on the armor at night during watch time. Unless you are using spells, special armor, or have some other way to mitigate it you cannot use medium or large item while sleeping without becoming fatigued. So mechanically most players wouldn't even be using armor in the place during the time it's being worked on. Even light armor most people wouldn't be sleeping in it unless absolutely necessary.

Derklord as I pointed out this is not the rules forum , it is the advice forum. People are expressing their opinion on what they would or would not allow, which is appropriate for the advice forum.

Most of the time in real life when you repair or upgrade something you cannot use it during the process. To me this is like browsing the internet on a laptop you are upgrading. Often when you upgrade something you tear it down and rebuild it. So, in order to update the armor, you may need to render the enchantment nonfunctional.

More than likely this is not going to happen during an active dungeon crawl, but rather during travel or other lulls in the game. What is so bad about having to use a spare set of armor during a period of usually boring travel? Anyone not wearing their armor for extended periods of time during an active dungeon craw while not sleeping deserves what they get.

Again, your game is your game and this IS the Advice column so I'm not trying to tell anyone how to play. I'm just trying to understand.

If I'm hearing you right, you're saying the benefit of this houserule is that the process of upgrading magic items becomes more "real". Also, you're suggesting that you want to enforce some kind of consequence just like not wearing armor or getting proper sleep on the PCs in the game, and this houserule provides such a consequence.

You as the GM though are the final arbiter of ANY consequence. Like, if the PCs are in a dungeon crawl, one PC is spending 1d4 rounds disabling a complex mechanical trap, and the players don't tell you their characters are doing anything else than standing around, right there you could drop a wandering monster with a CR equal to APL+5 as a "consequence" of their inaction.

So, do we GM's NEED more consequences? As for realism, a school-bus sized lizard with wings can breathe fire and fly poorly out of volcanoes; PCs can manufacture their own demiplanes; as I mentioned above, constructs bound magically to a PC can be constantly adding new powers and abilities while continuing to function.

For me in my own campaigns, if I can say "handwave... magic" for those other things, its actually easier for me to use the same explanation for wearing items and using them while upgrading them. To each their own I suppose.

Some of us like having crafting something you do in a dedicated environment instead of wherever you hole up for the night.

So BR, by this logic... do you not allow crafting potions or scrolls during adventuring either?

The RAW on potions and scrolls say that a PC can make one of 250 GP or less in 2 hours worth of crafting. The RAW above mentions that PCs can work on magic items during 4 hours of the day and gaining 2 hours worth of work in that adventuring day. In other words, an adventuring wizard could, if they wanted to, work with the party's cleric to scribe a scroll of Lesser Restoration over the course of a day.

So, based on the desire to have a "dedicated environment", would PCs not be able to even use this feat at all unless they were in their home office/workshop? If so... why even take item creation feats?

Like, my players take advantage of making cheap scrolls all the time in my games. Its gotten to the point now where the wizard purposely keeps a store of scrolls of CL4 Mirror Hideaway just in case the PCs need to take a few hours and duck in when in a dungeon room while he pumps out a fresh scroll.

There's no "workshop" in a Mirror Hideaway, or in camp, or by a stream or whatever while traveling, but RAW says they can still make potions or scribe scrolls, or do other work for that matter. Does that not happen in your games?

People are expressing their opinion on what they would or would not allow, which is appropriate for the advice forum.

And I said "I don't even have an issue with people banning crafting on the road", so you're fighting a strawman here. Unless you want to say that pointing out potential negative consequences of given advice was not appropriate.

What is so bad about having to use a spare set of armor during a period of usually boring travel?

Upgrading say +4 armor to +5 armor while on the road takes 36 days. If your campaigns routinely and forseeably contains 36 days of "boring travel", maybe you should think about changing that, rather than some "issues" with crafting.

BTW, by RAW you can still craft at "full speed" (4 hours of progress for 4 hours of work) when crafting while out adventuring by either:
1) increasing the DC to create the item by +5 or
2) having a valet familiar.

Also, a ring of sustenance or wearing armor with the restful quality (such as a +x restful haramaki for casters that need to worry about arcane failure) reduces the amount of time needed to sleep or rest from 8 hours to 2 hours. This allows an additional 4 hours of dedicated work ("If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks."), on top of the 4 hours of "non-dedicated" work, although such work "in the field" should probably count as being "in a distracting or dangerous environment" ("Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress [just as with the adventuring caster]."); by increasing the DC by +5 or having a valet familiar, this additional 4 hours of dedicated work can also be performed at "full speed."

If a PC is willing to take magic item creation feats, invest a few thousand gp of their WBL (market price 2,500 gp for a ring of sustenance or +4,500 gp for the restful armor quality), and either accept the higher creation DC or obtain a valet familiar, then there is no real reason other than GM preference or house rules/specific campaign setting restrictions preventing magic items from being created when adventuring at the normal rate of 1,000 gp per day.

So BR, by this logic... do you not allow crafting potions or scrolls during adventuring either?

In general, no.

The RAW on potions and scrolls say that a PC can make one of 250 GP or less in 2 hours worth of crafting. The RAW above mentions that PCs can work on magic items during 4 hours of the day and gaining 2 hours worth of work in that adventuring day. In other words, an adventuring wizard could, if they wanted to, work with the party's cleric to scribe a scroll of Lesser Restoration over the course of a day.

My opinion on RAW is that it is a place to start and you acecpt, alter or ignore it as fits your wants and needs. The bit you quoted doesn't fit my wants.

So, based on the desire to have a "dedicated environment", would PCs not be able to even use this feat at all unless they were in their home office/workshop?

Or at least a workshop. Certain inns and hostleries might very well have simple workshops available for visiting casters.

If so... why even take item creation feats?

Because my PCs are not always out adventuring. Because they have homes to go to. Because they have downtime. Because though they can do simple crafting without feats, actual item creation feats improve chances of success considerably and allow you to alter other people's creations. Because it fits their character.

There's no "workshop" in a Mirror Hideaway, or in camp, or by a stream or whatever while traveling, but RAW says they can still make potions or scribe scrolls, or do other work for that matter. Does that not happen in your games?

RAW is a good place to start but not so good a place to get stuck.

You might possibly be allowed to scribe a simple scroll if you had a place with an adequate flat surface or a proper portable set-up to write on, and enough space to put your reagents and inks, no wind to disturb the rare dusts and flakes you might need, no interruptions, and can finish it in one go or at least put it a place it can lie undisturbed until finished. In general, no.

You might possibly be allowed to scribe a simple scroll...

My games tend to work the opposite to this. I follow the RAW unless environmental or situational conditions preclude crafting. You can always make a scroll in the field, per RAW, provided you spent the proper resources and took 2 hours SOMEWHERE during your adventuring day... unless during that 24 hour period you were under torrential rainfall, being relentlessly pursued by hill giants, etc.

I'd rather err on the side of what my players want their characters to do instead of what I think they could or should do. Other folks do it differently. At the end of the day I'm the GM, its up to them to manage their characters.

If they take a lot of time crafting a bunch of consumables and, as a GM I feel like they may be a bit overprepared for the fight I want to throw at them... I'll just add more threats to wear down their resources.

As for crafting big, expensive magic items in the field or making upgrades, I can't see a mechanical reason why to deny the RAW. Story wise, I have one player making a vanilla paladin who spent one of his 10 feats specifically on Craft Magic Arms and Armor. He also has been carrying a portable anvil and masterwork crafting tools around since level 3 (they're level 8 now). It would seem cruel to tell the player he's not allowed to use 10% of his character unless I allow him to.

Different strokes and all that.

Clearly Paizo tried to make it less burdensome and had the crafter pay by halving progress in time for that period. As a GM you can rule whichever way you think makes more sense in your home game (that's just normal).

Personally in my home game if the crafter can do it straight up without restoring to substitutions (such as +5 DC for not meeting a requirement) then it is not a problem as he's powerful enough and doesn't need any assistance or support like a lab or library or have to focus on one project.

Someone could use the item while it's not being worked on but I'd require someone to devote a slot to OR use a charge for Mending so they can ensure it is pristine before working on it. Not bad as they may need that after a combat if sunderin' Trollboy *SMASH* armor & weapons...