Spending Your Downtime

Friday, June 1, 2018

Hey, everybody! It's our first design blog after PaizoCon! It was great getting a chance to show the game off for the attendees there and collect your comments after your first chance to play. But what if we looked at something there wasn't a chance to demo at the convention?

We've mentioned before that we're more clearly defining the three modes of play for the Pathfinder Playtest. Encounter, exploration, and downtime mode all have a place in the game, and they each play out differently at the table. So, let's look at the robust new systems we've built to cover what your characters do when they're not out on adventures!

Downtime mode is measured in days and gives you a chance to enact your long-term plans. You might craft items, heal up, conduct rituals, retrain some of your character options to choose other ones, or work at jobs or stage performances to make money. These are all things that take time and can't really be done in the middle of a dungeon.

Of course, just like with the other modes of play, these are all things you could do previously in Pathfinder. The difference in the Playtest is that we've more clearly defined these tasks in terms of what you can complete in the number of days you commit to them. This means if the GM wants to codify how long things take, it's more obvious what the value of a day spent at a task is.

Activities

When you have a day or more off, you can choose a defined downtime activity (or decide to do whatever else you want to). A few of these are general, like taking bed rest to heal more quickly or retraining your feats, skill choices, and selectable class features.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Most of downtime activities, however, appear under skills and require skill checks. The ones appearing in the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook are Craft, Create Forgery, Gather Information, Practice a Trade, Stage a Performance, Subsist on the Streets, Survive in the Wild, and Treat Disease. All of these require a skill check to determine how successful you are, and a few are explained in more detail later in this blog.

We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Making Money

Practicing a Trade and Staging a Performance use Lore skills or the Performance skill, respectively, to make money and potentially draw the attention of employers or patrons. For these activities, the GM determines what type of work or audience you can find and assigns it a level, using the same scale as PC levels. This sets your DC and how much money you can make, with more money coming in based on your proficiency rank. If you're in a small town and you're higher level, you might not find the type of sophisticated work that makes full use of your talents. If you're adventuring in the Shackles, maybe you can find work as a master of Sailing Lore that you wouldn't be able to find in, say, the Hold of Belkzen.

Because downtime can include a really large number of days, performing these activities long-term requires rolls only for interesting events; you can continue doing the job and earning money at a steady rate until the job is completed or your audiences run out. This means you can cover long periods of downtime quickly and embellish your activity with interesting details, rather than getting bogged down with 30 rolls for a month of downtime.

Crafting

One of the parts of downtime we know will be important to people is crafting items, including magical and alchemical ones. We knew that we didn't want item crafting to be as powerful in the new edition as it was in the first edition, where it was simply too easy to end up with far more powerful characters that had twice as much wealth, and in a way that didn't make a whole lot of sense in the game world.

In the Playtest, items have levels. You can craft items of your level or lower, and you must be skilled enough at crafting, reflected in your proficiency rank, to craft an item of that quality (trained for standard items, and expert, master, or legendary for higher-quality ones). 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!

What does this mean for characters who are looking to make money by crafting? Well, crafting progress is based on a similar scale to Practicing a Trade or Staging a Performance, so it's about as lucrative. In fact, if you want to work as a crafter for cash instead of items, you can use the same rules for Practice a Trade, but using your Crafting skill modifier instead! You might make most of your money crafting and selling minor items in a process taken from the normal rules, but you might also get the occasional special commission from a client who wants a specific item and is willing to pay top... gold piece.

Using Downtime in Your Game

If you're a Game Master, downtime lets you pace out your game and show the passage of time between adventures. Characters and their circumstances can change in tangible ways during their downtime. Adding color and storylines to downtime, as well as recurring characters, helps the PCs form bonds and feel they're more a part of the world around them. It also means that PCs with long-term goals have a clear way of attaining them, with a clearer structure than the game had before. Less guesswork for you, and immense expandability!

So how are your characters going to spend their downtime?

Logan Bonner
Designer

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Excaliburproxy wrote:
I noticed there was no mention of crafting while on an adventure. Is that a bug or a feature?

I think it's a side effect of the different modes of play. Exploration mode is, by definition, not downtime mode. If you have downtime on an adventure, it would be in downtime mode, and you could craft.


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Item level has me a bit squeamish. I wasn't a fan of how it worked in SF.


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Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

In PF1 a Craft feat made you rich and/or loaded with magic items, if you had the time to spend on it. Skills didn't matter in that equation. Mundane crafting and especially alchemical crafting got a real raw deal compared to that. Poison crafting was a hopeless exercise.

Now, mundane and magic crafting are more or less equivalent, both will make you rich and/or well equipped in proportion of the amount of time and skill you're putting into it. And there are alternative activities that can potentially enrich you just as fast. That's a much more realistic setting, and more balanced. I like it.

And yeah, hearing something about rituals would be real nice :-)

Designer

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magnuskn wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
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.

Okay, so maybe I understood this wrong, but you use four days to craft the item at full market price, but how long does the extra crafting take to halve its price? Also only four days or is this period much longer to prevent the easy doubling of ones WBL?

Also, pardon me for not paying enough attention in the preceding weeks, but I guess the expert, master and legendary levels of skill proficiency needed to craft higher level magic items are unlocked with skill feats? Do all the different crafting feats use the same skill? :)

The amount of extra time is going to depend on how expensive the item is. It could take an incredibly long time if you want to eke all the discount possible out of a really expensive item, so you get to set the timeframe and price that work best for you.

As to proficiency ranks, refer to the other blogs for those. You get a bunch trained and then can increase your ranks at odd levels levels beyond 1st (or every level beyond 1st for a rogue).

Designer

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gwynfrid wrote:

In PF1 a Craft feat made you rich and/or loaded with magic items, if you had the time to spend on it. Skills didn't matter in that equation. Mundane crafting and especially alchemical crafting got a real raw deal compared to that. Poison crafting was a hopeless exercise.

Now, mundane and magic crafting are more or less equivalent, both will make you rich and/or well equipped in proportion of the amount of time and skill you're putting into it. And there are alternative activities that can potentially enrich you just as fast. That's a much more realistic setting, and more balanced. I like it.

That's the idea. If you are a legendary sailor with a fleet of ships performing extremely high-level sailing tasks, or a legendary mason who decides to craft entire buildings or towns, you should be making similar gains as the legendary crafter who decides to craft magic items, and all of you should be making more money than an entry-level magic item crafter. This was not the case in PF1.


RicoTheBold wrote:
If the crafting rules are useless above a certain point because things take too long, that's one version of "broken."

Amazing tools of manufacture: make 2000gp worth of item in 1 hour/day. This means Horacalcum razored Alkenstar fortress plate takes 32 days to cover it's cost of 63450 gp. While adventuring...


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Mark Seifter wrote:
gwynfrid wrote:

In PF1 a Craft feat made you rich and/or loaded with magic items, if you had the time to spend on it. Skills didn't matter in that equation. Mundane crafting and especially alchemical crafting got a real raw deal compared to that. Poison crafting was a hopeless exercise.

Now, mundane and magic crafting are more or less equivalent, both will make you rich and/or well equipped in proportion of the amount of time and skill you're putting into it. And there are alternative activities that can potentially enrich you just as fast. That's a much more realistic setting, and more balanced. I like it.

That's the idea. If you are a legendary sailor with a fleet of ships performing extremely high-level sailing tasks, or a legendary mason who decides to craft entire buildings or towns, you should be making similar gains as the legendary crafter who decides to craft magic items, and all of you should be making more money than an entry-level magic item crafter. This was not the case in PF1.

Higher leveled Crafters made as much as entry levels or did entry levels make as much as higher level crafters?

Side note, WHY try to make money with crafting? Unless it's story/character reasons, just wait for the DM to give gold in the next cave/house/graveyard/etc.

Never understood trying to get AHEAD of progression to the point you break everything.

And if there's a way around the "You craft up to your level" in PF2, then doesn't matter I would think how the rest of the system works. Someone makes Sword +3 when they shouldn't and there goes the next couple encounters.


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The coolest thing for me about this blog is what's omitted - If fortress-building rules are absent in the playtest but planned, then they may well be in the Core Rulebook.
That would be really nice - it's been too long that stuff has been absent from the core 1st party game.


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James Krolak wrote:


In addition, crafting of magic items in 1st edition only increases the power of your party noticeably if you are giving out tons of currency. If you give someone 1,000gp they can change that into 2,000gp worth of magic items. But if you give out magic items or equipment, then they can only sell that at 1/2 its value. And that's coincidentally the same cost to craft an item like that. So, generic +1 armor that costs 1,000gp can be sold then those funds crafted into...wait for it....1,000gp worth of magic items.

The WBL does not assume players have crafting feats.

Therefore, there are enough magic items to allow players sell the ones not needed at 1/2 cost, and buy new ones at full price. Crafting doubles that


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Blog wrote:
We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Awww... but that's the fun stuff.

All I ask is that there's an option for a flying castle at some point. Don't care if it's ludicrously overpriced, or has no realistically practical uses, it just has to exist.


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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.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Absolutely LOVE the incorporation of downtime in Core!


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.


With crafting, I could see maybe up to a 5% lowering of costs for an item that the PC could make, due to the needs to rent/purchase the workshop area.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
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.

Okay, so maybe I understood this wrong, but you use four days to craft the item at full market price, but how long does the extra crafting take to halve its price? Also only four days or is this period much longer to prevent the easy doubling of ones WBL?

Also, pardon me for not paying enough attention in the preceding weeks, but I guess the expert, master and legendary levels of skill proficiency needed to craft higher level magic items are unlocked with skill feats? Do all the different crafting feats use the same skill? :)

The amount of extra time is going to depend on how expensive the item is. It could take an incredibly long time if you want to eke all the discount possible out of a really expensive item, so you get to set the timeframe and price that work best for you.

As to proficiency ranks, refer to the other blogs for those. You get a bunch trained and then can increase your ranks at odd levels levels beyond 1st (or every level beyond 1st for a rogue).

Thanks, Mark. I didn't study those blogs as fervently as this one, I fear. ;) In any case, sounds like a really good system so far!


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.


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Will there be rules or upgrading weapons and armour via crafting? Rather then selling your old greatsword and buying new material to craft a new one could a crafter spend 4 days and re-forge it to a better quality?

Next adventure focused on the undead it would fun using a maulaxe to make quick work of Skeletons and Zombies. Totally inspired by Stormbreaker in Infinity War.


Kringress wrote:
With crafting, I could see maybe up to a 5% lowering of costs for an item that the PC could make, due to the needs to rent/purchase the workshop area.

That probably depends on what you're doing and what you have. I can see Alchemists just setting up shop in the back of their own wagon or doing so in the inn room they rented. Someone who wants to make a sword better have access to some blacksmith shop or carry the tools with them. OR sell me on how you're doing it out in the woods with no tools(It won't go well for you).

But I'm one of those Alchemists that loves to put down all the tools he/she is bringing with me to the point I can probably get a store set up basically anywhere.


I like the changes to crafting economy as Gwnfried and RicoTheBold pointed out.

Sounds like it won't make it into the playtest, but Paizo is interested in including stuff like keep building.
This probably merits a clarification of WBL, which is often egregiously mistaken for "all income ever".
That aside, keeps and such highlight the distinction between generic wealth/property and what WBL is really aiming to manage:
character-usable objects which have game-mechanical impact.

Now, there is aspect of keeps etc which could potentially qualify, if they include armed retinue NPCs, for example,
or local bankers who the cost of maintaining keep covers them being ready to supply loan, etc.
But simply owning a piece of real estate doesn't seem to fulfill same 'character balance' WBL does re: equipment, etc.
Now, obviously having one requires at one time having the funds to acquire it, but IMHO that shouldn't count as WBL.

Back to crafting, if WBL is being clarified how it interacts with crafting seems valid to clarify as well.
IMHO there doesn't need to be any "increase to WBL", simply the benefits flowing from
higher cash flow allowing more optimal allocation of wealth from freshly crafted items is reasonable enough
(along with opportunities to spend on things which will not count to WBL, like bribing NPCs, building mansions(?) etc)
It sounds like Magic Item Crafting will not hinge on Feats etc, so 'investing' to be crafter isn't major commitment
which is competing with other Feats which is normal justification for it to evade WBL limits, of course an explanation that
dabbles in the same conflation of wealth and income, along with ignoring how the WBL limits simply don't have any exemption for those Feats.

Scenario: PCs want to hire mercenaries to fight with them.
Does the cost of hiring mercenaries count towards WBL? Only the cost of that given day of "work"?
Do the NPCs wealth count towards PC WBL? What if PCs pay to outfit them well above standard gear for their level?
(which could be same consumables that PC might normally use, only now paying somebody to use it for them in combat)
Does it not count to WBL, and mercenaries count towards PC party size-level CR/APL equivalent?


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

FAQ

"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."

The set requirements are "(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."

Liberty's Edge

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I like it. I don't honestly have all that much to say beyond that.

JoelF847 wrote:
I'm not a fan of level limiting what you can craft. In particular for the opposite - that a 20th level character who can craft at all could craft anything.

This part isn't true. It notes in the above Blog that, in addition to level, Proficiency also gates what you can Craft. So only a 20th level character with Legendary Crafting (and probably some Skill Feats, we know Alchemy requires one) can make anything.


Fuzzypaws wrote:
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.

Shrug.

I don't know how people are using crafting to break the game. Either with getting to Christmas tree levels sooner than they should or making something that should be 5 levels ahead of them. That's what I'm assuming when people complain about the crafting rules breaking the game.


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MerlinCross wrote:
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.

Its not just about PCs. In 1e, you could make the local master crafter 7th level and he could still craft some pretty awesome equipment, just by boosting his bonus high enough to ignore prerequisites.

In 2e, it sounds like the master craftsman also has to be really good at combat.


Yeah, it's obvious that classes of items like swords having range of Proficiency/Quality ratings, but obviously there is plenty of unique (or not-so) magical items which will have Quality ratings as well. What that will look like, who knows... Level 20 magic item with only basic quality, alongside Level 20 magic item with Legendary quality, alongside Level 15 item with Legendary quality. I guess there is certain level which will be absolute minimum before you can gain a given Profiency rating (absolute minimum including potential factors which could boost Proficiency class), so probably won't be Level 1 Legendary items, for example. But with cases like low-level NPC expert crafters like above post, maybe there will be such items for them to make. I could see "non-stacking" skill rating / proficiency boosts which increase the level they function at but can't help high level PCs/combat NPCs break the curve.


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

FAQ

"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."

The set requirements are "(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."

Someone lied to me about that when it comes to Crafting Constructs then.

Or all those guides are out of date.


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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.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16

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Deadmanwalking wrote:

I like it. I don't honestly have all that much to say beyond that.

JoelF847 wrote:
I'm not a fan of level limiting what you can craft. In particular for the opposite - that a 20th level character who can craft at all could craft anything.
This part isn't true. It notes in the above Blog that, in addition to level, Proficiency also gates what you can Craft. So only a 20th level character with Legendary Crafting (and probably some Skill Feats, we know Alchemy requires one) can make anything.

Missed that detail. I still don't like the level requirement - the proficiency requirement should be enough. Considering that proficiency levels are already level gated, I don't see why there's a need for a finer granularity of level itself gating each item.


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Yes... Any form of precise non-combat rules I appreciate...

Liberty's Edge

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JoelF847 wrote:
Missed that detail. I still don't like the level requirement - the proficiency requirement should be enough. Considering that proficiency levels are already level gated, I don't see why there's a need for a finer granularity of level itself gating each item.

It allows for greater options item-wise. A 20th level item requiring only Trained is possible, for example. And is available to a different subsection of people than a 13th level item requiring Legendary Crafting.


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

FAQ

"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."

The set requirements are "(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."

Someone lied to me about that when it comes to Crafting Constructs then.

Or all those guides are out of date.

Craft constructs has this rule: "Regardless, the creator must meet all item creation feats and minimum caster level requirements." So it seems like a special rule for constructs. [had to look it up as I don't often make constructs]

Silver Crusade

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Looking forward to seeing this one in action, even looking at organized play, giving out days of downtime as a chronicle reward could maybe work.
The more I read about the playtest the more I am seeing myself doing a very fast switch to the next edition.


johnlocke90 wrote:


Its not just about PCs. In 1e, you could make the local master crafter 7th level and he could still craft some pretty awesome equipment, just by boosting his bonus high enough to ignore prerequisites.

In 2e, it sounds like the master craftsman also has to be really good at combat.

I think this goes with NPCs and Monsters not being built like PCs in 2E. NPC crafting rules can be different.


Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I’m not a fan of item levels, at least not as they were done in Starfinder. Things like antitoxin can easily become ineffective much too soon. If you are the type that likes to be prepared, you can quickly end up with several consumables that are no longer worth using.

It will be interesting to do some ROI style checks to find out if the cost savings by taking longer are worth it. Might be better off to produce more items assuming there is a market for them.

I look forward to seeing the complete rules.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
It allows for greater options item-wise. A 20th level item requiring only Trained is possible, for example. And is available to a different subsection of people than a 13th level item requiring Legendary Crafting.

Somebody correct me, but basic magic item crafting feat requirement is gone right?

So I see Proficiency gating as re-incarnating that in a more granular way, as basic skill rating is too easy to acquire in new system.
Of course basic Proficiencies are free, so everybody can get in on ground floor (+increase with level), but highest reaches require dedication of Proficiency.

Designer

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Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Looking forward to seeing this one in action, even looking at organized play, giving out days of downtime as a chronicle reward could maybe work.

The more I read about the playtest the more I am seeing myself doing a very fast switch to the next edition.

In theory, if days of downtime have an understood value that is relatively stable across pursuits for characters of roughly the same skill, it should be possible to use this system for dayjobs overall, rather than have a separate system. We'll see how it goes!


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

FAQ

"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."

The set requirements are "(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."

Someone lied to me about that when it comes to Crafting Constructs then.

Or all those guides are out of date.

Craft constructs has this rule: "Regardless, the creator must meet all item creation feats and minimum caster level requirements." So it seems like a special rule for constructs. [had to look it up as I don't often make constructs]

I mean to be fair, Constructs would break the game if you can mass produce them.

But it's been something I've wanted to do for awhile now in pathfinder. Have a Golem buddy as a class feature/gimmick instead of say, Animal Companion

But again, I rarely saw "Caster Level Must be X" for most magical gear. Usually it was CL Y, so I just assumed you could get around it.


Intradasting. It's going to be nice to have crafters making a profit instead of selling their half price products at half price. I'm not thrilled about item levels, but that might just be Post Table Stress Disorder from Starfinder. I should probably wait until I see the equipment section in front of me before I really put any thought into it.

So, looks like outside of (my favorite) flavor, the investment a character has in crafting is returned by having anything they're rated for on a backorder of four days tops at full price, and discounts down to maybe half price if they wait for a not yet disclosed period of time, in which they may or may not be able to do anything else. As far as we know, they can't punch above their weight in gear terms, and we don't know how much of an investment they'll really need to make in terms of non-crafting competence they're passing up. Alchemical items require blueprints, and some of them eat your resonance as well as your time and money, so alchemists should favor drinking their quick slots and reserve crafted items for allies.

That's a spicy meatball. Or something like that.
I haven't slept in a few days so I'm probably missing more than a few things.

I really really really like Craftlord type characters. I like making things, and I like making people who make things. The pile of thematically similar feats required to craft multiple similar yet slightly different things tended to leave the characters somewhat underpowered in combat in PF1, compensated by a utility belt of sweet custom gear when the GM was nice enough to remember to give us loot.

But that was PF1. Bright tomorrows and silver linings, yeah? If you can't find a path, then you forge one. To the worldbuilders, may they smile on the makers they make. Long may the sun shine!


MerlinCross wrote:
But again, I rarely saw "Caster Level Must be X" for most magical gear. Usually it was CL Y, so I just assumed you could get around it.

Armor and weapons: "Creating magic armor has a special prerequisite: The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the armor."

Liberty's Edge

Quandary wrote:
Somebody correct me, but basic magic item crafting feat requirement is gone right?

There is a Magical Crafter Skill Feat, so it sounds like there's still a Feat requirement for this, but just one Feat rather than different ones for every Item type.


Quandary wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
It allows for greater options item-wise. A 20th level item requiring only Trained is possible, for example. And is available to a different subsection of people than a 13th level item requiring Legendary Crafting.

Somebody correct me, but basic magic item crafting feat requirement is gone right?

I don't think that has been revealed. I think if there is something like that, it will be a skill feat. It seems likely that there will be a feat investment requirement to craft magical items, but who knows.

Apparently Deadmanwalking knows.

Liberty's Edge

Malthraz wrote:
Apparently Deadmanwalking knows.

The Magical Crafter Feat was mentioned in the Downtime Section of the 'A La Mode' Blog, if people are curious.

Quandary wrote:
OK, so one for all of them, but besides sufficient skill bonus you also need Profiency rating appropriate to item.

Well one for Magic items, another for Alchemical items, and possibly other ones for some other kind of special items, but yeah.

Designer

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Deadmanwalking wrote:


Well one for Magic items, another for Alchemical items, and possibly other ones for some other kind of special items, but yeah.

Right now, the only other major crafting-a-type-of-thing feat is the one that lets you quick-craft your own simple traps...but more on the various skill feats later.


I'm really hoping the rules for the Leadership feat (if it's included in this version of Pathfinder) are easier to use and understand. It'd be easier just to turn it into a feat that gives the PC who takes it a loyal cohort NPC of a playable race and class.


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Dasrak wrote:
Blog wrote:
We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Awww... but that's the fun stuff.

All I ask is that there's an option for a flying castle at some point. Don't care if it's ludicrously overpriced, or has no realistically practical uses, it just has to exist.

This ^


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graystone wrote:
RicoTheBold wrote:
If the crafting rules are useless above a certain point because things take too long, that's one version of "broken."
Amazing tools of manufacture: make 2000gp worth of item in 1 hour/day. This means Horacalcum razored Alkenstar fortress plate takes 32 days to cover it's cost of 63450 gp. While adventuring...

If it takes a 12,000gp magic item, located in an optional book not everyone will have, to balance the base crafting system, that still sounds like a base crafting system that needed revising. Honestly, that’s the first I even heard of that magic item, and I own that book!


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edduardco wrote:
Dasrak wrote:
Blog wrote:
We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Awww... but that's the fun stuff.

All I ask is that there's an option for a flying castle at some point. Don't care if it's ludicrously overpriced, or has no realistically practical uses, it just has to exist.

This ^

Well, it's definitely going to be impractical if everybody keeps forgetting to fortify the bottom side.


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Dasrak wrote:
Blog wrote:
We also know we'll have some downtime activities that are beyond the scope of the systems in the Playtest Rulebook. Building a keep or wizard's tower is one of the big ones. While we for sure want you to be able to establish a home base, this requires interconnectedness between other systems and a high level of work by the GM, so for the Playtest, we wanted to keep the focus on the more directly player-oriented downtime activities.

Awww... but that's the fun stuff.

All I ask is that there's an option for a flying castle at some point. Don't care if it's ludicrously overpriced, or has no realistically practical uses, it just has to exist.

It might not have been able to fly (very well), but our Wrath of the Righteous party did make a walking castle by converting part of our base into a Stone Colossus. Each of the party members contributed to it, adding a personal flair to it's upgrades alongside the various relics of the crusade it carried.

Then we all got inside and... well...

Makings things is fun.


ENHenry wrote:
an optional book

We're talking ARG here, a hardback not a softback. It's 100% avalible of nethys, d20 and the PRD so everyone here can access it. As such, I don't really see it as optional [I'm NOT talking about core only games here].

ENHenry wrote:
12,000gp magic item

Hardly seems onerous if you plan to make items out of special material and magic items. I see it as a quality of life upgrade.

ENHenry wrote:
still sounds like a base crafting system that needed revising.

Oh, I don't disagree: I disagree that it's broken. Not working well is far from broken.

ENHenry wrote:
Honestly, that’s the first I even heard of that magic item, and I own that book!

Oh, I'm surprised. I bring it up everytime the time it take to craft special materials comes up. It's one of those hidden gems. I have to imagine every major blacksmithy would have access to them. Why WOULDN'T a dwarf clan have some around, for instance, if they work with adamantine with any regularity.


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Berselius wrote:
I'm really hoping the rules for the Leadership feat (if it's included in this version of Pathfinder) are easier to use and understand. It'd be easier just to turn it into a feat that gives the PC who takes it a loyal cohort NPC of a playable race and class.

I kinda prefer the PCs having "people" to be handled through the intersection of roleplaying and its own subsystem (like the Rebellion rules in Hell's Rebels) than "just a feat you can take" to be honest.

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