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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Tags: Pathfinder Playtest
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graystone wrote:
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.

Still optional, no matter what form factor or free website it’s on, because it’s not part of the base book that ostensibly contains all the required rules to make the game work. If I tell someone all the core rules are contained in THIS book...oh, but if you want to make a character who can craft a suit of adamantine full plate in a reasonable amount of time, you need this other thing from the second book, but nothing else in that book is as essential to have as this thing, that’s my warning sign. It would kind of be like saying, you can play a monk, but you’re going to be dissatisfied with his utility until you buy this other book over here... waaait a minute... ;-)

Yeah, crafting needs a facelift, IMO.

The fact that a designer made it, and other gamers consider it that indispensable to have that most major blacksmiths should have a set, that tells me it should either be part of the main book, and affordable enough for most blacksmiths in the world to have, or the craft subsystem needs a fix of some sort.

Grand Lodge

This is a very timely blog for me.

I'm currently running an AP where the heroes each get their pick of a masterwork weapon crafted by one of the best weaponsmiths in a town of smiths. The smith in question has 5 NPC levels and a forge.

I figure that, under the PF1 rules, it will take this expert smith about 6-7 weeks to craft each weapon, assuming the base weapon cost is low.

rough math:
Assuming max skill ranks (5), Skill focus, Int 12, Masterwork tools will give a +14. So Take 10 (or average roll) gives a 24.
Masterwork weapon cost is 3000 sp at DC 20.
One week's average work gives result 24 x DC 20 = 480 sp in progress.
So it takes over 6 weeks to total 3000.

It's unlikely the party will still be in town long enough in the first adventure for more than one of those weapons to be completed.

4 days sounds a bit better than 6 weeks :)

Dark Archive

I don't know how I feel about this new crafting system. One part of me feels like I understand there reasoning for changing it in such a way. Getting double wealth by level can pretty easily make you pretty powerful in 1st Ed. The other part of me is like what is the point of crafting anything now.

Taking in that Resonance is a huge limiting factor for magical gear in the first place, and skill proficiency also limiting your crafting I would not see the idea of 2x wealth/level being that good anymore. The only reason I see to craft now is that if your GM does not want to let certain items to be sold in the town you are in. But that is only an issue tell you can fly or teleport.


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So one of the concerns I have about "you need to be level x in order to craft an item of level x" is that if the PCs are able to find or buy level appropriate gear throughout their careers (in case nobody wants to be a crafter) you have to assume there are high level NPCs wandering around making all these magic swords and the like.

I don't know if "a level 15 swordsmith" is a thing that should be common enough to be easily accessible by PCs.


RicoTheBold wrote:


I'm also super curious about the forgery rules. Cool spycraft/heist missions or forged claims of nobility to justify wars (shades of Crusader Kings 2) could make those really awesome...or create a world where forgery is super simple and your average bard is, essentially, a master counterfeiter and destroys economies.

I had one of my favorite gaming moments using the forgery skill in the last pathfinder game I played. Near the climax of the campaign, in the spur of the moment I planted a forged letter on as assassin to frame my father, whom I hated. Got him thrown in jail and I was made head wizard of the family.


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.

I *would* like to see someone who's crafting an individual item for themselves "earn" more than someone who's doing crafting/profession work for others. It makes taking a particular crafting skill related to things you want to make make sense, and it also is realistic, as personal crafting doesn't require operating a storefront/switching between items made based on demaind.


So crafting now is more like just very slow purchasing of things that might not be in the store? Breaks the game less and is going to be faster than 1e crafting, but it doesn't sound like the sort of situation that would come up enough to justify putting proficiency ranks in or spending skill feats on compared to skills that are going to come up more than once per campaign.

I'll probably still take it on some of my characters since I like playing crafters, but as presented I'm going to feel like I'm wasting my proficiency and feats.


The more that I think about this system, the more I like it. The fact that you are restricted by your level and resonance gets rid of a lot of corner cases where it could get really broken. People will just have more level appropriate gear.

As it stands, here are the cases that may end up benefiting the most from an increase in level-appropriate items:
1. The alchemist who is mass producing bombs with cash resources may end up with an essentially inexhaustible supply of bombs if bomb price scaling isn’t a thing.

2. Batman wizards. These guys may be able to mass produce all their low level utility spells. Their per-day resources are still going to be limited by resonance, but every point of resonance they spend may have 80 different uses. That can end up pretty potent!

3. Sorcerers with wands. A sorcerer can make a wand of haste and then caste haste every fight. Generalize this point to any spell that is useful forever. Sorcerers are gonna have resonance for days, after all.

4. Two weapon fighters/fighters that want to switch weapons. These characters will suddenly have far greater access to level appropriate weapons. Maybe you could do some goofy stuff like quick drawing massive pre-cocked crossbows or preloaded rifles? I dunno.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

WBL was always a balancing act of epic scales. 4th edition version broke the game and was one of the reasons for some to dislike it.

This seems to be good way to limit things in the crafting side without having to complicate it with requirements or make the character crafter poor for having to sell things at half price. Seems to be a match to the Job Check for PFS at the end of the scenario.

This is also a part of how to still have a high magic campaign without having the swiss army character with the required big items to use to keep up with the Jones.


If you happen to be an artisan who takes a commission for a particular item; in order to pay for Crafting the item you would pay half of the item's price up front, and the rest if you want to be done after 4 days. Unless, as a cunning PC, you are going to do a mark-up of the price to earn a profit from the NPC with the commission, you won't have earned anything if you complete the item in the default 4 days. You would need to intentionally take longer to craft in order to make a profit. Am I understanding this correctly?

On the other hand, the idea of paying to complete the item faster does make sense to me if often understood as paying other artisans for pre-made components of the item you are crafting (e.g. paying the leather worker for the straps for the armor, a jeweler for the enchanted pommel or rod handle, etc...)


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
PossibleCabbage wrote:
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.

Absolutely this, 100%.


Wait. I realize now that I reread the post and crafting has negligible savings. -w-

I feel dumb. Anyways, it seems like crafting is really underwhelming but maybe that is going to be par for the course with regards to low level skill feats.


Excaliburproxy wrote:

Wait. I realize now that I reread the post and crafting has negligible savings. -w-

I feel dumb. Anyways, it seems like crafting is really underwhelming but maybe that is going to be par for the course with regards to low level skill feats.

Sounds better to me then PF1 crafting


4 days to craft and item at full retail price, or take extra time for a discount all restricted by item level? I really like this. Simple and doesn't double a PCs wealth or break the economy. It also has a side effect of reducing the need of magic item shops, at least for magic items of your level or lower. :)


The biggest thing for me is now you can have a non caster be a item crafter. (without a 2 or more feat investment!)

Liberty's Edge

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one of the concerns I have about "you need to be level x in order to craft an item of level x" is that if the PCs are able to find or buy level appropriate gear throughout their careers (in case nobody wants to be a crafter) you have to assume there are high level NPCs wandering around making all these magic swords and the like.

I don't know if "a level 15 swordsmith" is a thing that should be common enough to be easily accessible by PCs.

This was already pretty explicitly the case in PF1. They aren't common by any means, but 15th level characters making their living by crafting epic items? Yeah, that's a thing.

Excaliburproxy wrote:

Wait. I realize now that I reread the post and crafting has negligible savings. -w-

I feel dumb. Anyways, it seems like crafting is really underwhelming but maybe that is going to be par for the course with regards to low level skill feats.

Uh...we have no idea how much savings crafting has. If you only take 4 days you save nothing, but how much you save for every day you spend beyond that is an unknown.

Yes, you could instead be spending that time making some portion of the money you are saving by Practicing A Trade instead, but we don't know how those actually stack up against each other.

I'd expect the savings of Crafting to be a bit better than the money you can make by Practicing a Trade, honestly. How much better? We'll need to wait to find out.


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I think that an NPC artisan class that gets an accelerated Craft proficiency could help with verisimilitude. If they get the fighters favored weapon rate for their favored craft they could be masters as lvl 3 and legendary at lvl 13. The other stats would need to be crap to prevent PC dipping though.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one of the concerns I have about "you need to be level x in order to craft an item of level x" is that if the PCs are able to find or buy level appropriate gear throughout their careers (in case nobody wants to be a crafter) you have to assume there are high level NPCs wandering around making all these magic swords and the like.

I don't know if "a level 15 swordsmith" is a thing that should be common enough to be easily accessible by PCs.

This was already pretty explicitly the case in PF1. They aren't common by any means, but 15th level characters making their living by crafting epic items? Yeah, that's a thing.

Excaliburproxy wrote:

Wait. I realize now that I reread the post and crafting has negligible savings. -w-

I feel dumb. Anyways, it seems like crafting is really underwhelming but maybe that is going to be par for the course with regards to low level skill feats.

Uh...we have no idea how much savings crafting has. If you only take 4 days you save nothing, but how much you save for every day you spend beyond that is an unknown.

Yes, you could instead be spending that time making some portion of the money you are saving by Practicing A Trade instead, but we don't know how those actually stack up against each other.

I'd expect the savings of Crafting to be a bit better than the money you can make by Practicing a Trade, honestly. How much better? We'll need to wait to find out.

That is true enough, but the article did say it was based on a similar progression so I don’t think we are talking about differences in orders of magnitude. You essentially have a feat that says “you get n% extra money from downtime and you have insurance if your GM wants to make it hard for you to buy magic items.”

I agree that there is some value of n (and some value for competing skill feats) where that might be worthwhile, though. But yeah: it is unexciting after I was thinking through the implications of a much more generous set of mechanics (even if that was my fault).


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I like the general shape of what's been revealed so far about downtime. I'm a little skeptical about lore as the default "Practice a Trade" skill, but given a) that most backgrounds provide a Lore skill, and b) it sounds like you can substitute craft for lore if you're not 'crafting' and only "Practicing a Trade" for income earning downtime, it probably works out. I mean there's only so many times you can tell people about obscure facts of some niche topic.... I guess they're paying you to go away and stop bothering them? :) I just don't see lore as something that is likely to be something you would have consistent enough demand for to serve as a day job -- outside of a university/sage/etc setting.

The stuff about crafting sounds reasonable-ish. Need to see the percent savings versus extra time spent that becomes possible and how that amount of time fits into various "average" campaigns. It's also coupled with how 2e plans to tackle the availability of both magic items and expert/master/legendary tools/weapons/armor in shops.


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Limiting item crafting by level is frustrating. It's going to warp the setting monstrously if you can't have a lot of items on the market without a large number of high level characters supplying them. The PF1 crafting system has a lot of flaws, but the potential for level 1-5 adepts working in teams and using effective tools to craft just about any item in the game was beneficial for the game and the setting.


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Aramar wrote:

If you happen to be an artisan who takes a commission for a particular item; in order to pay for Crafting the item you would pay half of the item's price up front, and the rest if you want to be done after 4 days. Unless, as a cunning PC, you are going to do a mark-up of the price to earn a profit from the NPC with the commission, you won't have earned anything if you complete the item in the default 4 days. You would need to intentionally take longer to craft in order to make a profit. Am I understanding this correctly?

On the other hand, the idea of paying to complete the item faster does make sense to me if often understood as paying other artisans for pre-made components of the item you are crafting (e.g. paying the leather worker for the straps for the armor, a jeweler for the enchanted pommel or rod handle, etc...)

Remember, unless you’re crafting the item for charity or whatnot, you would be selling the item for full price in PF2. The customer would pay you half of the cost for the item up-front for materials, then the other half once they have received their item. If they specify that they want that item quickly made, the customer would need to pay that extra fee.

So let’s say that your customer wanted to purchase a 200 sp set of Expert Quality Scalemail.

100sp up front, then 100sp once the item is delivered that would be done in let’s say 2 weeks (14 Days). A 100sp profit for you.

But your customer really wants that armor as soon as possible. Crafting that armor in 4 Days requires an additional 100sp worth of additional materials.

So now the customer pays 200sp upfront, then another 100 sp once they have received the item. A 100sp profit for you.

If, because you’re really really good at crafting, you can make the armor in 4 or less days without using all of that extra 100sp on extra materials, then you can pocket the leftover as extra profit. :D


Quick question: Does the Appraisal skill still exist?

For any craftsman or merchant this skill is very important for making more money while spending less, its a bit maligned but I've made some long-time use for it.

Liberty's Edge

Magus Black wrote:
Quick question: Does the Appraisal skill still exist?

Probably not as such, but I bet you can use the Crafting skill to appraise things.


The Raven Black wrote:
No retraining class levels ? :-(

They haven't discussed how multiclassing will work in the new system yet, either, but given what we know so far, it seems classes are somewhat modular in terms of class abilities. As they do mention retraining feats and class features, presumably that would be all that would need to be entailed vis a vis 1E's retraining class levels.

IE, rather than have your lvl 3 ftr/2 wiz retrain a wizard level to become a 4 ft/1 wiz, now you would simply have your lvl 5 character retrain the wizard class features he picked up at lvl 3 and swap them for ftr class features of the same level. Functionally more or less the same, but the main difference is you are now just considering Character Level as opposed to Character Level and Class Level(s).

That's my guess, anyway.


As for retraining class levels: I think that is something that is outside the scope of the playtest. I'd be surprised if it's not in PF2 at all.

That said, how often does retraining class levels come up?


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Cthulhudrew wrote:

They haven't discussed how multiclassing will work in the new system yet, either, but given what we know so far, it seems classes are somewhat modular in terms of class abilities. As they do mention retraining feats and class features, presumably that would be all that would need to be entailed vis a vis 1E's retraining class levels.

IE, rather than have your lvl 3 ftr/2 wiz retrain a wizard level to become a 4 ft/1 wiz, now you would simply have your lvl 5 character retrain the wizard class features he picked up at lvl 3 and swap them for ftr class features of the same level. Functionally more or less the same, but the main difference is you are now just considering Character Level as opposed to Character Level and Class Level(s).

That's my guess, anyway.

That wouldn't really work with the class features that are static. You might be able to retrain the Druidic Order class feature to change what order your part of, but there's been no suggestion you can retrain it to be the class features of a completely different class.


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If downtime is a thing are APs going to be written with this in mind? The ones I'm playing/ have played often have a theme of 'bad thing going to happen, hurry hurry to defeat it' , so there isn't time to do crafting, even if you want to.


the real question is wizard stil break the game via mass producing 1st level scrool doring his trip to cheliax from absalom via scribe scroll feat they get. If that answer is nope then new edition is officaly balanced if yes then dont bother game still gona be broken until next edition.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

For folks worried about needing high level crafters as npcs I don't think we need to worry much. Basic things like arms and armour likely won't have high level requirements, and getting master proficiency at low levels already exists (fighters with weapons for example.)

I can easily see an "expert" npc class that gets master proficiency in one skill by level 4 or 5 that doesn't offer much else and has very low (2?) hp per level.


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.

However, most of the gear you will find in PF1 has triple the value of the treasure you would find in an equivalent encounter (assuming you follow the guidelines for treasure and NPC gear - and if not, the whole point is kind of moot). For example, an EL 6 encounter with a monster or group of monsters should reward about 2000 gp worth of treasure (when using the Medium XP chart). Some of that will be items, but most will be in cash or things easily sold for cash. A level 7 NPC (also an EL 6 encounter) will instead have gear worth 6000 gp. Even if all that stuff is useless to you, that's still 3000 gp sale value - 50% more than the treasure.


Mark Seifter wrote:


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).

I must have missed this, you spent skill feats to raise your proficiency level?

Edit: Checked the blog, it seems you get a proficiency level increase AND a skill feat. Or not?

Liberty's Edge

khadgar567 wrote:
the real question is wizard stil break the game via mass producing 1st level scrool doring his trip to cheliax from absalom via scribe scroll feat they get. If that answer is nope then new edition is officaly balanced if yes then dont bother game still gona be broken until next edition.

Well, by the rules we have now, it seems like it probably takes at least 4 days to make any scrolls at all (though if they follow the same guidelines as Alchemy you may get 4 or so after that time period), and those are at full cost unless you spend more time than that. That's all assuming they follow the same Crafting rules as everything else, of course

So how long a trip?

Also, Scrolls may well cost Resonance to use.

John John wrote:

I must have missed this, you spent skill feats to raise your proficiency level?

Edit: Checked the blog, it seems you get a proficiency level increase AND a skill feat. Or not?

Okay, so what we know about this subject indicates that it works like this:

You get a new Skill Feat every even level (Rogues get them every level instead, Rogues are good at Skills).

You get new Skill Ranks (probably two of them, but we don't have an actual number) every odd level (Rogues get more than everyone else, Rogues are good at Skills).

You can, if you wish, spend a Skill Feat on yet more Skill Ranks (I suspect this is usually suboptimal, mechanically speaking).


Deadmanwalking wrote:


Okay, so what we know about this subject indicates that it works like this:

You get a new Skill Feat every even level (Rogues get them every level instead, Rogues are good at Skills).

You get new Skill Ranks (probably two of them, but we don't have an actual number) every odd level (Rogues get more than everyone else, Rogues are good at Skills).

You can, if you wish, spend a Skill Feat on yet more Skill Ranks (I suspect this is usually suboptimal, mechanically speaking).

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying.

So rogues get both more ranks and skill feats, interesting.


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The only feat that was more powerful than Craft Woundreous Item in PF1, was Leadership, because you can pick a cohort that has Craft Woundreous Item for you, plus more things.

I think Craft Woundreous Items was the rule I homeruled more in PF1. I once changed it so different kind of magic items needed different crafting feats. Like, a feat for robes, vests, cloaks and boots and a different feat for brooches, amulets and talismans, and so on (I included rings into talismans, for example). Players still got them, because they still were good. In a different AP, I made it so you could only craft at normal cost, not 1/2. Players still got it, because even at full cost, being able to pick any magic item you want, regardless of the size of the settlement and without needing to roll to see if there is one available is still valuable. No matter how much you nerfed it, it was still worth it. The un-nerfed version, at 1/2 cost, 80% of magic items fall into Woundreous, it's simply absurd. Most broken thing in the game, bar none.


I like the sound of this. The new rules should speed up downtime bookkeeping and give non-crafters more options.

Under the present rules downtime often means players of non-crafters sit round impatiently waiting for the players of crafters to complete the necessary admin. Or the crafters get left out while the non-crafters use the time to engage with NPCs.

Liberty's Edge

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John John wrote:

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying.

So rogues get both more ranks and skill feats, interesting.

Yep. They might not be the only ones, but they're the only ones previewed so far.

And it seems to be double the Skill Feats (one every level instead of one every two levels), but 1.5 times the skills or so (if everyone else gets two at 3rd and every level thereafter, then the Rogue may get 3).


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ElSilverWind wrote:
Aramar wrote:
If you happen to be an artisan who takes a commission for a particular item; in order to pay for Crafting the item you would pay half of the item's price up front, and the rest if you want to be done after 4 days. Unless, as a cunning PC, you are going to do a mark-up of the price to earn a profit from the NPC with the commission, you won't have earned anything if you complete the item in the default 4 days. You would need to intentionally take longer to craft in order to make a profit. Am I understanding this correctly?

Remember, unless you’re crafting the item for charity or whatnot, you would be selling the item for full price in PF2. The customer would pay you half of the cost for the item up-front for materials, then the other half once they have received their item. If they specify that they want that item quickly made, the customer would need to pay that extra fee.

So let’s say that your customer wanted to purchase a 200 sp set of Expert Quality Scalemail.

100sp up front, then 100sp once the item is delivered that would be done in let’s say 2 weeks (14 Days). A 100sp profit for you.

But your customer really wants that armor as soon as possible. Crafting that armor in 4 Days requires an additional 100sp worth of additional materials.

So now the customer pays 200sp upfront, then another 100 sp once they have received the item. A 100sp profit for you.

Ah, so you're saying there is a mark-up, since in the latter case this NPC is paying full price plus an extra 100 sp as an acceleration fee.

I imagine the same would apply to PC's looking to purchase custom/unavailable items, with a mark-up of 10%-50% depending on how quickly they want it.

Liberty's Edge

Deadmanwalking wrote:
(if everyone else gets two at 3rd and every level thereafter, then the Rogue may get 3).

For clarity, I meant 'at 3rd and every two levels thereafter' with this bit. It saying otherwise is a typo and an inaccuracy in regards to my understanding of how the rules will work.


So first of all I like what I am seeing, but I would also like some way to challenge people during downtime. (Which ofcourse a dm can and should do without needing a rule for it.)

I recently read Xanathars guide to everything and I liked the random tables that made really easy for weird and bad things to happen during item creation or when purchacing magic items.

Obviously I understand that in pathfinder buying a magic item and then finding out its a fake isn't par for the course (since magic items are propably not as rare and outside the norm as in 5e), but a table where in X days of downtime certain things can happen doesn't seem that bad. Is there any chance sth to that effect will be included in downtime? A short of bad/annoying/weird things that can happen in downtime table?


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one of the concerns I have about "you need to be level x in order to craft an item of level x" is that if the PCs are able to find or buy level appropriate gear throughout their careers (in case nobody wants to be a crafter) you have to assume there are high level NPCs wandering around making all these magic swords and the like.

I don't know if "a level 15 swordsmith" is a thing that should be common enough to be easily accessible by PCs.

In a world with 9th level Clerics for Plane Shift and 9th level Wizards for teleport, any reasonably sized city can get any level of nonartifact (and evil/restricted) magic item on order. Clerics of Abadar surely don't mind making money by going to Axis to fill orders, and Wizards can distribute to satellite cities.

Or you pay spell service costs to go there yourself.

Axis has effectively infinite high level NPCs.


John John wrote:

So first of all I like what I am seeing, but I would also like some way to challenge people during downtime. (Which ofcourse a dm can and should do without needing a rule for it.)

I recently read Xanathars guide to everything and I liked the random tables that made really easy for weird and bad things to happen during item creation or when purchacing magic items.

Obviously I understand that in pathfinder buying a magic item and then finding out its a fake isn't par for the course (since magic items are propably not as rare and outside the norm as in 5e), but a table where in X days of downtime certain things can happen doesn't seem that bad. Is there any chance sth to that effect will be included in downtime? A short of bad/annoying/weird things that can happen in downtime table?

Pathfinder already had(optional) rules for this, in relation to crafting and I absolutely love them. Its called dynamic magic item creation(its in the pathfinder unchained book) and it actually makes building items interesting(imo anyways), and better yet, it brings the other characters into the action occasionally. Its all skill checks, so if you had the right skills and they were really high, its all good, but some interesting stuff can happen on a couple bad rolls with instantly destroying an item or anything(though... this can happen if you are really unlucky). Sadly my hopes that this would be the core system for magic items have been dashed, so I hope it shows up in a later book(but not to late, please!).

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber
John John wrote:
Obviously I understand that in pathfinder buying a magic item and then finding out its a fake isn't par for the course (since magic items are propably not as rare and outside the norm as in 5e), but a table where in X days of downtime certain things can happen doesn't seem that bad. Is there any chance sth to that effect will be included in downtime? A short of bad/annoying/weird things that can happen in downtime table?

I really hope not.

Edited, thought better of an implied insult.


Something like "we have been scammed, have to go to get back our money/revenge" can be a cool plot hook when propperly done. However, plot hooks should be firmly under the GM authority, not the result of rolling 01 in the 1-100 table of "things that may happen between adventures".


Plot hooks should be under dm authority, but so should being able to roll on table and see what happens. I am not saying that such a table should be rolled on even if the dm feels its unnecessary or even follow its results if they don't fit his vision of the story/world.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
John John wrote:
Plot hooks should be under dm authority, but so should being able to roll on table and see what happens. I am not saying that such a table should be rolled on even if the dm feels its unnecessary or even follow its results if they don't fit his vision of the story/world.

I think that sort of thing is best left for setting books, adventure paths or individual gms. After all a satisfactory set of tables would either be massive (you can have downtime anywhere), include large amounts of non sensical entries or be so broad as to be functionally useless.


The best part of the Ultimate Campaign downtime system, in my opinion, was the event system. Would love more details on that.


gustavo iglesias wrote:

The only feat that was more powerful than Craft Woundreous Item in PF1, was Leadership, because you can pick a cohort that has Craft Woundreous Item for you, plus more things.

I think Craft Woundreous Items was the rule I homeruled more in PF1. I once changed it so different kind of magic items needed different crafting feats. Like, a feat for robes, vests, cloaks and boots and a different feat for brooches, amulets and talismans, and so on (I included rings into talismans, for example). Players still got them, because they still were good. In a different AP, I made it so you could only craft at normal cost, not 1/2. Players still got it, because even at full cost, being able to pick any magic item you want, regardless of the size of the settlement and without needing to roll to see if there is one available is still valuable. No matter how much you nerfed it, it was still worth it. The un-nerfed version, at 1/2 cost, 80% of magic items fall into Woundreous, it's simply absurd. Most broken thing in the game, bar none.

I firmly disagree. If you control how much wealth you are giving to PCs it's absolutely not broken. Is it good? Certainly. Is it too good? I'd rather say other (crafting) feats are bad (too situational) than this one is too good.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
necromental wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:

The only feat that was more powerful than Craft Woundreous Item in PF1, was Leadership, because you can pick a cohort that has Craft Woundreous Item for you, plus more things.

I think Craft Woundreous Items was the rule I homeruled more in PF1. I once changed it so different kind of magic items needed different crafting feats. Like, a feat for robes, vests, cloaks and boots and a different feat for brooches, amulets and talismans, and so on (I included rings into talismans, for example). Players still got them, because they still were good. In a different AP, I made it so you could only craft at normal cost, not 1/2. Players still got it, because even at full cost, being able to pick any magic item you want, regardless of the size of the settlement and without needing to roll to see if there is one available is still valuable. No matter how much you nerfed it, it was still worth it. The un-nerfed version, at 1/2 cost, 80% of magic items fall into Woundreous, it's simply absurd. Most broken thing in the game, bar none.

I firmly disagree. If you control how much wealth you are giving to PCs it's absolutely not broken. Is it good? Certainly. Is it too good? I'd rather say other (crafting) feats are bad (too situational) than this one is too good.

Without weighing on whether it is broken or not, I will say there is something to be said for "if the GM intervenes to cap the effectiveness of a feat/build it isn't broken." Taken to an extreme, this can mean characters effectively get no benefit from the feat because the GM will simply adjust their wealth back to where it would have been without the feats.

It is like raising the to hit value to compensate for someone who builds to max AC, or raising enemy HP to offset high damage. A little of this isn't necessarily bad, but you gotta walk a fine line. One of the benefits of PF2's tighter math will hopefully be making this easier.


necromental wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:

The only feat that was more powerful than Craft Woundreous Item in PF1, was Leadership, because you can pick a cohort that has Craft Woundreous Item for you, plus more things.

I think Craft Woundreous Items was the rule I homeruled more in PF1. I once changed it so different kind of magic items needed different crafting feats. Like, a feat for robes, vests, cloaks and boots and a different feat for brooches, amulets and talismans, and so on (I included rings into talismans, for example). Players still got them, because they still were good. In a different AP, I made it so you could only craft at normal cost, not 1/2. Players still got it, because even at full cost, being able to pick any magic item you want, regardless of the size of the settlement and without needing to roll to see if there is one available is still valuable. No matter how much you nerfed it, it was still worth it. The un-nerfed version, at 1/2 cost, 80% of magic items fall into Woundreous, it's simply absurd. Most broken thing in the game, bar none.

I firmly disagree. If you control how much wealth you are giving to PCs it's absolutely not broken. Is it good? Certainly. Is it too good? I'd rather say other (crafting) feats are bad (too situational) than this one is too good.

If by "you control how much wealath you are giving to PCs it's not broken" you mean that, as soon as someone pick it, you divide wealth by half to make up for it, then yes, it doesn't break the game, because you effectively neuter the feat.

If you keep giving the same of wealth, regardless of player choices (which, I think, you should, because otherwise players don't have choices, just the ilusion of them), then it's broken anyways. It doesn't matter if you give them much gold or little gold, it will make that gold to be worth the double. If you make 2 groups to run through the same AP, and give them the same amount of gold (as much or as little as you want), but one of them have Craft Woundreous, while the other does not, the group with craft woundreous will be ahead of effective WBL, by far. It's an adventage much greater than anything else you can get with 1 feat.


Milo v3 wrote:
That wouldn't really work with the class features that are static. You might be able to retrain the Druidic Order class feature to change what order your part of, but there's been no suggestion you can retrain it to be the class features of a completely different class.

To clarify, I meant to suggest that it would work like current retraining does: you would lose your highest "static" class feature and trade it for another class feature.

I could definitely be off-base here. I hope they talk about multiclassing more.

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