Drevek's page

Sounds like you have a store then. What's your problem?

Addressing the store: what good is a store that earns a few gold a day and has zero in-game impact at our level of power?

A few quick problems from above:

Even in the world outlined above, where we can build fortresses for other nations in minutes and have extraordinary networks of contacts and massive influence, we can only gain a tiny amount of gold a day from crafting per RAW.

Another is that, according to RAW, our characters can't have the motivations or means to even attempt the above, much less earning more than a paltry sum of gold, even if it's completely contradictory to the situation like it would be above.

A DM has discretion in all things, but has no guidance from the game in making a reasonable system to solve these issues. If they did take the time to make house rules for this, making those rules actually work with most of the rules in the game would require a massive overhaul of a very complex system on their part.

If you want a full understanding then please give a read to the rest of the thread, and if I confused you at any point, I apologize. There are a multitude of discussions going on about different rules and restrictions in RAW as well as theoretical situations and how they are impacted by RAW.

I meant thematically, in response to Drevek's comment:

Quote:

Which also makes me hate the idea that you can't make money on things because you don't have a store. I have never, EVER needed a store to make money. So ridiculous!

There's no reason something can't mechanically act as a limit on WBL and also thematically represent the limits of the magical enconomy.

I agree, as do the people at Paizo, who actually cite both as the reasons you can't make much from running an item shop. Actually, Paizo's idea is that first and foremost anything you sell as a crafter gets sold at half value with no profit because you can't find buyers or have to sell it to shops, and that even if you do own a shop and use downtime rules, you can only make a few gold a day from running the shop (subjective, but a truly small amount) because you go months between finding buyers.

Both could be true in certain areas, but this is where I also agree with your earlier statement about bypassing these via a DM.

For instance, that wouldn't make sense or be practical in this case: we're in a war to divert the end of the world, with armies of men and angels marching against demonic armies in an attempt to stem the tide at the breach and ultimately push it back before sealing The Worldwound. This campaign says "screw WBL" and gives you crazy ridiculous drops.

Beyond that, within our group are some of the most powerful, respected, and influential people in existence, with an extraordinary business network, the ability to set up a multitude of businesses and hire very talented, specialized talent to run and advertise them. We have access to hundreds of connections all over the world including all of the recommendations we can get from nation leaders directly through our friendships and deals, and even have extra-planar beings on our side to make special requests for access to a greater means to vanquish evil - and they have much to offer in return. Not to mention we have the capacity to sell directly to nations and create the most exquisite and legendary equipment in appearance and function in all of the mortal world. There is absolutely no reason we shouldn't be able to rake in considerable cash through a 100% custom order shop network that has no downtime.

Beyond that, we can create gates that teleport troops from one continent to ours and erect fortresses for them to safely reside in within a matter of hours (the fortreses and physical gates pre-enchantment are created via Polymorph Any Object, Fabricate is used for fine details or special materials), then enchant those fortresses with advanced protections as commissioned.

All of this can occur while churning out as many mundane cold iron weapons and normal armors a day as we can find materials for via a few magic items that allow use of Fabricate at will wielded by mages with the power and loyalty to be entrusted their use. We can find more materials via divination and have special groups using teleportation to collect ore, etc. from those locations.

In this particular case, we wouldn't have any trouble finding buyers, as we'd have nations where everyone of wealth and means would know to come to us. We also wouldn't be at lack for contacts or connections, being that we'd even have inter-planar networks capable of being set up, not to mention what we'd have on the material plane. Selling in this case would be a means to hire armies and motivate nations, rather than a way to break WBL, in order to put an end to the end of the world. In the worst areas of contact we would use unlimited use Summon Monster IX items to bring in Ghaele Azata's and Trumpet Archons to repel demons and raise morale.

Perhaps we'd even learn how to recreate or repair Wardstones. I have no idea about the later details of the campaign or if this might be part of it, but even if it is, perhaps we could learn how to craft more of them and set them in other locations. Crafting seems to have more viability, and less brokenness, in this campaign than any other; literally, without it, if the DM doesn't hold back, the world is toast. Very, very toasty toast.

I once had a crafter who built a workshop inside a Portable Hole. He use Animate Object to staff it, and had his Valet Familiar oversee the work.

He was able to get about 36 total crafting hours a day out of it without lifting a finger himself, and could work on 4 of 5 different projects at once.

He would pretty routinely use Polymorph Any Object to just make whatever raw materials he needed and then restock the shop with them. Any specialty materials (things outside the scope of Polymorph) he could access with Teleportation or a Ring Gate who's mate was back at the party's base of operations.

He had a self-brewing alchemical lab that could crank out about 20 gallons of alchemical consumables a day. (He once used Dust of Dryness to soak up about 1000 gallons of Holy Water, and then later used it to turn a nasty temple full of demons into God's personal swimming pool.)

He could crank out about 10,000 gp worth of magic item crafting a day (doubled if he took a personal hand in things). Whatever we needed , he could make. That was his whole gimmick. He was fantasy-land's Tony Stark.

Even with that degree of manufacturing capacity, the game went fine. It became part of the narrative. The GM just stopped handing out material rewards. It was assumed that anything we found got tossed into the workshop to be sold or turned into the things we actually wanted. The players would just plan out their next level's gear in advance, and the GM would let us know when it was "done being made."

Every once in a while, the GM would just say "Throg, the Flaming Sword you wanted is on the rack in the workshop when you wake up."

What that approach did was significantly reduce the amount of time spent on bean-counting and shopping trips. The payers felt like they were getting exactly what they wanted, the GM had a great reason to actually give the players the things they want rather than resort to "of course there's a magic doubleaxe in this treasure horde! What a coincidence that is the barbarian's weapon...

I really like this idea, and that is the kind of thing I'd like to aim for. The hands off approach allows for a lot more freedom and creativity in role-playing while saving everyone a lot of precious time.

I don't want to break anything, I want a feasible reason for our group to go from absolute nobodies to amazing demon vanquishers in two years, having money to establish keeps, rally and outfit armies, make deals with celestials and nations alike, and wage a truly epic war against Hell without the DM constantly having to hold back because, realistically, we would lose so hard our brains would kaleidoscope and we'd die alone and drooling out of the corners of our mouths, unable to fathom the horrors of the end of our world.

A smart demom army full of mythic creatures would scry out their threats, teleport onto them en masse in the hundreds, then use mythic anti-magic fields to keep us from doing s#~@ about it while they shredded us. Without anti-magic fields, they could obliterate us with mythic save-or-die spells while binding us against teleportation. I can't make 40+ save-or-dies a round. Without some serious magic to keep them misinformed, restrict their scrying, protect our allies, ferret out corruption, detect invisibility ALL the time, block out teleportation, and protect us from magic... we would die. Demons are really smart, and unless we can take away their greatest strengths we are lost.

Normally, DM's go soft with their enemies to counteract this, or claim divine providence, or create exactly the same type of character as mine who mysteriously exists in this time of need and wants to help. But the DM shouldn't be forced to break the game to make it survivable when the players have the resources and ingenuity to manage it themselves... not to mention that this opens up opportunities for the players to strategize how to survive a true demonic invasion of their world.

Drevek wrote:

"no more than one magic item per day."

Sad face.

+1 Sad Face

I thought it was "no more than 8 hours a day".

Yeah, and that includes potions and scrolls. If you make a 50 GP potion or 25 GP scroll, you can no longer craft another magic item that day. That's so lame!

Arbitrary b&###~+! is arbitrary.

If it makes more sense to you that crafters should be able to work on a dozen things at once like DaVinci style mad tinker geniuses, just house rule that nonsense away.

Time is time and money is money. As long as the resources are tracked and checks are made, the rest is just fluff.

I absolutely agree. I think if someone wants to throw all of their time into crafting for a little while they should get rewarded for their hard work, not told, "Sorry, you worked your quota for the day and are not allowed to excel, g'bye."

As someone who makes things for people for a living sometimes, I hate how anti-crafter the rules are. They make no sense for anyone who would do these things as anything more than a hobby. And certainly, the more skilled you are at anything, the faster you can work with it, and the major improvements on your time and quality of work (and thereby money you can make) start with week one and keep going until you're at the pinnacle of a craft, and even then, if you can come up with new ideas, better styles, etc., you can foray into new markets and devise new ways to make more money.

Which also makes me hate the idea that you can't make money on things because you don't have a store. I have never, EVER needed a store to make money. So ridiculous!

It's got some significant balance implications to consider. You don't need anywhere near a +40 on your checks for that to start coming into play-- a lot of key items are easy. Stat belts are CL8th, which means a Spellcraft 18 check at worst, rush at 23. Since you can take ten on it... that's easy. You can consistently rush these items at level five without a lot of investment. So at level ten you could double-rush them, at fifteen triple-rush, etc. Much, much more if you put in any kind of investment.

Managing the time a player can craft is an easy way to control their power, but the more they can speed the process up the less time they can grant-- to everybody, notably, not just the guy crafting.

I'd have to ponder how I'd rule it as a GM. It's an interesting thought.

Yeah, I can say I'd have to level it out to some degree based on the scenario. Perhaps +5 for the first speed up with cumulative +5 increases, such that to craft at double speed is +5, triple is +15 (5 +10), quadruple is +30 (5 + 10 + 15), five times is +50 (5 + 10 + 15 +20), six times is +75 (5 + 10 + 15 + 20 + 25), etc.

Alternatively, double the cost for each multiplier of time. +5, then +15, then +30, then +60, then +120. This would require a 5 + CL + 60 cost to craft an item five times faster (5,000 GP per day), which would still take a reasonable amount of time to craft even mid-level gear.

In this case, the campaign setting would be Wrath of the Righteous, with all of us ultimately becoming level 20, Mythic Tier 10. It doesn't sit well with me hat a demigod of crafting with three primary domains and six subdomains, 100% focused on crafting from day 1 with literally no items, skills, feats, mythic abilities, class choices, etc. that are not craft oriented, and (with magic) well over +100 on craft checks would take just about as long to craft a magical item as a level 7 (when soul forgers can reduce craft times by half) tier 1 mythic crafter with 1 rank in a single craft skill. It's counter intuitive and goes against the suggested game design Paizo attempts to stick to in that, with additional ranks in craft, you get next to no benefit. You do get an increase in speed for crafting mundane items, but at the point where that starts to truly pick up you have access to the ability to craft your own Fabricate at will wondrous item that allows you to make whatever you want every six seconds, totally invalidating anything beyond the minimum necessary craft skill to make masterwork items.

More than that, I can pay a paltry daily sum to hire a few crafters with Cooperative Crafting and the right Craft Feats, and for each level 5 bum who helps me in this way, I double my craft speed. 20 levels and ten mythic tiers shouldn't have the same value as a tiny lump of daily gold.

Drevek wrote:

Our two buddies have blade lash prepared as a ready action if either of the two try to get off the ground.If they attempt to stand, we target all four of our attacks of opportunity at the same guy we already stabbed if possible, then the ready actions kick in and they get tripped again.

Again, I would advise you to be cautious. I remember seeing a thread about tripping somebody that is trying to stand. Basically from what I gathered from the thread is that the AoO triggered when somebody tries to stand up is resolved before he is up. The conclusion was something like : he tries to stand uo, AoO triggers (interrupt the standing action)and you make trip attack, if successful it practically has no effect because the opponent is already prone. Then he resumes his action and stand up.

actually, heres the FAQ:

FAQ

However, since you indicated that you were taking a ready action instead of an AoO, I would recommend that you base your ready action on the fact that it triggers "as soon as the enemy is up standing" as opposed to "trying to get up"... A small detail, but could be an important one if you get a picky GM....

Thanks for the pointer! I was going to edit my question but apparently I can't do that. :(

You may only add 5 once.

You could however do two different items a day for 4 hours each.

Unfortunately not, do this part:

"A character can work on only one item at a time. If a character starts work on a new item, all materials used on the under-construction item are wasted."

Also,

"Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day."

Sad face.

I'd allow it.

Remember that failing by 5 or more destroys some of your materials, so ramping up the DC does have a potential drawback.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, and I agree, as well. The chance of making a cursed item - or no progress at all and blowing a ton of cash on an expensive item - seem to be in line with an appropriate DC increase. Otherwise, at the point a caster gets roughly +40 on their checks, there's hardly an item in the game they can't craft perfectly with every attempt, and they all take the exact same amount of time to craft any magic item as a demigod with over double their bonus.

Is it possible to rush magical item creation multiple times? I ask this in the spirit of mundane crafting, which it seems does allow you to rush multiple times with 10 added to the DC cumulatively as indicated here:

"You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check."

It seems in RAW that you may not be able to do this multiple times with magic items:

"This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by 5."

I can't find anything official related to this, nor could I find anything in other questions. The reason I'm asking is I have a theoretical mythic crafter who is a demigod with over +90 on his craft checks, and it seems kinda crazy that I can only make such a small amount of progress on my items alone - 2k per day, not considering my soul forger benefit, but that each lowly punk I hire on to my team with the feat Cooperative Crafting doubles the value of progress I can make each day, as indicated here:

"You provide a +2 circumstance bonus on any Craft or Spellcraft checks related to making an item, and your assistance doubles the GP value of items that can be crafted each day."

What do you guys think? Are there clarifying resources related to this?

Yeah, that would work, until the guy on the ground realizes he's a high enough level with enough feats and BAB to just kill you while still prone.

Even without reach or ranged weapons? They could throw something at us, I'd imagine, but are there other things they're able to do? Keep in mind that we'd be using Long arm to all have a 10 foot reach.

3) Blade Lash extends your weapon to 20ft, not plus 20ft. Arguably, if your weapon was already longer than 20ft, it'd shrink.

That's how I read it, too. Personally, that's ridiculously silly to me and I would house rule the other direction, but I think you're correct about RAW.

"The titan casts Blade Lash and - uh, well - I guess today's you're lucky day! He can't do s~~& with that because that can't reach you. Unfortunately, he stomps you to death from 40 feet away instead."

Blade Lash is an awesome spell. Personally I think it's way better than True Strike, because it's so much faster.

Totally agreed, especially for the increased action economy - especially for a magus using spell combat. True strike gives a greater bonus to a more versatile range of things, but requires me to blow a spell and an attack for one effect. Blade lash lets me blow a spell for an immediate effect, then attack anyway as a separate deal!

Drevek wrote:

considering the rules to remove your hand from a two handed weapon and return it as a free action

Don't forget that spell combat requires that you use a light or one-handed weapon when you use it: (ultimate magic says)"To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. "

Thanks for pointing that out! Given all of the feedback, I think we'd go one handed weapons, cast long-arm, then use blade lash to do trips, two of us focus down just one guy, the other two hold actions to trip them again should they try to get off of the ground, and all four of us take attacks of opportunity when available.

I.E., we're four level 1 magi trying to take out two roughly level 9 guys. Two of us use spell combat to cast blade lash, trip them both, then team up on one and stab him twice. Our two buddies have blade lash prepared as a ready action if either of the two try to get off the ground. If they attempt to stand, we target all four of our attacks of opportunity at the same guy we already stabbed if possible, then the ready actions kick in and they get tripped again. This turn, the guys doing spell combat cast shocking grasp and stab their prone target twice each, once as a free action with shocking grasp, once with their normal stab. Rinse and repeat until guy number one is dead, then focus guy number two. The first guy should have taken six potential hits by turn two, ten if he tried to stand up. He's dead that round or the next. Then the four of us gang up on the other one and kill him.

That would work within RAW, yeah, for as long as we had the spells to burn?

Quick question for clarification from someone new to this - based on a Magus' ability to use spell combat, is he able to, at first level, declare use of spell combat, accept a -2 penalty to his attack for the round, make that attack, then cast true strike, and on his next turn declare the same and begin by casting blade lash with a +28 on his attempt to trip (+20 from true strike, +10 from blade lash, - 2 from spell combat) and follow up by stabbing his now almost guaranteed prone enemy with a -2 on his attack (though his opponent now has negative four to AC and hit and must accept an attack of opportunity to stand up)?

If so, could four magi in a party use this technique with reach weapons, considering the rules to remove your hand from a two handed weapon and return it as a free action, to choose two enemies and alternate who is casting blade lash that turn with who is casting true strike in order to keep them down until they run out of spells, getting attacks of opportunity if the enemies ever try to stand up, all while remaining out of reach of the targets and delivering their full number of attacks each turn?

Lastly, since blade lash specifically states that your weapon elongates and that "you can use this weapon to attempt a trip combat maneuver against one creature within 20 feet", my question is if you are using a weapon that already has a longer reach, like a long spear that is subsequently elongated by this spell would the recipient of this spell be able to use it to extend their reach by 20 feet for the trip attempt, or (in an extreme example) would a Huge giant magi enlarged to be Gargantuan while using a reach weapon still only be able to blade lash a target within 20 feet even though his weapon would normally reach further than that without the spell?

Hey James!

Hope things get less busy and stressed for you.

Quick question for clarification from someone new to this - based on a Magus' ability to use spell combat, is he able to, at first level, declare use of spell combat, accept a -2 penalty to his attack for the round, make that attack, then cast true strike, and on his next turn declare the same and begin by casting blade lash with a +28 on his attempt to trip (+20 from true strike, +10 from blade lash, - 2 from spell combat) and follow up by stabbing his now almost guaranteed prone enemy with a -2 on his attack (though his opponent now has negative four to AC and hit and must accept an attack of opportunity to stand up)?

If so, could four magi in a party use this technique with reach weapons, considering the rules to remove your hand from a two handed weapon and return it as a free action, to choose two enemies and alternate who is casting blade lash that turn with who is casting true strike in order to keep them down until they run out of spells, getting attacks of opportunity if the enemies ever try to stand up, all while remaining out of reach of the targets?

Lastly, since blade lash specifically states "you can use this weapon to attempt a trip combat maneuver against one creature within 20 feet", my question is if you are using a reach weapon and it is elongated (this would also apply to creatures with longer natural reach, etc.) would the recipient of this spell be able to use it to extend their reach by 20 ft for the trip attempt, or would a Huge ogre magi with a reach weapon still only be able to blade lash a target within 20 ft.?