Forgotten Knight's page

Baval wrote:

Right ok fair enough, so then why isnt the bard and the barbarian crafting? They dont need feats, craft up some ammo or some daggers. Otherwise theyre not doing their full share, and so they get less of a share.

After all, if the crafter has to fight, why doesnt the fighter have to craft?

And again, the Barbarian and the Bard do have a contract in place, they get a share of the loot. The Crafter is also making the same contract: Ill do what I do best at no cost, and in exchange i get 25% of the loot. Thats only fair. Were not expecting the Barbarian to translate ancient tomes or the Bard to tank hits because thats not what theyre good at, so why expect the crafter to do what he isnt good at?

No, a party member doesnt earn its share by "doing whatever they can for the party", a party member earns its share by contributing to the adventure. If the crafter is there and hes fighting with you hes earning his share, he doesnt also owe you a free axe just because its within his power to make one. You can argue all you want "but he has a better chance of surviving if he gives me what I want" but he has an even better chance of surviving if he just hires and outfits a few mercenaries to do similar work for him and bring back a share of the profits.

The starting point for me based on my own experience (and while i have been playing for a long time i recognize that is a drop in the bucket compared to the collective table experience of the forums) is that the party splits loot equally among all PCs; Cohorts, hirelings and NPCs do not normally get shares and instead are either along for their own story reasons or charge flat fees for services. The shares that PCs get is due to the characters providing their services to the party.

The argument that Crafter chose one feat over another and the party should pay Crafter to use that feat is a slippery slope. Why not have Cleric charge per spell, domain or channeling that someone else benefits from. Sure Barbarian doesnt have to invest as...

I see a lot of comparison to what the crafter is doing in his down time to what the rest of the party is doing in the adventuring time. I feel like people are looking over any contributions said crafter is making to the group when everyone is out adventuring.

I will use a character of mine as an example.

I am playing a Shaman of the Heavens. I do some healing, some combat control, defensive spells and some offensive spells. I have occasionally been know to actually attack things with my weapon. It does not happen often, but it does.

Now using what you say, if I charge my party members for crafting while I am in downtime, they have every right to charge me for services during combat. Does that mean I can also charge them for every time I have to save them in said fight? (It happens quite a lot) It becomes a vicious cycle.

Personally I do not charge anyone anything to craft for them. However I will only craft them things my character feel they need, not what they want. But mostly I just craft for myself because 90% of the treasure we get is no real thing I want. Lots of weapons and armor.

I personally just think you should do what you feel your character would do, if that is charge your party, charge your party. If you want to make things for free, make things for free. But no matter what you do, just accept whatever consequences come from it.

In the remake of the AD&D adventure, Tomb of Horrors, there were a set of huge double doors towards the end that were steel, but covered in a illusion to appear to be Mithril. It said in the notes to it that they were no longer actual Mithril because the demon's guarding the place got tired of the adventurer's stealing the doors.

Does it really matter? If you are close enough to see the Gazebo, then its too late for you as the Gazebo has already noticed you. You are dead, its a Gazebo after all.

Ninth Page Critiques:

Myriad Scabbard

Thanks for the critique. Thats kinda the thought I had in making it, something that would be useful. But you are right, I am getting a lot of the same, it just had no WOW factor. I took the "what would be really useful" approach, as opposed to the "What is the most ridiculous thing I can think of" approach.

The game I am currently playing in I took leadership and have a cohort. The cohort is a sorcerer, and I took her because the group had no arcane caster. There has been more then one ocasion where she has saved the party because they do something stupid. She is also a Magic item crafter, and no sooner did the party find out she could do that then the requests started to pile up.

As far as group wealth she always takes a cut of my divide of money. However when we come across a wand, scroll, staff or any other obvious "caster" item goes to her. For granted one particular player in the group (The Paladin) wants all the treasure we find to be sold off so he can raise the money to buy his gear, so that usually requires a bit of convincing on my part to not have to sell it. I created a back story for the Cohort, and she has her own quirks, agenda, and wants. She does theings for the group and therefor she gets rewarded with items accordingly.

However a couple levels later the same player (the Paladin) decided to take leadership and had his own cohort. This cohort is nothing more then an extension of his character. Does nothing but heal/buff/craft for his character. His cohort gets no specail treatement, gets magic items if no one wants them and actually takes no money because he has dedicated his life to the Paladin.

When running games I have no problem with the Leadership feat. I had one game where we lost 2 of the 5 players due to them moving away (they were a married couple) and as opposed to bringing in new people mid-AP I just gave each of the 3 remaining the leadership feat for free. As the remaining party was a Sorcerer, Bard and Witch. But in each instance I made the Cohort. They way I see it, you really have no control over what sort of person you attract, you can hope for a particular class, but does not mean you will get it. If you don't wnat the help you can send them away, but what if no one else comes along.

Anyway in regards to the OP's post.

If someone has a cohort then it is their responsibility to keep that cohort happy, not the rest of the party. If the cohort is going to do things for the rest of the party then the cohort should be compensated. If they are helping then if a particular item comes up that the cohort can use, let them have it. You cant tell me that there is that big of a difference between selling 8 +1 ring of protections and selling 7 of them. If another player is that greedy, well then that is something all together different.

The WPL in my mind is not really accurate. If all the treasure you come across is being sold so you can buy things for your character then you will always be about half of where you should be. However if you keep all the items you come across and can't use them, then what good does that do you. It is not a perfect system, but merely a guide that you should try to be close to. If it does not work, it does not work. If it does for you, then more power to you.

As long as everyone is having fun then it should not matter what gear everyone has, or what you give the cohort.

I have seen the same pairing twice. In each instance I chose to not vote for either as both items were in a way...terrible? I feel for the Judges as some of these items are just....wow.

I don't know if it is a player vs. GM mindset so much so as something else. What that is I am not sure. I have been playing D&D/AD&D/3.0/3.5/Pathfinder now for 25 years. I know a lot of the rules, sometimes I even confuse them. I run a couple games, and play in one as well. As a GM if I have a player that wants to try something, and it sounds feasable, I try to come up with a way to apply a "rule" to it so it can work for their benifit. It is hard in the game I play to seperate what I am a person know, vs. what my character knows. But I think because I know a lot of the rules it allows me to be very creative as a player. For example using the spell enervate to save a Dhampir character in my group from death. I am not sure everyone would have thought to use the spell like that.

On the flip side of this I played in a game that a guy I knew was running. It was his first game he ever ran, and he left no creativity. If the rules did not say you could do it, then you could not. I was ok with that, until he stopped enforcing that rule on the npc's. For example I was playing a tiefling, who had a hat a disguise to hide his true appearance. Though it was a wated magic item as everyone could see through the guise. We always failed our saving throws (He rolled those for us by the way) but my favorite was when we were killing this monster, who I assume was almost dead, acted out of turn and did a 360 degree bull rush to everyone, provoked no attacks of oppertunity and fled far enough away that no one could attack it or cast a spell on it. This of course led to me arguing with him over it and me getting kicked out of the game. Which in the long run was for the best. His arguement was that it was in its natural enviroment, and could there for do things like that. THis was a big instance of a DM vs. the players mentality. He was a very competitive guy, and hated to loose. So he carried that over to his DMing style.

Anyway I notice there are definately different styles to play, but I would not say it is DM vs. player differences. There may actually be too many to list.