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I am kind of disappointed about the explanations for how crafting feats should affect WBL. We are given some clearer guidelines (a crafter should get about a 25% benefit over normal WBL in comparison to a non-crafter, crafting for your party members should come out of your own WBL oO ), but again no context at all as to why this should be so, neither in terms of lore nor rules.
"However, game balance for the default campaign experience expects you and and all other PCs to be close to the listed wealth values, so the GM shouldn't just let you craft double the normal amount of gear."
"If you are creating items for other characters in the party, the increased wealth for the other characters should come out of your increased allotment. Not only does this prevent you from skewing the wealth by level for everyone in the party, but it encourages other characters to learn item creation feats."
As it is, it kinda feels for me like a child being talked down to by his parent, in the way of "It is so because I say so!".
The Core Rulebook doesn't explain why fighters, paladins, and rangers have a +1/level BAB and other classes don't, but that's the way it is. It doesn't explain why healing spells aren't on the sorcerer/wizard list, or why divine spells use d8s and arcane spells use d6s, or why the races have a net +2 to ability scores. Does that mean the Core Rulebook is talking down to you?
Most of the rules just tell you how it is, and don't explain the reasons for why it is that way.
Have this as my first subscription purchase, but it's still showing as pending on my account.... sent a e-mail to customer service..but no response yet.
Anyone from Paizo able to assist?
Besides emailing customer service, you can post in the customer service thread that is for this purpose--best way to get the attention of the appropriate staff member.
Regarding the retraining rules, I wonder, is it by design that you can retrain a feat you took early to gain a new feat that you did not yet qualify for when the original feat was taken? I.e. does this allow you to create a build that was basically "illegal" without using these retraining rules?No. The retraining rules specifically say that you loose access to illegal choices until you either A) regain access to those choices or B) retrain those away too.
For example, if you have Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack, retraining Mobility means that Spring Attack just sits there, wasting your feat slot and providing you with no benefits and no new options.
That is actually not what I was talking about. What I meant is this: the rules allow you to repace feat A with feat B which has prequisites you did not fill at the time you took feat A.
For example, say you are an elven rogue with one feat slot at level 1. You take Dodge. At level 3 you take Weapon Focus (Shortbow) and you retrain your Dodge feat for Deadly Aim. Now you have two feats that both have "BAB +1" as a prerequisite, and none of these feats would "legally" fit in your level 1 feat slot.
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"However, game balance for the default campaign experience expects you and and all other PCs to be close to the listed wealth values, so the GM shouldn't just let you craft double the normal amount of gear."
Why? No, really, why? It is technically possible to approximately do it and you put no limitation into the CRB, aside from the WBL table (which I get often told is "just a guideline", kinda like the pirate code from Pirates of the Caribbean, I guess).
"If you are creating items for other characters in the party, the increased wealth for the other characters should come out of your increased allotment. Not only does this prevent you from skewing the wealth by level for everyone in the party, but it encourages other characters to learn item creation feats."
And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is. By the technical terms of how magic item crafting is described in the rules, only available money and time limits how much a player character can craft. Those present their own ( huge ) problems for a campaign, but at least they are tangible factors. Putting a 25% limit AND a completely arbitrary "items crafted for your party members come out of your own pocket" into the game without giving those decisions any context in lore or with the actual CRB rules makes this seem come out of nowhere. I expect many GMs to face pretty irate players over this.
Sean, I actually like this ruling, because it balances the item creation feats substantially. But it needs lore and rules context to seem reasonable and not an arbitrary "Because I said so" ruling. "Because game balance" may work for GMs, but players normally want to get a proper explanation or a real rule change in the CRB.
The Core Rulebook doesn't explain why fighters, paladins, and rangers have a +1/level BAB and other classes don't, but that's the way it is. It doesn't explain why healing spells aren't on the sorcerer/wizard list, or why divine spells use d8s and arcane spells use d6s, or why the races have a net +2 to ability scores. Does that mean the Core Rulebook is talking down to you?
Most of the rules just tell you how it is, and don't explain the reasons for why it is that way.
But the vast majority of rules make contextual sense. Frontline melee classes are better at fighting than classes whose focus is on other things ( aside from Monks, the poor guys ^^ ). Arcane magic does not come from divine sources and thus cannot provide the healing abilities those deities bestow upon their followers.
Sure, you are right that there is no clear explanation why we get d8's and d6's for different spells or why there are net +2's to ability scores, but those are base design choices and mostly legacy issues from prior editions.
Your base design choice for magic item crafting ( which itself faces a lot of legacy issues ) was to allow unlimited crafting, given enough time and money. This change comes out of nowhere, contradicts several decades of precedence and, most importantly, gives no context to how this change is to be introduced into the game world, nor for rules nor for lore. Instead it dumps an extra amount of annoying bookkeeping and several upcoming discussions about the "why"'s and "how"'s of how this change is supposed to be enforced upon running or new campaigns on us GM's. This explanation should have been provided more fully by you guys, preferably as a minor revision to the CRB, instead of putting it in a peripheral book like this. As of now, I really have major problems of seeing how I would sell this to my players, all who are people in their late thirties. Telling them just "because I said so" is no way to treat with them.
A new version of Craft Wondrous Item or the other magic item crafting feats probably should add roughly something like "Due to the personal connection a magic item crafter has with the magic items crafted by himself, he can craft those items with a 50% ( or 25%, whatever ) discount to the market price. However, crafting a magic item for someone else costs the same as the market price".
Of course then we get into the question of how item crafters make any profit whatsoever and why would they craft magic items for other people in the first place...
Have this as my first subscription purchase, but it's still showing as pending on my account.... sent a e-mail to customer service..but no response yet.
Anyone from Paizo able to assist?
Normally, you'd want to post a new thread in the Customer Service section for a question like this.
In this case, however, they've said they hope to finish their subscription shipments by end of evening this Friday - so you probably shouldn't worry until next Monday if it's still showing Pending.
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contradicts several decades of precedence
2000 was 13 years ago.
gives no context to how this change is to be introduced into the game world, nor for rules nor for lore.
You didn't have this problem when Smite Evil was slightly nerfed, when AomF price went down, when Prone Shooter was errated. Or am I to believe that you came up with in-game world justification for every of those, in which case I'd love to hear them. No, really. I think you did what everybody did, which is: told your players "hey guys AomF price goes down, rejoice!".
As of now, I really have major problems of seeing how I would sell this to my players, all who are people in their late thirties. Telling them just "because I said so" is no way to treat with them.
Simple, tell them: "Folks, the crafting guidelines got clarified in regard to crafting vs. WBL, here's how they look, I think they're reasonable, if you think so as well let's just roll of them. Since we're already suspending our disbelief over people surviving falling from 200 ft. and surviving a direct hit from an exploding ball of hellfire, that shouldn't be a problem."
People in their thirties shouldn't have much of a problem processing that. If they do, change your gaming group, because those won't grow up at that age I'm afraid.
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And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.
Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
Of course then we get into the question of how item crafters make any profit whatsoever and why would they craft magic items for other people in the first place...So why not accept that the rules exist the way they do for arbitrary game reasons and play on?
-Skeld
Because most rules are not really arbitrary but give context? I have a problem when rules don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny and one simply has to completely put on horse blinders to maintain suspension of disbelief.
And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
Who said that I dislike the rest of the book, which is what you are trying to imply here?
I've had this problem since the ( just as arbitrary ) ruling on the WBL / magic item crafting problem from the FAQ, and this book simply did not put the context in which would have been needed to sell this change in a convincing way. I'm not judging the rest of the book because of that ( and the rest of the book so far looks very good ), but this was an area of very special interest to me and I came away disappointed.
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When are we going to get PDF's of the sheets within?The Kingdom / Army sheets are all in the book. If you have a hard copy, you can photograph / scan them. If you have a PDF, print them out.
And for those that don't have access to a copier and own a hard copy?
Is there a chance of the sheets being put out as a standalone pdf?
I'd like to know this as well. I never buy the PDFs. So it would be great if the sheets were being put out as a separate PDF that could be printed off. Does anyone on the Paizo Team know if this will be the case?
And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
Here's my take on it: those rules, the ones referring to the craft's Wealth by Level being deducted for crafting, they're sort of mean. Here's Joe Dwarf, making magic hammers out the Wazoo to help his party, and when it comes time to divy up the spoils of war, mean on Adrain stops the dwarf and says, "Yeah, you know how you've been a super useful party member and crafted these magic boots of flying for us? Well, we gave you OUR part of the treasure to craft them, so we're just going to each take a cut of your treasure to make up for it. Yes, even though you gave us the boots that we spent our wealth on."
It does seem lame to me, even though I can understand that those rules are there to try and keep crafting from breaking the Wealth by Level guidelines. However, the approach feels very heavy handed. How does this affect Wizards and Clerics with the Rune domain, for example? They get Item Creation feats as class features. Should they be punished for playing within the design intended for them?
It would have felt less heavy-handed to instead say something like this:
"If your party uses a character with item creation feats, reduce your Wealth By Level to the values shown on Table: X-Y."
As written, the current rules don't really inspire more party members to take item creation feats. They inspire players to forgo them entirely. Especially non-magic using characters, who are feat taxed into taking item creation feats.
magnuskn, I think the second-simplest rule of PF and its predecessors has long been "what's good for the PCs is also good for the NPCs". Fortunately, the NPCs do not get any increase in their gear allowances by virtue of this particular rule. If a player cannot accept the outlined benefits for coming in "whole cloth" at higher level with 25% or 50% more "full price gear" in trade, they're frankly just going to have to deal with it or go find a GM who agrees with that perspective.
Lore-wise: Your higher level, magic item creating PC, having just signed on with Murder Hobo Charter Company #3755, Varisian Local 400, has used up / had eaten by rust monsters or oozes / had to bribe bridge-dwelling troll anti-paladins with shiny magical bling so as not to be smote into ruin upon a mountain / [insert backstory stuff here], resulting in their starting with (WBL+25%) instead of (WBL).
CRB rules-wise, it is even simpler.
- Q: How much downtime have you had?
- A: [WBL+25%/1,000] days.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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Corruption, Crime, and Law are from the settlement rules which I think are in the Gamemaster Guide.
And also here.As far as I understand it, the only limitation for your armies is the maintainance cost in BP. The size and level of an army doesn't seem to make any real difference, it all comes down to the CR. A small elite troop is just the same as a massive horde of low level warriors.
Correct on both counts. The various settlement effects mostly affect skill checks of appropriate types in that settlement, though the combined settlement modifiers throughout your kingdom also combine to provide a kingdom-wide modifier derived from that total (I think it's 1/10 or 1/20 the total). If you're in a settlement, you use the higher modifier of the settlement or the kingdom; you don't combine them.
As for armies, the official rules stipulate that you can substitute building an army (or equipping an existing one or restoring a damaged one to full strength) for founding a settlement. This is described in footnote 1 to Table 4-4: Improvement Edicts (p. 209 in UCam).
As for time required, it takes one kingdom turn to create the army, so it happens over the course of the month when you issue the Improvement Edict to create it. You can keep as many armies in the field (or as Reserve armies) as you like and can afford.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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1) What are the rules for Corruption/Crime/Law/Lore/Productivity and Society values on the Kingdom Sheet? I'm unable to find any rule on "Kingdoms and War" chapter.
2) On the Mass Combat Chapter: How are armies trained? How long do they take to create? Is there a limitation on amount/type/size of armies a kingdom can have regarding its size and/or buildings on a settlement? (I.E, Can a starting kingdom have 3 gargantuan armies roaming the land, provided it can afford the BP maintenance?)
3) Is there a mechanic-related reason i would like to create a settlement in Terrains like Caverns, Jungle, Marsh or Mountain? They seem awfull expensive in Preparation Cost/Time compared to Plains/Forest etc.
The other two questions I answered above. As for #3, there's really no compelling reason you would want to build a city in unfavorable terrain, but the rules are there just in case you did. Maybe you are founding a kingdom with mostly unfavorable terrain, so your options are limited and you don't have much in the way of hills or grassland to find nice comfy city sites.
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I see this whole issue about a character with Item Creation feats having to pay out of his pocket if he wants to give a little boost to his allies as a moot point.
The character made the investment in the feat, therefore he is the one to benefit from it. Just like it is HIS choice to craft an item for a fellow teammate, it should also be his burden. You all did not spend the time to play the character up from 1st level, so you obviously didn't put in the playing time to make that conscious decision, and take advantage of it that way. WBL is only a guideline for making characters above 1st lvl. If you are playing up from 1st lvl, then the WBL table is generally meaningless. (Except for responsible GMs that may want to track their PCs' progress.)
If you want an explanation, there are several. Obviously you have the time spent adventuring before gaining access to the feats, you have items that your character cannot make, perhaps because he is lacking the correct item creation feat, and you have items that your character purchased for the sake of saving time. A myriad of things happen to characters that are well beyond your control, all they are doing is giving you a guideline that says you should have about THIS much, which is an average.
Sorry for the rant, it just bothers me that someone is complaining about being treated like a child, while simultaneously wanting to be, no insult intended, "spoon-fed."
If you want to know the whys and wherefores, ask them here. Maybe you will get lucky and get an answer.
Seriously, Magnuskn, I mean no offense, it just seems like you are being harshly critical, when it is uncalled for.
EDIT: Of course, I have not received my copy yet, but am only going off of what has been presented on these boards. So, please take my arguments with a grain of salt.
Who said that I dislike the rest of the book, which is what you are trying to imply here?
I think you misread what I said, some of which is a direct quote from you.
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I'd like to know this as well. I never buy the PDFs. So it would be great if the sheets were being put out as a separate PDF that could be printed off. Does anyone on the Paizo Team know if this will be the case?When are we going to get PDF's of the sheets within?The Kingdom / Army sheets are all in the book. If you have a hard copy, you can photograph / scan them. If you have a PDF, print them out.
And for those that don't have access to a copier and own a hard copy?
Is there a chance of the sheets being put out as a standalone pdf?
I currently have this on my to-do list :)
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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So far I'm loving the book, but I have a quick question:
In the Terrain Improvements section it states that any improvement that has an (*) next to it can be built with other improvements. Does this mean that you can only have one improvement without an (*) and all the rest can have them or does that mean that if I build a mine I would not be able to build anything else there?
The first is correct. If it doesn't have an asterisk, you can build only one improvement of that type. If it does, you can stack it with other types (including with starless types).
I'd have to go back and look at my original turnover, but I'm pretty sure that the Farm should *not* have an asterisk. Basically, the idea was that you could create any one of the following in a hex: Farm, Mine, Quarry, Sawmill.
Then, if you wanted, you could also add other things running through the hex, like an Aqueduct, Bridge, Canal, Road, etc., or a smaller improvement like a Fort or Watchtower; any number of these could stack with the one basic improvement listed above.
The operating principle is that improvements of the first four types (Farm, Mine, Quarry, Sawmill) really represent the sum total of the economic use of the land in that hex. It's not one farm, it's 100+ square miles of farmland; not one mill or mine or quarry but lots of them.
The other improvements are more concentrated in terms of their physical size, which is why you can combine them in hexes with other things.
Cities themselves are much the same. A city doesn't fill the whole hex. An official-sized city district is a bit less than a square mile, so even a huge multi-district city occupies only a tiny fraction of a hex. IOW, there's no problem putting a city in a hex that already has other improvements (or vice versa).
P.S. The deletion of the asterisk from the Farm is not official errata, though; it's there in the final text, so if you're playing RAW then by all means use it. If you're interested in RAI, I intended for it not to be starred. Typos happen. :(
Who said that I dislike the rest of the book, which is what you are trying to imply here?And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
I think he's implying the opposite. Maybe you dont like this one page, but why focus on that if the rest of the book is good?
The magic item crafting system discussion has always intrigued me. The most commonly complained about "problems" with the system seem to me to be that:
1. that PCs can create what they want in terms of magic items, or
2. the crafter can get filthy rich (in theory) crafting magic items
To me Ultimate Campaign partially solves both of these issues by extension of its other content.
The first "problem" gets transformed into an opportunity. Previously GMs can either give PCs magic items as loot, give them gold which they can use to buy magic items, or the PCs can use said loot to craft the items they wanted. Either way the GM was giving some gold piece equivalent as treasure, just in different forms. The only issue I had with crafting is it felt a little "dull". Pulling an ancient, storied sword from a horde is cool, and then the PCs get to learn all about it. Crafting ended up at my table becoming "well we just netted 64,000 gp, lets thumb through Ultimate Equipment and work out what to craft". The new Talismanic components system is great in my opinion for taking that slightly dull approach to crafting and allowing GMs to add some spice into it. Need some Dragon Bone for your next wand?
The second issue also gets tangentially solved (even though it is not an issue for my table generally) by the majority of the content of Ultimate Campaign. A large part of this book essentially creates fun money sinks for PCs. If your PCs end up wandering the world, staying at inns, and getting to moderately high levels, they will eventually end up with way more money than they will ever need to survive, and will end up wanting to spend tons of gold on magic items to enhance their abilities. Once they get into building their own empire, be it martial, religious or trade based, there will always be plenty of places for their spare cash, and also importantly time, to go. Rather than PCs lounging around like teenagers, get them to spend up big on things that makes their characters important in the world, rather than on items that purely buff their stats.
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The problem with the rule/guideline under discussion is that it isn't "a restriction imposed by magical physics that makes sense in the setting," it's "a restriction on human nature with no force behind it save that the GM says so." It's like the 4th Edition rule that characters cannot profit from item crafting simply because they're player characters.
Rules of magical physics, I'm fine with. Arbitrary and nonsensical restrictions on human economic behavior put a stake through my suspension of disbelief's heart, decapitate it, burn head and body on different pyres, and bury the ashes under two separate crossroads.
contradicts several decades of precedence2000 was 13 years ago.
2000 to 2001, 2001 to 2010, 2011 to 2013. Looks like the rules existed over three decades. :-P
That is actually not what I was talking about. What I meant is this: the rules allow you to repace feat A with feat B which has prequisites you did not fill at the time you took feat A.
For example, say you are an elven rogue with one feat slot at level 1. You take Dodge. At level 3 you take Weapon Focus (Shortbow) and you retrain your Dodge feat for Deadly Aim. Now you have two feats that both have "BAB +1" as a prerequisite, and none of these feats would "legally" fit in your level 1 feat slot.
Interesting potential, no?
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The other two questions I answered above. As for #3, there's really no compelling reason you would want to build a city in unfavorable terrain, but the rules are there just in case you did. Maybe you are founding a kingdom with mostly unfavorable terrain, so your options are limited and you don't have much in the way of hills or grassland to find nice comfy city sites.3) Is there a mechanic-related reason i would like to create a settlement in Terrains like Caverns, Jungle, Marsh or Mountain? They seem awfull expensive in Preparation Cost/Time compared to Plains/Forest etc.
Dwarf Clans: Hey! Mountains are exceptionally comfy city sites!
Because something good could be even better without the bad? I'd quote the glurge about the brownie and a little bit of disgusting material, but that'd be cliche. So I'll just say this, I believe that you should strive to make every bit of your work the most excellent you can. I'm not saying to throw out the book because something's not good in it, but fix it. Explain it better. Strive to be even better than you are, don't be content with just good. While I doubt that anyone follows that entirely, (I certainly don't) the best and the elite should. And I hope that paizo (like all of us should) strives to be the very best.I think he's implying the opposite. Maybe you dont like this one page, but why focus on that if the rest of the book is good?Who said that I dislike the rest of the book, which is what you are trying to imply here?And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
Sure, Paizo can focus on what minor bits they'd like to work on or clarify - self improvement is a noble goal. But when you're viewing someone else's work? What's the point in looking over something that's good and picking at the few bits you dont like?
Irrespective - I dont have a view on this specific issue, I was just making the point that Sean wasnt implying magnuskn disliked the rest of the book.
Sure, Paizo can focus on what minor bits they'd like to work on or clarify - self improvement is a noble goal. But when you're viewing someone else's work? What's the point in looking over something that's good and picking at the few bits you dont like?
Criticism is important. If you don't know what your audience objects to, your ability to maintain and improve your sales will be somewhat hampered.
Should we all just stop talking about anything in Paizo products we don't like? That way lies a descending spiral of insularity.
I guess one's view on what's constructive critisim and what's nitpicking is subjective. I've never felt Paizo dont want to hear criticism but that doesnt mean they want their product pages full of back-and-forth over one, tiny section in the book.
Is it just me or did they completely skip Ninja for character backgrounds???
Anybody feel like this is PHBII for 3.5 and this means Pathfinder is at the end of its cycle?
I think it's more like the DMG 2 than the PHB 2. And yes, I think they're hitting diminishing returns in terms of new hardcover rulebooks (although there's obviously plenty of people who will disagree).
Is it just me or did they completely skip Ninja for character backgrounds???
Ninja and Samurai are alternate classes; they use the Rogue / Cavalier backgrounds.
You need to do some shuffling and reinterpretation, but the paladin one is okay for the antipaladin.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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So I understand that Crime, Law, etc. are all settlement attributes from the settlement rules in the GMG, but I can't seem to find any explanation for Productivity... Anyone know of the source for that?
It's explained in the text that Productivity in UCam is the same thing as Economy in the GMG. Since the kingdom rules already had an existing stat for Economy, we couldn't very well also have a separate settlement attribute for the same name, so I chose the less important one (the settlement attribute) and renamed it Productivity.
This is noted on p. 215 under the paragraph with the subheading Settlement.
I normally can give or take art but the art for this book in general is generally amazing.
I agree. most of the art is great.
And now when I got the PDF I know what you mean by "poor Balazar on page 146. ;)", LOL.Also one of the best covers ever.
Is it just me or did they completely skip Ninja for character backgrounds???
No Ninja and no Samurai character backgrounds.
Kind of make sense though. Both are just alternate classes of another class.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is it just me or did they completely skip Ninja for character backgrounds???
Obviously the ninjas are keeping their backgrounds hidden. >_>
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In regards to the magic item crafting additional rules: First off I should make clear that I actually like the limitations they add, aside from the "crafting for other party members should come out of your own WBL" thing, which really is just complete fiat.
As to why I protest so vehemently about this particular implementation of those new rules, Evil Midnight Lurker summed it up perfectly:
The problem with the rule/guideline under discussion is that it isn't "a restriction imposed by magical physics that makes sense in the setting," it's "a restriction on human nature with no force behind it save that the GM says so." It's like the 4th Edition rule that characters cannot profit from item crafting simply because they're player characters.
Rules of magical physics, I'm fine with. Arbitrary and nonsensical restrictions on human economic behavior put a stake through my suspension of disbelief's heart, decapitate it, burn head and body on different pyres, and bury the ashes under two separate crossroads.
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Who said that I dislike the rest of the book, which is what you are trying to imply here?I think you misread what I said, some of which is a direct quote from you.
And this is just arbitrary. Really, it is.Call it what you want. Be kind of disappointed. Focus on one page you don't like out of the entire book. That's your choice.
Even if what you actually said is the reverse of what I got out of it ( i.e. "Why don't you focus on the positive of the book, instead of picking on this one issue?" instead of "You not liking this one thing means that you dislike the entire book" ), the actual meaning of your statement stays the same. "How dare you criticise me". Stop taking problems people have with your rulings as if they were making a personal attack upon you, that is not how creative writing works.
And as I said about magic item crafting, it has been a sore point for me for a long, long time, basically since I started GM'ing about a decade ago. I have a special interest in it being fixed so as to being balanced, which the book mostly does, but I have just as much an interest in maintaining a suspension of disbelief and Evil Midnight Lurker explained very well how this application of those rule changes snaps that suspension of disbelief like a dry twig.
So just implement wealth by level as a magical metaphysic. I did this in an Eberron game I'm running and it works great, I call it magical encumbrance.
P.S. The deletion of the asterisk from the Farm is not official errata, though; it's there in the final text, so if you're playing RAW then by all means use it. If you're interested in RAI, I intended for it...
Thanks Jason, that helps a lot!
I was wondering about the farm, which was what initially brought the question to mind. I think I'll remove the asterisk for my game, though I'd be curious if there would be any errata in future.
So just implement wealth by level as a magical metaphysic. I did this in an Eberron game I'm running and it works great, I call it magical encumbrance.
See, if something like this would actually been in the new rules, it would add the context I am asking for. As it is, the way those new rules are added, they expect us GMs to make up something by ourselves to explain the context of those changes to our players.
And, as Evil Midnight Lurker said, those rules break basic economic behaviour, without making it clear why those changes are supposed to happen. From the way they are written, "Because!" seems to be the only reason.
Because D&D does not have economy. It has only the interactions between PCs and merchant NPCs. It's nowhere meant to be the basis for a global economic system of exchanges and productions.
D&D economy never had anything with realism and logic to begin with.
This rule directly asks players to make their characters avoid behaving in a logical manner, with absolutely no force of setting behind it.
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D&D economy never had anything with realism and logic to begin with.This rule directly asks players to make their characters avoid behaving in a logical manner, with absolutely no force of setting behind it.
I think I have never seen any GM allow PCs to abuse the crafting rules by "behaving in a logical manner".
Except maybe for those who go to the Advice forum and ask how they can deal with their filthy rich over-WBL over-equipped PCs. I believe the word then is lack of foresight.
I agree that there is a hole in the CRB about this. But it dates back quite some time ago and I do not see it as a blemish on the PFRPG devs.
We now have dev's opinion and guidelines to help the GMs deal with it. Which is what UCamp is all about really. So I am happy.
You can of course still houserule it as much as you want.
Maybe it is because I just started playing Pathfinder/D&D about 3 years ago but I never had a problem with over-equipped (due to item creation feats) PCs.
I do not have access to the pdf yet so I do now now the exact rules and when they should be used.
But based on what I have read in this discussion I think I am also not that happy about it.
In general I always give a character the full benefit of an item creation feat. So, an item he has created only is counted with the creation price when I check his wealth per level.
If an Item is created for another character his (the character who uses the item not the one who crafted it) wealth per level is calculated using the regular price. The benefit, for the rest of the party, of a party member with an item creation feat is not really the lower price but the direct and "on-demand" access to magic items.
This is my way of handling it and I don't thinkt that Ultimate Campaign will bar me from continuing like that ;)
Unless Sean and the other developers can learn how to teleport into your living room, nobody can stop you from houseruling ( or interpreting RAW ) as you like. However, my personal hope and actual expectation is that a new rule ( or in this case, a change to an existing rule ) is given context so as not to appear arbitrary.