Ok. we all know that magic item creation doesn't work well.
You spend XP and get your item. Then, at some point you are behind the XP curve with your party and are a level down. Then, in the next encounter you get more XP than all the other member of your party because you are a level down, and its basically like you didn't spend XP at all.
What did you spend? Money? We know that all it takes is one DM mistake and suddenly everyone is selling off the iron balls in the room trap for a million GP (a Dungeon Magazine goof in the Age of Worms Adventure path), or they find a way to transport a giant obsidian statue, or they summon an djinn and have him magically make silks and spices. Money comes and goes, and unless the DM is willing to risk player rebellion and dissatisfaction, he needs to ruthlessly railroad the players away from wealth.
So you don't spend XP, and rarely spend money. What's the solution?
*You can make any item with a caster level requirement that is four levels less than your (unmodified) caster level by spending time (or half your level, if that is greater).
This means that powerful items that you find are still valuable, but we don't care about if a 9th level Wizard with a +1 caster level makes a Wand of Fireballs(since his Fireballs do 10d6 and the wand is 5th level and doing 5d6, and we aren't even counting in his potential metamagic damage).
*Items take time to make, but if you spend money in a large enough city you can shorten the time. So, between adventures a Wizard might make some potions for the next adventure, but in a pinch he can go to Waterdeep and spend cash for rare components and the like to make potions in a hurry.
*Remove slots. You can have eight powers from wearable magic items. So, you can have an Amulet that makes you immune to poison(1) and disease(2), armor with an armor bonus(3) and Fortification(4) and ghost touch(5), and you have boots that Haste(6), a belt that improves strength(7) and a cloak that Dimension Doors once a day(8). Thats a lot of stuff. Do you need more?
As you can see, the "Christmas tree" approach to slotted magic items just means that you forget what you are actually wearing.
I don't understand your comment about "rarely spend[ing] money". Are you saying "Because players can cheat the system with djinni summoning (etc.), money shouldn't be allowed to buy magic items"? What is money used for in your game, if not for buying equipment and so forth?
In my game, an item creation feat gives you a flat 30% discount on an item if you make it yourself (equivalent to a 50% discount + exchanging the xp cost with a gp cost at 5 gp/xp). I haven't had any problems with it, but then again I haven't had any players who are willing to put in the time and effort of harvesting iron balls for money. (I also have a house rule that expensive or rare vegetable items created with Minor Creation only last a brief time [just like expensive/rare metals created with Major Creation] -- even if made by a genie.)
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Your system is great for the first magic item they want to make, but when they've made their 20th magic item, it starts to break down, and become unbalanced.
The nice job XP does is it forces players to be miserly about making magic items. That's the only nice thing it does, mind you.
If you said that players have an 'XP Pool' of 100 xp times their current level to build magic items, or go with craft points like in UA, then you would be fine. The hard part is determining how to limit the volume of magic items as well as the power-level.
Your system is great for the first magic item they want to make, but when they've made their 20th magic item, it starts to break down, and become unbalanced.
The nice job XP does is it forces players to be miserly about making magic items. That's the only nice thing it does, mind you.
If you said that players have an 'XP Pool' of 100 xp times their current level to build magic items, or go with craft points like in UA, then you would be fine. The hard part is determining how to limit the volume of magic items as well as the power-level.
Who has time to make 20 magic items?
I mean, the only thing that matters to adventurers is time. If the Fire Duke is going to burn down the Old Forest and you stop for a month to make four Rings of Fire Resistance, the Old Forest will be gone by the time you get done. If you don't fight the Blue Dragon attacking the village, then you don't get XP. If you wait to craft perfect armor for everyone, then several years when are done adventure some more and you level up, and then you need to recraft perfect armor for everyone for your new level (and its still not as good as the armor you find while adventuring).
Time and levels are the only thing that really matters to an adventurer.
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Things I've seen adventurers spend money on when they couldn't spend it on magic items:
Good Deeds: They don't take the peasant's money and sometimes they give it to them.
DnD wants you to NOT be Robin Hood, and thats just wrong.
Bribes: Important NPCs take money, since giving them magic items would be idiotic. Magic items are real power, while money is just limited social power (limited because some things are not for sale).
Armies: They buy armies, improve villages under their protection, build churches, throw parties, and even sometimes buy inns.
Not play Logistics and Dragons: They don't bargain over the prices of horses and the like. They also stop cutting open monsters to look for treasure inside (unless they detect magic).
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Elaborate pricing schemes don't address the fundamental problem that people don't pay the costs of magic items due to the way that GP and XP are meant to accumulate. DMs can't keep wealth out of player's hands.
For example, in an Eberron game we once sold a lich's phylactery to a Artificer so that he could destroy it for his XP. We've looted whole army units for their masterwork weapons that we killed with Fireballs. We've robbed the king's diamond mines that we took back from invading necromancers.
Heck, even buying things in one place and selling them for more in another market can net you incredible wealth, if you care. DnD says that the upper planes have places full of gems on the ground. Fabricate can turn rough objects into salable goods. Flesh to Salt can net you a fortune in salt. Efreet can Wish you wealth beyond your wildest dreams. There is no end to get rich schemes, and DM shouldn't have to fight players just because 3e DnD is based on Diablo.
Ok i agree that a new item creation (all items not just magical ones) is needed. This however would be very difficult and still keep the backwards compatibility so in place of making a new one i would suggest adding to the old one.
For instance at the moment to make a Long Sword +1 costs 1350gp (masterwork sword + materials) 2 days of work and 80xp (i hope i got the numbers right :-))
I would suggest in place of the xp and perhaps some of the gold value you could retrieve a gemstone from a particularly magical place that would effectively be worth the xp value and even perhaps some of the gold value.
In this way crafting magic items could become an adventure in it's self rather than something you do between them.
When it comes to making non-magical items however i find the crafting rules while perhaps accurate from a real world perspective leave much to be desired in a "heroic" game.
For instance to make the needed masterwork long sword would take a level 6 character with max ranks (9) and lets assume a +2 bonus 105gp (1050sp) to craft the sword and taking 10's on the skill checks (getting 21) take him 9 weeks to forge it.
The best way i can see to fix this would be to reduce the 1 check per week to be 1 check per day allowing the sword maker to complete the blade in 9 days however as i am not a weapon smith i have no idea how realistic such a time frame would really be.
Ok i agree that a new item creation (all items not just magical ones) is needed. This however would be very difficult and still keep the backwards compatibility so in place of making a new one i would suggest adding to the old one.
For instance at the moment to make a Long Sword +1 costs 1350gp (masterwork sword + materials) 2 days of work and 80xp (i hope i got the numbers right :-))
I would suggest in place of the xp and perhaps some of the gold value you could retrieve a gemstone from a particularly magical place that would effectively be worth the xp value and even perhaps some of the gold value.
In this way crafting magic items could become an adventure in it's self rather than something you do between them.
What this becomes is a side-quest that interferes with any narrative the DM is trying to weave.
"Rare component" searches either get absorbed into adventures where every monster has a pile of magic gems for no reason, or they become side quests (we can't kill the Ghost King because I need to enchant my sword with ghost touch)that upset other players and ruin narratives, or the players find a way to abuse the system, or they just won't do it because its too much work and a boring adventure hook.
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Ps. I don't know anyone who makes nonmagical items when they can just buy them. A few hundred gold is totally worth it if it saves you skill points (or skills, in Pathfinder).
Who has time to make 20 magic items?
Scrolls and potions only take a day; I guess it depends on how much downtime you have. I play with greatly accelerated crafting times in my game, so I try to keep some control earning money. You have plenty of money in your game, so you try to limit the amount of downtime PCs available instead. It works about the same either way, I suppose.
I guess I'm just lazy; I've told my players up front "I want your equipment to roughly match the Wealth by Level guidelines. If you spend all your time looting every suit of armour and weapon from your defeated enemies, I'll just reduce some monetary reward later so you might as well save yourself the trouble." That certainly wouldn't work for every campaign, but I'd rather not work out rules for market saturation levels, supply and demand curves, advertising costs, etc. and I think my players are O.K. with it.
At least we agree on one thing; XP costs for crafting are lame. But I'd rather see money as the limiting factor for magic items than time; then if PCs want to exchange time for money, it's their business.
Things I've seen adventurers spend money on when they couldn't spend it on magic items:
Good Deeds: They don't take the peasant's money and sometimes they give it to them.
DnD wants you to NOT be Robin Hood, and thats just wrong.
Bribes: Important NPCs take money, since giving them magic items would be idiotic. Magic items are real power, while money is just limited social power (limited because some things are not for sale).
Armies: They buy armies, improve villages under their protection, build churches, throw parties, and even sometimes buy inns.
See, this is what I don't understand. A player can buy an inn, but they can't trade that inn for a sword +1 (i.e. changing that money into magic weapons in two steps)? What kind of economy is that? Either money can buy things of value (like inns and magic swords) or it can't.
What this becomes is a side-quest that interferes with any narrative the DM is trying to weave."Rare component" searches either get absorbed into adventures where every monster has a pile of magic gems for no reason, or they become side quests (we can't kill the Ghost King because I need to enchant my sword with ghost touch)that upset other players and ruin narratives, or the players find a way to abuse the system, or they just won't do it because its too much work and a boring adventure hook.
I supose this depends on the style of game with a full narrative game i would agree with you although gem was suposed to be an example just as easily you could say the essence of the ghost king leaves a powder enableing ghost touch or such weapons to be enchanted
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Ps. I don't know anyone who makes nonmagical items when they can just buy them. A few hundred gold is totally worth it if it saves you skill points (or skills, in Pathfinder).
Sadly this is true however fantasy stories are full of such things therefore i feel the option should be there without the rest of the party going on an extended vacation for a few months
*Items take time to make, but if you spend money in a large enough city you can shorten the time. So, between adventures a Wizard might make some potions for the next adventure, but in a pinch he can go to Waterdeep and spend cash for rare components and the like to make potions in a hurry.
Actually, I missed this clause in your suggestion. It looks like we don't differ that much in our approaches after all; we both let players spend money to quickly make magic items. I'm not sure what the purpose of being able to slowly craft free magic items is; I guess it's a way of swapping money for time and vice versa.
As a side thought the Eberron setting's artificer has the ability to "absorb" the xp from magic items and re-use it a similar system could be used for all such crafting (yes i know this would create a nightmare of keeping track of the xp stored and such) but it would fix the usual problem people have of finding items that are no use to the party and not having a place to sell such things.
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I would favor some kind of Craft Point system, based on level and number of craft feats you have. I would also add that rare materials (Mithril ore, Hide of a Displacer Beast, Blood of a Dragon) provide bonus Craft Points to certain items.
My biggest problem with crafting items are the feats themselves. I prefer feats based on what the item does, like those in Arcana Evolved not what it is.
Craft Alchemical Item: Includes Masterwork Items, Alloy Weapons, Herbal Medicine, Treated Hides
Craft Spell-Completion Item: Scroll, Runestone, Powerstone, Fetish
Craft Single-Use Item: Potion, Tattoo, Token
Craft Charged Item: Wand, Dorje, even a ring or sword can have limited charges.
Craft Minor Trigger Item: Usable 3 times per day. Also can be used to put restriction on items; Elf only, Paladin only, etc,.
Craft Major Trigger Item: Usable under certan conditions, recharge item, Legacy Item
Craft Permanent Item: Allways on item
Certain Items would require a combination of Craft Feats, for example a Wizard's Staff would require Craft Spell-Completion, Craft Charged, and Craft Craft Trigger (either).
A powerfull magical sword would require Craft Alchemical, Craft Trigger (either) and Craft Permanent.
I would favor some kind of Craft Point system, based on level and number of craft feats you have. I would also add that rare materials (Mithril ore, Hide of a Displacer Beast, Blood of a Dragon) provide bonus Craft Points to certain items.
One of the biggest problems with "rare components" like special metals or body parts of animals is that it leads to the bad old days of DnD where people used to collect corpses in case some body part suddenly got useful. I'd like to get away from the days when you had to cut open every monster to look for treasure inside, and then bottle a bunch of valuable organs.
Its enough for me to just abstract that part of the process. Maybe some things are only good on certain days of the years depending on the stars and moon, and there are a lot of different things that do the same job, so that when you need components you can either spend the time to do it or save time by spending cash at a magic shop.
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And magic item crafting feats are just insulting. As far as I can tell, it was just a way for the 3e's designers to pretend they had done a good job giving spellcasters enough feats.
You could remove them from the game entirely and just let spellcasters make items and we'd lose nothing.
Heck, you could let any PC make items by "taking" powers from monsters they kill and spending time, and letting spellcasters also make items from the spells they know.
So a fighter might make fire-resistant magic armor from red dragon scales or salamander scales, and its still fire-resistant magic armor, but a Wizard would take a standard piece of chainmail and his endure elements spell and make magic fire resistant armor.
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The easy way to keep magic item creation down is to require a Knowledge(arcane) check to have the knowledge of certain magic items, make a list of common magic items, the rest would have to be researched. Rare items might require exotic items. Yes it's a side quest, but hey do you want every character running around with vorpals or holy swords. The knowledge check might reveal the recipe for making the item, or it might just reveal the item exists...but now the search begins...
This makes magic items beyond +1 or +2 extremely valuable.
By the way, I miss the days of harvesting creatures...abstraction SUCKS.
Heck, you could let any PC make items by "taking" powers from monsters they kill and spending time, and letting spellcasters also make items from the spells they know.So a fighter might make fire-resistant magic armor from red dragon scales or salamander scales, and its still fire-resistant magic armor, but a Wizard would take a standard piece of chainmail and his endure elements spell and make magic fire resistant armor.
The thing for me is that allowing anyone to make any item given enough time is adding an incentive for PCs to sit around and not adventure. That's not something I'm interested in encouraging in my game.
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Ok. we all know that magic item creation doesn't work well.
For Realy Big Magic (Flying Castles, Flying Ships, Flying Boats) I use the Mystaran Rules.
REQUIREMENTS: 20th Level Wizard
FLYING SHIP OF WAHUN THE PUZZLEMASTER
Single Deck Vessel: 20' wide, 80' long, 15' draft with 1' Thick Hull and deck. Power of Flight (as Spell).
A few centuries ago the Wizard Wahun crafted a flying ship. Realizing that the forces of Evil wanted the vessel and he himself aging rapidly (the enchantment process having taken some 103 years in a specially designed Stasis Laboratory - where time takes place at a very rapid rate allowing wizards to enchant in years in the Lab while only Days progress in the outside world), he broke the ship into 240 puzzel components (Each piece is 20 cubic feet of enchanted wood).
Currently the ship is scattered across the known world in its 240 component parts. Collectors, Dragons, and an assortment of others are seeking the component parts of the vessel. If the PCs seek out the components, they will foind 240 pieces of enchanted wood that will fit together to form the ship.
Enchant Frame Cost: 3000gp x Spell Levels
Time: 1 week per 1000gp
4th level spell MINOR ITEM CREATION(Wood) X 240 spells(12" x 12" x 12" x 20 cubic inches of wood) x 3,000gp = 2,880,000gp
3rd level spell FLY x 240 spells x 3000gp = 2,160,000gp
Total=5,040,000gp, Time=5,040 weeks (97 years)
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My players value XP's so heavily that they'll do things best left unmentioned just for 25 xps.
What I'm trying to say is that with the XP cost for magic items in place, I've *NEVER* had a player make a magic item, and I give them down time enough to do so if they wanted.
Every time I've played a casting character I've always said "No item is worth stalling my chance to level up sooner."
I don't have a good solution for this, but the idea of requiring experience points to make magic items doesn't work. It goes beyond making players stop and evaluate the value of making an item to the point where they won't make any items at all, even when given the opportunity. It's sort of like other game systems where you could spend character points or experience points or karma or whatever to boost rolls in game. Players who used that option always fell behind the advancement curve of the party, and it's ultimately not a useful mechanic.
It also is sort of an unfair burden on casters not shared by other classes.
Perhaps taking an item creation feat can give a character access to a certain pool of XP's for item creation per level. The more item creation feats you take, the more you have. With the increase in available feats, this might be viable.
Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games has all the magic item creation rules I'll ever need.
I agree that having creation feats broken out by item type is stupid - and that you can create boots of flying at 3rd level with one feat, but you need a separate feat and 9 more levels before you can create a ring of flying.
Dumb.
I'd direct the authors of Pathfinder towards this book if they want alternative magic item creation rules. It's also 100% OGC, so they can dump the entirety of it into the Pathfinder book if they wanted to.
My players value XP's so heavily that they'll do things best left unmentioned just for 25 xps.
What I'm trying to say is that with the XP cost for magic items in place, I've *NEVER* had a player make a magic item, and I give them down time enough to do so if they wanted.
Every time I've played a casting character I've always said "No item is worth stalling my chance to level up sooner."
Maybe you should explain to them how being a level down means more XP for the same encounter the rest of the group is fighting, so that magic item creation is actually free in terms of XP. There is just an inconvenient session or two where you are down a level.
Magic items are rarely created in my game, because of 4 limiting factors.
1. Players don't have the amount of cash needed. If they start looting for X masterwork swords and such, the prices in the selling city drops dramatically and thieves begin to pinpoints the players as rich (Remember, the NPCs are not stupid). So my players try not to flash their wealth around (and selling X +1 swords would do exactly that) because they know there is always a master thief around the corner. Right now I'm running an APL 10 game and I think the richest character has about 15000 gold (and the other ones have a lot less).
2. All players gain the same amount of exp. That way, a player always lags behind if he tries to create a lot of magical items.
3. I run a rather low magical item campaign. With lesser items, each is treasured more. Well, they can always find a "trap with metal balls and sell it for millions of gold" but the problem is that these balls cause logistics problems and my players know that after the first 2 trips collecting above mentioned metal balls, someone will probably have followed them or maybe even a new dangerous monster has taken up residence in the building.
4. My players spend cash on other things. One is starting a band of mercenaries (that will generate more income, but the net result is about the same) and another one has actually bought shares in a trading company.
You do know that limiting factors 1 and 3 are just "adventures" which are worth XP and gold, right?
And factor 2 isn't meaningful. Being a level behind is actually a lot of items. For example, 8th level costs 8,000 XP, so its 200,000 GP in items. If your player is a "buffing" type, he can give everyone massive bonuses. Lots of groups play DnD as a team game and they care more about group performance rather than individual performance.
Factor 4 is also kind of silly. They are spending their cash on things because you won't let them have wealth that can't be stolen by your "master thief", not because they don't want magic items.
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Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games has all the magic item creation rules I'll ever need.
It's also 100% OGC, so they can dump the entirety of it into the Pathfinder book if they wanted to.
If it's OGC, could you give us a run down on just how the AH book handles magic item creation?
If it's OGC, could you give us a run down on just how the AH book handles magic item creation?Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games has all the magic item creation rules I'll ever need.
It's also 100% OGC, so they can dump the entirety of it into the Pathfinder book if they wanted to.
Seconded!
Factor 4 is also kind of silly. They are spending their cash on things because you won't let them have wealth that can't be stolen by your "master thief", not...
Personally to me, such investments would come higher on my list than magic items in any group worth a damn. Property, the ability to retire comfortably and get out of a dangerous line of work, charitiable foundations which will carry you name on, raising a family and providing it a home. Thats what 10,000gp is really worth to a character.
Personally to me, such investments would come higher on my list than magic items in any group worth a damn. Property, the ability to retire comfortably and get out of a dangerous line of work, charitiable foundations which will carry you name on, raising a family and providing it a home. Thats what 10,000gp is really worth to a character.
Factor 4 is also kind of silly. They are spending their cash on things because you won't let them have wealth that can't be stolen by your "master thief", not...
Your groups are really pedestrian.
My groups tend to look at 10K and see a few scrolls that could destroy an enemy army or a new weapon to destroy the next villain or something. We tend to be adventurers, not farmers or disaffected rich.
My groups adventure for the sake of adventure. For some reason, the people who do it for money never seem to understand that.
Maybe you should explain to them how being a level down means more XP for the same encounter the rest of the group is fighting, so that magic item creation is actually free in terms of XP. There is just an inconvenient session or two where you are down a level.
Stop...
Hold on...
You suggest a change that is essentially rooted in the fact that munchkins broke the game. Alright. Even if I don't agree with it, I can buy that.
And when a DM states that he never had that problem, your best response is to encourage him/her to train his players to be munchkins?
What the hell is wrong with you?
Maybe you should explain to them how being a level down means more XP for the same encounter the rest of the group is fighting, so that magic item creation is actually free in terms of XP. There is just an inconvenient session or two where you are down a level.Not true in 3.Paizo.
True, but that still doesn't solve the problem that the sacrifice of even one level is enough XP to make all the magic items you ever wanted to make.
My group's adventure for the sake of adventure. For some reason, the people who do it for money never seem to understand that.People who adventure for the sake of adventure are like people who write for the sake of writing - neither of them get paid. Sure, you can mention the loot you got from the last adventure, but what did you spend it on?
The moment you turn middle-aged, your lifetime career is over, and you've got all kinds of magical items and such that will do nothing to make your retirement go smoothly. Hope you're looking forward to a long career as a burnout tavern-drunk.
For some reason, the people who "adventure for the sake of adventure" never seem to understand that.
Yeh, at 6th level they take Leadership and have small army to provide for them. Or they sell a single item to a king and live on the proceeds their entire life. Or they chose one of the many forms of immortality and just not die and keep adventuring (reincarnation is a favorite in my group). Or they live out their days in a permanent magical home or sustained by magic (250 GP is enough to eat forever if you buy one of magic sacks with rations in them).
Hell, even stopping adventuring at middle age is silly. Are you telling me that an old wizard can't adventure? I mean, in DnD you can be a year from death and are only down -3 on Strength and other physical stats. Even a warrior can take that hit and not even notice it in his rolls.
I can agreewith your point about divorcing wealth and power but I don't like the idea of being able to create infinite magic items. I'd prefer it if it was like two magic items per level for each item creation feat you had (but you could take the same feat twice to get more items).
The basic idea is that you spend time to create items that are weak compared to the things you are finding. An infinite amount of items too weak to care about is an infinite amount of items you don't care about.
I mean, a 10th level Wizard can just create a 5th level Wand of Fireballs between every adventure for all I care. His own fireballs do twice as much damage, have a higher DC, and might be metamagiced or have other abilities affecting them. Anything the Wand does is just something the Wizard does when he's run out of appropriate spells and he want to feel like he's contributing something to the combat.
By the same token, I don't care if the cleric creates a ghost touch sword for the fighter so that he can contribute to the Ghost King fight, and then he straps the thing on his horse/griffin/dragon and forgets about it until the next time he needs it (which may be never).
Well, the problem is that you get an infinite amount of utility items effectively. People can go pumping out infinite wands of healing, infinite wands of knock, etc. It gets even worse when you combine it with the magic item compendium's X/day use items, then you're going to have characters running around with haversacks full of various copies of the same belt that they swap on and off.
The basic idea is that you spend time to create items that are weak compared to the things you are finding. An infinite amount of items too weak to care about is an infinite amount of items you don't care about.
If its balanced in one combat a day, its balanced in all of them. The switching up thing is lame, but I expect that people will just make an "all day" version of the belt and just move on with their lives. They aren't paying XP or gold anymore, so the only limit to an item's power will be its actual power, not the GP cost where things are cheaper if they only work once a day.
Not to mention the crazy blastificer stuff that'll be let in, since you don't even pay for wand charges anymore.
I have yet to see a "blastificer" that does anything as interesting or as powerful as a real mage.
Seriously.
I think its actually a big improvement. Rather than having spellcasters taking Reserve Feats or some other crap so that they can be effective when they run low on slots or don't really have a killer app, they can just cast their own low-level spells from a wand the made.
Problem is that this encourages fighters to just run around with huge golf bags of weapons,
By the same token, I don't care if the cleric creates a ghost touch sword for the fighter so that he can contribute to the Ghost King fight, and then he straps the thing on his horse/griffin/dragon and forgets about it until the next time he needs it (which may be never).
Which they already do. As long as greater magic weapon exists, fighters have golfbags. They have one for silver weapons, one for cold iron, one for adamantine. Some are blunt, and some are piercing, and some are slashing.
But fighters don't run around right now with a weapon with every single flavor of bane enchantment on it.
Its like 7 points of damage. I don't even care.
Also, this system is going to be a rogue's dream. You can basically completely duplicate a wizard of a few levels lower by carrying around a bunch of wands and scrolls, and you've got an infinite number of them. Rogues are good enough without giving them an endless library of magic items to do anything.
Rogues already have that.
It works like this. A PC of "X" level should have "Y" treasure, so if this PC loses his treasure from combat or the fact that he expended it in battle, his next encounter is supposed to have more treasure to put him at the amount of treasure he needs for his level.
At second level rogue should have 900 GP in treasure, if has an adventure where he expends all his treasure (36 scrolls of 1st level spells), but the end of the adventure he should recoup those costs because by 3rd level he should have 2,700 GP in wealth.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if a rogue (or other character with UMD) can use magic as long as the Wizard has better magic.
Not to mention there's no reason why people wouldn't be selling magic items, so it doesn't fix the wealth = character power problem that you were trying to fix. I mean if you have millions of gp, there's nothing really preventing you from commissioning a powerful magical item. And either way there's a balance problem. If you can buy magic items, then basically you have uber items and the wealth/power level connection is present in full force.
Why? This is a medieval world were powerful wizards can cast plane shift and pick up gems from the ground if they decide to go to the upper planes.
Why do Wizards need your money? They won't need it for crafting under this system, so why are they going to waste their time working for you, a powerless peon? They can make their own money to cover reasonable expenses.
If you can't buy magic items, then the party is required to have a PC item crafter, otherwise they suck. So now item crafting is an absolute must take.
I don't agree.
More items is not more power. Your power is the best thing you can do, not how many times a day you can do it. The guy tossing around Fireballs just doesn't care about the guy tossing Magic Missiles. He just doesn't, because a couple of d4+1 magic missles is an insignificant action in a EL 5 fight.
And remember, we are making people paying time to create items less powerful than things they are already doing, so its not infinite. The time the party wizard spends making scrolls is time he's not adventuring and finding better items. Item creation feats will just be something you do when you have some down-time between the Fire Giant Castle assault and your quest to fight the Lich King.
This also means that the Wizard can build a stronghold with neat magical traps on that year of downtime when the party fighter wants to build a castle or something.
I don't agree with this rationale. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to work "in theory", but in practice it just can't work that way. For one, there's no way to directly hand treasure to one PC without giving it to the others. Unless the PC party agrees to compensate the rogue for blowing expendable items, he's not guaranteed to get the loss back. Now some parties will compensate him and others won't.But that's a treasure distribution matter for the PCs, not a game mechanic. Game mechanically speaking, the DM has no way to say "the rogue gets 2000 and you guys only get 1500." The DM just hands out treasure and the PCs determine who gets what.
Yeh, some people don't play as a team. As a person who does, I don't really understand that.
Sure it does. Especially for personal spells. A wizard can't cast blink on a rogue, but a rogue can blink himself. That's a pretty big difference.
You mean like a Ring of Blink? Yeh, considering that its essential to every rogue player, I don't even mind if he does it with a scroll or uses a ring.
Also, I've never played with a high level fighter who didn't use a Ring of Spell Storing. Other people use spells because thats where the power is.
This gives item crafters a huge advantage. The fighter is standing staring at a wall during downtime while the wizard is getting free scrolls/wands/potions (ie. extra spell slots) and crafting rings of protection, capes of resistance, winged boots and so forth. So basically you'll have wizards walking around with bonuses to every ability score, all the time. Because really, why wouldn't you?Meanwhile the party fighters are left begging the party wizards for gear, because NPC mages won't sell them stuff.
The items you can make that are 4 levels behind you really aren't that bad. It's one plus off a ring of protection or magical weapon/armor, and it means that you've got every utility item in the book. I'm not sure why you seem to think that items 4 levels behind you automatically suck. While yeah it's true that magic missile doesn't mean much when you've got fireball, there are lots of items that give constant bonuses and don't require actions to use. And under your system there's nothing really preventing you from loading up on those items.
Even the 8 slot limitation doesn't matter much because making a combination use item doesn't require a higher level, it just costs more, only when there's no cost, you can just make the Amulet of +2 to all stats.
Combo items have to go, in my opinion. Heck, as long as Paizo is creating a whole new edition you can just eliminate all the "+this and that" items and move on with your life. But, even if you didn't, I dn't see a reason why the wizard wouldn't outfit everyone with some standard equipment. I mean, he's not losing anything by doing it.
And the utility equipment is fun, but it doesn't make you more powerful. The Ring of Water Walking is an amusement....it doesn't make you win fights.
What's worse is that your system relies almost entirely on the PC item crafter to balance the group. If you can't buy magic items, and finding them relies entirely on the DM, then the guy who can craft is pretty much mandatory for any group. Unfortunately, because some groups don't play as a team. It means that some people are getting shafted. Typically this ends up being the non-casters (why am I not surprised).
But that really doesn't matter, because the DM creates adventures and he can just give good fighter items as treasure. Since you won't be able to sell magic items, you won't be able to split them in any kind of mathematical way to create perfect treasure distribution. You'll have to use common sense when you split the treasure (a revolutionary idea to the video-game centric youth now playing DnD). A powerful plate armor that grants speed is not going to be used by the party wizard, so he shouldn't even be able to lot on it.
That being said, I just finished watching a movie where Sigfried made two of his three iconic magic items. I don't see any reason why fighting characters can't take feats equivalent to item creation feats. Maybe they pray to the Bear God or anoint their weapons in monster blood or take tokens from monsters so they can get a blink dog tail that casts dimension door(name the DnD story here). The fact that these kinds of feats already exist in DnD and there hasn't been an outcry proves that they aren't unbalanced (See Ancestral Weapon).
But that really doesn't matter, because the DM creates adventures and he can just give good fighter items as treasure.
So we're back to "the DM can just give the fighter an artifact sword" again?
Again? What version of DnD has NOT been about giving the fighter an artifact sword?
That being said, I just finished watching a movie where Sigfried made two of his three iconic magic items. I don't see any reason why fighting characters can't take feats equivalent to item creation feats. Maybe they pray to the Bear God or anoint their weapons in monster blood or take tokens from monsters so they can get a blink dog tail that casts dimension door(name the DnD story here). The fact that these kinds of feats already exist in DnD and there hasn't been an outcry proves that they aren't unbalanced (See Ancestral Weapon).Sure, I guess if you're willing to let fighter types take item creation, but you better be willing to let them create all sorts of stuff so it's balanced.
Still though, there's going to be a huge power split now in campaigns that have little downtime and those that have a lot of downtime. To the point almost where we will need a downtime per level table, similar to wealth per level.
Piles of weak magic items aren't power. In fact, most items aren't power.
Take a Ring of Fire Resistance. If monsters don't attack you with fire for six or seven adventures, it doesn't even see use. Its like you didn't have a magic item.
Even when it does see use, it only reduces your damage by some minimal amount. Even the most powerful version doesn't protect you from enough damage for you to care. Forty-four thousand gold worth of an item won't even half the average damage of falling into lava.
Here are the power items: items that increase AC, saves, stats, and items that perform effects above your level.
Everything else actually weakens you because you start exchanging actions in combat for effects that aren't level-appropriate when you could be using your class features to do level-appropriate things. Hand out all the 5th level Wands of Fireballs you want to 11th level PCs and your PCs will actually take down monsters slower. A Ring of Fire Elemental Command is real power at 5th level, but by 12th level its just flavor(and you can't even afford it unless you spend all your 15th level wealth).
The utility items are just that...utility. They just make it easier to tell a story. A Ring of Water Walking might let you bypass a lake and let you get to an island in that lake, but the PCs could just build a boat OR have the Wizard cast Overland Flight OR just ride their griffins over the lake.
No matter how many utility items a party makes, it still won't make them win adventures.
I challenge you to come up with a list of SRD items that are unbalanced at the levels I'm proposing (considering that 95% of items in published adventures are SRD, its my metric).
Maybe they pray to the Bear God or anoint their weapons in monster blood or take tokens from monsters so they can get a blink dog tail that casts dimension door(name the DnD story here).
The story is "The Paladin's Sword", which was not a bad story, but the third book went a bit strange for me.
But Anyway...
This is a difficult thing to go on with- on one hand, magic item creation costing xp balances it slightly. On the other hand, that can still be abused. So you have forty scrolls of Magic Missile (CL 1st). Who cares?
OK, you just took Leadership. Now the bad guy cares, since you have 10 1st-level wizard followers. Each of those casts magic missile from a scroll for four rounds concurrently, and you have a guaranteed forty hits, for 80-200 hp of damage altogether. Even a mid-level red dragon is going to be stinging after that kind of punishment. Yeah, sure, the dragon could eat your apprentices, but then it's have to ignore you and your 10d6 Cone of Cold (double damage, since it's vulnerable). Ouch.
On the other hand again, no-one I've ever played has ever made a magic item. People I DM rarely make magic items, because when it comes time to add up the xp, they can't just say "what are you on? OK, I have that much, too." They have to work it out. They beg "I'm lagging, and these scrolls I'm making suck. Can't I just have the same amount of xp?"
If there were some way to make magic items in a flavourful way, that didn't break the game, I'd say "go for it". Something like the scene in The Crystal Shard where Bruenor gets out the stuff his clan has been hoarding for decades- a block of pure adamantium, some diamond dust, stuff like that. He fasts for days befor ehe begins the work, and he knows that if he makes one step that fails to be perfect, it will be forever ruined. And when he's finished, he knows that he'll never make anything its match ever again. Now that's cool.
I remember (I think in Races of Stone) there is a 5-level warrior-prestige class for dwarves that lets you count (class lvl x 3) as your caster level for making magic items, which is good, but not quite enough. I guess there's no easy way to do it at the moment.