Every single wizard has the ability to make scrolls.
Every single one.
And without and exp cost, their is no reason a wizards school would not just have its students craft one scroll a week during their appreticeship, which the school could use to generate further income by selling either on to merchants or directly onto the kingdoms miliatry.
It turns magic from a thing of wonder into an industry.
Again you have to understand what the gold cost is. Need another scroll of fireball well to bad seems the wizard scroll craze put creatures blood with the fire subtype in damned high demand seems ya can find even a firenewt in this kingdom anymore ya'll have to import it at 5 times the cost yeah I know its to high what can ya do they done killed off anything that might be used for inks have to import it now...
You really can only keep pumping that stuff out at that price as long as the supply's your buying with that gold are still easily found.The more common things like scrolls are then the harder and more expensive supply's for even cheap scrolls become. And that is why they don't pump out 100's of scrolls
One option that I have seen work in the past was to keep the cost as XP but allow 'Power Components' to be used to pay the XP cost.
Want a Flaming Sword? The heart of a salamander is worth 80 XP towards the cost of XP.
Or if you want to go with Gold, it is worth 400 gold, when considering crafting.
The cost of crafting a magic item could be the idea of the crafter buying the parts he needs or if he wants to he could simply go out and gather the items himself.
Again you have to understand what the gold cost is. Need another scroll of fireball well to bad seems the wizard scroll craze put creatures blood with the fire subtype in damned high demand seems ya can find even a firenewt in this kingdom anymore ya'll have to import it at 5 times the cost yeah I know its to high what can ya do they done killed off anything that might be used for inks have to import it now...
You really can only keep pumping that stuff out at that price as long as the supply's your buying with that gold are still easily found.The more common things like scrolls are then the harder and more expensive supply's for even cheap scrolls become. And that is why they don't pump out 100's of scrolls
At which point the kingdom which its massive magicial wealth goes on a camaign of resource grabbing and win because of their magicial superiority ;)
On a more serious note, while that holds up some what with the more expencive items. In the case of scrolls, these rare components are by their very nature, fairly common, else there prices would be considerably more expensive. So there is almost certainly room in the market for industrial production.
In some worlds yes. Besides where did ya think all them scroll ya buy and find in every dark hole in the countryside came from? Besides there learning magic once they master 1st level they normally dont stay at there schools or with there master so what we really looking at a few dozen 0th level schools per student? Ya cant do it all day wont learn much like that but that be why 1st level scrolls are as common as they are makes nice practice for students.
A note on magic item construction, just because you have the gold does not mean you have the materials needed. And not every town is going to have the materials needed. If a staff requires a black diamond worth 20,000 gp then you have to find a city (probably a very very large one) that has one or possibly go on an adventure for it. I would not mind seeing one or two required materials for each magicl item. This in itself would restrict some item creation.
This also holds for the Wish spell. 25,000 gp diamonds are neither common nor easy to acquire. Even at high levels. "Guys, I want to cast a Wish spell and the only diamond of sufficient value for 500 miles is in the king's treasury. Will you please help me steal it?"
-Weylin Stormcrowe
|
And without and exp cost, their is no reason a wizards school would not just have its students craft one scroll a week during their appreticeship, which the school could use to generate further income by selling either on to merchants or directly onto the kingdoms miliatry.
Not picking on Zombie, but his comments sum up the discussion from many people.
D&D uses rules as abstractions - if there is not a rule, then logic applies. Therefore: "if the rules say everyone can craft magic items, then everyone will" is a fallacy. Why? Because a multitude of other factors come into play.
Pretty much anybody literate in our world can write and publish a book. Why don't they? Any number of reasons. The same reasons a school of wizards can or will not produce a flood of scrolls every day.
Even though no rule covers these (it would be a book unto itself) a reasonable DM or Player can understand that it would not be possible. It would be like the fighter stating that he will kill rats in the sewewrs until he is 20th level - it just ain't happening.
|
Perhaps the solution here is to make the XP cost for magic item creation OPTIONAL. If you make an item without expending XP, the cost and time are doubled. The caster investing some of their personal energy (XP) simply allows the item creation process to be performed more efficiently since the caster is effectively connected to the item they are creating.
|
Allowing the XP to be spent still creates a problem with the PC falling behind the other PCs on the XP chart. That's not something I want as a DM or as a player.
I'm not worried about every NPC caster creating magic items. Even though they know that an item is 'worth' twice what they spent to create it, there just isn't that kind of market. The money has to come from somewhere, and it isn't Joe Schmoe Farmer. It is gonna be the PCs that have the cash from killing the dragon and taking his hoard.
To claim that an academy of wizards will produce x number of scrolls and sell x number of scrolls per day, increasing their 'endowment' by y gp per day is ridiculous. Sure, a scroll is worth a certain amount of money on the open market. But who's buying these scrolls? Only wizards and sorcerers can cast the spells (and a few rogues). The only ones that will want to buy it are the ones that are worried about being out of spells or don't have the particular spell known. For example, I could imagine a lot of sorcerers picking up scrolls of knock (2nd level spell) because they'd rather learn Scorching Ray in a 2nd level slot. This same sorcerer won't buy scrolls of Scorching Ray because he can cast it himself and it gets better at higher levels.
So, the 'abstraction' is in what the NPC can get from selling the item. Surely it is enough to live on, having occassional purchases for an expenisve item. But it doesn't mean that magic items will become any more common.
|
Perhaps the solution here is to make the XP cost for magic item creation OPTIONAL. If you make an item without expending XP, the cost and time are doubled. The caster investing some of their personal energy (XP) simply allows the item creation process to be performed more efficiently since the caster is effectively connected to the item they are creating.
Actually, I like the fact xp is no longer currency for the character. I'd have an optional rule, but I'd make it Fort saves and temporary negative levels, or temporary Int damage, or something to that effect, but not xp. I think Jason is right to take that out of the game.
And without and exp cost, their is no reason a wizards school would not just have its students craft one scroll a week during their appreticeship, which the school could use to generate further income by selling either on to merchants or directly onto the kingdoms miliatry.Not picking on Zombie, but his comments sum up the discussion from many people.
D&D uses rules as abstractions - if there is not a rule, then logic applies. Therefore: "if the rules say everyone can craft magic items, then everyone will" is a fallacy. Why? Because a multitude of other factors come into play.
Pretty much anybody literate in our world can write and publish a book. Why don't they? Any number of reasons. The same reasons a school of wizards can or will not produce a flood of scrolls every day.
Even though no rule covers these (it would be a book unto itself) a reasonable DM or Player can understand that it would not be possible. It would be like the fighter stating that he will kill rats in the sewewrs until he is 20th level - it just ain't happening.
Careful using a term like falacy, its a very specific term that should not br use lightly.
You will notice that in the post you quote, i refer to mage schools not individuals.
I will toy slightly with you comment if you don't mind.
'While anyone who is literate can in theory, write a academic paper, few do.'
To which i have to say,
'Every one who completes a university education in this country has written atleast one.'
Cloistered academia(such as wizards schools and guilds) does not behave in the same way as the rest of the world.
A university often engages in practicial research to provide future funding, why would wizard schools not do what they can to provide funding for improvements to their facilities?
As for demand, the militaries always need more ammunition, while domestic spell casters will with some regularity find that they need to perform a task which they do not currently have a spell prepared for. At such times, the use of scrolls make sense.
|
|
Careful using a term like falacy, its a very specific term that should not br use lightly.
Fallacy: any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.
In response to the rest of your post, I do not disagree with your mage academy argument. Yes, they COULD force students to make scrolls. In fact, it would be cheaper to do if there WAS an XP cost, since that is an abstract. The problem is not that they CAN do it, it is logical result of them doing so: flooding a selective market with a specialized product (and that doesn't even take rival schools into consideration).
It would be a good basis for a new campaign world, where economics is a focal point of the campaign. But in standard 3.X, it just doesn't work. Eliminating XP costs does not cause the economy to self-destruct, since those NPCs who wanted to pay them before paid them anyway.
Careful using a term like falacy, its a very specific term that should not br use lightly.Fallacy: any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.
In response to the rest of your post, I do not disagree with your mage academy argument. Yes, they COULD force students to make scrolls. In fact, it would be cheaper to do if there WAS an XP cost, since that is an abstract. The problem is not that they CAN do it, it is logical result of them doing so: flooding a selective market with a specialized product (and that doesn't even take rival schools into consideration).
It would be a good basis for a new campaign world, where economics is a focal point of the campaign. But in standard 3.X, it just doesn't work. Eliminating XP costs does not cause the economy to self-destruct, since those NPCs who wanted to pay them before paid them anyway.
However, before, demand always outstripped supply because few mages actually made them.
Under these conditions its a buyers market. Retail prices should be collapsing.
:)
Notice i haven't said that EXP should be the limiting factor. But i really would like to see a limiting factor to the creation of items.
|
You have to remember that the average person in the game world doesn't have a class and if they do then it's one of the NPC classes. Even in very large cities there is a hard limit on the amount of people who have the capability to make magic items and they have better things to do than run magic item sweatshops.
They want some adventuring glory too ya know.
Your local hedge wizard or adept may have some low power single use items laying around but because of the local economy he has neither the cash up front to turn and burn assembly line magic items nor the raw materials with which to make anything but simple easy to use items. Those items are usually traded to the locals for food, protection etc because the locals are too POOR to be able to afford them otherwise.
Even in great fantasy metropolises there wouldn't be a thriving market for this sort of thing. At best you may find someone who will build you a custom magic item IF you go get all the necessary ingredients and they're still going to charge you a limb or two. All of the high level people have high level responsibilities like running and protecting said city that take up their time. Those high level people aren't going to be magic item spewing wage slaves. They've got more important things to do.
You also have to remember that the PCs are the exception to the rule(s). They ARE the heroes and there aren't very many of them around. It doesn't make any sense that someone would spend their life savings to make a bunch of cool stuff that few people can use and even fewer can afford. You'd be starving to death in a magic shop full of coolness.
I mean if you really want to have your character spend all of her free time as a sweat shop worker then that is fine by me. However, you have to understand that just because you have a product to sell doesn't mean that there are customers who want to buy it or can afford it if they wanted to. You also have to take basic economics in to account. Once you flood the 'market' with your goods then the price people are willing to pay for them falls while the price for your raw materials rises because oflocal shortages.
And don't forget that as soon as the word gets out that you have a bunch of wealth floating around in cash and expensive, easy to carry goods then someone is going to want to separate you from it.
This turned out to be a rather long way to say xp cost sucks and we should take it out back and throw rocks at it for fun and we are not going to destroy the game by doing so.
Peace, etc.
SM
Director of Games
|
Hey there everybody,
I feel the need to point out that we need to be a bit careful in this discussion. We are, in some cases, discussing two different things. Game rule balance and in-world economics. While one does inform the other, it is very simple to add in-world reasons to limit the problems people are bringing up. This, however, is not necessarily a function of the core rules. At the end of the day, magic items are as common in your world as you want them to be, regardless of what the system says you can do. At the moment, I am much more concerned with creating a way that PCs can create items without having it cripple their character (or at the very least, cause some irritating bookkeeping). Most other classes do not require you to spend XP (and hence become less powerful) to utilize the abilities of the class.
I understand some of the reasoning behind it, but the implementation was such that most just avoided it altogether.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
|
|
Nope siding with jason here xp is not something to be used like gold ...xp costs need to go.
I have already started doing this in my 3.5 games. The result is that characters actually take the IC feats and use them. Before, no one wanted to. Gold is still a limiting factor in a big way, but now if the PCs are out in the wilderness away from a big town they could have an artificer in their midst to make stuff.
(it also has the added benefit of slowing down the campaign in a temporal sense)
|
|
I am THRILLED that XP costs for spells and magic item creation are being removed. As a caster I never bothered with spells that required XP or item creation feats at all. Paying XP as a cost is devastating in a long campaign as that XP adds up over time until you are a level or more behind everyone else. In essence it encourages the caster to do anything other than that. I don't have a problem controlling item availability with cost in gold. That because if there is an item I can craft that the party needs, they will chip in gold to do it. If there is an item I want for my character that I can craft, I will pay the gold. Losing XP just isn't worth it if you are a dedicated caster.
Ok, so the general consensus seems to be a big NO to the XP cost. That's cool; I personally don't see why it was such a bad thing in concept. The xp loss, to me, seemed like a metagame concept, and not a mechanics concept, which seems to be where the main dissatisfacton is coming from. Let me explain.
In the creating of a magic item, the creator was putting a bit of himself, his life force, his soul if you will, into making a recepticle of magic that is permanently based in the world. Without that sacrifice, the recepticle would not be able to recieve the magic for more than a few microseconds. Now this is a personal opinion of the how and why it worked, don't know if anyone had similar or differing ideas to this, but...
Now, like I said, this is a metagame concept, and it seems that people don't like the idea of a significant sacrifice to make the gain. That was the point of the XP loss. But not all that much fun in many peoples opinion. That is cool too. The rules should be adjusted to make it more playable for people. If XP loss removal is a way to have people enjoy the game more, than it should be rightly tossed.
I would like to have this considered though. Please consider an alternative to the XP loss. I feel the XP loss added something on a flavor level, not just a mechanics issue. Your new look at level drain could be considered, something that is temporary but still weakens the spellcaster so they don't try attempting it over and over.
SOMETHING should be done to limit the possible issues of abuse that could come up. While most DM's could and would limit what the players could abuse, why not think of something that would curtail that abuse right at the starting gates? Less headaches for all the DM's out there.
I've got some ideas for the negative level thing but this isn't the thread for that. Anyway thanks for the consideration.
|
|
At the end of the day, magic items are as common in your world as you want them to be, regardless of what the system says you can do. At the moment, I am much more concerned with creating a way that PCs can create items without having it cripple their character (or at the very least, cause some irritating bookkeeping). Most other classes do not require you to spend XP (and hence become less powerful) to utilize the abilities of the class.Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Here here. And now I'm going to pointlessly put my two cents in which largely and unnecessarily agree with you.
The point of any rule is for fun. Sure, having an XP cost does the work of putting a limit on magic items for you, but ultimately, it's the easy way. You can do it almost as easily by arbitrarily using fluff restrictions that are the responsibility of the DM, and not the gaming system.
Giving up your hard earned XP for *any* reason? Not fun. In ten years, I've had so many people filter through my gaming table. I have yet to find a player who found the magic item creation system fun to use. Reason? XP loss.
Rules that are not fun should not be allowed. I say we make limiting magic item creation the DM's problem.
I agree. NO XP EXPENDITURES. PERIOD.
XP shouldnt be a commodity, that can be spent or traded, also shouldnt be gain except through the action of PCs. Items shouldnt cost to make or give xp.
Good move to remove XP-cost. Have done this in my campaign since the beginning of 3.5 (and my players like it - not that they have crafted any magic items in years but only the thought of "loosing XP" when creating something is barely understandable to them...)
Ok, so the general consensus seems to be a big NO to the XP cost. That's cool; I personally don't see why it was such a bad thing in concept. The xp loss, to me, seemed like a metagame concept, and not a mechanics concept, which seems to be where the main dissatisfacton is coming from. Let me explain.
In the creating of a magic item, the creator was putting a bit of himself, his life force, his soul if you will, into making a recepticle of magic that is permanently based in the world. Without that sacrifice, the recepticle would not be able to recieve the magic for more than a few microseconds. Now this is a personal opinion of the how and why it worked, don't know if anyone had similar or differing ideas to this, but...
Now, like I said, this is a metagame concept, and it seems that people don't like the idea of a significant sacrifice to make the gain. That was the point of the XP loss. . .
I agree with the metagame concept, but that's exactly why using xp never made sense to me. I always felt the creator should have to give some of themselves into the creation of a magic item, be it life force or soul or whatever, just as you do.
However, I never saw xp to fit as something that would be, could be, given up. It's not life force, it's not spirit; XP is simply what it is: a character's experiences in life. Would such a character forget what they experienced when creating such an item? If anything, I always felt the act of crafting a magic item would increase a character's experiences, rather than take existing experiences away.
|
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
|
Wow, I'm honestly surprised that there's so much anti-XP spending fervor out there. In my personal experience, every wizard played always crafted as much as they could afford to in terms of GP, with the standard XP costs. To the extent that many of them would craft items for fellow party members, charge them 75% of market value, pocket the 25% profit and use that to craft more stuff for themselves, even with the XP hit.
I have to agree that simply removing the XP costs makes a very abusable system if you allow PCs to ever sell above the 50% market value - whether through a feat, skill ranks in profession merchant, or use of diplomacy to contract a merchant to split the 50% profit on the item. Simply saying that the rules aren't meant to simulate an economy doesn't hold water, since players are going to try these things, and be dissapointed if the DM simply says "sorry, you can't sell this for more than 50% market value, only NPCs can." This is one of the reasons 4E is such a turn off, because it has different rules for PCs and NPCs for many game elements.
You can't charge more gold, since then it's simply cheaper to buy on the open market, and if XP is being ruled out as a cost for Pathfinder, then some other cost or limit needs to be applied. The only thought I have off the top of my head is a craft point limit based on character level that simply can't be exceeded (though that could lead to feats or prestige class abilities that increase the craft points.) This would then limit how much a PC could make and either choose to use the crafted items, or sell them, but not do both indefinately.
XP expenditures only really work if that is the basis for all advancement in the game system. Which pretty much means it should be removed from PFRPG as Jason has done. The other options just wont work well and that is to use XP expendtitures for everything...ability increases, skill points, feats, class levels etc etc. When dealing with small numbers of XP such as in Unisystem or White Wolf it is no problem. But when dealing with thousands of XP it gets to eb a major mess.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
NO XP cost = good news.
I really dont see any school of magic cranking out magical items. Keep in mind that the average laborer earn 2sp per day. And that is before the cost of living. Your average citizen has to scrimp and save to buy a potion or scroll nevermind a wand or stronger item. Most of those people who would be in the market for such items are either capable of making them themselves or know someone who can make them for them. A school may turn out some items but probably not many and not terribly powerful. Most items sold are probably from those students learning the various craft feats, but once they finish that class they probably work for themselves.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
I am also for the removal of XP cost.
Many have raised some excellent points as to why this would be considered a bad thing (ie, characters could pump out potentially game-braking items} . There are several ways around such problems.
The government regulates the production/ownership of magical items: I actually used this once to explain why magical items were rare in my owen campaign. I did allow and exception for limited use items, such as potions/wands/and scrolls.
Rare components needed: This has been suggested by others, basically it means that in order to create a magical item, a character needs a symbolic component to craft such an item. For example, to craft a shocking long sword, the player would need the metal from the Starwell, for the blade. and a handle made from the bone either a Blue Dragon or a Behir.
Recipe needed: Basically, any one with the proper feat can craft common items (ie lesser items). However, to craft uncommon and rare items requires research, time, and a knowledge(arcana) check. An access to a magical library might also be needed. An uncommon item might need a day of research, rare items might take up to a week. At the end of such time a skill check would be required with a dc= 15+1 for every 1,000gp for medium(uncommon) items, and a dc=20+1 for every 10,000 for major items(rare).
These are, of course, examples. Ultimately, it's up to the DM(and the players) to decide on what works best.
The only way I can see XP expenditure as a good move is if a high level character wants to attempt to make and artifact rather than magic items.
It is a major item that requires pouring a part of ones essence into it.
Of course that should also be a pretty RP heavy event anyway. Not just something a character does in his downtime.
Ok, completely ignoring all of the economical issues (as per Jason's request). The problem with removing the xp component of these powers is that it inflates the power level of any character that can make magic items (and his teammates if he's willing to make items for them).
In what way? Well, the DMG provides a table (DMG 135) that provides wealth level targets that are tied to character level. If you can make your own items and only have to pay half price for them, then you will have substantially more gp value worth of items than the rules intend at any given level.
The only cost beyond the gold is the expenditure of a feat or two (though craft wondrous sure covers a LOT of bases and in PFRPG we are all going to have more feats) and the time required to make them (a purely fluff/DM fiat control).
Additionally, the likelihood of the party actually keeping and using any magic item that they find is substantially reduced. This warrants further examination. In a given adventure the DM will, in theory, provide an amount of wealth appropriate to the party level (DMG 54). Each time the party sells the items that they receive they cut that wealth in half. So, in effect, every item that they sell weakens the party (by lowering the party's net worth). In practice this isn't completely true of course (no one was going to use that +3 Ooze Bane Dwarven Urgosh)...but it's a factor which can encourage players to actually use items that they come across (I'd prefer a dragon bane vorpal blade but I'll go ahead and use this demon bane one rather than throwing away all that money).
Add the new crafting rules and these considerations can disappear. Let's examine the vorpal blade example in case I'm being unclear.
Old rules...
+3 Bane Vorpal = 162,000 gp value
To get the one you want (different bane) you need to sell this one getting 81k and then buy a new one that will cost you 162k...so you need to come up with 81k of your own cash (or have a party member make you a new one for 6500 of their XP). From a balance standpoint, the party just lost 81k worth of gold from their net worth (or your crafter just put himself a level behind). Thats a large amount of magic items worth of power that the party no longer gets. Maybe just lumping it and keeping the demon bane is a better call after all.
Alternately you could just add the demon bane to the weapon. But that still has a substantial cost (~40k if you are paying market price) and has other penalties ("maxes" out the item, etc).
In the new PFRPG rules (time permitting) you can simply sell this item and then spend the 81k gold to make your alternate weapon. In fact, if time allows, you could treat your magic items as a gold pool that you can reallocate each adventure. That is, of course, unlikely to occur in actual play but it would be possible under the rules...and far more likely than many of the other "corner cases" that I see debated on these boards daily.
In my view, this change creates a game where any magic item that isn't already on one of the players "shopping lists" is extremely unlikely to be used as anything other than a glorified gem (meaning that it will simply be sold) and effectively increases the party's wealth level by as much as 100%. The game uses wealth level as a balancing concern, potentially doubling it (with only DM fiat controlling it) is not something that should be done lightly.
Assuming that these things (party wealth inflation primarily) aren't actual goals, my suggestion would be that the discount for crafting magic items should be much smaller....somewhere between 10 and 25%.
|
|
XP as a cost is a poor mechanic. Eliminating it is something I support very strongly.
I don't see much item creation going on, but with this kind of rule, as a DM I'm much happier making fewer items available for 'purchase'. I never liked it anyway, so having a few 'common items' is fine, but having a weaponshop with a holy avenger next to a luck blade is silly. This will let PCs get what they actually want more easily. This is good.
And I'm not worried about it being a 'wealth generator'. In Rise of the Runelords the PCs have had multiple +1 Ogre Hooks and +1 Hid Shirts. They can't get diddlysquat for them. Though the items have a high value based on the rules, they can't be used by normal people. With such a small market, nobody in Magnimar is willing to buy them. This makes sense and my players accept it. So, no worries for me about the PCs selling everything they make.
And of course they might learn the 'hard way'. You sell a bunch of items and see them used by the NPC bad guys... You gotta be careful when you're letting magic go like that.
I do agree specially with this last statement...
jajajaja its what i call "arming the enemy"... i like it very much :D give great ideas...also lets get real... in a not densely populated world... where most people survive a weak with 10 GP (which usually is a fortune) who would be willing or able to buy items at such prices? Adventurers, Villians, Royalty... meaning its not a good business if you can get to many clients... and then... there is the problem of taxes by the goverments, paying rent, etc etc... not withstanding thieves, thugs, guilds (both merchant and thief) who would look with interest into THE new bussines...
also as you state... the "magic Shops" of faerun with dozens of magical items are just ridiculous... I banned them from my campaings... but i let them use an alternate rule i found in a Dragon Magazine... they could "level" their magic items using their own experience... some did... most didn't... those who did got great equipment... those who didn't went to upper levels easier... and there was no weight over the wizards shoulders... who me and the other DM in the table saw no reason to let the players presure him to hand his experience for the other's benefit...
as always for everyone think more in what this will affect roleplaying and not only mechanics...
|
|
Hence, I am very happy about the removal of XP costs from both magic item creation and from spellcasting (though in psionics this may be more problematic, because monetary components don't make much sense there). I too wouldn't like it if the PCs were to start creating magical items left and right, but this can be solved by requiring them to quest for special ingredients of magical items, which is something I have been using in lieu of experience points anyway.
this is SOO OLD SCHOOL... Create an adventure for them to be able to crete the MAgic Item they requiere to aocmplish another adventure... I like it :D, that make Magic Items memorable!
|
|
I've never really liked XP being spent, its abstract and causes a load of homework for DM and player alike to suddenly expend amounts of it during downtime.
I used the power component optional rule, saying that you could garner a tenth of the xp you gained from a creature again to use toward magic items. This proved useful for even non-casters since they could take "minotaur horn" or "goblin tongues" back from the dungeon with them. That way a CR 1 encounter for four characters would only produce 7 "xp".
This seemed to work well for a while. Ultimately, and for simplicity sake, we went back to xp. Someone called this the "final fantasy" factor.
My players are pretty responsible about the rules, and when I discussed this with them they seemed adamant about leaving the xp rules in place. This was particularly true of our party's wizard, whose already spent some of his xp on item creation during our playtest. If we switch, he doesn't want his xp back because he doesn't want to use more of his gold.
|
|
However, before, demand always outstripped supply because few mages actually made them.
Under these conditions its a buyers market. Retail prices should be collapsing.
:)
Notice i haven't said that EXP should be the limiting factor. But i really would like to see a limiting factor to the creation of items.
No army will pay 1500 GPs per soldier for a single +1 in AC or BAB... mercs are cheaper, soldiers are cheaper... why woudl you want to spent in magic items that can be stole by your soldiers and join the enemy by deserting... or wort they get killed and their equioment looted and used against you...
Most soldiers get paid i think 10 GP per day... (and i may be exagerating) meaning they won't be able to pay this kind of item except if they spent in NOTHING ELSE for the next 150 days... or after a successufyul year of campaings and some looting he would be able to buy his equipment like this....
but what goverment in its rightmind would? I will post an example... The realms of "lost Odyssey" does... but this are High Techn/High MAgic Worlds... wher they have "Ressurection Turrets propeled by half a dozen clerics"!
if iuts your usual and normal fabtasy world... no goverment would have either the resources or the interest of equiping every 0 lvl soldier or 1st level fighter with +1 sword, +1 scale mail.. ok possibly the tide would turn in their favor... but simply the logistics, spenditures and sher level of organization would bring the country to ruins...
its easier to pay for less and more powerful equipment for elite groups for special missions... or give some bones to expendable assets (aka adventurers and mercs)
While I DO like XP costs gone, I would like to see something like temporary negative levels instead.
|
I have never liked XP costs for magic items. In fact in my opinion a character that is researching the creation of magic items should receive XP for that. You'd give XP for other challenges but take it away for Magic Item creation? There should be a DC associated with the creation of an item and the caster spends the necessary time and resources. If the caster fails the DC then the time and money is lost and he/she has to start over.
None of the player's I have played with have ever created a magic item because they don't like the idea that during the down time they got further behind the other characters because they wanted to create a magic item. They have always contacted a NPC spellcaster and had him create the item for them.
Of course this is just my opinion.
Trent
Infinet Media & Design
DigitalDungeonCast.com
|
|
The XP cost can be replaced with exotic components needed for creating magic items, and/or access to great libraries, specific sites, rare tomes of ancient lore, etc. I use something like that i my campaign. For instance, an elven fighter/wizard wanted to create frostbrand of speed +2. For that, he needed a specific sum of gold. That he loaned from a dwarf fighter/cleric (with interest, of course). But, to capture the essence of cold and swiftness in a material object - he needed something more. After research, he found out that on the highest mountain in the world resides the god of north wind. And so, the quest was born for the breath of north wind. Trust me, he kept that longsword till the end of his carrier, always trying to find a new way to improve it, rather than replace it with some new longsword, even if it was more powerful.
The thing to remember is that PCs are not magic item shops. As with other items, they sell them for half price. This is done to represent that the merchant they are selling the item to has overhead, such as guards, taxes, and his own personal income. Although adventurers do not have such things (generally) this should be balanced by not allowing them to sell for full price. If they start doing this, they have gone from being an adventurer to a business. Removing the XP component does not change this fact.Yes but what about the NPC spellcasters ? They are not PCs, they are much more numerous than PCs, and are the one that populate and make the economy of the world/regions the PCs cross. They have all their time to craft magic items after all, they are just waiting for the PCs ;)and to sell them in the shop next to their church or academy.
It's not a question of PCs, it's a question of world environnement balance. With your system, magic items are just a kind of super-quality items. Their is no more the feeling that those items are "special", "magic", "unusual".
I don't like this idea that you can by your magic items in a shop, in my campaign there is no such kind of shops (yes, even for potions and scrolls), and it is easy to explain to my players that those shops can't exist because of the XP cost of the magic items. "So you understand, those items are only crafted on command, spellcasters don't spend their XP at random."
I don't really matter that this "limiting componant" is XP or anything else (like crafting points you would gain a limited amount each level), but magic items should not be considered just super-quality items.
P.S.
To all the PRPG team :
Thanks for your work.
This is an issue that's been around since 3.0; D&D (and now Pathfinder) assume that magical items are both generally available...and generally available to be exchanged for a similar (if lesser) amount of magical gear.
Pathfinder isn't setting out to change that paradigm, so you have the assumption of (if not a magic 'shop') some manner of broker for magical items.
If you're worried about it on a worldbuilding level, just qualify that the cost isn't just for miscellaneous supplies, but SPECIFIC esoteric ones. So, for most magical items, a person can't just buy the supplies in any but the most cosmopolitan or magical cities; they have to go get the supplies, which may involve more real cost than the item is worth, ultimately.
I'm not advocating this as Pathfinder's default, but it's -very- easy to spin it in that direction if a GM so chooses.
I like the change as is.
Wow, so I'm the only person who likes the XP debt notion.
Okay, I'll stop brining it up, but I really think a good idea's being overlooked.
Personally, it sounds reasonable to me. It still leaves the Wizard falling behind his fellow adventurers in level at some point, But that doesn't bother me too much. The PCs in my parties are rarely all of the exact same level (although it is usually fairly close).
I never considered the XP cost to ne just game mechanics. The idea, in my mind, was that you put some of your soul / power into it and therefore some of your experience. It seemed reasonable as well as useful in that it limited item creation.
Thinking about it, I actually like the XP costs. It makes the PC think -- do I *really* want this item that bad? I run a low magic campaign, where most magic items are the legacy of an ancient (fallen) empire. My PCs have rarely bought magic items -- a few scrolls, a couple of potions, that's about it. They have paid NPCs to cast spells. They have adventured to aquire specific magic items. They have even forked out their own time / gold / XP to make some. Magic is *special* when it's rare... not just a replacement for technology.
I don't know whether I like turning the XP cost into a GP cost (along with attendant increase in creation time, I'd assume). It may not be an ideal solution. I know one thing for sure, though:
It's much better than keeping the XP cost.
1. Practicing one's craft should not make one stupider and less skilled. It's an asinine approach.
2. Because of the way experience awards work, this can create bizarre problems (like the example of the guy who lost a level creating something, then jumped ahead of everyone else in the party after the next big encounter).
3. Et cetera.
You've heard all the arguments before. Here's a little more to think about, though, in relation to some of the counterarguments:
1. Experience debt is no better. If you can't grasp the way experience debt isn't better, you should just never have a checkbook or credit card in your life. Ever. You must have real problems balancing your accounts if you think experience debt "solves" the problem of experience costs.
2. Players shouldn't be punished for having their characters do things that are in-character and in keeping with the intended flavor of the game. I've never understood the urge to hurt PCs for crafting items of power, et cetera. Isn't that what high-level wizards are supposed to do? If you want to limit the amount of magical gear the PCs can obtain to keep the power level from getting out of hand, turning XP costs into GP costs solves that problem handily -- unless you're running a Monty Haul campaign anyway, in which case you have bigger problems than the ability to create scrolls and magical rings.
3. If you're worried about "magic schools" turning into scroll factories, you have big problems in your campaign. One is that magic schools, except in very tightly controlled, special circumstances, are friggin' stupid for anyone who wants to make magic "rare and wondrous" or something to that effect. So a magic school turning into a scroll factory would make magical stuff commonplace and non-special. So what? You think the very existence of a magic school doesn't do that entirely on its own . . . ? What about the market for scrolls? There's no profit in scroll assembly lines if there's no market for it -- and if there are that many spellcasters in your world, magic isn't rare and wondrous anyway!
4. I can understand not wanting too many magic items in your game. Really I can. There's another problem with using XP costs to limit the creation of magic items than those I've already mentioned, though; XP costs ensure that nobody ever wants to create a magic item. At that point, just tell your players their characters can't create magic items. Is that so difficult? If you have that kind of problem telling your players "no", you have no business being a GM.
A friend and I have discussed eliminating XP costs in the past, because of the inherent problems. One option we came up with was to simply assume a chance of failure, with the loss of all the time and money and rare components spent on the effort, and a slim chance of catastrophic failures that produce items you don't want, cause adventure-inspiring unintended magical effects, or even injure or kill the caster. Such catastrophes would be extremely rare, of course -- you don't want to actually completely dissuade your players from ever attempting to create a magic item (or, if you do, you should just disallow it outright) -- but they add some flavor to the game and cause people to really think about how important it is that they have a given magic item.
I don't know if that's better or worse than the XP -> GP rule Paizo/Pathfinder uses. I'll be using the XP -> GP rule in playtesting.
|
|
I agree that abolishing XP costs is the simplest way to go.
However, there is another possible solution: every magic item must be created for a purpose. If that purpose involved another individual, that person would participate in the final ritual to create the item and would pay three-quarters of the XP cost.
This would slow the overall advancement of the party rather than penalizing just one character.
However, this suggestion does have the drawback of being more complex.
|
|
XP Costs have always been an oddity.
In home games they basically require the game to compensate, either with additional xp (which is not the default in D&D3 - in that you are supposed to give Xp by average party level), or adjust adventures for having a lower-level spellcaster.
In organized games (Living whatever - or any game you bring a character to a group you don't know) it becomes meaningless, you just play with a group at your level anyway.
I'm happy it's been removed. I give out little gold and find it more compelling that a party will go out and make it's own stuff than buying it at ye olde magick shoppe.
As to those who like applying the theory of NPC's spending all day making magic items, you have to ask who are they and why are they doing it.
You spend years studying magic to then make scrolls every day - and who do you sell them to, do they just gather dust on the shelf until another wizard comes along who may not be able to craft one or two of them himself?
Of course maybe they're higher level and make stuff other than scrolls - wait a minute, to become higher level you have to be an adventuring mage, which fills up a lot of time, and you then want to make the items for yourself (as adventuring earns a lot more money than pretty much anything else) to make you better at raiding ancient crypts.
The only problem I have with the removal of XP costs is that it completely kills the backwards compatibility of the artificer.
Let's not forget the reason XP costs were implemented in the first place - to discourage overuse of the ability to make magic items. Sure, it's a way to make money and it allows a character to customize his equipment. It also allows a party to procure the most effective magic items for a given situation in some circumstances. But the system as is is already being abused by many players and DMs. It should not be changed.
Besides that, the constant gripe that a character shouldn't have to lose a level just because he wants to make magic swords has already been handled by the RAW. If you don't want to spend the XP, just trade an amount of gold for rare components. Bingo! Problem solved. Your character doesn't want to spend that kind of cash? No problem! Just go on an adventure and get some more, or borrow some, or get the rest of the party to pitch in.
If your character is suffering because he/she has made too many magic items and lost too many XP, it's not a flaw in the rules. You're just experiencing the natural result of being too greedy.
I really like the removal of XP costs, but the thing that has always bothered me was the time in creating a magic item.
"You need a +1 sword? No problem, give me two days." Now its only a +1 magic weapon but only two days? It just seems too easy.
In place of XP loss how about 1 week per 1,000 gp instead of 1 day per? On the cheaper items it doesn't make that much difference, but the time investment gives a somewhat fantasy literature feel for the more expensive items.
I can see players and maybe even DMs not liking it but I think I may start using it for our group.