OK, I may have missed something. Anyhow, I was looking over the Apha 2 rules and noticed the magic item creation rules mention nothing of an XP cost for magic item creation. I'm pretty sure 3.5 had one, so, I'm wodering, is it gone in PF? Do PC's only pay a GP cost now when making magic items?
|
OK, I may have missed something. Anyhow, I was looking over the Apha 2 rules and noticed the magic item creation rules mention nothing of an XP cost for magic item creation. I'm pretty sure 3.5 had one, so, I'm wodering, is it gone in PF? Do PC's only pay a GP cost now when making magic items?
Yes, time and money* are now the only costs for making magic items.
P.S. *and feat selections!
|
I agree, Kelzar. And, I'd like to see the system of costs simplified to a basic formula, or perhaps this exists already? That is, in my opinion, too much space in print is wasted on these numbers and details..., a bit of a distraction if a simple formula would suffice. For example (but just as an example): add the number of powers x the number of power levels x frequency of use, etc. Then, this number = both the cost/materials to create and implies a number of days to craft based on a simple table of property of dividing the total by a set number. A simple formula like this would make my life easier....
OK, I may have missed something. Anyhow, I was looking over the Apha 2 rules and noticed the magic item creation rules mention nothing of an XP cost for magic item creation. I'm pretty sure 3.5 had one, so, I'm wodering, is it gone in PF? Do PC's only pay a GP cost now when making magic items?
Pretty much. Which means every NPC middle age elf wizard had better have every magic item their little heart desires. After all, it's just time and money... and they've got the time to make the money :)
I quite understand the distaste for using experience points as a component: the name is counter-intuitive. After all, you're not getting amnesia or something when you make an item, so why should you lose some of your experiences?
Would it help if you called it "essence points" or something? After all, I've had a lot of experiences, and none of them yet have let me choose to take a level as a spellcaster or withstand more blows from a sword. There's evidently something supernatural involved somewhere in d20 level advancement.
More importantly, an XP cost will not work using the new XP tables: the ever-increasing size of the awards would either mean making creating items prohibitive at lower levels, annoying at mid-levels, and trivial at high levels or it would only be a real factor at low levels.
The problem with eliminating the XP cost without adding something else is that something has to give: relatively low-level casters can turn out useful potions and other minor items. At 1000 GP of value created per day and a construction cost of 500 GP per day these characters will be making 500 GP per day. Are the services of a low-level character taking no particular risks worth that? If they don't personally have the money to get started, do you really believe that no one will employ them or offer them a loan on an operation this profitable? Can a player-character with the appropriate feat sign up for a few months, getting paid - say - 100 GP per day and materials to make things? Why not? Not all campaigns are in such a rush as to prohibit the player characters taking a few months off. I've had a party of elves who agreed to take ten years off - agreeing to meet again at a particular location -to undertake long-term private projects. Some scenarios spanned decades.
Either the costs of items will drop until the daily profit is down to something competitive, the game master will arbitrarily rule that the market is glutted and your items cannot be sold even at markdowns - while the characters inexplicably must still pay the full standard price for anything they want to buy - or there must be some non-monetary cost involved which drives up the price.
Major possibilities here include
1) Going back to the idea of "power components" - unique special ingredients which must be used in the creation of items. To avoid this becoming just another expense, specify that such ingredients are always unique to the item, must be gathered by the person creating the item, and must be ritually gathered for the creation of a particular item. To be fair, let characters subtract the time spent on such a quest from the time required to make the item down to a minimum of half the usual time.
2) Setting some kind of personal limit. Each item must be bound to the makers mystical powers, and so a given creator might only be able to sustain a limited number of items, there might be some type of lifetime GP limit - perhaps the expected treasure amount for your current level - on how much power you can add to items, or - perhaps more interestingly - permanent magical items (anything except potions, scrolls, and limited-use talismans) are rare, unique, items whose power grows with their wielders, but their creator must invest one or more attribute points from relevant attributes in them to create them.
3) Major items must be powered by imprisoned spirits, such as outsiders or sacrificed mortals. This is dangerous, may call for pacts with strange entities, and gives each item a will of its own. Creating or using too many magical items is extremely dangerous: the binding spells begin to weaken, the items begin to act up, or other spirits come to claim or release the bound ones.
Otherwise, as noted above, every middle-aged wizard with a few item creation feats will shortly have every item they could possibly desire: any they can’t make themselves, they can simply trade for.
I quite understand the distaste for using experience points as a component: the name is counter-intuitive. After all, you're not getting amnesia or something when you make an item, so why should you lose some of your experiences?Would it help if you called it "essence points" or something? After all, I've had a lot of experiences, and none of them yet have let me choose to take a level as a spellcaster or withstand more blows from a sword. There's evidently something supernatural involved somewhere in d20 level advancement.
I'm not quite sure why a lot of people tie XP to memory... if you have a level or two drained, say by a vampire, it doesn't effect your memory of past events, just your ability to do things. No amnesia, just a lack of ability. It is supernatural, representing the power / stregnth of your soul or, as you put it, your essence. Once you get past that, the concept of putting XP into making magic items seems reasonable. Apparently the terminology gets in the way with too many people...
I've only just discovered the whole Pathfinder RPG thing, so forgive me if this has already been discussed...
Is the cost of crafting a magic item still half of its market price, or has the money cost gone up to off-set the lack of xp cost?
Is anything yet known about how magic item crafting will be dealt with in the Pathfinder Society system?
I for one never liked the use of xp as a way of limiting magic item creation but i like the the idea of mass produced magic items alot less.
So has any one considerd or tried using "craft points" as a way of curtailing magic item creation. Classes would be allocated a number of points per level, with the cost of potions and scrolls being quite low and the cost of permament items being considerably more.
I for one never liked the use of xp as a way of limiting magic item creation but i like the the idea of mass produced magic items alot less.
So has any one considerd or tried using "craft points" as a way of curtailing magic item creation. Classes would be allocated a number of points per level, with the cost of potions and scrolls being quite low and the cost of permament items being considerably more.
"Industrial magic", for want of a better term, has been brought up as a problem. As has the possibility of every middle aged caster having numerous magic items. Craft points have been brought up as a possible solution (with many others) in another thread (Alpha 1 ?, can't recall). I see significant problems with a craft point system, but then, it beats no limits. Everybody has noted how their wizard doesn't churn out magic items due to the XP cost, but most people seem determined to eliminate the XP cost. For me, that meant the XP cost worked as a significant barrier to too much magic being made. Lack of a significant barrier will probably lead to people churning out magic items (even with increased time / GP costs which is the current solution). *shrug* It'll be interesting to see what solution they come up with / use or if this is seen as a problem.
*edit* I don't recall the designers of the Pathfinder RPG weighing in on it other than to say he was pretty determined to get rid of XP costs. But then I might have missed it in one of several threads on this topic. Magic Item creation is on page 142 of the Alpha 3 release. The Beta is due out soon, and I imagine that will have any recent changes they've made. Then of course, there's about a year after that until the final release hardback is out. I gather feedback will be ongoing the whole time until the final goes to the printer.
|
|
I was recently thinking that the XP cost should be there, but that another person should be able to 'donate' or 'sacrifice' their XP to help the wizard with the creation. This should help party balance on XP lost to creation when PCs craft. Also, retired adventurers would have a source of income, and it would explain why they refuse to accompany the young whelps who come asking for their advice about the resurfaced menace from 30 years ago. The retirees used to be 18th level fighters, but now they're down to 5th level again. The feats that the retirees lose in the sacrifice are also part of what power the item. This would put a limit on the availability of items, because for some things, you need to find a retiree with feat XYZ and convince him to give it up. I guess it's similar to the 'rare elements' approach to limiting creation. This is just a thought; I don't even know whether the donation should be coersible or not.
If I understand it correctly, most NPCs don't have a single class level to speak of. As such, the people actually able to make magical items are somewhat rare, and the ones with sufficient ability needed to make the more potent magical items are going to be rarer still. It seems simple enough to then surmise that not only will the production number be rather low (the time, effort, and money/materials required to make the item is going to be steeper the more potent the item), but the demand will also be low, since most people (even nobles) will be hard pressed to pay for the item. Think about it realistically: would you rather have a handful of magical baubles, some of which will be basically useless on a day-to-day basis, or own a palatial estate? Most people will choose the palatial estate.
Sure, a rich merchant might accumulate a trinket or three over the years, but most people likely own magical items as a sign of status. Why buy a potent magical sword of doom, which will cost more than most nobles can accumulate in a year, when a +1 sword of "pretty blue glow" impresses people all the same? People like Blackstaff have tons of magical items, but he also likely made most of them himself, and reserves the ones that are actually useful and/or potent for himself, or people he trusts to use them wisely. Even wholly evil persons would likely rather keep the potent ones for personal use. As such, I can see the occasional minor magical items being for sale, but for most other items you'll probably have to track down a person and make a bid. Why waste all that time, effort and money, when most people in the region (or entire realm) will never be able to buy it, and most who could, will likely approach you on their own if they're actually interested?
In short: simple supply and demand should take care of this all on its own.
As far as nixing XP cost: this was a long time coming. You shouldn't penalize players for trying to be helpful.
If I understand it correctly, most NPCs don't have a single class level to speak of. As such, the people actually able to make magical items are somewhat rare, and the ones with sufficient ability needed to make the more potent magical items are going to be rarer still.
Err... NPCs have class levels, either in regular PC classes or in the various NPC classes (warrior, adept, expert, commoner, etc.). In any event, I think the PF RPG is going to eliminate the XP cost in favor of increased time / GP costs. Personally I don't agree, but that's a fairly simple thing to handle in your own game. If you do reduce it to GPs and time I expect every Elf NPC wizard to be really well equiped too... all that time and time to make money = any magic goody their little Elvish hearts desire :D
Err... NPCs have class levels, either in regular PC classes or in the various NPC classes (warrior, adept, expert, commoner, etc.).
I wasn't conveniently ignoring NPC classes, but even if we assume they are generally low level NPC classes and ignore the possibility of not having class levels at all, the vast majority of people are still 1) incapable of making magical items, and 2) incapable of ever purchasing magical items. Most people just don't have that kind of gold lying around. Indeed, most people don't even deal in gold. Thus, things remain unchanged.
Even the elf wizard example doesn't matter overmuch. So, the occasional elf wizard sits around crafting magical items all obsessively. Sure, that could happen. But do we really think the average elf wizard is going to dedicated the entirety of the centuries to crafting items as opposed to learning new spells, and developing magical ability? And it's not like making that kind of gold and gathering the required materials is going to be something the character can do on a given leisurely Sunday afternoon. It'll still take time, effort, money and materials. Thus, there are still a finite number of items that can be produced at any given time, and an even smaller number of potent items. Indeed, the items can't even be made until certain prerequisites are met by the wizard in question. It's not like every elf wizard is going to be sitting on a mountain of +5 weapons and soul gems.
I wasn't conveniently ignoring NPC classes, but even if we assume they are generally low level NPC classes and ignore the possibility of not having class levels at all, the vast majority of people are still 1) incapable of making magical items, and 2) incapable of ever purchasing magical items. Most people just don't have that kind of gold lying around. Indeed, most people don't even deal in gold. Thus, things remain unchanged.
Your'e right -- most people don't have the money. Just the nobility, wealthy merchants, and apparently mid to upper level NPCs. On Page 338 of the PF RPG Beta it indicates that beginning at 8th level NPCs have magical gear. It doesn't specify the class so the gear would be, I presume, appropriate to their class / profession. 8th level NPCs might be rare, but apparently in the process of getting to that level they aquire magic (there are also protection, and limited use categories of NPC gear that include magic in their descriptions as well, beginning at first level). Depends on your campaign I guess. Mine is a "low magic" (comparatively) setting. They suggest doubling the base values of NPC magic gear for high fantasy and halfing it for low fantasy.
Even the elf wizard example doesn't matter overmuch. So, the occasional elf wizard sits around crafting magical items all obsessively. Sure, that could happen. But do we really think the average elf wizard is going to dedicated the entirety of the centuries to crafting items as opposed to learning new spells, and developing magical ability? And it's not like making that kind of gold and gathering the required materials is going to be something the character can do on a given leisurely Sunday afternoon. It'll still take time, effort, money and materials. Thus, there are still a finite number of items that can be produced at any given time, and an even smaller number of potent items. Indeed, the items can't even be made until certain prerequisites are met by the wizard in question. It's not like every elf wizard is going to be sitting on a mountain of +5 weapons and soul gems.
Again in the PF RPG it indicates that Elves "are eternal or nearly so, with lifespans that rival the great dragons" (Page 8 PF RPG Beta). Apparently they're patient and willing to spend years perfecting their crafts as well. What's a few decades spent sitting around saving money for that special item you want? Apparently not much to an Elf. So you sit around making / selling the more inexpensive items you can make, save your GP for those more powerful items you need (and can make). You stock up on everything but the kitchen sink and go adventuring. You level up and go back to making / selling items again until you can get the new goodies you want. wash, rinse, repeat. I'd expect a patient, intelligent bunch like the Elves to be *really* ready for that adventure... much more so than a short lived impatient bunch like us humans. They need to figure things like this into their magical gear for NPCs I'd say. I'm not saying how much magic would be floating around in a given game btw, just pointing out some of the consequences of the current magic item creation rules in regard to a specific race / class combination. There's plenty of room in there for variation in a campaign for a wide variety of reasons...
Personally I'd say their is a bit too much magic in the game as currently structured. The more common magic is the more like technology it is and, imo, the less fun it is. Might as well carry an AK 47 on an adventure. The XP costs on magic item creation put the brakes on that (who can afford to sacrifice XP constantly?) and I'll be keeping it in my game for that reason. I have however, considered eliminating it for temporary / one use items (scrolls, potions) but I haven't made a final determination on that yet. I've run my game for 30+ years, and I take my changes slowly to figure out how it'll effect my setting.
The problem in charging XP in 3.0 and 3.5 is that it was never boldly stated that although you sacrifice XP in the process of making something you should also gain XP from the experience. The difference should be a slightly positive margin.
That's why wizards got scribe scroll at first level, its why the red wizard order has an obscene number of magical items, its why at low levels the random treasure almost always includes a scroll.
No individual with a 15-18 Int is going to go out adventuring with 4-6 hp. 2 Kobolds beating the wizard on init would take out the wizard.
The wizard is intelligent, he/she is going to sit at home making items and doing research for new spells until they have earned enough XP from making items so that can lob a fireball or two. Then (because they're smart) they're going to go adventure with guards (fellow PC adventurers).
This concept was too difficult for a lot of people (DMs) to grasp which is why no one hardly ever took any item creation feats. With the new rules our party is taking the item creation feats. Can the new system be abused, of course it can. Its up to the DM to have the courage and insight to tell a player "no they can't take 100 years off to triple their wealth".
Greatest thing they have done! It makes it worth playing a wizard now.