If you're concerned about her apparent wealth level compared to the other PCs because she carries self-crafted items and thus has more wealth than she "should" at her present level, you should read this article by yours truly:
Having played from level 2 to level 19 a wizard that took almost all magic item creation feats, I can say that this isn't a big issue.
I actually think that the half gp cost to create magic items is somewhat compensated with the half gp got when selling the items on the market, and worse still, the xp cost to create the items.
The biggest advantage is to be able to get (from your own creation) the EXACT item you want (unless, of course, the dm really let you find "any item under the community gp limit" that you want, to matter how uncommon).
Thanks Sean, that clarifies an issue from a long-deceased thread. I hadn't come across that article on your site before.
By the way, just got my copy of Ghostwalk. Mine had a wierd flaming donut sketch. Thanks!
Heh, that's an ophanite, a type of fire angel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophan
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Thanks Sean, that clarifies an issue from a long-deceased thread. I hadn't come across that article on your site before.
By the way, just got my copy of Ghostwalk. Mine had a wierd flaming donut sketch. Thanks!
Heh, that's an ophanite, a type of fire angel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophan
Cool, thanks Sean!
I can't get anything to load right now, including that article and my PF guide. But if crafting has an XP cost that must be paid by the crafter that just encourages him to only make things for himself. Yeah, riding the gravy train is nice. But it only applies if you're only making stuff for yourself. Otherwise you drop too far. If someone else can pay the cost, or there is no cost then sure, why not make stuff for the other guys?
First, XP cost isn't a big drawback because you get *more* XP for being lower in level, meaning that you make up the difference and sometimes end up actually being higher level for having crafted items, depending on when your DM gives out XP. So XP costs sometimes resulted in the character who paid the cost getting more XP than his friends.
The amount of XP spent on item creation is trivial enough that the level difference is irrelevant, or at least it's not the big deal that your comment makes it out to be. Say you're a Clr10 and you want to "spend" 1/3 of your wealth at that level creating the bestest mace you can. Wealth at level 10 = 49,000 gp. 1/3 of that is 16,333 gp. That means you're spending 32,666 gp and 1,306 xp on Uber Item of Clericality. A party of 4 10th-level characters earns 3,000 xp for defeating an EL10 challenge, which is 750 xp per character. So after two level-appropriate challenges for your group, your crafting character has caught up to the average party level ... in general, your character is going to be behind the rest of the group for a couple of encounters every time the rest of the group levels. Woo. So it's not like you're 2-3 levels behind for a long time and you'll be rakin' in the xp because of the level disparity. And unless your DM is doing something weird (like saving up four weeks' worth of xp for one giant award), I don't see how your lower-level character is suddenly going to jump ahead of the other characters.
Second, magic items are way better than feats, especially at high levels where you are constantly scaling the extra item value you get, yet your feats don't scale.
Strange, most people believe that feats are more valuable than items because you have tons and tons of gp worth of magic items (and you can always go quest for money in easy areas that won't net you any xp) yet you have a very limited number of feats. :) "Most people" meaning "the designers of 3e, who went out of their way to greatly limit the ability to put feats into magic items because at high level it would be trivial to buy up all the feats you wanted in the form of magic items."
It may work out at lower levels that the benefit from craft wondrous item isn't much better than what you'd get from combat casting, but at higher levels, that extra 25,000 or 50,000 gp worth of magic items is going to be in all respects, a better choice.
I think your math is suspect. An "extra 25-50,000 gp worth of magic items" means you're talking about a character that's (for example) crafted 50-100,000 gp worth of items at half cost (thus, 25-50k is extra). Are you creating characters from scratch and letting them spend ALL their money on crafted items? That's unrealistic (an organically-grown character with crafting feats is going to have some found items and some crafted items). Give me a concrete example and we'll debate it ... the above general term is vague enough (I don't know what you mean by "higher levels," either) that I can't address it.
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Whoops, Sean you misquoted in your last post.
But I do agree with your last point about organic characters. Typically for characters beyond 4th level I give them around half their wealth in randomly rolled treasure which they can sell or keep. Most of my players really enjoy not having hoards of gold to spend on anything.
Second, magic items are way better than feats, especially at high levels where you are constantly scaling the extra item value you get, yet your feats don't scale.Strange, most people believe that feats are more valuable than items because you have tons and tons of gp worth of magic items (and you can always go quest for money in easy areas that won't net you any xp) yet you have a very limited number of feats. :) "Most people" meaning "the designers of 3e, who went out of their way...
Darn post monster ate my post and kicked me out. They must be ornery today.
Agree and disagree - While feats work in AMF and can't be stolen, they are far more scarce (infrequent) than magic items. Combine with the flexibility to combine/customize magic items at higher levels and they really become attractive.
Especially items that mimic feats, like rods of metamagic. You trade a bit of power (qty/day) but gain some significant advantages and help the rationing of feats.
The amount of XP spent on item creation is trivial enough that the level difference is irrelevant, or at least it's not the big deal that your comment makes it out to be.
The amount of XP spent on item creation in Pathfinder is zero; certainly a trivial amount.
I really don't get your reasoning in that article and how it's supposed to pertain to the Pathfinder RPG. Let's say you're making a level 20 wizard in Pathfinder: the cost of one feat (Craft Wondrous Item) pales in comparison to the 880,000 gp worth of free equipment (potentially) the wizard could have at level 20, especially if you consider that Pathfinder gives extra feats.
Are you creating characters from scratch and letting them spend ALL their money on crafted items? That's unrealistic (an organically-grown character with crafting feats is going to have some found items and some crafted items).
Isn't that the opposite of what you're arguing in your article (i.e. it's fair to let the character craft whatever he wants because he paid for it with a feat and/or XP)?
This wasn't said by me, but I'm replying anyways.
The amount of XP spent on item creation is trivial enough that the level difference is irrelevant, or at least it's not the big deal that your comment makes it out to be. Say you're a Clr10 and you want to "spend" 1/3 of your wealth at that level creating the bestest mace you can. Wealth at level 10 = 49,000 gp. 1/3 of that is 16,333 gp. That means you're spending 32,666 gp and 1,306 xp on Uber Item of Clericality. A party of 4 10th-level characters earns 3,000 xp for defeating an EL10 challenge, which is 750 xp per character. So after two level-appropriate challenges for your group, your crafting character has caught up to the average party level ... in general, your character is going to be behind the rest of the group for a couple of encounters every time the rest of the group levels. Woo. So it's not like you're 2-3 levels behind for a long time and you'll be rakin' in the xp because of the level disparity. And unless your DM is doing something weird (like saving up four weeks' worth of xp for one giant award), I don't see how your lower-level character is suddenly going to jump ahead of the other characters.
Wealth scales exponentially. 5 levels later he has over 4 times that amount of gold. For that matter, 5 levels earlier he had less than 20% that amount of gold. With that said take any XP calculator such as this one to compare. Notice how if one of those level 10s is actually a level 9 they get 1,013 XP, or a little over a third more? That's about standard. The gap is self correcting. In the above example, you get 263 extra XP from your routine fights 5 times, and you're now ahead by 9 points. Which isn't that big a deal, but is still ahead.
Getting 2-3 levels behind would be counterproductive. This means you're a cohort. 1 level behind however is a common and smart optimization technique known as riding the gravy train, where you intentionally craft enough to be one level behind and thereby get roughly a third more XP which fuels more crafting, or anything else with an XP cost.
Strange, most people believe that feats are more valuable than items because you have tons and tons of gp worth of magic items (and you can always go quest for money in easy areas that won't net you any xp) yet you have a very limited number of feats. :) "Most people" meaning "the designers of 3e, who went out of their way to greatly limit the ability to put feats into magic items because at high level it would be trivial to buy up all the feats you wanted in the form of magic items."
Well, they aren't. Just take a look at feats. They are flat out inferior to class features. Class features are all over the board. Items are accounting for at least 5 points of to hit and damage, various special properties required to keep up on the damage dealing spectrum, 5 points of every saving throw, nearly all of your AC, your miss chance if any, your complete ability to deal with flying, invisible, teleporting, high ground holding, tactic using, or any other adjective referring to an enemy that does something smarter than charge at you while shouting "LEEROY JENKINS!" Yeah. No feat comes close to that. Even when you consider there is a legitimate WotC way to get any feat (from a large list) for 8k. Some of them cost less.
This is the melee comparison. There's less of a difference for casters because spells can duplicate or supersede some items, and they get feats that are actually worth something such as Quicken Spell which is so blatantly superior to the minor melee feats like +1 to hit with one weapon and other such much weaker things they get it's not even funny. Even so, their gear still is ahead of their feats. Just not by so great a margin.
I think your math is suspect. An "extra 25-50,000 gp worth of magic items" means you're talking about a character that's (for example) crafted 50-100,000 gp worth of items at half cost (thus, 25-50k is extra). Are you creating characters from scratch and letting them spend ALL their money on crafted items? That's unrealistic (an organically-grown character with crafting feats is going to have some found items and some crafted items). Give me a concrete example and we'll debate it ... the above general term is vague enough (I don't know what you mean by "higher levels," either) that I can't address it.
The math is flawed, but not for the reason you think. In order to get everything for half cost, your craft feats would have to cover everything. Craft Wondrous is the broadest feat in that it covers the greatest variety of items that matter. But even it doesn't cover everything. Weapons, armor, rings... those matter too. Therefore, you would need every craft feat to do that. This pretty much ensures it is an Artificer only thing, except that class is not in PF. At least not yet.
Found items are practically guaranteed to be inferior to items you already have, unless you're 'just breaking in' so to speak and have to get your Ring of Protection +1 (example) somewhere. That means they are just gold fodder for what you actually want. A simple comparison of PC WBL vs NPC WBL demonstrates this flawlessly. Since there is really no reason not to craft if you are able since it means that you get twice as much for the same cost? Yes please. The only reason why you'd ever have non crafted stuff aside from the very rare getting lucky is because you didn't have the time to make it. DM fiat blocks anything, ergo it means nothing.
I've been a little concerned about 0 XP crafting in Pathfinder myself, and have been thinking about things I could do. What I always come back to is giving the PCs an amount of downtime based on level, sort of like a wealth table, but a downtime table. Keep in mind that I am making no claim that the below numbers are balanced or fair, I just mean it as an example.
Level: Downtime
1: 1
2: 3
3: 7
4: 12
5: 17
6: 23
7: 30
8: 38
9: 47
etc.
So, this means that by the time a level 3 character get to level 4, they should have had 5 days of downtime. Perhaps different classes would have different downtime tables, as Wizards need far more downtime to be effective than a fighter, for example.
The gear the Fighter must have to function is most often crafted for efficiency purposes. This takes time. Therefore they're actually more downtime dependent.
Not to mention the obvious flaws with a hard downtime setup as it forces the DM to pace things a certain way. Though the higher level characters would naturally have more downtime since fewer things happen on a big enough scale for them to care about. I mean really. How often does something threaten to Destroy The World? Exactly. The fact they also need the most (craft time is based on cost) is simply incidental. So the principle works, trying to nail it down doesn't so well.
I really don't get your reasoning in that article and how it's supposed to pertain to the Pathfinder RPG.
Well, it's not, seeing as I wrote that article about 5 years ago. :)
Let's say you're making a level 20 wizard in Pathfinder: the cost of one feat (Craft Wondrous Item) pales in comparison to the 880,000 gp worth of free equipment (potentially) the wizard could have at level 20, especially if you consider that Pathfinder gives extra feats.
And if that wizard had taken Combat Reflexes instead of CWI. Over 20 levels of adventuring, how many times did the wizard make a Ref save because of that +2, and thus take half damage, and not get knocked out of the fight?
Or if he had taken Spell Focus. How many times did the wizard's opponent fail a save because of that +1, and therefore lose the fight?Or Improved Initiative, and act before his opponent and not die?
Which of those is worth that extra gear? And again, if you're the GM and you're letting your player craft ALL of his gear with one feat, you're being too permissive.
Isn't that the opposite of what you're arguing in your article (i.e. it's fair to let the character craft whatever he wants because he paid for it with a feat and/or XP)?
There is a difference between, "the character paid for this ability with a feat, don't hose them for doing so," and "we're creating characters from scratch at level X and this character with Scribe Scroll spent ALL his wealth making the highest-level spell scrolls he can cast."
Well, they aren't. Just take a look at feats. They are flat out inferior to class features. Class features are all over the board. Items are accounting for at least 5 points of to hit and damage, various special properties required to keep up on the damage dealing spectrum, 5 points of every saving throw, nearly all of your AC, your miss chance if any, your complete ability to deal with flying, invisible, teleporting, high ground holding, tactic using, or any other adjective ...
Except all the crazy magic items and class features you're talking about are expensive or high-level. +5 to hit and damage is 50,000gp, which a PC can't afford until 11th level (and more realistically, not until 14th, using the atk/def/misc distribution of wealth guideline). +5 to every save is 25,000, a PC can't afford that until 8th level (realistically until 12th). likewise for +5 armor. And so on.
By comparison, most of the "lowly" feats are things you can take at low levels and provide a consistent benefit over and over again for your entire adventuring career. Even Toughness, which people dismiss because "it's just 3 hit points" can save your life many times in an adventuring career (write down how many times your non-Toughness character drops to -1, -2, or -3 hit points and can't do anything, or how many times he dies at -12, -11, or -10 ... if you had Toughness, you'd still be up and/or alive). Look at Whirlwind Attack ... as a full attack, make one attack against EVERY target in reach ... what magic item duplicates that for a fighter? And a fighter can get it at level 4. Look at Spring Attack ... what magic item lets you move before and after EVERY single attack you make, all day long, without an AOO? It's available at 4th level. Look at Greater Two-Weapon Fighting ... what magic item gives you +2/+6 to hit and two extra attacks per round? Available at level 11. Feats are the hobbits of the d20 system ... easy to overlook, but consistent and capable of accomplishing things that wizards, dwarves, and elves were unable to do.
There is a difference between, "the character paid for this ability with a feat, don't hose them for doing so," and "we're creating characters from scratch at level X and this character with Scribe Scroll spent ALL his wealth making the highest-level spell scrolls he can cast."
So you're saying that a player with a crafting feat should be able to attribute somewhere between 0% and 100% of his wealth to crafting? It's hard to argue with that. :-)
And if that wizard had taken Combat Reflexes instead of CWI. Over 20 levels of adventuring, how many times did the wizard make a Ref save because of that +2, and thus take half damage, and not get knocked out of the fight?
And if that wizard had taken CWI instead of Lightning Reflexes and had been able to afford a +4 Cloak of Resistance instead of a +3 Cloak of Resistance? Or had been able to afford twice as many pearls of power so he could cast blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.
In my campaign, there is no "pre-crafting" included in your starting wealth. Once the campaign has started, you're free to go nuts (and I will adjust the treasure that the PCs receive accordingly, if necessary).
Sean, first off it's Lightning Reflexes. Not Combat Reflexes, which a Wizard has no business taking unless he's going for Ye Olde Spiked Chain Gish. Which means he has a 10% better chance to not take minor to moderate damage from some random AoE, which is the weakest threat a spell could possibly pose to him. Now consider +2 to 1 save is around oh... 2k or so, or perhaps lower... Yup. Items still trump feats. So do spells.
The Wizard can get +5 initiative for 6k. For that matter, so can anyone else. That becomes 3k if you have Craft Magic Arms and Armor.
+2 Int gives the +1 DCs and bonus spells. Getting that of a different bonus type... I forget the amount, but it's a four digit figure. At least it's probably more expensive than the other two, but that's really not saying much.
Toughness is one of the best examples of a feat that becomes less useful to you as you level. Several others that came up here also qualify such as Whirlwind Attack (by the time you get it, you're no longer being swarmed by weak enemies but instead facing smaller numbers of bigger enemies). Though he can get that for a +1 enhancement if he cares. Spring attack requires two garbage feats and even then only allows a single attack, which means you aren't doing that much, and the enemy can probably just 5' step to get you in reach anyways unless you have something boosting your speed substantially (See: Haste from boots or something). Two weapon fighting is a flat out inferior style. It's only worth considering if you are a construct or undead dual wielding life drinking wounding weapons with sneak attack or something. And that's only because of all the 'procs' combined with a high number of hits. Further, for 8k you get that (two extra attacks) for free, even if you aren't high enough level yet. You have to have regular TWF, but you'd have to do that anyways.
Many things.
Is this discussion going anywhere my dear colleagues? I've lost myself in the middle of the discussion, when I couldn't even find the point anymore.
Is this discussion going anywhere my dear colleagues? I've lost myself in the middle of the discussion, when I couldn't even find the point anymore.Many things.
The original topic was does the feat justify saving money. It got rather sidetracked with some crafting misconceptions which were corrected by myself and others. I think the original topic was resolved first though.
Personally, I would say this:
If a character is particulary of the viewpoint that the Item Creation Feats "aren't worth it", I would like-wise make many NPC Magic Users of this same opinion, which would just have the effect that magic items become harder to acquire, you need to find one of the "sub-par" Item Creator Casters who have the Feats to make stuff you like.
If the Character is open to taking at least one Item Creation Feat, then likewise, I'd make it an assumption that many other NPC Magic Users likewise took some sort of Item Creation Feats, including all the areas that the PC didn't specialize in, giving them an extra benefit to taking that one Item Creation Feat.
:-)
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Magic items scale. There's really no denying that. As you level up you get more gold and your magic items get better. But Iron will isn't doing much, it's just sitting there collecting dust. But I'll get to that more in the next section.
I am glad sean is here to debate with us :)
anyways i would like to point out that yes SOME or ALOT of feats dont scale but more are now, the +2 to 2 skills feats get better at high lvl and i been thinking about doing the same for the save feats making them +4 when get +x in save. that would make me think about taking some of those +2 feats(u can pass that along sean if like :P)
Classes, feats and well everything, should be balanced at all levels, because a game may well end before 5th level or a game may well start at 15th level.
4e does a really good job of that you know ;)
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The problem of course is that this requires an advanced DM familiar with the rules set and having a general idea of how much time he should give his PCs to do various things. But that was one of the main problems with 3.5. It was incredibly hard to DM, there were hundreds of factors you had to consider, and it led to a lot of DM's being total hard asses because they became afraid to give PCs anything, because they're afraid of being burned. This actually happens a lot to novice DMs.The rules should accommodate a lax DM style where the DM doesn't have to worry about managing things like time unless he specifically wants to. The game shouldn't be at risk of becoming unbalanced because the DM says, "OK, 6 months pass between your last adventure and now..."
That's just too much for a DM to worry about.
I would say that is the reason many people like 3rd Edition - it requires, maybe even expects, system mastery. Players argue this all the time, but I would say it equally applies to DMs. It's downright impossible to have a game that allows the players a detailed complex system but is intuitive and simplistic for DMs. At least, not one that has both sides using the same rules.
I would say that is the reason many people like 3rd Edition - it requires, maybe even expects, system mastery. Players argue this all the time, but I would say it equally applies to DMs. It's downright impossible to have a game that allows the players a detailed complex system but is intuitive and simplistic for DMs. At least, not one that has both sides using the same rules.
I dunno about all that. But I do know that I wouldn't touch it if it did not stimulate and sharpen my mind, particularly the analytical and tactical bits. Without that, it is just Magical Tea Party at best. Free form bores me, and I have absolutely no reason to pay for something I can get for free.
First off I'll declare that I'm on the fence on this one, so I'll probably make points for both sides.
But here's what's striking me at the moment. There are a lot of people on the boards who would argue (or have argued) that weapon focus isn't worth it. Or that combat casting isn't worth the paper it's printed on when skill focus concentration is out there. Power attack, cleave, TWF, etc etc, etc.... You can pretty much question any feat in the book. Except I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that any of the item creation feats (with maybe the exception of Brew Potion) are not worth taking. Now that doesn't prove, but it certainly suggests that people think these feats are either slightly or perhaps vastly superior to the other available feats.
Continuing on, I don't think that Paizo's remvoval of the XP cost from crafting magic items is a big deal. As has been mentioned it rarely put someone more than a level behind, if ever, and the XP you got for being a level down basically made up for the crafting XP. Paizo's removal of this basically just saves some time and some math. I support the change also because it was often the case that a party member would request an item from the crafters. They were free to accept/deny or ask due compensation of course, but every time they accepted they lost XP for helping a party member.. which just didn't seem right.
Now, it's true that most feats don't scale in the way that the above posters mentioned, but they do scale in a different way, namely that many feats are parts of feat trees. So a 15th level character may well get far more use out of say, combat expertise by picking said feat up at first level than he would if he picked it up at 15th. That would be done by the character with Expertise at level 1 already having Improved Trip and maybe Improved Disarm by level 15, where the character who just grabs Expertise at 15th level doesn't have those options. So yes, feats do kind of "scale".
Still, a wizard can grab pretty much any item he wants by just taking the one craft wonderous item feat. Cause he doesn't much care about potions or weapons/armor. Rings, rods, wands, and staves are all nice, but you can do without them (especially by picking the one you want most as your Bonded Item). That's the edpendeture of only a single feat for a considerable amount of wealth.
Wait, people have said Power Attack wasn't good?
It could be argued Forge Ring is an example of logic failure since you need to be high level to take it, but most of the rings are low level and would have been nice 5-10 levels ago. That's more a case of consistency (where DO all these rings of protection +1 come from) than ineffectiveness, though there aren't that many good rings in core. Outside it you get things like Entropic Deflection and Spell Battle which are the items that sell crafting feats, just like the games that sell systems.
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Still, a wizard can grab pretty much any item he wants by just taking the one craft wonderous item feat. Cause he doesn't much care about potions or weapons/armor. Rings, rods, wands, and staves are all nice, but you can do without them (especially by picking the one you want most as your Bonded Item). That's the edpendeture of only a single feat for a considerable amount of wealth.
Except the other restrictions which is that the wizard must have the spell on his spell list and in his spell book in order to craft the item in question. So that expends more resources to acquire the spell and scribe it (or use up freebies). Not a big deal for some standbys, but does prevent them making anything, anytime.
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Wait, people have said Power Attack wasn't good?
It could be argued Forge Ring is an example of logic failure since you need to be high level to take it, but most of the rings are low level and would have been nice 5-10 levels ago. That's more a case of consistency (where DO all these rings of protection +1 come from) than ineffectiveness, though there aren't that many good rings in core. Outside it you get things like Entropic Deflection and Spell Battle which are the items that sell crafting feats, just like the games that sell systems.
I think part of that is ring of protection getting hit with the nerf bat so it isn't as useful anymore. Most of the other rings are pretty good no matter your level.
Um, what? What's the point of nerfing deflection to AC? What are you talking about?
Not really. In 3.5 you have to memorize general rules, then just remember when they apply. This hasn't changed in any variation of 3.5 thereof. In 4.0 you get a lot of things that are almost the same but not quite.
In other words, in 3.5 if you want to use say... a basilisk you just have to remember how it petrifies using a few keywords, what the DC is, and there you go. In 4.0 you would have to memorize every last word of the basilisk entry to avoid confusing it with say... a gorgon's petrify.
It's simpler to memorize some entries once, and then just remember some keywords thereafter than to have to remember every single word to avoid confusing it with something that is almost the same but isn't and doesn't stand out due to its generic nature.
Lets be honest, if you have the gold to craft magic items, you have the gold to get a scroll of the spell and put it into your book. That's not even close to a restriction. If you have the time to make a magic item, you have the time to spend one day scribing above spell into your book.. if you don't have it already.
Pros/cons of power attack non-withstanding (didn't you see the zillion threads about how power attack was nerfed as so not to be worth it?), that really wasn't the point of the comment at all.
I would definitely reassess the required levels on item creation feats. Forge Ring is only ridiculously high (I assume) because of the Tolkien-esque flavour and Craft Staffs is really high too for some reason. Better still, since wands are staffs are essentially the same item of two different power categories, why not simply make it the same item creation feat?
More radically, why not get rename Forge Ring as Forge Jewellery, reduce its caster level and redefine the feat as imbuing all magical jewellery (removing that function from CWI, which is easily the most useful feat.)
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Not really. In 3.5 you have to memorize general rules, then just remember when they apply. This hasn't changed in any variation of 3.5 thereof. In 4.0 you get a lot of things that are almost the same but not quite.
In other words, in 3.5 if you want to use say... a basilisk you just have to remember how it petrifies using a few keywords, what the DC is, and there you go. In 4.0 you would have to memorize every last word of the basilisk entry to avoid confusing it with say... a gorgon's petrify.
It's simpler to memorize some entries once, and then just remember some keywords thereafter than to have to remember every single word to avoid confusing it with something that is almost the same but isn't and doesn't stand out due to its generic nature.
That's one of the things that is odd about 4th Edition - they call it "exception based design" but really it means "everything acts differently". To me, 3rd Edition is exception based design. You get a set of rules, say: how grapple works, and then a few abilities that change those rules: improved grab, Improved Grapple.
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I would definitely reassess the required levels on item creation feats. Forge Ring is only ridiculously high (I assume) because of the Tolkien-esque flavour and Craft Staffs is really high too for some reason. Better still, since wands are staffs are essentially the same item of two different power categories, why not simply make it the same item creation feat?
More radically, why not get rename Forge Ring as Forge Jewellery, reduce its caster level and redefine the feat as imbuing all magical jewellery (removing that function from CWI, which is easily the most useful feat.)
i really like how Arcane evolved redid the item creation feats, instead of basing them on objects, they base it on effect, so they got a single item use feat, a spell completion feat ect, that makes more sense to me.
4.0 monster generation is so horrible than Pathfinder should only adapt it if they are deliberately trying to kill their own sales via introducing the soul sucking, black hole generating failfest that is 4.0 monsters. Or you can just grab your favorite Final Fantasy game's bestiary and copy paste it in and do about the same thing.
Presumably, that NPC is having to use spells for other stuff. Your example is only valid if your NPCs are humanoid shaped packages of experience that exist for the sole purpose of getting stabbed in the face. Provided that ya know, they have their own motivations and desires and are more than just a video game sprite you are wrong.
3.5 creation is fast once you get the hang of it, and can be easily slipped into gaps so that once you know what way the PCs are going you can write ahead of them and they'll never notice. 4.0 creation? Constantly having to reference exact text so you don't get tripped up by minor changes that snuck in but change the entire meaning of the paragraph means it takes longer, especially since you are trying to shape raw Arbitriarium into something solid.
I encounter the same problem with Pathfinder by the way. Something reads like it does in 3.5, eyes glaze over, then I find out it's actually different and facepalm. 3.5 stuff has distinctness, and thus a lack of confusion going for it.