Okay, with the new, easier magic item creation rules that don't require xp, I am having a recurring problem in my games. Eventually,the wizard's player gets it in his head he can make a mint making magic items. For instance, in the current game, there is a multi-month hiatus in the action, and the current wizard's player apparently plans to make a fortune making and selling magic items during that time.
How do you handle this? I believe his expectations to be a bit unreasonable, but what is reasonable?
Thanks.
I have had this come up in one of my games. The new item creation makes it so that a caster can make ALOT of money crafting. The problem is finding someone with the gold to buy said items or that was my fix. Most people could not afford a 50gp magic item let alone one that costs 5000gp. If your world economy works different then I would replace the xp costs on item creation. That way there is an additional cost of that extra gold. Dont forget thet Pathfinder it is not an automatic success either. I kinda miss XP cost in the game they did add some balance in item creation.
Pfft - my wizard just sells items he makes to party members. They're more than willing to pay ~75% of the base price and I pocket the difference. Of course, the demand is therefore somewhat limited.
Okay, with the new, easier magic item creation rules that don't require xp, I am having a recurring problem in my games. Eventually,the wizard's player gets it in his head he can make a mint making magic items. For instance, in the current game, there is a multi-month hiatus in the action, and the current wizard's player apparently plans to make a fortune making and selling magic items during that time.
How do you handle this? I believe his expectations to be a bit unreasonable, but what is reasonable?
Thanks.
I give my party 2/3rd on there magic items, but they are only allowed to sell Gear they have found, not created. If they want more, you could always rule that they need to Go to a town, Build a shop, pay employee's, pay taxes, etc and then have majority of the items sit there as no one is gonna buy them :P Much like the real towns in the RAW books.
I think this is a door that shouldn't be shut entirely. Wizards burn a lot more money than other classes. Scrolls, spellbooks, crafting, casting all cost money. Compare that to the fighter who finds everything and pays for beer.
I think you have to talk to the player and come up with some sort of odds and a method you can agree on. I'm not sure of the method though.
You can reward a player who pays attention to your setting and says: "such and such" would probably use a ________ I'm going to offer to make it for them. That should fairly make money if such and such can afford it. Failing that the wizard may find they now own a small village or a 1000 sheep or whatever (wealth is not necessarily gold).
I think a system that uses the market size of the city they are in, the character renown\level, and their skill profession merchant, would be in order. It'd be a high priced lottery though that would likely pay off eventually unless they were robbed or convinced to give the item away.
Failing that they could simply sell through a contact which would be easier and relieve them of needing profession merchant.
I'd let him create how many items he wanted. To sell them again he could choose between selling them at half price like every other adventurer or using his profession (merchant) skill and using those rules to figure out how much he makes during the hiatus.
Oh and remember to subtract the weeks he spends crafting from his profession rolls :)
Oh and remember to subtract the weeks he spends crafting from his profession rolls :)
That would penalize them for making the item in the first place. The time making the item certainly contributed to its sale. Profession checks don't represent any appreciable investment, they simply generate profit or not.
If a player scrapes together 5000+ gold to make an item and is gambling on it being sold at a profit the outcome has to be commensurate with the risk or they shouldn't take the risk.
I suppose you could set a sale success DC and give them a percentage of profit for every point they role over that DC.
Oh and remember to subtract the weeks he spends crafting from his profession rolls :)That would penalize them for making the item in the first place. The time making the item certainly contributed to its sale. Profession checks don't represent any appreciable investment, they simply generate profit or not.
If a player scrapes together 5000+ gold to make an item and is gambling on it being sold at a profit the outcome has to be commensurate with the risk or they shouldn't take the risk.
I suppose you could set a sale success DC and give them a percentage of profit for every point they role over that DC.
Which was my point. The game already has a system in place for making money during downtime and I dont see why a character taking magic item creation feats should sidestep those rules.
As for the gambling aspect I don't think it's much of a gamble when you're guaranteed to get the money back if you don't sell.
To be fair though I would probably allow him to spend four hours crafting each day in addition to being a merchant as per the accelerated crafting rules.
I don't like the fact that the current system vastly encourages the PCs to sell everything they ever find if it isn't their #1 most efficient item and then use the proceeds to craft their most efficient items, gaining items of equivalent value from doing this (unless you're crafting things that you don't have the prereq for, let's face it, you never fail those Spellcraft or Craft checks). In 3.5, doing this for all items you ever find would cost vast amounts of XP.
So to the OP, you might consider my house-rule, which fixes that problem and ameliorates your problem as well.
House Rule: Instead of making a Spellcraft or Craft check to craft magic items, you make a caster level check (or level check for the people using Craft) instead. The minimum DC is 6 + your bonus. So item creation fails 25% of the time. Much as Pathfinder converted XP costs of spells into GP, this pretty nicely converts the XP cost from 3.5 into a probabilistic GP tax. It will mean their expected value over a long period of time is to be crafting things for 75% of the base cost, rather than 50%.
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The simplest method is still the fact that rules specifically state that making money by crafting magic items is not allowed.
You can chock up the reason for this by:
fees for licenses, taxes, advertisement, supplies replenishing, rent or purchase / mortgage on acceptable workshops, security to prevent theft, extortion from the rogues guild that "protects" the wizards shop from their own larceny etc.
I did like the Profession idea.
I would incorporate that by indicating that the wizard would be able to use Profession: Merchant to make money above breaking even.
So he makes a 10,000 gp item, he spends 5000 to make it, and he can sell it for 5000 (assuming the other 5000 goes for the aforementioned overhead costs), and then roll a Profession check that for that day/week/month (whatever period of time the skill uses) and whatever the result he pockets that amount (which isn't much).
Under no circumstances should the player be allowed the chance to make magic items and sell them more than 1/2 listed price to make a profit and outgain his companions in the wealth by level arena.
Other characters can use craft or profession skills to make money during those weeks/months, too. But again these amounts equate to pennies.
And fighters definitely have their share of expenses in upgrades to armor/shields/weapons.
Robert
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*edit* Robert beat me to the punch, good ideas above*
Finding a buyer is easier said than done, especially for a guy who does this part-time and may not even have a reputation for excellence in crafting. Not many people fork out tens of thousands of gold to a guy they just met on his word that the product is good.
Making a profit is easier said than done. Taxes, fees, desire for the item, thieves guild protection dues, wizard or merchant guild licensing fees; all go into play and justify that the only wizards who can actually make a living off crafting magic items are those that do it full time.
Don't tell him no, but when the customers don't come flocking to his door, or the city comes to shut him down for selling goods over a certain $$$ without paying for a temporary license, he should get bored of the mundane approach to gaming (or you might actually find a brand new take on your game!)
The simplest method is still the fact that rules specifically state that making money by crafting magic items is not allowed.Robert
I'm curious as to where this is in the rulebook.
And fighters definitely have their share of expenses in upgrades to armor/shields/weapons.
When a fighter pays scroll costs for every swing after 4 I'll agree. When a particular maneuver costs money because it exceeds the 2 he's allowed in his level I'll agree. What is the component cost for a bull rush?
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Instead of offering advice I will simply refer to how we handle this in my group of player. I hope it helps, it has given our players a great opportunity to roleplay in the downtime involved in waiting in towns for the next boat, while traveling through busy cities.
If the player wishes to sell an item, they must have the appropriate Profession of Merchant, Peddler, or the like.
If the player lacks the profession or wishes to opt out of the process they may choose to hire a merchant to sell the Item for them. This being the case the Merchant makes his own separate rolls regarding the sale. A contracted merchant take 15% of the total amount regardless of the total sale price of the Item.
1) Investment: Gold is invested for materials
2) Crafting: Investment of the an amount of time in the proper conditions. If the player is traveling but has the appropriate tools, Double the length of time required or add +5 to the craft/spellcraft DC
2a) Item creation fails, or the item is completed.
3) They must spend an appropriate amount of time in a town/city/village with a GP limit no less 4x the Items market value to sell the item.
The profession check to meet per day to attract a buyer is as follows
Magical Arms and Armor & Rings - DC 30
Staves, Wands, Rods, & Wondrous Items - Dc 25
Scrolls & Potions - Dc 20
-You may roll once for every 4 hours to attract a buyer for each item you wish to sell, with the exception of Scrolls and Potions, instead roll every 2 hours for these. Roll seperatley for each magical item
[Artifacts, Cursed Items, and Intelligent Items add +10 to the DC]
4) Negotiation: You find a prospective buyer!
You are trying to sell the item at market price whereas they are trying to get a good deal on an item obviously. You must roll opposed appraise vs Profession with the would be buyer. For every 2 points of appraise above your Profession Check the would be buyer reduces the price by 10%, otherwise you sell at normal price. You may opt out of this and sell the item at 75% of the market price instead. You may also refuse sale to any customer at any given time.
5) TAXES?! That's right! Any given city worth its weight will have taxes, be it formal, or protection money from the local guards and gangs. For each day of operation you must pay 50s plus 5% of all sales to whatever local authority has set itself up in the area.
My apologies for being slow to get this up as well as my utter lack of formatting, I am yet unknowledgeable as to how to do in text formatting for this forum.
I hope this is of some use!
I'm running a crafting-based character in a game, and my character only creates items for the PCs or significant NPCs. I don't have the down-time to do more than that, and frankly it's not really the point of the game anyway. Crafting for a living might pay dividends if you can find the buyers, but adventuring for money is much more fun!
I'm running a crafting-based character in a game, and my character only creates items for the PCs or significant NPCs. I don't have the down-time to do more than that, and frankly it's not really the point of the game anyway. Crafting for a living might pay dividends if you can find the buyers, but adventuring for money is much more fun!
I think that's the core of it. I've never had a problem helping a player to see that.
At some point your Wizard is going to realize that he can make money using his spells. It might be as straight-forward as using Fabricate to make fine crystal goblets to something as subtle as making buildings with wall of stone and stone shape or moving goods from city to city with teleport or hiring out demons with planar binding.
The only solution I've found is basically telling the PCs that there are mercantile interests that really hate when people horn in on their business, and so if the PCs want to become merchants they should expect to become merchant-adventurers due to all the hijinks these mercantile interests will throw at them. This is feudalism and not capitalism in DnD land, so things run differently.
So they'll be fighting off mercenaries and reputation-ruining plots and the like, but the "treasure" they get will be their profits from their trade.
It's not entirely fair, but it is reasonable enough to discourage and/or balance the practice. Merchant-adventuring is not a terrible way to play DnD, but most players will want the more traditional "save the princess" or "tomb-raider" type of play
I think this is a door that shouldn't be shut entirely. Wizards burn a lot more money than other classes. Scrolls, spellbooks, crafting, casting all cost money. Compare that to the fighter who finds everything and pays for beer.
On the contrary, fighters are notoriously bigger gold devourers then wizards. Wizards need scrolls, spellbooks, and an item that raises their main casting stat. Fighters have three stats to raise and need all kinds of AC advancements on top of improving their armor and their weapons.
Anyways, this is sort of a non-issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but crafting an item makes the item only cost 50% of normal price. Selling it sells for 50% of normal price. That's...not exactly making money.
Yep - one way is to arrange the system thus:
They make item X. There is no local buyer for X, but a merchant offers to purchase it for trade goods on his next trip to Y, as he thinks there might be a market there. He is offering 60% of the market price - and he is the only person offering.
The only way to really make money from crafting is if you take commissions for items. However, this has it's own perils, as the people able to offer to make commissions can be the kind of people you don't want to annoy, even by accident.
Anyways, this is sort of a non-issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but crafting an item makes the item only cost 50% of normal price. Selling it sells for 50% of normal price. That's...not exactly making money.
Why do you say that?
That one little line in the WBL table that says it's assumed that some magic items are sold for half value? Is there some other place that says PCs can only sell magic items for half their base price?
My assumption is that if you walk into town with a Thingamajig of Supermagicliness and you go tack up a flier at the local flea market, then sit around waiting for the first buyer to walk up and offer some gold for your thingamajig, and you're willing to take the first reasonably decent offer you get just so you can get back out adventuring, then yeah, you'll get half of what it's worth.
Or if you go to a pawn broker who deals in buying and selling used magic items, that broker knows he can only sell your thingamajig for x gp, and he may have to sit around with it collecting dust in his shoppe for months or years before he makes that sale, so yeah, he'll only offer you x/2 gp to take it off your hands (heck, that's how real-world pawn shops work today, although getting half price in any pawn shop I've ever seen would be a miracle).
Yeah, in those cases, half price is fair.
But what if you catch the enterpreneurial bug and decide to open up your very own Ye Olde Majic Shoppe and sell your thingamajig. You sit around for months or years waiting to make that sale, just like the pawn broker would. But, when you do make that sale, no law of the universe comes crashing down on your head saying "No, you're a PC, you automatically can only sell it for 1/2 the price that the pawn-broker could sell it!"
Of course, if the pawn broker could wait for a buyer to pay x gp for that thingamajig, then so can you. And if it's the only Thingamajig of Supermagicliness for sale in your thorpe, then whatever customer would eventually wander into that pawn shoppe and pay full price will, instead, wander into your Ye Olde Majic Shoppe and pay you full price instead.
Is this as cool as adventuring? Not really. Is it as fun as adventuring? I think most D&D/Pathfinder players would say no. Is it possible? I say yes it is, and more power to you if you really want to do it.
As for me, I have players join guilds (or at least I give them the option if they're interested). There are entrance fees, and annual dues. But among the many benefits of membership is the fact that most guilds run their own merchantile operations. They hire merchants and bodyguards and set up real shoppes in real thorps all over the world. And they'll buy your thingamajig for more than half price, maybe even as much as 3/4 price if they think it will sell fast enough.
Piece of f@cking sh1t website, I had a nice well typed 7 peragrpah response that offered tons of helpful advice when I hit "preveiw" and got logged out.
So instead of typing all that again I'll just say two words;
Wizards Guild
Dirty Rat: if you use Firefox, check out Lazarus - can recover that easily - works fantastic, very unobtrusive.
House Rule: Instead of making a Spellcraft or Craft check to craft magic items, you make a caster level check (or level check for the people using Craft) instead. The minimum DC is 6 + your bonus. So item creation fails 25% of the time. Much as Pathfinder converted XP costs of spells into GP, this pretty nicely converts the XP cost from 3.5 into a probabilistic GP tax. It will mean their expected value over a long period of time is to be crafting things for 75% of the base cost, rather than 50%.
Just FYI, that ends up as crafting for 66.7% of base cost.
Dirty Rat: if you use Firefox, check out Lazarus - can recover that easily - works fantastic, very unobtrusive.
Very handy.
And for everyone else, it's a good idea to get into the CTRL+A, CTRL+C habit before previewing or posting on any website. It's how I've managed to stay sane posting all the long-winded stuff I post here on this forum.
Dirty Rat: if you use Firefox, check out Lazarus - can recover that easily - works fantastic, very unobtrusive.
House Rule: Instead of making a Spellcraft or Craft check to craft magic items, you make a caster level check (or level check for the people using Craft) instead. The minimum DC is 6 + your bonus. So item creation fails 25% of the time. Much as Pathfinder converted XP costs of spells into GP, this pretty nicely converts the XP cost from 3.5 into a probabilistic GP tax. It will mean their expected value over a long period of time is to be crafting things for 75% of the base cost, rather than 50%.Just FYI, that ends up as crafting for 66.7% of base cost.
Hmm? I don't believe so, but I'm known around my parts forbeing bad at math (people around my parts are pretty good at math though, so take that with a grain of salt). I'm 95% sure that I'm right this time, however. Let's look at the math.
Buying the Item: Cost is 100%. If you can craft it for cheaper, we'll say you're making that much money (because I hate negative numbers, so I'm inverting the sign here and calling it a 'gain' instead of a discount--the math is equivalent).
So in the current system, you gain +50% of the item's market price every time you make an item (compared to buying it).
With my house rule, here's the expected value:
75% chance of gaining 50% of the market price (compared to just buying it).
25% chance of losing 50% of the market price (the cost of materials that just blew up).
.75*.5 - .25*.5 = .5*.5 = .25
So your expected gain is 25%, and it thus costs 75% expected value to make an item.
For those that are questioning where it says in the rules that characters can only sell crafted items for half price:
PRD, under 'Wealth and Money > Selling Treasure'[/url]]In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price, including weapons, armor, gear, and magic items. This also includes character-created items.
This because player characters are not merchants, traders and wholesalers. Those that are want their own mark-up on the goods. If you make 10% of the item cost in profit, you are doing well.
So say you set up your own 'magic-shop':
First off, what's the gp limit for the settlement you set it up in? That's the most expensive item you can stock.
Now, how often are you likely to make a sale? Well you are selling to the very top end of society, the only people who can afford your goods. If you make a sale a month, without an adventuring party happening by, you will be doing well. You can try establishing contacts and creating a reputation by gaining commissions for items, but that will take time - a lot of time. You certainly won't be able to just crank out items and automatically sell them.
Now, what are your security measures? You likely stock the most expensive and portable items in the city, so you will be target #1 for the theives guild. You will need to spend a lot on security, one way or another.
Don't forget your living costs, rent and taxes on the premises etc. Remember you are selling to the top tier of society (the rich ones) so you must have an appropriate premises, that means it will cost. Taxes will likewise be high (although the local authorities will likely accept payment in items). Oh, and you will want staff too, as you will be crafting, leaving someone to mind the shop.
In other words, if you want to make money on crafting items, you certainly won't take home as much as you might think. Even in a reasonably large town or small city I doubt you'd make even 200-300 gp a month in profit. It's a nice living, but not a patch on adventuring.
Basically, you have two options. 1. Tell your player that supply and demand works in your world and that, with a lot of effort and dealing with competition, he can sell his work at a profit. 2. Tell your player that there is no supply and demand in the Paizo system, essentially because it's too complicated. In short, it depends on how immersive your world is.
I personally see no problem with the Player selling items for full market cost, but I do point out I will NOT allow all the gold costs to be put back into the characters and they had better not expect to spend more than 20% of the game crafting/selling or else their character will become a NPC. They've sunk the gold and time into crafting, they can get the rewards. The other players, however, could get a littled PO'ed, and that is nominally enough for most people to limit their merchandise to cheap things like wands, +1 Weapons and Armor and minor Wondrous Items.
Nice little cash-cow, and can help fund other things, such as exotic party mounts, nigh-on-impregnable Party Fortress, Wizadly inventions (Had a Transmuter who owned a small shop that sold cheap magical items at full cost in a small town, made a good amount of money and he let his apprentice run it as a junior partner. Put the gold towards his experiments and created several different crop, fruit and vegetable hybrids that could exist in some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. By 15th level 'Gerrard's Wondrous Grain' was feeding 1/2 the Orcs and Goblins in the world and the amount of cross-border raiding dropped off significantly because of the now abundant food supply meant the Goblins and Orcs didn't need to raid for food, just religious reasons. And nothing quite like an Orc and an Elf shouting at each other in the street over whose God started the war in the first place to make the players go {O.o} at the lack of hit-point damage going on!) donations to major temples and a number of adventure hooks for the DM to use!
Now, if the PCs are going in to abuse the system and make themselves hundreds of thousands of Gold pieces above their wealth cap, then it's time for the DM/GM to strap on his +5 Boots of Ass-Kicking and throw enough crap at the players to make it an unhappy venture. Merchant Guilds kick up a fuss, the Priestly orders take a dim view on their brothers selling outside of the Temple (and it's coffers) the competing Wizard Towers are more likely to burn a competitor down if not protected by one of the Wizard Towers, who in turn demand first pick of the merchandise and take a tithe on all sales, thieves figure out you've got to be rich and steal everything, a hobo accidentally burns your shop down trying to light a fire to keep warm on a cold night, the magical reagents explode and cover the southern half of the city in contaminants and you have to explain to the rather irate King why a good third of his population is now growing additional limbs and heads, so on and so forth.