...Any suggestions, why this shouldnt be allowed due to some rules?
I can only think of game world problem, that there are not enough people in need of so many sunrods, acid flasks and poisons and a decline in prices would be the effect.
Remember, Alchemy should be able to produce more than just those items. I saw a writeup in Tome of Secrets that included several more mundane (and popularly desired) items - like stimulants, sleep aids, food additives, desalinizer (for long sea voyages), body dye, deodorizer, and perhaps most popular, contraceptive.
Given an expanded range of concoctions, a high level Alchemist should be able to keep a city satisfied. If the city is large enough, demand might still outpace his supply, ensuring the continuity of income. Naturally, a similar character living in a tiny village would be more constrained...
I think at that point the dm needs to take the player aside and explain some very harsh consequences of the law of supply and demand.
A level 18 PC could potentially earn a lot of money?!?
Ye gods!
[monocle shatters on the ground]
I think at that point the dm needs to take the player aside and explain some very harsh consequences of the law of supply and demand.
I disagree with the sentiments of your statement, while not disagreeing with the statement itself. The player should suffer the effects of the laws of supply and demand, but it need not be excessively punitive. How many tanglefoot bags can a village need, anyway? So the alchemist moves to the city, so what? If the character is spending all of their time running a business, they're certainly not out adventuring, so why are they even playing? Where's the fun or XP gain in that?
"I spend another week making 10,600 gold, wheeee!"
"The rest of us go kill the red dragon terrorizing the nation, and take her hoard. Split 3 ways, I guess, if we survive, because Paracelsus over there is busy making tindertwigs. Let's see, that's...a little less than 21,000 per dragon slayer (fast progression, CR18). Woohoo!"
Anyway, FRPG economies are always suspect anyway. Adventurers are essentially insane for doing the things they do, and spending the money they spend. If the player's want to make a reasonable amount of money practicing a skill that, quite literally in many cases, no one else has (an 18th level Alchemist? He IS Paracelsus!). It just doesn't seem like much fun to me. If this is something he (or she) does during down time, figure out how much you'll let them make and give it to them, simple as that. The player should not be punished for, y'know, being a practicing Alchemist and businessperson.
This seems like a non-problem to me, particularly given the abilities and powers of high level characters. This actually seems like a fine retirement plan for a character, to me. Just be a reasonable GM, and make logical decisions about the impact such activity has on your world. Like for starters, where is this Alchemist getting all of the raw materials...how are they storing and transporting such INTERESTING items...where do they store their profits...how does the local ruler feel about these activities, and does this ruler want a piece of the action...etc.
A level 18 PC could potentially earn a lot of money?!?
Ye gods!
[monocle shatters on the ground]
Sir, you dropped your monocle, and I regret to inform you that it has shattered.
Luckily, I can sell you this monocle, treated with STEELHARD brand glass reinforcer, developed by our city's resident genius, Megaparacelsus. The next time you drop your monocle due to unavoidable expressions of shock or surprise, we guarantee it won't shatter, or we'll refund every copper.
Free taco with every purchase.
Good day.
10000 GP per day without risk?
As his total wealth is 580000 GP, thats still a lot.
GM:"Ok, since your last adventures 8 months have passed, when you hear that..."
Alchemist:"K, i have 300000 GP to spend per month. I give every month 100000 GP to our wizard with item creation feats ..."(Wizard starts to look through magic item section to decide, what to create) "and please roll for the first seven months for every major city of the continent for magic items. I pay double price to include paying a wizard for teleporting around to report and to fetch the stuff i want. Of the 1500000 GP i dont spend on magic items i give 300000 to local king, 300000 to local guilds (especially the assasins and trader guilds) and 300000 for other countries rulers and important people. The remaining 600000 GP i change into 200000 GP of gems, to have some small cash ready in case of expenses."I do not think this is balanced perfectly.
It's no worse than what is already possible with spells like Fabricate, Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, etc., and all of those examples are available well before level 18. And, as noted above, from a "realism" standpoint you're bound to saturate the local market before long.
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Any suggestions, why this shouldnt be allowed due to some rules?
Yes.
Instant Alchemy (Ex): At 18th level, an alchemist can create alchemical items with almost supernatural speed. He can create any alchemical item as a full-round action if he succeeds at the Craft (alchemy) check and has the appropriate resources at hand to fund the creation. He can apply poison to a weapon as an immediate action.
Italics mine.
The weekly "make a living" roll isn't, strictly speaking, a check to create an alchemical item, therefore cannot be made using the Instant Alchemy ability.
'Course, even if it didn't specify it can only be used for item creation, I wouldn't allow it through this ability anyway, just because it seems to be breaking the spirit of the rules. IMHO.
I think at that point the dm needs to take the player aside and explain some very harsh consequences of the law of supply and demand.
I disagree with the sentiments of your statement, while not disagreeing with the statement itself. The player should suffer the effects of the laws of supply and demand, but it need not be excessively punitive.
I'm not saying that they should be taken out and SHOT ( i reserve that for people using cascades of leadership to have armies of kobold sorcerers with fabricate mass producing masterwork items) But i think its reasonable to say "alright, look, the entire city has a sunrod in every house and a vial of antitoxin in every pot. People aren't going to buy anything anymore at those prices"
"The rest of us go kill the red dragon terrorizing the nation, and take her hoard. Split 3 ways, I guess, if we survive, because Paracelsus over there is busy making tindertwigs. Let's see, that's...a little less than 21,000 per dragon slayer (fast progression, CR18). Woohoo!"The problem being that unless your sorcerer is going to hit epic level before he needs to shave regularly, there's usually some downtime in between adventures. Monday through Friday the alchemists cranks out gold and when the odd dragon or demonlord pops up THEN he joins the party to kill it and take its gold. Its not an either or situation. He then has an obscene amount of wealth to spend on magic item creation, and wealth is power.
Question
who are you selling all that alchemy to ?
unless you've got a buyer who's going to take it all off your hands then you can make it but it'll take you alot longer to sell it.
remeber the craft to make money per month check also inlcudes the time to find a buyer and sell your wares
the alchemist skill dosen't magically create buyers for you.
If your working out of a small town adventuring then there's no way they could affort 10k per week, to buy your stuff.
Fair enough, BigNorseWolf, if I misrepresented your tone, I apologize. I don't actually see that much disagreement between us, but let me clarify my position.
The sorcerer may well hit epic levels in his early 20s. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (as an example, and please don't weigh in on the non-pertinent merits of the thing) takes characters from 4th to 14th level in a short span of time (relatively speaking). Something smaller (and likely more reasonable) may take a character from 1st to 3rd, or some such. It's inherent to the game (and particularly those games that use the fast progression) that the characters will gain amazing amounts of skill in ridiculously short amounts of time. It is inherently unrealistic, and most of us realize that. Thus, we introduce downtime.
Downtime being what is is, and the game being what it is, players (NOT characters) are going to try to wring out as much from it as possible. Thus, the crafting rules are set up in such a way that adventuring is more profitable (and far more dangerous. Seriously, even in an economy of the type present in Pathfinder, retiring at 3rd level with 3000 gold is plenty rich, given the prices for goods in the game. Adventurers are suicidal lunatics!). So, downtime passes, everyone gets some money, cultists show up, life goes on.
Except, now we have high level characters (18th level being a demigod for all practical purposes, assuming a normal population distribution). Here's a guy who can incinerate platoons where they stand. He can, without trying, outfight the 5th level fighter who is Captain of the Guard. He's able to hit a mosquito at 50 feet with a thrown rock, using only the naked eye. He's mastered the building blocks of the universe, and is on the cusp of being immortal. The average peasant has more hope of besting a rabid tiger in combat that of even hurting this guy. Should he have an obscene amount of wealth? Oh yeah. And the fact that he chooses legal means to do it comes as a huge relief to the rest of the nation (the nation whose economy relies heavily on him). He's EARNED his money and power.
Now, then, what about game balance? Well, yeah, okay, this guy's money destroys game balance, from a purely theoretical point of view. But this theoretical person's life has to deal with the most powerful force in the universe, the GM. His money's tied up in powerful items, land, and investments. He can't get enough raw materials to flood the market with his wares. The market is flooded so now his wares sell for less, or not at all. Taxes. The king would like him to donate some items for the common good. Competitors conspire against him. Thieves. Social life. Lazy employees (this guy certainly will have a lot of employees if he wants to expand!). Paying employees.
BUT.... not all at once. The GM should let the player bask in the glory of their newfound ability to generate wealth before dialing it back. Let the player have a small, or even a large, advantage of wealth, if they've earned it and that's what they want. Even the game world, let alone the real world, is replete with examples of people who have way more money than they should. Why shouldn't the player's character be one of them? Just make sure, as a GM, you're comfortable with it, and make allowances. Denying the player the chance to do what any reasonably intelligent (let alone super genius master alchemist) person would do is just unfair, and arbitrary. Maybe the treasure hauls are a little smaller. Maybe the next menace to the realm is completely unconcerned with the acquisition of wealth, and thus has none. Maybe mutant rust monsters eat all of the characters savings while he's off pillaging the Abyss. As a GM, I feel it behooves me to allow as much reasonable behavior as possible, and to work around the players' antics to provide a challenging game.
Ultimately...have fun playing the way that makes your group happy, even if it disagrees with my opinion, and I wish you the best.
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This is nothing new people... I suggest you take a gander at a little spell called "Fabricate." Available as low as level 9 for wizards and has the potential to create near infinite wealth at less than a minute per cast.
DM fiat has always handled these things just fine in the past, and will continue to do so.
As a GM, I feel it behooves me to allow as much reasonable behavior as possible, and to work around the players' antics to provide a challenging game.
This is a great notion, and the rest of the post is similarly Nifty!.
All of the points brought up as "dealing with the GM" are potential plot points. Assuming that this character exists and has (probably) just helped save everyone's bacon, some downtime is expected. Using the abilities inherent to the character to make money in a fairly safe manner during that downtime seems reasonable to me as well. Once the gm is satisfied that the player has enjoyed himself in constructing this 'get-rich-quick' scenario and how it plays out for a brief time, the character hits up against the ramifications of his abilities, as described. But in a setting like Pathfinder, there are so many more possibilities than the mundane ones presented to act as a limiting factor. Perhaps the ruler of a distant land learns of the alchemical mastery of the character and decides to take action? What if, after using up all the raw materials nearby, the local Druid's circle (10th level tops) petitions the King to curtail your activities as deleterious to Nature and thus in violation of their treaty agreement? Wealth is power, to be sure, but power draws attention and intrigue and complications, all of which are fodder for the start of a new adventure.
Perhaps the question is not to benefit a player, but a GM who wants to have a solid framework in place to explain in game terms why the old geezer in the mansion on the mountain owns half the city and the old mine and the fishing rights in the bay and has columns of smoke coming out of his house at all hours... I know that GMs have the *ability* to handwave such things, but I know that my players are often significantly happier to discover that there is a rationale that was thought up beforehand as opposed to deciding to investigate <random handwaived NPC> and have me scramble for answers.
I know that I'm devolving into an expansion on the excellent post by ElCrabofAnger, so I'll stop. I just wanted to echo those sentiments.
For the purposes of an alchemist's class abilities, are poisons considered alchemical items?
Yes. (SKR 10/12/10)
King's sleep costs 5,000g
10 rounds a minute, 600 rounds an hour, 3,000,000g an hour, 24,000,000g an 8 hour work day.
Everburning torch 110g 528,000g per 8 hours
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I would rule that items crafted by Instant Alchemy are not crafted in saleable condition - they are jury-rigged and improvised. Just because you can craft a vial of acid out of spit and string, that doesn't mean it'll be a popular item at the alchemist's store. Particularly not if the alchemist has a reputation.
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There is aprox 997 ounces of water per cubic foot. Assuming that you have the materials to use (Which is required in any case) you could make 997 * 90 = 89730 ounces of poison. Each potion is only 1 ounce of liquid, poisons use the same vials and can be assumed to be measured in the same quantity. Kings Sleep has a market cost of 5000 sale price 1667 per ounce cost to the crafter. Knowing this, a well stocked 9th level wizard has the capability to make 448,650,000g worth of poison in 54 Seconds... dust off another round to flex at what you just did and you just made 299,100,000g (ish, we are working with .666^ here) profit. After level 9, things get even MORE out of hand, not to mention metamagic feats.
I repeat myself, this is not a new "problem" and by RAW this is how our crafting system works. It is up to each DM to stop obvious munchkinism in its tracks, just as it ALWAYS has been. I swear, ever since the implementation of the skill system with 3.0 everyone seems to have the impression that DM's worldwide have suddenly forgotten how to fiat their way out of a wet paper bag. It was the creator of the game himself who said "These rules are not written in stone."
The rules for earning income using Craft: (whatever) outside of adventuring are clearly spelled out in game. If a DM opts to ignore those rules, then he/she deserves what he/she gets.
The economics of normal adventuring parties aren't THAT bad. I mean, we live in a world where 1% of the population controls 90% of the wealth.
One of these days i'm going to try to see what ravening hoarded of adventurers and a world working on D&D rules would really look like as a setting...
Seriously having 10000 gp or even 20000 gp a day at 17th level is no big deal. Money becomes more and more meaningless after level 10 or so. Most items over 16-17K are unavailable to you in all but the biggest cities unless you are crafting them yourself (and that can take alot of time) and even then there is a limit to whats available. If a character spends more than 30k in a city the sudden inflation is going to put that city into a depression. That's bad for business. I'd be surprised if any merchant would even be willing to allow purchases of over 15k using gold. At that point you would need to trade in valuable metals, rare materials, and other magic items.
I wouldn't allow this ability to be used in conjunction with the "earn a keep" option.
If he wants to use his ability to quickly use alchemy, he'll have to set up shop. Craft items and sell them. Go with the settlement size and the GP limits to figure out a probably demand for alchemical items and let him compete for them.
I wouldn't let him earn 10 grand just like that.
I know economy in PF is weird, but this would break my suspension of disbelief.
Plus, it would make the Philosopher's Stone discovery really useless: The Stone allows you to turn 1000 pounds of lead into gold (which is worth 50000), and you can make one of the stones once per month.
Most items over 16-17K are unavailable to you in all but the biggest cities unless you are crafting them yourself
...or you play your game differently. Plus, nobody said that the alchemist wouldn't set up shop in the biggest city.
I wouldn't allow this ability to be used in conjunction with the "earn a keep" option.
If he wants to use his ability to quickly use alchemy, he'll have to set up shop. Craft items and sell them. Go with the settlement size and the GP limits to figure out a probably demand for alchemical items and let him compete for them.
I wouldn't let him earn 10 grand just like that.
I know economy in PF is weird, but this would break my suspension of disbelief.
Plus, it would make the Philosopher's Stone discovery really useless: The Stone allows you to turn 1000 pounds of lead into gold (which is worth 50000), and you can make one of the stones once per month.
Seriously?!? Why in the hell would you restrict using one crappy ability with another? Do you really think that a keep is any kind of obstacle to their enemies? Really? A keep is something that players feel attached to, adds to the games story, but doesn't increase player power level. You could give the players 3 copies of Castle Greyskull and the Mithril Halls in every friendly nation and it wouldn't even matter. Monsters at 20th level will bust through your walls like the juggernaut, or teleport inside, or use passwall, or gate, or any number of other ways to make its defenses (including its standing armies) a completely moot point. The players end up having to defend their kingdoms themselves, except this time its something they were genuinely invested in and cared about.
And the Philosopher's Stone ability...sigh. SUCKS!!!! 50000 gold once per month means nothing at high level. Once a weak isn't even all that great. Again where the hell are they going to purchase these high powered magical items. How many casters in your world are CL 14+ and are crafting these things. If the answer is in the thousands then you meed to completely rewrite the rules for you worlds economy and realize that you have created a fantasy setting that revolves around super rich tyrannical oligarchies where kings are obsolete and ineffective and the only way to get anything from the men who control over 90% of the world valuable is to submit yourself to their laws, dominating the dirt poor and that the value of gold is even lower than what it should be which actually makes those abilities even crappier.
...or you play your game differently. Plus, nobody said that the alchemist wouldn't set up shop in the biggest city.
Nor did I. In fact that's exactly what I said he would have to do. But your forgetting that there aren't many who can afford what he is selling and even if they could, even if the peasants had a mud farmer uprising and flocked to your shop like a hot dog stand purchasing everything you ever made. Well...congratulations you still have very little purchasing options. Anyone high enough level to be able to craft magical item in excess of 40k has little to no interest in your money. Gold has became just as valuable to them as it is to you. That is to say not very. This isn't my own house rules, its ingrained the the economic system of 3.x and PF. You can only by and sell up to a certain amount based on city size. Why? Because there is probably only 1 20th level npc inside a metropolis and he isn't doing to care at all about your gold. On the other hand wish requires a 25,000 gp diamond. Those aren't just lying around. Get him some of those and he will he will care.
So what it boils down to is that PC's at high level must either craft things themselves which takes time, or figure out creative ways to trade gold for goods that people who already have more gold then they will ever need will care about.
As an aside silver actually has more value than gold at that level since it can be used in crafting and in magic and gold can't.
Seriously?!? Why in the hell would you restrict using one crappy ability with another? Do you really think that a keep is any kind of obstacle to their enemies? Really? A keep is
...something you earn. Other words for it are upkeep or livelyhood. It's the money you need to live, cover your basic expanses.
Not to be confused with a keep as in fortress or stronghold (and not to be confused with to keep as in to retain).
What I was saying is that I wouldn't let the "earn your keep" use of craft, which lets you get half your check result in gold for a week of work be used as a full-round action with the alchemist's expedited alchemy abilities.
To elaborate: The earn a keep option of craft (as well as profession and so on, naturally) simulates working for your money. Either you work for someone else and get a weekly wage, or you work directly for clients and get orders done.
If you work for wages, I just don't see anyone giving you your wage on anything less than a weekly, or maybe daily basis. You won't get paid ten times a minute by anyone. And they won't give you tens of thousands of gil per week, either.
If you work on commission, you need to get a commission. That's not part of that full-round action. It makes sense to do one or even several commissions per week, as this is enough time for people to come to you, tell you what they want, let you do the work, and then come, take their stuff and pay you.
You won't pull that off as a full-round action. And you especially won't pull that off as a full-round action ten times a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 8 hours a day.
Thus, I say (and I think common sense agrees with me), that if you want to earn money with your fast alchemy, you'll have to use craft to create product and then sell it.
Nothing automatic about this at all. I can see earning 10 gp, 20 gp, maybe even 50gp (though that would be a DC 100 craft skill check) a week in a bigger settlement. I can see handwaving that amount of money, as you'll probably find enough clients (or an employer) to let you earn that kind of monay.
But if we're talking about an income of 10000 gil (which would mean selling 200 tanglefoot bags or 333 thunderstones or 500 flasks of alchemist's fire or 1000 flasks of acid, or a combination of items that will amount to that amount - or, actually, more, since I didn't even take raw materials into consideration). I don't think that even in Absalom, there is an automatic market for that many alchemical items (or, if you consider that there are other alchemists, too, an even bigger market).
It's not even an issue of whether earning 10000 gil per day off (though this will break wealth guidelines - and you can't just assume that money becomes trivial at a certain level - especially if you can just sell enough alchemical items automatically to net you 10000 a day. In a world where you can do that, you can probably buy artefacts in twelve-packs). It's about going so far into the unbelievable that immersion is made impossible.
Oh, and about exploiting loopholes in the game. Like the old "buy cheap ladder, reverse-engineer into poles, and sell poles at huge profit. Repeat ad nauseum and become filthy stinking rich and there's nothing the GM can do about it."
Again where the hell are they going to purchase these high powered magical items.
Again: You can't make the assumption that the game world doesn't have shops that sell that sort of thing. Everyone's game world is different.
In some, you can buy that stuff in shops.
Actually, even the core assumptions allow for that stuff to be bought in shops: Bigger cities might only have a more-or-less guaranteed supply of stuff that costs 16000 gill and less, but even they have an additional xdy of bigger items. With a bit of luck, you'll find the stuff lying in a store shelf somewhere. Especially if you're on a higher level, can use divination magic to find out where something is for sale, use teleportation magic to go there, and buy it.
Or you just commission the stuff. If you can easily make 10000 gp a day, you could continuously employ 5 fast-working item crafters. You can afford to pay each one 2000 a day to create items. If they want stuff up front - no problem, either. Just save up a bit first.
Can't find that many crafters? In the whole wide world? Again, with the itemcrafterscout24 spell package? You're bound to find a few. Pay them extra to work for you, and promise them a guaranteed income for some time.
Combine with stuff you buy off the shelf, and maybe stuff you buy off the hands of adventurers who found it and will be overjoyed they can sell it for more than the usual 50% (again, magic will let you find and reach a lot of people).
But that's all beside the point. I don't think it really matters on how well you can spend the dough. Whether you let them get insane amounts of money just like that is worth consideration all by itself.
But your forgetting that there aren't many who can afford what he is selling
My forgetting what?
Anyway, my point precisely is that I am not forgetting. The fact is that I don't think there is an easy market for tens of thousands of gil worth of alchemical material. That's why I'm saying that automatic checks to earn tens of thousands of gil with alchemy don't make sense.
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I'd tell the alchemist player the same thing I tell spellcasters players, the game isn't about trading or crafting, those rules are put there so players can craft stuff for their own use. If the player wants to play with game world economics he can get a new GM or play solo.
Yeah, it's a cop out, but ultimately I don't want to run a game of Megamerchants & Mastercrafters.
...something you earn. Other words for it are upkeep or livelyhood. It's the money you need to live, cover your basic expanses.
Okay then I fail for interpreting that as something other than what it so obviously was. Who knows why I made that assumption. I apologize for that then.
If you work for wages, I just don't see anyone giving you your wage on anything less than a weekly, or maybe daily basis. You won't get paid ten times a minute by anyone. And they won't give you tens of thousands of gil per week, either.If you work on commission, you need to get a commission. That's not part of that full-round action. It makes sense to do one or even several commissions per week, as this is enough time for people to come to you, tell you what they want, let you do the work, and then come, take their stuff and pay you.
Thus, I say (and I think common sense agrees with me), that if you want to earn money with your fast alchemy, you'll have to use craft to create product and then sell it.
That wasn't my argument. I was arguing whether earning that much money a day mattered. It doesn't.
It's not even an issue of whether earning 10000 gil per day off (though this will break wealth guidelines - and you can't just assume that money becomes trivial at a certain level - especially if you can just sell enough alchemical items automatically to net you 10000 a day. In a world where you can do that, you can probably buy artefacts in twelve-packs). It's about going so far into the unbelievable that immersion is made impossible.
I'm not making any assumptions, it is inherent in the system. The higher caster level needed to craft items the less frequent they appear simply because there are less people of that level capable of making them. Those that are high enough level to make 40k+ value items don't need your money as desperately as you think. While they may run businesses and even sell magic items, they very rarely sell items in excess of 15k because NOBODY CAN AFFORD IT! And while I did say money becomes more and more meaningless perhaps I should have said money has less and less of an impact on game play. There are plenty of things players can purchase that have little impact on their power level but that they will care about and be invested in (see: Castle Grayskull). In a world where you can buy artifacts in twelve packs you aren't playing by the rules.
...something you earn. Other words for it are upkeep or livelyhood. It's the money you need to live, cover your basic expanses.Okay then I fail for interpreting that as something other than what it so obviously was. Who knows why I made that assumption. I apologize for that then.
No problem.
I was confused at first - how does the guy go from money to a fortress?? - until I noticed it was about "keep".
These things happen.
That wasn't my argument. I was arguing whether earning that much money a day mattered. It doesn't.
Well, the part about automatic income wasn't necessarily directed at you - it's a response to the original question.
Still, I maintain that the money very much matters.
I'm not making any assumptions, it is inherent in the system. The higher caster level needed to craft items the less frequent they appear simply because there are less people of that level capable of making them.
Less frequent doesn't necessarily mean non-existent...
Plus, all the values about maximum GP value you can buy, number of NPCs of a certain level, and all that, are not really an inherent part of the system. They're just baseline assumptions. A lot of people play something completely different. There are whole campaign worlds that are built on very different assumptions.
Those that are high enough level to make 40k+ value items don't need your money as desperately as you think. While they may run businesses and even sell magic items, they very rarely sell items in excess of 15k because NOBODY CAN AFFORD IT!
Well, your average higher-level alchemist can buy them like candy, at least if said alchemist is easily able to earn 10000 gil a day.
And beyond that, higher-level characters can afford those items. If you go with the assumed character wealth guidelines, a 6th-level character will have stuff worth 16000. Since they usually won't put all their money into one item, let's assume they won't pay more than about 1/3 for a single item (which isn't that unreasonable, for several character concepts), so we wait till level 9, when they have stuff worth 46000.
That's all following baseline assumptions.
Looking further, the difference between recommended character wealth at levels 10 and 11 is 20000 gp. Chances aren't bad that most of that will go towards buying something big, or maybe upgrading something else.
And even if not, on high levels, you'll get over 100000 per level (again, going by assumed values).
There might not be that many high-level adventurers around, but there will be some. And many not-that-high-level adventurers who are still in the market for stuff that costs more than 16000.
Beyond that, nobody says that they need money desperately. They might not need it at all. A lot of them will still want it. I think that for many retired adventurers, going into the magic item creation business is an attractive form of semi-retirement. And there are those who just want to create epic treasures so they're known as the makers of epic treasures.
Beyond all this conjecturing is the simple fact that these items exist. A lot of them will probably start as a bespoke job done for an adventurer (maybe even by himself or a member of his adventuring party). I might even concede that most start that way.
But heroes have the tendency not to live forever. Sometimes they die at the hands of someone who will loot their corpses. And those guys might not have need for the items themselves, but would not mind the money. So they'll sell it.
And while I did say money becomes more and more meaningless perhaps I should have said money has less and less of an impact on game play.
Its impact might lessen, but it won't ever become meaningless. Money (and the items you buy with it) will remain an important factor throughout the first 20 levels (and probably beyond).
Even at the highest levels, magic items will make a difference. Your attribute booster headband/belt might top out at a "mere" 36000 which you will probably able to afford relatively early (many characters will get it at about level 10-12), but that's not the end - you can blow about 140 kgil on either a bunch of wish spells or a book to permanently raise an attribute by 5 in addition to anything else. The most powerful weapons will cost you 200000.
And that stuff can make a difference. Maybe not as big as before, but still significant.
In a world where you can buy artifacts in twelve packs you aren't playing by the rules.
Not really. The rules concerning these things are merely guidelines.
And while the artefact-twelve-pack was hyperbole, there is even "official" precedent of an artefact being sold, as part of one of the adventure paths features several trading guilds (and the like) bidding for a legendary artefact.
But that's really beside the point: The rules offer guidelines for what is available for sale. They're not strict rules. Beyond the fact that there aren't really any strict rules in an RPG, these are especially not set in stone.
And, as I've said before: Even if you follow those guidelines to the letter, the rules still have market prices for powerful items for a reason, same as wealth guidelines. You might not be able to just waltz into Phil's Hardware Store and buy five scrolls of wish for your strength and a +5 keen speed evil outsider bane scimitar for your fighter, it's a fact that those game worlds tend to be quite big.
The "official" game world for Pathfinder (Pathfinder Chronicles) features a planet that is a lot bigger than Earth, as well as a lot of outer planes. With a lot of really big cities (the City of Brass, for example, has a population of 6 million). Add to that higher-level magic that allows you to obtain information by conversing with planar powers that are near enough omniscience for government work, as well as magic that allows you to travel to more or less anywhere in the 'verse in less time than it takes the average person to take a leak, and we have a very workable solution to the problem "where to get my powerful magic stuff from".
Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters will eventually come up with your perfect shopping list complete with contact information with each seller.
But, since you're so keen on these guidelines for things concerning money, here's another:
Wealth guidelines.
A 19th-level character is supposed to have stuff worth 685 kgil, and for a 20th-level hero it's 880 k. That's about 200 kgil difference for going from the penultimate level to the ultimate (at least within core rules).
On average, you'll overcome 13 1/2 of CR 19 to go from 19 to 20 (higher CRs count for more, lower for less, as usual), which means that on average, each of these encounters will let you walk away with a bit less than 15000 gil.
You'll gain these riches by defeating things like shoggoths, really old and powerful dragons, the generals of the outsider armies, and the like.
I just don't think it appropriate that you should be able to earn that by taking one month off from adventuring and just churning out items. Because that's what it means to earn 10000 a day: You will work for a month and get the same as someone who fought for his riches against the worst the world can throw at you - and you can take the weekend off, too.
It would totally change the way a campaign works. The GM would feel the need to constantly pressure the party into action. You can't just, say, fast forward the timeline by a few years or even months, since each month could mean between 200 and 300 kgil more for each character.
Let a year or so pass and the characters will very likely have acquired the very best everything. Even the wizard will have a +10 weapon because he can pay it with his small change.
Actually... No, he can't. And that's one of the most messed-up things here: Only an alchemist could, because only the alchemist could earn half his Craft (Alchemy) check result as a full-round action.
The wizard could keep busy cranking out magic items on commission and earn a whopping 1000 gp (he can create 2000gp worth of stuff per day by working fast, and he'll have to pay half the market price in raw materials) per day. Provided, of course, he gets commissions. The alchemist doesn't need a commission. He'll just roll and magically get money (at least if you follow this to the letter).
Not right, and doesn't make sense - especially if you're concerned about the guidelines.
Paizo can EASILY errata this by adding a sentence that says,"Because of the speed, use of materials, and the alchemist's own magical power used to craft the item so quickly, it deteoriates and becomes useless after XX amount of time."
I hope when the APG Errata is release they do this.
Paizo can EASILY errata this by adding a sentence that says,"Because of the speed, use of materials, and the alchemist's own magical power used to craft the item so quickly, it deteoriates and becomes useless after XX amount of time."
I hope when the APG Errata is release they do this.
Unneeded. Honestly once everyone gets off the "OMG peasants live off of 1 sp a year and players have how much wealth?!?!?!" (which isn't even present in the pathfinder rules) everything will be much better.
Oh I get it "The NPCs only have X wealth by level so the PCs are Uber Rich!"
IN a word... NO.
The NPCS only have x wealth by level... for the purposes of adventuring gear. This is not their complete life savings, this is not all their worldly possessions -- this is what they got for the current task at hand. It doesn't include their home, their servants, their business, their goods, the favors they are owed, or the taxes their kingdom will bring in. The NPC wealth by level is much more akin to their "Disposable income" -- it represents their "play" money.
The NPC wealth by level is much more akin to their "Disposable income" -- it represents their "play" money.
Here's the thing: If you allow alchemists to use this ability to earn over 10000 gold per day, their play money will be a whole lot more than everyone else's.
Well, the part about automatic income wasn't necessarily directed at you - it's a response to the original question.Still, I maintain that the money very much matters.
And I don't. No big deal, it just means we disagree about how the economy of D&D works philosophically. However in the end whether you control availability of magic items or you keep stringent tabs on gold value it ends up achieving the same thing: keeping the players in check. So in an odd way we agree.
Less frequent doesn't necessarily mean non-existent...Plus, all the values about maximum GP value you can buy, number of NPCs of a certain level, and all that, are not really an inherent part of the system. They're just baseline assumptions. A lot of people play something completely different. There are whole campaign worlds that are built on very different assumptions.
True. However if you deviate too far from the guidelines you will need to come to terms with the fact that the entire nature of the economy may need to be altered. As I stated earlier, if you have a world full of high level magical crafters, you may end up with an oligarchy of merchant mages who control the populous through their control of the gold and monopoly on high level magical goods. OR you may end up with an unregulated international crafting guild that is so powerful that it can literally control the fates of nations simply by controlling who it sells to. In this instance all nations will be forced to pay or risk thier kingdom collapsing under the weight of a giant arms race, a balancing act for the global game of jenga. OR you may end up with a world where the greed of these uber-wizards has forced the people to chain bind efreeti's and convert to a wish based economy. OR you may have a world full of genuinely benevolent magical artisans who have coupon days and charitable donations of low powered magical goods essentially reducing the number of poor commoners in your world and creating a middle class who has access to more magical goods than the game normally recommends.
The "official" game world for Pathfinder (Pathfinder Chronicles) features a planet that is a lot bigger than Earth, as well as a lot of outer planes. With a lot of really big cities (the City of Brass, for example, has a population of 6 million). Add to that higher-level magic that allows you to obtain information by conversing with planar powers that are near enough omniscience for government work, as well as magic that allows you to travel to more or less anywhere in the 'verse in less time than it takes the average person to take a leak, and we have a very workable solution to the problem "where to get my powerful magic stuff from".
I believe this actually supports my argument more than it does yours. The City of Brass and other near legendary metropolis' of power are specific locations that the players will need to venture to in order to actually make use of their gold at all. It further drives home the point that high level magical gear is rare and you need to go seek out master magical artisans of great reputation and power. Where better to start your search than such a metropolis? And even then you still won't be able to just walk into the City of Brass and say "I'll take a Ring of Wizardry 3 and a Staff of Abjuration please...". These centers of magical power certainly will have the largest selection of high level goods anywhere in the greater cosmology, but you still need to have most of those items made to order. There is no Staff of Abjuration factory. Crafters who make them in bulk loose LOTS of money.
And so you arrive at the City of Brass and you start your little quest to find that-one-amazing-crafter you heard about with your diplomacy check to gather information, who can make you a Ring of Wizardry 3. You find the artisan and he tells you its going to cost 70,000 gp (that's 1400 lbs or gold, or 140 lbs of patinum, or nearly twice the cost of your very own Halls of Justice) and take him 70 days and that's alot of time. That's a pain and he is already super rich. So instead he tells you to nab him a handful of diamonds worth 1,500 gp, just 3 to 5 will do, for the limited wish spell he needs for the ring and he'll let you pay for the rest in gold.
However even if you hand waved all that and just said "the rules don't say he doesn't want gold so the party can just use gold" you are still left with a tax that often gets ignored. Crafting time. The party may be willing to wait around 70 days getting things crafted. Heck you could just go adventuring while you wait. But the time it takes to craft multiple items starts to add up real quick forcing you to acquire much of your gear adventuring and a limited selection of very handy items can be gotten through gold. Either way though the players shouldn't be able to own a museum full of artifacts back at the Halls of Justice.
On a side note I may be rather biased since I do believe that the entire D&D/PF economy is rather...well...dumb. For example in the 3.5 DMG (pg 101) they value a keep at 150,000 gp. So that means that any of the elemental command rings cost 50,000 gp MORE than owning a keep (seriously its 200,000 gp, that's 4000 lbs of gold for a freakin' ring). This just seems silly to me. A deeper comparison of the value of magical versus mundane ends up showing an economical system that could not work. I realize it is only a game but its hard to maintain my will suspension of disbelief when purchasing a single ring requires that I have two bag of holding type 4's and one bag of holding type 3 completely filled with gold.
What's interesting to me is just how low the population is in galorian compared to the actual world at the same (overall)period of development.
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Assuming the alchemists works 5 mins per hour for paying additionally necessary untrained helpers (mostly for carrying the tons of material and finished products away), needs 5 mins rest per hour, works 50 mins per hour and works 8 hours a day, he has 400 craft alchemy checks for his own income.
Any suggestions, why this shouldnt be allowed due to some rules?
Why would a DM ever allow that?
Of that's fine, the GM/DM should allow it. But while the alchemist is in his "workshop" for 8 days, the rest of the party will be leaving on day 2 to go adventuring. :P
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Sorry, but I really don't see the argument here. Instant Alchemy expressly applies to crafting an item, not to earing a living. The two are entirely seperate checks, and Instant Alchemy clearly calls out one and not the other.
This ability simply can't be used in the way that the OP describes. I don't see any room for argument. Making a living at alchemy doesn't even necessitate crafting items, though I'm sure some actual crafting is assumed. The skill has other uses, however (RAW uses include identifying potions, identifying alchemical items and weapons, and answering questions about alchemy and alchemy-related subjects).
tl;dr: Different check, doesn't apply. Seems clear to me - this doesn't work.
Sorry, but I really don't see the argument here. Instant Alchemy expressly applies to crafting an item, not to earing a living. The two are entirely seperate checks, and Instant Alchemy clearly calls out one and not the other.
This.
The various "schemes" for mega wealth rely on the DM ignoring the perfectly clear rules for generating non-adventuring income.