I simply dont give out a lot of gold, mostly just items, that way you reach wbl with items ive given you. If you want to cherry pick your items then you take a crafting feat, thats the benefit you get, it is half price so that when you sell your +3 sword for half then you still have enough to craft that +2 flaming weapon you wanted.
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I simply dont give out a lot of gold, mostly just items, that way you reach wbl with items ive given you. If you want to cherry pick your items then you take a crafting feat, thats the benefit you get, it is half price so that when you sell your +3 sword for half then you still have enough to craft that +2 flaming weapon you wanted.
More or less this. The game is built on the assumption that the majority of treasure is items rather than gold. Some of the items aren't useful and get sold and replaced but often the players can take care of 60-80% of their gear needs from found stuff.
Hello there,
since the release of the Corerulebook, item creation costs only 50% of the market price and no xp.
Suppose the fighter "orders" a magic item and the wizard creates it (successfully). How do you split the "generated" financial advantage?
In our current group we have two points of view:
The player who nearly always plays warriors states, that he wants the items for 50%, because item creation is not meant to be a "money-generating-machine" for spellcasters. Also, he says, that his fighter doesn´t take money, when he uses his abilities to defend the spellcaster.
The guy who always plays spellcasters wants 75% of market price. He says that he effectively "looses" a feat when he takes an item creation feat. He could use this extra feat for things like Dodge or Toughness, which would improve his chance of survival in combat. So he wants to use the profit to invest in better magic equipment to compensate for the "lost" feat.
Which one is "right"? What methods do you use to split the item creation-profits?
Thank you for posting your most appreciated opinions! :-)
In general I think this is a player-to-player issue. The wizard can charge whatever he thinks is fair.
Now if the wizard is tying to walk into town and use his "useless feat" to generate money, that's a different case. The game treats magic item creation as a no-profit venture. The cost of creating a magic sword is exactly the price you can sell it for to a fence or magic items dealer, for the most part. But how then does a magic item crafter make any money?
How I adjudicate this in my games is with the profession (merchant) skill. If you are going to spend your time crafting items and then meeting contacts and haggle with them over the value of your magic sword, this skill tells you how much you profit you can make doing so. Generally its around a few gold a week, or enough to live comfortably. Certainly WAY less than you make during your average week of adventuring but as an easy way to run a merchant/crafter backstory, keeping things in perspective. It also hand waves all the costs of having an open shop, and running a forge, hiring and paying workers, etc. While the demand for magic stuffs is pretty high, few people can pay the exorbitant costs.
So if your wizard capitalist wants to be an honest broker, have him roll his profession skill, see how much he could be making in the city at a shop, and that's how much extra he should charge his fighter friend. BUT he might want to do it at cost because the fighter can always choose not to stand between the wizard and the next group of ogres they fight. Just sayin' :)
Let the free market decide.
If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.
If he won't pay the price, maybe someone else in the party will get the wizard crafting for them instead, gladly paying 75% of the price of the item they want.
The Wizard has limited time, and therefore has a limited supply, so as long as there is demand for his services at his price, then that's what he should charge.
If the demand dies, then he's going to have to lower his price to generate the demand.
I will say in the situation you describe, I don't know if 75% is the right amount to charge or not, but I know that 50% is not. Certainly the wizard's time and expertise is worth something.
Let the free market decide.
If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.
If he won't pay the price, maybe someone else in the party will get the wizard crafting for them instead, gladly paying 75% of the price of the item they want.
The Wizard has limited time, and therefore has a limited supply, so as long as there is demand for his services at his price, then that's what he should charge.
If the demand dies, then he's going to have to lower his price to generate the demand.
I will say in the situation you describe, I don't know if 75% is the right amount to charge or not, but I know that 50% is not. Certainly the wizard's time and expertise is worth something.
The warrior's protection, the rogue's scouting and trap detection, the cleric's healing, etc...
Seriously, though. If the fighter doesn't like it, he can pick up master craftsman and make his own magic sword or whatever. That is an option, now. The wizards skills aren't quite as esoteric as they use to be (spell casting aside).
I personally think the Fighter is being really stupid. The wizard does not "owe" him anything special because he took an item creation feat, anymore than the warrior owes the wizard for taking Toughness. The wizard is already an asset to the warrior with his magic. You don't hear the warrior complaining that he Rogue needs to pick more pockets and pay him for it so that he'll be the rogue's flanking buddy.
In short, the Fighter could either A) accept that he's still getting the items he wants at a 25% discount no less, or B) suck it up and try to find the items he wants and pay market value, since he didn't spend 2-3 feats so that he could craft his own gear.
The idea that the wizard - or anyone for that matter - owes the Fighter something special for doing his job is like the wizard suggesting that the Fighter owes him something for casting haste on the party, despite the fact both parties are benefiting from this allegiance, and would be worse off alone.
Now if I was the wizard, I'd probably indeed craft him the items are material cost, merely because I see the Fighter as another asset. If the Fighter is better, then our team is better, so I am better, and so forth. However the the Fighter was as belligerent as he sounds, I might be tempted to charge him for it, since I could have made myself or another party member something better.
you have a roleplay opportunity and you want to solve it by metagame thinking?
honestly, the fighter is being an idiot, if the wizards offer to make him stuff like he wants it, that's good, because not everything can be found in shops. Now even giving him a discount that's generous.
on the other hand the wizard isn't much better, the GM doesn't seem to impose strict time limits or thelike, helping the fighter wouldn't hinder him in the least.
What I mean is, it needs more than 1 bad player for such a problem to appear. I would solve it by robbing both characters of all their possessions in the next encounter. Sunder everything the warrior has, break every single wand the wizard has. Make it obvious that this happened because they didn't work together.
Minor problems like this because major because people are bored and have nothing more serious to worry about.
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I suggest you hint to the fighter that if he doesn't want to pay the wizard anything for the creation cost, then he should invest HIS feats in the master craftsman chain.
Even with the wizard charging, the fighter still comes out ahead.
When I played a crafting wizard, I usually split the difference with the other players. 75%. And I generally made their items before I worked on my own personal gear.
If it came down to a marginal difference for a nice upgrade, I'd give them occasional breaks, or let them pay the difference when they got more money. If the group is working together, then it's not an issue. If the fighter complains about ONLY getting a 25% discount, well, he doesn't have to have any discount at all. Maybe he should rethink whether it's worth angering the guy with all the will save abilities.
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I simply dont give out a lot of gold, mostly just items, that way you reach wbl with items ive given you. If you want to cherry pick your items then you take a crafting feat, thats the benefit you get, it is half price so that when you sell your +3 sword for half then you still have enough to craft that +2 flaming weapon you wanted.
Mostly, this. ^
For the matter of Item Creation feats and Wealth by level, if you keep a close eye on the later, it's easy to make sure the wizard cannot suddenly get a huge wealth, by giving less gold and more useful-for-others items to the group. The wizard thus would get enough to craft whatever he wants (which is a huge advantage in itself), but never enough to totally break the normal wealth by level.For your fighter-wizard issue, let the wizard fix the prices and your players arrange themselves. By using the wizard, the fighter is getting a clear advantage for which he pays a bit, this shouldn't be too hard for him if you usually give a bit more to the fighting classes in your treasures. And I found out by experience that with time and adventures, the wizard would probably begin to lower his prices or do it for free if the two characters roleplay correctly and act like friends to each other.
Hell, even Order Of The Stick has the trope of the greedy a$&~*#$ wizard becoming closer and more friendly to his group. If the players aren't immature jerks, this should balance by itself.
One problem with the WBL control is that it doesn't work, at least not without being heavily forced. If you want to try and prevent the crafter from exceeding normal WBL, you really only have a few options and frankly none of them are any good.
Option 1 is to give out less treasure in hopes that it will balance itself out. Since party treasure is traditionally (and logically) split evenly among the participants, this means that the rest of the party ultimately has less treasure. If, for example, you reduced the amount of treasure found by 25%, then you're getting 75% of the total treasure being split 4 ways, which is a net loss to everyone but the crafter.
Option 2 is to strictly control the types of treasure that you award. Essentially, instead of giving monetary rewards, you might be passing out items directly such as +3 swords instead of 30,000 gp, which are hard to split evenly, in the hopes that the non-crafters will take these items that suite them, and the crafter will have less overall. This doesn't work either, because it quickly begins to build bad blood as it appears that the GM is favoring or - more specifically - ignoring one or more of the players. Furthermore, in traditional methods any treasure that cannot be split evenly but no one absolutely needs is usually liquidated and then split evenly to be fair (which again results in overall less treasure as you take a 2,000 gp sword, sell it for 1,000 gp, and split for 250 gp per party member).
Option 3 is to limit downtime or crafting opportunities to disallow the caster to make more than a few (or in worst scenarios no) magic items using their invested feats. This is perhaps the worst of the options because you cannot simply recover from this by throwing more treasure at the party. It also threatens to break verisimilitude in a lot of instances and diminishes roleplaying opportunities due to lack of downtime. It also prevents the option for certain pace styles, such as sandbox style games where the heroes are an active force in their own adventures (since the heroes can decide to take a break from adventuring to craft some goods for themselves). Likewise, it is easier to craft items on the go in Pathfinder, as you can now acquire a few hours worth of work on an item while on the go.
Ultimately, there is no good way for trying to regulate Wealth By Level vs Crafters. Never has, and likely never will, because it's effectively impossible to tell someone that they will spend half as much as others and end up with the same amount of wealth as everyone else, all things being equal.
Then again, an over abundance of wealth is not exactly game breaking. Due to the item availability rules, to get truly powerful magic items with any certainty, you NEED to craft them yourself or acquire them from very powerful NPCs who are likely making them custom. Since things like +X modifiers on weapons and armor are limited by caster level, they are usually capped at how powerful something they can craft is based on their level (in the case of +X weapons and what-not, it's a flat restriction, to my knowledge, and cannot by bypassed by increasing the DC by +5; but I'd need to double check to make sure).
There are already plenty of ways to create infinite wealth by the time you hit about 11th level or so. Paizo tried to put a cork in some of them, but ultimately most of the methods still remain and it's just a fact that when you have near godlike power that money becomes less of an issue. In a 3.5+ game that I ran a while back, the party basically realized they could acquire infinite monetary wealth using their abilities somewhere around level 13. After thinking about it carefully as a GM, I explained that they would need to make their own magic items that were more powerful than X caster level, and they were fine with that. The game actually IMPROVED after they got infinite money because they tended to focus less on their bank accounts and more on their goals and motivations. Gold pieces were no longer horded for that next +1, but instead used to build guilds, schools, a town, and an airship (which half the party worked on building together).
Just food for thought.
Ultimately, there is no good way for trying to regulate Wealth By Level vs Crafters. Never has, and likely never will, because it's effectively impossible to tell someone that they will spend half as much as others and end up with the same amount of wealth as everyone else, all things being equal.Yes it is.... it's extremely possible. I tell people straight out when we're making advanced characters that crafting feats are not allowed to change effective WBL. There... done. I can rationalise it six ways from Sunday but effectively the bucks stops with me as the GM. If other GM's want to rule differently, more power to them it's the way they chose to run things.
By making "advanced characters", do you mean characters at higher than 1st level? If so then, you should know that nothing in my previous post even discusses that because it doesn't matter. If you're making a premade character, the WBL chart indicates what they supposedly have amassed over their levels. There is no allotted crafting time to spend along with your character, just as it is illegal (barring house rules) to use Craft skills to acquire items with your starting wealth.
Your commentary on my post is meaningless, because it does not control wealth by level, ever. Do you have people level up and then immediately have them re-pick all their equipment to match their new level, or do you actually run a game where they can amass treasures as part of the adventure?
Read my post next time.
EDIT: Let me rephrase.
"Ultimately, there is no good way for trying to regulate Wealth By Level vs Crafters. Never has, and likely never will, because it's effectively impossible to tell someone that they will spend half as much as others and end up with the same amount of wealth as everyone else, all things being equal."
When determining your starting wealth for 1< level characters, everyone spends the same amount. There is nothing in the rules that suggests otherwise. It is entirely a house rule if someone gives +50% effective WBL to people who begin higher than 1st level due to crafting feats. But once the game actually begins, and the group actually begins acquiring treasure and wealth on their own, that is what the previous post was discussing (because why would I discuss a non-existent rule for beginning above 1st?). I mean really.
EDIT 2:
Placing treasure for the party is an extremely viable option... after all that's what you do before anyone can qualify for item creation feats. A reasonably mature group will see that eventually everyone will get things they need, some of what they want over time as opposed to trying to satisfy everyone at once. (something even crafters can't do unless you have tons of downtime and cash on hand.)
Except that it breaks verisimilitude. If you are handing out magic items that people want, and effectively giving additional wealth to the party in the form of expensive magic items that for some odd reason the crafter cannot use, you are effectively metagaming while also setting up what looks like favoritism. Likewise, in most mature groups, people tend to split their money evenly. If there are 5 +1 swords and 300 gp, then the party treasure equals (5 * 1000)+ 300 / # of PCs, which results in lower amounts, unless someone is specifically getting shafted by a metagaming GM.
Generally I charge between 55% and 75% for interparty item crafting, depending on how my character feels about the asking party member, how long it takes to makes the item (I'll crank out +1 sword all you want for cheap, but a Robe of the Archmagi, that's going to cost you.), and the nature of the item versus my character's nature. Additionally I include any secondary costs, such as having to scribe a new spell into my book.
For the most part I deal with the matters of price In Character. If the Fighter comes up to my wizard and wants a +2 sword made then I give him an estimite of what it's going to cost him In Character. So unless the Fighter has some ranks in Spellcraft it leaves him little room to haggle or complain, and he can't really compare my prices to other merchants because I'll always be the cheapest and easist.
On the subject of the Item Creation feats and Wealth By Level: If you're not going to let me have the benefits of the feat (spending less money to aquire more magical items) or give me time to use them, than please tell me at the start of the game so I won't take them.
I agree for the most part with Ashiel. While it may not be completely impossible to control Wealth by Level with crafting feats, it's just mean to the players that spend their feats on them.
Of course I'm the kind of Dungeon Master that hands out lots of money but little magic items and encourge my players to take item creation feats so they can custom make their equipment. I also tend to blow past the Wealth by Level and like my players to have nice stuff, not quite Monty Haul but prehaps close.
I don't use wealth per level at all after characters are created. It's not needed. I keep a dynamic eye on how the game is evolving and put in enough treasure to keep the group hungry for more. I will salt treasure with items that the party may need and can't get otherwise, but there's no need to even bother with the WBL table once the campaign is running.
WBL is a tool that's best used for party creation. After that, it should be mostly set aside. A GM should be able to judge if the group is wealth-starved or whether they're blowing things too easy. And then make adjustments either subtly or with a heavy hammer as appropriate.
Then why does item creation matter as far as WBL goes? You're not following the rules/guidelines here, or even bothering with wealth by level as it was written to be used (it's been around since 3E, and refined considerably in PF). So it's apparently a non-issue to you.
Placing Treasure
As PCs gain levels, the amount of treasure they carry and use increases as well. The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game assumes that all PCs of equivalent level have roughly equal amounts of treasure and magic items. Since the primary income for a PC derives from treasure and loot gained from adventuring, it's important to moderate the wealth and hoards you place in your adventures. To aid in placing treasure, the amount of treasure and magic items the PCs receive for their adventures is tied to the Challenge Rating of the encounters they face—the higher an encounter's CR, the more treasure it can award.Table: Character Wealth by Level lists the amount of treasure each PC is expected to have at a specific level. Note that this table assumes a standard fantasy game. Low-fantasy games might award only half this value, while high-fantasy games might double the value. It is assumed that some of this treasure is consumed in the course of an adventure (such as potions and scrolls), and that some of the less useful items are sold for half value so more useful gear can be purchased.
So if you're basically ignoring this, why are you calling out my post that is specifically discussing the WBL issue that occurs during play, only to argue against a straw man (making up non-existent rules about using crafting feats with starting wealth). Seriously dude, what's your beef?
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If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.
Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.
I personally think the Fighter is being really stupid. The wizard does not "owe" him anything special because he took an item creation feat, anymore than the warrior owes the wizard for taking Toughness. The wizard is already an asset to the warrior with his magic. You don't hear the warrior complaining that he Rogue needs to pick more pockets and pay him for it so that he'll be the rogue's flanking buddy.
In short, the Fighter could either A) accept that he's still getting the items he wants at a 25% discount no less, or B) suck it up and try to find the items he wants and pay market value, since he didn't spend 2-3 feats so that he could craft his own gear.
I completely agree here. The wizard is sacrificing a significant investment of his own power for nothing just to make the fighter more bad ass? And then just has the Fighter talk crap for not handing it over for free? I mean really? Have the fighter invest in his own feats (he gets plenty of them anyway!) to make cheaper items and then see for himself if this is really as worthless as what he seems to think of the Wizard's investment.
There is however a better solution for this: Have the Fighter take Leadership. The cohort he acquires is only 2 levels behind him, make the cohort a really hot cleric and load her up on healing domains / specializations, and item creation feats. That way you get the hot girlfriend, cheap gear & all the healing, buffing, and dispelling that you could want while at the same time leaving the party cleric with fewer head aches to fix. It cost you one feat to do it, just like the mage taking item creation.
Finally, a use for Leadership.
Of course I'm the kind of Dungeon Master that hands out lots of money but little magic items and encourge my players to take item creation feats so they can custom make their equipment. I also tend to blow past the Wealth by Level and like my players to have nice stuff, not quite Monty Haul but prehaps close.
My games tend to vary (some times the PCs will be horribly below WBL, sometmes much higher) depending on the circumstances. I do try to keep the average close to their WBL. If they've got a while without a lot of treasure (such as fighting a lot of animals, beasts, zombies, etc) then they'll likely get a big haul a bit later. Likewise, in a recent game the party basically ended up salvaging all they could from a caravan caught in an avalanche, and had to reach civilization and what-not; so they actually ended up with a lot of exceptionally nice gear for their level and a lot of supplies, but had to do without new treasure for several sessions (they were 1st level, and basically got a lot of masterwork items, potions, armor, equipment, blankets, a few pack animals, and a large amount of cash in the form of trade goods and hard coin, but by 5th level were back to about average WBL).
That being said, if players are crafting their own gear and cannot rely on just subtracting X amount from their current gold and adding Y magic item to their inventories (which the core rules suggest magic item shopping is not that convenient for anything but very cheap magic items), it can actually be 100% fine for them to have Monte-Haul like wealth, because they are limited in maximum power by their effective caster levels (meaning they might have a lot of items appropriate for their level, but no items beyond their level). This is especially true if you add a house rule for stat adjustment items to make it more akin to the weapon and armor limitations.
For example, if you set the maximum ability score enhancement you can craft to 1/3 CL you get +1 (3rd), +2 (6th), +3 (9th), +4 (12th), +5 (15th), +6 (18th), and can go into epics using the same formula.
This is also how weapons and armor work. The CL for a magic weapon or armor is X * 3 where X is the enhancement bonus.
If you modify the game to use a similar restriction for all enhancement type items, and require the party to craft their own items of significant power, then you will rarely find issue with them having much money. Also, from a GMing perspective, I kind of like allowing the party members to make their own custom items, which makes it easy for me to drop unusual items into the treasure horde now and then to be conversational pieces ("Hey guys, I found an assassin dagger on this guy" or "This sword casts cure light wounds on anyone it hits? Err, weird. Maybe it would be good against undead or something? Let's hold onto it").
In the game with nigh infinite wealth I mentioned before, the party actually defeated the BBEG using a +1 life-drinker they found as random treasure 3 sessions prior to the final battle of the campaign arch (the warrior's usual weapon was like a +5 holy keen demonbane greatsword or something like that), to which the party was amazingly amused, because they only kept the item because they thought it was kind of interesting.
If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.
"Bodyguard fee"? Let's agree that in this party both the wizard and fighter contribute in combat. With that assumption, where does this take us?
Now we are talking about sabotaging party tactics as retribution for party economics.
I agree though, the fighter could be self destructive (because poor tactical decisions hurt him as well) and take the wizard down with him.
He could be more direct and just attack the wizard too.
I'm assuming a more reasonable approach by all the players. If I have a friend who makes widgets, but I don't think the discount he provides me for widgets is large enough, that doesn't mean if I see a car about to run him over I won't warn him.
Treantmonk to the corpse of his friend: "Guess you should have reconsidered that discount!"
If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee."Bodyguard fee"? Let's agree that in this party both the wizard and fighter contribute in combat. With that assumption, where does this take us?
Now we are talking about sabotaging party tactics as retribution for party economics.
I agree though, the fighter could be self destructive (because poor tactical decisions hurt him as well) and take the wizard down with him.
He could be more direct and just attack the wizard too.
I'm assuming a more reasonable approach by all the players. If I have a friend who makes widgets, but I don't think the discount he provides me for widgets is large enough, that doesn't mean if I see a car about to run him over I won't warn him.
Treantmonk to the corpse of his friend: "Guess you should have reconsidered that discount!"
Hmmm, is the Fighter's alignment Chaotic Stupid Evil? :P
(Yes I know that would be 3 alignments, but we'll assume Stupid is a subtype or something ^-^).
The guy who always plays spellcasters wants 75% of market price. He says that he effectively "looses" a feat when he takes an item creation feat. He could use this extra feat for things like Dodge or Toughness, which would improve his chance of survival in combat. So he wants to use the profit to invest in better magic equipment to compensate for the "lost" feat.
Tell him to be such a selfish crybaby and pull his weight already. If others start using that philosophy on him, he'll be dead within 3 encounters.
I'm not implying that the other party members will try to harm him.
But the party fighters will no longer try to keep enemies off his back so he can cast in peace. Why would they waste feats like trip on the wizard?
And when he gets attacked and maimed, he better has a lot of spare change to pay the cleric for casting healing spells on him - nobody can expect the priest to waste spellslots that could have contained attack spells on the wizard.
Oh, and tell him he doesn't "loose" a feat. "Loose" is the opposite of "tight". He is looking for "lose", the opposite of "gain" or "win" :P
if you let them figure it out in character, I would suggest that you make the fighter make a knowledge arcana check if he knows how much magic item creation costs. Odds are, he doesn't even know that the wizard only needs half the resources.
However as I've mentioned before, if your players are little bit immature, I would not let such fighting go on. It will escalate very very fast. If someone "wins" the other will b!~$@ about in other situations. I would hit them both with the GM-stick, so that they both hate the GM but still are reliable in the party they play in.
Hmmm, is the Fighter's alignment Chaotic Stupid Evil? :P
(Yes I know that would be 3 alignments, but we'll assume Stupid is a subtype or something ^-^).
[stupid] is the subtype (along with [big]) that gets applied for fighters. Seriously. Look it up, it's in the core book. "Fighter [big][stupid]"
Hey Treantmonk, I like this metaphor of yours. Guess I tell it the fighter-player, when he starts complaining again, that he could just leave the caster alone in combat.
Also don't forget to tell the Wizard that he should retaliate by not casting tactical spells that keep the fighter alive.
Maybe tell them to have backup characters ready for the next session. Just sayin'.
OR
The fighter could choose to either pay the Wizard's price, or not.
Yeah, I guess if the Fighter did that, it'd be time to Teleport and leave them their to die without being hasted, enlarged, partially invisible, with summoned support, buffs to their ability scores, saves, attack rolls, skill checks, weapon enhancements, and s forth. Yeah, the Fighter wants to threaten not doing his part because the Wizard doesn't want to spend all his time crafting for him?
When the Fighter started being Spiteful and trying to let the wizard die on purpose, I would first begin shifting his alignment downward (not a problem since he's not a Paladin), and then I'd laugh from behind the screen when the wizard just leaves the unbuffed Fighter to get devoured by some bignasty that had a low will save.
As noted, I personally would likely craft as much as I could for my party members due to my concept of good teamwork. However, I do not think that it is in any way obligatory, nor is it something that the Fighter should act as though he had some sort of sacred right to - ESPECIALLY if the Fighter threatened to "forget to protect him".
Now if the wizard is tying to walk into town and use his "useless feat" to generate money, that's a different case. The game treats magic item creation as a no-profit venture. The cost of creating a magic sword is exactly the price you can sell it for to a fence or magic items dealer, for the most part. But how then does a magic item crafter make any money?
By using business sense. In a market without the internet and/or a huge potential customer base, you can't just make something and expect to sell it right away with a 100% mark-up.
If you want to sell something for a decent price, you need patience and/or a good distributing network. You need to find out who on the continent needs that +3 bastard sword, and then get it to him.
Or, if you are a crafter, you make it known that you can craft stuff and find clients who commission items for you to make.
For me it depends on the character. Usually half price, or half price plus a few hundred gold. Usually never even close to 75%. However, I have a moneygrubbing wizard that worships Abadar right now, That 75% sounds about right for him, but he has yet to take craft arms and armor.
If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.
For a couple of Wizards that I've played: if the Fighter started to walk away from a fight because he wanted to teach the Wizard a lesson for not being his willing craft slave, he would find him-self on the recieving end of a Hold Person spell as the Wizard walked/flew/teleported away.
For a couple of Wizards that I've played: if the Fighter started to walk away from a fight because he wanted to teach the Wizard a lesson for not being his willing craft slave, he would find him-self on the recieving end of a Hold Person spell as the Wizard walked/flew/teleported away.If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.
I don't think this is about "being a craft slave", so much as its about how much the wizard wants to engage in teamwork. Obviously a wizard doesn't get as much out of Craft Arms and Armor as he/she does from Craft Wand. If you want to craft weapons to make your team into a bunch of badasses then you should enjoy doing that. If you don't, then you shouldn't.
I have been playing a crafting PC for a long time. I never charge my fellow players when I make them awesome custom gear. I get great satisfaction watching them use their über gear. That is another part of my wizard-ish character playing rocking the Gandalf (or the Celeborn in this case).
I don't think this is about "being a craft slave", so much as its about how much the wizard wants to engage in teamwork. Obviously a wizard doesn't get as much out of Craft Arms and Armor as he/she does from Craft Wand. If you want to craft weapons to make your team into a bunch of badasses then you should enjoy doing that. If you don't, then you shouldn't.
In 3.5, I charged 75%, it was fine back than due to EXP cost. And there was a fight or two that I was lower level by 1 but since you get more Xp when lower level, so I wasn't lower for very long.
I made a Gish type (bow since I was a Elf) Wu Jen (Twilight Mithral chain Shirt).
The extra money helped me craft myself and party more stuff (I only took craft wonderous).
I don't think that the Wizard is asking for much: the fighter is getting a discount.
For a couple of Wizards that I've played: if the Fighter started to walk away from a fight because he wanted to teach the Wizard a lesson for not being his willing craft slave, he would find him-self on the recieving end of a Hold Person spell as the Wizard walked/flew/teleported away.If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.
Actually, given the fact that the base speed of a fighter in Medium/Heavy Armor is 20, whereas the base speed of the Wizard in robes is 30, I think the "I don't have to be faster than the monster, just faster than you." rule applies.
Also, as others have stated, in Pathfinder, any character, no matter the class can become the item crafter. Fighters have a lot more feats over their career than wizards. Perhaps the paradigm should shift to asking why the fighter is being selfish with his feats by not crafting items for the wizard? After all, the wizard must rest 8 hours/day for his spells, while the fighter just goofs off playing with the fire when he could be doing something productive.
"What? I have to rest or meditate for 8 hours a day just to be able to prepare spells for you. I study spells for hours a day, learning new ones, memorizing stuff out of my book, just so you can have a bigger d**k when we come up against the hill giants. I create a hut for you to sleep in each night. I provide light for you to see by. And you are still expecting me to spend all of the free time that I don't have crafting magical gear for you? For free? You know, Harley's Raiders out of Davidson village has been trying to recruit me to join them. Maybe I'll go see if they are as selfish and ungrateful as you are."
Or perhaps a smart player of a fighter would take the time to role-play development of a friendship, and forming a bond with the wizard in the hopes that the wizard might be generous to his friends?
Also, as others have stated, in Pathfinder, any character, no matter the class can become the item crafter.
Fighters need 2 feats to become an item crafter, and then it sucks. A wizard who takes craft magic arms and armor can make magic longswords, bows, arrows, armor, swords, and shields at level 5. A fighter has to take Master craftsman at 5th, craft arms and armor at 7th... and is then limited to melee weapons (craft weapon) , missle weapons and arrows (craft bowyer), or armor (craft armorsmith) because the master craftsman feat is tied to the skill. He can't even take master craftsman twice to get another ability to make magic items.
For a couple of Wizards that I've played: if the Fighter started to walk away from a fight because he wanted to teach the Wizard a lesson for not being his willing craft slave, he would find him-self on the recieving end of a Hold Person spell as the Wizard walked/flew/teleported away.If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.Actually, given the fact that the base speed of a fighter in Medium/Heavy Armor is 20, whereas the base speed of the Wizard in robes is 30, I think the "I don't have to be faster than the monster, just faster than you." rule applies.
Also, as others have stated, in Pathfinder, any character, no matter the class can become the item crafter. Fighters have a lot more feats over their career than wizards. Perhaps the paradigm should shift to asking why the fighter is being selfish with his feats by not crafting items for the wizard? After all, the wizard must rest 8 hours/day for his spells, while the fighter just goofs off playing with the fire when he could be doing something productive.
"What? I have to rest or meditate for 8 hours a day just to be able to prepare spells for you. I study spells for hours a day, learning new ones, memorizing stuff out of my book, just so you can have a bigger d**k when we come up against the hill giants. I create a hut for you to sleep in each night. I provide light for you to see by. And you are still expecting me to spend all of the free time that I don't have crafting magical gear for you? For free? You know, Harley's Raiders out of Davidson village has been trying to recruit me to join them. Maybe I'll go see if they are as selfish and ungrateful as you...
A third level fighter moves at full speed in medium armor, a seventh level fighter moves at full speed in heavy, just a reminder.
...For a couple of Wizards that I've played: if the Fighter started to walk away from a fight because he wanted to teach the Wizard a lesson for not being his willing craft slave, he would find him-self on the recieving end of a Hold Person spell as the Wizard walked/flew/teleported away.If the Wizard wants 75% of market value, the fighter can either pay, or not pay.Of course, this could have some ramifications on the Wizard as well. Perhaps the next time the party runs up against a construct, the Fighter simply walks away and leaves the Wizard to his fate. Or he could begin to charge the Wizard a bodyguard fee.Actually, given the fact that the base speed of a fighter in Medium/Heavy Armor is 20, whereas the base speed of the Wizard in robes is 30, I think the "I don't have to be faster than the monster, just faster than you." rule applies.
Also, as others have stated, in Pathfinder, any character, no matter the class can become the item crafter. Fighters have a lot more feats over their career than wizards. Perhaps the paradigm should shift to asking why the fighter is being selfish with his feats by not crafting items for the wizard? After all, the wizard must rest 8 hours/day for his spells, while the fighter just goofs off playing with the fire when he could be doing something productive.
"What? I have to rest or meditate for 8 hours a day just to be able to prepare spells for you. I study spells for hours a day, learning new ones, memorizing stuff out of my book, just so you can have a bigger d**k when we come up against the hill giants. I create a hut for you to sleep in each night. I provide light for you to see by. And you are still expecting me to spend all of the free time that I don't have crafting magical gear for you? For free? You know, Harley's Raiders out of Davidson village has been trying to recruit me to join them. Maybe I'll go see if they are as selfish
Ah yes. Nice catch. Thanks
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if the GM strictly enforce WBL at group level (it is practically impossible to enforce it a the player level without removing all decision capability from the players) for a wizard taking Craft Magic Arms and Armor and selling at cost is auto defeating.
The combat guys get to be above WBL, the GM will reduce monetary rewards for all the group and the wizard will be the one ending under WBL.
If the master is not a strict observant of WBL the problem is lessened, but the wizard is still the one that least benefit from the feat.
From Tim Bürgers post it seem that the warrior was asking for cost only items from the start of the campaign
The player who nearly always plays warriors states, that he wants the items for 50%, because item creation is not meant to be a "money-generating-machine" for spellcasters.
He wasn't simply asking for a 50% discount on market price from the use of a feat the spellcaster already had, it was asking the spellcaster to take the Craft Magic Arms and Armor for his benefit.
The "solution" in our group was a rather disappointing one. Both the warrior- and the caster-guy were too stubborn, so the caster took craft wand instead.
so the problem isn't one of magic item creation and wealth, but of a player trying to force how another player should develop his character.
Honestly I think that team player or not that majority of the players would have suggested the warrior to go taking a walk.
If the spellcaster charges, what he thinks is fair, the warrior-guy gets frustrated and says things like "okay, next time in combat I will charge you for protecting you".
In general I think this is a player-to-player issue. The wizard can charge whatever he thinks is fair.
(...)
But how then does a magic item crafter make any money?
To which I'd reply as the Wizards player with "Sure, and the next time you need to get over a canyon or teleport somewhere, you can just walk". Having each other's back in a fight is not the same as taking advantage of the feat and time investment the other players character has to put down for item crafting.
This is one of the reasons I kept xp penalties for crafting permanent magic items (I dumped it for one use items like potions and scrolls). I didn't want my PCs spending all their time crafting and whining about the costs and who charged what...
if the GM strictly enforce WBL at group level (it is practically impossible to enforce it a the player level without removing all decision capability from the players) for a wizard taking Craft Magic Arms and Armor and selling at cost is auto defeating.
The combat guys get to be above WBL, the GM will reduce monetary rewards for all the group and the wizard will be the one ending under WBL.
If the master is not a strict observant of WBL the problem is lessened, but the wizard is still the one that least benefit from the feat.
From Tim Bürgers post it seem that the warrior was asking for cost only items from the start of the campaign
The player who nearly always plays warriors states, that he wants the items for 50%, because item creation is not meant to be a "money-generating-machine" for spellcasters.He wasn't simply asking for a 50% discount on market price from the use of a feat the spellcaster already had, it was asking the spellcaster to take the Craft Magic Arms and Armor for his benefit.
The "solution" in our group was a rather disappointing one. Both the warrior- and the caster-guy were too stubborn, so the caster took craft wand instead.so the problem isn't one of magic item creation and wealth, but of a player trying to force how another player should develop his character.
Honestly I think that team player or not that majority of the players would have suggested the warrior to go taking a walk.
This is really really a critical point.
Situation A)
Party member A takes Item Creation Feat.
Party member A only crafts for himself.
Choice 1) DM continues to put in the same amount of treasure
Party Member A is riding high. He's getting essentially a 2 for 1 share of treasure because he can parlay what he gets into exactly what he wants, without losing 50% on the exchange. (Well, he loses 50% in selling unwanted crap, but gains it back in the 50% discount on gear).
Choice 2) DM starts cutting loot in half.
Party member A is still copacetic. He still gets all the loot he would have had if he had not taken the feat. Plus, he gets to outshine the rest of the group with his nifty cool stuff.
Bottom Line: There is no way for the GM to keep Party Member A from outpacing the party in loot without screwing the rest of the party.
Situation B)
Party member A takes Item Creation Feat.
Party member A crafts for whole party at 75% of retail.
Choice 1) DM continues to put in the same amount of treasure
The whole party is rocking this. Party member A becomes the hero of the party, having spent one of his feats to help the entire group. Even if he charges a fee, the party is still getting more wealth than they otherwise would have gotten.
Choice 2) DM starts cutting loot in half.
The party as a whole suffers. They now get less than they would have gotten had Party member A not taken that feat. They have to go a round-about route to get it now, having to sell their loot, and then wait for Party member A to craft what they would otherwise have just bought. Party member A is the real loser here. He's spent one of his precious feats, and instead of gaining any benefit at all, he's spending every second of his downtime crafting just to keep the party from falling further and further off the curve. He's wondering why in the world he took the feat.
Bottom Line: There is no way for the DM to reduce the amount of loot without punishing the entire party because one player took the feat.
Situation C)
Party member A takes Item Creation Feat.
Party member A crafts for the whole party without charging anything over cost.
Choice 1) DM continues to put in the same amount of treasure
The whole party is rocking this. Party member A becomes the hero of the party, having spent one of his feats to help the entire group.
Choice 2) DM starts cutting loot in half.
The party as a whole doesn't really suffer. They now get the same gear as they would have gotten had Party member A not taken that feat. They have to go a round-about route to get it now, having to sell their loot, and then wait for Party member A to craft what they would otherwise have just bought. Party member A is the real loser here. He's spent one of his precious feats, and instead of gaining any benefit at all, he's spending every second of his downtime crafting just to keep the party where they would have been had he not taken the feat.
Bottom Line: If the DM reduces loot, he is essentially telling Player A "Take this feat, and you will have wasted a slot and have sold yourself into indentured service to your party."
Bottom Bottom Line: If the DM reduces loot, it is to Player A's maximum benefit to refuse to craft anything for anyone but himself. This will force the DM to either go back to standard loot, or punish everyone but Player A for Player A having taken a feat. If the DM keeps loot the same, then Player A wins no matter if he crafts only for himself, or if he crafts for the entire team. In the first instance he gets to outshine the party. In the second, he is a hero to the party even if he's charging 75% of retail.
If the spellcaster charges, what he thinks is fair, the warrior-guy gets frustrated and says things like "okay, next time in combat I will charge you for protecting you".
In general I think this is a player-to-player issue. The wizard can charge whatever he thinks is fair.
(...)
But how then does a magic item crafter make any money?
To which I'd reply as the Wizards player with "Sure, and the next time you need to get over a canyon or teleport somewhere, you can just walk". Having each other's back in a fight is not the same as taking advantage of the feat and time investment the other players character has to put down for item crafting.
Well I guess I was under the mistaken idea that the wizard was taking the feat to craft for his teammates. Not that the fighter was saying "hey you know what would be cool? ..."
Edit - I also assume that WBL means the that each party member totals the "value" of what they have, not what it cost them to get it. Thus getting a magic sword for 50% off doesn't mean that its value is 50% normal.
But then I don't think of WBL as a hard and fast rule either, just a guideline. Its there to help GMs understand what the system expects the player's wealth is going to be like (and gives a nice number for PCs started at higher levels than 1st). If its off by a lot, it might explain problems they or the GM might be having.
Well I guess I was under the mistaken idea that the wizard was taking the feat to craft for his teammates. Not that the fighter was saying "hey you know what would be cool? ..."
The wizard should take a crafting feat to craft for himself, first and foremost. It's his feat. Crafting for his comrades surely can be expected, but that his party members then expect him to do it for free, that is to me beyond what I'd expect from another person. The Wizard is investing his spare time, after all, while the Fighter probably is off playing with his weeny.