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From the impression I got from his posts, was that all campaign have or should have no downtime.hahaha well there's the misunderstanding. I feel like it said a crafter shouldn't expect compensation for crafting over cost because no one else gets the same compensation for their downtime
So others should profit over the wizard?
hahaha well there's the misunderstanding. I feel like it said a crafter shouldn't expect compensation for crafting over cost because no one else gets the same compensation for their downtime
Exactly this.
There is a lot going on, and everyone has their part to play in the process.
See its this whole selective misunderstanding thing that the likes of Fozbek engage in that really annoys me, as all they can do is take something out of context (actually, often out of thin air) and then attempt to make a valiant stand.
Fozek, no it isn't reasonable for you to turn around in the middle of an adventure and demand a solo game specially for you whilst the party has to sit around and watch.
In the very clearly given situation that was thrown up lamenting how the Wizard will miss out on the spotlight (funny how you guys seem so fixated on being the center of attention) the example given was clearly a period of unexpected downtime DURING a session where the party had to wait on a key event.
Now to be frank, that is NOT the time to say "Oh really? Well now we have five minutes, I would like you to provide me with a nice piece of custom content all about me for the next several hours while the party hangs about... no don't go home guys, I need an audience".
Theres downtime and then theres 'downtime'.
A short period mid adventure to get your admin sorted out is not downtime, it is still game time.
If it is a legit break of 'downtime' (ie between sessions) why don't you be more considerate of other people, especially your GM and let him know ahead of time so that if it is something that has to be played out 'solo' he/she can invite you to the next session EARLY to get that dealt with (or even run a separate bunch of solo sessions for everyone).
Imagine turning up to your gaming session to raid the Temple of Doom only to find Fozbek has decided you can all now sit around for hours while he plays woo the maiden.
So selfish.
So inconsiderate of his other players.
So disrespectful of his GM.
("ok guys, brief break while you wait on the caravan". "Cool, I'ma gonna solo the local Orc village, can you guys all go get me my lunch and a Slurpee?")
And if that works for your group then I am 100% ok with that.
Handwaving the time away is sometimes a game necessity, as getting into the adventure might well be the main priority. Conversely if it was 'between sessions' then some people might choose to play that out in some detail for character development.
Either way, the impact on the Craftswizard is pretty negligible, which counters the argument that the Wizard is 'missing out' on all this face time and personal development gaming.
Happy either way, but neither of those ways creates a second class citizen standard for the Craftywiz.
Good gaming :)
See here's the thing that irks me...
THERE IS NO OFFTIME.
You aren't being paid to work in the offtime because there isn't any, especially in any meaningful sense to you the player.
I reject the notion of the wizard losing his 'downtime' because it just isn't happening in any way shape r form, so to say he is being compensated for its loss is farcical.
Bull.
I'm quite confident that I'm not the only person that has seen:
DM: "OK, guys, you've got a couple weeks before the caravan's ready to leave. What do you want to do?"
Bard: "I'm going to try one last time to woo Lady Belle."
Fighter: "I'm going to compete in the arena to see if I can't get some extra spending money."
Cleric: "I'm going to spend my time with the Deacon, researching that tome we found in the ruins of St. Ajora's Cathedral."
Wizard: "I'm going to craft that sword Fighter's been getting onto me about making."Bard, Fighter, and Cleric all get additional character development and spotlight time. Wizard gets no such thing.
That is the fault of the wizard's player and/or the GM. You only get to spend 8 hours crafting. He can spend the other 8 hours researching some ancient elven city(insert other interest as needed), just like the cleric is doing his thing in the above example.
That is the fault of the wizard's player and/or the GM. You only get to spend 8 hours crafting. He can spend the other 8 hours researching some ancient elven city(insert other interest as needed), just like the cleric is doing his thing in the above example.
Indeed.
I'm a bit confused as to why the Crafting is being suggested as taking up ALL the Wizards time, instead of the '8 hours Lab/ 8 on the Slab/8 hours free time' that everyone else gets.
If its just work a day stuff, then the wizard has the same free time anyone else does.
Lets be honest here Shifty if you don't have vast amounts of planned downtime then your wizard probably isn't getting much crafting done at all and in my group we don't end a session with, "You're all in town declare what you're doing for however long you want it to take between now and next session." We usually end at a low point in an adventure but our storyline just restarts at the same point when we come back so crafting really wouldn't happen at all in our group unless the DM essentially just waves his hand and says that we have whatever we were trying to make it only seems to be an issue in the case where the DM is intentionally allowing massive amounts of downtime between every adventure or the entire group is willing to stop and wait for the wizard to spend a week crafting item X.Stuff.
You can actually craft while you are adventuring, but the limit is 2 hours worth of work per day, but you can also craft at double the normal speed if you are willing to accept a +5 increase to the DC of the check needed, and considering how easy it is to make a check to craft an item that +5 is not that hard to ignore.
The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing spells is suitable for making items. Creating an item requires 8 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof), with a minimum of at least 8 hours. Potions and scrolls are an exception to this rule; they can take as little as 2 hours to create (if their base price is 250 gp or less). Scrolls and potions whose base price is more than 250 gp, but less than 1,000 gp, take 8 hours to create, just like any other magic item. The character must spend the gold at the beginning of the construction process. Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day. This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5.The caster can work for up to 8 hours each day. He cannot rush the process by working longer each day, but the days need not be consecutive, and the caster can use the rest of his time as he sees fit. If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours' worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night. If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks. This work is generally done in a controlled environment, where distractions are at a minimum, such as a laboratory or shrine. Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress (just as with the adventuring caster).
There is no reason a GM can not insert downtime. Maybe the last success of the PC's forced the bad guys to halt their plans. The PC's know that, and use that time to gear up, and gather info.
The PC's can also believe that the bad guy is defeated, but they have been offered another contract that starts in X amount of weeks.Later it is realized that the last adventure and the new contract are related.
And if that works for your group then I am 100% ok with that.
Handwaving the time away is sometimes a game necessity, as getting into the adventure might well be the main priority. Conversely if it was 'between sessions' then some people might choose to play that out in some detail for character development.
Either way, the impact on the Craftswizard is pretty negligible, which counters the argument that the Wizard is 'missing out' on all this face time and personal development gaming.
Happy either way, but neither of those ways creates a second class citizen standard for the Craftywiz.
Good gaming :)
Fair enough. I agree that the impact on opportunities to develop isn't that limiting. However, the impact I already pointed out is that without a wealth disparity the feat actually results in a relatively weaker wizard compared to the rest of the party.
Also being a crafting slave (doing all your work at cost) just doesn't seem reasonable from a roleplaying perspective I mean really who does a week worth of 8 hour days making something and then pretty much gives it away? Now if this crafter was a cleric who had sworn vows of poverty to avoid avarice or a Paladin who was all about the greater good then maybe but it doesn't fit my image of the average wizard.
I admit this is largely limited by my vision of the wizard in question but I think (perhaps incorrectly) that it is similar to the general view of the rest of the playerbase.
If one of the party members is better then the party as a whole is better. If making item X means the rogue can disable a trap or the fighter has better armor then that in turn makes adventuring easier, and can save you. If the wizard was not in the same party with these people I would understand, but to limit the effectiveness of those who you are adventuring with is only risking your own life.
Nothing says the wizard does not make items for himself either.Fighter:Can you hook me up with a headband of wisdom.(I forgot the real name).
Wizard:No!!!. Do I look like your personal servant. Cough up the gold or go elsewhere.
Fighter:<sulks and walks away>
Later on.....
Evil baddie:Dominates fighter(just barely fails the save) and orders him to kill the wizard.
Fighter:power attack and crits, killing wizard.
have you ever run into something where you're given money in the middle of an adventure that isn't time sensitive and the group decides that 1 week is perfectly fine to sit down and wait for some stuff to be crafted but don't wanna postpone oog the time to get to the adventure?
do you RP out every day of travel down a safe road? there are reasons to handwave, and there are times when downtime is fun and should be played out
Ummm not really mostly because we tend to be pretty much broke in terms of money most of the time and because the setting limits the availability of magic items and of sufficiently powerful wizards to craft them for us mostly we just get stuff as adventuring loot.
We don't RP travel and I didn't mean to say that handwaving is inherently bad I just think there are things the DM shouldn't handwave. Otherwise you could just have an Elvish party sit down in town and say "We spend the next 50 years crafting, make a bajillion dice rolls and then pick up a bunch of free money whenever they feel like it.
Handwaving downtime does not mean "get all the free time you want", so those elves would still be out of luck, and also out of money if they are not out adventuring.
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You can actually craft while you are adventuring, but the limit is 2 hours worth of work per day, but you can also craft at double the normal speed if you are willing to accept a +5 increase to the DC of the check needed.
Though I'm inclined to think that it DOES work, I see nothing in the text you quoted that necessarily says you can combine working fast and working while adventuring. In fact, the way it is worded makes them out to be two distinctly separate options.
I hope I'm wrong.
If one of the party members is better then the party as a whole is better. If making item X means the rogue can disable a trap or the fighter has better armor then that in turn makes adventuring easier, and can save you. If the wizard was not in the same party with these people I would understand, but to limit the effectiveness of those who you are adventuring with is only risking your own life.
Nothing says the wizard does not make items for himself either.Fighter:Can you hook me up with a headband of...
I think you missed my point Wraith, my idea is that the adventure doesn't become easier because the DM ups the difficulty (because an easy game is boring) thereby making everyone else do average and the wizard do average minus the bonus of a feat.
Besides these adventurers are still people are you telling me nobody ever does anything that poses possible long term risks to themselves in order to make a profit?
It depends on the group. I don't think denying people equipment is one of them. I would never not fix the radio guy's comm equipment in real life as an example just because he could not pay me for it if we were mercenaries. Doing something silly in the heat of combat is more likely.
Seems to me that the only reason there's an argument about this is that people on both sides are presenting their opinions as "this is the correct way and if you do anything different your game is WRONG". On one hand, I don't think it's unrealistic RP for the crafter to ask for payment above cost (but still below market), and in practice when I've played it hasn't the created problem of one character being significantly more powerful than the others. On the other hand, there is merit to the idea that the crafter has a skill which he is expected to contribute even if the benefit disproportionately affects the rest of the party (because they all get the same benefit but only he spent a feat) - after all, I doubt anyone would argue that the wizard deserves compensation for casting haste or bull's strength even though that helps the rest of the party a lot more than it helps him and he was the only one who spent an action and spell slot to do it. The point being that it really comes down to your party's RP dynamic, what sort of loot you tend to receive, and how your players and GM tends to run things, there is no right or wrong way.
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You can actually craft while you are adventuring, but the limit is 2 hours worth of work per day, but you can also craft at double the normal speed if you are willing to accept a +5 increase to the DC of the check needed.Though I'm inclined to think that it DOES work, I see nothing in the text you quoted that necessarily says you can combine working fast and working while adventuring. In fact, the way it is worded makes them out to be two distinctly separate options.
I hope I'm wrong.
I did not see a limiter in there. If there is a limiter it is badly written, and I am more of a stickler for the rules than most people. In short I see nothing saying you can't.
The adventuring while traveling has nothing to prevent the acceleration of crafting/trying to work faster.
You can actually craft while you are adventuring, but the limit is 2 hours worth of work per day, but you can also craft at double the normal speed if you are willing to accept a +5 increase to the DC of the check needed.Though I'm inclined to think that it DOES work, I see nothing in the text you quoted that necessarily says you can combine working fast and working while adventuring. In fact, the way it is worded makes them out to be two distinctly separate options.
I hope I'm wrong.
I did not see a limiter in there. If there is a limiter it is badly written, and I am more of a stickler for the rules than most people. In short I see nothing saying you can't.
The adventuring while traveling has nothing to prevent the acceleration of crafting/trying to work faster.
It says you can add +5 to the DC to do 8 hours of work in 4 hours.
It does NOT say you can add +5 to the DC to do 4 hours of work in 4 hours while adventuring. It does NOT say you can add +5 to the DC to cut crafting times in half.
It's exactly that omission that IS the limiter. As written, there is nothing saying that you can reduce the crafting time in any situation that isn't an otherwise normal "crafting day."
I believe I made a thread some time ago asking if this interpretation was intended. I'll see if I can find and bump it so as to not further derail this thread.
I see no reason why it wouldn't be an option, after all if the entire group agrees to it there seems like nothing preventing it. Also waving a month or waving off 50 years it's all the same if you feel like waving off non adventure activities.
Handwaving downtime does not mean "get all the free time you want", so those elves would still be out of luck, and also out of money if they are not out adventuring.
It it hard to take time off just because you want to when the bad guys are trying to _______. You taking 50 years off when the bad guys only need 1 year to complete their plan could lead to bad results is why I am saying they can't just take as much time as they want.
In our world if the CIA decides to have some downtime it won't stop terrorist from trying to kill us.
You can actually craft while you are adventuring, but the limit is 2 hours worth of work per day, but you can also craft at double the normal speed if you are willing to accept a +5 increase to the DC of the check needed.Though I'm inclined to think that it DOES work, I see nothing in the text you quoted that necessarily says you can combine working fast and working while adventuring. In fact, the way it is worded makes them out to be two distinctly separate options.
I hope I'm wrong.
I did not see a limiter in there. If there is a limiter it is badly written, and I am more of a stickler for the rules than most people. In short I see nothing saying you can't.
The adventuring while traveling has nothing to prevent the acceleration of crafting/trying to work faster.It says you can add +5 to the DC to do eight hours of work in 4 hours.
It does NOT say you can add +5 to the DC to do 4 hours of work in 4 hours while adventuring.
It's the omission that IS the limiter. As written, there is nothing saying that you can reduce the crafting time in any situation that isn't an otherwise normal "crafting day."
I believe I made a thread some time ago asking if this interpretation was intended. I'll see if I can find and bump it so as to not further derail this thread.
Actually it says. "This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5."
I do have to go now though.
I think where Gnomer and Wraith are actually in some agreement is that the tempo of the campaign will indeed determine (to a great degree) the amount of downtime the party will get to enjoy.
I think you'd both also be in agreement that suject to the needs of the campaign and the needs of the players, that downtime COULD be handwaved if there was nothing to contradict that move by either party.
Should either the campaign or the players decide to do something more robust, then that could also be actually played out. Fairly sure neither of you would disagree.
***
Where I believe the wizard should be crafting 'for free' is within their role as a party member helping the party maintain their combat effectiveness.
Whilst the Rogue is off on Recon with the Bard, neither of them are being 'paid' - yet they lose all their free time, similarly the Paladin and the Cleric might be doing the Diplomatic rounds and so on and so forth.
On the other hand if a party member wants something crafted that has little or nothing to do with the 'party business' then thats something he should expect to be paying for, the Wizard isn't there to make stuff for the Thieves Guild the Rogue belongs to, no more than making stuff for the Cleric/Paladins church.
I don't think anyone has put forward that thw Wizard should be prioritising his time behind that of the party members, nor spending 16 hours a day 24/7/365 churning out stuff for the party.
If they have extensive 'free time' then the Wizard might bang out that sword for the Rogue whilst the Rogue is off scouting the nearby townships for plot hooks for the party.
The point is, if no one else is being paid for their work on 'party busines', why is the Wizard?
Where I believe the wizard should be crafting 'for free' is within their role as a party member helping the party maintain their combat effectiveness.Whilst the Rogue is off on Recon with the Bard, neither of them are being 'paid' - yet they lose all their free time, similarly the Paladin and the Cleric might be doing the Diplomatic rounds and so on and so forth.
The point is, if no one else is being paid for their work on 'party busines', why is the Wizard?
This was one of my earlier points - if everyone is contributing to the party's well-being in the 'off-time' (not actively kicking down dungeon doors, so to speak), Mr. Wizard should be making items at cost. It's only when this is NOT happening that the Wizard is getting cheated by doing so.
Sadly, I think this happens more often than you might think. Players often find 'downtime' activities for personal causes - nothing wrong with this. The cleric might seek to establish a shrine to his god. The fighter might be managing a sword-training school between adventures. Both of these have happened in our games.
People might adventure to gain money for a specific purpose (or to find a specific item or person), not just to get better equipment and go on more adventures. And these are good, roleplaying reasons for going off and having adventures - but they will also consume their downtime in a manner that they don't/won't/can't contribute to 'mutually beneficial' activities.
And you know what? When the heroic fighter explains that he needs to save every coin to re-build his home town after the dragon came and leveled the place, the wizard might well craft at cost. Then again, the wizard might think the money is better spent on a dragon-killing device of doom so that this never happens to anybody else, and he needs the extra money for THAT. That's one reason there's no real right answer to this debate, every group and campaign is different. Some groups will all pitch in equally and the crafter will do so at cost without complaint. Some groups will sit around swilling beer or making Profession Checks while the crafter is doing his business. Some will be a mix of the two. Some groups will have the crafter make items at cost for followers of his deity, while all others pay full (heathens!).
Even the argument of "It's always the smart thing to craft at cost for your group, so your buddies are more powerful!" can be wrong. What about in an evil campaign? There's it's a good thing to have your 'allies' weaker than you, in case they decide to betray you (which, they will). They only need to be powerful enough to be useful to you - not as powerful as they could be.
Regardless, all I would expect in any campaign is that my fellow players recognize that the crafter's time (or any character's out-adventure time) is a valuable resource. Not infinitely valuable, of course, but valuable enough to be PAID IN KIND. How this is balanced is up to the group. It could be money, it could be services, it could be friendship - it doesn't matter.
You know after all this i have one last thing to say about this thread then i'm done short of needed explaintion.
Your Mileage May Very
Good Night.
the fighter is setting up a church to his deity in our frontier town, the sorcerer and the cleric are drug addicts and so they engage in some kind of debauchery, and I tend to be off gambling in the local drinking dens where I may pick up some hearsay but mostly just because it's what my character does.
sorry for the diversion, but is that a typo or is the cleric really debauching while the figher sets up a church?!?
i think that you might want to have a word with your god about his recruitment practices...
I removed some posts. If you cannot post civilly, do not post.
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Where I believe the wizard should be crafting 'for free' is within their role as a party member helping the party maintain their combat effectiveness.Whilst the Rogue is off on Recon with the Bard, neither of them are being 'paid' - yet they lose all their free time, similarly the Paladin and the Cleric might be doing the Diplomatic rounds and so on and so forth.
On the other hand if a party member wants something crafted that has little or nothing to do with the 'party business' then thats something he should expect to be paying for, the Wizard isn't there to make stuff for the Thieves Guild the Rogue belongs to, no more than making stuff for the Cleric/Paladins church.
I don't think anyone has put forward that thw Wizard should be prioritising his time behind that of the party members, nor spending 16 hours a day 24/7/365 churning out stuff for the party.
If they have extensive 'free time' then the Wizard might bang out that sword for the Rogue whilst the Rogue is off scouting the nearby townships for plot hooks for the party.
The point is, if no one else is being paid for their work on 'party busines', why is the Wizard?
There are problems with your viewpoint.
First is what you call "party business". Everyone can agree that crafting wands of cure light wounds is party business and should be done free of charge. But crafting a personal item for the rogue is NOT party business. Sure that new sword makes the rogue more effective. But that is the rogue's business not the wizard's. If you are trying to keep the characters balanced against each other, then the wizard should definitely be charging the rogue for that new sword. The crafting feats grant a boost in item wealth at the cost of a feat. It is balanced if you only use it on yourself. You give up combat/casting feats to have better gear. The balance issue comes when you use it for others. They didn't give up any feats, so while you reduced your overall effectiveness in feats to have better effectiveness in gear, they get better effectiveness in gear at no cost at all. Everyone will have similarly boosted gear but the wizard will be the only one out a number of feats. To keep things balanced the others should be paying for their personal gear that the wizard crafts. This will keep the wizards gear better than the rest of the party because he has more money to spend on it. But HE paid the cost for that increase HE should retain it. Balance between PCs is maintained in this way.
The argument that increasing the rogue's effectiveness boosts the party is a trick. Boosting the wizard's effectiveness does the very same thing. So doing things the way I described is just as effective at building party power, but it maintains the balance of power between these two characters. Your method increases the rogues power at the expense of his balance vs the wizard.
mentions evil campaings
That is not a reason why it should not work. Being evil does not mean you have to stab your buddy in the back. The PC's are always going against bad guys that work together and even die for each other. Why can't the PC's do the same?
If you are hanging out with "that type" of evil then you are probably going to die anyway. :)
Where I believe the wizard should be crafting 'for free' is within their role as a party member helping the party maintain their combat effectiveness.Whilst the Rogue is off on Recon with the Bard, neither of them are being 'paid' - yet they lose all their free time, similarly the Paladin and the Cleric might be doing the Diplomatic rounds and so on and so forth.
On the other hand if a party member wants something crafted that has little or nothing to do with the 'party business' then thats something he should expect to be paying for, the Wizard isn't there to make stuff for the Thieves Guild the Rogue belongs to, no more than making stuff for the Cleric/Paladins church.
I don't think anyone has put forward that thw Wizard should be prioritising his time behind that of the party members, nor spending 16 hours a day 24/7/365 churning out stuff for the party.
If they have extensive 'free time' then the Wizard might bang out that sword for the Rogue whilst the Rogue is off scouting the nearby townships for plot hooks for the party.
The point is, if no one else is being paid for their work on 'party busines', why is the Wizard?
There are problems with your viewpoint.
First is what you call "party business". Everyone can agree that crafting wands of cure light wounds is party business and should be done free of charge. But crafting a personal item for the rogue is NOT party business. Sure that new sword makes the rogue more effective. But that is the rogue's business not the wizard's. If you are trying to keep the characters balanced against each other, then the wizard should definitely be charging the rogue for that new sword. The crafting feats grant a boost in item wealth at the cost of a feat. It is balanced if you only use it on yourself. You give up combat/casting feats to have better gear. The balance issue comes when you use it for others. They didn't give up any feats, so while you reduced your overall effectiveness in feats to have better effectiveness...
The rogue is not competing with the wizard, and even if he was the wizard could craft all of the rogue's items, and the rogue is still 20000 leagues behind the wizard. If your argument is based on balancing then the rogue just needs a complete rewrite.