I know in general this has been covered in a large number of posts, but I am developing some house rules for handling how PCs can make money selling magical items and I was hoping for some feedback on this specific idea.
I am reasonably happy with RAW for selling found items at half price. The Settlement modifiers are fun too for helping to determine price modifiers. However, it seems silly to NOT be able to craft magic items for a profit. The question is, what should that profit be?
If we start with the regular non-magical professions available in the game (like Craft-Alchemy, or Profession-Silversmith), you can "earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work." I would think these checks encompass such activities as finding buyers, or posting flyers or hiring criers to bring in potential buyers, hawking the wares, costs of setting up a shop or booth in the market, relevant taxes, etc.
But what happens if you want to make money selling magical items using the item creation feats? The rules are (intentionally) light on the subject since I think the game designers didn't wish to delve too deeply into magical economic theory. There are definitely several obvious issues to consider:
(1) how much money can people spend?
According to cost of living, unskilled laborers dispense with 36 gold per YEAR for their living expenses, craftsman, warriors, and other skilled laborers dispense with about 120 gold per year, and the wealthy (nobles, landed gentry, etc.) spend around 1200 gold per year. Obviously everyone accumulates a bit of wealth on the side as time goes by for larger purchases (land, horses, cottages, dowries, etc.) but the amount of disposable income for large purchases falls within a reasonable distance around these values.
(2) what is the market like?
Is it already saturated by low-level wizards and clerics making money on the side selling magic items? Or is there a specific lack of such things in one particular area? Would you be treading on some powerful being's toes if you set up shop and started selling crafted magical items?
Obviously market conditions and the wealth of your potential buyers will play a large role in what you can make and sell in any given location. I want house rules that make sense, but aren't so complex that they require a mini "economy" game withing a game to handle...So this brings me to my idea. What if we handle magic item creation (for fun and profit) using the following house rules.
When you craft magic items you have to roll a skill check (usually spellcraft since it will be higher than whatever other relevant skill check like craft-armor) to see if you are successful. What if we take this check and say:
A PC can earn gold per week crafting magic items equal to the result of a relevant magical item craft skill check (probably spellcraft) X the caster level of the item.
That is, if you are creating magical items for sale (instead of for yourself), you simply make your craft skill check multiplied by the caster level of the item in gold per week of dedicated work. No need to pick a specific item to craft, and to find a specific buyer for it. Also note that the relevant check is not divided by two like in using basic profession and craft skills to make money.
Basically this would mean that a first level wizard could make 2x as much as the average tradesman by creating scrolls (since the skill check is not divided by 2) per week. Or a 3rd level cleric could make potions for 6x the amount of money as a tradesman per week (skill check * CL 3 vs. skill check divided by two), or a 5th level wizard could enchant magical weapons and armor for 10x as much income as a tradesman.
What do you guys think of this? Good idea? Bad idea? It is definitely more profitable at lower levels, since income generated this way doesn't scale with the expected value of treasure from fighting more and more powerful foes. However, it's better than regular profession and craft incomes, and I feel like this is reasonable anyway given that the market for your crafted magical items will shrink as the items become more and more expensive, and it will be harder and harder to sell them.
I would continue to allow special cases for crafting a particular powerful item and selling it for a lot of money to a specific buyer in the course of a mini-quest, but this not something a PC could do in their "down time" hanging out in large cities plying their magical crafting trade.
Nobody has an opinion on whether this is balanced? Does it disgust you all so much that you can't bear to finish reading it? Haha. It is a looong post. In summary:
Idea for making money with Craft Magic Item =
(assuming you have the relevant feat)
[craft check per week] X [caster level] = gold earned that week
making this twice as lucrative as a regular craft profession at first level, and scaling it linearly with character level.
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PCs already can make a profit off of crafting magical items by RAW so I don't see the need for what your proposing.
Look at Hedge Magician for example - it decreases the cost of gp to craft an item by 5% - meaning you can make 2.5% profit by selling the item at it's normal 1/2 price
To give a gold idea for that you could craft a 7,000 gold magical item in a week (normally, there are ways to make it faster). 2.5% of 7,000 is 175 - less gold then you proposed, but closer to what the other professions can generate
Well one of my motivations with this was to ensure that it CANNOT be used to generate ridiculous amounts of wealth. I think it stands to reason that adventuring should always make more money than sitting around in the safety of a city making money by crafting things.
To give a gold idea for that you could craft a 7,000 gold magical item in a week (normally, there are ways to make it faster). 2.5% of 7,000 is 175 - less gold then you proposed, but closer to what the other professions can generate
I didn't know about that trait, but actually that's more gold than my proposition. Let's say that a 6th level wizard wants to make +2 longswords. Under RAW (using the Hedge Magician trait) a PC could make more than 175g per week. However, with these rules, the gold per week would be
10 (expected value of d20 roll) + spellcraft (probably something like +9 for a 6th level wizard) X 6. A bit less than 120g on average.
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As a GM, I would not allow them to sell magic items at a profit without giving them a skill tax of Profession (Merchant). Because basically, you shouldn't be able to sell things at higher than 50% retail unless you are a merchant and have any reasonable chance of someone actually paying you that price.
Additionally, if you are going to do this, you should also not make the ingredients to make such items available instantaneously. The rules allow you to do that because they do not want the PCs to be bogged down by the little details and get their stuff. However, if they are going to take advantage and try to make a profit off it, then they should have to spend significant time AWAY from adventuring to do something that takes regular people at LEAST 40 hours a week. In ancient times, people didn't have the 8 hour workday, they usually worked until it was too dark. Just keep that in mind. If you are going to allow them to do what a normal person has to do, AND adventure, I think that is a little over the top. Also, if they shut down business for a day, a week, a month, (for adventuring) it will adversely affect his business.
I don't know. It's up to you, but I would have to really think hard on it if I were running.
Profession (Merchant) isn't required for the non-magical craft and profession skills though. I would be frustrated as a player if it was required just because I'm selling 'enchanted' stuff.
A player with Craft-Alchemy can always make 1/2 their skill check in gold per week (per RAW). Suddenly, if you take a craft potions feat, which I would think would allow you to make even better unctions and oils, and whatever other stuff alchemists sell to the public, you don't get any bonus to the money you can make with Craft-Alchemy, and you basically make nothing by being able to craft magical potions.
It doesn't seem to follow logic. I'm not saying you should start selling potions of cure light wounds. Who would even buy them? For the purposes of game mechanics, there are no "potions of disappearing bruises" or "oils of mud-proofing boots" or "eversharp scythes" or stats for any such mundane stuff. However, I would think that if a PC set up shop in town plying their magical crafts, this is the kind of stuff they would probably be making. I mean really, how many +2 longswords can you sell in a city of 15,000?
I guess I'm just trying to come up with a similar system to the non-magical crafting skills in order to handle the magical ones.
Perhaps I should clarify something, I think this is contributing to the confusion... My proposed system does not require players to make one specific thing and sell that at higher than 50%. It is a mechanism for generating income from magical crafts, but no specific item is actually produced. You still cannot simply make a potion or sword (or find one) and sell it for more than 50%.
I would, quite specifically and intentionally, NOT boil down magic item crafting to a simple formula = money earned. It is not a simplistic trade or craft skill.
If a player wishes to make money making magic items, make them specify what they are making, gather materials, craft the item including time spent, and then find a buyer to sell the item.
As GM if your feeling generous you could have them meet a 'commerce oriented mage' of some kind with a store front who will sell the crafted item on consignment and take a cut for doing so or if you simply wish to give the player money you can always have an NPC approach them and request a specific item the player can craft and commision the work.
In the end though, crafting items are feats and distilling it down to auto cash generationg like the the craft skill is asking for trouble. Also, while I see the logic and world consitancy in crafting for profit it will probably end up unbalancing the wealth by level guidelins the game was written assuming. If your ready to handle that as a GM then by all means go for it but if your not then your setting yourself up for some in game headaches as your PC's get more powerful at earlier levels. After all crafting for profit means your characters get more gold. And what are they going to do with that gold? Get more stuff for themselves of course.
I would, quite specifically and intentionally, NOT boil down magic item crafting to a simple formula = money earned. It is not a simplistic trade or craft skill.
I hear you. I am definitely concerned about balance issues. However, the game lacks a mechanism for creating non-PC-oriented magical items. I feel that creating such items should be possible, even if they are totally useless to a band of adventurers, hence my desire to come up with a mechanism for handling their eventual sale. Heck, it can be a roleplaying tool. Maybe the PCs have to come up with a clever cantrip-level magical contraption that they think they can sell before they are even allowed to roll for gold.
As far as balance. If you take a 6th level character, their expected wealth is ~16000 g. If they spent an entire year crafting items instead of adventuring, they could make around 1440 g. with this. At higher levels, it's even less advantageous (which I feel is ok, really there is a limit to how much money you can make selling things no matter how incredibly amazing they are since people have limited wealth). At lower levels, it's somewhat more advantageous. Do you feel this is unbalancing? I'm still trying to decide myself.
I would just use the Craft or Profession rules from Pathfinder Society for Day Jobs...
A skill that benefits the players shouldn't be more beneficial for making extra cash, ESPECIALLY for magic items...they're MAGICAL...unless you're playing in a game with a frontier mentality like the old west, and plenty of adventurers are ready to head out into the ruins...