But, please, someone tell me which other feat gives you the equivalent of a possible 225.000 GP increase to WBL over the course of a year?
Well, with the character WBL starting at level 6 you can already own almost all the "really needed" items at the maximum craftable bonus.
So your craft feat gives you potentially +1 Ac and maybe an additional +1 to all saves.
Quite good but not that good.
**Edit**
But there are restrictions, you need to be 3 times the level of the bonus to craft items with bonuses.
But, please, someone tell me which other feat gives you the equivalent of a possible 225.000 GP increase to WBL over the course of a year?Well, with the character WBL starting at level 6 you can already own almost all the "really needed" items at the maximum craftable bonus.
So your craft feat gives you potentially +1 Ac and maybe an additional +1 to all saves.
Quite good but not that good.
What? Really? +6 stat enhancers for mental and physical attributes, a +5 amulet of natural armor and +5 cloak of resistance at level six? Where WBL is 16.000 GP and the crafting cost of those four items would be 36 + 73.500 GP?
**Edit**
But there are restrictions, you need to be 3 times the level of the bonus to craft items with bonuses.
Ah, you are right on that account, at least for the cloak and amulet. So the best you can get by crafting would be a total cost of 42.000 GP. ^^
What? Really? +6 stat enhancers for mental and physical attributes, a +5 amulet of natural armor and +5 cloak of resistance at level six? Where WBL is 16.000 GP and the crafting cost of those four items would be 36 + 73.500 GP?
And just how did you come by the ingredients for all those things? Which usually just happen to be part of WBL, as well?
I didn't say anything about disintegrating the Fighter. You dominate person those. disintegrate is for, gee, low Fort save folks.
And that wind wall is a nice attempt to bring Schroedinger's Wizard to the debate, thanks for not forcing me to do that :)
You're assuming the BBEG wizard wastes his potential starting as early as round 1. It really doesn't matter which SoD spell is used or what target is chosen. You're ignoring the greater point.
Also, you don't think it's a little hypocritical of you to say that your groups do as much prep work as possible when they know they're going up against a caster, and then turn around and accuse me of throwing up "Schroedinger's Wizard" when the party mage knows they'll be dealing with an archer?
Really?
Majority of players? Really? You do have quantifiable data as to how the majority of D&D players hold your views? Please, show us! :)
Hint: ever heard of vocal minorities?
You're right. I can't show you any statistics. Nevermind that we both know it's a safe assumption. There is no "CoDzilla/Batman Wizard term for the fighter types that I know of. If you know of any, please, do share!
You wrote "I don't think I've EVER seen a "your Rogue is fine, the Wizard isn't THAT good!" sort of argument...". I just gave you that argument. The only thing I was doing was showing you that yes, you can see that sort of argument.Because finding an outlier opinion proves a point? No, I think not.
Considering, without a link I'm forced to take your word for it, I still haven't seen one. Your witty retort has failed you.
What? Really? +6 stat enhancers for mental and physical attributes, a +5 amulet of natural armor and +5 cloak of resistance at level six? Where WBL is 16.000 GP and the crafting cost of those four items would be 36 + 73.500 GP?And just how did you come by the ingredients for all those things? Which usually just happen to be part of WBL, as well?
Those are just as non-specific as getting casting components are. Okay, you might make a case that the particular location were you are at will not have a high enough GP limit to actually purchase those components, but that is, once again, a campaign-specific solution, not one which takes care of the root of the problem.
Apart from the fact that you need to be level 15 to craft anything +5...
I adjusted the total down to 42.000 GP ( at level six ^^ ) because of that... it still only applies to the cloak and amulet, attribute enhancers are not bound by that restriction.
Anyway, your assertion that you can get at sixth level everything you need is flat-out wrong and also doesn't take into account that there are other party members. Also that campaigns generally don't start at level six.
Also that campaigns generally don't start at level six.
Yes, but to get this CL of 3 that is a prerequisite of Craft Wondrous Item you need to be Level 5 or 6, so it is a reasonable level to start from.
True enough on that account. But three levels are a lot of time to catch up and the first 6k GP are dismissable, if you play a whole AP.
Agreed, but you enter your level 6 with 11,000Gp, most of that likely tied into items.
Now, unless you start going into the craft+sell buisness that the rules obviously do not support, you can't craft all that much and will never raise your WBL by more than 50% at max which is good for a feat (IF the GM is really so lenient on the time and effort it takes you) but still not broken.
There are selling limits written directly into the rules of Pathfinder.
A small town only has 5k gold at any given time to buy any one item from the players.
A large town only has 10k.
So a PC who wants to get rich off building magic items is going to have to find a city of sufficient size to afford to purchase some of the more expensive things they can make.
There are some magic items so expensive that no settlement exists in the base rules that can afford to buy them.
Not to mention that any DM worth half his salt is going to start making buy prices go down in a city if the PC is flooding their stock.
Living worlds. Each action has a reaction. Oversell something and the economy shifts.
Best fix for magic item creation - don't allow those feats. My campaigns are much happier because of this decision.
How is the 1st level wizard compensated for that choice then?
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Best fix for magic item creation - don't allow those feats. My campaigns are much happier because of this decision.How is the 1st level wizard compensated for that choice then?
Something tells me that Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, and perhaps even Craft Wand aren't considered on the same "par" as the rest of them, and might not be blockaded by this restriction. The vast majority of the complaints I'm seeing in this thread have been focused on either CWI or CMA&A, with a heavy leaning toward the former.
Which creates an interesting dichotomy.
But if you don't do that then yes that is an issue.
So, hey Orthos, at some point you should check your inbox.
(Sorry about the name of the first one. Look, I'm twelve! ... on the inside.)
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Agreed, but you enter your level 6 with 11,000Gp, most of that likely tied into items.
Now, unless you start going into the craft+sell buisness that the rules obviously do not support, you can't craft all that much and will never raise your WBL by more than 50% at max which is good for a feat (IF the GM is really so lenient on the time and effort it takes you) but still not broken.
And we'd all do well to remember that WBL isn't a constraint on the GM. It is a yardstick for the GM to determine an appropriate challenge for characters of that wealth level.
Many people seem to think of WBL as "the rules the GM has to play by, and if you get higher than WBL you'll be unstoppable and the GM will be powerless to hurt you with his weak monsters of CR==APL" . Worse yet, some GMs believe this.
This is like a featherweight boxer wearing lead shoes so that he can go up against heavyweights.
So, hey Orthos, at some point you should check your inbox.
(Sorry about the name of the first one. Look, I'm twelve! ... on the inside.)
S'ok, my players get like that too ;)
I never notice the tiny little number by the envelope when I have mail. I'll get to looking at it sometime later. =)
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Coming in late to this discussion, but...
Now, I will absolutely say that I wish Paizo would fix the handful of archetypes that are very interesting, but realistically completely unplayable as written. Things like White-Haired Witch, Urban Druid (I'm sure I'll probably get blasted for it, but bad archetype is bad.), etc.
My wife's urban druid that just finished CoCT would disagree.
I have taken crafting feats before and my overriding opinion has been "boy I wish I had taken something else instead"
To craft an item you need time and money right? In every AP I have played or run with the exception of Kingmaker you don't get the time to craft items. At all.
To craft a belt of dex +4 or similar whilst on the road will take you 64 days. So to outfit a group of adventurers with belts/headbands of primary stat +4 will take the better part of 8 to 9 months. Hardly earth shattering. On top of that the group will need Cloaks of Resistance, Amulets of Natural Armour, Boots of Speed, Underpants of Power etc. etc.
Even if you give your players loads of downtime you are still going to be looking at over 2 months of uninterrupted crafting. Now I ask you, what adventurer has the time to spend 2 months just crafting items?
Let's take a look at the typical adventure path. The normal time-frame is around one year of in-game time from what I have seen. Some APs have substantially more time ( Kingmaker, Jade Regent ), only one has substantially less ( Carrion Crown ).
Now, let's assume that half of that time is spent on downtime, half on actual adventuring, which seems reasonable as a general assumption (though I am someone will turn up in a few minutes to lecture me on that account how in that campaign of her/his it was totally different and therefore I am wrong forever!).
That means that the player in question can count on about 225 days of crafting in that year. If the character is well-prepared for his task, he should have no problem taking the +5 to the DC for enhanced crafting time, making the theoretical total crafting volume a whopping 450.000 GP, 112.500 GP per character in a four-PC party.
Now, it is quite possible that the group won't even earn the 225.000 GP needed to fully use that possible crafting volume or that the adventuring to downtime ratio is quite different or that the crafting character really likes to party all day,...
By the end of that year, the party is expected to reach level 15 (for most APs, from what I recall) so is that 112,500 gp really so far out of line? No, not really. It's about +50% wealth for a level 15 party. Again, a solid investment, but not broken.
Also, as has been pointed out, if they got this money from selling stuff (I don't know the typical coin/item distribution in APs), it's actually +0% as they lost half from selling and gained it back by crafting. Only if the entire 225,000 gp came from cash and trade goods do they get the full theoretical benefit.
Compare a hoard of 100,000 gp in coin and a hoard of 100,000 gp in magical trinkets. The players could take the coin and craft it into 200,000 gp worth of items (theoretically at least; most players I've know will buy at least a few things). With the items, they'd sell them, getting 50,000 gp cash, which they could craft into 100,000 gp of items.
Real problem: Paladins.
Being evil Troll much nicer without Paladins. Go away, Paladins!
By the end of that year, the party is expected to reach level 15 (for most APs, from what I recall) so is that 112,500 gp really so far out of line? No, not really. It's about +50% wealth for a level 15 party. Again, a solid investment, but not broken.
Yeah, we have different viewpoints what constitutes broken and unbalanced, that's for sure. Increasing WBL by this amount has a dramatic effect upon a characters fighting viability.
Also, as has been pointed out, if they got this money from selling stuff (I don't know the typical coin/item distribution in APs), it's actually +0% as they lost half from selling and gained it back by crafting. Only if the entire 225,000 gp came from cash and trade goods do they get the full theoretical benefit.
Compare a hoard of 100,000 gp in coin and a hoard of 100,000 gp in magical trinkets. The players could take the coin and craft it into 200,000 gp worth of items (theoretically at least; most players I've know will buy at least a few things). With the items, they'd sell them, getting 50,000 gp cash, which they could craft into 100,000 gp of items.
No, an AP module typically has about 120% of WBL in total, and that takes the 50% loss by selling a magic item already into account. So you are wrong in this assumption.
The only sized city with enough gold on hand to buy 100k gp of items would be a metropolis.
25000 people at least.
In a medieval fantasy world, 25000 person cities are not overly common.
Though, technically, a large city (10k to 25k) with a traveling merchant with the right boon (the one that ups a city's marketplace stat by one level) would also do.
Basically, selling magic items are only a problem if your GM is ignoring settlement rules or you're spending a lot of time in metropolises.
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Returning to the original post:
1. Magic. Specifically the spellcasting classes but mostly the Cleric, Druid and Wizard. Higher level games can still be dominated by these classes without much effort. Magic items in Pathfinder are to easy to craft and they effectively double the recommended wealth by level guidelines. Short of a Pathfinder II I don't see any real solution to this. To many core spells in the PFRPG core book are borked and have been since 3.0 in several cases.
Spellcasters dominating high-level gameplay? Of course. What would a dominant high-level non-caster game even look like?
+50% WBL as a flaw is a fundamental misunderstanding of the WBL rules, as I mentioned upthread. In short, WBL can go high or it can go low, it doesn't mean a thing except the GM adjusts the challenge. That is why WBL exists, it is not the GM "moving the goalposts".
2. Offense Vs Defense or rocket tag. Partly related to number 1 but it can be used in regards to the other classes. Kill stuff faster than it can kill you is a very simple and effective defense. Offensive feats are usually better than defensive ones (power attack vs dodge or toughness). Two handed weapons and archery seem plain out better than say sword and board, dual wielding, or dueling (1 weapon) although the other styles can be good they require alot of effort and access to splat books. To some extent this one is easy to fix- make more powerful defensive feats and class options. Spring attack for example is situationally useful- a feat/class ability could be designed that grants you +4 AC if you are fighing a two handed weapon wielder or on that makes the opponent reroll his attack roll (a'la 4th ed Halflings).
A defensive game is also usually less exciting. Many of these statements can be extrapolated to all games. I don't think this particularly needs to be solved, unless I misunderstand the grievance.
3. Class Balance. A thorny one here. IMHO 4th ed went to far in this goal but I would like the gap narrowed but without a drastic increase in power inflation. Druid vs Monk is a no brainer, and see various complaints about the Rogue. Let monks full attack if they move in regards to flurry or power up the 1 attack they do get. New Rogue talents that grant rerolls on saves, skills, attacks etc could also be added even if they are simlar to encounter powers from other d20 systems. I have no objection to things like this as options I just don't want a whole subsystems designed around them (Book of Nine Swords, 4th ed in general). A small subsection is fine like force powers in SWSE.
Adversarial balance analysis is meaningless. Many people agree on the subjective relative power of certain classes (monk, rogue) and even the designers acknowledge this. But I do see people having fun playing these classes, and you will never have an "objective" measure of class balance that proves these need "fixing". All class balance is mob rule — it is broken when most people have a bad experience playing it. That's the only rule.
Not meaning to pick apart the argument, just hoping to put the OP's intentions back at the center of the discussion.
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This assumes that players would ever craft items to sell them to NPCs.Paizo adventure paths generally have 120% WBL treasure for four players in them. This assumes that every magic item is sold for 50% of its market price. Sure, some of the loot will be kept by the players, but since most published adventures contain a lot of loot of dubious utility for specialized characters ( which most PCs will be ), it is not unreasonable to assume that about 75%-85% of WBL can be doubled by item crafters, if no checks and balances ( i.e. time constraints ) are put on them.
I'll post it again: Make item crafting costs 95% of market price and this problem goes away. In return, give players a possibility to craft faster ( either double magic item crafting rates or go with what I use for Jade Regent, another +5 to the Spellcraft DC to quarter creation time ).
But when building a hoard, you're not using the 1/2 price of the items that PCs would get if they sell. Are you trying to say that the APs are generally built well over 120% of WBL? If so, that's hardly an indictment of the magic item creation rules.
If I get a magic item that's worth 40,000 gp and I don't want it, I can sell it for 20,000 gp - thus actually reducing the expected WBL-related calculation the hoard was built with. But if I have access to a magic item crafting feat, I can pretty much convert that back to its 40,000 gp level. The item crafting feats are there to preserve the value of magic items (and other half-value sale items), not enhance them significantly.
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"crafting doubles wealth by level"
Like other people above have said this maybe true in theory but it is nowhere near true in practice.
If you are handing out a good mix of useful magic items (won't be sold), disposable items (used or sold for 50%), magical items that will be sold (50% selling price) and cash than the feat is far less powerful. Also the player will want to purchase things that they can not craft such as mundane items, magic items that they don't have the craft feats for, disposable items, new spells etc. Add this all together and maybe they end up 10-20% above WBL. It's a nice perk but that's not even enough to bump them up a slot on the WBL chart.
Players who focus on crafting also give themselves a huge Achilles heel. Because they spend their feats on items instead of other feats they become dependent on that gear to survive. It's not unreasonable for you as GM to have enemies attack these items. The BBEG fighter may try to sunder that staff that's shooting out fireballs at all his goons. A BBEG spellcaster will cast an anti magic field or disjunction to get rid of the threat. And a BBEG rogue is 100% going to attempt to steal all the shiny objects. This doesn't mean that you should try to punish the character because he took the feat but you shouldn't have your NPCs ignore good tactics either.
Edit: If you still think crafting is too powerful then the simple solution is to up the DC to 10+CL or 5+CL*2. It ups the risk vs reward level of the feat while still allowing players to craft if they want to focus on it.
But when building a hoard, you're not using the 1/2 price of the items that PCs would get if they sell. Are you trying to say that the APs are generally built well over 120% of WBL? If so, that's hardly an indictment of the magic item creation rules.
If I get a magic item that's worth 40,000 gp and I don't want it, I can sell it for 20,000 gp - thus actually reducing the expected WBL-related calculation the hoard was built with. But if I have access to a magic item crafting feat, I can pretty much convert that back to its 40,000 gp level. The item crafting feats are there to preserve the value of magic items (and other half-value sale items), not enhance them significantly.
Okay, to clear this up once and for all: I went through Kingmaker and Carrion Crown with a fine comb and mostly ( last module of Carrion Crown aside and there's some WBL correlation between modules two and three of CC, too. ), the breakdown is that if you sell *everything* you find in the AP module, you will come out with around 120% WBL for a four PC party.
The extra 20% are in there, by the words of James Jacobs, because the designers don't expect a group to find or keep everything in the module. Also, you can expect that the majority of valuable loot will be located around the last encounters of the module, which mostly correlates with periods of downtime between modules.
But, no, I am not disregarding that you sell magical items for 50% of market price, I already included that basic assumptions in my findings.
By the end of that year, the party is expected to reach level 15 (for most APs, from what I recall) so is that 112,500 gp really so far out of line? No, not really. It's about +50% wealth for a level 15 party. Again, a solid investment, but not broken.Yeah, we have different viewpoints what constitutes broken and unbalanced, that's for sure. Increasing WBL by this amount has a dramatic effect upon a characters fighting viability.
Whether 112,500 gp matters much depends on what level the player gets it at. At or above level 15, it's just not a huge increase in power and not really out of line for the price of a feat.
Edit: BTW, you can get an extra ~700 gp at level one for the price of a trait. That's something like 3 or 4 times WBL. I know it doesn't continue to level up, but it's still an interesting comparison.
Also, as has been pointed out, if they got this money from selling stuff (I don't know the typical coin/item distribution in APs), it's actually +0% as they lost half from selling and gained it back by crafting. Only if the entire 225,000 gp came from cash and trade goods do they get the full theoretical benefit.
Compare a hoard of 100,000 gp in coin and a hoard of 100,000 gp in magical trinkets. The players could take the coin and craft it into 200,000 gp worth of items (theoretically at least; most players I've know will buy at least a few things). With the items, they'd sell them, getting 50,000 gp cash, which they could craft into 100,000 gp of items.
No, an AP module typically has about 120% of WBL in total, and that takes the 50% loss by selling a magic item already into account. So you are wrong in this assumption.
You're going to have to provide a citation for this one. The only dev comment I know of actually states that they build APs with about 250% WBL. (I'll try to find a link, but basically they double treasure on the basis that most people won't find everything.) There was no comment on pre-accounting for the 50% sell price, and I haven't read anything that would lead me to believe they did such a thing.
Edit: Ninja'd again. It seems you've already read that quote and come to a completely different conclusion. I'm still pretty sure that there is nowhere where a dev has stated that they make any assumptions about what or how much treasure the PCs will or will not sell.
It's 120% more or less and my citation is myself, since I did the actual legwork of going through Kingmaker and Carrion Crown with a fine comb twice and did the calculations. James also said something to the regard, but I'll be damned if I spend my evening going through a thousand of his posts. The man is quite prolific.
If you don't want to believe me, don't. Or do the calculus yourself, it takes about an hour.
It's 120% more or less and my citation is myself, since I did the actual legwork of going through Kingmaker and Carrion Crown with a fine comb twice and did the calculations. James also said something to the regard, but I'll be damned if I spend my evening going through a thousand of his posts. The man is quite prolific.
If you don't want to believe me, don't. Or do the calculus yourself, it takes about an hour.
It might take an hour if I owned the APs. I don't. (Other people in my group do, but I'm not going to borrow them and spoil it for myself.)
Simple enough though. I don't believe you. Or rather, I believe you got the right number and then drew the wrong conclusions. And I still don't think you've demonstrated that anything is objectively broken.
Edit: Link. (The search function works fairly well.) No mention of selling anything.
OP here. IN regards to magic items we are playing Kingmaker and I have already nerfed the selling magic items part of the monthly turn. The PCs do not convert BP to gp even though RAW they could.
However RAW they are level 10 now doing a Paizo AP and they all have +6 stat buff items etc. The arcane trickster at level 10 has 26 intelligence. In 3.5 you needed to use xp and crafting some items were difficult unless you were a multiclass wizard/cleric.
I don't have acces to the PFRPG core book atm but IIRC a wizard can now easily craft a wand of cure light wounds (arcane healing for starters) and said wand only costs 375gp which means it can be crafted in one day or 4 days in downtime even in the most dungeon hack AP the DM can run or dream up.
At lower levels the proverbial CLW wand is essentially unlimited healing at a very cheap price. I know that technically you have 50 charges and each charge costs 7.5gp if you have crafted it. If the DM starts making his adventures time retrained all of the time he is really metagaming against his own PCs and generally leads to DM vs PC arms race. PCS want to get on a boat, sail for 3 months to their worlds equivilent of CHina and craft a 90 000gp item, DM wants them to save the kingdom./world and they have 2 weeks to do it in, wash rinse repeat.
THings like scry and die still work in PF, teleport isn't hard to abuse and greater invisability+fly has been a basic combo since 1st ed that generally requires another spellcaster to effectively deal with it. I like PF but right now with the Paizao APs being very easy for the PCs to hack through I am thinking of doing the same thing I used to do in 3.5. Hit level 10 or so and restart the game at level 1 again.
It took me around 3 hours prep to design several NPCs and an encounter last week. The PCs can hack through stuff quicker in terms of real life time than I can design it. Thats the whole offensive vs defensive thing.
OP:
link to magic items
link to wands
link ot magic item creation in general
link to creating wands
(The last two links go to the exact same page, but different parts of it - all are part of the Safe For Work and McAfee-trusted d20PFSRD website.)
Objectively is an adjective though and as written modifies broken. So while the (objective) fact that crafting feats raise your wealth (as intended) exists, it's not objectively broken. Subjectively broken or objectively broken under specific campaign assumptions maybe, but then just about everything is.
Also, I mentioned the feat cost. It was ignored.
About the original post, I'm not a fan of balance. I consider the things you call problems good things about the game.
anyways I didn't read the entire thread, but just wanted to chime in with an alternative view.
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...And we'd all do well to remember that WBL isn't a constraint on the GM...
Yes indeed, it's just that magnus said he can't play APs as written because of the craft feats and how they influence WBL which in turn makes his PCs steamroll all the encounters...
MY players in Kingmakers are most often close to double their WBL because I like being Santa Claus as much as they like being Christmas Trees :) and no, they don't steamroll anything.
Mine are steamrolling Kingmaker. THey went to the final encounter a level earlier and most combats last maybe 2 rounds and that after I have been adding 50% hit points to everything. I gave Vordaki max hit points and revised his spell list and he maybe lasted 3 rounds.
As far as magnuskn's thing goes, somebody who crafts items will have more money (or value) available that one who does not, thus throwing off the WBL table. That does indeed seem pretty 'objective' and I think that's what he means by the word.
Saying this is necessarily 'broken' I think ignores the opportunity costs though. Sure, your gold moves up on the WBL chart, but how much gold is the +4 init that feat could have bought worth? Is a character with more gold and no feats stronger? For that matter, how much gold does CWI save exactly? The answer to all that is a massive 'depends'. Which is why different people in different campaigns feel differently about its being balanced. I've played fewer games than some people have years so I won't set myself up as an authority on whether it is in fact balanced, but it isn't really 'free' gold, you are as treeantmonk's guide put it 'selling your feat slots'.
What I said was that CWI is the best feat you can ever take, if your character is set up for crafting, in 98% of the cases. Unless your GM goes out of his way to prevent you from doing so ( with, IMO, heavy-handed tactics ), you will gain a significant advantage either over the group or for the group, one which is very difficult and time-consuming to balance against as a GM, especially if you are running published adventures.
I'd prefer to try to get the thing right at the core root, instead of leaving it up to every individual GM to rebalance stuff on the fly.
Yes indeed, it's just that magnus said he can't play APs as written because of the craft feats and how they influence WBL which in turn makes his PCs steamroll all the encounters...
Except that I never said that.
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One point which I didn't bring up during the argument yesterday, but which is part of why I think magic item crafting in Pathfinder is fundamentally unbalanced, is that the designers removed the XP component from D&D 3.5 and did not substitute its limiting factor with anything new. While I was no fan of using experience points costs as a limiting factor for the huge wealth boost magic item crafting represents, it inherently helped balance the system and meant that there was another cost factor to the whole process.
Since that cost factor was cut, I think the idea of reducing the benefit of the feats to be a customization tool, instead of a money machine, is not something to be so lightly discarded. Players want power over what kind of gear they use, the feats still give that to them. As such, they are still very worthy of use and a good investment.
I still think your math is completely wrong (not the adding-up-the-treasure part, but everything else) when you say it's a money making machine. Multiple people have pointed out why it doesn't nearly give as much money as you say it does. Perhaps you've been running it incorrectly.
And no. Even as someone interested in item crafting, I wouldn't bother taking the feats under your houserule unless they were the only way to get any magic items. I have better uses for my feat slots than just changing the damage type on the fighter's sword.
You've yet to show anything objectively broken here.
I still think your math is completely wrong (not the adding-up-the-treasure part, but everything else) when you say it's a money making machine. Multiple people have pointed out why it doesn't nearly give as much money as you say it does. Perhaps you've been running it incorrectly.
The exact benefit of the magic item crafting feat is dependent on the campaign. Carrion Crown, for example, doesn't allow their use to the utmost, but CWI still gives a very substantial benefit. One of the problems that they create is that they put GMs under pressure to hurry up their campaigns, lest the players get the crafting feats to peak efficiency.
And no. Even as someone interested in item crafting, I wouldn't bother taking the feats under your houserule unless they were the only way to get any magic items. I have better uses for my feat slots than just changing the damage type on the fighter's sword.
Good. That means that the feats would become optional and up to an individuals taste, rather than near mandatory min-max options.
You've yet to show anything objectively broken here.
I think I've shown early in the thread that the feats objectively unbalance campaigns from the core assumptions and that they are in about the most difficult unbalancing factors to for a GM to work with. That you guys preferred to rather attack the sympton side of the problem in my explanations ( the consequences of the unbalance ), rather than the root of what I find objectionable about it ( the unbalance itself ), is not my problem. So far as I can see, the debate fail comes from your side.
I still think your math is completely wrong (not the adding-up-the-treasure part, but everything else) when you say it's a money making machine. Multiple people have pointed out why it doesn't nearly give as much money as you say it does. Perhaps you've been running it incorrectly.The exact benefit of the magic item crafting feat is dependent on the campaign. Carrion Crown, for example, doesn't allow their use to the utmost, but CWI still gives a very substantial benefit. One of the problems that they create is that they put GMs under pressure to hurry up their campaigns, lest the players get the crafting feats to peak efficiency.
And no. Even as someone interested in item crafting, I wouldn't bother taking the feats under your houserule unless they were the only way to get any magic items. I have better uses for my feat slots than just changing the damage type on the fighter's sword.Good. That means that the feats would become optional and up to an individuals taste, rather than near mandatory min-max options.
You've yet to show anything objectively broken here.I think I've shown early in the thread that the feats objectively unbalance campaigns from the core assumptions and that they are in about the most difficult unbalancing factors to for a GM to work with. That you guys preferred to rather attack the sympton side of the problem in my explanations ( the consequences of the unbalance ), rather than the root of what I find objectionable about it ( the unbalance itself ), is not my problem. So far as I can see, the debate fail comes from your side.
I have never had to rush a campaign due to magic items. I have never even seen that as a solution until now. That makes it subjective.
The feats require time and money to work. There is no guidelines that I know of that say how long a campaign should last, nor how much PC's should be against the clock. That means that the usefulness of the feats will vary from game to game. That also makes it subjective. The XP cost was never a factor in 3.5 either, due to the small amount of XP you lost. You would have to do a lot of crafting to lost enough XP to matter which would require an incredulous amount of free time. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is highly unlikely for a common game.Council of Theives also did not take course over a year's time. We were going from one book directly into the next. There might have been 2 books that gave us a break of a week or more. There have been complaints that the AP's allow you to level up too fast, killing versimiltude so I doubt they are taking as long as you say they are. I have not played Jade Regent so I can only agree with you about Kingmaker.
I have never had to rush a campaign due to magic items. I have never even seen that as a solution until now. That makes it subjective.
Yes, because that is a sympton of the core imbalance, which, of course, have subjective consequences, depending on the campaign. There are multiple things which arise from it and they will vary depending on the type of campaign and GM.
That doesn't change that magic item crafting is the cause of a lot of imbalance in the game, since it knocks the core balance of the game askew.
The feats require time and money to work. There is no guidelines that I know of that say how long a campaign should last, nor how much PC's should be against the clock. That means that the usefulness of the feats will vary from game to game. That also makes it subjective. The XP cost was never a factor in 3.5 either, due to the small amount of XP you lost. You would have to do a lot of crafting to lost enough XP to matter which would require an incredulous amount of free time. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is highly unlikely for a common game.
It actually was a factor in every game under 3.x I played in ( that'd be five full campaigns from levels 1-20 ), because of the psychology effect ( "OMG, I am lagging behind the rest of the party!" ) and, yes, the effect that it did limit what kind of item the crafter could produce.
Council of Theives also did not take course over a year's time. We were going from one book directly into the next. There might have been 2 books that gave us a break of a week or more. There have been complaints that the AP's allow you to level up too fast, killing versimiltude so I doubt they are taking as long as you say they are. I have not played Jade Regent so I can only agree with you about Kingmaker.
Even with a short campaign, CWI will still give a better benefit than about every other feat.
I have never had to rush a campaign due to magic items. I have never even seen that as a solution until now. That makes it subjective.Yes, because that is a sympton of the core imbalance, which, of course, have subjective consequences, depending on the campaign. There are multiple things which arise from it and they will vary depending on the type of campaign and GM.
That doesn't change that magic item crafting is the cause of a lot of imbalance in the game, since it knocks the core balance of the game askew.
Having an imbalance in player ability has always made me do more work than magic items have. Like I said it is has never given me a problem, even when I allowed for custom made items.
The feats require time and money to work. There is no guidelines that I know of that say how long a campaign should last, nor how much PC's should be against the clock. That means that the usefulness of the feats will vary from game to game. That also makes it subjective. The XP cost was never a factor in 3.5 either, due to the small amount of XP you lost. You would have to do a lot of crafting to lost enough XP to matter which would require an incredulous amount of free time. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is highly unlikely for a common game.It actually was a factor in every game under 3.x I played in ( that'd be five full campaigns from levels 1-20 ), because of the psychology effect ( "OMG, I am lagging behind the rest of the party!" ) and, yes, the effect that it did limit what kind of item the crafter could produce.
So for every game it is an issue for you, but never an issue for me as a player of GM. That sounds subjective to me.
Council of Theives also did not take course over a year's time. We were going from one book directly into the next. There might have been 2 books that gave us a break of a week or more. There have been complaints that the AP's allow you to level up too fast, killing versimiltude so I doubt they are taking as long as you say they are. I have not played Jade Regent so I can only agree with you about Kingmaker.Even with a short campaign, CWI will still give a better benefit than about every other feat.
That might be true, but it does not make it broken, and the less time you have the less benefit it gives you over the other feats if it gives you one at all. We did not more than 5 days(in game) for each book so if we has used the magic item rules we, plus maybe the 2 weeks(I don't even know if we got this) then it was 39000 extra GP. In my groups the caster usually makes stuff for everyone. so with 5 people assuming the crafting was done even it is about 7000 extra GP. Some of the items will make up for the feats that would have been taken in place of the magic item feats so you are not even getting a 7000 GP profit. Even if you have a selfish crafter he still has to account for the monetary value of the feats he would have taken so the difference is not all that great across the board. Now if you are in a game like Kingmaker the feats have much greater value. Once again that makes it subjective.
I still think your math is completely wrong (not the adding-up-the-treasure part, but everything else) when you say it's a money making machine. Multiple people have pointed out why it doesn't nearly give as much money as you say it does. Perhaps you've been running it incorrectly.The exact benefit of the magic item crafting feat is dependent on the campaign. Carrion Crown, for example, doesn't allow their use to the utmost, but CWI still gives a very substantial benefit. One of the problems that they create is that they put GMs under pressure to hurry up their campaigns, lest the players get the crafting feats to peak efficiency.
Even used to their utmost, one feat (and I agree that CWI is the most money-saving of the bunch) doesn't provide a benefit out of line for the cost of one feat. I've never heard of a GM needing to speed up a campaign because of crafters (for other reasons, but not for crafting).
What do you do when your players beat a dragon and get its hoard? That's worth a much larger boost and much quicker.
Another point here: You can't make money by crafting items. You can raise your effective wealth, but you can't make more money than you started with. Take X gold, craft it into 2X wealth of items, and sell those for... X gold. No gain. (There's a trait that lets you make a tiny profit, but I've never heard of anyone using it for that due to the time required.)
And no. Even as someone interested in item crafting, I wouldn't bother taking the feats under your houserule unless they were the only way to get any magic items. I have better uses for my feat slots than just changing the damage type on the fighter's sword.Good. That means that the feats would become optional and up to an individuals taste, rather than near mandatory min-max options.
Bad. That means I would consider the feat useless and wouldn't even take it for flavor.
I play a lot of wizards, and I happen to dislike most metamagic, so I tend to have plenty of room to take crafting feats in my wizard bonus slots. With your houserule, I wouldn't. I'd take another look at the metamagic feats.
If I'm playing anything but a wizard, I probably wouldn't take crafting feats as originally written, so it's hardly a mandatory choice.
You've yet to show anything objectively broken here.I think I've shown early in the thread that the feats objectively unbalance campaigns from the core assumptions and that they are in about the most difficult unbalancing factors to for a GM to work with. That you guys preferred to rather attack the sympton side of the problem in my explanations ( the consequences of the unbalance ), rather than the root of what I find objectionable about it ( the unbalance itself ), is not my problem. So far as I can see, the debate fail comes from your side.
No, you haven't. Very little of what you've said this entire thread has actually been objective. I've addressed your few objective points, but you seem to have missed that.
Besides that, your core assumptions are really just assumptions. They have never been stated by the devs as driving goals when it comes to balancing anything. I agree they're mostly reasonable assumptions, but not hard-and-fast rules.
To repeat, the biggest issue with your objective argument is the WBL guidelines. They're only guidelines and just because you've had trouble dealing with them doesn't mean everyone does. The wealth you'd get from one crafting feat in an average campaign doesn't even raise you one full level. A dragon's hoard is a much bigger bump in most cases.
Everyone else seems to agree that having players of different system-mastery levels is a much bigger and more difficult problem, just as one example of why this is most certainly not the most unbalancing issue.
So for every game it is an issue for you, but never an issue for me as a player of GM. That sounds subjective to me.
Once again, that makes the symptons ( imbalance in one game, fine in another ) subjective. And I'd love to hear how you coped with the results, because I think that will inevitably produce a "I just adjusted on the fly" comment. Which, once again, only means that every GM has to find an individual solution to a common problem.
Even used to their utmost, one feat (and I agree that CWI is the most money-saving of the bunch) doesn't provide a benefit out of line for the cost of one feat. I've never heard of a GM needing to speed up a campaign because of crafters (for other reasons, but not for crafting).
What do you do when your players beat a dragon and get its hoard? That's worth a much larger boost and much quicker.
That's just WBL happening. The problem with magic item crafting is that suddenly that dragons hoard is worth around 175% of its actual value, if the crafters have enough time to do their stuff. Which brings up the point where a GM begins to think "I better hurry up, before they outclass another CR".
Another point here: You can't make money by crafting items. You can raise your effective wealth, but you can't make more money than you started with. Take X gold, craft it into 2X wealth of items, and sell those for... X gold. No gain. (There's a trait that lets you make a tiny profit, but I've never heard of anyone using it for that due to the time required.)
Since when do players care about actual wealth? They care about power, which translates in 3.x/PF to more money->better items.
Which is, to go on a little tangent, one of the things which player guided magic item crafting killed off: In my first two campaigns as a player under AD&D, the GM of then had no qualms of letting us find a hoard of a million gold pieces at level 10 to build some castles... because he controlled which items we could get where. I am not saying that this was exactly better than today, but it allowed for others styles of roleplaying. Try to give your players one million gold pieces today at level ten to build some castles and see what some of them will do with the money.
Bad. That means I would consider the feat useless and wouldn't even take it for flavor.
And the guy who wants to craft magic items for customization in my group just shrugged his shoulders and took the feats anyway. It's up to each individual person to decide if a nerfed version of the feats are necessary. I just point out that they still would provide a substantial benefit while not being the retardedly good feats they are now.
I play a lot of wizards, and I happen to dislike most metamagic, so I tend to have plenty of room to take crafting feats in my wizard bonus slots. With your houserule, I wouldn't. I'd take another look at the metamagic feats.
If I'm playing anything but a wizard, I probably wouldn't take crafting feats as originally written, so it's hardly a mandatory choice.
And once again, good. That makes for more varied characters. You think they would be worthless, other people think they still would be good.
No, you haven't. Very little of what you've said this entire thread has actually been objective. I've addressed your few objective points, but you seem to have missed that.
Besides that, your core assumptions are really just assumptions. They have never been stated by the devs as driving goals when it comes to balancing anything. I agree they're mostly reasonable assumptions, but not hard-and-fast rules.
To repeat, the biggest issue with your objective argument is the WBL guidelines. They're only guidelines and just because you've had trouble dealing with them doesn't mean everyone does. The wealth you'd get from one crafting feat in an average campaign doesn't even raise you one full level. A dragon's hoard is a much bigger bump in most cases.
Everyone else seems to agree that having players of different system-mastery levels is a much bigger and more difficult problem, just as one example of why this is most certainly not the most unbalancing issue.
Fair enough on some points. The consequences of magic item crafting seem to vary wildly between individual GMs, although I still postulate that this is kind of Oberoni fallacious thinking "Well, in MY campaign it isn't an issue, because I can adjust more easily to a real existing imbalance than other GMs".
But I disagree that we should take WBL only as a "guideline". Around which assumptions are CRs crafted? I am quite sure "four player characters, 15 point buy, WBL" are the three main points where the point of orientation lies.
And I still say that adjusting for WBL disparities is actually the most difficult of possible adjustments to make. More players? More opponents. Better attributes? Advanced template. Better WBL? Uh, well, how much, which items, what can I do to make NPCs better without further deluging the party with more money?
It is because of this that I regard magic item crafting to be in need of some balancing and I'd rather find a solution which cures the problem at the root than just leave it up to each GM to deal with it in its own manner.
After all, it is not as if the perceived issue with the Monk is best solved with saying "Let every GM make his own version of the class!".
So for every game it is an issue for you, but never an issue for me as a player of GM. That sounds subjective to me.Once again, that makes the symptons ( imbalance in one game, fine in another ) subjective. And I'd love to hear how you coped with the results, because I think that will inevitably produce a "I just adjusted on the fly" comment. Which, once again, only means that every GM has to find an individual solution to a common problem.
I did not make up any special rules if that is what you mean. Actually I didn't do anything differently than how I normally GM, which is why I fail to see the issue. All I do for my games is player the monsters better tactically if needed, and change out monster feats for the most part. I have yet to sunder a magic item, or make up some random rule to put a player in his place.
That's just WBL happening. The problem with magic item crafting is that suddenly that dragons hoard is worth around 175% of its actual value, if the crafters have enough time to do their stuff. Which brings up the point where a GM begins to think "I better hurry up, before they outclass another CR".
If the dragon gives you 10000 in gold and 50000 in magic items then only the actual gold/jewelry is doubled. When you sell the 50000 in magic items for half price, or any portion thereof, and use that gold to craft magic items you get equal, greater value. Most loot is given out in terms of magic items anyway so I am not seeing the issue once again.
Fair enough on some points. The consequences of magic item crafting seem to vary wildly between individual GMs, although I still postulate that this is kind of Oberoni fallacious thinking "Well, in MY campaign it isn't an issue, because I can adjust more easily to a real existing imbalance than other GMs".
If you want to say a GM being able to handle something has no bearing on if something is broken then everything is broken. There are threads complaining about the monk and rogue as being OP. Does the fact that they fall at back of the line in my games now make them non-OP since I can deal with them easily?
Why apply this logic to magic item creation and not monks, rogues, paladins, and so on?
edit:corrected spelling.
I did not make up any special rules if that is what you mean. Actually I didn't do anything differently than how I normally GM, which is why I fail to see the issue. All I do for my games is player the monsters better tactically if needed, and change out monster feats for the most part. I have yet to sunder a magic item, or make up some random rule to put a player in his place.
And you still need to adjust, by tactical or other means, to a situation where your players are suddenly more powerful than they are expected to be. That doesn't have to mean that you use underhanded tactics, but it always means that you have extra work. And sometimes a lot of extra work, depending on if you use pre-written adventures.
Work which would be unnecessary if the very process of magic item crafting would be better balanced with the rest of the game.If the dragon gives you 10000 in gold and 50000 in magic items then only the actual gold/jewelry is doubled. When you sill the 50000 in magic items for half price, or any portion thereof, and use that gold to craft magic items you get equal, greater value. Most loot is given out in terms of magic items anyway so I am not seeing the issue once again.
Yet APs seem to be designed with that assumption already having been taken into account. I already put out the values I got out of analyzing loot placement from Carrion Crown and Kingmaker.
If you want to say a GM being able to handle something has no bearing on if something is broken then everything is broken. There are threads complaining about the monk and rogue as being OP. Does the fact that they fall at back of the line in my games now make them non-OP since I can deal with them easily?
Why apply this logic to magic item creation and not monks, rogues, paladins, and so on?
Since Monks are getting fixed somewhen in the future via developer intervention and Rogues already were fixed ( it's called the Ninja ), I think those issues are not as subjective as you make them out here.
Yet they are classes. That means that they are vehicles of the "four PCs" guideline. Magic item crafting introduces a wild factor in the whole balance mix, because the game is not build around "almost every group has a magic item crafter". NPCs in the APs next to never seem to use crafted magic items ( yet some of them have the feats ).
The bloody board ate my last post. :-/
I did not make up any special rules if that is what you mean. Actually I didn't do anything differently than how I normally GM, which is why I fail to see the issue. All I do for my games is player the monsters better tactically if needed, and change out monster feats for the most part. I have yet to sunder a magic item,
or make up some random rule to put a player in his place.
But you have to adjust for the imbalance. That is my point. If that imbalancing factor is removed ( or altered, in the case of my solution ), a good part of those nitty-gritty adjustments disappear.
If the dragon gives you 10000 in gold and 50000 in magic items then only the actual gold/jewelry is doubled. When you sill the 50000 in magic items for half price, or any portion thereof, and use that gold to craft magic items you get equal, greater value. Most loot is given out in terms of magic items anyway so I am not seeing the issue once again.
Come on, man. APs are not built that way. Of course you can adjust homebrewn campaigns much easier, since treasure placement is entirely up to the GM. But with prewritten treasure hoards, you got to be aware of how they are built. APs normally build to WBL, with the 50% price reduction on every magic item already built in. Meaning they assume that players will keep nothing and sell everything.
If you want to say a GM being able to handle something has no bearing on if something is broken then everything is broken. There are threads complaining about the monk and rogue as being OP. Does the fact that they fall at back of the line in my games now make them non-OP since I can deal with them easily?
Why apply this logic to magic item creation and not monks, rogues, paladins, and so on?
Because classes are a vehicle of the core balancing of the game. That some ( mostly newer ) classes also cause significant issues is a whole other discussion.
But APs, around which my remarks are mostly based due to them being around which Pathfinder was built, assume a certain WBL, four players, 15 point buy. It should be pretty bloody obvious that magic item crafting skews that balance a lot.
I did not make up any special rules if that is what you mean. Actually I didn't do anything differently than how I normally GM, which is why I fail to see the issue. All I do for my games is player the monsters better tactically if needed, and change out monster feats for the most part. I have yet to sunder a magic item, or make up some random rule to put a player in his place.And you still need to adjust, by tactical or other means, to a situation where your players are suddenly more powerful than they are expected to be. That doesn't have to mean that you use underhanded tactics, but it always means that you have extra work. And sometimes a lot of extra work, depending on if you use pre-written adventures.
Work which would be unnecessary if the very process of magic item crafting would be better balanced with the rest of the game.
I have to adjust anyway though as a GM. If I were adjusting differently due to the item creation feats then you would have a point, but since I don't do anything special for them, and since my adjustments have always been due to player system mastery that just makes the feats look weaker.
If the dragon gives you 10000 in gold and 50000 in magic items then only the actual gold/jewelry is doubled. When you sill the 50000 in magic items for half price, or any portion thereof, and use that gold to craft magic items you get equal, greater value. Most loot is given out in terms of magic items anyway so I am not seeing the issue once again.
Yet APs seem to be designed with that assumption already having been taken into account. I already put out the values I got out of analyzing loot placement from Carrion Crown and Kingmaker.
Carrion Crown use expendables as a larger percentage of the loot than normal compared to other AP's as an experiment. It is not a fair example. I don't know how it effects your results. I was just informing you that it does not follow the format in that regard like the other AP's do.
Since Monks are getting fixed somewhen in the future via developer intervention and Rogues already were fixed ( it's called the Ninja ), I think those issues are not as subjective as you make them out here.
Yet they are classes. That means that they are vehicles of the "four PCs" guideline. Magic item crafting introduces a wild factor in the whole balance mix, because the game is not build around "almost every group has a magic item crafter". NPCs in the APs next to never seem to use crafted magic items ( yet some of them have the feats ).
The ninja is not a fix for the rogue. It is just an alternate version. Many have argued that it is not really any better, just different. As for the monk that fix has not been promised. They have only said they will look into it, but that still does not change the fact that people have issues with them. You also have not address the paladin, full casters, and other issues that some people can handle and others can't. My point is that you can't use the logic of "some GM's can't handle it means it is broken" only when you want it to apply.