How Much Wealth Should Be Crafted?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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My other, rambling post helped me realize a much clearer question that might provoke more productive conversation. Assuming that a PC has one or more item creation feats, how much of their wealth can they reasonably expect to be in the form of items that they have crafted for themselves? In other words, is a PC with item creation feats being "cheated" if the pace of adventures does not allow enough downtime to use X% of their wealth to craft items? If so, what is the threshold?

EDIT: What about long-term campaigns? If a campaign begins and provides ample crafting time from say, levels 1-13, but crafting time is more limited up to 20, how does that affect things?


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It's up to the player and the DM. If a player just decides that they're a crafter while the DM has a fast-paced adventure planned, the two are on different pages.

That said, it's up to the player. They're the ones who get to decide if they're satisfied by their feat choices. If the player wants 100% of the items they use to have been crafted by them, so be it.

Final comment, this may not be obvious, but I don't allow crafting to enable players to have more wealth than recommended. So yes, you can craft stuff at half the price you'd buy it for, but no, I won't let them end up with double recommended wealth. As players craft more, bad guys have less treasure to be looted and converted into components. The same logic goes for "sell & buy" versus "keep". If PCs keep everything they find, they'll end up with twice the wealth of a group that sells everything to buy different stuff. Sorry, no. I'm the DM and I can compensate to keep WBL sane.


I've never been entirely comfortable with the discount associated with PC casting as I think the actual utility related to PC crafting is the get a specific item when you want aspect.

1/2 price crafting makes gamist sense from the standpoint of incentivizing PC crafting and correlates strongly with mundane crafting generating wealth through activity but in theory almost all PC crafting is done for the direct benefit of the caster and the adventuring group and isn't normally done to generate wealth by selling to NPC.

The problem of course is that due to the nature of the crafting feats this creates a tendency towards certain crafting feats being taken (wondrous item, wands, scrolls) why other generally valuable crafting feats (armor, weaponry) tend to get neglected. This creates uneven wealth because a PC wizard will often have a lot of 1/2 price equipment whereas the PC fighter is largely dependent on the GM or NPC crafting at the higher cost.

It's something I've kinda struggled with off an on over the years but I'm not really surprised that PFS bans PC crafting for instance because it can definitely be a headache as well as a source of acrimony between Players and the GM.


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Vuron: Pcs can't make money by item crafting.

They make it for 50% of price (aka: cost), they can only sell it for 50% of price (aka: cost), barring specific feats, possible class features and campaign traits.

Princeimrahil:
As Anguish pointed out, PCs and GM should be on the same page. If you're in Kingmaker, item crafting is a good option. If you're in Carrion Crown, anything beyond potions and scrolls is essentially a wasted feat slot.

Higher level campaigns might even be based around needing to craft the item to defeat the foe. Don't think just "what can the PC do with it", think about "what plots can I derive from it"

Usually, if the treasure guidelines (not WBL) are at least given a passing nod, only about 1/3 of treasure should be in GP/gems. These GPs, if used for crafting, generally grant the equivalent of a +1 bonus to hit and damage. There is no doubling of WBL.

Also, most players are reasonable people. If they want to craft custoim items, discuss it with them (as I've discussed with players and as I discuss with my GM). This avoids both control-freak mentality and over-the-top crafting.

You'll find on these boards people adept at catastrophizing any feat/ability usable by PCs. Beware their advice.


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Anguish wrote:


Final comment, this may not be obvious, but I don't allow crafting to enable players to have more wealth than recommended. So yes, you can craft stuff at half the price you'd buy it for, but no, I won't let them end up with double recommended wealth. As players craft more, bad guys have less treasure to be looted and converted into components.

I really hate that kind of reasoning. It's just unfair to players who take crafting feats.

Take two wizards. One wizard takes a few crafting feats, the other instead takes a few feats to make their magic more effective instead (spell perfection, metamagic feats, whatever.) Which one is better off? It's tough to say; the second wizard is better and more flexible with his own magic, but the first wizard has more wands and toys to play with. They're probably pretty balanced.

Unless the DM then goes and deliberately unbalances the first wizard by giving him less gold for no reason. Then the second wizard without crafting feats is clearly better off; he just buys the stuff instead of making it with the extra gold the DM is giving him for no reason, and just ends up being more powerful.

If a player wants to use his feats/skills/traits to get more gold (crafting, professions, the traits that let you start with money), then that's fine. He then has less feats and skills and traits to use during the adventure, but that's balanced with the fact that he probably has slightly better equipment to compensate. If you take that away, then that's just unfairly treating one play-style worse then a different playstyle.

Hey, if you really don't want your players to be crafters, then just don't let them be crafters. Don't let them use their feats for that and then cripple them to a point where it does them no good.


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Anguish:

Your house rule totally negates the reason for taking a crafting feat. In this first post and this second post I have shown the following:

Craft Magic Arms and Armor benefits the crafter by giving that crafter a +1 attack, +1 damage, +1 AC(armor), and maybe +1 AC (shield). This is not unreasonable.

Craft Wondrous Item benefits the crafter by giving that crafter a +1 to an ability score and +1 saving throws.

While what I showed was only one example it was a pretty reasonable one.

The factor many people miss out on is that the scaling cost of magic items tones down the bonuses due to crafting.

- Gauss


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Princeimrahil:

If you do not plan on giving crafters time to craft then let them know this up front. If an AP is not geared for it you can find ways to change that. This wont work for certain APs (the really time sensitive ones) but it should work for most of them.

In one campaign I have run the crafters got time to craft at low levels but I knew there would be a time crunch towards the end of the campaign. I provided them a special set of downtime to make up for this in advance. Pocket dimensions with fast time are an awesome thing. At higher levels your players should have the means to travel to a fast time plane in order to craft.

Regarding what %, there is no data to suggest what %. If you reference the links I posted in my previous post you will see that even a character that crafts most of his items still only gets about a +1attack, +1damage, +1 or +2 AC, +1 ability score, and +1 saves. For the price of two feats that is pretty good but not rediculous. If you cut the amount of crafting in half the feats might still worthwhile. I wouldnt go under that amount though.

- Gauss

Liberty's Edge

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I handle this two ways.

A) No magic item Wal-Mart. Even in the biggest most well-connected city there's only a chance you can get what you want and even then, there's a serious wait time.

B) Crafting is not done at a discount. You pay full price to craft. The benefit is that you can get exactly what you want (and often taking less time to do so than the person shopping by catalog in point A).


Dotting.


Anguish wrote:


Final comment, this may not be obvious, but I don't allow crafting to enable players to have more wealth than recommended. So yes, you can craft stuff at half the price you'd buy it for, but no, I won't let them end up with double recommended wealth. As players craft more, bad guys have less treasure to be looted and converted into components. The same logic goes for "sell & buy" versus "keep". If PCs keep everything they find, they'll end up with twice the wealth of a group that sells everything to buy different stuff. Sorry, no. I'm the DM and I can compensate to keep WBL sane.

What.

If the PCs keep everything they find they have twice the wealth of PCs that sell everything?

Maybe technically, but then you realize they have NO USE for a lot of that and so technically have more wealth but practically have a lot less.

Or are you trying to assume they can use everything they have? In which case, you're saying you're going to go out of your way to screw PCs who got really lucky on the random loot tables?

Feral wrote:


B) Crafting is not done at a discount. You pay full price to craft. The benefit is that you can get exactly what you want (and often taking less time to do so than the person shopping by catalog in point A).

This defeats the entire purpose of Crafting.

It's a tradeoff. Your PCs should be trading personal efficiency for the ability to make cool magic stuff at a lower price than buying it randomly. That's why those rules were made.

Shadow Lodge

Well, if it's much more difficult to buy magic items in Feral's campaign you still get the benefit of being able to acquire specific items rather than relying on found items. Not sure whether it's still worth it.

Verdant Wheel

Rynjin wrote:
Feral wrote:


A) No magic item Wal-Mart. Even in the biggest most well-connected city there's only a chance you can get what you want and even then, there's a serious wait time.

B) Crafting is not done at a discount. You pay full price to craft. The benefit is that you can get exactly what you want (and often taking less time to do so than the person shopping by catalog in point A).

This defeats the entire purpose of Crafting.

It's a tradeoff. Your PCs should be trading personal efficiency for the ability to make cool magic stuff at a lower price than buying it randomly. That's why those rules were made.

time is money

Feral, this is an interesting concept. do you allow for the bargaining of parts?


rainzax wrote:


time is money

It takes time to craft things too.


Considering I've always assumed crafting to be completely worthless because of how long it would take to craft anything of significant use (1 a day usually, if not longer), I'm very interested in where this goes.

I mentioned it in my first thread, and some tried to explain. In the end, I just circle logic'd my way back to "crafting is just a huge gamble/waste of time". And I'm learning how shocked I should be that it would also affect treasure/outcome.


KHShadowrunner: With accelerated crafting and either crafting while adventuring or Ring of Sustenance+Rope Trick early to mid level crafting works fine. At high levels you need to do some planar tricks such as finding (or making) a reliable fast time plane.

- Gauss


gauss you keep on bringing up ring of sustenance + Rope trick for early levels. My question to you is how does rope trick help in early levels when it only lasts the 1/hour per caster level. To "rest" ,and craft would take a minimum of 6 hours, and thats with accelerated crafting. Mind you thats only you resting... unless the entire party sports a ring of sustenance as well in which case sure it works... level 6. Am I missing something blatent here? Please elaborate for me, I'm actually really kind of confused.


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At level 3 you do not need the Ring of Sustenance+Rope Trick method. You can barely afford the Ring of Sustenance at that point anyhow. The rule, Crafting while adventuring, produces 2hours of effective crafting per day. At that point you are not getting a whole lot of cash to craft with.

By level 5 you can afford a Lesser Rod of Extend Spell, a must have item anyhow. That will double your Rope Trick duration. That will suffice until the Rope trick duration is long enough that you no longer need the Rod. So at level 5 you have spent 3,000 (or two rope tricks per day) for a Lesser Rod of Extend and 2,500gp for a Ring of Sustenance. A total of 5,500gp out of 10,500gp (WBL). But you only do this if you do not have enough time for crafting.

Note: You can get away without the Rod of Extend by casting 2 Rope Tricks, the problem with that is that it burns an extra spell and you have to wake people up.

Eventually this technique gets replaced with the Fast time Plane technique.

- Gauss


Thanks. I knew there was a piece of the puzzle missing, but would being able to rest in only 2 four hour blocks be ok? sounds like a case for fatigue if done every night. Totally agree btw, Lesser Rod of extend spell, is pretty much a requirement.

Grand Lodge

The Character Wealth by Level chart shows how much wealth a PC should have.

If the GM is stingy and only gives out maybe 75% of the wealth then the appropriate crafting wealth would be 25%. If the GM gives out 100% of the wealth then the answer would be 0% or a token amount.

Personally I prefer adventurers to be heroes and not merchants. Characters that want to sit around and craft are fine. But I want a heroic story, so they will be left behind.

Think of it this way, how many pages did Frodo spend crafting, or Achilles or King Arthur, or any other hero? Heroes don't spend time at home knitting.


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Krome wrote:


Think of it this way, how many pages did Frodo spend crafting, or Achilles or King Arthur, or any other hero? Heroes don't spend time at home knitting.

Eh. In the Wheel of Time books, if you've read that, I think the part where Perrin forges an awesome magical warhammer was really dramatic and cool.

I donno, personally I like playing wizards that research spells, create magical items, write books, and basically try to advance the science of magic when they're not out adventuring.


The Sleeping Dragon:

The Ring of Sustenance drops the amount of sleep required down to 2hours and allows arcane spellcaster to rememorize after only 2hours of sleep (still with the limit of 1/day).

So: at 5th level you cast Rope Trick (extended to 10hrs) and start crafting 2 hours before everyone's bedtime. You craft through the night (8hours) and finally get 2hours sleep.

Not tired, no fatigue, get all of your spells back the next day (except those cast <8hours before you rememorize).

- Gauss

Liberty's Edge

rainzax wrote:
Feral, this is an interesting concept. do you allow for the bargaining of parts?

It's never actually come up but I've certainly tossed around the idea of components that would allow a small discount in crafting or expedite it.

Dragon's Eyes - A day off the crafting time for certain items
Blessed Iron - A 10% off the price of enchanting (once)

The only campaign I've run with these rules was Kingmaker. I kept a very close eye on party wealth and try not to let them deviate more than 10% over or below the wealth curve.


I don't understand the need for the rope trick and such. Maybe I need to give this a little more thought, but as far as I can see everything is done in week increments, unless you want to do it by the day which is result/7 if successful. Length of time spent doing the action is not mentioned.

But even then, most of my adventures seem to be in and out doing something in a day. To have to invest almost a weeks work to get -1- scroll seems counter-productive. Maybe it's just me not understanding at all. I need to find some mock examples methinks.


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KHShadowrunner, we are not talking about mundane crafting, we are talking about Magic Item Crafting. They use very different rules. The magic item crafting rules start on CRB p548.

A few basic rules of crafting:
* For every 1000gp of the magic item it takes 8hours (1 day) to craft it.
* You may halve the time to craft the item by adding +5 to the craft DC.
* While adventuring you may spend 4 hours per day (working while eating, rest breaks, etc) but you only accrue 2hours per day of work.
* If you do not have the proper environment (distraction free etc) every 8 hours of work only results in 4 hours of work.

Ring of Sustenance sidesteps the time while adventuring rule. This is because, rather than the interrupted period of time while adventuring, you can spend an uninterrupted period of time crafting while everyone is asleep.

Rope Trick sidesteps the distracting environment. It is a safe environment that allows you to work distraction free.

Summary: Instead of every day adventuring you only get 2hours contributed to the creation of your magic item you are getting 8hours and can finish a 2000gp item in a single day (assuming accelerated crafting).

Regarding your scroll: If the scroll has a price of 250gp or less it takes 2 hours to craft. You can easily complete this while adventuring. If it is between 250 and 1000gp then it takes 8hours to craft (4 accelerated).

- Gauss


If the scroll takes 2 hours to craft, and I accelerate it for +5 DC, can I shed it down to 1 hour?

Maybe my plans will change. Maybe.


vuron wrote:

I've never been entirely comfortable with the discount associated with PC casting as I think the actual utility related to PC crafting is the get a specific item when you want aspect.

1/2 price crafting makes gamist sense from the standpoint of incentivizing PC crafting and correlates strongly with mundane crafting generating wealth through activity but in theory almost all PC crafting is done for the direct benefit of the caster and the adventuring group and isn't normally done to generate wealth by selling to NPC.

The problem of course is that due to the nature of the crafting feats this creates a tendency towards certain crafting feats being taken (wondrous item, wands, scrolls) why other generally valuable crafting feats (armor, weaponry) tend to get neglected. This creates uneven wealth because a PC wizard will often have a lot of 1/2 price equipment whereas the PC fighter is largely dependent on the GM or NPC crafting at the higher cost.

It's something I've kinda struggled with off an on over the years but I'm not really surprised that PFS bans PC crafting for instance because it can definitely be a headache as well as a source of acrimony between Players and the GM.

the 1/2 price is in place primarily for two reasons, that's the real worth of the item (and NPC's are dicks about prices and are greedy profitmongers to PC's, I have a house-rule that PC's can haggle down to 60% with good RP and good rolls) and time. If the item was crafted at the same cost that NPC's sell at, no one would craft anything, even WITH the reduction modifiers because it would take too long.

Here's some examples; Cloak of Elvenkind (very basic wondrous item) 3 hours instead of 1 or 2 (varies from GM to GM and RAW and RAI)
Cloak of Resistance +5 is taking 25 hours instead of 12 or 13
Amulet of Mighty Fists +4 takes 80 hours instead of 40.

This is before adding cost reduction modifiers, this is also without the double-time craft action and in perfect conditions (the PC's have bought a place where the crafter can work a full 8 hours unheeded)

Even with the crafting reductions NO ONE except the extremely devoted to the idea, or the really cheesy people would craft because it would eat up way to much time.

Also, PFS has magic item crafting banned for balance, because not everyone can make the consumable magic items (potions, wands, scrolls) that are oh so useful. Yes martial classes CAN craft magic items (Master Craftsman yay) but it only works for Magic Arms and Armors and Craft Wondrous Items so that kinda pooches the martial-men, and NO ONE would play them in PFS then (Because if crafting was allowed in PFS, it would not be optimized to not craft.)

/rantmodeoff


There is one simple way to deal with it: reduce the amount of silver/gold/platinum given. Always give the players items that they will have to sell at half price. In the case your players have already too much gold on them add a fee to buy materials (100gp for 75gp worth of magical components), I often ask my players to track Crafting material as a separate resource and it makes great loot to give players!

" You guys find a small ivory lock box containing magical regents of some sort, roll a spellcraft check to determine their values!"

The way I see it crafting is not a meant to allow players to double their wealth, it's a way to give the players flexibility with their wealth, I thing DM should take some time to discus the matter with players thinking about taking those kind of feats.

"Transform that +1 scimitar you guys in found into a +1 Battleaxe!"

"Transform those potions you guys are never using into a wand of cure light wounds!"

"Transform that cloak of protection +1 into a level 1 pearl of power!"


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Laiho Vanallo: the FAQ says otherwise. The FAQ specifically states that crafters are supposed to count the cost and not the price of items they craft against WBL. By halving the amount of treasure handed out the non-crafters have only 1/2 of the treasure they are supposed to receive in an attempt to balance out the crafter. The crafters also have less than they are supposed to receive.

- Gauss

Verdant Wheel

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Feral wrote:
rainzax wrote:
Feral, this is an interesting concept. do you allow for the bargaining of parts?

It's never actually come up but I've certainly tossed around the idea of components that would allow a small discount in crafting or expedite it.

i have run a dark sun game where one of the popular classes was a Trader (think a high CHA rogue from a merchant background) who had a class feature that allowed them to Fast Talk themself to a better buying price on a success.

it also used rules that allowed up to 3 bargaining rounds for any transaction, each beginning with a short role play where you 'play up' the value of your commodity or 'play down' the value of theirs, followed by a roll of the dice (opposed CHA). trick is, once you decide you want to enter bargaining round(s), you are bound to the arrived at price once it is done.

this was complimented by rules about market fluctuation (which was rolled not unlike the weather) that determines deviation from base price (scarcity).

of course, you want to make sure your players would like to actually feature this aspect of the game - otherwise it'll bog down play - but some groups actually like this presence of economics to show up in their game.


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As a Player who normally plays characters that normally make extra money using Craft &/or Profession Sills.

I have to say someone making me pay full price for crafting is Bull Squirt.

Now to the original question:

I normally craft around 50-75% of my wealth. Though my GM normally works with me as a crafter.


darkwarriorkarg wrote:

Vuron: Pcs can't make money by item crafting.

They make it for 50% of price (aka: cost), they can only sell it for 50% of price (aka: cost), barring specific feats, possible class features and campaign traits.

Bunk. PCs sell acquired (read: used) loot for half price, because the assumption is they're unloading it on retailers who will need to resell it at a profit.

If a PC crafts a new item, nothing prevents him selling it to a consumer (PC or NPC) at the full market price. In fact that's what should be expected, except when the crafter sells to his own party members at cost, for everyone's mutual benefit. And even that needn't happen if there's only one crafter carrying the load for the whole group.


Damon Griffin:

The rules state that stuff is sold at half price except for trade goods. That is the basis of Darkwarriorkarg's correct statement.

CRB p140 wrote:

Selling Treasure

In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price, including weapons, armor, gear, and magic items. This also includes character-created items.

Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.

Also note: According to the WBL FAQ only the crafting PC is allowed to benefit from his crafting by counting cost (not price) against WBL. Because of this if a PC crafts for his fellow players those players now have a significantly higher WBL since they count price (not cost) against WBL.

- Gauss


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There is a difference between Crafting items and crafting for profit.

(See Craft Skill 1st Paragraph)

If a GM who refuses to allow you to make downtime to make money and such then they are being slightly antagonistic.


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crafting still has limits on what a PC can make. as long as you enforce which items require which feats, it should be fine. one feat along isn't going to double wealth, and considering how magic item prices scale, doubled wealth is no more than an extra +1 across the board.

it's like sacrificing a level for the advanced creature template, instead of gaining the normal level dependant bonuses, you are getting +2 on every roll, up to a possible +4 to armor class (+6 if monk) and twice your hit dice in hit points. but at the cost of highly delayed progression (a whole lost level) and being 1 level/hit dice behind everyone.


Thank you Lumiere. I am pleased that someone else sees the same thing.

- Gauss


Can you even use the crafting of a Magic Item to make money?


Azaelas Fayth wrote:
Can you even use the crafting of a Magic Item to make money?

not really. you sell items for half price, and craft for half price. in other words, crafting nets no profit. until you become an NPC, or waste a trait for a 5% discount you cannot take if you already have a magic boosting trait. and i would rather have +2 to all concentration checks or magical knack than a 5% crafting discount.


Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:
Azaelas Fayth wrote:
Can you even use the crafting of a Magic Item to make money?
not really. you sell items for half price, and craft for half price. in other words, crafting nets no profit. until you become an NPC, or waste a trait for a 5% discount you cannot take if you already have a magic boosting trait. and i would rather have +2 to all concentration checks or magical knack than a 5% crafting discount.

Ok then... I still say that the only way to earn money by crafting is to use the method I said before.


Considering that if you play by the rules even the most powerful crafter in the game can still only buy 1000gp of progress and spending 500gp on materials no matter what he's crafting the idea that players can become too wealthy doing this seems ludicrous, especially if they're paying for spells the way they should. 500gp a day is nothing compared to a wizards expenses.

The GM can control it by not giving the players enough downtime but I agree that's penalizing a viable playstyle and I dont recommend GMs getting into that habit.

I've been pulling teeth with a few gms recently to prove to them that unless you plan on letting me craft to the exclusion of everthing else for the next 420 days theres no way i'm going to be the crazy rich montyhaul magic monster that you think i'm going to be.

I think the folks who fear this are the one's who want to run low magic campaigns (because it's easier to run a campaign where the only thing the players can bring to the game is their skin and their spoon and their positive attitude).

At some point in history someone was quoted as saying 'A good GM is the one where the characters are having fun even if all they have is the shirt on thier backs" and a few GMs have decided to try to achieve this at the exclusion of anything else.

I think if you let a player craft a bit you'll learn its not crazy powerful for making either items or loot as you think it is... Because if it is getting out of control then you're not keeping them harrowed enough.


And incidentally there is no rule anywhere that says that players can only sell what they make for half of market price which would result in zero profit.

Thats just another trick gms try to use to keep the crafting wizard down.

At least try something imaginative like opposing diplomacy checks for like 25% off market price at the absolute worst...

If it cost you 400gp to make a belt of tumbling and 4 hours of your time, if all anyone was willing to pay for it was 400gp when the market price is 800 i'd tell him to get bent.

Grand Lodge

tennengar wrote:

And incidentally there is no rule anywhere that says that players can only sell what they make for half of market price which would result in zero profit.

Thats just another trick gms try to use to keep the crafting wizard down.

This is incorrect...

The Pathfinder PRD wrote:

Selling Treasure

In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price, including weapons, armor, gear, and magic items. This also includes character-created items.

Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.

The Exchange

In LG each adventure took a certain number of time units.
Players could use tu's to go on adventures, or to craft.

letting players make choice = good.


I think the part I would highlight is the word CAN. Of course you can sell your stuff at cost. That doesnt mean thats what happens every single time. If it were worded "A character can ONLY sell something for half its listed price" then we might have something to talk about.

A lot of cheap GM's are basically implementing the houserule that nobody would ever be willing to give you a profit for your hard earned crafting dollar.

Of course the local townsfolk would love for your character to open up a magic shop that sells everything you make at half of the market price they are used to seeing... Of course the character should have no trouble selling anything he owns for half of what its worth... To say that there's no way to sell it for anywhere close to what its worth seems to be hillariously misreading the PRD.

Grand Lodge

tennengar wrote:
I think the part I would highlight is the word CAN. Of course you can sell your stuff at cost. That doesnt mean thats what happens every single time.

Read the whole quote, it goes on to say that trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule...

A house-rule would be to allow the sale of items at more than half price, not RAW...


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I'd love to get an official ruling on the publishers intent for how this should be interpreted.

I also love the notion that a magic item isnt considered a 'valuable good' considering how most gms who implement the 'low magic item' world setting do it for the purposes of making you truly 'value' your special unique wonderful magic items. Which arent worth bupkiss to the npc townies.

Greetings npc! I have not but a coin with which to sate my hunger, and as much as I am pained to do so I have decided I'm willing to sell my +5 holy avenger. It was used to slay the dragon which was beset upon your village. He is now felled thanks to my grit and this steel never to be your worry again! what say you shopkeep? Fair market value?

Uh... So you're saying it's a 'used +5 holy avenger?'...


well, RAW is clear... but problematic, since NPCs are also 'characters',
so any NPC selling newly crafted gear to PCs would be under the same guidelines as PCs.
half given price, i.e. crafting cost, should indeed be the floor price in normal circumstances,
but the given price is probably going to be the typical market price for an item, irregardless of PC/NPC selling.

...but it doesn't matter if you make some money from sellng stuff you craft, that doesn't let you bypass WBL, only keeping the crafted stuff for your own personal use (not ally's) lets you count the item as at-cost (vs. given price) towards WBL, if you gain some money by selling to somebody, then that full amount is now counted towards your WBL. crafting to sell can let you create wealth on demand, but it should equal out in the long run (with looted enemy treasure, thieves stealing your wealth, campaign event which call you to spend money for stuff that isn't your own gear, etc).


I agree. I'd never expect a pc to get better than market price. but being forced to sell everything at cost seems so impossibly wrong but so amazingly common.

Grand Lodge

tennengar wrote:
I'd love to get an official ruling on the publishers intent for how this should be interpreted.

Well, Pathfinder Society tends to use the rules as they are written, and if you look at the bottom of the Chronicle Sheet after each module, there is a box for items sold. In this box, it says to make sure that you only add half of the item's value...


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the half price rule represents the equivalent to hawking the item at a pawn shop for instant gratification.

you can arguably get full price if you sell the item to a wealthy collector who has a reason to purchase it, or a similar scenario. or get your hands on a merchant's license, which means you might as well have rolled up an NPC.

Especially when it is a game about adventurers slaughtering hordes of intelligent beings to take their stuff. not a game about playing the trade market.


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Shopkeep! I wish to sell my ring! It appears to be what is referred to as a 'One ring'. The inscription says that its magical effect is to 'rule them all'...

It's a used magic item?

I presume so. There was some finger chopping involved in its aquisition...

What's this part here about the 'and in the darkness bind them?'

Yes I'm afraid it doesnt read 'and in the darkness bind them if you know. you feel like it' so I presume that part's not optional... I know. What can ya do right? Thems the rules.

Well i like the idea of ruling them all and i've got nothing against binding them in darkness either... But man... Its just used... I'm afraid I can't give ya full price for something like that.

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