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The argument in question is that item creation is a guideline. Shallowsoul and others have asserted this several times in this thread and others. I merely clarified with what reference the term guideline is related to. Its not really that hard to understand.@Khrysaor - Didn't you just tell us "You're all confused with your interpretation of what's a guideline." a few minutes ago.
It is odd how when you say we are wrong, it is fine, but when we say it "We have no right!"
It's not bad if you do it, eh? Outrage is a good fallback argument I guess.
It isn't hard to understand at all. It literally says it is a guideline.
Glad we are on the same page now!
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I am in agreement that revising the magic item crafting system would be a worthy goal.
But it ain't happening until the next version.
On the upside, I think it can be done without interfering with backward compatibility in any real way, so add this to the pile of "New fully compatible version of the rules please" arguments I've been making.
Yeah, you're right, and the devs have come right out and said as much. I suppose we are stuck with this mess for the foreseeable future.
Luckily the rest of Pathfinder makes it worth playing in spite of the total mess that they've inherited and exacerbated around magic items...
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I'm all for creating magic items but if someone wants to create items then they really need to heavily invest in it, and I mean really invest, but at a point where you couldn't possibly have the option of creating every kind of magic item, and have to actually sacrifice some combat and out of combat ability to do it.
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There are thousands of threads out there that prove that I am right.
And you all are wrong.
You can all go home now, I won the Internet.
LOL, I want to see your trophy.
Now, to respond to the snark though, In this case a thousand threads does, in fact, prove that I am right if I am asserting that there are a thousand threads on the subject.
The question is does that massive level of complaint truly indicate a problem or not?
Some here assert that massive customer complaints about a product do not indicate a problem. That is the issue that I find virtually impossible to wrap my brain around.
"I like it, so it must be fine, pay no attention to that huge line at the customer complaint desk!"
As far as I can tell, you're the one and only representative of the "magic item system is totally broken and you need to do X, Y and Z to fix this." (contrast with "magic item system is broken and you need to to A, B and C" or "X, A1 and B23")
You have a bad case of Vocal Minority Complex. In the end, you and your proposals is just one of million voices on how the game should be changed, and if devs followed every of them... well, the ruleset would change 10 times per day. Not to mention mutually exclusive proposals (cref: Ashiel v. Shallowsoul, in this very thread).
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I am in agreement that revising the magic item crafting system would be a worthy goal.
But it ain't happening until the next version.
On the upside, I think it can be done without interfering with backward compatibility in any real way, so add this to the pile of "New fully compatible version of the rules please" arguments I've been making.
Yeah, you're right, and the devs have come right out and said as much. I suppose we are stuck with this mess for the foreseeable future.
Luckily the rest of Pathfinder makes it worth playing in spite of the total mess that they've inherited and exacerbated around magic items...
You can always say no item creation feats.
The Wizard class actually supports this by allowing you to choose metamagic feats or item creation.
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There are thousands of threads out there that prove that I am right.
And you all are wrong.
You can all go home now, I won the Internet.
LOL, I want to see your trophy.
Now, to respond to the snark though, In this case a thousand threads does, in fact, prove that I am right if I am asserting that there are a thousand threads on the subject.
The question is does that massive level of complaint truly indicate a problem or not?
Some here assert that massive customer complaints about a product do not indicate a problem. That is the issue that I find virtually impossible to wrap my brain around.
"I like it, so it must be fine, pay no attention to that huge line at the customer complaint desk!"
As far as I can tell, you're the one and only representative of the "magic item system is totally broken and you need to do X, Y and Z to fix this." (contrast with "magic item system is broken and you need to to A, B and C" or "X, A1 and B23")
You have a bad case of Vocal Minority Complex. In the end, you and your proposals is just one of million voices on how the game should be changed, and if devs followed every of them... well, the ruleset would change 10 times per day. Not to mention mutually exclusive proposals (cref: Ashiel v. Shallowsoul, in this very thread).
And you have yet to provide some proposals and evidence to back you up. You talk a lot of talk but you don't provide anything to back it up.
There are actually lots of people who propose changes to the current magic item system and to ignore that is just sticking your head in the sand.
You have a bad case of Vocal Minority Complex. In the end, you and your proposals is just one of million voices on how the game should be changed, and if devs followed every of them... well, the ruleset would change 10 times per day. Not to mention mutually exclusive proposals (cref: Ashiel v. Shallowsoul, in this very thread).
Heh, then pretty much everyone else on this (and other) threads has that same affliction Gorbacz, including you, if asserting an opinion means they are infected.
But if you are asserting that nobody else has complained about the things in my list, then you seem to be the one who is not aware of the debates that have been going on. The existence of this very thread, which I did not start is an indication in itself that my list has merit.
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Im going to give you a bit of insight so listen carefully.
Any response which begins in this vein makes me have the vision of some Alex Jones-type person jabbing his finger in my face and yelling at me with spittle flying from his mouth.
Seriously, you sound like you have anger management issues. Calm down, dude.
The designers are not the only ones who come up with materials and rules changes. When eniugh of the public discuss an issue and present those problems then sometimes change can happen. Flurry of Blows was changed and then it was changed back because of the response. If you think the creation rules are fine then im happy for you but you dont get to dictate whether this discussion needs to continue or not. Nobody is forcing your fingers to glide along the keys of your keyboard to respond to this thread.
The problem here is that those problems are viewed quite differently by different gamers, and not only in the vein of "Is the Monk overpowered, yes/no?" style discussions we had so many of over the last years. Magic item crafting elicits some fundamentally different reactions to its implementation, with some people lamenting that its too easy to craft magic items, others being worried about the effect it has on game balance, others wanting it to be less time consuming and others being okay with it.
While I have my own take on the problems of this issue ( as expounded a few pages back ), I've recognized that what I see as problems is not an opinion which does seem to be widely held. While the developers could see a strong current of similar opinions being held on the problems of the Monk class, opinions on magic item crafting simply are too disparate to pick out one side of the argument and go with that. They'll have to see what they themselves come up with, if they even want to make any changes.
While the developers could see a strong current of similar opinions being held on the problems of the Monk class, opinions on magic item crafting simply are too disparate to pick out one side of the argument and go with that. They'll have to see what they themselves come up with, if they even want to make any changes.
This is an interesting point.
But if I break it down semantically, what it seems to mean is that that magic item system is broken in so many ways that there isn't a single worst broken part and so the noise created by all of the different complaints of the different broken elements lead the developers to conclude that there is no consensus on exactly HOW it is broken.
That's probably true, but it is, frankly, quite discouraging.
Also, taking Craft feats is roughly equivalent to a +1 bonus across the board due to the price scaling. This has already been shown in several threads. Crafting is hardly "a joke."
This is still patently wrong. The common argument about the "just +1 to everything" completely ignores how crafters most commonly specialize into getting their most important attributes elevated as their first order of business.
Sure, eventually the game catches up to those elevated bonuses, but since we play at every level and not only the high ones, the resulting imbalance is felt throughout a lot of playtime. Not even to mention that, as James Jacobs has pointed out many times in the past, most games don't even progress into the higher levels.
This is an interesting point.
But if I break it down semantically, what it seems to mean is that that magic item system is broken in so many ways that there isn't a single worst broken part and so the noise created by all of the different complaints of the different broken elements lead the developers to conclude that there is no consensus on exactly HOW it is broken.
That's probably true, but it is, frankly, quite discouraging.
I've been going on about the problems of magic item crafting for quite some time now. I got into arguments with people who believe that the system is totally fine and I am only imagining the imbalance it creates and I've seen people who dislike the system for completely different reasons than I do. So, yeah, its difficult to find any consensus of the issue.
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It isn't hard to understand at all. It literally says it is a guideline.
Glad we are on the same page now!
Ok, we're not exactly on the same page. No worries.
Everything is a Rule. It doesn't have to be called a rule to be one as the entire collection of books are "The Rules." I think that is where you are positing a false premise. If you choose to argue on indefensible cherrypicking, you are more than welcome to. But you are not playing by the rules.
I do agree that every custom item is a homebrew item. However, as Khrysaor has very clearly explained, the rules on creation are not, and as Sean K. Reynolds and Jason Bulmahn have pointed out, neither is the method of pricing. If you are playing Pathfinder, you are using its Rules. The creation rules are very specifically clear on how it is done. And then pricing is flexible, there are two methods. Hence one can use his judgement to select between those two methods. The first is pricing by comparison. The other is using the Formula.
I find it ironic that you linked to three Developer passages which repeat nearly verbatim what Khrysaor and Myself are saying. Lets look at them:
As a side note to some of the other disagreements in this thread...When pricing magic items (such as those that grant continuous or endless healing effects), remember that the formulas in the book are a guideline only (Core Rulebook, page 549, last paragraph) and that a GM should always compare an item against other similar items.
In this case, I suggest looking at the ring of regeneration which provides continuous healing. It costs 90,000 gp. I get why GMs handwave healing for story considerations, but from a purely rules perspective, such an ability is quite valuable.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
What you're not understanding in this passage, because you have not done an in depth Listed Price v Formula Price comparison, is that he's suggesting that items be discounted, because that is what they've done in the majority of cases. I get the impression that you know little if anything about the actual rules on pricing.
For many items, the CL provides no benefit except resistance to dispel attempts. A bag of holding is an example of this... its powers aren't based on CL. Thus, the wiz17 could make his bag at CL 9th (the default), CL17th (his own CL), or anything in between. I probably wouldn't let him make it at CL 1st, as secret chest requires CL 9th and the item is based on that, but if he really wanted to I supposed I'd let him. None of these choices affect the price, cost, time, or craft DC in any way, because the CL doesn't affect the item's abilities.For other items, the CL does actually play a role in the item's effects--a generic necklace of fireballs has a default CL of 10th because two varieties include fireball-beads that deal 10d6 damage (just like a CL 10th fireball does). If you wanted to make a type VI or VII necklace (which have fireballs of this power), you should *require* the crafter set the CL to 10th. However, if you're just making a type I necklace (max 5d6 fireball), there's no reason you couldn't just set the item's CL to 5th because it doesn't need to be more than that. And if you're a wiz20 and wanted to be a weirdo and make a type I necklace that's CL 20th, you could, but unless you're paying the extra gold for this increase to change the d6s of the item, that CL is basically irrelevant and I wouldn't have it effect the crafting DC.
For the pearl of power, I agree that in an ideal situation, each type of pearl would have its own CL listed (based on the min level to actually cast that sort of spell), and likewise each type of necklace of fireballs would have its own CL. And while the pearl sort of straddles the line between category 1 (CL is irrelevant because a CL 20th 1st-level pearl isn't any better at recalling spells than a CL 1st 1st-level pearl) and category 2 (in that the spell level of the pearl implies a minimum CL), in terms of its cost, price, and time, the CL difference for a pearl of the same spell level is essentially irrelevant and would almost never be a factor in any campaign (only if someone is specifically trying to temporarily nullify the powers of a pearl, which I've *never* seen happen). It shouldn't be harder to craft the "better" high-CL 1st-level pearl because it isn't really any better than the low-CL 1st-level pearl.
So if the question is, "should a CL 17th 1st-level pearl have a higher crafting DC than a CL 1st 1st-level pearl?" then the answer is "no, because the difference between the two is essentially negligible." Both cost 1000gp, both recall a 1st-level spell. Likewise with a bag of holding... the CL doesn't affect its abilities, so a wiz17 could set the CL to 17th if he wanted to, without changing the crafting DC at all.
Asking the same question about something where the CL *does* matter (like a wand of fireball), I would make the crafting check higher, because that CL actually reflects a significant change in the item's power. A wiz5 trying to make a CL 10th wand of fireball doesn't have the prerequisite to cast a 10d6 fireball, so him trying to make a wand of that should be harder than making a 5d6 wand... and this is reflected in the cost of the item (a 10d6 wand costs more than a 5d6 wand). It *should* be harder for that wizard to make the better wand because the wand really is better than the other wand.
TLDR:
1 )If giving the item a better CL doesn't really make the item better, don't make it harder for the crafter (by increasing the crafting DC) for that increase in CL, any more than you'd make it harder if they want a blue magical cloak instead of a red magical cloak.
2) If giving the item a better CL doesn't really make the item better, let the crafter create it at their own CL instead of the default.
Step 1: estimate price by comparing it to other existing magic items.
Step 2: If there are no comparable magic items, fall back to using the formulas.
I had not read this passage until I found your links. But my words are his words, verbatim. There are only two permissible methods of pricing your items. They're in the quote. Anyone, and that includes people whose opinions and posts I typically adore reading, but anyone who claims that the rules are telling them to ignore the rules on pricing, are simply not reading the rules correctly. A Guideline is a flexible rule, but the choices are still limited to specific options. There is no third option to price it how you like, out side of claiming the Golden Rule.
I do like the clarity in this passage though:
Actually no. I'm pretty much a "If Paizo wanted to say it, they would have said it in the rules text" kind of guy. What some developer, be it James, Jason, Sean, whoever, says after the text is printed is pretty much irrelevant. Unless, and until they decide to issue errata.
Hunting through blog posts for some random comment from a developer is way too much effort when trying to play a game. The rules are what the rules say that they are.
If you want to rule otherwise at your table, I have absolutely no problem with that. As long as you make it clear up front where you have decided to ignore the printed text. Both of my Pathfinder GM's have documents where they outline where they differ from printed text. I have no problem with that. If I want to take a feat combination that I feel might have powerlevel problems, I'll try to bring this up as early as possible so that we all know what I'm planning, and I haven't wasted part of a character's career preparing for an ability that the GM will later shoot down. No problem at all.
There's rules. And there's opinion. The rules are in the book, and in the errata. The rest is opinion. No matter who is stating it.
So.. when it comes to what you do at your home game, you are absolutely correct. What is posted here does not, by any means, have to make it to your game table. It is, after all, your game table. I'll even go one step further. Even once it is in a rulebook, it does not have to be a part of your game, so long as you and your players agree. Once again, its your game, do with it what you will.
However, if you are playing PFS, and the most current, up to date, PFS rules document says a certain rules works slightly differently, or not at all, then we expect you as a PFS player or GM to abide by that ruling. To work any other way is to invite chaos. If you want to debate this, I suggest you take it over to the PFS boards.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Bolded section is all relevant. Golden Rule all you'd like, but when it comes to Official, the printed text is correct, and your options--even in a guide--are bound by the choices you are given in that guide. These forums are "Offical" and so your position that there are no rules has no standing.
I've been going on about the problems of magic item crafting for quite some time now. I got into arguments with people who believe that the system is totally fine and I am only imagining the imbalance it creates and I've seen people who dislike the system for completely different reasons than I do. So, yeah, its difficult to find any consensus of the issue.This is an interesting point.
But if I break it down semantically, what it seems to mean is that that magic item system is broken in so many ways that there isn't a single worst broken part and so the noise created by all of the different complaints of the different broken elements lead the developers to conclude that there is no consensus on exactly HOW it is broken.
That's probably true, but it is, frankly, quite discouraging.
And my take is pretty much that they are ALL right. You are right. Shallowsoul is right. All of the complaints are valid and deserve treatment.
My point is that you can trace almost all of these to a fundamental problem with the entire conceptual premise of magic items in Pathfinder (and many other RPG games) and that premise is that magic items provide massive mechanical advantages to the core capabilities of PCs that become baked into the challenge rating which leads to pretty much every other problem with them. If that were not true, then most of the other issues that are game-balance issues would become annoyances at best. If there is one thing above all that I believe should be addressed, it is the fundamental concept that a character HAS TO HAVE magic items to be competitive. That takes away, imho, from the character and puts emphasis on shiny stuff. That's what I'd like to fix.
But if I break it down semantically, what it seems to mean is that that magic item system is broken in so many ways that there isn't a single worst broken part and so the noise created by all of the different complaints of the different broken elements lead the developers to conclude that there is no consensus on exactly HOW it is broken.
That's probably true, but it is, frankly, quite discouraging.
It would probably be helpful if someone would put in the work and try to compile all the different complaints about the system into one post, though. Which will not be me, I already tried that and got group-jumped by a bunch of people who thought the system was fine as it is. So I'm kinda tired of all this and will just use my own houserules I brought up a few pages back.
And my take is pretty much that they are ALL right. You are right. Shallowsoul is right. All of the complaints are valid and deserve treatment.
My point is that you can trace almost all of these to a fundamental problem with the entire conceptual premise of magic items in Pathfinder (and many other RPG games) and that premise is that magic items provide massive mechanical advantages to the core capabilities of PCs that become baked into the challenge rating which leads to pretty much every other problem with them. If that were not true, then most of the other issues that are game-balance issues would become annoyances at best. If there is one thing above all that I believe should be addressed, it is the fundamental concept that a character HAS TO HAVE magic items to be competitive. That takes away, imho, from the character and puts emphasis on shiny stuff. That's what I'd like to fix.
For what its worth, I completely agree with you on this issue. My home-brewn solutions focus on making magic item crafting balanced with WBL while removing many of the annoyances for player characters who want to craft efficiently under that new premise.
Mikaze, Ashiel and others ( me, too ) have already championed a system where you can self-enhance yourself instead of hanging magical bling all over your body. I kinda think that this is another issue than the "magical item crafting = unbalancing for the game" one.
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If something is a rule, I come to the table and say "I did this."
If something is a guideline, before I get to the table I need to contact my GM and say "Can I do this?" and if says no, regardless of what the charts says, I can't do it. And he is completely within the rules to say no, because it isn't a rule.
It is a guideline.
The GM doesn't house rule out a custom item, he simply doesn't allow it.
Maybe we can start a new thread on creating a better magic creation system?
I, like Magnuskn, have been gang-tackled by forum members when I've attempted to raise this before, but I'm game to try again.
However, it's not just the "magic creation system" that I'm talking about, it's the entire magic item system from concept to splat book.
While I'd love to see magic item creation improved to fix some of the obvious balance, game time and wealth issues, I'd much rather have a discussion about what magic items actually should do in the game and once that's worked out, then address how to make them and what PCs should be able to do.
If there is one thing above all that I believe should be addressed, it is the fundamental concept that a character HAS TO HAVE magic items to be competitive. That takes away, imho, from the character and puts emphasis on shiny stuff. That's what I'd like to fix.
I'm sure that you've read this argument before, but it seems so clearly a simple matter of Who Controls the Purse? You do. So if there are too many magical items being found, that is a product of decisions that you've made, as you know that the players are decking themselves out, there's no reason at all to grant them extra material rewards.
As to the Need for magical items, I have a different experience, perhaps it might be one that you'll find helpful. I run a Kingmaker Campaign, my players are now level 11. They are still wearing non-magical Armor and wielding non-Magical weapons. In lieu of going the magical item route, I simply gave them a higher Point Buy. They are now intrinsically better than the stock challenges at all levels, and so they're never worried about gear. When new gear is introduced, they're extremely excited and its a big happy event.
Any system which can easily be adjusted by Fiat in the interest of keeping one's players challenged, is not a broken system. Paizo is giving you options, when was has that ever been a bad thing? If you use Elite Array, you'll want to introduce more items. You can choose to let your players take care of themselves (or allow them to more specifically), or you can limit the resources they need to craft and instead provide relevant "wish list" items during play. If your goal, on the other hand, is to get that old D&D feel where loot was a total lottery event, which is most likely not going to produce items that your players actually want, then I sense a sadistic side ;P
Making crafting harder, or adding a greater feat tax doesn't achieve what you want. But tightening the purse, or simply giving your players higher stats with a simultaneous understanding that they'll only rarely receive gear are two very sound options. Now gear will be more Unique, and Epic, like the OP wanted.
Any system which can easily be adjusted by Fiat in the interest of keeping one's players challenged, is not a broken system.
It is hard to imagine a more frustrating fallacy that keeps getting repeated on these boards over and over and over again.
"You can make up stuff, so the rules don't matter" is no valid defense for rules that don't work.
My job as a GM is to adjust my game to my taste, not to fix all the broken crap because shut up.
I can do that in Monopoly. Or Chess. No game sends out enforcers to ensure that every rule is followed.
Some things are rules and some things are guidelines.
If you don't know the difference, dictionary.com
I sense that you're being willfully ignorant. I'll leave you with this: Expeditious Retreat. You must read its definition to understand its function. The name is meaningless without the rules that define it.
Same with the use of the word Guideline, its not a general meaning but the name of a specific set of rules. SKR, who is the Developer, even clarified this. Your opinion is noble, but its wrong none the less. And so you must read its definition as determined by Paizo, not the dictionary.
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I strongly support shadowsoul doing whatever he wants to the crafting rules at his table. If he doesnt think the challenges that have been put in place by the devs are steep enough and he wants the ingredients for magic items to include marinading your cyrano-de-balzac in the tepid waters of a piranha pool for 48 hours to give that magic item the real joie-de-vivre that a real magic item should warrant well more power to him.
I'd still call it 'homebrew' more than 'pathfinder' but
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I won't go to war over a label
I won't join him at his table.
He wants to tell a different fable
and he's able.
Wow, this thread kind of exploded. (EDIT: this is the last post I read before typing this reply, so keep that in mind)
Regarding the comparison the Monks/Flurry of Blows... I think a big difference there is that there was already a well accepted interpretation of those rules. When the developers clarified that they had not intended that interpretation, arguments cropped up about how Monks are already a bit behind on the power curve, and the common interpretation tended to bring them more in line with other classes. Eventually, the developers looked into it on their own and decided that they agreed with that, and reversed their ruling.
When discussing magic item creation, there isn't really any sort of consensus about anything. Honestly, there probably won't ever be. High versus low magic settings really boils down to personal preference. While neither is wrong, Pathfinder tends more toward high magic, and this permeates a lot of system (WBL, CR, etc.); changing magic item creation to better fit a low magic setting, by necessity, touches a lot of other core systems to compensate for invalidated assumptions.
Does this mean these systems are broken? Possibly. It could also mean that, as written, Pathfinder isn't the best system for what some portion of the current player base wants. (Which isn't bad. Trying to please everyone at the same time is a fool's errand. Picking a demographic and sticking to it is important to the success of most products.)
The whole system should be revisited with the following goals in mind:
1. Make the crafting of magic items reasonably doable in game time. There is no reason whatsoever that it should take months of full time daily crafting to make a magic item.
2. Magic items should be items which provide flavor and specific abilities to help develop unique and interesting character concepts. Baking magic item bonuses into the challenge system is the fundamental reason for the "Christmas Tree effect" and is why virtually every build of any concept has almost exactly the same magic items hanging off of it.
3. Work magic item crafting in some rational manner into the overall Pathfinder economic system. Of course this will be less of a problem if the rules end up not requiring every barbarian to have a +5 courageous furious sword.
4. Provide an actual algorithm based custom magic item creating system that allows the creation of unique and interesting magic items without requiring the GM to try to figure out complex pricing "guidelines" which are nothing but an open invitation to argument from the player.
5. Make magic item crafting a skill, not a feat.
6. Magic item creation should provide an in game benefit for the PC which invests in it, but that benefit should not be such that the PC can wildly violate wealth by level guidelines.
7. Magic item crafters should not be able to create magic items with magical abilities the crafter themselves does not possess.I could come up with more, but those are some biggies.
I like this post. I think it's been one of the most constructive posts in this thread for some time (though I quite enjoyed Ashiel's posts as well).
1) I'm not sure what to do on this one. We have a bunch of people in this thread arguing that magic item creation is far too easy, and doesn't cost enough. Earlier, I contended that time is an important resource that must be spent to craft, but the response was that that simply wasn't true for most campaigns. Are you suggesting that we should significantly drop the time investment for crafting, and replace it with some other cost?
2) I definitely understand the sentiment here, though I think that this is mostly going to come down the setting preferences. In settings where magic is rather ubiquitous, it makes plenty of sense for lots of magic items to be baseline assumptions -- though this still heavily depends on the power level of the common magic. Pathfinder seems to be set up such that any magic items valued at 16,000 gp or less should be fairly accessible, so it makes sense to assume that as adventurers can afford each important item in that range, they will purchase it. The system likely should not make many assumptions about magic's availability past that, though.
3) I definitely agree here. There's a disconnect somewhere in what sort of income seems reasonable for the majority of NPCs compared to the availability of magic. The supply seems to far outweigh the demand -- why?
4) I'm not sure how plausible this really is, but it would certainly be nice. Personally, I'd like to see some details on the pricing of how some of the more unique magic items are priced. I think Celestial Armor is the best known example; how exactly have the developers priced the "celestial" qualities? Perhaps more importantly, how did they come to the conclusion that that pricing was reasonable? It's easy to come up with at least a baseline for fairly standard magic items, but there's just silence when it comes to things that are really... well, magical.
5) That's an interesting idea.
6) Hm. I think this one will require some sort of consensus on whether or not the bonuses provided from crafted gear counting at crafting cost for WBL end up being roughly equivalent to other feats. I know Ravingdork mentioned this, though I don't think this thread hasn't really gone into the math for it. At the very least, it seems to be the developers' belief that they are roughly equivalent, based on SKR's comments in the FAQ about how to treat crafting with WBL. Of course, if magic item crafting became a skill, rather than a feat, that would require rebalancing anyway to bring it more in line with skill points, rather than feats.
7) I think this ends up being personal preference as well. I can totally see the argument -- how can the crafter play with magical forces they can't even begin to comprehend or manipulate on their own? On the other hand, though, when writing a computer program, I don't necessarily need enough mastery over whatever calculations I'm doing to be able to them by hand in any reasonable amount of time -- as long as I can come up with the right logic, the computer will come up with the results. Once again, this starts getting into a setting view of the nature of magic. Is magic some inherently chaotic force, and wizards and sorcerers are bending and shaping it to their will? If so, yeah, they're going to need to fully understand the magic they're imbuing into an item. Is magic really just a set of rules? In that case, I don't need to understand the entirety of how things work; a good set of abstractions will get me a long way.
More than anything else, I think it would be amazing to have some sort of discussion in the rules about what assumptions were made regarding magic, and what effects that had. From there, individual DMs would have more tools available to play with the availability of magic and appropriately adjust WBL, CR, etc. to compensate, rather than using workarounds like giving players static bonuses at certain levels to mimic having The Big Six without actually handing them out. Paizo doesn't necessarily need to work out the results of how things would be different for a very low magic setting, but they probably should provide the building blocks for someone else to do the leg work if they want to.
Paul, you can quote PFS bolded sections until you're blue in the face.
It's totally irrelevant as you couldn't build your item in PFS in the first place as the game does not allow custom magic item builds. You can't even evaluate or build your item without going into houseruling, because it involves making judgement calls, many of them quite subjective.
Not that it really matters. If you're a player and you want this item, the only person you have to convince is a GM. If you're the GM the amount of people you need to convince goes down further by one.
Jason is saying that Official stands when discussed in an Official setting. PFS is one such setting. So are these forums.
Heh, I had been very clear on what I was drawing out of that passage. This is what I said in regards to that post:
Bolded section is all relevant. Golden Rule all you'd like, but when it comes to Official, the printed text is correct, and your options--even in a guide--are bound by the choices you are given in that guide. These forums are "Offical" and so your position that there are no rules has no standing.
You must have missed the bolded portion, or ignored it, which has lead to a misunderstanding of the Meaning. Meaning. You're ignoring the Meaning of what he is saying.
Maybe we can start a new thread on creating a better magic creation system?I, like Magnuskn, have been gang-tackled by forum members when I've attempted to raise this before, but I'm game to try again.
However, it's not just the "magic creation system" that I'm talking about, it's the entire magic item system from concept to splat book.
While I'd love to see magic item creation improved to fix some of the obvious balance, game time and wealth issues, I'd much rather have a discussion about what magic items actually should do in the game and once that's worked out, then address how to make them and what PCs should be able to do.
Heh, which is it AD? Either everyone hates this system and they agree with you. Or they all disagree with you and gang-tackle your thread.
That's wiping and shaking with the same hand bud :P
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Some things are rules and some things are guidelines.
If you don't know the difference, dictionary.com
I sense that you're being willfully ignorant. I'll leave you with this: Expeditious Retreat. You must read its definition to understand its function. The name is meaningless without the rules that define it.
Same with the use of the word Guideline, its not a general meaning but the name of a specific set of rules. SKR, who is the Developer, even clarified this. Your opinion is noble, but its wrong none the less. And so you must read its definition as determined by Paizo, not the dictionary.
I disagree with you more respectfully than you are apparently willing to disagree with me.
You can make the items in the book by following the rules regarding magic creation. Anything not in the book is only allowed by GM permission, and if you decide to do that, as a GM they give you a suggested guideline to follow.
I am unsure why this distinction is unclear to you, but I won't ascribe willful ignorance to you.
Maybe we can start a new thread on creating a better magic creation system?I, like Magnuskn, have been gang-tackled by forum members when I've attempted to raise this before, but I'm game to try again.
However, it's not just the "magic creation system" that I'm talking about, it's the entire magic item system from concept to splat book.
While I'd love to see magic item creation improved to fix some of the obvious balance, game time and wealth issues, I'd much rather have a discussion about what magic items actually should do in the game and once that's worked out, then address how to make them and what PCs should be able to do.
Heh, which is it AD? Either everyone hates this system and they agree with you. Or they all disagree with you and gang-tackle your thread.
That's wiping and shaking with the same hand bud :P
No it's not Paul. Just as those who support the current magic item system can claim that the massive amounts of posts which challenge that system and want to see changes are actually a minority, I can just as well claim that the gang-tackling is done by a minority as well. A minority that is large enough can still gang-tackle just fine Paul.
I have never said that "everyone hates this system" nor have I said that "they all disagree with me."
Putting words into my mouth so you can make your argument sound better is one of the most irritating and least honest forms of debate.
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I also fully support anyone who thinks magic item crafting is too powerful to take the initiative to release an optional rules expansion. If there are enough people who like how you handle it then imagine what it'd be like to have a dollar in your pocket for everyone who agrees with you. The devs could give their polite official nod to your homebrew giving it some 'clout' that seems to be real important to ya, and you get some bucks as well.
If money isnt the object there's no reason you couldnt release the same material for free. Then you get the 'clout' without having to go through all the trouble of trying to turn a profit on it. There are at least a few folks on these forums that would disagree with you 'crafting for profit' but what do they know.
Both sides of the factions building strawman bandwagons isnt getting us anywhere.
What a lot of us want is to have a system that doesn't require as much GM adjudication of such things because of how exploitable some things are because players keep saying "It's within the rules" when they mean "The rules don't expressly forbid it and I've found guidelines that I can exploit!"
There is a fundamental game logic on which all RPGs are built. Before GM Fiat even comes into the equation, the game mechanics assume that if one rules grants permissions that interact with the permissions of another rule, that they work together unless explicitly disallowed by other clauses. If you do not like it when two rules do this, because the result is more effective than you were prepared to deal with, then Fiat. No RPG system ever, in any universe, has ever been free of discrete cases of Too Awesome to be Allowed. And please do make up those new crafting rules, they will be broken and exploited before you have time wave your GM Wand of "No." You've only convinced yourself that you can make a foolproof system.
Besides, this isn't a video game, and every previous edition of D&D was as easy to exploit and power game, so you're not making a point. Also, its the GM's job to manage the chaos that is a flexible rule system, tailoring his challenges to his player's tastes. I don't like a great many rules, and so I have the option to discard them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ICR in context of Pathfinder. But from all of this talk of how it used to be, I agree with several others who are reminding you that you're not playing those games anymore.
As a GM your Job is Fiat. Everything you do is in context of building encounters and making things tough in order for your players to figure out how to defeat said challenges. You make decisions all of the time which require you to adjudicate for and against, within and in spite of the rules.
I'm surprised to read someone saying "I don't like to make decisions as a GM" while also claiming that the ICR is only a guideline and that everything about it is his decision.
Two sides, you're talking out of them bud.
I disagree with you more respectfully than you are apparently willing to disagree with me.
You can make the items in the book by following the rules regarding magic creation. Anything not in the book is only allowed by GM permission, and if you decide to do that, as a GM they give you a suggested guideline to follow.
I am unsure why this distinction is unclear to you, but I won't ascribe willful ignorance to you.
You are right, and I apologize :( I let my tone slip.
The polite way of saying it would be: You're intentionally misreading the rules by ignoring the definition of the word you keep emphasizing.
If a GM allows custom items, and if that GM wanted to follow the rules, he would price his items in one of the two specific ways that SKR pointed out were the correct two options. If he were as studied in the system as he ought to be when making a completely adjudicated (I like that word btw) price designation, then his players will not be cheated. Otherwise, he's doing his players wrong.
An Analogous Case: I played under a GM who felt that Sneak Attack damage was unbelievably powerful, and that the Devs didn't understand what they had done. And so he adjudicated that Sneak Attack could only be done once in any given combat, and never again against an enemy that had seen it done.
At this point, I suggest that the magic item creation fixes that posters are proposing have a new topic (or an old topic) placed in the Homebrew forums.
Again what's "official" is not binding, and only somewhat relevant, unless you're Judging PFS. You have the full blessing to amend, adapt, or throw out any part of the rules text for a home game. PFS in fact, operates under a restricted subset of the rules. because much of the offering is either , not appropriate for the setting, or not reasonably manageable in a network campaign. In essence, PFS is the biggest "home rule" Pathfinder game on the planet.
In a home game, you can toss or use the Guide as you choose.
In PFS, you can't use the Guide at all the way you're using here, because as I've said before, custom magic items aren't allowed by[/b][/b]...
It is when discussing the rules on these Forums, as Jason was saying.
You seem obsessed with the Golden Rule, as if its a right that is under threat of repeal. I know that you can do what ever you'd like at your table, I encourage you to do so. Please, apply the Golden Rule as often as you'd like. But when discussing the rules of Pathfinder, the Golden Rule has no baring in the conversation.
You recently posted in another thread arguing the technical language of an ability combo. But now you're in this thread, which is also about the rules, arguing that you can toss them out if you'd like. That's not only completely inconsistent, its unnecessary.
Yes, you're right, do what ever you'd like. Now that I've acknowledged that, can we discuss the rules?
At this point, I suggest that the magic item creation fixes that posters are proposing have a new topic (or an old topic) placed in the Homebrew forums.
My apologies Ms. Courts :) I think I've contributed to a good deal of the derailing.
The Topic Is: The Pathfinder Model for Item Creation is Too Easy. I'm not sure if the OP feels that he can't reward his players in a meaningful way, or that he just doesn't like them being common. I think there was a bit of both.
Paul, you can quote PFS bolded sections until you're blue in the face.
It's totally irrelevant as you couldn't build your item in PFS in the first place as the game does not allow custom magic item builds. You can't even evaluate or build your item without going into houseruling, because it involves making judgement calls, many of them quite subjective.
Not that it really matters. If you're a player and you want this item, the only person you have to convince is a GM. If you're the GM the amount of people you need to convince goes down further by one.
Yes.
But you've stated several times that you don't allow Taking 10 in many cases, which is a judgement call. And the entire game is a judgement call, of which you assert your right to 'disallow this' and 'to alter that.' You're basically saying that this is a game where judgements must be made, and those judgements don't have to be guided by the rules, because they're only guidelines.
But if I wanted to be fair to my players, as a GM I would follow the rules. The rules for pricing are clearly defined. Also, why shouldn't a 13th+ level character have custom gear? Does everyone in your town shop at the Big Discount Store? Is everyone's house stock? Has no one ever customized their sound set up in their car? If a player asked you for some custom gear, have you ever granted them that gear simply to make them happy? I get the sense that you would, as would I. However you choose to house rule the price on that item, I would choose to use the Formula Price, which is way higher than most of the printed gear. I know this because I've been researching it as a result of so much criticism of the pricing rules.
Truly, how many of you actually understand the pricing models in the book? Pick 30 items, and you'll see that they're deeply discounted, or fall very close to the Formula Price.
However you choose to house rule the price on that item, I would choose to use the Formula Price, which is way higher than most of the printed gear. I know this because I've been researching it as a result of so much criticism of the pricing rules.
Truly, how many of you actually understand the pricing models in the book? Pick 30 items, and you'll see that they're deeply discounted, or fall very close to the Formula Price.
I've seen you mention this a few times now. Out of curiosity, have you posted examples anywhere? Granted, I have not tried any sort of exhaustive search through magic items to try to see how they compare to the guideline formulas, but everything I have checked seems pretty much spot on, or maybe a bit higher (unfortunately, this is from memory, else I'd provide specific examples). I'm very interested to see what items are "deeply discounted".
No. that's not an answer. I want you to show me HOW a 5th level character can pull off making a Wish granting item. A complete answer involving skills, spells, equipment, and cost.Feat: Craft Arms and Armor
Luck Blade
ICL 17
Crafting Cost 43,835 gp
(not-really-pre)prequisites: Miracle or Wish
Spellcraft Check = 5 + 17(CL) + 5(missing prereq) = 27
Spellcraft Skill = 3(class skill) + 5(ability mod) + 2(trait) +5(rank) +2(aid) = 17
Take 10 on the roll.A caster who was part of a 4 man party who nearly TPWed could do this with the party resources at 5th level. He also gets a shiny reroll-providing short sword as a bonus.
Of course, the same guy could craft ten Candles of Invocation and summon ten Balor demons, which might be a little more fun in the long run.
Luck blade is a +2 weapon. To create a +2 enhancement bonus on weapons, the creator must have a level that is 3 times the enhancement bonus. This is unavoidable and makes it impossible for a level 5 character to make a +2 weapon/shield/armor. It's an exclusive rule to craft magic arms and armor.
You're also arguing for something that isn't covered by the rules. Farming dead party members for their resources. This is considered faux pas by most people and is usually avoided. Keeping the items from dead companions, unless story/quest related, would skew the balance of the campaign as it introduces more treasure with additional characters that didn't exist in the campaign.
So level 6 then.
No rule that requires the players to metagame is a good rule.