This thread is a polite follow-up on 'Magic Item Crafting: any unresolved questions?'. It is not a demand, or an attack.
Ultimate Campaign was identified several months ago as being the book that will clarify Magic Item crafting. I do not wish to convey that I am criticizing the content of the book, but I must express disappointment with the volume of content provided (4 pages on crafting, 2 pages on talismans). Please do not misunderstand me, those 4 pages do contain much-needed clarifications and examples, but not nearly the level of information that was needed on this subject.
I am not certain if I built an unrealistic expectation of what would be in there, or if I had a realistic expectation and that the content just didn't make it into the book due to extraneous factors. Either way, I'm hoping for some sort of communication regarding the many unanswered questions.
Sean K Reynolds did post the following two posts during the thread:
Hey, folks, just an FYI, some of these questions are more appropriate for a FAQ than the upcoming book talking about campaign economics of item crafting, but I'll make sure they're taken care of.
Much of what's being asked is outside the scope of the book, but I mentioned above that I'll note these questions for later.
I just desire to know that the pages of questions (I've been compiling posts from the original thread) are not going to disappear to the bottom of a to-do list.
Yikes, no apparent community interest?
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I too would have liked more material, but probably it wasn't possible without changing some established rules about magic item crafting.
There is plenty of people that will be violently upset by any change of the current status quo (or their interpretation of it), so I think the developers are treading very lightly on this matter, especially as it can be easily houseruled in home games and it don't matter in PFS.
Maybe we should start not with 'answers to the unanswered questions' but instead scale it back... we should ask about 'intent to answer the unanswered questions..."
Instead of asking 'Does rope trick count as being an acceptable environment for crafting" we could alternatively ask "Does Paizo ever plan on making a specific ruling regarding the acceptability of ropetrick as a crafting environment..."
We could start with meta-questions and meta-answers to help ease everyone into the idea that some answers are being worked on an others arent ^_^
On the one hand paizo can say 'that questions already been answered when we said any environment that's condusive to spell preparation is good enough for crafting'....'
On the other hand theres a huge contingent of folks who dont like that possibility. Making a specific ruling on it might feel like 'going against previously published content' for the folks who read it in a way that makes it seem like it's good enough... so the safest bet was to add in another arbitrary card for gm's to stop crafing if they want to.
Technically I'm kidding, but while it might be appropriate to hold SKR to the fact that he says he'll 'make sure they're taken care of'..., thats as specific a statement as most of the rules in pathfinder. Sounds good, but isnt the same as if he'd have said 'I'll make sure you get specific answers to any questions here that the book doesnt cover." He says he'll addressing the questions that would be appropriate for a FAQ, but that's no guarantee that any specific question will wind up on the faq... Corporate Timelines and Customer Satisfaction being what they are, there are totally no guarantees about when or how many questions will be addressed. Just an open acknowledgement that they'll be 'taken care of'...
It's 'dilbertspeak' really... Like 'Focusing on our core competencies...' sounds good to shareholders and makes you feel like they're addressing your issues, but doesn't give anything substantive about what they're going to do, how much of it, or when... Make no promises you can't keep and all that...
Don't get me wrong. I'll be jazzed if they do wind up taking some solid stances on some of the unresolved issues. But for now I just gotta role with what we've got and leave the rest to house rules for now.
Its funny that i'd be just as happy to get an official statement on which questions will remain gray areas that paizo prefers to leave up to individual tables to resolve...
As it turns out UCamp sort of gave me the answer I was looking for, which was mostly 'if you think crafting is too easy, toss in a little dragon's blood!".... Basically giving dm's another carte blanche tool to stop any crafting they don't like the look of, and I'm not offended that they played it off as 'look it adds immersion to your world! ^_^ which is true... As a grognard I loved making the player's goals into campaigns... Its a shame most of the gamers I run into nowadays don't have the patience for sidetracking a campaign to get some rare crafting ingredients, but thats sort of paizo's point. If players don't want to take the time, then that's an easy way to stop the crafting bug it its tracks.
And at the end of the day it's still just a 'suggestion'... If you don't mind players crafting, you don't have to use 'rare ingredient' rules.
On the opposite side of the spectrum SKR did give an official acknowledgement that fast crafting makes the 8 hour crafting day 2000 gp of progress. Now that gm's have the freedom to play the rare ingredient card, nobody should be afraid of having the 2000gp fast crafting in 8 hours confirmed. Intentional or unintentionally safe strategy... Well played, Paizo... Well played.
TL/DR: Seems like a moot point that a dm would bother giving you a hard time about crafting in your rope trick after you've gone to all the trouble to harvest that Tarrasque Sphincter for your regeneration ring at this point.
Is there any official FAQ posted regarding Crafting?
I'm going towards a Crafter PC with Scribe Scrolls, Craft Armor and Craft Wou Items, I wanted to have more information and clarification.
My dream was to craft a construct to act as my protector, but I don't quite understand the rules behind it
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Essentially: you need a lot of GM input.
There are tons of pieces of the rules about crafting that can be seen differently from GM to GM.
A character that is heavily into crafting need downtime and that can be campaign dependent.
Then you need to know what is the stance of the GM about you crafting for the other characters.
And then find an agreement with the other players and the GM about what would be the cost of your crafted items if given to the other characters.
A lot of players feel that you should provision them of magic items at cost. I find a bit questionable from the character point of view that he should spend a lot of time making magic items during his non adventuring days for free. Even more as the other characters would fully benefit from his feat without taking it.
On the other hand I don't think that having them pay full market price would be a good idea.
My current solution, as a character, is to ask 10% of the production price as a compensation for my time (i.e. the other characters can buy magic items at 55% of the market price from me).
It don't make a big difference money wise but it make a big difference from the point of view of my character.
You know your life got a little when it takes over a week to follow-up on your own thread... sigh...
@Diego Rossi: I don't think that clarifying things such as "Can I add 5 to the DC to bypass being an Elf?" will shatter established rules.
@Vincent Takeda: I also really like the 'rare reagents' that were added in Ultimate Campaign. My GM actually already was implementing something like that for her custom items, but still... I always prefer official rules over house/3rd party rules.
Frankly, I'm surprised that there isn't an "Ultimate Crafting" book on the product schedule by now. We all know that the mundane craft system is in need of some serious love, and answering all of the unanswered magic item questions would be fantastic. Sure, it probably would never see PFS play either way, but this kind of sourcebook would be (as far as I can tell) the first of its kind. Being that Paizo has said before that they want to release new topics in their books and not just rewrite 3.5 and prior material, I say seize the opportunity! Right? >.>
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@Diego Rossi: I don't think that clarifying things such as "Can I add 5 to the DC to bypass being an Elf?" will shatter established rules.
That is already in the rules:
The DC to create a magic item increases by +5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory.
and in the FAQs:
Crafting and Bypassing Requirements: What crafting requirements can you bypass by adding +5 to the DC of your Spellcraft check?As presented on page 549 of the Core Rulebook, there are no limitations other than (1) you have to have the item creation feat, and (2) you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting their spell prerequisites. So racial requirements, specific spell requirements, math requirements (such as "caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus"), and so on, are all subject to the +5 DC rule.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 02/22/13
My comment was referred to changes like saying: "You can't craft an item with a CL of 20 if your character level is 3".
My apologies, I missed that FAQ update on 2/22 it seems... do you have a link to that page/thread that I can reference to watch?
(That example was, btw, just a quick example that I remember seeing often...)
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My apologies, I missed that FAQ update on 2/22 it seems... do you have a link to that page/thread that I can reference to watch?
(That example was, btw, just a quick example that I remember seeing often...)
To see the FAQs you can use the link on the right high corner of the forum, or or this link.
but the best source is following the posts of the Pathfinder Design Team.That FAQ was made before the first post from the PDT, so it is not linked to a specific thread.