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@dm Blake- the guidelines in ultimate campaign suggest a character with a crafting feat should reasonably be at around 25% above wbl and not overly damage game play. If they have multiple feats, then you can stretch this up to 50% above wbl. These bonuses have to be spread amongst the others you craft for too. So if you craft for yourself and three others, your really only getting 6% more than the wealth guides suggest.
These guidelines are to enable GMs to keep an eye on things and adjust wealth handouts appropriately. It also keeps a nice balance for newly created pcs. So to answer your question, if the GM has followed the suggested guidelines in the ultimate campaign, two crafters crafting for a group with three other plates means everyone should be about 12% to 24% above wbl. The new character should be created this too.
Of course, if the GM doesn't follow the guidelines, then the game becomes far more unbalanced. Those guidelines are to help provide advantage for getting the feat without stretching things into the ridiculous levels we often see mentioned in some of the wizard power threads.
Crafting, like leadership, needs careful handling as a GM to ensure things stay in hand. The new book points these out and makes suggestions on how to handle them fairly.
Cheers
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@dm Blake- the guidelines in ultimate campaign suggest a character with a crafting feat should reasonably be at around 25% above wbl and not overly damage game play. If they have multiple feats, then you can stretch this up to 50% above wbl. These bonuses have to be spread amongst the others you craft for too. So if you craft for yourself and three others, your really only getting 6% more than the wealth guides suggest.
These guidelines are to enable GMs to keep an eye on things and adjust wealth handouts appropriately. It also keeps a nice balance for newly created pcs. So to answer your question, if the GM has followed the suggested guidelines in the ultimate campaign, two crafters crafting for a group with three other plates means everyone should be about 12% to 24% above wbl. The new character should be created this too.
Of course, if the GM doesn't follow the guidelines, then the game becomes far more unbalanced. Those guidelines are to help provide advantage for getting the feat without stretching things into the ridiculous levels we often see mentioned in some of the wizard power threads.
Crafting, like leadership, needs careful handling as a GM to ensure things stay in hand. The new book points these out and makes suggestions on how to handle them fairly.
Cheers
Now I am not only purchasing, but I am tempted to get the PDF while I wait for the book.
Common sense stuff...nicely done Paizo.
One could easily regulate the wealth per level by having the PCs pay quite a lot for their crafting friend.
They should provide him with extra money buy or rent him a laboratory/workshop. Since he is no slave might want to live some kinda luxurious live enjoy some nice wine and fancy food. He might even have a family to feed.
If he spends every day crafting, the players need to provide his livelyhood.
If the GM wants his Leadership PCs wealth to go down, the Crafting cohort gets more expensive hobbies, like becoming an art collector.
In the end, I would allow a crafting NPC. I would be more reluctant of having the cohort travel along all the time. It's really hard for a player to roleplay two characters at the same time and can be annoying for the GM to do it.
It will also slow down battles, if one players gets twice as much actions.
Maybe I didn't make my point clear enough - I'm assuming the crafting guys are making items for the whole party, not just themselves. Everyone in the party is above WBL because of these feats.
Bringing in a new player and assigning a "penalty" because the other guys have played longer seems a bit harsh.
Everyone is saying, and I agree, that if you roll a new high-level character you shouldn't be able to break WBL by using crafting feats or having a crafting cohort because that's metagaming that you never acquired non-cash wealth in your early adventuring levels, or saved it all for the day you finally began crafting, both of which is silly.
So, is it fair to "penalize" a new player because he's new, force his character to start with less gear and feel weak compared to the existing PCs? If not, do you force him to also have a crafting cohort and metagame the system to avoid the "penalty"? Or do you just let him start with extra gear because you know all the other PCs have extra gear - and if you do, how much extra gear?
For me this is a non-issue. Taking into account that a new player is, for the most part, handpicking their kit, getting exactly what they need to make their character work at level and coming in at level without worries of a loss of wealth (expended consumables etc.) nor having had their character risk life and limb to advance to their current point, seems about right. In the end, if you desire exact balance (good luck, btw) you will have your work cut out for you, but WBL is a nice rule of thumb, and that is good enough for what I need it for. YMMV, of course.
Most everyone who replied to me seems to be replying in a vacuum. In my previous posts I clearly stated that I had read the guidelines in Ultimate Campaign and I was in support of them.
Several people in this thread suggested that they didn't have a problem with characters using feats and even cohorts to, essentially, blow the WBL out of the water and that the WBL was really only for bringing new people into the group.
My question was aimed at them - if you allow existing players to trash the WBL system, how do you assign fair wealth to a new player?
Doug's answer is interesting, but if someone is using crafting to trash the WBL system, then they also have handpicked their kit by crafting it, so I'm not sure that's quite as balanced as you suggest.