I'm aware there is this FAQ response that says, in the last paragraph, that crafted items should be counted at their crafting cost, and not their market price.
This seems... unbalancing to me. If you have a crafter in the party with at least Craft Magic Arms & Armor and Craft Wondrous Items, unless you keep them very time constrained, you're essentially increasing the party's wealth by 50% or more. If you give them a few more crafting feats, say Forge Ring, Craft Rod, you can easily make it 90%.
So, I'm wondering what other DMs do for this, if you do anything at all. I'm considering making crafting cost 75% of the market price instead of 50% as a house rule. I think that would still make the Crafting feats a good investment for the effective power increase they get you. Thoughts?
I give no allowances and ask for none.
Here is how I see it. WBL is the suggested useful wealth a player should have to stay balanced with appropriate CR foes. Crafting feats doesn't stop this guideline from being true. The benefit of crafting feats is being able to better optimize your wealth.
Sorry, but to clarify what you're saying, you count crafted items as their full market price when evaluating the wealth level of players with Crafting feats?
I put a percentage limit (40% I think) on how much of WBL - "gained after" the feat was selected - that could be used for crafting using that feat. And the items are then bought at crafting cost.
That required a little extra checking and calculating, and now I'd probably just allow whatever crafting I didn't handwave as "over the top." If I started above level 1, that is.
Sorry, but to clarify what you're saying, you count crafted items as their full market price when evaluating the wealth level of players with Crafting feats?
I do.
Ultimate Campaign, p. 173 should give the answer.
An answer which sadly lacks any context in lore or rules, but it's an answer nonetheless.
There's a bit of guidance somewhere recommending that having a crafting feat should increase the PC's effective wealth by 25%. So creating a higher level character would mean working out what his/her WBL is, adding 25% extra per crafting feat taken, and then the player buys everything at full price.
Overall, however, all item crafting needs to be carefully evaluated by the GM. Different tastes, different campaigns, different players even, can mean varying treatment.
I used to be of the opinion that a PC should have close to WBL, for balance purposes, regardless of crafting feat use.
I then read a differing opinion written by a Paizo developer and I was convinced that the PC has paid a price in the form of one or more feats, and their reward is that their wealth is increased.
It's that simple. It could have been Power Attack, but instead it's Craft Arms and Armor. It could have been Spell Focus, but instead it's Forge Ring. It could have been and of a number of actual top-notch directly offensive feats, but it wasn't.
A character who has used crafting will likely - and should - have more than WLB. And yes, that extends to party members as well. Just like those party members who benefit from a cleric with Selective Channel. Some feats... most feats... help everyone, if only by getting the enemy dead faster.
I'm in agreement that they should have more WBL, but the question is how much. If they can effectively half the cost of the items, it makes Craft Wondrous Item the most powerful feat in the game by a large margin, with Craft Magic Arms & Armor the runner up.
I'm in agreement that they should have more WBL, but the question is how much. If they can effectively half the cost of the items, it makes Craft Wondrous Item the most powerful feat in the game by a large margin, with Craft Magic Arms & Armor the runner up.
You're forgetting the cost of time, something that may or may not be present in any given campaign, and gold, which is rarely as common in an actual campaign as the theorists tend to assume when on forums. They have a few more items, but especially since it's casters, and particularly wizards, taking these feats, a lot of the stuff is going to be consumables used up as quickly as it's made or stuff made for other party members. In practice, crafters are not going to have access to that much more readily available resources at any given time than anybody else, so the feats while useful, they are more about customizing the party's wealth and magic than making the crafter and/or the party stronger. As such, they are not automatically all that powerful.
Ultimate Campaign, p. 173 should give the answer.
An answer which sadly lacks any context in lore or rules, but it's an answer nonetheless.
My group took the UC rules and house ruled a more refined definition
(% are added before applied, so 2 = 35%)
1st crafting feat = +25% wbl allowed
2= +10%
3, 4, 5 = +5%
(So the max is +50% wbl)
In addition, a crafter has more say in creating/cherry picking the right items.
It worked for us, take of that what you will. Made a crafting feat or two worth it, allowed crafting masters to get even more, yet kept wbl in a reasonable enough range.
My group took the UC rules and house ruled a more refined definition
I like your idea. Does that apply to the whole group, since presumably the crafter is crafting for others as well?
To those who are saying that it takes time and effort too, that's certainly true. The question I'm more immediately concerned with is, say, creating a party of characters at a higher level. Some of them have crafting feats. How much should their effective WBL increase by?
I do as the FAQ states and count crafted items at their crafting price. No sense penalizing a player for devoting a feat-starved class's feats to crafting items. They paid the price, they get the goods. I've seen no balance problems as a result.
(Disclaimer edit: I don't really care that much about balance either, but I do notice it.)
Hmmmm... I think I'm just going to Houserule the crafting costs up. I'll have to think about the right balance. I've always found it completely absurd that there is such an enormous spread between crafting and buying costs in any case. Like... what's stopping the heroes from finding other adventurers to sell their creations to at full market price? I realize it's a balance issue, but it's extremely jarring nonetheless.
At the moment, I'm thinking to just make crafting cost 80% of the market price, instead of 50%, and THEN using the crafting cost in WBL calculations. Something like that, anyway.
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I used to be of the opinion that a PC should have close to WBL, for balance purposes, regardless of crafting feat use.
I then read a differing opinion written by a Paizo developer and I was convinced that the PC has paid a price in the form of one or more feats, and their reward is that their wealth is increased.
It's that simple. It could have been Power Attack, but instead it's Craft Arms and Armor. It could have been Spell Focus, but instead it's Forge Ring. It could have been and of a number of actual top-notch directly offensive feats, but it wasn't.
A character who has used crafting will likely - and should - have more than WLB. And yes, that extends to party members as well. Just like those party members who benefit from a cleric with Selective Channel. Some feats... most feats... help everyone, if only by getting the enemy dead faster.
This seems to come up all the time; I think Anguish has stated the definitive response.