I call getting "+5 inherents across the board", the equivalent of 825,000 gp worth of tomes for free (which almost the entire character worth of a 20th level PC) by twisting monster summon rules an abuse.
As a GM, if a player were to try to pull that on me, I would say "Fine, a +5 tome appears at your feet. Mark it off your character wealth by level."
So the actual popular stance on the boards is "it's not rules abuse if it's legal?"
Wow, okay.
What the heck DO you consider to be rules abuse, then?
(I've always defined rules abuse as using the RAW to get results that are deliberately detrimental to the game. And yes, I'd consider using planar bindings (or simulacrums) to get 750,000 gold in wishes for free with no repercussions to be a pretty spectacular example of rules abuse =P)
An NPC does it for no cost or repercussions in Seven Swords of Sin...
Not familiar with the module. Is the NPC actually just doing it to have abnormally high stats, or is it actually a plot point?
Not familiar with the module. Is the NPC actually just doing it to have abnormally high stats, or is it actually a plot point?
She has a bound genie and she used it for free inherent bonuses. The plot isn't centered on the genie either. It isn't stated but all her stats are precisely 3 higher than normal.
Okay. I'd assume she either has the +1 CR for getting caught up to a PC in resources, or +2 CR for blowing right past an equivalent PC's resources (like Karzoug does).
I still don't see why that would obligate me to say "okay, sure" if one of my players ever announced, in essence, "hey, this spell lets me wreck the power curve of the campaign with infinite free ___, so I'm going to go do that."
Shes a Wizard 11 CR 11 with more wealth than even PCs do at that level.
Ah, it's a 3.5 adventure. So just level = CR, regardless of resources.
I'm guessing she'd be CR 12 if the module was under Pathfinder rules.
Thats quite an assumption thinking that a naked sorcerer is not only not going to be on the wrong end of a surprise round, but that he would be assured of winning initiative.A level 20 sorcerer with no gear. Start with CHA of 20. Cast time stop.
A naked lvl 20 sorcerer is still a serious threat, but they are still less of a threat than a fully geared one. So yes, you are "the least bit dependent" on your gear, you just aren't totally dependent on it like a Fighter.
With the existence of the Alarm spell and other such spells, plus divination spells and whatnot, I feel it'd be very hard to surprise a sorcerer that didn't want to be surprised while naked. And I doubt a lv20 sorcerer would die in the surprise round. And spell casters generally want good initiatives, so good odds going pretty high in the normal round, and then it's over.
A 20th-level sorcerer with moment of prescience and time stop will likely go first, and win, regardless of his base stats.
I've actually thought about this a bit because being caught in the bath by a group of assassins intent on killing him is something that's not completely improbable given the way my 18th level sorcerer lives his life. For starters, he has Mind Blank, Moment of Prescience, and Contingency: Freedom of Movement (being grappled) up at all times. He's got a +9 to initiative, so it's likely that he'll go worse than 3rd in the round. He has a natural 18 con (generous point buy) so he's got a decent amount of hp. Unless they can kill him before he goes on the first round, he can teleport out of danger. If for whatever reason he can't teleport (very unlikely), he has other tricks up his sleeve to ensure his survival - such as the fact that he's fey bloodline who specializes in enchantments - not to mention other useful spells.
I feel pretty confident that he could make it out of such a situation alive.
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Ah, it's a 3.5 adventure. So just level = CR, regardless of resources.
I'm guessing she'd be CR 12 if the module was under Pathfinder rules.
That's a sick joke. Inherent modifiers most certainly do not make an 11th level sorcerer worth two 10th level sorcerers. :|
In Pathfinder she would be CR 11 (heroic NPC classed w/ PC wealth).
I call getting "+5 inherents across the board", the equivalent of 825,000 gp worth of tomes for free (which almost the entire character worth of a 20th level PC) by twisting monster summon rules an abuse.
As a GM, if a player were to try to pull that on me, I would say "Fine, a +5 tome appears at your feet. Mark it off your character wealth by level."
Different costs for the same thing is a pretty typical part of the game. Generally speaking non-casters tend to have to spend more than casters do for the same things. That said, manuals are grossly overpriced. It's priced as if you were actually getting a wish spell, but what you are getting so far below the value of a CL 17th wish spell that it's disappointing.
Also, you'd be breaking the rules if you did that. Wish was intentionally nerfed in Pathfinder because it's understood that you are going to use bound creatures for their wish SLAs. That's why you cannot wish for magic items anymore like you could in 3.5 (because in 3.5, you could wish for magic items of any and/or infinite value because the SLA ignored the cost for doing so). Instead we get things like efreeti with very low caster levels and Charisma modifiers (which makes using their wish spells offensively not very useful since they cannot pierce SR and their DCs aren't so great) wherein the only things that those wishes are really useful for are getting your inherents and/or acting as a support medic (instead of trekking back to town to get make whole (corpse), raise dead and restoration cast, you have your djinn buddy do it).
To me, an abuse of the rules would be something like healing people by drowning them.
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A 20th-level sorcerer with moment of prescience and time stop will likely go first, and win, regardless of his base stats.
I wasn't even trying to suggest that the sorcerer would necessarily win because of her inherent modifiers. Merely that assuming she would be so fragile as a 20th level character felt like it was lowballing it a lot and assuming she was kinda dumb. One thing sorcerers have an innate advantage over wizards is that they are naturally better at charms & bindings because of their Charisma modifiers. It's trivially easy for a sorcerer to bind up an outsider with useful abilities and cast charm monster on them and get them to assist them however they want.
It would be unsurprisingly if a sorcerer's home was entirely lit by continual flame spells because decided it would be so much cooler and environmentally-friendly to not burn oil lamps but instead call up a Lantern Archon to run around their house spamming its continual flame SLA on the wick of all the sorcerer's lanterns. >_>
In a similar vein, she might have a lillend azata around to play music and/or entertain her (that "attract the attention of extraplanar beings" thing works both ways y'know :P).
EDIT: On a side note, it amuses me when people act like it's some sort of amazingly unbalanced thing. Getting your inherent modifiers on the back-9 of the course actually makes things a lot more balanced all around.
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A 20th-level sorcerer with moment of prescience and time stop will likely go first, and win, regardless of his base stats.It is doubtful that Moment of Prescience lets you add to initiative, I am not convinced initiative is an opposed ability check.
I can't find where in the core rules it defines opposed checks, but an Initiative check is explicitly a Dexterity check that you are rolling with the goal of rolling higher than everyone else's check, which is by nature an opposed check (as opposed to a check vs a static DC).
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I can't find where in the core rules it defines opposed checks, but an Initiative check is explicitly a Dexterity check that you are rolling with the goal of rolling higher than everyone else's check, which is by nature an opposed check (as opposed to a check vs a static DC).A 20th-level sorcerer with moment of prescience and time stop will likely go first, and win, regardless of his base stats.It is doubtful that Moment of Prescience lets you add to initiative, I am not convinced initiative is an opposed ability check."attack roll, combat maneuver check, opposed ability or skill check, or saving throw"
Initiative is not an ability check, opposed or otherwise. It's an initiative roll.
If it was an ability check, everything else on that list would be to.
From the core rules.
Initiative
At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check. Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll, as well as other modifiers from feats, spells, and other effects.
So it explicitly calls itself out as a Dexterity check, not merely modified by Dexterity but literally a Dexterity check.
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I call getting "+5 inherents across the board", the equivalent of 825,000 gp worth of tomes for free (which almost the entire character worth of a 20th level PC) by twisting monster summon rules an abuse.
As a GM, if a player were to try to pull that on me, I would say "Fine, a +5 tome appears at your feet. Mark it off your character wealth by level."
1. There is no official 'character wealth by level' meter. It's for GM ballparking.
2. Do you do the same thing for characters with crafting feats? It's essentially the same gist - they get something which is usually cost X for cost X-Y. (Y being either the 50% discount for crafting or whatever discount planar binding ends up being.)
2. Do you do the same thing for characters with crafting feats? It's essentially the same gist - they get something which is usually cost X for cost X-Y. (Y being either the 50% discount for crafting or whatever discount planar binding ends up being.)
Yes, I do use the same thing for crafting characters. They can make their items using less resources up front, but I slow down their inflow afterwards until everyone is roughly equal again.
The crafting wizard does not get to have twice as much gear as everybody else in the game, he just gets to have exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it, while everybody else has to wait.
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2. Do you do the same thing for characters with crafting feats? It's essentially the same gist - they get something which is usually cost X for cost X-Y. (Y being either the 50% discount for crafting or whatever discount planar binding ends up being.)Yes, I do use the same thing for crafting characters. They can make their items using less resources up front, but I slow down their inflow afterwards until everyone is roughly equal again.
The crafting wizard does not get to have twice as much gear as everybody else in the game, he just gets to have exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it, while everybody else has to wait.
Really? Well - I'd certainly never take crafting feats in your campaign.
2. Do you do the same thing for characters with crafting feats? It's essentially the same gist - they get something which is usually cost X for cost X-Y. (Y being either the 50% discount for crafting or whatever discount planar binding ends up being.)Yes, I do use the same thing for crafting characters. They can make their items using less resources up front, but I slow down their inflow afterwards until everyone is roughly equal again.
The crafting wizard does not get to have twice as much gear as everybody else in the game, he just gets to have exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it, while everybody else has to wait.
Yes he does. He paid a feat for that privilege. The primary benefit of the feat is being able to get certain kinds of magic items at base cost. Removing that benefit makes crafting feats all but useless. Why spend the time to craft something that is going to end up costing you the same amount as it would if you just bought it?
I can't find where in the core rules it defines opposed checks, but an Initiative check is explicitly a Dexterity check that you are rolling with the goal of rolling higher than everyone else's check, which is by nature an opposed check (as opposed to a check vs a static DC).
The following excerpt is the only reference I could find to opposed checks, but I don't think it's a stretch to extrapolate it to include ability checks:
Some skill checks are opposed by the target's skill check. When making an opposed skill check, the attempt is successful if your check result exceeds the result of the target.
An initiative check isn't an opposed check because there isn't a success or fail condition - regardless of your result, you still get to act.
I wished MoP worked on initiative checks as much as the next caster, but sadly it does not.
Moment of Prescience: Initiative is definitely an ability check (so good hope, which simply works on all ability checks, bumps it), but I don't buy that it's an opposed ability check (stealth v. perception, bluff v. sense motive, etc.).
Item crafting: The caster is giving up personal power in exchange for spending their downtime often improving the efficiency of the entire party's resources.
Also, the 50% discount goes a long way towards making up for getting half value for all the loot that the party can't use.
(In my current game, I'm using Unearthed Arcana's craft point rules, and I give two for one on crafting feats, because I want my PCs to use crafting - it's good for the whole party.)
Heh, as to infinite access to wishes, no strings attached, starting at L11 - I'm amused when people allow amazingly unbalanced things, and then complain about caster/martial disparity. =P
Yes he does. He paid a feat for that privilege. The primary benefit of the feat is being able to get certain kinds of magic items at base cost. Removing that benefit makes crafting feats all but useless. Why spend the time to craft something that is going to end up costing you the same amount as it would if you just bought it?
Because I don't run Magics 'R Us where players can just walk in and buy whatever magic item they want?
Crafters get the benefit of being able to get exactly what they want. Non-crafters have to rely on loot for their gear. You want to play a character with Eastern weapons in a western setting? Thats fine, you can start with your exotic weapons, but don't expect to see an upgrade for sale anywhere short of a metropolis. Take the crafting skill and make your own? Great, anywhere with a forge and you're good to go.
You want a specific high power magic item? Welp, odds are thats going to end up being a quest all by itself as you research where one might be, and then figure out how to take it from the person who currently owns it.
Little stuff like a haversack or an efficient quiver? Sure, you get to a large enough city and you can find one for sale. A +3 Flaming Burst Amulet of Mighty Fists? Hell no, you can't just plunk a bag of gold down on somebody's counter and walk out the door with it.
Crafters get to make whatever they want, whenever they want. They don't get to overgear the entire freaking party (which leads to them being too strong for otherwise appropriate CR encounters, which means I have to throw more lethal encounters at them that they don't have the HP/Saves to safely overcome, which just leads to all sorts of additional problems).
Doubling the character wealth of everyone in the party is not as simple as one person taking a bonus feat in my game.
Why not just ban crafting feats then? That would be a lot more straightforward than making it so no one ever wants to take them.
Why not just ban crafting feats then? That would be a lot more straightforward than making it so no one ever wants to take them.
Because he just explained the benefit to taking them in his game? Just because you don't think it's enough of a benefit doesn't mean the benefit doesn't exist.
Why not just ban crafting feats then? That would be a lot more straightforward than making it so no one ever wants to take them.
Because I have no problem with characters crafting their own gear when they put the resources into being able to do so?
I just don't run loot pinata games where the exact gear that everybody wants just happens to be sitting in a random chest in an abandoned dungeon. Low level magic gear is pretty easy to make, low level characters can make it, so I have no problem with it being around. Stuff that takes a 15th level character to make? When market price for said item is enough to buy a small town?
How many of your characters took crafting skills and then retired from adventuring to do nothing but craft for strangers all day?
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Unless you plan to force a meta-ruling that the wizard somehow doesn't get his fair share of treasures from the game just because he learned how to make stuff, that is impossible to enforce without punishing the other 75% of the party.
It works like this. You have a party of 4 people. They loot X treasure. They split it 4 ways. The wizard then increases the effective value of a large portion of his treasure, resulting in his overall wealth being X/4*Y (where Y is a multiplier of 1 plus the % of wealth used for the crafting feat). Thus if the wizard receives 10,000 gp worth of treasure, and 30% of it can be converted directly (such as with art objects, gems, and gold), then the wizard's effective share becomes 13,000 gp.
The only way you can reduce the wizard's WBL back down to standard is via "Hand of God" metagame "b#~+&!*@tery" (technical term) or by reducing the treasures of the encounters down to the point that X/4*Y equals what X/4 would have been, except now the share for everyone else in the party is proportionately reduced by the % gain that the wizard would have had (if the wizard would have gained 30% WBL, everyone else just lost 30% WBL).
I guess I can just add on to the list of people who want to tell me what terrible rules-abusing is rampant in my games while not actually playing the game without some serious massive meta-altering of the game's basic mechanics. I guess it's Tuesday Wensday.
How many of your characters took crafting skills and then retired from adventuring to do nothing but craft for strangers all day?
What does this have to do with anything? >_>
How many of your characters took crafting skills and then retired from adventuring to do nothing but craft for strangers all day?What does this have to do with anything? >_>
High power magic items require high level characters to craft them. You don't just level up every year on your birthday, so anyone that gets to those levels is pretty much by definition an exceptional individual, an elite, an adventurer. They have done things that normal people cannot dream of, just like a PC.
So how many of your PCs are out there slaying dragons until they get high enough level to craft some sweet gear, then immediately retire from adventuring to set up a shop? I'm betting you've never had a character do that, so why should the NPC versions do it?
Now, if it were an Eberron game, sure, then the Canniths will build just about anything you want for gold because the setting is specifically designed for that. Any other setting though? Powerful magics come from powerful elites. And powerful elites don't hang up their spellbook to sit behind a counter all day waiting years between customers who actually have gold in their pockets, much less the tens or hundreds of thousands of gold something would cost.
Even if you did find someone that would take a commission to craft a new item for you from scratch, they're high level elites, what do they need gold for? They're far more likely to send you out to get some hard to acquire item for them for their own personal projects that they can't easily get for themselves. Aka, quest time.
Unless you plan to force a meta-ruling that the wizard somehow doesn't get his fair share of treasures from the game just because he learned how to make stuff, that is impossible to enforce without punishing the other 75% of the party.
It works like this. You have a party of 4 people. They loot X treasure. They split it 4 ways. The wizard then increases the effective value of a large portion of his treasure, resulting in his overall wealth being X/4*Y (where Y is a multiplier of 1 plus the % of wealth used for the crafting feat). Thus if the wizard receives 10,000 gp worth of treasure, and 30% of it can be converted directly (such as with art objects, gems, and gold), then the wizard's effective share becomes 13,000 gp.
The only way you can reduce the wizard's WBL back down to standard is via "Hand of God" metagame "b+@#@$++tery" (technical term) or by reducing the treasures of the encounters down to the point that X/4*Y equals what X/4 would have been, except now the share for everyone else in the party is proportionately reduced by the % gain that the wizard would have had (if the wizard would have gained 30% WBL, everyone else just lost 30% WBL).
I guess I can just add on to the list of people who want to tell me what terrible rules-abusing is rampant in my games while not actually playing the game without some serious massive meta-altering of the game's basic mechanics. I guess it's
TuesdayWensday.
In my experience, crafting feats occupy a strange place in the games in which I've played. Everyone who's ever taken them basically says "never again!" because it always seems they're expected by the rest of the group to spend their downtime crafting items for the rest of the party, which ends up breeding resentment. Hell, in the majority of the cases I've seen, it wasn't the "Hand of God" who reduced the crafters share, it was the other PCs, usually out of retaliation to the crafter. Bad times.
I don't ban crafting feats in my games, but I do let players know that they're not guaranteed to get downtime in the course of the campaign to make full use of them.
Even if you did find someone that would take a commission to craft a new item for you from scratch, they're high level elites, what do they need gold for? They're far more likely to send you out to get some hard to acquire item for them for their own personal projects that they can't easily get for themselves. Aka, quest time.
Ehh, a high level wizard or sorcerer can always use more money. Those Planar Binding and Gate spells aren't going to cast themselves...
Heh. I remember when my casters in prior campaigns would actually fall a level behind the rest of the party because crafting ate XP =P
Even if you did find someone that would take a commission to craft a new item for you from scratch, they're high level elites, what do they need gold for? They're far more likely to send you out to get some hard to acquire item for them for their own personal projects that they can't easily get for themselves. Aka, quest time.Ehh, a high level wizard or sorcerer can always use more money. Those Planar Binding and Gate spells aren't going to cast themselves...
But see? Thats the perfect example.
Casting Gate to summon a creature costs "10,000 gp in rare incense and offerings. This cost is in addition to any cost that must be paid to the called creatures." Aka, "they would rather have you go fetch them rare and hard to get items for their own personal project".
You wanna commission them to make you a 10,00 gp sword? Great, their personal side project is summoning a Djinn and they need exactly 10,000 gp worth of hard to get components. You go get him the components, he'll craft the sword for you. Quest time!
He's not interested in gold for the sake of gold, he's interested in his own projects. Why accept a room full of gold that you have to store and guard until you can then go and hire some third party to get your stuff for you, when you can just have the first group do it and cut out the expensive middle step?
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Low level magic gear is pretty easy to make, low level characters can make it, so I have no problem with it being around. Stuff that takes a 15th level character to make? When market price for said item is enough to buy a small town?
This concept already exists in the rules. Every city has a purchase limit. Everything below that limit is assumed to be found somewhere in that city. Everything above it either can't be found or will require a special order.
By the time characters get to 15th level, they have access to Overland Flight, Teleport Plane Shift, and all kinds of other fast-travel abilities. They can go to a capital city or major trade hub and get pretty much anything they want.
There is zero reason to further limit access to goods.
As near as I can tell, your approach to crafting feats is, if someone takes them, they get a little more say in what gear their character has. For everyone else, or for any gear not covered by the crafter's feats, they get what you give them and they better like it.
I don't understand how that could possibly make your game more fun.
How many of your characters took crafting skills and then retired from adventuring to do nothing but craft for strangers all day?
Valet Familiar + Portable Hole = adventuring workshop that cranks out 8 hours of level-appropriate crafting every day, without the caster ever having to lift a finger.
Leadership = same thing, with fewer feats spent (but slightly lower crafting skills).
Planar Binding = who needs crafting feats?
Fabricate + Polymorph Any Obect = any material goods you want, and nigh-infinite money.
Blood Money + Polymorph Other + Magic Jar = who pays material component costs for spells?
These things exist in the game. You can come up with all kinds of rules nerfs and "Hand of God" metagame "b@++~*+&tery" (™) to limit them, or you can just talk to your players and say "I recognize that you can do these things. I'm not going to turn this into a tug of war. I'm just going to ask you to limit yourselves to make it easier on me. If you want to play fantasy-world-Tony Stark we can just assume that even though you have all the gear you could ever want somewhere else, you're only every carrying around appropriate wealth by level."
I guess I can just add on to the list of people who want to tell me what terrible rules-abusing is rampant in my games while not actually playing the game without some serious massive meta-altering of the game's basic mechanics. I guess it'sTuesdayWensday.
I will note that it was you who was complaining about how someone else ran their game, rather than anyone complaining about yours.
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I will note that it was you who was complaining about how someone else ran their game, rather than anyone complaining about yours.
I guess I can just add on to the list of people who want to tell me what terrible rules-abusing is rampant in my games while not actually playing the game without some serious massive meta-altering of the game's basic mechanics. I guess it'sTuesdayWensday.
Actually - it started when Edymnion called out the very idea of summoning djinn for wishes - saying that it was horribly abusive and he'd punish his players for trying it.
I then made a correlation to crafting feats.
We're on that tangent now. :P
Which, if you recall, I said I didn't factor that into my stat calculations because I consider it to be an abuse.
Just like I've been saying my players aren't rewarded with mountains of cash which they then dump into local economies en mass while using Ultimate Equipment like the Sears Robuck catalog.
You are free to do so in your games, but I dont.
But see? Thats the perfect example.
Casting Gate to summon a creature costs "10,000 gp in rare incense and offerings. This cost is in addition to any cost that must be paid to the called creatures." Aka, "they would rather have you go fetch them rare and hard to get items for their own personal project".
You wanna commission them to make you a 10,00 gp sword? Great, their personal side project is summoning a Djinn and they need exactly 10,000 gp worth of hard to get components. You go get him the components, he'll craft the sword for you. Quest time!
He's not interested in gold for the sake of gold, he's interested in his own projects. Why accept a room full of gold that you have to store and guard until you can then go and hire some third party to get your stuff for you, when you can just have the first group do it and cut out the expensive middle step?
I don't quite follow you... So the high level crafter would decline to make the item for the PC? Or are you saying that money is pointless because the crafter would simply ask for the PCs to bring him the incense & offerings in exchange for making the item for them?
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High power magic items require high level characters to craft them.How many of your characters took crafting skills and then retired from adventuring to do nothing but craft for strangers all day?What does this have to do with anything? >_>
Yep...it's Wednesday. :|
Pathfinder doesn't require a lot of high level characters to make good gear. The vast majority of desirable magic items can be produced without exceptional optimization by professional NPCs at the levels that they can take the item creation feats.
A 3rd level adept (NPC class, not an adventurer) grabs Craft Wondrous Item (requires CL 3rd). Having only a +1 Int modifier, Skill Focus (Spellcraft), and ranks in Spellcraft, she has a +10 Spellcraft modifier. Masterwork tools for her trade bring her up to +12. She can take 10 and meet spellcraft DCs up to 22. So at 3rd level, this basic NPC can craft any magic item up to CL 12th that requires her to ignore 1 prerequisite.
A 5th level adept (required for Craft Magic Arms & Armor) is still not an adventurer, but just that means that she probably got another +3 to her Spellcraft skill (+1 bump to Int bringing her to 14 Int at 4th level, +2 more ranks) which means up to CL 15th magic items after ignoring a prerequisite.
That's actually enough for that 5th level adept to make a +5 sword (enhancement bonus +5 requires CL 15, so base DC is 20, +5 for ignoring the CL requirement for the enhancement bonus, = DC 25 which she can hit by taking 10). Most magic items are actually easier for said artisan to create than that.
Adventurers are by no means the only people in the world who can create magic items. In standard Pathfinder, magic items are commonly traded (so much so that you can find common consumables like 1st level potions and scrolls traded casually in the tiniest of communities) and there are naturally going to be people who make it their profession to handle magic item creation. These are not heroes, nor champions, nor paragons of mankind. They're the hedge wizards, magewrights, and tinkerers who forge magical doodads for the real heroes.
If you go to a large settlement where you might find 7th-9th level adepts (still only about CR 4), you'll get into adepts who can forge magic rings and rods, and might commonly possess the Improved Familiar feat and have familiars that serve as their assistants, which means that in addition to the 4-5 points their spellcraft improved from their own advancement, they now have a familiar who can aid-another for another +2 without risking failure (since the familiar cannot roll less than DC 10).
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I will note that it was you who was complaining about how someone else ran their game, rather than anyone complaining about yours.
I guess I can just add on to the list of people who want to tell me what terrible rules-abusing is rampant in my games while not actually playing the game without some serious massive meta-altering of the game's basic mechanics. I guess it'sTuesdayWensday.Actually - it started when Edymnion called out the very idea of summoning djinn for wishes - saying that it was horribly abusive and he'd punish his players for trying it.
I then made a correlation to crafting feats.
We're on that tangent now. :P
Thank you for being observant, Charon's Little Helper. ^_^
Note that won't work for scrolls, potions, wands, or magic staffs ("In addition, you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting its prerequisites."), though lower-level versions of those shouldn't be too uncommon.
Because I don't run Magics 'R Us where players can just walk in and buy whatever magic item they want?
That's a fine house rule for your own game, but it IS a house rule.
The rules are quite clear that there is a 75% chance of finding any magic item under a community's base purchase limit in a given week. In other words, the RAW indicates that there are "magic marts" of various sizes in nearly every town.
To say otherwise (in regards to games in general) is being deliberately obtuse and/or misleading.
Also, the FAQ makes it clear that the crafting feats DO normally increase the gear allotment for said crafter. It's not only expected, it's accepted in most games. Anything else is a deviation of the mainstream understanding of the game's rules (RAW and RAI).
This concept already exists in the rules. Every city has a purchase limit. Everything below that limit is assumed to be found somewhere in that city. Everything above it either can't be found or will require a special order.
By the time characters get to 15th level, they have access to Overland Flight, Teleport Plane Shift, and all kinds of other fast-travel abilities. They can go to a capital city or major trade hub and get pretty much anything they want.
There is zero reason to further limit access to goods.
As near as I can tell, your approach to crafting feats is, if someone takes them, they get a little more say in what gear their character has. For everyone else, or for any gear not covered by the crafter's feats, they get what you give them and they better like it.
I don't understand how that could possibly make your game more fun.
Quite right. However, most metropolises still max out at around 16,000gp, making items more expensive than that pretty rare.
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The issue is that the system treats magic the same way our modern world treats technology. Its everywhere, and everyone is used to it.
This rankles a lot of people, especially people who started gaming before 3.0 came out, because they want magic to feel rare and mysterious.
Which is fine as a thematic choice. It just is not the default assumption and requires some serious reworking of the system. (If that's your goal I recommend using one of the many "get rid of the big 6" scaling bonus systems that are floating around and reducing treasure drops down to 1/2 or 1/4 the usual).
The rules are quite clear that there is a 75% chance of finding any magic item under a community's base purchase limit in a given week. In other words, the RAW indicates that there are "magic marts" of various sizes in nearly every town.
Have you looked at those rules, lately?
A metropolis, the biggest, most luxurious cities in the game have a base value of only 16k. That means even in the biggest cities in the setting, you're going to be able to buy a +2 sword (not even a +3) as a reasonable expectation. It takes a Small City before you can even hope to find a +1 (as the Masterwork price for the base weapon pushes you over the 2k gp limit).
Way I read it, the rules favor my stance. You cannot buy high level items in shops in town as a routine thing, and it requires quite a large metropolitan area to buy even minor magic items. Just a Haversack is going to require a Large Town.
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It would appear you missed the second half of my post.
It would appear you missed the second half of my post.
I did indeed.
But my point stands, the PCs cannot just plunk down a bag of gold and buy whatever they want. Even in a metropolis, there just isn't anyone available to sell those kinds of items.
Which goes back to my original stance, higher level gear requires you to obtain it through questing and loot, it cannot just be bought. I did say minor items like haversacks could be bought for gold, but not things like +5 equivolant amulets of mighty fists.
Which is why taking crafting feats for yourself still has value.
That's correct...you can commission large items, but they aren't necessarily going to be around.
That said, once you find the large town/metropolis, you likely always have access to its markets.
Note that commissioning large items is totally realistic. Tying up 8000 gp of capital for a 16,000 gp item is a HUGE outlay, as well as theft bait. Expenses on security, bribes and whatnot probably account for a good chunk of that final price, as well as foregone earnings in other areas. Not a lot of people can have that kind of money tied up waiting for someone to come along and buy their bling. Commission work is probably more reliable...but likely dominated by guilds who would be VERY sure to try and maintain dominance.
==Aelyrinth
Yup, but remember the table also lists a number of magic items available. While you can get a +1 weapon in a small city, in any given week they're only going to have 3d4 items of that quality. In the entire city.
Now, if you're wanting a +1 longsword or a +1 dagger, its a safe bet you'll find it. If you're looking for a +1 Gnomish Hook Axe in a town with all of 4 gnomes in it, things aren't looking too good for you.
Not only is there a price cap for what you can buy in town, there is a limit to the number of items even available, which again means what you want might not be there even if it is below the base price.
So getting high level gear from a store off the shelf is impossible. Moderate level gear is only going to be available in the largest cities on the planet, and even small items are going to be difficult to find in any quantity.