Please help me better understand the spending limits for downtime capital.
The way I see it, it isn't much of a limit at all.
Let's say I live in a small town (spending limit of 15/day) and I want to create a magical item with a market price of 100,000gp.
That means I would need 500 magic capital, a lot more than my settlement's allowed limit.
However, creating a magical item, constructing a building, or hiring a team rarely takes just one day. For the example item of the above-listed value, it would generally take at least 50 days.
50 X 15 = 750 capital, half again more time than I needed to get the help required.
Seems like the limits would only really come into play in rare corner cases, like trying to forge an expensive magical ring with capital in a thorp.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Two bits of rule fragments immediately spring to mind. Firstly;
If you add 5 to the crafting DC you can cut the time to build the magic item in half.
Secondly;
The downtime Spending Limits are specifically for Goods, Influence and Labour... not Magic.
So feel free to try and find a caster in the thorp capable of crafting your 100,000 gc item and bury him under the pile of Magic capital you've hoarded. He's doubtless eager to lock himself into a four month crafting gig. Retired archmages gotta eat too. =)
The above wasn't snark. I'm just amusing myself with that mental image. I suspect that the real answer is simply that magic item crafting has it's own built in limit of how much you can craft per day. Plus it's often a party member doing the crafting, so they're the "real" bottleneck (assuming you've got the cash).
~ Kirk
No maximum on magic? NICE!
BEST CAPITAL EVAR!