Tomb and Manuel's who would do that????

[neferphras]

Ok so i searched forums and saw the rules as to why the material costs of Tombs and Manuals are what they are. What i did not see an answer to is... who would ever do that????

who builds these things. There is near zero profit in making them. What wizard or cleric would sit down and spend 9 months making something that they can sell for basically nothing over cost. I am sure they could do something more cost effective like build a few dozen first level wands.

My family and i pondered this reality and the best we can come up with is that there is a bunch of clerics in prison somewhere who have also taken an oath of poverty.

Help... why would anyone build these. they must be so rare that only insane archmages and clerics put the time into it.

! note this was just an observation looking at the prices, none of their characters could actually pull it off !

[Zwordsman]

..Tombs? Graves? Usually thats built out of respect or built prior to death to use..

Do you mean Tome? Like tome and manuels of stat increases?

I'm a bit confused so you might want to rephrase this and include with more detail the items and examples in question.

Assuming you are talking about the prices of say a tome of clear thought?
Those aren't really made every day at all. They're pretty high level crazy stuff
They take wish/miracle after all to craft (sans the whole craft dc increase for missing stuff). Origin wise plenty of possible ways. War preperation but they died/lost the war before they could use them and it was lost.
over the years a book abosrbs lil bits of power from people who touch it and it becomes a tome.
yada yada.
basically however it fits in your world.

Magic is as magic does. Random items become sentient, don't doubt the idea that magic conflux points create strange effects over years.

[neferphras]

yep manual of exercises, quick reflex, Tomb of leadership and charisma...etc. Who builds those.

[Lemmy]

Tomb and Manuels?

Is this a thread about Portuguese adventurers? XD

[neferphras]

Lemmy wrote:

Tomb and Manuels?

Is this a thread about Portuguese adventurers? XD

nope but i bet the answer could be found translated only in those languages.

:-)

[Nefreet]

"High level crazy stuff" is about the best response yet.

These items are among the few that grant an "inherent" bonus to an ability score.

After you've already spent 144,000gp on a Belt of Physical Perfection +6 (or the equivalent Headband) and you're still looking to increase your stats further, it's time to consider visiting those imprisoned Clerics and posting their bail ;-)

We have a PFS player locally with a 15th level Alchemist that just bought the Tome for Intelligence. His character's Int is something in the low 30s right now.

I'm considering the same for my Witch, if I ever take him past level 12.

[My Self]

You can make money off of tomes, but it's a pretty slim margin for a lot of time. This is the sort of money you could use to ransom a king.

They probably have a 20th level human commoner with a bunch of item creation feats slaving away somewhere in some dark, dusty dungeon making these. You could take the Heart of the Fields to get +10 to a profession or craft check, which when combined with 20 levels worth of skill feats and Master Craftsman, will probably let you fake a Miracle for the purposes of making the item. You can't be serious thinking that a prison could hold multiple high-level clerics who can cast Miracle and are constantly casting it (or part of it) every day at work.

[neferphras]

yeah thats about the only reason i can see it, is if someone is paying you more than the market price to make them. Still.... a crafter would be an idiot to try to make these for profit. If they have the skill to make such items there are far better options. And that being the case these should be treated as all but artifacts in how hard they are to find. No magic 'store' would ever have them

[Zwordsman]

their commonness is very dependent on your game yup.

Some games with high magic *(and typically high level) its not a strech for them to exist.
but a high level game with lower magic (as weird as that is) they'd be rare.

But really if you think about it.. at super high levels. The rich non adventuring wizard or cleric are ....pretty bored of life.
The wizard in particularly might just start spending money tinkering with crap and playing around making whatever floats their boat just to see it.

A challenge like that? They don't mind doing it for just at cost. Just to see if they can do it properly.

Its like Xanatos in Gargoyles cartoon.. He mounts a 13th century castle on one of the tallest buildings in the world... because he was bored and wanted to test an ancient legend.

later he does more like that.. because he is bored and the richest person around.
Same equivliant idea.. At one point kiling dragons or making special swords is just boring.. time to do somethign weird.
Like making a book that changes those who reads it. Hell a rich enough bored wizard (they rarely woudl hurt for money) might just make them and sell them to random ass bookstores and tracks who buys and reads them and watchs how their life changes... Because they're bored.

[Casual Viking]

Because they wan tto boost their ability scores but don't have access to Wish casters?

[Arcane Addict]

I imagine they aren't created to be sold. As mentioned a high-level wizard has far more lucrative options. Even so, I don't think money is all that interesting to a person with such vast personal power.
I imagine most of them are created with a very specific purpose in mind. I could imagine a wizard giving a Tome of Leadership to a newborn prince in the hopes it'll make him a better king some day. Stuff like that. Of course, sometimes such items do not get to fulfill their intended purpose for whatever reason.

Really, tomes and manuals are far less odd to me than most scrolls. Ye Olde Magic Shop is a legalized armsdealer selling weapons of mass destruction willynilly to whomever has the cash for it without regard for how it would be used. Other spells can only be used for clandestine reasons, such as invisibility or knock. Why is that legal? Worst of all, who would sell a wish or miracle to someone without knowing what its user desires to accomplish with it?

So the question isn't why would anyone craft and sell these things, its why can they...

[Belafon]

1) A high level caster wants to reward a remote vassal with an inherent bonus but for whatever reason cannot get to him or her so she sends this book as a gift. The vassal sells it for upkeep funds.

2) (More likely) A 17th level caster wants to boost his stats but only has the spell slots for one or two wishes in a given day. So he makes a +4 or +5 book over time as he waits to level up. For whatever reason he doesn't get a chance to use it on himself.

3) They are all made by mythic crafters. They can crank out a +5 tome in about a month. I think there are some fears or class abilities that can reduce it even farther.

[bbangerter]

Is there a rules question in here, or just a speculative discussion on practical economics?

[Guru-Meditation]

Whenever the topic of D&D/Pathfidner and economical logic comes up i silently hum the Mystery Theater 3000 theme and move on.

"...

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax
For Mystery Science Theater 3000."

[Cevah]

In 2nd edition there were two kinds of benefits these books gave: +1 stat, +1 level. Some gave both. Many did not work for you if you were not of the right class/alignment/whatever. Some hurt if you were the wrong person.

That said, they disappeared after use.

This tells me they were artifacts that acted in a party once, then left for parts unknown. Probably made by the gods.

In 3.X, they duplicated the +1 Stat manuals, but made them one shot rather than reusable by off-screen characters. They also made them up to +5 Stat, which were way more powerful than the artifacts in 2nd ed. PF copied them from 3.X.

Profit is 1,250 gp per plus. This is for two weeks worth of work per plus. One week if the creator has a demiplane with 2X time. It is the material component that makes these seem not profitable.

/cevah