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So, I need help. I'm dming an adventure path, (Kingmaker).
Two characters died.
These players created new 9th level characters.
They chose creation feats and said the items they start with were crafted by them, therefore were cheaper, and started playing with much more equipment than they must had for they level.
I have a policy for these things, if it makes people happier, i allow it.
But I didn't notice how this would break the balance until it was to late. And i let the time run, it has been 15 sessions since they created the new characters. and Seems that if i don't do something it would ruin the game for everyone, because wont be difficulty anymore.
1. its legal buy cheaper equipment for having a feat? one of them argue that it is a common thing. (crafting in the background)
2. What would you do? sounds harsh to say to them to re buy all the equipment and/or change the feats.
3. do you imagine any in game, narrative or mechanical fix for this?
4. most of my problems are the very high AC's 40+ y 50+ at level 10. May be this wont be a problem in a couple levels and i just have to wait.
5. They have signature items, they made celestial full plates and augmented them to +3 (or +2 i don't remember). Cant you raise the enhancement bonus of a signature item? its prohibited in some book, i always had this doubt.
6. I don't want nobody to be mad with me, and i think i would be if i where in their position, i want the more diplomatic solution. If i have to fight for this or say "f&** it, do what you want is just a game", i would choose the second option. So please don't tell me to apply GM Fiat. I just want to everybody have fun.
Thank you in advance.
sorry for my s~#!ty english, i hope you can understand anything.
I use narrative fixes.
Require rare materials for crafting feats and link some of them to the campaign goals. That lock of nymphs hair, or the satyr's horn.
Require recepies for crafting and give them as rewards in the same way you would give spell scrolls. I like recipes in the backs of wizards journals, or through making bargains with otherworldly creatures.
To be clear, players still get choice and direction, but with some brakes applied. It harkens back to ad&d rules.
Generally having over WBL is fine. kingmaker is a notoriously easy AP, and the city building minigame can also be abused for great wealth.
If it is a great concern just throttle down future wealth a little until it comes in line with your expectations.
But you'd be better served with increasing difficulty, add an extra class level or two to bosses, throw in extra mooks in encounters, etc. Don't follow the kingmaker one encounter a day model.
Crafting in a campaign like Kingmaker where you have a lot of downtime is really going to be problematic. I think the simplest solution really is increasing the encounters by 1-2 CR.
The spellcraft checks are really easy to make, even as a non-int based character.But that nat 1, though. Honestly, that's what turns even an optimized crafting build into a non-profit build. Between that and living expenses, that keeps my PCs from building a character who crafts for profit.
Nat 1 is not an automatic failure on skill checks. Besides, unless you rule that creating items puts them in immediate danger, they could simply take 10.
The wbl adjustments for taking the feats seem like the way to go here. I didn't know that existed when I allowed a character to take item creation feats when bringing in a new level 6 char into my Reign of Winter campaign, but I ended up homebrewing something very similar to it where he got a hit on how much of his wbl he was allowed to spend on crafting.
As for fixing this going forward, figure out how much "extra" wealth they got from doing this and withhold various loot until the removed value matches the extra value. Alternatively don't bother adjusting anything and let the characters/players be and feel awesome.
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It usually mostly washes out. Most of the cash generated from adventuring is from selling loot. Loot sells at 50% and crafting uses 50% cost in materials. So selling 10,000 gold in items yields 5,000 gold cash for them, which in turn can craft 10,000 gold retail worth of items. newly created, high level characters can circumvent this. to keep things even with existing characters, I would say adjusting the pre-adventure crafting formula to a bit higher than 50% for material cost. You don't want to make the crafting feats useless, but you also don't want them to give an unfair advantage for the characters that have developed their characters in actual play
Refer to the FAQ on the subject.
(Quoted below for ease of reference:)
PC Wealth By Level: If a PC has an item crafting feat, does a crafted item count as its Price or its Cost?
It counts as the item's Cost, not the Price. This comes into play in two ways.
If you're equipping a higher-level PC, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise the character isn't getting any benefit for having the feat. Of course, the GM is free to set limits in equipping the character, such as "no more than 40% of your wealth can be used for armor" (instead of the "balanced approach" described on page 400 where the PC should spend no more than 25% on armor).
If you're looking at the party's overall wealth by level, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise, if you counted crafted items at their Price, the crafting character would look like she had more wealth than appropriate for her level, and the GM would have to to bring this closer to the target gear value by reducing future treasure for that character, which means eventually that character has the same gear value as a non-crafting character--in effect neutralizing any advantage of having that feat at all.
Just talk to them and tell them you would prefer that they not do this and didn't realize it would be a problem.
Offer to allow them to exchange their feats for something else, and if they desire to redesign their entire character if it was focused around crafting.
Crafting is often problematic for the dramatic impact it has on WBL and the character imbalances it can create. As a GM the problem isn't providing a challenge to the PCs, you can always throw bigger badder creatures at them. But you can't do that when 2 PCs excel and the others are significantly weaker, because the other players will be unable to keep up.
Talking to your players is going to be the most effective way to handle the situation rather than trying to adjust things in game. Especially since the other players who don't have extra gear from crafting are essentially getting the short end of the stick.
Admit that you made a mistake and ask to them to change their characters and not use crafting.
If you feel this is too far then apply these rules:
Adjusting Character Wealth by Level
You can take advantage of the item creation rules to hand-craft most or all of your magic items. Because you've spent gp equal to only half the price of these items, you could end up with more gear than what the Character Wealth by Level table suggests for you. This is especially the case if you're a new character starting above 1st level or one with the versatile Craft Wondrous Item feat. With these advantages, you can carefully craft optimized gear rather than acquiring GM-selected gear over the course of a campaign. For example, a newly created 4th-level character should have about 6,000 gp worth of gear, but you can craft up to 12,000 gp worth of gear with that much gold, all of it taking place before the character enters the campaign, making the time-cost of crafting irrelevant.
Some GMs might be tempted to reduce the amount or value of the treasure you acquire to offset this and keep your overall wealth in line with the Character Wealth by Level table. Unfortunately, that has the net result of negating the main benefit of crafting magic items—in effect negating your choice of a feat. However, game balance for the default campaign experience expects you and all other PCs to be close to the listed wealth values, so the GM shouldn't just let you craft double the normal amount of gear. As a guideline, allowing a crafting PC to exceed the Character Wealth by Level guidelines by about 25% is fair, or even up to 50% if the PC has multiple crafting feats.
If you are creating items for other characters in the party, the increased wealth for the other characters should come out of your increased allotment. Not only does this prevent you from skewing the wealth by level for everyone in the party, but it encourages other characters to learn item creation feats.
Example: The Character Wealth By Level table states that an 8th-level character should have about 33,000 gp worth of items. Using the above 25% rule, Patrick's 8th-level wizard with Craft Wondrous Item is allowed an additional 8,250 gp worth of crafted wondrous items. If he uses his feat to craft items for the rest of the party, any excess value the other PCs have because of those items should count toward Patrick's additional 8,250 gp worth of crafted items.
Allow them up to 50% WBL (if they have two crafting feats) but no more than that. Certainly not double WBL (100%).
Refer to the FAQ on the subject.
(Quoted below for ease of reference:)
PC Wealth By Level: If a PC has an item crafting feat, does a crafted item count as its Price or its Cost?
It counts as the item's Cost, not the Price. This comes into play in two ways.
If you're equipping a higher-level PC, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise the character isn't getting any benefit for having the feat. Of course, the GM is free to set limits in equipping the character, such as "no more than 40% of your wealth can be used for armor" (instead of the "balanced approach" described on page 400 where the PC should spend no more than 25% on armor).
If you're looking at the party's overall wealth by level, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise, if you counted crafted items at their Price, the crafting character would look like she had more wealth than appropriate for her level, and the GM would have to to bring this closer to the target gear value by reducing future treasure for that character, which means eventually that character has the same gear value as a non-crafting character--in effect neutralizing any advantage of having that feat at all.
Is this FAQ even applicable any more, given that it came out before Ultimate Campaign, which gives a different answer to that question?
Um... After 15 sessions this should be well on its way to correcting itself. Are they continuing to craft? If so then reduce the gold treasure and place more items as this will favor the people without crafting feats if they can use the gear while the crafters will get no extra advantage.
What feats do the individual characters have?
They should not be allowed to use each other's feats to get discounts.
The absolute easiest way to do this is by giving them 50% more wealth than they are expected to get, and using the item's normal cost, meaning they are getting the bonus gold for the feat without literally doubling their wealth.
High ACs matter less with BBEG enemies who have STR scores high enough to where it doesn't matter. If that becomes a problem, start using different tactics with the enemies. Swarms of enemies who all spend actions surrounding and aiding their allies ability to hit consistently will work better than spamming d20's hoping for a crit.
And in Inner Sea Gods there is a passage about upgrading pre-exisiting specific items. It is the DM's decision ultimately to decide what the difference in price should be, if it is allowed at all. The rules do exist, but they are pretty open, there are no specific guidelines.
If crafting is still a problem after that, then look into the Unchained Rules for Dynamic Item creation, which requires quests and/or trials to succeed at creating the item, not just gold.
In my games, players have to be able to provide crafting reagents, they can't just spin gold into magic items.
So the players got too much loot at character recreation and have been playing with it for many sessions?
It's too late to fix the loot in game, without a DM real life discussion. Make the encounters harder. High armored AC is nothing against touch attacks. Gunslingers and shadows and monks, oh my! Complex traps. Many targets. Grapple!
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They should not be allowed to use each other's feats to get discounts.
Uh..why not? If I Power Attack does that also mean if I damage it to -1 it should attack the rest of the party until they do enough damage to make up for my power attack difference? Or if I buy a ship the rest of my party has to swim?
Refer to the FAQ on the subject.
(Quoted below for ease of reference:)
PC Wealth By Level: If a PC has an item crafting feat, does a crafted item count as its Price or its Cost?
It counts as the item's Cost, not the Price. This comes into play in two ways.
If you're equipping a higher-level PC, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise the character isn't getting any benefit for having the feat. Of course, the GM is free to set limits in equipping the character, such as "no more than 40% of your wealth can be used for armor" (instead of the "balanced approach" described on page 400 where the PC should spend no more than 25% on armor).
If you're looking at the party's overall wealth by level, you have to count crafted items at their Cost. Otherwise, if you counted crafted items at their Price, the crafting character would look like she had more wealth than appropriate for her level, and the GM would have to to bring this closer to the target gear value by reducing future treasure for that character, which means eventually that character has the same gear value as a non-crafting character--in effect neutralizing any advantage of having that feat at all.
Is this FAQ even applicable any more, given that it came out before Ultimate Campaign, which gives a different answer to that question?
Many questions have more than one right answer. This one is just as valid as the one in UC which is really just a nuanced version of it.
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Crafting for other characters is actually a really good way to deal with half of the problem with extensive crafting: the crafter's wealth making them OP compared to the rest of the party.
If everyone gets extra wealth from the crafter, then you just have to deal with the other half: the party being overall more powerful than expected for their level. And that can be fixed by increasing encounter CR accordingly and/or reducing wealth coming in so that the group ends up having closer to normal WBL.
Note that since you still want crafting to provide a benefit, you should definitely allow some extra wealth unless your playstyle is ordinarily very restrictive on the type of items available, in which case getting the specific items you want is a big enough benefit even if the total value is the same.
I like the idea of crafting having to be for the party, or at least not 90% for the owner of the feat as I have seen on multiple occasions!!
There are two possible problems arising from this, one is that these two characters are outshining the others, because they have more wealth, and the other is the the overall challenge of the AP (which is mostly fairly easy anyway, with a few hard spots) is diminished because the party overall is tougher than expected (this is the only real issue you mention, but I expect the other may be an issue as well.)
Without nerfing the two who have extra stuff, the way to fix the first would be a one time gift of more stuff to the others to balance things out. That of course will make the second problem worse.
To fix the second problem, you basically have to buff up all the bad guys. The advanced template or adding in a few more bad guys will do this, but if you are using the standard XP system and giving XP by challenge rating, this gets you into the a red queens race situation. If you are using a the 'you level when it is appropriate for you do to so' system, like I prefer, then you don't have that issue.
The other problem with this fix is that it takes extra prep time, not a whole lot but it is extra, and if that is an issue, you will probably need a different solution.
They should not be allowed to use each other's feats to get discounts.Uh..why not? If I Power Attack does that also mean if I damage it to -1 it should attack the rest of the party until they do enough damage to make up for my power attack difference? Or if I buy a ship the rest of my party has to swim?
Because how do the characters know each other?
I don't like the "our characters all knew each other before the campaign and therefore gain all the benefits of all of us taking all the crafting feats, when we really only need one or two each" approach to things. Super munchkinny, and not inspired role playing at all.
You gain the extra wealth at creation only for your own feats, once you're in the party then it's whatever. But not before they even get introduced.
They should not be allowed to use each other's feats to get discounts.Uh..why not? If I Power Attack does that also mean if I damage it to -1 it should attack the rest of the party until they do enough damage to make up for my power attack difference? Or if I buy a ship the rest of my party has to swim?Because how do the characters know each other?
I don't like the "our characters all knew each other before the campaign"
So if the players said this and didn't have those feats, would you still think it "Super munchkinny"? For instance, if the players bring in a set of twins, are they failing to bring in "inspired role playing"? If it's be ok with no benefit, why is it wrong if there is? Or do you expect EVERY game you play in for the PC to be complete strangers to each other?
Here's the rules:
1) Nat 1's don't fail spellcraft checks. They can take 10 on item creation rolls.
2) High level PC's are CREATED with x amount of gold worth of gear. Their item creation feats allow them to make extra gold worth of gear...it does NOT automatically grant them the ability to have twice as much money IN THE PAST.
3) There are no rules for upgrading named items, it is COMPLETELY within DM prerogative to allow them or disallow them. It is noteworthy that abuse of item creation rules is why such things are not allowed in PFS.
4) They are NPC's that are suddenly becoming PC's. You can simply explain to them that their PC level of wealth is BECAUSE of their item creation feats, and they can create future items for half price. Getting an unfair benefit over the other PC's is not good. Especially when they can customize their gear entirely instead of buying it peice meal.
If they get uppity about it, you can tell them to start breaking down their item construction by levels - when they acquired their feats, when they made their items, and make sure they have their maximum allotment of wealth by level in items every level, with no item taking more then 25% of wealth at any given level.
You will probably find pretty quickly that there is no way they would have enough floating wealth to make the things they want to make, simply because they have to stagger their feats out and upgrade all the items continuously.
i.e. don't let them do it. They didn't take the Item creation feats to have fun making magic items...they did it to double their wealth on newly created characters. Call them on it, and tell them to dial it back and keep it real. you'll let them create items going forwards, but their 'default' items need to be by the book.
And be really, really careful of allowing customized items that aren't in the books.
==Aelryinth
I just say that WBL is how much gear they have at that moment in time. It does not matter how they got the gear. It does not matter how much money they may have had in the past. Thus there is no discount for crafting feats until they are actually used at the table.
I've voided the Creation feat discount in the past, bu a better GM allows 10/25/50 for them, rather than 25/50. She sez it works, but I think the desperate need for metamagic feats in her game will preclude me ever thinking on that discount.
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They didn't take the Item creation feats to have fun making magic items...they did it to double their wealth
Has there ever been any other reason?
sure, getting the items you want without having to go to a store, and not needing to rely on GM fiat to drop stuff.
Creating brand new custom gear that exploit edge cases in the magic item rules is another one.
==Aelryinth
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These issues are basically why I took a different tack with item creation in my campaign; I removed the feats, you gain access to the ability to create items when you meet the feat prerequisites. However, cost is never reduced, so there's no financial incentive to craft. Crafting is for when you want something that's not easily available.
My players just reached L5 and will be fairly loaded with cash when they leave the current 'dungeon', so I'm expecting to see the effects soon.
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This could be one of those situations where a problem can be looked at as an opportunity.
In this case, the PCs in question have some amazing gear in a campaign where they're usually pretty public figures and have quite a bit of downtime. Have someone steal a few choice pieces of their amazing gear - 'cos it's famous and a tempting target for high-level Rogue-types (who outgrew picking pockets and mugging people a half dozen levels ago). Don't just say that the gear's gone, and that's that - give them a chance to investigate and track down the thief. Maybe they get their gear back, maybe they don't (maybe the thief sold it on... to the game's next big bad guy!) but either way it's not you dropping GM rocks on them - it's the campaign world reacting to how brilliant their characters are! At the very least it may make them spend further gp on beefing up security instead of upgrading their personal gear even more.
... plus, if they complain, point out all the times in past campaigns where the PCs have done exactly the same thing themselves (set out to steal/loot an awesome magic item or two). (For added fun feel free to model your thief, if and when they catch up, on a larcenous PC from a previous campaign you and your players were in: 'hey, it wasn't me who invented that thievery trick...')
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These issues are basically why I took a different tack with item creation in my campaign; I removed the feats, you gain access to the ability to create items when you meet the feat prerequisites. However, cost is never reduced, so there's no financial incentive to craft. Crafting is for when you want something that's not easily available.
My players just reached L5 and will be fairly loaded with cash when they leave the current 'dungeon', so I'm expecting to see the effects soon.
That's...possibly my new favorite idea. I'm going to shamelessly steal it, if you don't mind.
That's...possibly my new favorite idea. I'm going to shamelessly steal it, if you don't mind.These issues are basically why I took a different tack with item creation in my campaign; I removed the feats, you gain access to the ability to create items when you meet the feat prerequisites. However, cost is never reduced, so there's no financial incentive to craft. Crafting is for when you want something that's not easily available.
My players just reached L5 and will be fairly loaded with cash when they leave the current 'dungeon', so I'm expecting to see the effects soon.
This is basically how 4E handled magic item crafting, and it worked very well.
These players created new 9th level characters.
They chose creation feats and said the items they start with were crafted by them, therefore were cheaper, and started playing with much more equipment than they must had for they level.
Plenty of good advice given already.
2. What would you do? sounds harsh to say to them to re buy all the equipment and/or change the feats.
4. most of my problems are the very high AC's 40+ y 50+ at level 10. May be this wont be a problem in a couple levels and i just have to wait.
5. They have signature items, they made celestial full plates and augmented them to +3 (or +2 i don't remember). Cant you raise the enhancement bonus of a signature item? its prohibited in some book, i always had this doubt.
4) We have the important crafting feats in the party, and are above WBL. At level 13, my AC is less than 30. I don't think anyone has 40+. To get that high, they have to have shorted other defenses like saves, as well as offensive abilities like weapons. If they did not, they I would think they spent money they didn't have.
5) While named items usually cannot be modified, if you can come to an agreement to the formula, then you can modify it. However, that requires GM approval, as does everything not listed in the book. If they are combining stuff, make sure they priced it with the +50% for secondary abilities in slot. For the specific item, I came up with an effective price for "Celestial" as a +1 bonus with an extra flat cost added. With the choices being bonus & fee vs. flat fee, the bonus is more expensive and prevents cheesing the price of later adds.
2) I would audit their stuff, and if the audit shows they use too much wealth, you can make them reduce their magic appropriately. Also let them know they are breaking the AP's fun factor. They may be willing to tone it down. If they don't, then you need to deal with the party inequity. Again plenty of good advice already given for that.
/cevah
I've seen a lot of the same advice given so far (limit how much PCs can craft), so I figured I'd at least give a POV from the other side. Please realize that I understand the need for game balance, and that the opinions expressed below assume that you can make it work for your game.
1) Investing character building resources (feats, class abilities, skill points, etc.) into crafting means less resources invested into other abilities (DPR, party face(ing), skill monkey(ing), etc.). You don't limit how much damage a character can do based off the specific feats they've chosen, so why do the same for a crafter?
2) I agree with the points about making sure they are rolling their checks and taking the amount of time needed to craft. Crafting is skill intensive and time consuming. And with a few flubbed rolls, you can quickly lose the GP you'd hoped to save by crafting instead of buying. I also often find myself with virtually no free time as an adventuring PC in pre-made campaigns (though I obviously have not played in every pre-made ever made, so this may vary), so time being a factor would limit crafting. The rules for crafting also have a governer on this based off the fact that you can only put so much GP worth of work into item crafting in a day.
3) Limiting crafting limits potential character builds. Some players like to try things they've never done before, and being a crafter might be one of those things. By putting a limit on it, you essentially neuter a character concept to the point that there's little difference between the crafter, and the errand boy that goes to the shop for the party.
I've been the efficient crafter in a party before, and had the character shut down by the %WBL cap rules mentioned. I didn't feel like it was a problem because it was my characters only contribution to the party. It was my way of helping with encounters. The party was essentially down a man in every encounter and my way of making up for it was ensuring that the party was better equipped than they would have been. If nothing else, it hindered the party due to the idea of action economy. There was one less PC taking useful actions during combat, so again, the players that were actually contributing needed to be better at what they were doing when their turn came, and I helped make that happen by providing them equipment above their WBL.
Again, I understand the idea of party/campaign balance, and I'm not saying crafter's should be given free rein, no questions asked; you may need to make some adjustments to your encounters, as some have suggested. I'm just trying to provide another voice for the other side of the argument and some additional counter points to the overwhelming opinion that crafting is broken.
:Smurfatar: