Which itself is absurd that at high levels, even bandits tend to all have +1 weapons meaning they are already richAnother example is that since 1000 gp is 4 years worth of hard work for average commoner, adventuring because you want to become rich is silly because even at level 1 you earn in one adventure more loot than commoners would earn for months if not years. And then is question of "So if you sell all these uber expensive items, who even has money to buy them, this +1 magic sword costs more than average house"Monthly Cost of Living, Extravagant (1,000 gp/month): "lives in a mansion, castle, or other extravagant home—he might even own the building in question. This is the lifestyle of most aristocrats."
So the answer would be "aristocrats" as they toss away 1000gp/month JUST on lifestyle. Even the plain old Wealthy spend (100 gp/month). Also there are all those NPC's that need equiping so the PC's can defeat them and take the items in the first place: there are always bad guys that are willing to buy discounted magic items so they can act as foils for other 'heroes'.
I don't see the point you're making. Is changing to silver making that less true? Isn't the amount people earn ALSO shifting to silver, meaning it's a lateral move? Aren't those same weapons going to be just as expensive, just using a different standard?
Please explain why a new pathfinder bandit isn't as equally rich as a pathfinder classic one...
Have they mentioned that? If the amount people earn also shifted, then I change my vote. I assumed common folk would still earn 1 silver a day, it would just go farther in the new economy. But if I'm wrong to assume that, then were right back to the economy being weird and we might as well have stayed where we were.
Have they mentioned that? If the amount people earn also shifted, then I change my vote. I assumed common folk would still earn 1 silver a day, it would just go farther in the new economy. But if I'm wrong to assume that, then were right back to the economy being weird and we might as well have stayed where we were.Which itself is absurd that at high levels, even bandits tend to all have +1 weapons meaning they are already richAnother example is that since 1000 gp is 4 years worth of hard work for average commoner, adventuring because you want to become rich is silly because even at level 1 you earn in one adventure more loot than commoners would earn for months if not years. And then is question of "So if you sell all these uber expensive items, who even has money to buy them, this +1 magic sword costs more than average house"Monthly Cost of Living, Extravagant (1,000 gp/month): "lives in a mansion, castle, or other extravagant home—he might even own the building in question. This is the lifestyle of most aristocrats."
So the answer would be "aristocrats" as they toss away 1000gp/month JUST on lifestyle. Even the plain old Wealthy spend (100 gp/month). Also there are all those NPC's that need equiping so the PC's can defeat them and take the items in the first place: there are always bad guys that are willing to buy discounted magic items so they can act as foils for other 'heroes'.
I don't see the point you're making. Is changing to silver making that less true? Isn't the amount people earn ALSO shifting to silver, meaning it's a lateral move? Aren't those same weapons going to be just as expensive, just using a different standard?
Please explain why a new pathfinder bandit isn't as equally rich as a pathfinder classic one...
The only thing we know is that they are using a silver standard: full stop. As far as I know, there has been NO mention of any sweeping changes and/or rebalancing of things. I see no reason to jump to the conclusion that only part of the economy changed to that while other parts retain the same numbers. I see nothing to suggest that they haven't just simply moved the decimal point and/or 0's.
If it's truly a rebalancing to dramatically make peasants dramatically richer, I dislike it more than when it was a simple change for the sake of change.
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Actually, in PF1 anyone with a Profession skill (ie: most NPCs) made more than 1 GP a day (1 GP plus 1 SP per +1 bonus on Profession). Only utterly unskilled workers were reduced to 1 silver a day. Even those without the skill could probably do this with untrained Profession checks if they could convince someone to give them a job.
Really, commoner poverty in Pathfinder is vastly overstated. Anyone who owns their own farm (which is most farmers most places...actual peasants are rare in Golarion) can make something on the order of 2000 or 3000 gp a year before expenses (a tenant farmer makes more like 500 gp a year, the rest going to whoever owns the farm). Of course, buying a farm costs slightly over 2000 gp in the first place.
Of course that makes a standard +1 weapon worth a year's income of a prosperous farmer, and the same value as buying a good farm. So this still means that adventurers rapidly enter the 'I can sell my gear and be set for life' level of wealth.
But it really gets exaggerated a lot. I'll also note that assuming this level of wealth as common also makes the whole setting actually make a fair amount of sense.
Making it all gold tends to get ridiculously low gold prices in-universe, though, so I'm happy to be switching to a silver standard.
Said adventurers rapidly hit "I sell my gear and retire" faster under the silver standard as I see it.
First magic weapon or treasure chest can probably last them a year or so depending on what it is. Because it's going to be gold or gems worth gold. It's a perception thing. Even if silver is base line, I'm not going to be happy finding a chest of silver or a horde of it. And I'm very likely not the only one.
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Said adventurers rapidly hit "I sell my gear and retire" faster under the silver standard as I see it.
Not if you just give them 1/10 as much gold.
First magic weapon or treasure chest can probably last them a year or so depending on what it is. Because it's going to be gold or gems worth gold. It's a perception thing. Even if silver is base line, I'm not going to be happy finding a chest of silver or a horde of it. And I'm very likely not the only one.
In most Paizo Adventures, the loot is a combination of cash in all denominations (from copper on up), various objects d'art, gems, and other goods of set value, and a few magic items.
Changing the currency base to silver changes none of this beyond the balance between coin types. And not even that noticeably beyond the low levels.
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Honestly, the magic item crafting rules are one of the first things I will look up in the playtest book. They have vexed me for the entirety of 3.X/PF's existance and I hope that the devs have made them less prone to break campaigns.The designers have made them less prone to break campaigns (and simultaneously less likely to be useless in the way Excaliburproxy noted while I was typing this post).
Honestly, they were one of the first things my group had to houserule in PF1, and one of the only rules I can think of where the PF1 rule wasn't an improvement over the 3.5 rule (removing XP cost as a thing was a good idea, but replacing it with no cost for magic item crafting was not). I feel like maybe you and I have talked about this from before I worked at Paizo, but that may have been someone else in the Paizo board community.
It's very possible, since I have been complaining for years about this aspect of the game.
The magic item crafting rules, as they currently stand, both limit the time a campaign can viably run and the amount of monetary rewards the GM can give out.
As Excaliburproxy noted, too little downtime can make the item crafting feats irrelevant. But the reason many GM's feel forced into rushing the campaign along is because they experienced the exact contrary in the past, where they gave the party months or years of downtime and the magic item crafters used that time to effectively double the WBL of party. That isn't so noticeable at the start of a campaign, but it damned sure becomes so after level ten, when the WBL rules start producing some real numbers.
As for monetary rewards, in second edition it was customary for characters to build their own castles, mage towers and so on around level ten. As a GM you could facilitate that by giving them monetary rewards which they could spend on that endeavour, but that has fallen completely by the wayside since the introduction of the 3E rules, since now more money means more magic items to most players.
Third edition rules moved the power of magic item creation mostly to the player side. Where before it was up to the GM to determine which magic items were even available (also not an ideal solution, since it encouraged certain bad behaviours on both sides of the table), now the players had the power to decide what item was most useful to craft. The GM was forced into a position where s/he had to stopgag abusive behaviour, by restricting crafting time, access to money and so on. All of those stopgags restricted certain storytelling tools, however.
Paizo has already introduced an optional rule in Ultimate Campaign which limits the amount of magic items you can create at all, but neglected then to provide any lore reason to explain why those limitations suddenly were there. I came up with something in the vein of "you can only infuse a certain amount of your own magical energy into those items you create", but it would have been better if there would have been something official to give as a reason to players, except "it makes the game more balanced". Since using those rules, however, I've found that allowing magic item crafting to happen much faster doesn't unbalance the game. That both allows the campaign to move at a brisk pace if necessary and gives the item crafter some downtime which isn't completely filled with having to sit in the laboratory all day.
I am looking forward to seeing which solution to all those conundrums you and the other developers found, Mark. Two more months! :)
Honestly, the magic item crafting rules are one of the first things I will look up in the playtest book. They have vexed me for the entirety of 3.X/PF's existance and I hope that the devs have made them less prone to break campaigns.The designers have made them less prone to break campaigns (and simultaneously less likely to be useless in the way Excaliburproxy noted while I was typing this post).
Honestly, they were one of the first things my group had to houserule in PF1, and one of the only rules I can think of where the PF1 rule wasn't an improvement over the 3.5 rule (removing XP cost as a thing was a good idea, but replacing it with no cost for magic item crafting was not). I feel like maybe you and I have talked about this from before I worked at Paizo, but that may have been someone else in the Paizo board community.
It's very possible, since I have been complaining for years about this aspect of the game.
The magic item crafting rules, as they currently stand, both limit the time a campaign can viably run and the amount of monetary rewards the GM can give out.
As Excaliburproxy noted, too little downtime can make the item crafting feats irrelevant. But the reason many GM's feel forced into rushing the campaign along is because they experienced the exact contrary in the past, where they gave the party months or years of downtime and the magic item crafters used that time to effectively double the WBL of party. That isn't so noticeable at the start of a campaign, but it damned sure becomes so after level ten, when the WBL rules start producing some real numbers.
As for monetary rewards, in second edition it was customary for characters to build their own castles, mage towers and so on around level ten. As a GM you could facilitate that by giving them monetary rewards which they could spend on that endeavour, but that has fallen completely by the wayside since the introduction of the 3E rules, since now more money means...
I will note that a GM that wants to have downtime can throttle the amount of gold players get from monsters and rewards if their players have decided to take item creation feats. If the GM has a careful hand (or perhaps guidance from the game designers) then they can settle on a cash flow that rewards players that have invested in item creation feats without effectively doubling the amount of money that players receive. I don't know off the top of my head how much gear value is the "right amount" to reward players for item creation feats, but I will assert that such an amount exists.
However, if a GM wants a fast paced game with maybe just a couple days of downtime, then their aren't really any great tools for balancing item creating characters to those who have invested their feats otherwise; in that case, item creators are going to be weaker and a good GM will just tell players not to waste their resources on those mechanics.
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I am not going to get into another discussion of what constitutes a "good GM". They always end acrimonious.
I am not going to get into another discussion of what constitutes a "good GM". They always end acrimonious.
That is reasonable. Let us instead say: "A GM with a mastery of the system's underlying math and a drive to create a mechanically balanced campaign for their players."
Regardless, my point still stands: item creation feats in PF1 are either a burden on the player who takes them (and never finds themselves in a position to utilize them) or on the GM who wants to keep their game balanced and have time between adventures.
This is a problem that I think we all want addressed in PF2.
And even in a faster game - you can still craft part time while adventuring and get a surprising amount done that way.
That is true. However, I have run and played in games where 10 or so sessions covered the time of around five days. The conspiracies of eldritch cults do not wait for the players! At higher levels, the cash benefits of the feat can become vanishingly small.
Then again, I know context is always going to be an issue. For instance, a ranger who chooses Orcs as a favored enemy may never fight an orc if the GM so decides. Still, such cases are a very disappointing design outcome.
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In PF 1, based on what most mundane gear is worth, 1 copper piece is worth approximately 1 dollar in modern terms. (There are some weird exceptions, of course.) The 1 silver per day for "untrained" workers is how much it costs to live at a poor lifestyle (3 gp/month). So this is basically what it costs to pay for your worker's room and board (i.e. apprentices and slaves). The actual beginner's wages is about 4 to 6 gp a week (about $400-$600/week in modern times).
I use this as a price guide when someone wants to buy gear that doesn't have a price listed, and have modified some prices (mostly down), especially for alchemical and masterwork items.
What this means is that magic gear is fantastically expensive, and rare. Most commoners will never see it, beyond maybe a low level potion. It's one of the ways to have a mostly mundane world at the base, while still having high level gear. Sure, those powerful nobles (or oil execs and CEOs) might be able to afford things like carpets of flying (or helicopters), but the commoners won't bother.
So if PF 2 has redesigned the item price list, they need to make sure they base it on how much a silver piece is worth in modern terms and price accordingly.
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Honestly what I expect from item creation in PF2 is for you to just pay the full price of the item, not half price. The benefit of the feat is getting exactly what you need, whenever and wherever you need it, and not paying the 1d4×10% markup that is applied to items you just go out and buy.
Hopefully crafting time would also be significantly reduced.
Honestly what I expect from item creation in PF2 is for you to just pay the full price of the item, not half price. The benefit of the feat is getting exactly what you need, whenever and wherever you need it, and not paying the 1d4×10% markup that is applied to items you just go out and buy.
Hopefully crafting time would also be significantly reduced.
That is still a pretty significant cost savings/distortion. There is a behavioral game design problem with that setup as well: it frames people buying magic items as having a penalty rather than people making items having a bonus.
The latter point does not matter much for my purposes, but I do think it is something for a designer to consider.
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Honestly, the magic item crafting rules are one of the first things I will look up in the playtest book. They have vexed me for the entirety of 3.X/PF's existance and I hope that the devs have made them less prone to break campaigns.The designers have made them less prone to break campaigns (and simultaneously less likely to be useless in the way Excaliburproxy noted while I was typing this post).
Honestly, they were one of the first things my group had to houserule in PF1, and one of the only rules I can think of where the PF1 rule wasn't an improvement over the 3.5 rule (removing XP cost as a thing was a good idea, but replacing it with no cost for magic item crafting was not). I feel like maybe you and I have talked about this from before I worked at Paizo, but that may have been someone else in the Paizo board community.
Let me guess, it will likely be like SF where it's practically useless unless you want something customized or need to make something that you can't get at the moment?
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Let me guess, it will likely be like SF where it's practically useless unless you want something customized or need to make something that you can't get at the moment?
It's more likely to resemble Dynamic Magic Item Creation since I believe Mark wrote at least some of that section of Unchained.
It may not be similar to either, mind you, but Dynamic Magic Item Creation is more likely than the Starfinder version (bear in mind, the Starfinderb version is free to anyone with the skill, the PF2 version is not and can thus be better since character resources are invested in it).
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The gold economy has been broken even since 0e D&D, when gold coins weighed 1/10 of a pound, and there were 20sp to the gp. And you might find as treasure a silver medallion worth 50gp. How a medallion was worth 1000 times its weight in coins of the same metal was somewhat baffling. Even a mundane sword or arrow was worth its weight in gold. Copper coins were (and still are) junk even at 1st level.
It's still rather the same in PF1e, though usually rather more sane. A stick of writing charcoal costs 5sp. That's 1/10 of a pound of silver for a burnt stick.
The change to the silver standard might actually make it worthwhile to use the state's officially sanctioned metal discs as money, instead of resorting to gems, jewellery and so on. Taxmen will no longer have to use Muleback Cords and Ant Haul.
I am not going to get into another discussion of what constitutes a "good GM". They always end acrimonious.That is reasonable. Let us instead say: "A GM with a mastery of the system's underlying math and a drive to create a mechanically balanced campaign for their players."
Regardless, my point still stands: item creation feats in PF1 are either a burden on the player who takes them (and never finds themselves in a position to utilize them) or on the GM who wants to keep their game balanced and have time between adventures.
This is a problem that I think we all want addressed in PF2.
I couldn't agree more with those last two paragraphs. :)
There is such guidance. IIRC, it's suggested that the first item creation feat allow your personal WBL to go up roughly 25%, and up to no more than 50% with more such feats. [
Yes, that is the crunch of that optional rule and it works pretty well. What I thought was missing was an official lore reason to give to the players why magic item crafting now works that way.
As a somewhat related aside -- magnuskn, you were the one who supplied that WotRStatBlocks google document for improving the monsters in WotR, right? Thank you very much for that! We just finished a 52-session playthrough of it, and your updated monster stats were exceptionally helpful. Especially since my PCs *did* make use of crafting feats in order to maximize their return. I figured it was a pretty fair trade, given they'd also rebuilt Drezen into an industrial powerhouse.
That was scorpion_mjd who wrote those improved stat blocks. I just used them as well and don't want to take his glory. :) I was just the guy who wrote a review about Mythic Adventures/Wrath of the Righteous which probably gave James an ulcer, given the way he still reacts every time I open my mouth in topics which mention the possibility of mythic player characters in new AP's. ;)
Honestly what I expect from item creation in PF2 is for you to just pay the full price of the item, not half price. The benefit of the feat is getting exactly what you need, whenever and wherever you need it, and not paying the 1d4×10% markup that is applied to items you just go out and buy.
Hopefully crafting time would also be significantly reduced.
That is still a pretty significant cost savings/distortion. There is a behavioral game design problem with that setup as well: it frames people buying magic items as having a penalty rather than people making items having a bonus.
The latter point does not matter much for my purposes, but I do think it is something for a designer to consider.
At the point the crafter is only avoiding the random markup, and not the markup PLUS half the price of the item, I think that savings is an entirely fair trade for actually devoting a feat to it.
Anything beyond that is on the GM, albeit with guidance from the book. I love stuff like using a thematically related component to substitute for some portion of the cost of an item, but not every group is going to be happy with having to undergo either a quest or extended marketplace RP before making an item. Most groups would probably fall somewhere in the middle - if you have this thematically related stuff you can benefit from it by way of a reduced cost, otherwise just pay money.
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Let me guess, it will likely be like SF where it's practically useless unless you want something customized or need to make something that you can't get at the moment?It's more likely to resemble Dynamic Magic Item Creation since I believe Mark wrote at least some of that section of Unchained.
It may not be similar to either, mind you, but Dynamic Magic Item Creation is more likely than the Starfinder version (bear in mind, the Starfinderb version is free to anyone with the skill, the PF2 version is not and can thus be better since character resources are invested in it).
While I did write and am loving Dynamic Magic Item Creation in my games, it is too complicated to be the baseline system. However, in addition to what you mention in terms of the skill feat, we also don't have the same setting assumptions of sci-fi level automation and manufacturing, so it makes sense to build for the default assumption of some crafter crafting something in her workshop.
I mean, it's all based around WBL. If you want a lore reason for crafting changing how much loot you find, you might want to start with lore reasons for WBL in the first place.There is such guidance. IIRC, it's suggested that the first item creation feat allow your personal WBL to go up roughly 25%, and up to no more than 50% with more such feats. [Yes, that is the crunch of that optional rule and it works pretty well. What I thought was missing was an official lore reason to give to the players why magic item crafting now works that way.
No, what I meant was a lore reason why you can only craft 25%/50% of your WBL if you have one or more item creation feats, instead of "however much money you have available". Something like "the magical energy you can handle at this level of power can only empower so much permanent magic items". You know, a bit like resonance will do in PF2E.
No, what I meant was a lore reason why you can only craft 25%/50% of your WBL if you have one or more item creation feats, instead of "however much money you have available". Something like "the magical energy you can handle at this level of power can only empower so much permanent magic items". You know, a bit like resonance will do in PF2E. Would have been nice to have had a bit of a lore reason, instead of just numbers.I mean, it's all based around WBL. If you want a lore reason for crafting changing how much loot you find, you might want to start with lore reasons for WBL in the first place.There is such guidance. IIRC, it's suggested that the first item creation feat allow your personal WBL to go up roughly 25%, and up to no more than 50% with more such feats. [Yes, that is the crunch of that optional rule and it works pretty well. What I thought was missing was an official lore reason to give to the players why magic item crafting now works that way.I suppose it could be done that way.
As I understood the suggestions it was that you could craft as much as you want, but if you went past the guidelines, the GM should cut back on loot to keep you roughly on track.
I think we are talking past each other at this point.
Said adventurers rapidly hit "I sell my gear and retire" faster under the silver standard as I see it.Not if you just give them 1/10 as much gold.
First magic weapon or treasure chest can probably last them a year or so depending on what it is. Because it's going to be gold or gems worth gold. It's a perception thing. Even if silver is base line, I'm not going to be happy finding a chest of silver or a horde of it. And I'm very likely not the only one.In most Paizo Adventures, the loot is a combination of cash in all denominations (from copper on up), various objects d'art, gems, and other goods of set value, and a few magic items.
Changing the currency base to silver changes none of this beyond the balance between coin types. And not even that noticeably beyond the low levels.
1/10 gold for what? Selling it? Buying it? Just giving that gold to the player at the start of the game?
I rarely see copper listed(And usually for the poorest/lowest guys that shouldn't have copper right? Why don't they have gold?) in the treasure lists.
Right so Mummy's Mask. First Tomb coughs up a magic Armor that's worth 5k gold. Well my Adventurers can now retire from what I under stand, in either system. That's still 500 Gold when we do the 1/10 cut.
First magic item worth anything still lets the group retire.
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First magic item worth anything still lets the group retire.
It's more like the third or fourth, maybe more. You need around 2000 gp (200 if dividing by 10) sale value to buy a business that keeps one person in the style to which they have become accustomed. That's a total of 16k in base magic item value (since you need north of 8k and they sell for half) for most PC groups. And assumes they save up for that alone
But more importantly, adventurers aren't the sort of people who retire as soon as they can. They never have been in any edition, and probably never will be. If they were the kind of people who gave up as soon as they could retire with a business (or to being a landlord) most adventures would end pretty quickly.
They're the kind of people who retire when they have an island, or maybe a kingdom. And that requires quite a bit more money. Or the sort who aren't motivated by money in the first place.
Plus, there's usually some dire threat that still needs stopping. If your party is happy to retire and not deal with, it is time to roll up a new party.
That said, I do think Golarion's economy could use some fine tuning.
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Plus, there's usually some dire threat that still needs stopping. If your party is happy to retire and not deal with, it is time to roll up a new party.
This is sorta where I was going with that, yeah.
That said, I do think Golarion's economy could use some fine tuning.
Oh, absolutely, but adventurers getting super wealthy isn't one of them.
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Being "filthy rich" has its own kind of power, usually accompanying significant social status in the quasi-medieval settings of most Pathfinder/D&D campaigns.
For me the most satisfying campaign arcs were not the ones where Our Heroes Saved the [insert geographic region or planet name here] from Utter Annihilation Yet Again. They are the far rarer Carve a [insert national polity] out of the monster-infested Borderlands with aught but your characters' skills and abilities to carry the load.
In Ye Olde Days of 1e AD&D especially this is when my groups really looked forward to attaining 'name level' and started hoarding piles of swag. Not to set up shop in some fancy nancy metropolis ruled by Other Folk for Aeons, but to clear out the boonies, crush/diplomancy the denizens and put their very names on the game world map.
f'r'example, Pathfinder Goblin PCs carving out a Gobbotopia in the depths of eastern Casmaran (Casmaron?).
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Taxmen will no longer have to use Muleback Cords and Ant Haul.
I always make sure to pay with cp only. One cp, two cp, three cp... I hope they alloted a whole day to counting mune as I want a receipt when we're done. ;)
No, what I meant was a lore reason why you can only craft 25%/50% of your WBL if you have one or more item creation feats, instead of "however much money you have available". Something like "the magical energy you can handle at this level of power can only empower so much permanent magic items". You know, a bit like resonance will do in PF2E. Would have been nice to have had a bit of a lore reason, instead of just numbers.I mean, it's all based around WBL. If you want a lore reason for crafting changing how much loot you find, you might want to start with lore reasons for WBL in the first place.There is such guidance. IIRC, it's suggested that the first item creation feat allow your personal WBL to go up roughly 25%, and up to no more than 50% with more such feats. [Yes, that is the crunch of that optional rule and it works pretty well. What I thought was missing was an official lore reason to give to the players why magic item crafting now works that way.I suppose it could be done that way.
As I understood the suggestions it was that you could craft as much as you want, but if you went past the guidelines, the GM should cut back on loot to keep you roughly on track.
The guideline is "Allow the character with the crafting feat to go 25% to 50% above WBL but keep the rest of the party at WBL".
A GM would have trouble achieving that by giving out less loot; it would require controlling not just quantity of loot but how it's distributed. If they find a powerful magic sword, there's no built-in mechanic to stop them selling it and crafting whatever items they want for whatever characters they want to have them.
Μy solution for the 25-50% rules is to link it to limited inspiration. Same way as artists can't constantly create great works of art, they need to experience things to be inspired. So your level affects the amount of magic you can craft.
In my houserules when I am using automatic level progression, I ban
almost all remaining items that give numeric bonuses and apply the 50% rule the remaining half of the wealth by level (since wbl is halved in automatic level progression). I also have one item creation feat that allows all classes to craft any magic item that makes sense they could craft and if the roleplaying is satysfying they can craft the magic item in any amount of time and substitute craft with another skill.
So the extra wealth by level gained by item creation doesn't make the game's math wonky but does allow for extra cool magic items, for players who want to craft them, and is easier to pull off.
In my houserules when I am using automatic level progression, I ban almost all remaining items that give numeric bonuses and apply the 50% rule the remaining half of the wealth by level (since wbl is halved in automatic level progression).
Are you saying that you instead reduce WBL to 25% and let anyone craft anything as long as it seems do-able?
In my houserules when I am using automatic level progression, I ban almost all remaining items that give numeric bonuses and apply the 50% rule the remaining half of the wealth by level (since wbl is halved in automatic level progression).Are you saying that you instead reduce WBL to 25% and let anyone craft anything as long as it seems do-able?
I think they're saying they apply the "allow crafting to effectively increase WBL by up to 50%", so that with crafting they have an effective 75% normal WBL (paying half cost for up to half WBL, effectively doubling the value of that half WBL). Otherwise is what I'm getting too.
In my houserules when I am using automatic level progression, I ban almost all remaining items that give numeric bonuses and apply the 50% rule the remaining half of the wealth by level (since wbl is halved in automatic level progression).Are you saying that you instead reduce WBL to 25% and let anyone craft anything as long as it seems do-able?
No basically you can craft an extra 25% of your normal core rules wealth by level. So if your normal wealth by level is 100k (too bored too look at level/wbl table), with a craft feat you can craft an extra of 25k of magic. But because I am using automatic bonuses you wont normally wont have 100k of wealth, but 50k. So if you take the craft feat and you are maxed out in magic items you will have 75k in magic items.
Plus, there's usually some dire threat that still needs stopping. If your party is happy to retire and not deal with, it is time to roll up a new party.This is sorta where I was going with that, yeah.
Metric ton of worth. Why go adventure? Unless there's something at the door willing to kill me, I'm out.
If your first magic item lets you retire, why play the game? Your character is set for enough time that any problem shouldn't BE a problem. Just leave, I got what I came for.
Or worse, if you actually want to continue playing, your group sells it off and comes back geared up way better. So any threats you have are just Poof.
That said, I do think Golarion's economy could use some fine tuning.Oh, absolutely, but adventurers getting super wealthy isn't one of them.
No no no. It's just the main focus of issues it seems. Players getting rich enough to either Retire or Break game.
Changing it to Silver as the main currency doesn't fix either issue to me. Gold is now Platinum and Platinum is now Super Plat.
Simple 1/10 cut doesn't seem like it would Fix anything outside of maybe making copper even more worth less. Or Platinum having insane buying power. One of the two, maybe both, I'm trying to picture how this swings in my head.
Picturing that coppers are a buck/euro/take your pick. If the economy scales to a silver is a $100, then a gp is serious money: $10k. Even at $1k = 1 gp, $100 = 1 sp, $1 = 1 cp, I'm in like Flynn. Allows reintroducing electrum coins in 10 sp, 20 sp and 50 sp denominations. Platinum could similarly feature in different mintings and value, rivaling the jewel-grade corundum and diamonds and the nicest pieces of jewelry.
i.e., job offers paying gold are Serious Business. Dragon hoards with tens of thousands of coppers and thousands of silvers are Serious Money. Gold, platinum, gems, jewelry, trade bars of precious metals and "objects of art" become really valuable.
Picturing that coppers are a buck/euro/take your pick. If the economy scales to a silver is a $100, then a gp is serious money: $10k. Even at $1k = 1 gp, $100 = 1 sp, $1 = 1 cp, I'm in like Flynn. Allows reintroducing electrum coins in 10 sp, 20 sp and 50 sp denominations. Platinum could similarly feature in different mintings and value, rivaling the jewel-grade corundum and diamonds and the nicest pieces of jewelry.
i.e., job offers paying gold are Serious Business. Dragon hoards with tens of thousands of coppers and thousands of silvers are Serious Money. Gold, platinum, gems, jewelry, trade bars of precious metals and "objects of art" become really valuable.
First Golden candle stick they find funds your new magic sword then.
All that stuff becomes really valuable(As they should again, Mummy's Mask does make it kinda hard to push how worth the relics are), but one grave robbing, 1 tomb, or any event where NOW we just I suppose shrug and throw it into the pile suddenly becomes worth SO much more under the silver system and it's easier to just steal stuff to fund your adventure.
I suppose that's the main Sticking point I'm coming back to. IS everything cut by 1/10? I really don't see that fixing anything. Are more commonly gold stuff only getting cut? Those first few gems, paintings, magic stuff that no one wants suddenly funds your group for the next possible several levels.
I will agree we DO need to hear more on the Economy in PF2 but I don't see it being as easy as a 1/10th cut. Or at the very least it won't be easy for player/gm perception to get on the silver standard.
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But it's always been that way. Back in AD&D you were expected to build castles and things and semi-retire from the actual treasure seeking part. After then, it's just been the gear treadmill.
But frankly, money's always been a lousy motivation for adventuring in D&D. It just doesn't scale properly. Find a more personal reason to be out there, then "Just leave, I got what I came for" isn't a problem.
Edit: So you don't find a gold candlestick, then. There's still going to be WBL or some equivalent. At least suggested treasure for monsters. You'll just find less gems or cheaper ones.
I was going to quote both, but I noticed you were the same person both times. So I'll just put them together.
Now I never played ADnD. But I'm willing to bet that's near the end of your game stuff, or the whole campagin. Not "Hey we have a few dozen grand of gold, maybe we buy a castle now?" events. I could be wrong, never played.
And I can find reasons to keep going. Can you say that about every character and or player? I'm good with playing the game, retiring means either dead character or playing the economic game. Which I don't care for and I can't be the only one. I don't care if Soap is actually affordable based on the average profession check, I'm still going to have some unwashed masses.
As for having it not be a gold candlestick, yeah no. Even with the new standard, I'm willing to be DMs aren't going to have understanding players the first time all the loot turns out to be copper and silver stuff.
I do look forward to the guys that will math out weight to gold ratios again though, just to see how many people follow it.
So you don't find a gold candlestick, then. There's still going to be WBL or some equivalent. At least suggested treasure for monsters. You'll just find less gems or cheaper ones.
THIS is what I was getting at. I feel like once you get out of low levels, it becomes harder and harder to give out awards to players that isn't a laundry list of trinkets or high level magic items.
Yes is treasure not really the reason you go adventuring? Absolutely. Is it nice to find a quality treasure for your trouble? Absolutely. Making GP actually WORTH something will help to alleviate that problem. That's before we get into the "I need a train of elephants to carry all my treasure just so I can afford to trade in my +2 sword for a +3 one" problem.