Make or buy a whole bunch of mundane swords, then next time you kill a dragon or similarly powerful magical monster, take your sword collection and start stabbing the heart.
When he doesn't give you 100 magical swords, call him out for what he is: a hypocrite and control freak too afraid of losing his power to make sensible rulings in the first place.
Going by the book, and that’s what I always try to do, both you and your GM are wrong – unless the Starfinder Armory changes something, crafting is made with UPBs, and you can’t make magical or mundane items any other way.
There’s a sort of loophole, though:
“At the GM’s
discretion, you can scavenge similar items for parts, allowing
10% of the scavenged item’s value to count toward the UPBs
needed. ”
I’d consider allowing using pieces from a magical beast (specially the ones employed into natural attacks) to make “magical” advanced melee weapons – but you’d have to create a price table for trophies, organs and parts harvested from monsters, probably similar to the Trade Goods one.
One of the published adventures mentions selling a defeated robot for a set price to collectors, but I think that’s as far as this goes.
Exotic alien hunting doesn’t seem to be a thing in the Pact Worlds.
Surely there's a machine that you can feed objects into that breaks them down into UPBs. There's the assembly ooze, after all. I would say that a workspace on a starship has one, and such a device can be found in major cities. If you feed dragon teeth into it the machine dispenses UPBs equal to 10 percent the original item's value. Any easy way to determine value would be consulting the treasure by encounter table. Base the total value of all the bits on the dragon's CR and compare that to the reward table. Use the UPBs to craft a sword and boom: Dragon Sword.
Surely there's a machine that you can feed objects into that breaks them down into UPBs.
Only if it turns the object into 10% of its worth in UPBs - otherwise it'd be an exploit to get full price when selling something.
If you feed dragon teeth into it the machine dispenses UPBs equal to 10 percent the original item's value. Any easy way to determine value would be consulting the treasure by encounter table. Base the total value of all the bits on the dragon's CR and compare that to the reward table. Use the UPBs to craft a sword and boom: Dragon Sword.
That would be the same as selling your loot to buy UPBs and crafting/buying. The tooth is essentially gone, since all UPB are equal.
The fluff behind this 10% worth of scavenged goods seem to imply that you actually use bits of the previous item when assembling the new item. So scavenging a dragon tooth to make a sword would actually result in a sword with a piece of tooth sticking out of it - maybe the handle, maybe the tip of the blade, but it would be recognizable on sight.
That's the best compromise I can see at this point.
Surely there's a machine that you can feed objects into that breaks them down into UPBs.Only if it turns the object into 10% of its worth in UPBs - otherwise it'd be an exploit to get full price when selling something.
I agree, that's why I added the next part.
If you feed dragon teeth into it the machine dispenses UPBs equal to 10 percent the original item's value.
If we consider the dragon corpse to be an item of value equal to 10% of it's reward, we could figure out how many UPBs we have at our disposal. If the players want to produce a number of items from the corpse, divide the number of UPBs the dragon produced by the number of items they want to create...I think. I'm not a math guy, so correct me if I'm wrong. :)
That would be the same as selling your loot to buy UPBs and crafting/buying. The tooth is essentially gone, since all UPB are equal.
The fluff behind this 10% worth of scavenged goods seem to imply that you actually use bits of the previous item when assembling the new item. So scavenging a dragon tooth to make a sword would actually result in a sword with a piece of tooth sticking out of it - maybe the handle, maybe the tip of the blade, but it would be recognizable on sight.
That's the best compromise I can see at this point.
If a player at my table wanted to have a sword made of dragon bits, I would be perfectly fine with them feeding dragon bits into a UPB machine and producing a sword that looks however the player wants it to look. Certainly the machine would have a computer assisted design element to it that would allow the PC to customize the item's appearance, cosmetic or otherwise, and essentially 3D print the desired item. I'll add, too, that I did use the word "teeth" in my original post about the suggestion. Additionally, dragon teeth can get pretty big. Plenty of material to work with, if you ask me.
For me and my table the flavor is the fun part, especially when all we're really doing here is slapping a skin on a weapon. Of course it's the same as selling the loot at a vendor, but I find it more creative and fun to take this approach. Plus, this could be performed on some remote location where no stores are available, or during the downtime that comes with Drift travel, for example.
As GM I try to find ways to facilitate the fantasies of the players. If a player wanted a dragon teeth sword, this would be my solution. In a setting of such imagination and fantasy, this is an easy problem to solve utilizing the rules that have been presented in the scant books we have. Unfortunately, my players haven't tried something like this yet, as they are more the sell and buy type. ;)
Sure you can feed the bits into a upb device but then the bits that contain the special properties would be lost...
Agreed. My idea for a UPB deconstructor/printer is purely cosmetic and flavorful, with other perks mentioned in my posts above. Applying magical properties would follow the standard rules, though, I would grant the crafter a +1 or greater bonus for style should they plunge the newly formed blade into the heart of a dragon, or for other such dramatic efforts.
And no, not all crafting is done with UPBs, that's silly.
Actually...
"To create an item, you must have UPBs with a total value
equal to the price of the item to be created [...] Even magic and hybrid items are created using UPBs"
Recycling 10% of other items to craft is optional, if the GM chooses to allow it.
"At the GM’s discretion, you can scavenge similar items for parts,
allowing 10% of the scavenged item’s value to count toward
the UPBs needed."
Page 235 CRB.
It is a 3d printed future.
Thus, that interpretation is clearly the wrong one.
Interpretation? I'm quoting straight from the book...
But fine, homebrew away. As long as you pay the price for the item, be it in UPBs, credits, loot, it doesn't quite matter.
Thus, that interpretation is clearly the wrong one.Interpretation? I'm quoting straight from the book...
But fine, homebrew away. As long as you pay the price for the item, be it in UPBs, credits, loot, it doesn't quite matter.
Except clubs don't cost anything...
Except clubs don't cost anything...
I guess you either can't create clubs, or can create as many clubs as you want.
Or just pick them up from a nearby trashcan.
Okay, to phrase this differently:
Do you, honestly, believe that in Starfinder, it is impossible to take an ingot of iron, and hammer it into a knife? Do you believe that it is the intent of the rules that such be impossible?
"To create an item, you must have UPBs with a total value equal to the price of the item to be created"
Just quote something that says otherwise. This is just RAW. There is no "or" in the book.
--
With our current technology level we kinda already have gone past the hammering iron into knives - a bunch of millennia into the future + magic, I guess nobody cares about old fashion methods, or don't even remember how to do anything without a printer (Except clubs, that can be crafted ad infinitum without any UPBs. Or not at all).
But say you are caught in a primitive world and want to craft primitive tools; there are no rules for it - not even Survival covers such things. Maybe if it happens in an AP they add optional, mini-game like rules to craft an obsidian axe.
Otherwise, I suppose future printed gear is so ranks and ranks above our current objects, that all we have would be laughable garbage in comparison, not even recognized as "stuff", just pure trash. Starfinder laughs at your iron hammered knife and its imperfections - it can barely last 100 years without breaking!
Or it could be that the rules were not written by a lawyer, and treating them as if they are a legal text is the wrong way to read them.
Hey, don't shoot the messenger... I'm just calling it as I see it.
If you want to change crafting in your game, it's fine - but it will be homebrewing.
This thread highlights one of the biggest flaws of otherwise great game. It doesn't feel like a tabletop adventure at times because it's ham stringed by it's over reliance on rules. Basic logic should not break down because someone forgot to specify the parameters or the parameters themselves are too rigid. If paizo really wanted that, Starfinder should have been a video game.
I encourage my players to harvest parts from their enemies, both to keep as trophies (was stoked when my players actually kept an art piece they found to use as a hood ornament for their ship instead of selling it) and as components for items. It adds a lot of attachment to the world and humanises the characters if they collect things.
I allow my players to get a upb discount for their crafting dependent on what they choose to incorporate, so long as the part is appropriate. This can even apply to ability upgrades - I think Ksarik parts are a perfectly reasonable stand in for part of the cost of the biotech ability upgrade.