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Ok, so if I've read the rules correctly, you can buy a Formula of any item level at any character level (provided you have money) but can only craft an item of your character level or lower.
So the problem is this: (just as an example)
Ring of Climbing costs 1750gp and is a 12th lv item
Its formula would cost 1000gp
Crafting needs half the market cost of 1750gp as 875gp
SO if you only needed the one, it'd be a full 125gp MORE than just buying one at market price.
And this seems to be a common problem with crafting anything in the playtest; nevermind that you need to also be a Lv12 character to even craft it in the first place, which would likely mean climbing should be the least of your character concerns.
Another example:
Cloak of the Bat costs 660gp and is a 9th lv item
Its formula would cost 350gp
Crafting needs half the market cost of 660gp as 330gp
Which again means that crafting only one costs 20gp MORE than marketprice.
And again, a 9th level character would probably have far more easy means of temporary flight.
Another issue is that crafting requires you to spend at least 4 days to "prepare" to craft an item equal to your level, with 1 less day for every level you are higher than what you're making.
BUT if you want to finish the item right away at the end of those days, you spend THE REMAINDER of the item's market cost. Meaning you've spent exactly what you would to straight up just buy one from a store... Except you also had to buy that Formula! So, you spent MORE.
OR you can continue to work on the item and reduce the remaining half of the item's market cost by the value of SP your character would make in progress on crafting the item per day, up to only the half you already spent... Except you also had to buy the Formula! Which, as shown above still means you spent MORE than just buying one from a store.
(Nevermind that most of the "good" magic items can only be crafted at a level higher than when it'd be fun to have them, making them provide negligible benefit.)
Strike this post. I misread the table. Formulas are priced in SP, not GP.
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Strike this post. I misread the table. Formulas are priced in SP, not GP.
That still raises a valid problem though. The inconsistent use of SP pricing vs GP pricing is going to trip up endless numbers of people endless numbers of times.
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The intent of crafting is to allow you to get things you can't find in the marketplace, not necessarily make money. With teleport and plane shift heavily reduced, it's no longer reasonable to expect even high level characters to be able to wait for the international/interplanar marketplace to find what you want within an acceptable amount of time.
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Strike this post. I misread the table. Formulas are priced in SP, not GP.That still raises a valid problem though. The inconsistent use of SP pricing vs GP pricing is going to trip up endless numbers of people endless numbers of times.
I personally would prefer everything to be listed in fractions of GP, just to avoid this very problem, though it gets silly when you consider something that cost 5 CP.
On the subject, can I ask a question? How do you make Formulas? I found the feat Inventor, but that seems 100% pointless. You can only make common Formulas, which you could just buy in the form of the Basic Crafter's Book, and get them all easily.
The Basic Crafter's Book only covers the non-magical gear in the equipment section. If you want to craft magical or alchemical items you need to purchase the formulae. (Both the alchemical crafting feat and the magical crafting feat gives you four common low level formulae for free.)
Inventor allows you to create a formula for common magical or alchemical equipment without needing to purchase the formula, which may not be available. It also allows you to create non-magical equipment not listed.
I assume there will eventually a feat that lets you create uncommon and possibly rare formula.
You can try and reverse engineer mundane items (formulas p. 188). Reverse engineering formulas for magic items would be harder, of course, but arguably possible