I've told my players to stop crafting if they are over WBL+2. This has become a point of contention among the group as several of them have powerful artifacts.
How do other GMs reconcile WBL vs crafting and WBL vs having major artifacts in the campaign?
I've basically told them that they cannot have both.
Your players are already well over the intended limit for crafting items.
Here's the relevant quote from Ultimate Campaign:
Adjusting Character Wealth by Level
Source Ultimate Campaign pg. 173You can take advantage of the item creation rules to handcraft 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 8thlevel 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.
Your characters should at most have 25% to 50% of their WBL in crafted items, and this is only if their character has a crafting feat.
Instead, it sounds like they've got about an extra 200% WBL if they're around WBL+2, which is a recipe for disaster. I'd recommend letting them keep their items, but be frugal with future loot for 3 levels.
Assuming you control the loot as GM, use things like race or alignment restricted magic items to prevent characters using the loot enemies carry. Not only will this mean they'll need a UMD check to use the items they find, it'll also severely reduce their value to your average merchant. Inflict expensive status conditions on the group (permanent level drain, stat drain, death requiring resurrection etc.) to drain their consumable resources as well. Finally, use enemies that don't have major loot (vermin, oozes, mindless undead, animals, monstrous beasts, constructs, etc.) to limit wealth from encounters.
Once you've reached your WBL target, start reintroducing appropriate rewards.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Basically, it comes down to these two precepts:
1) Artifacts are outside of WBL considerations, because they are (should be) awarded via the sole province of the GM
2) WBL is a (rough) guideline and the GM should adjust the available treasure if the PCs deviate too greatly
The entire CR mechanic (as fuzzy as it is) is based on certain assumptions regarding the "power" of the PCs (and WBL is one part of that). The game can be adjusted to suit different assumed "power levels," but it requires some extra consideration and planning.
Because of the "sell at 50%" and "craft at 50%" rules, magic item crafting is designed to be pretty much WBL-neutral (as a way of getting what a PC wants, instead of being stuck with an item that they don't*). The treasure awards, on the other hand, assume a certain amount of consumable use; which is why precept 2 is important.
One other thing to keep in mind: If the party goes up against NPCs frequently, they will often be over WBL. NPCs generally have more treasure than "average" for an encounter of their CR.
*- such as a ki focus weapon in a party without a monk
Thank you for the excellent responses so far.
It seems excessive, but I've found a range that I'm comfortable with and I feel I can still balance encounters to come out as planned. My PCs are using mythic rules and we often have long stretches where they advance on the slow track, so this has resulted in a lot of loot in the campaign. I slow it down from time to time and whenever they hit the medium advancement track, they tend to catch up.
Things were fine until they wanted to start crafting everything.
|
My best story about the party saying "screw WBL":
The party had a few years of downtime as their colony developed. They were movers and shakers in their respective organizations at this point. These are their actions during this time:
One player invested everything they had into an oyster farm and used underhanded tactics to oust competition, becoming the regional supplier for 100gp pearls for 3.5 Identify material components.
One player assassinated a rival religion's (pelor) spiritual leader, and took over their (Pyremius, fire themed assassin god) own cult, which was also a large thieves guild.
Two players joined together to open the only colony sanctioned brothel, along with its accompanying legit inn, gambling hall, tavern, and performance venue.
Sure, it was all narrative and full of handwavium, but these guys were all essentially millionaires when the time gap ended.
*****
That being said, I might start not giving loot for mooks, and rewarding them in downtime RP instead of actual loot.
Actually, the language isn't all about creating a new character, merely the first paragraph. This is clear by the second paragraph referring to GMs reducing treasure, which obviously occurs over multiple later scenarios.
If you're giving the party random loot, a good percentage should be miscellaneous coins and gems, just to cover general expenses. If you're hand-crafting loot, it should be relevant for either your players' characters general needs, or else useful for upcoming challenges (such as a +5 deadly vermin bane fly swatter prior to a boss battle involving a dozen giant flies).
Generally, you should audit the group's wealth every level or two and check you've hit the right amount of WBL for each character. If you're over, plan to cut back on the loot budget of the next few scenarios. If you're under, add a treasure haul for a general group deficit or specific class items for single characters that are below their target.
