In my last campaign, for a long time the crafter was an NPC. He charged exactly 50%. But later the NPC was no longer able to craft (story reasons), one of the players took over crafting and charged 60%. Though by then, most of us were fully equipped so it didn't matter much.
And while it might not be pertinent, my character in that campaign ended up with the biggest amount of cash in the entire kingdom. I went to ask for an item to be crafted and the GM said I couldn't afford it. I told him how much I had, which at the time was about 700k. He went "How the heck did you get 700k?!" Easy. I hadn't been spending it. It was pretty funny because he had been the one throwing gold at us for so long but couldn't figure out why I had so much. The other players had to remind him. When the campaign ended, my character had over 10 mil in cash just because the spending needs were a lot less than the other characters.
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And he's charging extra for his services, as opposed to contributing them for free like non-crafters are expected to do. Unlike them, he's profiting from the people who are risking their lives next to him.
The usual, false, argument that equates the time spent adventuring to the time spent while non-adventuring.
If I have a wife at home you don't get a share of her because we adventure together.
In what deranged head space is sharing your wife in the same frickin convwraation as the rest of this? Please keep such non-sense out of here, we are all better than that.
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Or yknow, are a martial built by someone who knows what they're doing vs an illusion focused sorcerer or poorly built monk.
GMs have been trying to "keep the balance" between martials and casters since the dawn of time. you cant keep balance between players, some players are frankly more mechanicallyadept, playing a stronger class or are simply better built.Or have three times as much gear. :)
And are "just better built" by exploiting crafting rules and their fellow players to gain a mechanical advantage.
Is your argument that because the party might alright be imperfectly balanced we should be fine making it worse?
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So, everyone has an equal share of the loot via draconian wealth distribution. No one gets the magic item unless they can "pay" for it.
In most of the groups with which I play, we go for equal distribution of wealth, but you can borrow from future shares, and some item is brought as "party loot" as it is useful for the whole party and isn't particularly useful for a single party member. We buy or craft wands of CLW from party founds, even if some character uses them way more than others it is only compensation for the damage they incur while adventuring.
Most of the time the crafters ask 60% of the sale price for crafted items and no one has problems with that.|
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GMs have been trying to "keep the balance" between martials and casters since the dawn of time. you cant keep balance between players, some players are frankly more mechanicallyadept, playing a stronger class or are simply better built.Or have three times as much gear. :)
And are "just better built" by exploiting crafting rules and their fellow players to gain a mechanical advantage.
Do you know that having an item worth twice than a similar item is about a +1 difference (or equivalent)? I think you as you have already participated to this kind of discussion.
Let's make an example:
Level 10 characters, WBL 62,000
+2 armor - 4,000
+2 weapon - 8,000
+1 back up weapon - 2,000
+2 ring - 8.000
+3 cloak - 9.000
+2 amulet of natural armor - 8,000
stat belt/circlet, +2 to main stat - 4,000
stat belt/circlet, +2 to secondary stat stat - 4,000
47,000 gp, the other 15,000 are miscellaneous stuff e some found for Raise dead.
YMMV but that is a passable set of equipment.
Same guy, but he is a rich crafter that has sold so much stuff to the other characters that has got double WBL:
Level 10 characters, WBL 144,000
+3 armor - 9,000 +1 to AC
+3 weapon - 18,000 +1 to hit and damage
+1 back up weapon - 2,000
+3 ring - 18.000 +1 to AC
+4 cloak - 16.000 +1 to saves
+3 amulet of natural armor - 18,000 +1 AC
stat belt/circlet, +4 to main stat - 16,000 +2 to a characteristic
stat belt/circlet, +2 to secondary stat stat - 4,000
101,000 gp, the other 41,000 are miscellaneous stuff e some found for Raise dead.
Stronger? Yes, +3 point of AC, +1 to hit and damage, +1 to saves and +2 to a characteristic. But the price of that, probably, is two feats, with only one his market will be more restricted.
There are plenty of builds that with two feats will get something as useful.
Wow, okay, um... I suppose there isn't much point in my continuing here.
Wow, okay, um... I suppose there isn't much point in my continuing here.
Seconded. o_O See you next thread, folks.
Is your argument that because the party might alright be imperfectly balanced we should be fine making it worse?Or yknow, are a martial built by someone who knows what they're doing vs an illusion focused sorcerer or poorly built monk.
GMs have been trying to "keep the balance" between martials and casters since the dawn of time. you cant keep balance between players, some players are frankly more mechanicallyadept, playing a stronger class or are simply better built.Or have three times as much gear. :)
And are "just better built" by exploiting crafting rules and their fellow players to gain a mechanical advantage.
No my argument is that balancing within the party is a specious argument on its face. You cant balance within the party, and more magic items on a caster isn't going to make the balance significantly worse.
In fact that more magic items on the non casters improve the non caster far far more than the more magic items on the caster improve the caster given that any class that relies on weapon damage to engage in combat already has a higher reliance on magic items.
I'm not saying I'm gimping my build by being a crafter. I'm saying that if I craft all of your gear for half price you are getting the same benefits from my feat as I am this is going to give you my feat on top of yours thus I am a feat weaker than the rest of the party who didn't take a crafting feat
Well, can't imagine you'd ever want to take a feat like lingering performance or some such. Besides which as the crafter you still do gain benefits. Namely deciding what gets crafted when. In a campaign with unlimited downtime this might not be relevant. But if you are on some form of time crunch and can only make 1-2 items before the next big fight you are in the excellent position to make yours first.
Creating magic items still requires skill checks; by RAW the DCs are typically a bit on the low side though.
Creating magic items still requires skill checks; by RAW the DCs are typically a bit on the low side though.Got it. With my luck on rolls, though, I would still occasionally have to charge 300%.
They require either a spellcraft check or an appropriate craft check (Armorsmithing, jewelry,etc) but that isn't necessarily to create the nonmagical item You can just buy a masterwork item and enchant it.
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Lingering Performance is used in combat. Craft Wondrous Item not so much.So? The items you craft are useful in combat. That's why you take the feat and how you support the party. It's a support role feat, whether you ever say "I use <Feat Name>" during combat or not. It's a part of what you bring to the table.
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a feat used in combat, unlike metamagic, and thus a completely different feeling for the player.
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Creating magic items still requires skill checks; by RAW the DCs are typically a bit on the low side though.Got it. With my luck on rolls, though, I would still occasionally have to charge 300%.
You can take 10. With a DC of 5+CL of the item, if you are a member of a class that has spellcraft as a class skill (almost all spellcasters) and keep the skill maximized, you have a modified skill bonus of 3+your character level (plus an eventual intelligence bonus).
So your minimum result is 13+character level. You can make items with a caster level 8 point higher than your character level without any problem.
If you instead use a Craft or Profession skill, you can use masterwork tools and get a further +2.
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Casters give up 1 feat to craft 1 type of magic item. Non-casters give up 2 feats to craft magic items. How much is 1 feat worth?
+1 to hit, or +2 to damage, and occasionally something really awesome that makes your character tick. But generally, about the equivellent of a +1 to hit or +2 to damage or +3 to a skill, or +2 to two skills.
If you aren't gimping your build by selecting crafting feats when you are still working towards your feat goals, you're giving up an amount of power that should be overcome by the amount your items will make up for it. Double the value of items you get is about the same as what a feat will give you.
And consequently, the only way to get a real advantage over just taking a feat is to use those feats to benefit the rest of your party. Now you get to keep the relative parity of trading a +1 in feats for a +1 in gear, and you get to buff your party with +1 to their gear.
And if that doesn't make sense to you, then you obviously hate the idea of the bard, haste, and prayer.
Unless that feat is worth up to +12/+18 to damage (power attack, deadly aim, etc.), 1 extra attack when making a full attack (any of the feat of the two weapon combat after the first), forcing a target into making 2 saves against a spell and so on.
Saying that a feat is worth "generally, about the equivellent of a +1 to hit or +2 to damage or +3 to a skill, or +2 to two skills" is extremly reductive.|
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You did read the entire sentence you're 'quoting', right? Because I did mention the occasional feat does something awesome? No? No. Apparently you glossed over that.Though your example is a net zero on my chart. You take a -1 to hit for every +2 to damage, net 0 feat that scales with your level. When you can hit stuff reliably with a -6 to hit, it is great. And then you run into those guys you can't hit on your first attack if you use power attack so you get no benefit from your feat. Not saying power attack and deadly aim are bad...
Yes, I read your whole post. It sum as "a feat is worth a +1 or +2, unless it one of the plethora of feats that are worth much more".
Guess what? People generally take the feats with the highest benefits, not the weakest one.Power attack is worth 0?!?
Unless it makes the difference between hitting rolling extremely high numbers on the d20 (generally in the 18-19 range) and hitting with only a 20, mathematically power attack gives a damage advantage.
When you get multiple attacks there are levels where it is less good, but it is never a 0 worth feat.
If you get Furious focus the two feat combo decome even better.
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Lucky, why you guys that argue about requiring some compensation use that false argument where you equate time spent while adventuring to time spent during downtime?
While adventuring I will cure the other party members, cast buff spells, take the front line to defend them and so on.
During downtime, I will be really annoyed if someone comes every day to ask me to heal a scratch, cure venereal disease, cast remove poison to remove the alcohol he drunk so he will not suffer a hangover, cast water walking and water breathing so he will be more successful while fishing for sport, use my sunder feat to cut wood for his fireplace and so on.
For me, this is the same thing. A guy is asking me to spend my downtime for him, without giving anything back.
I ask 60% of the market price. The 10% above the production cost is my remuneration for the work.
If what I make is a gift I for a friend don't ask anything, not even the production cost, but I decide when I make a gift and what it is and then give it to the recipient.
If instead, it is an order from a customer, he pays for it.
Maybe the problem is that you see your characters only as a set of stats on paper and for you guys what happen outside of adventuring is nonexistent, but for me, they are characters, with a personality and interests outside of adventuring.
Lucky, why you guys that argue about requiring some compensation use that false argument where you equate time spent while adventuring to time spent during downtime?
Sigh...
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Sigh...Lucky, why you guys that argue about requiring some compensation use that false argument where you equate time spent while adventuring to time spent during downtime?
Will the crafter player get upset if another player starts charging them for buff spells?
You guys use that constantly: So you aren't confronting actions while adventuring with action during downtime and saying it is the same?
If I ask you to cast buffing spells to win an archery contest totally unrelated to our adventures I will not surprised if you ask some compensation, be it a few beers, lunch or some coins. I will be surprised if it is the full market price, but I will not ask you to do it for free.
This idea that someone should spend his free time for free to me seems the relationship between Biff Tannen and George McFly at the start of Back to the future.
Improving the enchantments on ADVENTURING gear is absolutely, 100% related to whatever common goal the party has in adventuring together, the archery tournament is a false analogy (and frankly one I thpught you were wise enough not to make.)
And Biff would have made McFly pay the cost and do the work, as an aside. And those two weren't routinely trusting their lives in the other's abilities and gear.
Improving the enchantments on ADVENTURING gear is absolutely, 100% related to whatever common goal the party has in adventuring together, the archery tournament is a false analogy (and frankly one I thpught you were wise enough not to make.)
And Biff would have made McFly pay the cost and do the work, as an aside. And those two weren't routinely trusting their lives in the other's abilities and gear.
I mean...too bad...my time is my time and if the player doesn't like a 25% break he can go elsewhere and pay full price.
Improving the enchantments on ADVENTURING gear is absolutely, 100% related to whatever common goal the party has in adventuring together, the archery tournament is a false analogy (and frankly one I thpught you were wise enough not to make.)
The same person who equated the argument to sleeping with his NPC wife because heck everyone shares downtime resources? I wouldn't give so much credit.
And I guess "If it's what my character would do" your hands are clearly tied. Not much alternative there I'm afraid.
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Improving the enchantments on ADVENTURING gear is absolutely, 100% related to whatever common goal the party has in adventuring together, the archery tournament is a false analogy (and frankly one I thpught you were wise enough not to make.)
The same person who equated the argument to sleeping with his NPC wife because heck everyone shares downtime resources? I wouldn't give so much credit.
And I guess "If it's what my character would do" your hands are clearly tied. Not much alternative there I'm afraid.
So you would work for another character for free, cutting firewood, drawing water and doing other menial works for "friendship" without compensation?
So you would work for another character for free, cutting firewood, drawing water and doing other menial works for "friendship" without compensation?
Me personally? Maybe, would depend on the circumstances. I've helped friends move, paint some minis, and other such tasks for free*
But I am also not situated in life or death scenarios every day where helping someone move their fridge today could keep me alive tomorrow. I were, then yeah, I might be willing to haul some furniture for free.
None of this is, however, very relevant. The point that has been made over and over again is that this is a balance issue. Every person at the table should be coming with a character that will provide a great gaming experience for everyone. Coming in with a thief that steals from the party because "that's what my character would do" is probably fine at some tables. But I'd hazard a guess it wouldn't fly for many.
Lets take a random party of level 10 characters each with their 62k WBL. Using the 70% figure mentioned in the OP. One character takes craft wonderous items and makes 25%(This number is intentionally low considering most slots are wonderous items including belts, headbands, cloaks, and amulets) of each characters gear.
So each party member hands you 15k(rounding) to craft with. You pocket 5k(rounding again) of it and use the other 10k to craft them 20k worth of gear. All well and good, they've made money out of the deal and are now each sitting on 67k WBL.
Now we get to you. You've got your 62k starting and 15k crafting profits. We craft the same 25% of our now 77k gold for 19k. You aren't going to charge yourself 70% and just throw 20% of the money into the ether. So you get a full 38k worth of gear out of this.
So now you are sitting on 96k gold to each other party members 67k gold. And the imbalance is only going to get worse if you continue on. Sure it cost you a feat, but there are plenty of ioun stones, or +1 training daggers you can use to gain that back for a fraction of the profits you've made.
From here you have a few options.
1. Ignore it. If your GM and Players don't see a problem with this imbalance then great. Game on.
2. The GM sees it as a problem and adjusts wealth accordingly. Maybe they drop more weapons and armor and fewer metamagic rods or whatever your character needs to keep the players in line. This works, but from a GM perspective I'd honestly rather not have to bother. And from a player perspective why go to the effort if you'll end up in the same place.
3. The players see it as a problem and each decide to take the crafting feats themselves. This is not necessarily unfair, but it does make life easier for your arcanists, clerics, druids, etc than your fighters, swashbucklers, rogues, etc. And you also end up with a weaker party than you would if those characters had taken different feats.
As I said in my response on the previous page whether all of this is a problem or not really depends. If your GM is pretty strict with downtime and you can't manage a whole lot of crafting, it would probably never be an issue. Ditto if you were charging something like 55%, or spending the excess money on something for the entire party like my flagship example in Skulls&Shackles.
But you could also take far more extreme examples and end up with staggering amount more money than any other party member. And taking the stance that certain classes should have more money than others is similarly problematic. The fact is that a fighter does not have so readily available source of income during their downtime. If they had a feat that said "During downtime you can hire out to the local adventurers guild and slay goblins for X hundreds of GP per day" then it would be much less of an issue.
*Usually pizza or something is provided, but if all your character wants out of the magic item crafting is a ration, I don't think we are really hitting balance issue territory.
Except again...magic items help the spellcaster (Which most item crafters are) far less than they help martials.
Comparing them to a thief that steals from the party is ridiculous given that they're actually increasing the party's total wealth.
Except again...magic items help the spellcaster (Which most item crafters are) far less than they help martials.
Comparing them to a thief that steals from the party is ridiculous given that they're actually increasing the party's total wealth.
Could you rephrase the first portion of your statement. I am at a loss to figure out why you mean by it. Obviously magic items help spellcasters, but saying they help martials less? I mean, you want to dump a naked level 20 sorcerer and a naked level 20 fighter into an arena and I know which one I'd rather bet on. A martial without magic items is going to quickly going to be literally useless against pretty much anything(Slight exception to the monk). Where as a lot of casters can get by with comparatively little. They shouldn't have to, but they could.
As for your second point, well, turns out it isn't. The behavior would be ridiculous of course. But bringing a character to the table that sucks the fun out for others is a huge faux-pas around my table. Maybe yours is different.
EDIT: I see I've misread your post. Although I am still confused by it. You agree that casters don't need magic items as much. And because of that it doesn't unbalance the game to have them with 50% more money than the rest of the party?
EDIT2: And to be perfectly honest, if you believe the money going to the martials helps the party out more than the spellcasters, why would you even charge them additional money in the first place? Would you not be literally be harming your characters chances of survival in that case?
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no, magic items help martials more than they help casters.
"magic items help the spellcaster far less than they help martials."
And since you brought up edit2, and the whole argument is based in metagaming (as the odds of a martial with no spellcraft or knowledge arcana or likely appraise skill knowing the costs involved in crafting a magic item) All we need to ensure my characters survival is average wealth by level. Crafting gives us more, PLUS allows my crafter to pursue his own goals independent of the party, be that more spells, crafting based items that don't affect adventure survivability directly, or buying buildings and land.
The day you demonstrate how getting more magic items than you would have cheaper sucks the fun out of a game is the day i acknowledge that point though.
Its just as easy to treat it as a personal feat and do no crafting for party members at all.
Yeah, the edit2 would be based on metagaming. It is what I would argue is the good kind of metagaming. That being said, a can't imagine it takes a 26 int genius wizard to realize they have higher odds of survival if their front line has higher AC and takes all the hits up front.
And does your character only need average WBL to survive? Maybe. If the GM is adjusting for the power level of the party to keep things interesting you might not. Higher wealth does yield a higher CR score in NPCs. For obvious reasons it means players can tackle challenges they might not have been able to otherwise.
The example from earlier where 3 party members have an additional 5k and one has an additional 34k(again, a fairly tame example) very well might require a GM to adjust the CR upward. 5k might get your martials in the party a +1 enhancement on their weapon or armor. But 34k would buy something like an empowered metamagic rod.
So if the GM feels they needs to beef up the encounters to deal with this, your character is very likely going to be comparatively weaker than it would have been. Can playing a fun character be weak? Of course it can. One of my favorite characters I've ever played was a chained rogue who went all in on sleight of hand bonuses. Wasn't the best in combat, but I signed up for that. If you did not sign up for it, then yeah, it could very easily be less fun.
And to your final point, obviously you could treat it as a personal feat and do no crafting for the party. It sounds like a dick move, but the irony is as has been shown over and over and over again in this thread, that actual ends up less lopsided. Using the exact above example but you only craft yourself 25% bonus gold, each party member ends up with 62k gold except you who ends up with 77.5k.
Its not an internal competition unfortunately. In party balance only matters inasmuch as people do or dont have fun.
I think the jealous member is the problem and if they don't enjoy it that much they can play a class that can take creation feats.
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Every class can take creation feats.
A non-spellcaster that takes Craft (jewelry) can make a large number of wondrous magic items.
The arguments that it "unbalance the group" and "downtime has no cost" are based on the assumption that there is unlimited or almost unlimited downtime. And that the other party members are doing nothing during downtime.
Let's take Leitner example:
Lets take a random party of level 10 characters each with their 62k WBL. Using the 70% figure mentioned in the OP. One character takes craft wonderous items and makes 25%(This number is intentionally low considering most slots are wonderous items including belts, headbands, cloaks, and amulets) of each characters gear.
So each party member hands you 15k(rounding) to craft with. You pocket 5k(rounding again) of it and use the other 10k to craft them 20k worth of gear. All well and good, they've made money out of the deal and are now each sitting on 67k WBL.
Now we get to you. You've got your 62k starting and 15k crafting profits. We craft the same 25% of our now 77k gold for 19k. You aren't going to charge yourself 70% and just throw 20% of the money into the ether. So you get a full 38k worth of gear out of this. where "3 party members have an additional 5k and one has an additional 34k.
How many days of work are required to make the stuff?
15K of cost, 70% os sale price = 21-25 days of work, 12-15 working at double speed (you can make only one item in a day, and even if you can make 2,000 gp of stuff in a day, if it cost 2,100 gp or other fractional values above a multiplier of 2,000, it eat a day of work).48-60 days to make all the orders.
Then there the crafter items. To make 34K of items, at double speed, he needs 17-20 days.
How many APs beside Kingmaker give you 65-80 free days at 10th level? Or even calculating all the free time with access to the needed materials between level 3 and 10?
But the crafter can work while adventuring, right? Now we are speaking of 260-320 days. Most APs are already concluded in that timespan.
Then there is this "little" detail: "Creating Wondrous Items
To create a wondrous item, a character usually needs some sort of equipment or tools to work on the item."
Now our crafter, while adventuring, is hauling all the equipment needed to work on several kinds of items, from thread and needles to blacksmith tools, leatherworking tools, jewelry tools, woodworking tools, etc. and several thousand of gp of components needed to craft the required wondrous items.
Having played crafters in three different campaigns with different GMs and mastered several other campaigns with crafters, I know fairly well what they really can do if the GM doesn't handwave the time and equipment requirements.
The only one where the crafters had all the time and equipment needed was Kingmaker, but in Kingmaker the other players too had free time and a way to get more money from other activities or from adventuring while the crafter was busy.
Most of the time the crafter end with some extra money and unenhanced equipment, not with the hypothetic uber equipment.