Pathfinder 1e
What are your thoughts about a player who charges other players a mark up to craft magic items?
Here's the scenario - Player A takes Craft Wonderous Items feat at 3rd level - offers to craft whatever party members want during extended downtime that is essentially being hand-waved by the GM, so no time limitation, and no concern on GM's part about potential WBL imbalance. Just instant magic item between sessions.
Player A charges other players 70 percent of item's value to craft it (it costs 50 percent of item's value to craft, so crafter is pocketing roughly a 40 percent markup)
What do you think? Perfectly fine, or overly greedy?
Does the healer charge for their services? Is the rogue paid for disarming traps?
If the GM and the players have no concern about WBL balance - either for total party wealth or between players, then I guess there's no problem.
It's worth breaking down exactly how big that imbalance is going to get though. It doesn't look like much at first glance, but it adds up.
If everyone invests the same amount into Wondrous Items and assuming a 4 person party, if they each want a 1000gp value item, the caster will charge 700gp and make it for 500gp, leaving him with 200 extra for each. Then he will have 1600 gp to spend, getting him a 3200gp item
This adds up to everyone doing better, but the crafter getting more than three times as much as the others.
Obviously in practice, it won't be that bad, since not all of the wealth will be channeled into Wondrous Items through the crafter, but it does wind up being pretty extreme.
If everyone is okay with it and having fun I wouldn't get too concerned.
But personally I'd wouldn't allow it to get out of hand. I'd be more cautious about free downtime and WBL ... either looking to strip more wealth from the PC or adjusting encounters to account for increased PC power (and probably a bit of both would be happening). Player objections would probably be met with a bit of what works for them would work for the NPCs and the PC might find some enterprising NPC who undercuts his prices or otherwise competes. Crafting prices might start becoming less standardized and or other counters such as Guilds coming around to see if he's properly registered and paying his fees etc., etc.. In essence he's manipulating a very simplified system to line his pockets and that needs to be countered to maintain campaign and PC balance.
Actually this could weaken the party in a way. The prices for magic items grow exponentially while the benefits are linear. For the price of getting a +4 to ability score magic item, you could have got 4 +2 ability score magic items. 16,000 gp vs 4 * 4000 gp. This is not to say that having powerful magic items is bad, but instead you should save it for when its more efficient or practical.
What about players selling their magic items to get what they want crafted? Will this one player still charge 70% after the other players sold their magic items for 50%?
Kayerloth wrote: If everyone is okay with it and having fun I wouldn't get too concerned.
But personally I'd wouldn't allow it to get out of hand. I'd be more cautious about free downtime and WBL ... either looking to strip more wealth from the PC or adjusting encounters to account for increased PC power (and probably a bit of both would be happening). Player objections would probably be met with a bit of what works for them would work for the NPCs and the PC might find some enterprising NPC who undercuts his prices or otherwise competes. Crafting prices might start becoming less standardized and or other counters such as Guilds coming around to see if he's properly registered and paying his fees etc., etc.. In essence he's manipulating a very simplified system to line his pockets and that needs to be countered to maintain campaign and PC balance.
I'd advise against this. Deal with it out of game. It's a meta game problem, handle it on that level.
Limiting downtime could work. Adjusting encounters is tricky when balance between PCs is out of whack due to one's boosted equipment. Limiting WBL would have to be somehow focused on removing cash from the crafter - otherwise you could easily wind up with him still way ahead of WBL and the others behind despite the cheaper crafted items.
Still better just to talk it out.
Edit: I do agree that if everyone is having fun with it, I wouldn't worry. My post above was mostly to point out that the effects are likely bigger than expected so they're not blind-sided by how much of a difference that little 20% profit makes. It's easy to think it seems fair and agree up front and then not be happy with how the power balance turns out.
OmniMage wrote: Actually this could weaken the party in a way. The prices for magic items grow exponentially while the benefits are linear. For the price of getting a +4 to ability score magic item, you could have got 4 +2 ability score magic items. 16,000 gp vs 4 * 4000 gp. This is not to say that having powerful magic items is bad, but instead you should save it for when its more efficient or practical.
What about players selling their magic items to get what they want crafted? Will this one player still charge 70% after the other players sold their magic items for 50%?
But that +4 to your main stat is often more effective than 3 more +2s. And whether you go for the single +4 or the 4 +2s, you're still getting them cheaper. (And the crafter gets more money to get his +4 sooner.)
And yeah, as these proposals are usually handled, the crafter gets cash and doesn't care where it comes from - sold magic items or found gold and gems.
thejeff wrote: OmniMage wrote: Actually this could weaken the party in a way. The prices for magic items grow exponentially while the benefits are linear. For the price of getting a +4 to ability score magic item, you could have got 4 +2 ability score magic items. 16,000 gp vs 4 * 4000 gp. This is not to say that having powerful magic items is bad, but instead you should save it for when its more efficient or practical.
What about players selling their magic items to get what they want crafted? Will this one player still charge 70% after the other players sold their magic items for 50%?
But that +4 to your main stat is often more effective than 3 more +2s. And whether you go for the single +4 or the 4 +2s, you're still getting them cheaper. (And the crafter gets more money to get his +4 sooner.) I was thinking more on the lines of every party member having a +2 magic item instead of only one player having 4 +2 magic items or 1 +4 magic item. I'm sure they the other party members would be able to put their +2 magic item to good use.
OmniMage wrote: thejeff wrote: OmniMage wrote: Actually this could weaken the party in a way. The prices for magic items grow exponentially while the benefits are linear. For the price of getting a +4 to ability score magic item, you could have got 4 +2 ability score magic items. 16,000 gp vs 4 * 4000 gp. This is not to say that having powerful magic items is bad, but instead you should save it for when its more efficient or practical.
What about players selling their magic items to get what they want crafted? Will this one player still charge 70% after the other players sold their magic items for 50%?
But that +4 to your main stat is often more effective than 3 more +2s. And whether you go for the single +4 or the 4 +2s, you're still getting them cheaper. (And the crafter gets more money to get his +4 sooner.) I was thinking more on the lines of every party member having a +2 magic item instead of only one player having 4 +2 magic items or 1 +4 magic item. I'm sure they the other party members would be able to put their +2 magic item to good use. I think this would still wind up getting you to 4 +2 items first, but the crafter could get an extra one and still have cash left over - or invest in other stuff, protection gear and the like.
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Eaghen- wrote: Pathfinder 1e
What are your thoughts about a player who charges other players a mark up to craft magic items?
Here's the scenario - Player A takes Craft Wonderous Items feat at 3rd level - offers to craft whatever party members want during extended downtime that is essentially being hand-waved by the GM, so no time limitation, and no concern on GM's part about potential WBL imbalance. Just instant magic item between sessions.
Player A charges other players 70 percent of item's value to craft it (it costs 50 percent of item's value to craft, so crafter is pocketing roughly a 40 percent markup)
What do you think? Perfectly fine, or overly greedy?
I don't think this is metagaming at all. Lets step back from the game for a moment. Imagine you have a friend that is a professional carpenter. You would like to have a bookshelf. You could go to the store and buy a bookshelf that meets your needs for $100. Your carpenter friend offers to make you one for $70. You also know that the material cost of the bookshelf is $50. are you going to
A: Go to the store and buy the $100 bookshelf
B: Have your friend build it for you for $70
C: Demand that your friend build it for you and only pay them $50 to do it because they're being greedy?
Unless your friend is a terrible carpenter or you need it quicker than they can build it, you're probably going to go with option B. You aren't likely to do C unless you're intentionally exploiting your friends to do things for you. In which case most people would say you're the one being greedy not your friend.
Going back to the game, if the DM wasn't hand waving the down time the crafter would be missing an opportunity cost. Instead of learning new spells, retraining, or even making a profession check they're building things for other people. While the characters who commissioned the items are free to do any of those things. Even in the scenario you're describing where time is being hand-waved the crafter still spent one or more feats in order to be able to craft things. This is one more feat the non-crafters had available to improve their character's combat and/or social capabilities. Is it fair for the non-crafters to fully reap the benefits of the crafter's feats? If you truly want to keep the game balanced the crafter shouldn't be allowed to craft items for other characters at all. In this way only the crafter is reaping the rewards of the feats they took and there is zero impact on the non-crafters. As they are forced to purchase custom items from NPCs.
If you're allowing the crafter to make items for other characters they should be allowed to charge as much or as little as they wish as its a transaction between players.
The last time I played a crafter I only charged for materials. My character's reasoning (he was LE) was that the stronger his companions were the less likely he was to die. He wasn't going to give them stuff for free and charge less then the material cost. The thing is, players would still "tip" my character for building stuff for them. They would throw me an extra 3000 or more because that was still substantially less then what they'd of paid buying the items and they wanted to keep my character happy. So that he would continue to make things for them.
TLDR: I think it's perfectly fine, I don't think they are being greedy at all.
The party gets some downtime, and some use the time to make money, while others party. The crafter decides to help the party and make money at the same time, and that's somehow greedy?
As a player I would never accept the crafter charging the other characters for more than the cost to manufacture. They invested a feat in crafting, nice, I invested a feat in keeping them alive while we are in the Tombs of Unending Death, will they pay me for my services?
Edit: What's next, is the bard going to charge a cover to listen to their inspire courage?
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The best rationale for a PC crafter charging for their labor would be if the other PCs had ways to earn significant income during downtime -- in which case the crafting PC should certainly be compensated for the opportunity cost of crafting for the party instead. But since most income is from the spoils of adventuring, the pittance that most characters can earn from day job rolls is not worth quibbling over.
Java Man wrote: As a player I would never accept the crafter charging the other characters for more than the cost to manufacture. They invested a feat in crafting, nice, I invested a feat in keeping them alive while we are in the Tombs of Unending Death, will they pay me for my services?
Edit: What's next, is the bard going to charge a cover to listen to their inspire courage?
Do you demand that the bard entertain you during downtime?
Only if it contributes to the party's success.
David knott 242 wrote: The best rationale for a PC crafter charging for their labor would be if the other PCs had ways to earn significant income during downtime -- in which case the crafting PC should certainly be compensated for the opportunity cost of crafting for the party instead. But since most income is from the spoils of adventuring, the pittance that most characters can earn from day job rolls is not worth quibbling over.
If I'm the crafter, no problem. I'll just go party with the barbarian, and everybody else can go pay full price.
EldonGuyre wrote: David knott 242 wrote: The best rationale for a PC crafter charging for their labor would be if the other PCs had ways to earn significant income during downtime -- in which case the crafting PC should certainly be compensated for the opportunity cost of crafting for the party instead. But since most income is from the spoils of adventuring, the pittance that most characters can earn from day job rolls is not worth quibbling over.
If I'm the crafter, no problem. I'll just go party with the barbarian, and everybody else can go pay full price. sounds reasonable to me
No, most other PCs can't make as much as the guy that actually invested feats in it. He's offering the party a discount. That makes him a pretty stand-up guy in a capitalist society.
So, does the party face get to charge a commision when they negotiate payment from NPCs for the party's work? Does the rogue get an extra cut from the loot in the locked and trapped treasure chest? Where is the cut off between greedy jerk and doing your job for the party?
Java Man wrote: So, does the party face get to charge a commision when they negotiate payment from NPCs for the party's work? Does the rogue get an extra cut from the loot in the locked and trapped treasure chest? Where is the cut off between greedy jerk and doing your job for the party? Downtime.
Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
Ah, if that distinction matters to you/your table then that would account for the difference in our perspectives.
And in fairness, I have a knee jerk opppsition to this whole line of thinking, a particularly mercenary group where clerics charging for cure spells was normal has soured me on the idea.
EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in.
The PC isn't greedy. The player is breaking the game's assumptions in order to get a stronger character.
That's why I say it's a metagame issue. It's perfectly reasonable in character. There are all sorts of reasons why it makes sense for the characters to do it and to be okay with it. But the game relies on metagame for balance, both between characters and between the party and the enemies they fight. WBL is entirely a metagame construct. The rules on crafting costs and pricing are basically metagame balance rules.
Messing with those so that one character winds up with multiple times the wealth of the other characters screws up that balance significantly. But that's not something the characters worry about, it's a concern for the GM and the players. Address it on that level.
Make it clear how much more gear the crafter is likely to be getting out of this and decide if that's acceptable for your group.
There are guidelines somewhere for how much beyond WBL crafting feats should get you. Those are there for a reason.
Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in. Is crafter a role someone has to fill at your tables? If not the argument falls apart.
A character with no crafting feats normally pays full price for items. It makes no sense for the character or thier player to get upset that they are getting a 30% discount instead of a 50% discount, when they normally would get no discount at all.
thejeff wrote: The PC isn't greedy. The player is breaking the game's assumptions in order to get a stronger character.
That's why I say it's a metagame issue. It's perfectly reasonable in character. There are all sorts of reasons why it makes sense for the characters to do it and to be okay with it. But the game relies on metagame for balance, both between characters and between the party and the enemies they fight. WBL is entirely a metagame construct. The rules on crafting costs and pricing are basically metagame balance rules.
Messing with those so that one character winds up with multiple times the wealth of the other characters screws up that balance significantly. But that's not something the characters worry about, it's a concern for the GM and the players. Address it on that level.
Make it clear how much more gear the crafter is likely to be getting out of this and decide if that's acceptable for your group.
The player is taking a crafting feat to make their character more powerful by skewing the WBL in their favor. The biggest dispairty created by this would occur if they refused to craft items for anyone but themselves (this makes them have double the wealth of anyone else) if this level of dispairty is game breaking then ban crafting completely (PFS does). Any crafting they do that benefits another party member reduces the dispairty, by giving the other character more money to spend on gear. If the crafter makes everyone's gear at cost and the DM responds by halving the treasure, the net result is that the character has wasted one or more feats for zero benefit.
thejeff wrote: There are guidelines somewhere for how much beyond WBL crafting feats should get you. Those are there for a reason. I have never seen said guidelines. can you link them?
Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in. No extra time?
So you just ignore those rules?
Incidentally, I despise wealth by level. What a great system to inspire a party to simply ignore searching for treasure. Yay.
How about this: Crafter charges full price to craft the item, but additional funds over the craft value are put back into the party treasury to be split.
ie: Belt of Giant Strength +4 = 16k.
8k spent on actually crafting the item, 8k split to the party.
Assuming a party of 4, the Buyer spends 16k, but gets 2k back so gets a discount of 12.5%.
The Crafter and everyone else get 2k in gold. No disparity, everyone (especially those who haven't done anything) is happy.
Now do that for every item found as loot and you have a DKP system.
Sure, you'll go a little bit above wealth by level, but the OP stated the GM doesn't care about wealth by level.
Incidentally, if the two layabouts decide they also want their own Belt of Giant Strength, they each spend 16k and split the extra as well, meaning 3 of them paid 16k but got back 6k each so a net cost of 10k, or 37.5% discount. The more evenly the party uses it the closer to 50% it gets. The only time you get disparity is if the Crafter doesn't follow the same rule for themselves of paying the full and splitting the remainder.
lordkailas wrote:
I have never seen said guidelines. can you link them?
Adjusting Character Wealth by Level
You can take advantage of the item creation rules to hand-craft 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 8th-level 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.
EldonGuyre wrote: Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in. No extra time?
So you just ignore those rules? Sorry, I should have said player of the PC. There's not a whit of extra effort expended here.
Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in. No extra time?
So you just ignore those rules? Sorry, I should have said player of the PC. There's not a whit of extra effort expended here. What would you want him to do? After taking the feat, what effort makes it worth having?
A possible solution: quests for rare crafting materials.
LordKailas wrote: thejeff wrote: The PC isn't greedy. The player is breaking the game's assumptions in order to get a stronger character.
That's why I say it's a metagame issue. It's perfectly reasonable in character. There are all sorts of reasons why it makes sense for the characters to do it and to be okay with it. But the game relies on metagame for balance, both between characters and between the party and the enemies they fight. WBL is entirely a metagame construct. The rules on crafting costs and pricing are basically metagame balance rules.
Messing with those so that one character winds up with multiple times the wealth of the other characters screws up that balance significantly. But that's not something the characters worry about, it's a concern for the GM and the players. Address it on that level.
Make it clear how much more gear the crafter is likely to be getting out of this and decide if that's acceptable for your group.
The player is taking a crafting feat to make their character more powerful by skewing the WBL in their favor. The biggest dispairty created by this would occur if they refused to craft items for anyone but themselves (this makes them have double the wealth of anyone else) if this level of dispairty is game breaking then ban crafting completely (PFS does). Any crafting they do that benefits another party member reduces the dispairty, by giving the other character more money to spend on gear. If the crafter makes everyone's gear at cost and the DM responds by halving the treasure, the net result is that the character has wasted one or more feats for zero benefit. Do the math. I laid it out earlier in the thread. It's counterintuitive, but charging the party for crafting actually increases the disparity beyond just crafting for yourself alone. Essentially because the crafter can take that profit margin and craft more stuff with it than he would have been able to with just his own share of the loot. The people in the party, the more extra cash and the more excess gear he can make.
Leitner quoted the guidelines I was thinking of above: essentially a feat should get you about 25% above WBL.
EldonGuyre wrote: Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Bill Dunn wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Let me see if I can't make this clear in a different way:
Four friends start a business venture. All four work together to do the basic job that needs to be done - but one guy is a computer systems engineer, in addition to the work he does for the venture.
Do you really want to call him greedy if he wants to be paid for spending an extra 20 or 30 hours building the network it would have cost much more to have built otherwise?
The difference here is that the PC with the feats spends no extra time at all but ends up with a substantially wealthier character than his fellows. The principles of economic justice that would compensate a real person for real time - not that applicable.
If it works for the group - fine. But it wouldn't fly with any of the groups I play in. No extra time?
So you just ignore those rules? Sorry, I should have said player of the PC. There's not a whit of extra effort expended here. What would you want him to do? After taking the feat, what effort makes it worth having? None. It's the wrong question. The response is just a rebuttal to "the crafter needs to be repaid for all this extra effort. There's no extra effort for the player, beyond saying "I spend a week crafting X", so there's no reward needed.
Per the guidelines above, the feat remains worth having, even without charging your companions. You have more control over what items you can access and it's reasonable to get around 25% above WBL with a feat. The situation here with no down time limits and the multiplier effect of more gold from charging the other PCs can easily throw the crafter way outside that target.
thejeff wrote: None. It's the wrong question. The response is just a rebuttal to "the crafter needs to be repaid for all this extra effort. There's no extra effort for the player, beyond saying "I spend a week crafting X", so there's no reward needed. No reward needed? Ok, just don't craft for your party at all. Its the crafter's feat, why does the other character get to use it? Its less efficient for the party as a whole, but fair is fair.
I think my previous post is the best compromise. The buyer pays full price to the crafter but anything over the actual crafted price goes to party loot and gets split 4+ ways. Everyone gets a discount, no disparity between party members and the crafter gets 'paid' for their feat.
If crafters deserve to be "paid" for their feat choice, are there any other feats that deserve payment? My fighter took bodygaurd, if roughly half of the melee attacks targetted at the wizard have an additional +2 AC applied, that is worth maybe the same as a 2 or 3K magic item? Should the wizard have to cough up the cash before I protect him?
I'd never run a crafter at some of these tables. Then again, if it's strict wealth by level, I wouldn't likely stick around, anyhow.
EldonGuyre wrote: I'd never run a crafter at some of these tables. Then again, if it's strict wealth by level, I wouldn't likely stick around, anyhow. How much extra cash would you need to play? How much beyond what the other PCs get?
Firebug wrote: thejeff wrote: None. It's the wrong question. The response is just a rebuttal to "the crafter needs to be repaid for all this extra effort. There's no extra effort for the player, beyond saying "I spend a week crafting X", so there's no reward needed. No reward needed? Ok, just don't craft for your party at all. Its the crafter's feat, why does the other character get to use it? Its less efficient for the party as a whole, but fair is fair.
I think my previous post is the best compromise. The buyer pays full price to the crafter but anything over the actual crafted price goes to party loot and gets split 4+ ways. Everyone gets a discount, no disparity between party members and the crafter gets 'paid' for their feat. It's an interesting idea. Not sure how it works out.
Is it actually any different than just crafting for free?
Let's see. Same situation, party of 4, everyone wants a 1000gp item.
3 players fork over 1000gp, the crafter crafts each for 500gp and returns 1500gp to the treasury. He crafts his own item for 500 and keeps the other 500.
Then we take the 1500 and split it 4 ways: 375 each.
The crafter now has 875gp and the other three have 375. Each has his 1000gp item. The caster can make another 1000gp item for himself and still have the same cash left as the other PCs - well over twice the gear as the party. (Less because not everything will be crafted, but that's the extreme case.)
Crafting for free, each would have 500gp left.
Paying the 70% suggested by the OP, each PC would have paid the crafter 700, leaving them with 300 and the crafter ends up with 1100.
Paying 60% instead, each PC would have paid the crafter 600, leaving them with 400 and the crafter ends up with 900. Which is close to your suggestion. Makes sense, since the caster essentially gets 12.5% from each item (half of 25%). Gets weirder with different numbers of PCs or if some need more in items the crafter can make than others.
Basically my only real stance here is that players should know what the consequences of the approach are and decide which way to go out of character. I emphasize the math because I think it's not immediately clear how much of an advantage profiting from the other PCs is.
Concerns of fairness to the characters are subordinate to what the players will enjoy.
Maybe nobody will care. If everyone's happy with the crafter being that far ahead and the GM's fine with the wacky game balance, go for it. Whatever floats your boat.
Just know what you're getting into.
thejeff wrote: It's an interesting idea. Not sure how it works out.
Is it actually any different than just crafting for free?
Let's see. Same situation, party of 4, everyone wants a 1000gp item.
3 players fork over 1000gp, the crafter crafts each for 500gp and returns 1500gp to the treasury. He crafts his own item for 500 and keeps the other 500.
Here is where you missed the point. His 500 that he saved on his own item goes into the pot as well.
Then we take the (1500) 2000 and split it 4 ways: (375) 500 each.
The crafter now has (875) 500gp and the other three have (375) 500. Each has his 1000gp item.
Crafting for free, each would have 500gp left. Just the same as in my system, no disparity.
Now for the DKP version, a +2 sword drops, the fighter "buys" it from the treasury at 8k and gets 2k back, everyone else gets 2k. Effectively, from the fighter's point of view, he bought the sword for 6k. If no one wanted it, it gets sold in town for 50% ie 4k, everyone gets 1k that they then spend to start your example from the top. Everyone is left with 500gp and a 1k item each. As a side note: if you only ever craft from the items sold to town(not found gold), you won't affect wealth by level at all compared to the GM only dropping useful items.
It is almost exactly the same to crafting for free, however it gives the feeling of being fair and 'paying' the crafter for their time. Also, if you decide you don't need any crafted items, you bank up your share of extra gold for other purchases, say for items that the crafter doesn't have feats for.
The only 'disparity' that arises is when different characters need different amounts of gold to adventure. For an extreme example, a cleric who just stands in the back and invests nothing into defenses or consumables and doesn't make attacks on their own probably doesn't need as much gold as the Hunter using a gun and needing to gear up both themselves and their animal companion.
thejeff wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: I'd never run a crafter at some of these tables. Then again, if it's strict wealth by level, I wouldn't likely stick around, anyhow. How much extra cash would you need to play? How much beyond what the other PCs get? LOL! You misunderstand. Not playing a crafter is fairly common for me. There are things that people don't play at my table. As to wealth by level, I'll often play the poorer character with no issues, or blow gold on non-combat stuff. I quit the Pathfinder Society once I understood that I could just magically have whatever I wanted, according to wealth by level.
Firebug wrote: thejeff wrote: It's an interesting idea. Not sure how it works out.
Is it actually any different than just crafting for free?
Let's see. Same situation, party of 4, everyone wants a 1000gp item.
3 players fork over 1000gp, the crafter crafts each for 500gp and returns 1500gp to the treasury. He crafts his own item for 500 and keeps the other 500.
Here is where you missed the point. His 500 that he saved on his own item goes into the pot as well.
Then we take the (1500)2000 and split it 4 ways: (375)500 each.
The crafter now has (875)500gp and the other three have (375)500. Each has his 1000gp item.
Crafting for free, each would have 500gp left. Just the same as in my system, no disparity.
Now for the DKP version, a +2 sword drops, the fighter "buys" it from the treasury at 8k and gets 2k back, everyone else gets 2k. Effectively, from the fighter's point of view, he bought the sword for 6k. If no one wanted it, it gets sold in town for 50% ie 4k, everyone gets 1k that they then spend to start your example from the top. Everyone is left with 500gp and a 1k item each. As a side note: if you only ever craft from the items sold to town(not found gold), you won't affect wealth by level at all compared to the GM only dropping useful items.
It is almost exactly the same to crafting for free, however it gives the feeling of being fair and 'paying' the crafter for their time. Also, if you decide you don't need any crafted items, you bank up your share of extra gold for other purchases, say for items that the crafter doesn't have feats for.
The only 'disparity' that arises is when different characters need different amounts of gold to adventure. For an extreme example, a cleric who just stands in the back and invests nothing into defenses or consumables and doesn't make attacks on their own probably doesn't need as much gold as the Hunter using a gun and needing to gear up both themselves and their animal companion.
Ah, okay. I did think there was intended to be a difference between that and crafting for free.
LordKailas wrote:
The player is taking a crafting feat to make their character more powerful by skewing the WBL in their favor. The biggest dispairty created by this would occur if they refused to craft items for anyone but themselves (this makes them have double the wealth of anyone else) if this level of dispairty is game breaking then ban crafting completely (PFS does). Any crafting they do that benefits another party member reduces the dispairty, by giving the other character more money to spend on gear. If the crafter makes everyone's gear at cost and the DM responds by halving the treasure, the net result is that the character has wasted one or more feats for zero benefit.
Lets examine this for just a bit. With a 4 man party each player gets 10,000 gp of benefit from 10,000 gp without any crafting feats.
If the crafter just enchants his own things, he gets 20,000 gp worth of benefits from 10,000 gp. So 100%.
If the party gets a 30% discount they get a benefit of 14,285 gp from 10,000 gp (10,000/0.7).
The crafter gets 10,000gp + 3,000gp x 3 = 19,000 gp x 2 = 38,000 gp worth of benefit from his efforts. That is a (38,000/14,285 x 100%) 266% benefit for the crafter. The disparity is slightly more than just doubling the starting 10,000 gp, and the end result is almost 4 times the initial amount. This is the difference between making a +4 headband and a +6 headband. This is a big enough of a difference it should matter to the GM.
And this is with a small party. The larger the party, the more disparity there will be.
Hmm...messed up the math there. Profit should of been 2,000 gp per party member so 32k instead of 38k. That is still 224% benefit from the other party members.
Eaghen- wrote: What are your thoughts about a player who charges other players a mark up to craft magic items?
[...]
What do you think? Perfectly fine, or overly greedy?
What are they doing with the extra gold?
It's definitely a different scenario if they're investing in something that benefits the whole party's effectiveness and longevity than if they're only boosting themselves in order to make themselves better than the party or even possibly overshadow another party member in their own niche.
Both of those are going to be pretty different from the crafter investing that wealth in oddball items or things that are fun or even funny but are rather orthogonal to direct character power the way that the standard allocations of wealth are.
In one of my games, the party crafter was going to do that and there was a bit of discussion about that, but then we just decided to pay for the items for the party as a whole out of the party's funds before splitting it into individual shares.
That works better for groups where there actually is a party treasury that is kept until designated points where it's split, though. (I always find that reserving a half-share in the party treasury helps with covering party expenses between influxes of cash.)
Leitner wrote: lordkailas wrote:
I have never seen said guidelines. can you link them?
Adjusting Character Wealth by Level Thank you. Now that I see it, it is familiar to me. This is talking about how to handle a brand new character joining a game at higher then 1st level, when that character has one or more crafting feats. The rules make sense and I have no issue with them. They even echo my sentiment that the DM shouldn't adjust the loot players receive because this just results in the character wasting a feat.
thejeff wrote: Do the math. ok, I have run the numbers and have found both of us to be correct. It depends heavily on how many players you have and how much the crafter is charging non-crafters to make goods.
Assuming
1. All treasure is 100% liquid (iow represented as gp and not existing items)
2. The crafter is only making "normal" equipment (so nothing exotic like magic tattoos or runes)
3. The crafter has the needed feats to make everything every character wants (which could be anywhere from 1 to 8 feats)
4. The crafter is making 100% of the gear used by the party
Now, if the crafter makes items only for themselves and no one else. They will have twice the gp as any other character. If we assume that this level of disparity is acceptable (2:1) then we can determine how much the crafter should be charging other players in order to maintain this disparity.
For a group of 4 (1 crafter and 3 non-crafters) this works out to 62.5% of the market value of the item. Charging more increases the disparity between characters and charging less lowers it.
One solution to the problem is to increase the cost of crafting such that the crafter can never have a disparity of more than 2:1. In this way you don't have to change player or character behavior, which is generally more palatable to players. Running the numbers we find that this is achieved when instead of the crafting cost being equal to 50% of the market value, we set it equal to 80% of the market value. At this level, the only way the crafter can achieve a 2:1 ratio (in a party of 4) is if they charge their companions full market price for the items they craft for them. In a party of 6 (which is about as many as you want in a game, more than that causes other issues). They would be able to achieve a staggering 2.5:1 assuming they craft all of their companions gear and charge them market value.
This is much simpler then trying to enforce some sort of WoW based DKP system just because someone picked up a crafting feat that's useful to another party member.
edit: If you want to see my math you can find it here
looking at the OP. 70% is probably fine since, unless they are operating under ideal conditions (where the crafter is making 100% of everyone's gear) the disparity is going to be on par with what would happen if they only made 100% of their own items.
LordKailas wrote: Leitner wrote: lordkailas wrote:
I have never seen said guidelines. can you link them?
Adjusting Character Wealth by Level Thank you. Now that I see it, it is familiar to me. This is talking about how to handle a brand new character joining a game at higher then 1st level, when that character has one or more crafting feats. The rules make sense and I have no issue with them. They even echo my sentiment that the DM shouldn't adjust the loot players receive because this just results in the character wasting a feat. It's from Ultimate Campaign in the Magic Item Creation section. Although it does mention that it's especially a problem with a new higher level character with crafting feats, but there's nothing to indicate it's not intended to apply in the more normal case. There's even a bit saying "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", which really wouldn't apply if it was just for a new high level character.
They do agree that the GM shouldn't adjust loot so the PC has wasted a feat, but they immediately follow that with the exceed WBL by 25% guideline (or 50% for multiple feats). It's clearly not intended as anything goes.
thejeff wrote: It's from Ultimate Campaign in the Magic Item Creation section. Although it does mention that it's especially a problem with a new higher level character with crafting feats, but there's nothing to indicate it's not intended to apply in the more normal case. There's even a bit saying "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", which really wouldn't apply if it was just for a new high level character.
They do agree that the GM shouldn't adjust loot so the PC has wasted a feat, but they immediately follow that with the exceed WBL by 25% guideline (or 50% for multiple feats). It's clearly not intended as anything goes.
If the text applies in an ongoing manner and not just during character creation it would mean the following.
The crafter is allowed to create a set amount of gp worth of items. This amount rises as the character levels but it never resets. Anything the character creates counts against this limit forever. The recommended amount is 50% of the WBL of a single character with multiple crafting feats. So in a group of 4 characters only 12.5% of the total party wealth can be used to make use of the single party member's crafting feats.
At this point the crafter should absolutely be compensated for using their ability. If they make a 5,000 gp sword for someone else, that's 5,000gp worth of stuff they can't make for themselves. It's effectively extra cash for the character as per a trait like rich parents.
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