Level 2 Wand of Longstrider is basically a permanent +10 speed

[no good scallywag]

shroudb wrote:

I see it as a major problem of the core design of magic items if a whole core group of said items are better sold that used simply because their cost:value is so abysmal.

So i trully think that this is a core problem that will lead to actual gameplay disappointment.

Loot should be exciting, not "oh another 50gp worth of pots to sell"

And as pointed above, you don't even need to search for magic-mart, with current crafting rules you can keep breaking the items down yourself.

Hmmm, this thread is interesting.

My experience as a GM with regard to parties using potions is this: they often simply forgot they had them. When we finished Serpent's Skull, the party literally had a total of 43 potions stored which they never even bothered to use. The cost to sell them was only 25gp, so they often just kept them.

My own characters which I play usually keep a pot or two for utility, but I usually sell them for the gold in PF1.

We haven't played enough of PF 2 to see how pots will work. I do agree on principle that it would seem reasonable for a consumable to cost far less than a permanent item...but I'm also on board the "item-restirction" train which seeks to limit the amount of magic and prevent christmas tree-ing.

[graystone]

Ngodrup wrote:

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

I disagree 100%. All the rules ask for are a gp value of materials: there would have to be a rule differentiating one type of material/component from another and there isn't. IMO, the ONLY rules support we have is that raw materials are raw materials, and the only thing that ever differs if the value of them. That's the price for "The generalization is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...". Either you write the list out OR THERE ISN'T A LIST. They opted for no list, meaning all that matters is the gp value as you can't have it both ways: it can't be both a generalization to avoid items lists AND specific exclusive items.

[Unicore]

The scaling of wands adds an extra element of umph to the wand crafter as ultimate resource. Wands cast off of the caster level not the creator's level. Once you have a wand, it only gets better the longer you hold on to it, as far as DCs go. For spells like true sight, tree shape (I was looking at the Ts), basically any spell that requires people to make checks to overcome, those wands grow in power while the potions sit in you bag and become less useful. The true sight one is especially problematic:

True sight potion: page 564 - level 16 item, price 1,500 (spell cast as 7th level spell)

True sight wand: page 597 - level 13 to craft, cost 3,000 (scales with caster DC.)

twice the money for unlimited uses for a spell that gets better and better as you level and saves you a spell slot for something that often feels situational?

My overall argument is that wands are very, very powerful items and that their cost become pretty trivial in comparison to consumables. There is no limit to the number you can carry nor how many you can cast in a day. A wizard (any caster) who focuses their non-esential wealth purchases (which they have less of than other classes anyway) into wands will have an extreme edge over other casters in terms of number of spells per day.

[Strill]

Unicore wrote:

My overall argument is that wands are very, very powerful items and that their cost become pretty trivial in comparison to consumables. There is no limit to the number you can carry nor how many you can cast in a day. A wizard (any caster) who focuses their non-esential wealth purchases (which they have less of than other classes anyway) into wands will have an extreme edge over other casters in terms of number of spells per day.

Wizards have MORE essential wealth purchases? Don't you mean less? Wizards don't need to care about buying magic weapons.

[Unicore]

Strill wrote:

Unicore wrote:

My overall argument is that wands are very, very powerful items and that their cost become pretty trivial in comparison to consumables. There is no limit to the number you can carry nor how many you can cast in a day. A wizard (any caster) who focuses their non-esential wealth purchases (which they have less of than other classes anyway) into wands will have an extreme edge over other casters in terms of number of spells per day.

Wizards have MORE essential wealth purchases? Don't you mean less? Wizards don't need to care about buying magic weapons.

Perhaps I worded it weirdly, but I meant that a wizard will have more wealth to spend on wands. AND by crafting them intelligently, you can find spells that will only improve as you level up without investing any additional resources into them.

[Saros Palanthios]

graystone wrote:

Ngodrup wrote:

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

I disagree 100%. All the rules ask for are a gp value of materials: there would have to be a rule differentiating one type of material/component from another and there isn't. IMO, the ONLY rules support we have is that raw materials are raw materials, and the only thing that ever differs if the value of them. That's the price for "The generalization is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...". Either you write the list out OR THERE ISN'T A LIST. They opted for no list, meaning all that matters is the gp value as you can't have it both ways: it can't be both a generalization to avoid items lists AND specific exclusive items.

IMO this argument demonstrates a flagrant disregard for verisimilitude or the fiction of the game. It's just cynical gamesmanship.

Sure, the RAW don't explicitly say that you can't "disassemble" a potion and use the same raw materials to Craft a suit of armor. But if a player at my table tried do that with no in-fiction justification, just because "there isn't a rule against it", I'd laugh in their face.

There's no rule saying your character can't eat lead and s!+% gold coins either, but that doesn't mean you should be able to crap out 1000gp a day because "the rules don't say I can't". Even if there aren't of specific rules on a topic, common sense still applies.

"Anything not explicitly banned must be allowed" would be an insane way to run a cooperative TTRP game.

[shroudb]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

graystone wrote:

Ngodrup wrote:

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

I disagree 100%. All the rules ask for are a gp value of materials: there would have to be a rule differentiating one type of material/component from another and there isn't. IMO, the ONLY rules support we have is that raw materials are raw materials, and the only thing that ever differs if the value of them. That's the price for "The generalization is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...". Either you write the list out OR THERE ISN'T A LIST. They opted for no list, meaning all that matters is the gp value as you can't have it both ways: it can't be both a generalization to avoid items lists AND specific exclusive items.

IMO this argument demonstrates a flagrant disregard for verisimilitude or the fiction of the game. It's just cynical gamesmanship.

Sure, the RAW don't explicitly say that you can't "disassemble" a potion and use the raw materials to Craft a suit of armor. But if a player at my table tried do that with no in-fiction justification, just because "there isn't a rule against it", I'd laugh in their face.

There's no rule saying your character can't eat lead and s$%# gold coins either, but that doesn't mean you should be able to crap out 1000gp a day because "the rules don't say I can't". Even if there aren't of specific rules on a topic, common sense still applies.

"Anything not explicitly banned must be allowed" would be an insane way to run a cooperative TTRP game.

well, the whole notion of sticking runes in items and taking them out and putting them on other items like stickers is already making magical crafting somewhat... iffy.

you already need to suspend all your disbelief to say with a straight face that "i pick up the rune from my full plate, stick it in my leather, and it works"

what you quoted doesn't speak about any absence of a rule.

the rule clearly states that "materials are counted in gp and not individually" you have "materials in gp" from disassembly. It's not that weird to allow them to be used for other items.

ESPECIALLY if they have even a shred of commonality between them "i disassemble the potion of fire resist and use the fire magical essence to make my fiery rune" is perfectly normal imo.

[Corrik]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

graystone wrote:

Ngodrup wrote:

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

I disagree 100%. All the rules ask for are a gp value of materials: there would have to be a rule differentiating one type of material/component from another and there isn't. IMO, the ONLY rules support we have is that raw materials are raw materials, and the only thing that ever differs if the value of them. That's the price for "The generalization is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...". Either you write the list out OR THERE ISN'T A LIST. They opted for no list, meaning all that matters is the gp value as you can't have it both ways: it can't be both a generalization to avoid items lists AND specific exclusive items.

IMO this argument demonstrates a flagrant disregard for verisimilitude or the fiction of the game. It's just cynical gamesmanship.

Sure, the RAW don't explicitly say that you can't "disassemble" a potion and use the same raw materials to Craft a suit of armor. But if a player at my table tried do that with no in-fiction justification, just because "there isn't a rule against it", I'd laugh in their face.

There's no rule saying your character can't eat lead and s@#% gold coins either, but that doesn't mean you should be able to crap out 1000gp a day because "the rules don't say I can't". Even if there aren't of specific rules on a topic, common sense still applies.

"Anything not explicitly banned must be allowed" would be an insane way to run a cooperative TTRP game.

And how are you going to track what all was dissembled in my pile of raw materials? RAW explicitly states that 100gp of raw materials is 100gp of raw materials. You don't get to eat your cake and keep it too. I take 100gp of magic essence from this potion and use it for enchanting my armor. What is the exact moment where this stops making since giving the known rules of magic in the universe? Could you please provide a full list of what is "common sense" in a world with flying laser lizards?

[graystone]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

IMO this argument demonstrates a flagrant disregard for verisimilitude or the fiction of the game. It's just cynical gamesmanship.

No, this flies right along with a pouch that gives you NEVERENDING components: You start using generalizations and make it a central part of the game, it's far to late to cry "verisimilitude". Where is all your posts about the outrage that is the spell component pouch?

Saros Palanthios wrote:

Sure, the RAW don't explicitly say that you can't "disassemble" a potion and use the same raw materials to Craft a suit of armor. But if a player at my table tried do that with no in-fiction justification, just because "there isn't a rule against it", I'd laugh in their face.

And I'd go find a new game where the DM doesn't make up houserules mid-game...

Saros Palanthios wrote:

Even if there aren't of specific rules on a topic, common sense still applies.

IMO, you subvert common sense AND what's been clearly left at a generalization as a reason to twist the rules into something they aren't to fit your fantasy over the games fantasy.

Corrik wrote:

And how are you going to track what all was dissembled in my pile of raw materials?

This is the real sticker for me. DO I have to keep different piles for types like potions, rings, wands, ect? DO I have to list individual items? Do I have to match effects? This is a crazy amount of busy work for no good reason.

I have a hard time taking any argument that raw materials aren't universal when those raw components aren't described past that: you get a pile of magic stuff worth gold: full stop. Not magic stuff from a weapon, potion or wand but a generic pile of stuff... How is it in the rules to turn that generic pile then into a specific pile not compatible with some item creation because of a hidden/unwritten rule of verisimilitude/fiction? IMO, it makes more sense to create a pile of universally useful magic crystals with x gp than it would be to squeeze out the materials actually used in an item: If I boiled down a griffon feather into a fly potion, I don't expect 'taking it apart' to pop out an undamaged feather but distilling a pile of magic crystals? That makes sense to me.

[whew]

shroudb wrote:

when it really matters you're going to keep using 2 actions each turn to drink a healing potion?

that doesn't sound that productive to me.

One action to get some emergency healing ... action economy efficient

If I have to spend an action to draw my potion, to be fair you should spend an action to draw your wand. Further, though it's written badly, a bandolier should let you draw and use a potion as a single action.

I just played in a recently published Paizo adventure where we had time between battles but weren't allowed to rest. It happens.

Finally, comparing healing potions to wands is Strawman. The proper comparison is Wands vs Scrolls. Heal wands are at least 10 times as expensive as Heal scrolls, not "3 or 4 times":

MAGIC WAND (CRB page 597) wrote:

Type 1st-level spell; Level 3; Price 60 gp

Type 2nd-level spell; Level 5; Price 160 gp
Type 3rd-level spell; Level 7; Price 360 gp
...
Type 6th-level spell; Level 13; Price 3,000 gp

.

SCROLLS (CRB page 565 (reformatted)) wrote:

Level 1: 4 GP

Level 2: 12 GP
Level 3: 30 GP
...
Level 6: 300 GP

EDIT: in actual practice, unless I had so many of them that they were making me encumbered and I was really high level, I wouldn't buy many healing scrolls at higher than level 1.

[shroudb]

whew wrote:

shroudb wrote:

when it really matters you're going to keep using 2 actions each turn to drink a healing potion?

that doesn't sound that productive to me.

One action to get some emergency healing ... action economy efficient

If I have to spend an action to draw my potion, to be fair you should spend an action to draw your wand. Further, though it's written badly, a bandolier should let you draw and use a potion as a single action.

Strawman? you should look what the word means, because it's certainly not what you think it is.

For starters, reading what you reply/quote to is a good start.

why do people still quote me and keep referring to wands?

ALL the examples i've given are from permanent items that aren't "clss restricted". Rings of resistance, healer's gloves, etc.

the example you quoted that i gave was the healer's gloves, which is 1 action to heal on touch.

Healer's gloves heals exactly as much as a healing potion (lesser) each and every day, gives permanent +1 item bonus to medicine, is much faster to use (1 action as opposed to 2) and costs like 6 times as much as the potion.

Healer's gloves major (which was what you was quoting) is even BETTER getting the same value for money as a greater healing potion in less than 3 heals! AND is still faster AND it still gives +2 now to all medicine checks!

again, EVERY permanent item , do not get stuck on "wands".

secondly, bandoliers do NOT allow free access to potions.

trust me, as an Alchemist lover i wish it would be so, but bandoliers only allow easy access to "toolkits"

[graystone]

whew wrote:

Further, though it's written badly, a bandolier should let you draw and use a potion as a single action.

The ONLY thing that gets drawn for free from a bandolier is parts of a tool set: nothing else.

[Saros Palanthios]

Corrik wrote:

And how are you going to track what all was dissembled in my pile of raw materials? RAW explicitly states that 100gp of raw materials is 100gp of raw materials. You don't get to eat your cake and keep it too. I take 100gp of magic essence from this potion and use it for enchanting my armor.

The book says nothing about extracting or distilling "magic essence", it only talks about "disassembled parts". Those words have a straightforward meaning in the English language so Paizo didn't waste wordcount defining them further.

In any event, mundane items as well as magical ones are also crafted from raw materials. How does a Fighter-with-the-Crafting skill turn "magical essence" from a potion or whatever into steel and wood to craft a mundane halberd? Or vice-versa, how do you justify using the ordinary metal and leather from a disassembled suit of armor as raw materials for a magical Potency Crystal?

Corrik wrote:

What is the exact moment where this stops making since giving the known rules of magic in the universe? Could you please provide a full list of what is "common sense" in a world with flying laser lizards?

So your argument is, "magic exists in this world, therefore anything is possible and nothing i might want to do can be called unreasonable, no matter how logic-defying or immersion-breaking it might be." Well, that's one way to play the game I guess.

[Strill]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

Corrik wrote:

And how are you going to track what all was dissembled in my pile of raw materials? RAW explicitly states that 100gp of raw materials is 100gp of raw materials. You don't get to eat your cake and keep it too. I take 100gp of magic essence from this potion and use it for enchanting my armor.

The book says nothing about extracting or distilling "magic essence", it only talks about "disassembled parts". Those words have a straightforward meaning in the English language so Paizo didn't waste wordcount defining them further.

In any event, mundane items as well as magical ones are also crafted from raw materials. How does a Fighter-with-the-Crafting skill turn "magical essence" from a potion or whatever into steel and wood to craft a mundane halberd? Or vice-versa, how do you justify using the ordinary metal and leather from a disassembled suit of armor as raw materials for a magical Potency Crystal?

He turns the one into the other because dealing with minutia like that is pointless busy-work that doesn't contribute to the game and is purposefully glossed over in the rules.

[graystone]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

The book says nothing about extracting or distilling "magic essence", it only talks about "disassembled parts". Those words have a straightforward meaning in the English language so Paizo didn't waste wordcount defining them further.

Please give us what the "straightforward meaning" is and how it is incompatible with their use in a general sense vs their needing to be specific item use only.

Saros Palanthios wrote:

In any event, mundane items as well as magical ones are also crafted from raw materials. How does a Fighter-with-the-Crafting skill turn "magical essence" from a potion or whatever into steel and wood to craft a mundane halberd? Or vice-versa, how do you justify using the ordinary metal and leather from a disassembled suit of armor as raw materials for a magical Potency Crystal?

The same way the wizard keeps pulling out components from their MUNDANE Material Component Pouch after 4 years of constant use. Actual individual components are NOT tracked, just the gp value: If someone wished to HOUSERULE that, they could but it is in NO way part of the existing rule set.

Corrik wrote:

So your argument is, "magic exists in this world, therefore anything is possible and nothing i might want to do can be called unreasonable, no matter how logic-defying or immersion-breaking it might be." Well, that's one way to play the game I guess.

I'll make it easier: the Material Component Pouch exists and that's a mundane item. We're asking nothing more "unreasonable", "logic-defying" or "immersion-breaking" than a common 0 level 5 sp item... an item that contains all common components for all spells of every tradition and even though they deplete over an indeterminate amount of time, you can just refill it during daily prep without any cost or requirements: You just say you're doing it and it happens... :P

[vagabond_666]

Ngodrup wrote:

vagabond_666 wrote:

shopping simulator 2019

roleplay interactions with every damn shopkeep

Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?

Roleplaying interactions is fine, and if my players wanted to spend half a session interacting with random NPCs, I'd probably let them. I'm using the term SS2019 to evoke the idea of the similarly named series of German computer games that are all about the incredible minutae of doing whatever it is that they're simulating. Specifically what is missing from your example:

Ngodrup wrote:

PF1:
"I want to sell blah"
"ok sure, that's X gp"...

PF2:
"I want to sell blah"
"Ok, that takes 5 of your downtime days and you get X gp"

is figuring out why it takes 5 days to sell all that, and not say 4, or 6, or more reasonably 1, taking something that is already using a spreadsheet at my table and making it require even more minutae.

[whew]

shroudb wrote:

whew wrote:

shroudb wrote:

when it really matters you're going to keep using 2 actions each turn to drink a healing potion?

that doesn't sound that productive to me.

One action to get some emergency healing ... action economy efficient

If I have to spend an action to draw my potion, to be fair you should spend an action to draw your wand. Further, though it's written badly, a bandolier should let you draw and use a potion as a single action.

Strawman? you should look what the word means, because it's certainly not what you think it is.

For starters, reading what you reply/quote to is a good start.

why do people still quote me and keep referring to wands?

ALL the examples i've given are from permanent items that aren't "clss restricted". Rings of resistance, healer's gloves, etc.

the example you quoted that i gave was the healer's gloves, which is 1 action to heal on touch.

Healer's gloves heals exactly as much as a healing potion (lesser) each and every day, gives permanent +1 item bonus to medicine, is much faster to use (1 action as opposed to 2) and costs like 6 times as much as the potion.

Healer's gloves major (which was what you was quoting) is even BETTER getting the same value for money as a greater healing potion in less than 3 heals! AND is still faster AND it still gives +2 now to all medicine checks!

again, EVERY permanent item , do not get stuck on "wands".

secondly, bandoliers do NOT allow free access to potions.

trust me, as an Alchemist lover i wish it would be so, but bandoliers only allow easy access to "toolkits"

You correctly figured out that I did not notice that you were talking about Healer's gloves. However, for your rant about me-not-knowing-what-Strawman-means to make sense, you have to pretend the opposite, just so you can be rude twice instead of just once. Not cool.

That said, now that I've finally read the blurb for Healer's Gloves, I totally agree that no-one (except maybe monks with handwraps) should ever buy a higher-than-first-level healing potion.

[whew]

graystone wrote:

The ONLY thing that gets drawn for free from a bandolier is parts of a tool set: nothing else.

Yeah, that's how it's written. I'm just annoyed that they say it's for potions, but I'm having trouble coming up with a good reason to put my potions in a bandolier instead of a backpack. To attract pickpockets? So they show in the artwork? So my fellow party members see that I have them? It feels like they messed up the wording, like they forgot to define "within easy reach" or something.

[graystone]

whew wrote:

graystone wrote:

The ONLY thing that gets drawn for free from a bandolier is parts of a tool set: nothing else.

Yeah, that's how it's written. I'm just annoyed that they say it's for potions, but I'm having trouble coming up with a good reason to put my potions in a bandolier instead of a backpack. To attract pickpockets? So they show in the artwork? So my fellow party members see that I have them? It feels like they messed up the wording, like they forgot to define "within easy reach" or something.

It all goes back to the interact action: It's the exact same action to "grab an unattended or stored object". So it's as easy to pick a dagger off the floor as it is to draw one from a sheath, out of backpack or carefully hidden in a concealed sheath under 3 layers of clothing and sealed in wax...

So if it's not for a toolset, the bandolier is just so you can look pretty as it doesn't have a real function. As far as "within easy reach", I have a feeling any rule like that wouldn't be shot down as 'stepping on the toes' of feats like quick draw and Quick Bomber: if you can put your bombs in a bandolier and draw it as a free action, why take the feat?

[Maelorn7]

graystone wrote:

whew wrote:

graystone wrote:

The ONLY thing that gets drawn for free from a bandolier is parts of a tool set: nothing else.

Yeah, that's how it's written. I'm just annoyed that they say it's for potions, but I'm having trouble coming up with a good reason to put my potions in a bandolier instead of a backpack. To attract pickpockets? So they show in the artwork? So my fellow party members see that I have them? It feels like they messed up the wording, like they forgot to define "within easy reach" or something.

It all goes back to the interact action: It's the exact same action to "grab an unattended or stored object". So it's as easy to pick a dagger off the floor as it is to draw one from a sheath, out of backpack or carefully hidden in a concealed sheath under 3 layers of clothing and sealed in wax...

So if it's not for a toolset, the bandolier is just so you can look pretty as it doesn't have a real function. As far as "within easy reach", I have a feeling any rule like that wouldn't be shot down as 'stepping on the toes' of feats like quick draw and Quick Bomber: if you can put your bombs in a bandolier and draw it as a free action, why take the feat?

Well actually taking an item from backback requires 2 free hands and an 2 additional actions to take it off and on. Bandolier in contrast requires you just 1 free hand and not taking it on/off which is much more useful.

[Syri]

graystone wrote:

they are still overweight just going by the premade alchemist... They need 3 or 4 more things dropped in weight [alchemy tools, books, not needing healer's tools, ect] to make it a workable weight. We'll see.

A friend told me that the Fumbus pregen's Bulk works out exactly right if you treat his alchemist's tools as 1 Bulk and his formula book as light Bulk.

[Ngodrup]

vagabond_666 wrote:

Specifically what is missing from your example:

Ngodrup wrote:

PF1:
"I want to sell blah"
"ok sure, that's X gp"...

PF2:
"I want to sell blah"
"Ok, that takes 5 of your downtime days and you get X gp"

is figuring out why it takes 5 days to sell all that, and not say 4, or 6, or more reasonably 1, taking something that is already using a spreadsheet at my table and making it require even more minutae.

It's hardly complicated or needless minutae.

CRB pg 502 wrote:

It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.

It takes a day to sell a few goods. A few items is somewhere between 2-5 items. You look at how many things they want to sell and then tell them how many days it takes.

I definitely don't see how it would be more reasonable for it to take just 1 day to sell everything regardless of how many things you have to sell. Not every merchant wants to take every adventurers unwanted stuff off them.

[Unicore]

Yeah page 264 does spell out that you have to take a back pack off before retrieving an item but it also says that it takes 2 hands to change your grip by removing one hand from an item, which would require at least 3 hands total. I appreciate the intention of having clearly spelled out rules about aspects of the game that cause confusion in certain situations, but some of the attempts to do so seem to add as much confusion as they clear up.

@Shroub - I have been talking about wands because wands are the primary subject of the OP and the focus of the thread. There has been a separate side discussion about the price of consumables, which does bear some relevancy to the cost and availability of wands, although it is also true that the cost of scrolls is cheap enough that it fits your 1/15th model of consumables to permanent items, and I can see casters being fine with taking the time to craft the occasional scroll for a spell they don't believe that they will cast 10 times over the course of their career.

The world value of potions should be raised over scrolls by quite a bit, because the point of potions is explicitly how they make magical effects available to those without magic. It is absolutely a convenience cost and will inherently make potions less valuable to a Party that has ready access to magic. However, the resale/scrap value of increased level potions will get pretty high, leading them to make exceptional theft bate, but it won't set in at lower levels so most tables will probably never notice it.

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want. Rarity was definitely the intended mechanical filter of PC purchasing/crafting power, not random charts of availability, at least that is how it looks in the published adventures I have seen that do not have the lists of available items for sale by store in the gazetteers. If you want to play the game with those kind of tables, that is perfectly fine, and shouldn't destroy the game, but it not the default mode of play.

[shroudb]

Unicore wrote:

Yeah page 264 does spell out that you have to take a back pack off before retrieving an item but it also says that it takes 2 hands to change your grip by removing one hand from an item, which would require at least 3 hands total. I appreciate the intention of having clearly spelled out rules about aspects of the game that cause confusion in certain situations, but some of the attempts to do so seem to add as much confusion as they clear up.

@Shroub - I have been talking about wands because wands are the primary subject of the OP and the focus of the thread. There has been a separate side discussion about the price of consumables, which does bear some relevancy to the cost and availability of wands, although it is also true that the cost of scrolls is cheap enough that it fits your 1/15th model of consumables to permanent items, and I can see casters being fine with taking the time to craft the occasional scroll for a spell they don't believe that they will cast 10 times over the course of their career.

The world value of potions should be raised over scrolls by quite a bit, because the point of potions is explicitly how they make magical effects available to those without magic. It is absolutely a convenience cost and will inherently make potions less valuable to a Party that has ready access to magic. However, the resale/scrap value of increased level potions will get pretty high, leading them to make exceptional theft bate, but it won't set in at lower levels so most tables will probably never notice it.

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want. Rarity was definitely the intended mechanical filter of PC purchasing/crafting power, not random charts of availability,...

i get what you're talking about when you talk about wands, because they have direct equivalents.

i have purposedly moved away from "wands" (due to their limitations) to showcase that all permanent items are costed solely by "effect and level", not limitation of them.

my rant was more like because i've been quoted repeatedly and answered like i was talking about wands, when i'm trying really hard NOT to talk about them! it gets annoying.

Scrolls are actually cool just because they are 2 levels lower than wands (i.e. a scroll of 1st level is 1 level item, a wand is 3 level)

but this comes apart when you go to any sort of "daily" permanent.

The ONLY consumable imo priced correctly are scrolls. Look as an example at horn of blasting and exploding arrows.

"same level" items, one consumable the other permanent, and the permanent deals MORE damage AND has a "use every round" effect!

[Ngodrup]

Unicore wrote:

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want.

I find this statement truly fascinating and slightly bizarre, just because of how at-odds with my understanding of the intention of being able to disassemble magic items is.

The only place disassembling magic items is mentioned in the whole book (that I know of) is in the section about formulas. It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to disassemble items is for the purposes of trying to reverse-engineer the formula.

CRB pg 293 wrote:

If you have an item, you can try to reverse-engineer its formula. This uses the Craft activity and takes the same amount of time as creating the item from a formula would. You must first disassemble the item. After the base downtime, you attempt a Crafting check against the same DC it would take to Craft the item. If you succeed, you Craft the formula at its full Price, and you can keep working to reduce the Price as normal. If you fail, you’re left with raw materials and no formula. If you critically fail, you also waste 10% of the raw materials you’d normally be able to salvage.The item’s disassembled parts are worth half its Price in raw materials and can’t be reassembled unless you successfully reverse-engineer the formula or acquire the formula another way. Reassembling the item from the formula works just like Crafting it from scratch; you use the disassembled parts as the necessary raw materials.

If the intention was to disassemble items and use the parts to craft other things, then:

1) I would expect "disassemble item/disassemble magic item" to be described as an activity in the crafting section
2) I would expect making a different item from the parts you'd disassembled during your reverse-engineering process to be mentioned in the reverse-engineering section
2a) The bolded part should say "Reassembling the disassembled raw materials into an item from its formula works just like crafting it from scratch", not "reassembling the item from the formula..."

So yeah, I don't see your reading at all. I 100% see the intention being "disassemble item to work out how to craft it, if you succeed at getting the formula then you can put it back together", with the somewhat edge-case concept that greystone brought up of "what if I didn't put the disassembled shield back together as a shield but instead used it to make a potency crystal/insert-other-item-here". Which I personally find highly versimilitude-breaking and don't think is RAI (although I find the semantics discussion of whether the generalisation of "raw materials" as "monetary value" means that it is RAW quite interesting).

[vagabond_666]

Ngodrup wrote:

It's hardly complicated or needless minutae.

CRB pg 502 wrote:

It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.

It takes a day to sell a few goods. A few items is somewhere between 2-5 items. You look at how many things they want to sell and then tell them how many days it takes.

I definitely don't see how it would be more reasonable for it to take just 1 day to sell everything regardless of how many things you have to sell. Not every merchant wants to take every adventurers unwanted stuff off them.

I live in a city with several million people in it. With 5 days I could visit every store in our Central Business District and buy something from each one and have time to spare. How a group of adventurers couldn't exhaust every merchant in pseudo-medieval town in less time than that boggles my mind.

Also a simplistic rubric of you can sell 4 items a day is just going to make players annoyed. Those 4 swords in the example given, it takes a whole day just to sell those? Really? Alright GM Killjoy, we'll just stay in town for "number of items divide by four" days then. Have we sold everything now?

Yes. Congratulations, you haven't solved a single thing about "permanent items are so much better than consumables it isn't funny" and now your players are slightly annoyed.

No. Congratulations, your players can't sell or buy stuff, something they have a perfectly reasonable expectation of doing, and now they're way more annoyed.

[shroudb]

since it says "a few" it's open to interpetation.

5 is indeed a few, especially in a village. (2 is not a few, it's a couple).
but 10 is "a few" as well, especially in a small hamlet
and 100 is a "a few" in a metropolis.
and etc

I think the RAI here is pretty clear that "a few" depends on how many stores there are for you to sell those items.

If there's 1 blacksmith, he won't buy 10000 swords you find out while clearing the enemy stronghold. He'll buy like 10-20 depending on how many he usually sells/needs/can afford etc.

But if there are 10 blacksmiths, then the "few" become (10-20)x10

[Corrik]

Quote:

The item’s disassembled parts are worth half its Price in raw materials

So you can disassemble an item and get half it's worth in raw materials. Raw materials, not a specific list of parts.

Quote:

You must supply raw materials worth at least half the item’s Price. You always expend at least that amount of raw materials when you Craft successfully. If you’re in a settlement, you can usually spend currency to get the amount of raw materials you need, except in the case of rarer precious materials.

And you need to use raw materials to craft. Raw materials are the same as a pile of GP except for precious materials

No where in the rules does it state that raw materials are simultaneous a vague pile of GP value but also a specific list of ingredients that has to "make sense" to be able to craft a fire breathing wine jug.

One would think if the intention was so clearly to treat Raw Materials as things other than Raw Materials, the rules would clearly state you couldn't use those Raw Materials to craft other items. They don't, so you can.

RAI and RAW are clear, you just don't like them. But feel free to house rule specific craft requirements to every formula in the game.

[Ngodrup]

Again, if generic "Raw Materials" were a thing, an actual thing you can buy and then be able to craft into literally anything you have the formula for, wouldn't they be in the gear chapter as a thing you can buy?

I'm not going to houserule specific craft requirements for every formula in the rulebook, that's quite a drastic extrapolation. I'm just not intending to let my players take apart a shield and make it into a potion. I'm really quite shocked that that's a contentious position, tbh.

If they are in a settlement then yeah, I'd most likely handwave the 'trade the wood and metal for herbs and other potion ingredient type things', and the whole thing would work out essentially the same. But if they're in the middle of nowhere and want to use the craft skill to turn a shield into a potion, I'm probably gonna say no, because that makes no sense. Although tbf I don't think any of my players would ask to do that, because it makes no sense. *shrugs*

[Rek Rollington]

Most of the time I would hand wave what exactly the raw materials are unless it’s a situation where resources shouldn’t be available to characters. Like they are locked in a cell but have their tools and some potions which they break down and try and craft it into a sword I’m going to ask them where the metal is coming from. But that’s a real edge case. If they can access a town they should be able to swap out raw materials.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of trading in consumables for permanent items. I think both should serve a purpose for a player. I’m happy the suggestion earlier that consumables are bad to buy but almost impossible to sell. Let them to dungeon drops that you find and use and move on. I think I would allow crafting to use the raw materials rule to exchange them into other consumable items. Either way, it’s something you set up at session zero so players know what to expect.

[Corrik]

Ngodrup wrote:

Again, if generic "Raw Materials" were a thing, an actual thing you can buy and then be able to craft into literally anything you have the formula for, wouldn't they be in the gear chapter as a thing you can buy?

I'm not going to houserule specific craft requirements for every formula in the rulebook, that's quite a drastic extrapolation. I'm just not intending to let my players take apart a shield and make it into a potion. I'm really quite shocked that that's a contentious position, tbh.

If they are in a settlement then yeah, I'd most likely handwave the 'trade the wood and metal for herbs and other potion ingredient type things', and the whole thing would work out essentially the same. But if they're in the middle of nowhere and want to use the craft skill to turn a shield into a potion, I'm probably gonna say no, because that makes no sense. Although tbf I don't think any of my players would ask to do that, because it makes no sense. *shrugs*

Not at all. Crafting rules clearly state "If you’re in a settlement, you can usually spend currency to get the amount of raw materials you need". There is no need for them to be a specific inventory item in the gear chapter. And under what logic does it make no sense? That chemistry in the real world can't replicate it? Because Alchemy and Magic don't follow real world logic. They follow magic world logic.

Over the course of a year of playing I have broken down 1,000gp worth of raw materials from numerous sources. How are you going to rule I can spend that raw material? After all, in your games if some of that was from potions I can't use that gp worth of raw materials to make a rune for my shield.

[Corrik]

Rek Rollington wrote:

Most of the time I would hand wave what exactly the raw materials are unless it’s a situation where resources shouldn’t be available to characters. Like they are locked in a cell but have their tools and some potions which they break down and try and craft it into a sword I’m going to ask them where the metal is coming from. But that’s a real edge case. If they can access a town they should be able to swap out raw materials.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of trading in consumables for permanent items. I think both should serve a purpose for a player. I’m happy the suggestion earlier that consumables are bad to buy but almost impossible to sell. Let them to dungeon drops that you find and use and move on. I think I would allow crafting to use the raw materials rule to exchange them into other consumable items. Either way, it’s something you set up at session zero so players know what to expect.

What is the difference between boiling a potion and other raw materials down to a magic ink for use in making weapon runes, sussing the magic out of a few potions to help charge a wand, and separating a potion out and combing with raw materials to make a new potion?

[Ngodrup]

Corrik wrote:

Over the course of a year of playing I have broken down 1,000gp worth of raw materials from numerous sources. How are you going to rule I can spend that raw material? After all, in your games if some of that was from potions I can't use that gp worth of raw materials to make a rune for my shield.

I would handwave that over the course of the year that you'd been playing, you'd traded the raw materials for the items you broke down for the raw materials for items you want to craft. Easy. Unless you spend a year adventuring without ever going to a settlement of any kind?

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here. I'm talking about things like Rek's example of being imprisoned with your crafting kit and potions, and using Craft to make the potions into a sword. Or my example of being in the middle of nowhere and wanting to use Craft to make your shield into a potion.

Corrik wrote:

What is the difference between boiling a potion and other raw materials down to a magic ink for use in making weapon runes

Aren't weapon runes engraved? But either way, I'd probably allow that, because it makes sense. Far more sense than taking a shield apart and making it into a potion

[sherlock1701]

Unicore wrote:

Yeah page 264 does spell out that you have to take a back pack off before retrieving an item but it also says that it takes 2 hands to change your grip by removing one hand from an item, which would require at least 3 hands total. I appreciate the intention of having clearly spelled out rules about aspects of the game that cause confusion in certain situations, but some of the attempts to do so seem to add as much confusion as they clear up.

@Shroub - I have been talking about wands because wands are the primary subject of the OP and the focus of the thread. There has been a separate side discussion about the price of consumables, which does bear some relevancy to the cost and availability of wands, although it is also true that the cost of scrolls is cheap enough that it fits your 1/15th model of consumables to permanent items, and I can see casters being fine with taking the time to craft the occasional scroll for a spell they don't believe that they will cast 10 times over the course of their career.

The world value of potions should be raised over scrolls by quite a bit, because the point of potions is explicitly how they make magical effects available to those without magic. It is absolutely a convenience cost and will inherently make potions less valuable to a Party that has ready access to magic. However, the resale/scrap value of increased level potions will get pretty high, leading them to make exceptional theft bate, but it won't set in at lower levels so most tables will probably never notice it.

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want. Rarity was definitely the intended mechanical filter of PC purchasing/crafting power, not random charts of availability,...

You don't need a backpack at all really. "I carry all my stuff in my pockets" works fine, since there's no listed limit for pocket capacity of clothing. Heck, you could affix hooks to your clothes and hang your stuff off of them without impeding your movement in any way.

[shroudb]

sherlock1701 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Yeah page 264 does spell out that you have to take a back pack off before retrieving an item but it also says that it takes 2 hands to change your grip by removing one hand from an item, which would require at least 3 hands total. I appreciate the intention of having clearly spelled out rules about aspects of the game that cause confusion in certain situations, but some of the attempts to do so seem to add as much confusion as they clear up.

@Shroub - I have been talking about wands because wands are the primary subject of the OP and the focus of the thread. There has been a separate side discussion about the price of consumables, which does bear some relevancy to the cost and availability of wands, although it is also true that the cost of scrolls is cheap enough that it fits your 1/15th model of consumables to permanent items, and I can see casters being fine with taking the time to craft the occasional scroll for a spell they don't believe that they will cast 10 times over the course of their career.

The world value of potions should be raised over scrolls by quite a bit, because the point of potions is explicitly how they make magical effects available to those without magic. It is absolutely a convenience cost and will inherently make potions less valuable to a Party that has ready access to magic. However, the resale/scrap value of increased level potions will get pretty high, leading them to make exceptional theft bate, but it won't set in at lower levels so most tables will probably never notice it.

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want. Rarity was definitely the intended mechanical filter of PC purchasing/crafting power, not

...

to play the devil's advocate:

if there's no listed "bulk capacity" for clothing, why do you assume that you can put ANYTHING in them?

A strict RAW reading is that you actually can't carry anything inside your pockets.

But let's stop being silly, and go with a backpack, since it does make sense.

[Rysky]

Saros Palanthios wrote:

graystone wrote:

Ngodrup wrote:

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

I disagree 100%. All the rules ask for are a gp value of materials: there would have to be a rule differentiating one type of material/component from another and there isn't. IMO, the ONLY rules support we have is that raw materials are raw materials, and the only thing that ever differs if the value of them. That's the price for "The generalization is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...". Either you write the list out OR THERE ISN'T A LIST. They opted for no list, meaning all that matters is the gp value as you can't have it both ways: it can't be both a generalization to avoid items lists AND specific exclusive items.

IMO this argument demonstrates a flagrant disregard for verisimilitude or the fiction of the game. It's just cynical gamesmanship.

Sure, the RAW don't explicitly say that you can't "disassemble" a potion and use the same raw materials to Craft a suit of armor. But if a player at my table tried do that with no in-fiction justification, just because "there isn't a rule against it", I'd laugh in their face.

There's no rule saying your character can't eat lead and s+&* gold coins either, but that doesn't mean you should be able to crap out 1000gp a day because "the rules don't say I can't". Even if there aren't of specific rules on a topic, common sense still applies.

"Anything not explicitly banned must be allowed" would be an insane way to run a cooperative TTRP game.

Ambiguous Rules wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just playing with the rule as printed.

Page 444, I love this rule :3

[Dekalinder]

Ngodrup wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want.

I find this statement truly fascinating and slightly bizarre, just because of how at-odds with my understanding of the intention of being able to disassemble magic items is.

The only place disassembling magic items is mentioned in the whole book (that I know of) is in the section about formulas. It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to disassemble items is for the purposes of trying to reverse-engineer the formula.

CRB pg 293 wrote:

If you have an item, you can try to reverse-engineer its formula. This uses the Craft activity and takes the same amount of time as creating the item from a formula would. You must first disassemble the item. After the base downtime, you attempt a Crafting check against the same DC it would take to Craft the item. If you succeed, you Craft the formula at its full Price, and you can keep working to reduce the Price as normal. If you fail, you’re left with raw materials and no formula. If you critically fail, you also waste 10% of the raw materials you’d normally be able to salvage.The item’s disassembled parts are worth half its Price in raw materials and can’t be reassembled unless you successfully reverse-engineer the formula or acquire the formula another way. Reassembling the item from the formula works just like Crafting it from scratch; you use the disassembled parts as the necessary raw materials.

If the intention was to disassemble items and use the parts to craft other things, then:

1) I would expect "disassemble item/disassemble magic item" to be described as an activity in the crafting section
2) I would...

If the intent was just to learn the formula, it would have just said "you study an object for x time and then you can reproduce it" instead of devolving 20 sentences to raw materials and gold amounts.

You can think of "raw materials" like magic pongo. You mold it in the shape of a sword, say a prayer to the gods of magic and the item is done.

[whew]

Syri wrote:

graystone wrote:

they are still overweight just going by the premade alchemist... They need 3 or 4 more things dropped in weight [alchemy tools, books, not needing healer's tools, ect] to make it a workable weight. We'll see.

A friend told me that the Fumbus pregen's Bulk works out exactly right if you treat his alchemist's tools as 1 Bulk and his formula book as light Bulk.

I tried to look that up before making my post. I really did. Alas, I foolishly depended on the entry for backpack on page 287 to tell me how backpacks work.

[Zapp]

Ngodrup wrote:

CRB pg 502 wrote:

It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.

It takes a day to sell a few goods. A few items is somewhere between 2-5 items. You look at how many things they want to sell and then tell them how many days it takes.

So you would let a party of four adventurers and one follower sell 25 potions per day.

To me that comes awfully close to "just let them sell everything they have found and get on with the story"?

When is "oh noes, we have 30 potions to sell and only one day to do it" ever going to be a restriction in practical play?

[graystone]

Rysky wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just

I look at it the other way too: if you can read it in multiple ways and one is clearly worse for no good reason, it's most likely wrong too. IMO, not having raw materials be generic has "problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended".

[Rysky]

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just

I look at it the other way too: if you can read it in multiple ways and one is clearly worse for no good reason, it's most likely wrong too. IMO, not having raw materials be generic has "problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended".

It's never caused issues before.

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

[Ckorik]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Unicore wrote:

This is true at wealth by level but wont be true in play or at least not at my table. The whole party will sell any item that doesn't immediately fill an essential need and spend all down time crafting wands with their spare gold.

Good for them? I'm pretty sure they'll wind up behind in the math by a fair bit if they really do this as much as you seem concerned about, making this a pretty bad idea.

Are you saying that the system is so tight that if a party doesn't play a specific way they are going to suffer for it?

That seems bad.

[Corrik]

Rysky wrote:

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just

I look at it the other way too: if you can read it in multiple ways and one is clearly worse for no good reason, it's most likely wrong too. IMO, not having raw materials be generic has "problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended".

It's never caused issues before.

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

And being able to use a pile of raw materials as an abstract has never caused an issue before either.

In what way is it "common sense" to not be able to transfer magical energy from one type to another? Again, not making sense in our world has literally no bearing on the game world.

[Ckorik]

Rysky wrote:

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just

I look at it the other way too: if you can read it in multiple ways and one is clearly worse for no good reason, it's most likely wrong too. IMO, not having raw materials be generic has "problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended".

It's never caused issues before.

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

Common sense? I'd like the thesis paper on how magic interacts with physics and the properties of magical liquids when distilled down to powder form before I buy that explanation.

I'd assume taking apart potions would be as simple as letting them evaporate so you have the 'magical goo' that could be used on something else.

But I could certainly imagine more complex labs setup - I mean in the modern world the way to extract gold is to first liquefy it using acid then neutralize the acid resulting in gold particles that you then melt in a crucible to produce a gold bar - so yeah - in modern terms I can 100% see potions (mixtures of gold and acid) turning into wands of pew pew - (actual metal gold).

Because that's how science works in the real world anyway - I figure it'd be at least that easy in a magical world.

[graystone]

Rysky wrote:

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

LOL My "common sense and consistency kicks in" and tells my it works JUST fine because generic raw materials are generic for a reason: if the game DIDN'T want them generic, they would have made them specific limited use items and they went out of their way to avoid doing so. It doesn't seem "common sense" to subvert the rules as they are clearly intended and call it consistency: that's what houserules are for.

The actual rules don't have any read that raw materials are specific in any way. The fact that some want to add in their own "common sense" in addition to the written rules doesn't change that: it's an intentional misread to get the outcome they want. No one has shown any ambiguous material concerning disassembled parts or raw materials. It's boiled down to 'it doesn't feel right' and that's fine if you want to houserule that for your game but it doesn't make it unclear or make a different read: instead it's just a read they don't like.

[Rysky]

Corrik wrote:

And being able to use a pile of raw materials as an abstract has never caused an issue before either.

No. It's what Starfinder uses. But that's not what's being asked for here. Turning magical mountain dew into magical ivory stick that shoots fireballs doesn't make sense.

Quote:

In what way is it "common sense" to not be able to transfer magical energy from one type to another? Again, not making sense in our world has literally no bearing on the game world.

Taking the essence from one to power the other is completely different than "turn water into wood" because it hit it with a hammer.

[Rysky]

Also it's very confusing when you two post at the same time.

[Rysky]

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

LOL My "common sense and consistency kicks in" and tells my it works JUST fine because generic raw materials are generic for a reason: if the game DIDN'T want them generic, they would have made them specific limited use items and they went out of their way to avoid doing so. It doesn't seem "common sense" to subvert the rules as they are clearly intended and call it consistency: that's what houserules are for.

The actual rules don't have any read that raw materials are specific in any way. The fact that some want to add in their own "common sense" in addition to the written rules doesn't change that: it's an intentional misread to get the outcome they want. No one has shown any ambiguous material concerning disassembled parts or raw materials. It's boiled down to 'it doesn't feel right' and that's fine if you want to houserule that for your game but it doesn't make it unclear or make a different read: instead it's just a read they don't like.

No, you wanting to turn magic potions into wands is an intentional misread.

Just the same as if you wanted to make Adamantine Armor out of Cold Iron.

[Rysky]

Ckorik wrote:

Rysky wrote:

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just

I look at it the other way too: if you can read it in multiple ways and one is clearly worse for no good reason, it's most likely wrong too. IMO, not having raw materials be generic has "problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended".

It's never caused issues before.

And then common sense and consistency kicks in, you can't distill amaretto sours that heal you into sticks of hickory that go pew-pew.

Common sense? I'd like the thesis paper

I'd like one on how you'd turn whiskey into ivory.

[Ckorik]

Rysky wrote:

I'd like one on how you'd turn whiskey into ivory.

Sure:

Thesis on how to take the magical essence from 'whiskey of healing' into 'ivory wand of haste'

First - evaporate whiskey until nothing but the residue remains - take magically infused residue and combine with 4 parts Aqua Regia and 1 part fairy dust. Add to resulting mixture 3 parts elixir of nullification and take resulting particles to ivory wand.

Using magical apparatus #3 sand ivory down until it has a rough texture - now take a wet cloth and gather particles from first step - then rub into ivory wand. Coat ivory with shellac and polish. Now cast spell haste onto wand which has been imbued with magical essence that is now ready to accept new spell.

/done.