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This is not about the fact that I can't just get items at half price after a week or two of downtime. This is about how crafting items in the previous edition, while much more powerful and broken, was quite a bit more freeform and hand-waived in terms of application.
Let's say I wanted a Cloak of Resistance +1 to be crafted in the previous edition. I'd simply need a feat with minimal requirements (in this case, Craft Wondrous Item with CL 3 as a requirement), to do a check (usually Spellcraft or the relevant normal Craft check assuming I meet caster level requirements), mark off the crafting cost gold, wait a day for the stuff to be done, and boom, I now have my magic item. Simple, easy, effective, no hassle from the GM (unless he decides he doesn't want crafting in his games. Which is fine, but let's assume GM wants players to have out-of-combat utilities, or allows crafting as a player tool). Upgrading is equally simple, just make sure you meet the upgrade requirements, make the adjusted check, mark off the gold, wait the downtime, and boom, item is now improved.
Now let's see how Second Edition handles this. Well, before I can craft this, I need to be a certain tier of crafting (Expert), need a specific feat (Magical Crafting, which isn't available until like 3rd or 4th level at the earliest), need the formula for the specific item I'm crafting (good luck finding rules on how this works!), can't upgrade it to a higher tier item until I have the formula for that (which again, good luck on figuring this out with the rules!), need to make a check, wait 4 days (or longer), and pay full price. And that's just crafting standardized magic items.
Don't even get me started on how runes, runestones, and inscribing/transferring work, because that's even more damn confusing and our group hasn't figured out how that works due to conflicting wording.
Want to create something for yourself that no one else has? Can't. You don't have a formula for your own design, nor do you have the ability to make one up, there's no feats or rules that allow this. At best you have GM FIAT which will most likely end up in smoke if the GM thinks they smell shenanigans (and some do when there really isn't, though of course sometimes they don't when they should). Plus, new items from new books requires new formulas for you to craft them. Which likewise costs money, downtime, and can just be red herrings based on whatever checks the GM requires. Not to mention there's no simple or easy way to keep track of what formulas you have, since there will be multitudes and multitudes of magic items expanding with each release of content.
Whereas I can just say "I'm gonna buy X for Y gold," and unless it's Uncommon or something, GM will most likely just say "Okay, mark it off your currency sheet and put X on your inventory." Or just require some sort of check to find it if it is Uncommon or Rare. Okay. That's actually even easier than first edition crafting, and just as cost-effective as if I were going to just craft items in this edition!
I think the only thing this edition did right is not (effectively) requiring spellcasting to craft magical items. Otherwise? Major downgrade and really hurts player's egos and brains trying to figure this stuff out for what appears to be no real gain in anything.
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My view is that while a few specifics are different (precisely what level you can do X or Y, perhaps..) it is, in the main, the same process.
The big difference is that the baseline assumption of PF2 crafting is that you get the item at market cost, not half cost, and that you then spend extra time to try for the discount.
Acquiring formulas ought to be very straight forward. All basic equipment can be had in a single formula book that costs 1 silver. That is SUPER cheap. Other formulas can be purchased at a cost listed in a chart on page 293. So... the local crafter's guild ought to have that stuff available in a library. It's just money to copy it over into you own book, and it only takes 1 hour.
These formulas could even be acquired as loot (delve an ancient city perhaps, and one of the rooms has formulas inscribed on the wall of a crafting workshop. Or else the Big Bad has a lieutenant who handles their crafting, and when you take that lieutenant down you take their formula book as loot).
Alchemists even learn plenty of formulas for free as part of their level progression.
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Crafting is not a monetary advantage. If it was it would be seen as required. If the item is available to buy and you can find work in town at the same item level you're always better off just buying it outright. But those are two assumptions and from them we can see where crafting is good.
1. As you get higher in level, buying magic items becomes more difficult since there simply aren't many places in the setting to buy high level items and not every campaign takes place in those locations. Crafting means you can make the items you want if you can't find them, provided you have the formula.
2. When you are taking downtime in a backwater town they won't have high level jobs for you. Therefore the Earn an Income task will not make much money. When you craft, you are effectively using Earn an Income when you reduce the item cost, but using your level regardless of location.
Is it universally good? No. Mostly it's good at higher levels, and in certain campaigns which limit access to items.
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Let's say I wanted a Cloak of Resistance +1 to be crafted in the previous edition. I'd simply need a feat with minimal requirements (in this case, Craft Wondrous Item with CL 3 as a requirement), to do a check (usually Spellcraft or the relevant normal Craft check assuming I meet caster level requirements), mark off the crafting cost gold, wait a day for the stuff to be done, and boom, I now have my magic item. Simple, easy, effective, no hassle from the GM (unless he decides he doesn't want crafting in his games. Which is fine, but let's assume GM wants players to have out-of-combat utilities, or allows crafting as a player tool). Upgrading is equally simple, just make sure you meet the upgrade requirements, make the adjusted check, mark off the gold, wait the downtime, and boom, item is now improved.
Now let's see how Second Edition handles this.
Training in crafting (spellcraft)
A feat requiring expert in crafting, so typically 3rd (CL3 = 3rd level)
And a formula, the only new thing... but if you get master in crafting and pick up inventor, you don't actually need these.
Want to create something for yourself that no one else has? Can't. You don't have a formula for your own design, nor do you have the ability to make one up,...
Inventor feat if you want to make something published. Custom magic items weren't technically allowed in PF1 either.
So, other than the formula, crafting is the same, except no automatic WBL breaking discount.
The item does have to be common if you use the Inventor feat but that only applies to a handful of items.
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I'm a little bit confused. You say the process is much more tedious and confusing in this edition, but the only particularly systemic change you've described is that you need a formula now, which doesn't seem that confusing at all.
It takes longer and is no longer a cost saving technique too, but time is abstracted during downtime anyways and while I know some people don't like the price changes, that doesn't really seem particularly confusing mechanically either.
The complaint about needing GM approval for custom magic items seems really weird too, because that's going to always be true.
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I'm a little bit confused. You say the process is much more tedious and confusing in this edition, but the only particularly systemic change you've described is that you need a formula now, which doesn't seem that confusing at all.
It takes longer and is no longer a cost saving technique too, but time is abstracted during downtime anyways and while I know some people don't like the price changes, that doesn't really seem particularly confusing mechanically either.
The complaint about needing GM approval for custom magic items seems really weird too, because that's going to always be true.
The formulas are a very tedious part of it, because it is a required component to craft, whereas before it was not even a thing. Formulas aren't expected things of treasure, nor can you expect to buy them as the rules for such are highly imprecise or even unwritten in some cases. Also, runes and runestones are very confusing for our group too.
The duration and cost is fine because it's relative now, and universal. 1st level items take as long as 20th level items to make assuming character levels match. I mean, I didn't like that custom gear took an unreasonable amount of downtime to craft. Some of those items would take years to make! Not unreasonable for fantasy terms, but as a game, when would a decade of downtime be appropriate? Almost never. And money reduction, while nice, isn't really the issue. When APG comes out, who's gonna have formulas for XYZ? Nobody. What about published APs? Can't expect a core AP to provide APG formulas, they weren't built for that.
The complaint is more how it's handled than that it's there at all. There were guidelines that were quite flexible in their design and allowed better player creativity, even if sometimes it's to pull shenanigans on the GM. (Might see a return in the GMG, who knows.) In the custom magic items, there were proper examples and applications for GMs to utilize as a means to shoot down players. Now a GM might arbitrarily tack on some rarity tag due to it being custom (unique, to be more precise), and player creativity becomes shunned as a result.
As an example, I designed an uncommon Dragon's Head Staff that provided a +1 circumstance bonus to spell DCs and +1 damage per spell level (or dice on certain types) for spell damage that matched the dragon's color, and had a 1 minute rechargeable breath weapon that cost Resonance to use (this was post-playtest but pre-publication). With the crafting rules, this isn't possible anymore whatsoever.
Meh, the last game I played with crafting had multiple different sets of experience for tracking crafting of different things. That was tedious.
It seems to me like all we actually need is some guidance on formula availability and we are almost right back to the PF1 set up. That is almost certainly gonna be in the game mastery guide.
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Meh, the last game I played with crafting had multiple different sets of experience for tracking crafting of different things. That was tedious.
I love the feel of Exalted, but their craft system is hot garbage.
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This is not about the fact that I can't just get items at half price after a week or two of downtime. This is about how crafting items in the previous edition, while much more powerful and broken, was quite a bit more freeform and hand-waived in terms of application.
That depends on the GM, the same as with PF2.
Let's say I wanted a Cloak of Resistance +1 to be crafted in the previous edition. I'd simply need a feat with minimal requirements (in this case, Craft Wondrous Item with CL 3 as a requirement), to do a check (usually Spellcraft or the relevant normal Craft check assuming I meet caster level requirements), mark off the crafting cost gold, wait a day for the stuff to be done, and boom, I now have my magic item. Simple, easy, effective, no hassle from the GM (unless he decides he doesn't want crafting in his games. Which is fine, but let's assume GM wants players to have out-of-combat utilities, or allows crafting as a player tool). Upgrading is equally simple, just make sure you meet the upgrade requirements, make the adjusted check, mark off the gold, wait the downtime, and boom, item is now improved.
Now let's see how Second Edition handles this. Well, before I can craft this, I need to be a certain tier of crafting (Expert), need a specific feat (Magical Crafting, which isn't available until like 3rd or 4th level at the earliest), need the formula for the specific item I'm crafting (good luck finding rules on how this works!), can't upgrade it to a higher tier item until I have the formula for that (which again, good luck on figuring this out with the rules!), need to make a check, wait 4 days (or longer), and pay full price. And that's just crafting standardized magic items.
In PF2, instead of needing to have multiple feats for different types of magic items (armor and weapons, rings, rods, scrolls, staffs, wands, wondrous items), you only need one: Magical Crafting. To qualify, use your skill increase at 2nd level on Crafting to get Expert proficiency and your skill feat at 3rd level on Magical Crafting; a rogue can actually take both a skill increase and a skill feat at 2nd level. This is different from PF1 Craft Wondrous Item by gating Magical Crafting using proficiency in the Crafting skill rather than caster level.
Finding common formulas is not difficult (unless the GM wants to make it so): "You can buy common formulas at the Price listed on Table 6–13, or you can hire an NPC to let you copy their formula for the same Price. A purchased formula is typically a schematic on rolled-up parchment of light Bulk. You can copy a formula into your formula book in 1 hour, either from a schematic or directly from someone else’s formula book. If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill. Formulas for uncommon items and rare items are usually significantly more valuable—if you can find them at all!" OR you can increase your proficiency in Crafting to Master and take Inventor: "You are a genius at Crafting, easily able to determine how things are made and create new inventions. You can spend downtime to invent a common formula that you don’t know. This works just like the Craft activity: you spend half the Price of the formula up front, attempt a Crafting check, and on a success either finish the formula by paying the difference or work for longer to decrease the Price. The difference is that you spend the additional time in research, design, and development, rather than in creating an item. Once it’s complete, you add the new formula you invented to your formula book."
For uncommon or rare items, you can reverse engineer the formula if you have an example: "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."
Want to create something for yourself that no one else has? Can't. You don't have a formula for your own design, nor do you have the ability to make one up, there's no feats or rules that allow this.
FALSE.
You do have to wait until high-level, increase your proficiency in Crafting to Legendary, and take Craft Anything. However, that's not the same thing as not being able to do it. You also need to work with your GM to set the item level and pricing, but custom items have always needed GM approval and agreement on pricing.
Whereas I can just say "I'm gonna buy X for Y gold," and unless it's Uncommon or something, GM will most likely just say "Okay, mark it off your currency sheet and put X on your inventory." Or just require some sort of check to find it if it is Uncommon or Rare. Okay. That's actually even easier than first edition crafting, and just as cost-effective as if I were going to just craft items in this edition!
Which is different from purchasing a common formula, how? You have to spend time crafting the item after you purchase the formula, but you can also spend extra time to reduce the final cost (even beyond recouping the formula cost). It's just not the so-called "everything half-price"* of PF1.
*- which was not how it worked out in practice, as selling all of the "useless" magic items was at 50% of market price to fund the crafting of a "useful" magic item at 50% of market price. Granted, a crafter would normally come out ahead because art, coins, and trade goods could be sold/exchanged at full price; however it wasn't the straight doubling of effective wealth that it's claimed to be.
In PF2, instead of needing to have multiple feats for different types of magic items (armor and weapons, rings, rods, scrolls, staffs, wands, wondrous items), you only need one: Magical Crafting. To qualify, use your skill increase at 2nd level on Crafting to get Expert proficiency and your skill feat at 3rd level on Magical Crafting; a rogue can actually take both a skill increase and a skill feat at 2nd level. This is different from PF1 Craft Wondrous Item by gating Magical Crafting using proficiency in the Crafting skill rather than caster level.
I mixed up the skill feat and the skill increase levels. To get Magical Crafting at 3rd level, use your skill increase to get Expert proficiency in Crafting and your general feat to take Magical Crafting; or just wait one more level to take it at 4th with that skill feat.
Everything else should still apply.
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Honestly, the main thing that disturbs me about crafting is somewhat unrelated to crafting directly. It's the fact that you can only sell loot in town for 50% of the value.
Currently, if you wanted to craft something you can spend 4 days of build up time and 50% of the value of an item to start the craft. Then you have to make up the other 50% of the value of the item either by additional downtime work at similar rates to what working a profession would give you, or by paying the amount off directly in resources or coin.
Effectively, you're paying full value for any piece of gear.
This means that when you are only able to sell something for half value you are only getting back the initial investment of materials and all additional time or money is simply wasted.
Alternatively to that you could have simply worked a job and made the full amount directly.
In any games I run going forward my plan is to houserule that all loot sells for 100% value with the exception of trade goods, which will be subject to a modifier based on the supply and demand of an area.
* If a good is in high supply due to it being heavily produced in an area then it will simply take longer for you to find a buyer at full price. You can reduce the price to find a buyer faster.
* If a good is in high demand due to it being produced in a far away place then it will sell at a higher price and it will be fairly easy to find a buyer.
It may encourage my players to hold onto certain goods and take them to places that would give them more money for their effort encouraging travel.
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Honestly, the main thing that disturbs me about crafting is somewhat unrelated to crafting directly. It's the fact that you can only sell loot in town for 50% of the value.
Currently, if you wanted to craft something you can spend 4 days of build up time and 50% of the value of an item to start the craft. Then you have to make up the other 50% of the value of the item either by additional downtime work at similar rates to what working a profession would give you, or by paying the amount off directly in resources or coin.
Effectively, you're paying full value for any piece of gear.
This means that when you are only able to sell something for half value you are only getting back the initial investment of materials and all additional time or money is simply wasted.
Alternatively to that you could have simply worked a job and made the full amount directly.
I've been running the Downtime rules quite faithfully and I have a player who approached me with a character concept of "alchemical merchant." After the players received a few weeks of Downtime, he was excited to Craft and make a bunch of bombs to sell. When I explained the system to him, he had the same reaction as you.
I pointed out that the Earn Income action was exactly what he wanted, making a Craft check to create, market, and sell his goods in town. It worked as something more of a "catch-all" that was limited by town level. Not everyone in the farming village wanted alchemist's fire, but his antidotes and sunrods would be popular! When they moved to another town and the level of the Crafting check went up, he was excited to see that he was making more money (since the town level was higher as well).
What I'm saying is (as Staffan also pointed out), Crafting is for items to be used. This is especially helpful when players are in areas without easy shopping and a build reliant on items (like my alchemist player). The Earn Income action abstracts a lot of the finicky parts present in... crafting an item, finding a buyer, securing retail space, haggling over price, gauging supply sold.
You can absolutely houserule things however you like, but the Crafting system as it stands now does work for its intended purpose.
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stuff
There was less dependence on the GM in PF1 as long as the player knew the proper intent of the guidelines for custom items. Not to mention the special items that dropped in certain adventure paths could never be crafted if we went by PF2 rules until you're 16th level with the feat. Even then, a GM might tell you that you can't do it because it's completely unknown and forbidden knowledge or it requires a specific component that is no longer available, or some other shenanigans.
I do appreciate the link to the formula rules, this helps a bit. I will say that it is still highly impractical unless you have a safehouse to keep all your formulas intact and organized. Since each formula page is light bulk, and we have hundreds of common items, further expanding with each hardcover release, you're not going to expect to carry that kind of stuff with you on an adventure. Someone might say "Well, Bag of Holding." Over the course of the game, not even a Bag of Holding might be enough, since between the common crafted items, magic items, and all of their variants, you're looking at the 100 bulk of a Bag of Holding Type IV easily. Granted, this is more for downtime and not for exploration or encounter modes. And you still have to track which formulas you do and do not have: When a new book of content is released, you won't have those formulas until you buy them, which means you have to mark off which items you do and don't have. And then you have to mark off if you have upgraded versions of said items, variant versions of said items, etc.
Sure, there is Inventor, but that only works for Common formulas. Uncommon or Rare formulas are disbarred from the feat, and if you really wanted to create something Unique, the feat doesn't allow that either. Not even Craft Anything works on that stuff, since a GM can just be "lolno." The point here is that Custom Items are practically non-existent in this game, which hurts players unable to express their imaginative creativity.
At least the ability to deconstruct an item in an attempt to understand how it works is pretty neat, but I can only imagine how rough that would be on non-common items when the GM pulls a "Gotcha!" and says that now that it's disassembled you don't have the ability to reassemble it anymore due to lacking materials that don't exist anymore, or aren't available in the area you're at. Which sucks nuts, and I can easily expect this sort of thing to happen.
But still, no such thing as custom items, since even Craft Anything requires you to select a specific item, and if it doesn't exist in the rules then you can't technically use it with the feat. A shame too, as there were some really awesome items we invented in the previous edition. A sword that turns anyone it kills into dust. An armor that grants the power of divinity. An axe that reinfuses the blood on it back into the host to keep it alive in dire straits. An intelligent bow with the ability to see and aim itself at targets you might not be able to see yourself. A staff decorated to be a dragon head which empowered spellcasting and possessed the power of a dragon's breath. All gone now with this edition, with no method of return outside of shenanigans.
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I do appreciate the link to the formula rules, this helps a bit. I will say that it is still highly impractical unless you have a safehouse to keep all your formulas intact and organized. Since each formula page is light bulk, and we have hundreds of common items, further expanding with each hardcover release, you're not going to expect to carry that kind of stuff with you on an adventure. Someone might say "Well, Bag of Holding."
If you copy the formulas into a formula book, which is light weight, you can have 100 formulas for a single Light bulk. Page 290 for the book, page 293 for copying into it in 1 hour. At that point, you don't need the individual light bulk schematic lying around and I recommend selling it back for half price. That will reduce your formula acquisition costs by half, and is well worth it.
Now this also means, you can fit 1,000 formulas in 1 bulk (10 formula books). The cost of 1,000 level 1 formulas for magic items is 500-1,000 gp (depending if you're paying for copying access or buying and selling the schematics). It'll be much higher if we're talking higher level formulas. I suggest that at that point, you can probably afford the bag of holding you mentioned. A type I will run you 75 gp, which will up your capacity to about 25,000 formulas for 1 bulk.
As a player, I don't even want to have to write out that list, let alone have the character spend 25,000 hours (approximately 12 years of a standard 9 to 5 work week) just copying. That seems like plenty of formula capacity for me.
The way I see it, the rules as a whole (particularly in the core book) are written with the assumption that they are going to be used by adventurers and that the focus is on adventuring. They are not meant as a life simulator. So the downtime rules that apply to adventurers are not necessarily the ones that apply to NPCs making and selling stuff.
So the Craft activity is for making things for your own use, or for your friends to use. If you're making things to sell, that uses the Gain Income activity instead.
While I agree with all of this, if people do want to play Pathfinder: Life Simulator, I think it's totally fine to modify the rules to make Crafting more profitable.
The only problem with that is when people want to play 3 character years of Pathfinder: Life Simulator and then take their 1st level character with 1,000 gp and play with people who are playing Pathfinder: Adventure Game.
That's why GM fiat is such a huge part of this. It would be realistic, but game-breaking, if my alchemist could show up with 50 alchemist's fires in a PFS game to hand out to the party.
The way I see it, the rules as a whole (particularly in the core book) are written with the assumption that they are going to be used by adventurers and that the focus is on adventuring. They are not meant as a life simulator. So the downtime rules that apply to adventurers are not necessarily the ones that apply to NPCs making and selling stuff.
So the Craft activity is for making things for your own use, or for your friends to use. If you're making things to sell, that uses the Gain Income activity instead.
While I agree with all of this, if people do want to play Pathfinder: Life Simulator, I think it's totally fine to modify the rules to make Crafting more profitable.
The only problem with that is when people want to play 3 character years of Pathfinder: Life Simulator and then take their 1st level character with 1,000 gp and play with people who are playing Pathfinder: Adventure Game.
That's why GM fiat is such a huge part of this. It would be realistic, but game-breaking, if my alchemist could show up with 50 alchemist's fires in a PFS game to hand out to the party.
Honestly, if you made items sell for 100% of value you would make just as much as you would while earning an income using a lore skill. This would not give you an advantage over any other options you have available to you.
IF anything it would offer parity.
It seems like you're being extremely condescending here and if you are then it's not appreciated.
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If you copy the formulas into a formula book, which is light weight, you can have 100 formulas for a single Light bulk. Page 290 for the book, page 293 for copying into it in 1 hour. At that point, you don't need the individual light bulk schematic lying around and I recommend selling it back for half price. That will reduce your formula acquisition costs by half, and is well worth it.I'm quite confident PCs can't sell formula.
... Let's assume they can : copying a formula cost 1 hour and no material. A Level 1 formula cost 1 gp, if the PCs can sell it at half price, they gain 0.5 gp per hour, so 4 gp per 8 hour of work - this is as much as a level 9 expert job.
And that's only using level 1 formulas - according to the rule, a level 1 character can copy level 20 formulas.
I have no idea how the formula market works. I have no idea why level 1 formula cost that much (seriously, 1 gp for the formula of a chair ? Who can pay that much ?). I have no idea how rarity works (since copying a formula costs nothing, every formula should be common). But I'm sure of 1 thing : if you allow PC to sell formula, then they get [almost] infinite money just by selling formulas instead of items.
For every intent or purpose, the formula market lives in another abstract world with almost no connection with Golarion; the only possible interaction between this world and Golarion is "a PC buy a formula".
A chair is not level 1, it is level 0. How do they get almost infinite money, the formulas they do have are already known to most and the new ones they get they have to spend money or find as loot to acquire. That said I agree they shouldn't get to sell them back.
You can buy common formulas at the Price listed on Table 6–13, or you can hire an NPC to let you copy their formula for the same Price. A purchased formula is typically a schematic on rolled-up parchment of light Bulk. You can copy a formula into your formula book in 1 hour, either from a schematic or directly from someone else’s formula book. If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill. Formulas for uncommon items and rare items are usually significantly more valuable—if you can find them at all!
Crafting a schematic (the item) requires the use of the crafting skill and associated rules. I.e. 4 days preparation, half raw materials, roll dice to see how many gp progress you make per day. It makes exactly as much gold as any other craft activity. So I don't see why schematics can't be sold back. Its just like selling a scroll back after using it to learn a spell to write in your spellbook.
Copying a schematic into your formula book takes 1 hour. At which point it is no longer a formula book (blank) and the core rules do not indicate its value.
The rules only list formula book (blank). Being able to sell a formula book (filled) is a house rule. A GM is well with their rights to say you can sell such a formula book for 0.5 gp, half the price of a blank one.
Given you can buy a basic crafter's book, a different item which has a preset list of formulas (i.e. common items in chapter 6 of the CRB), for 1 gp, and sell it for 0.5 gp, there is precedence that a filled formula book should only sell for 0.5 gp.
Anyways, I suggest if a player went through the trouble of spending 4 days crafting a schematic, they definitely should be able to sell it.
One way to make the formula book pricing make a bit more sense in game, is assume they are written in a personal short hand, and that without the author present, can't be used. Kind of like a spellbook. Its even heavily hinted in the text that many alchemists and guilds write their formula books in code.
OK, so crafting a schematic (the item) require a formula for the schematic?
I don't believe so. It says:
If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill.
It doesn't say you need a schematic of the formula. It says you just need the formula to create a copy. I think specific rule trumps general rule in this case.
I'm reading the prior sentence:
You can copy a formula into your formula book in 1 hour, either from a schematic or directly from someone else’s formula book.
as a completely different action. The first sentence is how you add a formula to your personal formula book, and the other is how you actually create any other type of copy (i.e. a schematic which NPCs sell).
I suppose you could read them as describing the same action, with the 1 hour overriding the 4 days, but that means it should cost raw materials, require a level equal to the formula level and so forth.
It raises a lot more questions for me read that way.
I'm curious, how do you interpret that line from the core rule book then? It uses the capitalized version of Craft, which means its referencing the Craft action as defined on page 244.
You shouldn't invent your own house rule, because they don't make any sense. When you talk about a rule, you should look in the book if it exists.
I'm not creating my own house rule. Its the 2nd paragraph on the right side column of page 293, 4th sentence in the core rule book.
Alternatively, Archive of Nethys link has the same text.
http://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=250
2nd paragraph, 4th sentence.
Copying a schematic into your formula book takes 1 hour. At which point it is a schematic. You can show your book to another crafter, and he can copy the formula in his own book (this is explained in the rule about price of formula: you can either buy the formula, either ask a crafter to copy from his book, and it costs the same).
Copying a formula from a schematic into your formula book takes 1 hour. That means you have a formula in your formula book, not a schematic. If you search for the term schematic on Archive of Nethys, it shows up only twice, both under the same rule heading, formulas. The only place the term schematic shows up in the core rule book is on page 293 of the rules in reference to purchasing formulas on a rolled-up parchment of light bulk. That is it.
It is never a schematic in your formula book.
You can tear the page out, and anyone can still copy the formula in his own formula book.
This where it gets unclear and I agree the rules get silly. However, what you are proposing is a house rule.
From the core rule book page 293, 2nd paragraph right side, 3rd sentence:
You can copy a formula into your formula book in 1 hour, either from a schematic or directly from someone else’s formula book.
Is a torn out page from a formula book, a formula book? I personally don't think so. If it does, then I could rip up my formula book, and sell 100 pieces of it for 0.5 gp each. Doesn't even need a formula on it. 50 gp for ripping up a 1 gp item.
Although I admit that is a very literal reading of the rule. Your proposal makes sense from a real world perspective, and doesn't actually help with the situation with copying the formula into a fresh formula book and selling that.
So the silly thing I assume is that if you're selling your formula book, you can only sell it for 0.5 gp even if its filled up.
With your interpretation, the silly thing you have to assume is you can't sell formulas at all.
Which way you go is partly a matter of taste in a home campaign.
I believe in society play, you can certainly purchase a schematic, which is a specific item with light bulk and a well defined cost (table 6-13). Said item can then be sold as well, given there is nothing in the rules saying you can't sell it. You can create them with the Craft downtime action if you have the formula.
What you can't do in society play is tear a page out of your formula book and call it a schematic. Its a torn page which has no defined value in the core rule book. So you couldn't sell it at all. At best its part of a damaged or broken item (how many hit points does a formula book have?) I also note their is no value listed for a filled in formula book, so you can at best sell it for the cost of the blank one (0.5 gp) in society play as well.
That is how I see it anyways.
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I was not convinced there was any real problem at first.
Some guidance on custom items would be nice, but they have always and must be ruled by GM fiat.
This formula stuff otoh is crap.
The idea that a crafts person would need a book with formula in it to build stuff is stupid nonsense.
I have worked side by side with real life carpenters who could hardly read, but they could frame a building without any written or drawn plan what so ever.
You already are limited by level, what's the point of these damned formula?
Even for magic items, why have them?
We already have the uncommon and rare tags to keep players from hassling GMs with troublesome items,spells, etc.
What purpose do these formula serve?
The way I see it, the rules as a whole (particularly in the core book) are written with the assumption that they are going to be used by adventurers and that the focus is on adventuring. They are not meant as a life simulator. So the downtime rules that apply to adventurers are not necessarily the ones that apply to NPCs making and selling stuff.
So the Craft activity is for making things for your own use, or for your friends to use. If you're making things to sell, that uses the Gain Income activity instead.
While I agree with all of this, if people do want to play Pathfinder: Life Simulator, I think it's totally fine to modify the rules to make Crafting more profitable.
The only problem with that is when people want to play 3 character years of Pathfinder: Life Simulator and then take their 1st level character with 1,000 gp and play with people who are playing Pathfinder: Adventure Game.
That's why GM fiat is such a huge part of this. It would be realistic, but game-breaking, if my alchemist could show up with 50 alchemist's fires in a PFS game to hand out to the party.
I'd like the system to handle crafting in a satisfying way, but if push came to shove, I'd rather the game leaned towards finding and buying magic items than needing to make them yourself. I think if Crafting Magical Items was necessary or so good that it was practically necessary, it would change how the game is played.
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I was not convinced there was any real problem at first.
Some guidance on custom items would be nice, but they have always and must be ruled by GM fiat.
This formula stuff otoh is crap.
The idea that a crafts person would need a book with formula in it to build stuff is stupid nonsense.
I have worked side by side with real life carpenters who could hardly read, but they could frame a building without any written or drawn plan what so ever.You already are limited by level, what's the point of these damned formula?
Even for magic items, why have them?
We already have the uncommon and rare tags to keep players from hassling GMs with troublesome items,spells, etc.What purpose do these formula serve?
And I've worked with real life carpenters who need the plans to do anything.
Sounds like the ones you worked with had the inventor feat.
Still, the formulas are really just an extra step in downtime, if you really don't like them, and you don't play PFS, just handwave them.
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I don't mind the formulas for common items at all. My only real complaint here is the really strict limitation on the Inventor skill feat. I would love if it mentioned being able to research schematics for Uncommon, Rare, and even Unique items at higher proficiency ranks with the approval of the DM.
Additionally, I think it would be great if Specialty Crafting also gave crafters the ability to craft common items within their specialty without the formula provided they meet all of the other requirements.
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You need the formula, not a schematic. Schematics are just the formulas in hard copy form (makes it easier to teach future generations).
Once you've learned the formula though, I'm pretty sure you can just keep the formula in your head.
An NPC could conceivably teach a PC a formula, without ever having to resort to a physical schematic, and that would be a rather interesting and flavorful quest reward.
I agree that the inventor feat shouldn't be so limiting and strict.
OK, so you invent a whole argument from the fact the word "schematic" is used twice, without any game definition, probably to avoid some repetition, in the 1000 pages of rules?
That's quite amazing.
My argument is based on the lines, from page 293:
You can copy a formula into your formula book in 1 hour, either from a schematic or directly from someone else’s formula book. If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill.
If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill.
I'm willing to agree your interpretation is correct if you can tell me how the second sentence interacts with the first? How does it fit with how you see copying formulas. That is what my argument is based on.
In the version of things you have proposed, I do not see how you have incorporated the second sentence into that version.
Why did the developers add that line, keeping in mind, everywhere else in the book, when they list a capitalized action, they are refering to a specific action (i.e capitalized Seek refers to the action on page 471 , capitilized Strike refers to the action on page 471, and capitalized Craft refers to the action on page 244).
Is it a typo? A line accidently left in? I'd like to know how I'm misreading the fact you need to use the Craft action to copy a formula?
Although I admit that is a very literal reading of the rule.You aren't making a "very literal reading", you're just making an absurd reading to avoid admitting you're wrong.
It is not an absurd reading, and please lets keep the discussion friendly and focused on the rules, not people and their assumed motivations. I'm willing to be persuaded, if you can explain the rules text in a way that looks consistent to me.
But OK, I can work under your assumption. Let's assume I have 90 gp (the party should get that amount before level 3).
1/ I buy 40 formula books (40 gp)
2/ I buy a random level 10 schematic (which is not a formula at all).
3/ I spend 40 hours (5 days) to copy the formula in my formula books.
Depends on the interpretation of the rules on 293 whether this is valid or not. Are you using the Craft action to copy it into the formula book in 1 hour - at which point all other requirements of the Craft action need to be met, or are you assuming the rules on 293 are describing 2 different actions, one where you copy in 1 hour without any requirements, and a second action to use Craft to make any other type of copy?
This is consistent only with the second interpretation, namely the rules are referring to two different actions.
4/ I sell each formula book 10 GP (total 400 gp, 310 gp of benefit. If I had spend those 5 day to find and practice a level 20 legendary job and rolled a critical success, I'd have earned 300 gp)
If you were in society play, you would not be allowed to sell each formula book for 10 gp. A formula book (blank) has a sale value of 0.5 gp. A formula book (filled with 10th level schematic) has an undefined value or at best, the formula book (blank) sale value. If you are saying it has the value listed on the table 6-13, I'd say no, since you didn't use the Craft action and downtime to create that copy, and thus has no value.
In the real world, I agree it makes perfect sense that you should be able to do so. I would totally agree with your interpretation, that formulas should not be sold at all to avoid infinite gold abuse if the line:
If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill.
did not exist in the rules.
My problem is if the developers are going to provide an option where it takes 4 days and X gold to produce a copy of a formula, I can only assume that version of a copied formula is intended to have value as well as resale value, and the version where it takes 1 hour to copy into your formula book is intended to have no value.
I'm not selling schematic, but I don't care: anyone can use my book as a schematic.
You and I don't care in the real world, but in the rules for pathfinder something ridiculous needs to be done to avoid infinite gold abuse. We both agree on that.
You put it at the step that no formula can ever be sold by a player. I put it at the step that no formula book can ever be sold by the player for more than 0.5 gp. Both are equally silly from a real world perspective. I am basically restricting myself to a smaller subset (formula books versus all formulas in hardcopy form).
And my book costs five time less. A merchant can buy my books, and then re-sell them at 20 gp, it's still less than half the prics of the schematic. For an item that is, for all intend and purpose, identical to the schematic - there's nothing you can do with the schematic and not with the book
According to the core rule book, Merchants don't sell filled formula books. There's no listed price. A GM can allow it, but its not in the core rules. The core rules say:
A purchased formula is typically a schematic on rolled-up parchment of light Bulk.
If it doesn't work, it means your whole economy doesn't make any sense at all: people prefer to spend 50 gp for something they can get for 10. This is not how economy works. You may ask to anyone, everywhere : "do you prefer to pay 50 bucks or 10 bucks for the same merchandise ?", everyone will answer "10 bucks".
Pathfinder's economy has never been a simulation. It doesn't use rules of economics. Gold is purely used as a measure of power for adventurers, and what happens between NPCs does not matter. Otherwise, all I need to do is go to a region at war where the fields of have been salted with a bunch of supplies and make a massive profit. Sell rations to people in desperate need of food at twice their value.
Real economies don't have every item of the same type everywhere have identical values. Moving goods around is pointless in a Pathfinder game for NPCs.
You can't have it both way: either you craft schematic using the rules of craft, either you craft a schematic using the rule to copy formula.
Then I return to my first point, I need someone to explain to me why the core rule book says:
If you have a formula, you can Craft a copy of it using the Crafting skill.
What does this rule mean? Why does it use the capitalized Craft action, described on page 244? If someone can explain its intent to me clearly, then I'll switch my interpretation.
Honestly, if you made items sell for 100% of value you would make just as much as you would while earning an income using a lore skill. This would not give you an advantage over any other options you have available to you.
IF anything it would offer parity.
You can already earn as much income with Crafting as you do with Lore - just use Crafting to Earn Income.
If you use Crafting to Craft, you make less money than if you use Crafting to Craft. Realistic? No. Intentional? YES.
It seems like you're being extremely condescending here and if you are then it's not appreciated.
I'm not in charge of your feelings, so if you want to ignore what I say and complain about the way I say it, you're free to do so.
Honestly, the main thing that disturbs me about crafting is somewhat unrelated to crafting directly. It's the fact that you can only sell loot in town for 50% of the value.
Currently, if you wanted to craft something you can spend 4 days of build up time and 50% of the value of an item to start the craft. Then you have to make up the other 50% of the value of the item either by additional downtime work at similar rates to what working a profession would give you, or by paying the amount off directly in resources or coin.
Effectively, you're paying full value for any piece of gear.
This means that when you are only able to sell something for half value you are only getting back the initial investment of materials and all additional time or money is simply wasted.
The way I see it, the rules as a whole (particularly in the core book) are written with the assumption that they are going to be used by adventurers and that the focus is on adventuring. They are not meant as a life simulator. So the downtime rules that apply to adventurers are not necessarily the ones that apply to NPCs making and selling stuff.
So the Craft activity is for making things for your own use, or for your friends to use. If you're making things to sell, that uses the Gain Income activity instead.
But, really, that was the point in 3e/PF1 as well. The loot selling/crafting rules were designed to make life easy for a player to get to the adventuring and not having to engage in an economic simulator. It's just that the calibrated expectation was that characters would use the craft feats to convert magic gear they found but didn't want into something they did want at a 1:1 exchange. Sell for 50% of market, craft for 50% of market - a 1:1 ratio. With PF2 it's a 2:1 ratio - sell for 50% of market, but anything you make for yourself with the proceeds is at 100% of market. Characters are no longer converting found treasure value at equivalent value.
I was not convinced there was any real problem at first.
Some guidance on custom items would be nice, but they have always and must be ruled by GM fiat.
This formula stuff otoh is crap.
The idea that a crafts person would need a book with formula in it to build stuff is stupid nonsense.
I have worked side by side with real life carpenters who could hardly read, but they could frame a building without any written or drawn plan what so ever.You already are limited by level, what's the point of these damned formula?
Even for magic items, why have them?
We already have the uncommon and rare tags to keep players from hassling GMs with troublesome items,spells, etc.What purpose do these formula serve?
And I've worked with real life carpenters who need the plans to do anything.
Sounds like the ones you worked with had the inventor feat.
Still, the formulas are really just an extra step in downtime, if you really don't like them, and you don't play PFS, just handwave them.
No,craftsmen dont need a formula to make an item IRL.
These guys are not genius inventors, they are simply skilled.Not only that, but the vast majority of crafts are taught and learned by watching it done, and then doing it.
No paperwork involved.
RL aside, again, what purpose do the formulas serve?
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The biggest problem I have with the crafting system as standard is in regards to "mundane items" not so much magical. Why does it take 4 days to create 10 arrows?
I was planning on having an adventure based in an uncivilized land where loot would be less gold and more trade goods for dealing with undeveloped societies. Think the classic Doctor Peabody deep amazon exploration quest, lots of cursed temples and ancient evils.
But I ran into a roadblock when I realized that any character wanting to use a ranged weapon more complicated than a sling would be hard pressed to keep their arrow stock up without me giving them tons of downtime to craft in, or just making arrows and/ or Crossbow bolts SUPER available in every tribal village they encounter, which I just don't know the validity of.
I feel like Consumable items need their own crafting rules with a lower downtime based on the kind of consumable you are talking about. I mean really, should it take 4 days to make a Torch? Or should a character be able to rough together a torch with some cloth and maybe a dash from a flask of oil in a full round or two?
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I think the Craft rules as written were made as simple as possible while being pretty valid for the things most characters will want to craft. If you are GMing a game where crafting mundane items is important I would make up some alternative craft duration rules, because the rules as written are not made to accommodate that scenario.