If a player invested heavily into crafting magical items with his character, and wanted to craft something unique, would you allow it? Or would you enforce that the player stick to published material? Why or why not?
(For the purposes of this discussion, please assume that the player in question has a history of being level-headed, and hasn't given you any reason to believe that they are trying to game the system or anything potentially nefarious like that.)
Please note that this is not intended to be a discussion about the player, but about how some GMs think, what they would do, and why.
I probably would. It hasn't come up, but I have worked with my wizard player to homebrew a spell that she spent downtime creating.
I'd allow it. I love it when my players get invested in their characters and create new things for the world they live in. I especially love it when the magic items are more quality of life items rather than weapons and the like.
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As long as the player took the Inventor feat, I'd allow it. They'd have to research it, maybe find a few of the ingredients in-game, and stuff like that, but I don't see any reason why not. The only thing would be that I'd tell them I'd reserve the right to adjust it if it had unintended consequences (like my wife's tales of AD&D lodestones being used as infinite catapult ammo, due to the fact they returned after every shot).
Assuming its not-PFS, absolutely.
Depends on the thing. Anything cool and flavorful that doesn't cause me a balance headache is probably chill.
Would I allow it? Absolutely, although I would require the PC take the Inventor Feat if they want to come up with something entirely new on their own.
My first thought was the Inventor Feat, but it really does nothing in this case: "You can spend downtime to invent a common formula that you don’t know." And that's a 7th level feat. Unique is 3 steps away from what you can make with it, so I can only imagine what level feat you'd need to create a unique item...
I'm more likely to allow the item (or its formula) to cross their path than to allow them to completely invent and manufacture it, since as Graystone notes, that ability outstrips any skills/skill feats in the current system. Most likely I'd integrate bits and pieces into the story as mini-macguffins and so forth.
Given how previous crafting rules allowed for much abuse (i.e. Quickened True Strike at will) I wonder if Paizo will ever show the nuts & bolts behind the magic item system. Lots of GM adjudication required I'd think.
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Would I allow it? Absolutely, although I would require the PC take the Inventor Feat if they want to come up with something entirely new on their own.My first thought was the Inventor Feat, but it really does nothing in this case: "You can spend downtime to invent a common formula that you don’t know." And that's a 7th level feat. Unique is 3 steps away from what you can make with it, so I can only imagine what level feat you'd need to create a unique item...
The rarity system isn't really robust enough to represent this, but I think there's a difference between "unique item that you made" and "unique item that someone else made".
The rarity system isn't really robust enough to represent this, but I think there's a difference between "unique item that you made" and "unique item that someone else made".Would I allow it? Absolutely, although I would require the PC take the Inventor Feat if they want to come up with something entirely new on their own.My first thought was the Inventor Feat, but it really does nothing in this case: "You can spend downtime to invent a common formula that you don’t know." And that's a 7th level feat. Unique is 3 steps away from what you can make with it, so I can only imagine what level feat you'd need to create a unique item...
I'm not following you: It's described as "A rules element with this trait is one-of-a-kind." That doesn't change depending on WHO made it. Unique items are harder to Recall on as they are unique and are harder to reproduce: "On most topics, you can use simple DCs for checks to Recall Knowledge. For a check about a specific creature, trap, or other subject with a level, use a level-based DC (adjusting for rarity as needed)." AND "When a character Crafts an item, use the item’s level to determine the DC, applying the adjustments from Table 10–6 for the item’s rarity if it’s not common." So to reverse-engineer or ID the item, your DC just jumped by +10 no matter WHO made it. This means even a level 0 item has a DC of 24.
I think he meant to say something like
- a plate mail
Vs
- a plate mail made by that specific character or npc ( you can recognize its work from the work of others, but in terms of stats it's still a normal plate mail).
So the DC would be the same ( eventually s higher DC if you try to emulate somebody else's work), but the armors would be quite different from each other.
I agree with this if that's what he meant, but I'm 99.99999% sure it wasn't that. IMO, it's about making a magic item not in the current rules instead of making a magic staff with a specific makers mark on it or have it be make of metal.
"If a player invested heavily into crafting magical items with his character, and wanted to craft something unique, would you allow it? Or would you enforce that the player stick to published material?" This SURE sounds like an item without a published pattern.
Ravingdork:
Craft Anything might work as "As long as you have the appropriate Crafting skill feat (such as Magical Crafting for magic items) and meet the item’s level and proficiency requirement, you ignore just about any other requirement, such as being of a specific ancestry or providing spells." Having a pattern is a requirement, so it could work.
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I'd smudge out the word "common" in Inventor.
Requiring someone to be a Master crafter to develop truly novel things seems about right. It's not entirely out of reach, but it gives something to strive for too.
I would be keeping an eye out for whether the player is trying to use invention to get around rarity - for example, developing his own I-can't-believe-it's-not-a-real-katana in a strictly Western fantasy area.
Although I wouldn't necessarily prohibit that; the real world is also full of different cultures managing to come up with similar inventions. And the item already has stats which are known to be reasonably balanced.
I'd be looking for a reasonable story though - "I'm a master swordsman who's all about making his own blades to perfectly fit his style" and after a couple of levels of trying different weapons, trying to make the one (katana) that's like the perfect combination of some others that weren't quite satisfactory (rapier, bastard sword), well, hey this could be one of the things that makes the character famous.
Truly novel stuff that's not in any book (not in 2E, or even no book at all) is also an option. I'm still going to supervise that it gets reasonable 2E stats, and scrutinize whether it should belong to a particular magical tradition or have certain requirements. But yeah, I'm not against innovation.
Id be willing to discuss it, to determine exactly what the player wants to accomplish.
I'm a big proponent of changing the description of and reflavoring existing rules elements to fit what players want to do before creating entirely new rules material - so thats where I'm going first.
If what they want to do cant work with that, but doesn't have significant mechanical or balance impact, well work on proceeding with that.
In many cases, if it doesn't fit into the above categories its probably something that can just be Narrated into existence anyway because its just something flavorful the player wants to do for fun.
I don't see why not. I'd evaluate the item, and reserve the right to have it stolen by fairies in the night if it BECOMES a headache, but I'd lean towards allowing it.