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Well you have actually invested 2 feats in it, so you should be good at it. Having said that, I agree the DCs were lower than I expected when I finally got into it.
It's probably because they didn't want to limit it to ONLY Wizards who can craft things. Set the DCs too high and the only people who can craft are the ones who can use their main stat to boost the roll.
Assuming a 20 point buy and standard rules you spent half your feats, ¼ of your skill points, ¼ of your stat points, and half your traits to get the +17. Because of that your WIS is probably lower than optimal, you have less options in combat, and outside of making items can do less out of combat. Meanwhile the cleric who did not invest that heavily in making items has a higher DC on his saves, gets more spells, has a higher Will save, can do more both in and out of combat.
All you really did is trade in your abilities for gold.
My level 8 Gnome Cleric had +17 Spellcraft on account of 8 ranks, +2 Int, +1 from a trait, and Skill Focus. She crafted the monk a Monk's Robe without being high enough level or knowing the right spell, with no chance of failure because you can take 10s on spellcraft. Is it supposed to be this easy?
Good question.
I assumed it was a design choice by Paizo. I like it, I found it annoying that PCs couldn’t craft magic items in the early versions of D&D. Also it gives PCs an avenue to spend wealth on something besides castles and towers.
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My level 8 Gnome Cleric had +17 Spellcraft on account of 8 ranks, +2 Int, +1 from a trait, and Skill Focus. She crafted the monk a Monk's Robe without being high enough level or knowing the right spell, with no chance of failure because you can take 10s on spellcraft. Is it supposed to be this easy?Good question.
I assumed it was a design choice by Paizo. I like it, I found it annoying that PCs couldn’t craft magic items in the early versions of D&D. Also it gives PCs an avenue to spend wealth on something besides castles and towers.
Pretty sure it was a carry over from 3.5
My level 8 Gnome Cleric had +17 Spellcraft on account of 8 ranks, +2 Int, +1 from a trait, and Skill Focus. She crafted the monk a Monk's Robe without being high enough level or knowing the right spell, with no chance of failure because you can take 10s on spellcraft. Is it supposed to be this easy?
Well, without Skill Focus you wouldn't have made the check, by 1 point. At least not with taking a 10. And even with all this investment you can't accelerate the crafting - which would have you saved 3 days.
However, I guess the monk player was happy about getting the robe cheaper and earlier.
This is the main reason I use the Item crafting rules from Unchained. It sets the cost at 85% instead of 50% and requires multiple skill checks over the course of the item crafting. Depending on how you do on those checks the cost of making the item might come down farther, the item might get some kind of minor bonus or it might even end up flawed in some way. Plus some of the random events offer opportunities for other PCs to help with the crafting or for some Role-playing.
If you then add in the idea of Totem Components from monsters with the Harvesting rules from Ultimate Wilderness, you can turn making a magic item into a minor quest.
It is easy, like guaranteed every time easy with a little bit of investment. I generally try give the table access to a friendly crafter NPC... that way Clerics in the party do not need 14 Intelligence and Skill Focus to make the Monk a loincloth. And I understand that the investment of ability scores, traits, and feats is part of what is supposed to balance the crafting of items... but it doesn't balance it, so I don't bother requiring that investment from the players. I just said screw it. Lol.
I would rather have the Cleric that is better at doing Cleric stuff at my table, then a Cleric that nerfed their Cleric stuff in order to weave underwear for the Monk.
Generally speaking, yes it is supposed to be relatively easy to craft magic items in 3.x/PF1.
This is a design consideration so that PCs with the crafting feats can effectively "trade in" magic items that they can't use or don't want for desired magic items of the same gp value. Sale value of magic items is 50% of market price and crafting cost of magic items is 50% of market price. Because the CR system is based on the PCs having a certain amount of magic armor, weapons, ability boosters, etc. as they advance in levels (see Automatic Bonus Progression), "forcing" a PC barbarian to carry around a +1 rapier instead of a +1 falchion because it's the only magical melee weapon they found makes the game less enjoyable for many people. Granted, the PCs with magic item crafting feats are a bit more optimal/optimized and there is a slight potential increase in WBL (due to selling art, trade goods, etc. at full price); however, this is easy to compensate for if the GM is checking the PCs' equipment against expected WBL periodically and adjusting the treasure awarded to keep them close to the expected amount.
Even in 3.x, with the XP requirement, this was seldom a tremendously restrictive drawback for crafting the occasional magic item when the GM didn't "tailor" the treasure found by the party to more closely align to the PCs' tastes/themes.
In PF1, you craft with XP via the soul trade... using soul gems as crafting components directly converts HD into gold value. There is a price on life, and it's going rate is about 1000gp/HD... give or take a little, depending on the flavor.
Of course it's an evil act. It's also probably an evil act to capture the soul of a loved one and incorporate that soul gem into your phylactery, just so your souls can be together forever... not that I would know anything about that.
Such trivial things as alignment(s) have never stopped me before... I gots that Souldrinker Dreamthief Hag on speed-dial. Lol
Oh, I was way off. My bad.
I was just mentioning what I had quoted in my notes (also from Book-O-the Damned, pg 192, or at least so says AoN) for...
THE VALUE OF SOULS
Trapped souls are one of the fundamental currencies throughout Abaddon, the Abyss, and Hell. Three key factors influence a soul’s value in the soul trade: the strength of the soul’s life force (which relates directly to the CR of the creature from which the soul was harvested), the soul’s age (how long the soul has been cycled through reincarnation, which directly relates to the sapience of the creature from which the soul was harvested), and the soul’s flavor (which is determined by factors that include the alignment, personality, and religion of the creature from which the soul was harvested). Of course, it’s worth noting that while trading in souls may prove lucrative, the practice is undeniably evil and an affront to the natural order, and thus it is considered to be an evil act unless one is trading souls for an altruistic purpose (such as to smash purchased prisons and release the souls trapped within).
Life Force: A soul’s life force sets its base gp value. This is equal to the CR of the creature from which the soul was harvested × 1,000. Thus, the base value of a CR 1 creature’s soul is 1,000 gp, while the base value of a CR 20 creature’s soul is 20,000 gp.
Age: A soul from a creature who in life had an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score of 2 or less (including the lack of a score at all in one of those categories, and regardless of how high the other ability scores were) is less refined and younger in age, and as such is worth half its base value. Thus, the soul of a CR 1 animal with an Intelligence of 1 is worth 500 gp, while the soul of a CR 20 vermin with no intelligence score at all would be worth 10,000 gp.
Flavor: As a general rule, a soul’s flavor has no direct impact on its gp value for the purposes of functioning as a material component or raw materials for magic item creation, but in certain circumstances subject to the GM’s discretion, the soul’s flavor can halve or double its final value. For example, a paladin’s soul might have double its normal value to a daemon who finds lawful good souls to be particularly delicious, while the soul of a devout worshiper of Desna might be worth only half as much when used to create a magic item designed to be particularly deadly when used against chaotic good creatures, since such a soul would inherently resist being used in such a way.
Now, I wasn't being snarky writing "the value of souls" in CAPS LOCK. Lol. That is how I copied it from my notes/AoN. But this is trading them more than crafting with them.
I haven't been too interested in using soul gems as crafting components honestly... I collect them because I find it hilarious, and I feed them to the Hag's Cacodaemon like dog treats whenever she is around.
Spending XP wasn't all that bad. It DID make it slightly more complicated and added another Wizard Tax.
Although really, a strange thing would happen when you spent xp to craft. Because of how 3.5's experience system worked, if you were lower level than the rest of the party fighting the same thing, you earned more xp from the same encounter than the rest of the party did. As a result, you really aren't that much lower level than the rest of your party, and the massive boost to WBL made you much more powerful.
Honestly I've found myself in a bit of a pickle when it comes to Item Crafting. I want to allow it. I try to make it less odious since the investment of Feats is hard. My players typically craft bonus to Spellcraft items to help with this.
But once everything is up and running, it quickly devolves into:
"I'm going to spend 1 week making items for the party."
"Ugh, why are we sitting around, why can't we have a side adventure?"
And then, of course, even if I stick with the rule of thumb "no more than 50% bonus WBL", suddenly the party is much stronger than intended to fight encounters, so I have to use more powerful enemies, which causes them to level up faster.
Anything I do to try and balance this behind the scenes (adding Advanced Template but not increasing CR, for example) seems cheap, like I'm denying them the advantage of taking those crafting feats in the first place. Being able to craft magic items is a fun and flavorful part of the game, but it feels like it makes things go off the rails faster than usual.
EDIT: and of course, there's the problem of humanoid NPC's who need gear to keep up with the party, but giving them that gear just gives my party more treasure that they can use to break WBL guidelines.