GM's, help me understand not allowing crafting

[Mark Hoover 330]

So in another thread a poster made a point about GMs that severely restrict or disallow the crafting of mundane or magic items, or restrict giving the PCs adequate resources or time between adventures to do so. Why?

If a player chooses to put ranks into a Craft skill, or a Profession skill like Baker or Woodcutter that might have some crossover into crafting, or they take an Item Creation feat, chances are they intend their PC to be making stuff. Some classes rely on these functions; a prepared full arcane caster might be under-resourced for spells to cast in a day without scrolls and what is the point of an Alchemist having Fast Alchemy and a portable alchemy kit if they are never allowed to use them?

So what reasons or justifications are we GM's using to prevent PCs from using these skills and abilities? More than that, why don't we WANT them making their own gear?

[DeathlessOne]

It depends on what kind of game you are playing. PFS game play doesn't allow item crafting and they have a very specific kind of game style. Likewise, if the campaign doesn't have room for a lot of downtime, the GM should communicate that with the players before hand and that alone should de-incentivize people from playing certain classes or character concepts. It is the fault of the player at that point if they decide to ignore the GM.

Personally, I run sandbox style games that react to the player choices. They are always free to choose what they want to do though they don't always get to give input on the consequences of doing so.

As far as GMs that don't allow Crafting but allow for ranks in the Craft skill, they might just be allowing those with higher INT to make use of the Crafting skill as a replacement for the WIS based Profession skill check for earned income during 'off season' or time skips. Some GMs just don't want to bother with micro-managing the game when it comes to crafting rules.

[Kasoh]

The most common reason you would want to prevent PCs from crafting is that it doubles their wealth. A wizard who dumps their feats into crafting, even just Magic Arms & Armor and Wondrous Items is still A) a wizard and B) providing half cost equipment to the party.

If a PC is crafting gear for themselves, that's sort of the expected use of the feat and probably won't cause too much problem. When the PC is crafting gear for the party, it changes itemizing a lot. They no longer want sweet magical loot, they want to turn stuff into gold so it can be turned into bespoke gear.

I find that APs can have...intense sounding premises. Chasing after this cult that's seeking pieces of an artifact? Can we actually stop for 30 days so the wizard can craft some stuff? Sometimes, that's not actually an issue. Depends on the tone of the game and how the GM presents it.

Why a GM might prevent a PC from engaging in mundane crafting? No idea other than its a waste of time and the table has better things to do.

[Taja the Barbarian]

In addition to the general 'doubles your effective wealth' issue, there is also the necessary downtime to consider: GMs who either just don't want to actually track downtime or whose campaign includes a shortage of that particular resource would probably do well to just ban crafting outright.

[OmniMage]

I'm sure many GMs have their reasons. However, they should be clear on this and allow characters to trade in their magic item crafting feats for something else.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Many of these types of things take time. Putting the adventure on hold so that the wizard can spend weeks making items not something I am going to put up with. I will give a reasonable amount of downtime during the adventure but nothing major. Usually, the only real downtime the party has is when they need to recover from something big. If they need to wait a few days while someone fully recovers from something they can use that time for item creation.

Making quick things like scrolls or potions is usually not going to be a problem, but creating major items takes time and there is usually not enough time. When the characters are on an adventure, they rarely have enough free time to make expensive items. I don’t allow characters to create items when adventuring. I know they came up with rules for how much you can create in your “spare time”, but to me those were created because players where b@#*%ing about not being able to create items.

From a game balance point of view, I don’t want characters getting twice the magic items they should have. This leads to a situation where I have to boost up the opponents, which usually ends up with the players getting more loot, which means they have more gold to craft. This can create a viscous loop that I don’t want to deal with. This means that if the players have item creation feats, I will reduce the treasure they find or the price they sell it at.

I usually give the players lots of downtime between adventures, and I am fairly lenient in allowing the purchase of items at this time. In many of my campaigns the players are part of an organization that they can get some items from. This really reduces the incentive for players to pick up item creation feats. The players may pick up item creation feats for consumable items like scrolls and potions, but that is usually about it.

[Derklord]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So what reasons or justifications are we GM's using to prevent PCs from using these skills and abilities? More than that, why don't we WANT them making their own gear?

Multiple reasons.

• I want to GM an adventure. Hanging around for days or weeks after every other encounter to craft something for the entire party is the exact opposite of that. This is Pathfinder, not Medieval Blacksmith Simulator 2000™.
• Having one PC whose downtime is worth significantly more is an open invitaiton for players to feel left out.
• Magic item creation totally breaks WBL. Unless you want to reduce loot, which isn't fun.
• Magic item creation puts more power into the hands of the already strongest classes, and most importantly the classes that already do the most out-of-combat.
• With magic item creation, I can't control what items the players have. In my current campaign, I took some steps to make magic items special, not the usual "buy it on magic amazon", and magic item creation would completely destroy that.

I have banned magic item creation (handing out bonus feats like PFS does in exachange for e.g. an Alchemist's Brew Potion). No ban on mundane creation, but if the party would dare to sit on their asses for weeks at a time, I'd have hostile forces congregate at the PC's location. Hell, I did that when the party sat around for a couple days without crafting!

[Hugo Rune]

I don't disallow crafting though I strongly discourage it through a number of mechanisms.
1. I houserule adding profession to related craft, appraise, knowledge checks etc. So NPC commoners and experts are better at their day jobs than the adventurers. Of course a PC can also take craft and profession at a cost of 2 skill points.
2. I have changed the magic item creation feats into a feat tree with two main branches, one for an item's reusability and one for an item's power. So a potion or feather token is one feat but a +5 sword requires 6 feats.
3. Part of the campaign (Greyhawk) background I give describes the art of magic item creation as largely lost after the twin cataclysms.
4. I run a campaign that has a continual time pressure. The adventurers don't have the time to craft items.

[Tim Emrick]

PFS 1E games disallow crafting because their advancement rules require a strict schedule of income in order to adhere to wealth-by-level guidelines. Downtime is also 1) very limited, and 2) of undefined length, so there is usually very little you can do with it other than make a single Day Job check. (A few Chronicle boons will give you other options, but they are very limited in scope.) Classes that automatically give characters crafting feats (like 1st-level wizards) give a different bonus feat instead.

PFS 2E gives more options for downtime, by specifying a standard number of days you earn for each adventure. Both earning income and some crafting are allowed, because they are better integrated into the core rules than in 1E. There is also a host of boons purchasable with Achievement Points that allow you to spend downtime days to earn some other reward (such as learning a new Lore, or a discount on a magic item).

I've heard some GMs talk about adopting a PFS-like model for wealth and downtime in their home games, just to help simplify the bookkeeping for each adventure. The idea of "each PC earns X gp of miscellaneous treasure" can seem a welcome reprieve from tracking the minutiae of who kept what item, how many looted weapons and suits of armor need to be traded in for cash each time the party hits town, and so on.

[Mark Hoover 330]

If you're running a PFS game or just don't want to deal with Item Creation feats so you ban it in your game, fine. That's not what I'm getting at here. If you didn't tell your players at character creation that Item Creation feats are banned, or that there likely won't be downtime portions in this campaign where expensive mundane or magic items can be made, then later you impose such restrictions on them, why?

Also I get it; some GMs run APs. If the path runs at a breakneck pace with time clocks on many of the missions, obviously crafting opportunities will be few and far between. Again here though, I think its important that players know that up front.

Beyond this though... all the other challenges have solutions, if the GM is willing to work with the players. Downtime is boring? Ok, handwave it. Crafting breaks WBL? Give the PCs less wealth, or reward them in other ways (houses, titles, followers, a free Trait, the knowledge that, on their deathbed, they will know total enlightenment...). The campaign never makes it back to town...

That argument I love. They are never heading back to town. Ok well... who says the PCs need town? Oh look, the PCs are out in the middle of the wilderness, but a traveling salesperson is approaching. They just happen to have a bunch of "Magic Capital" the PCs can buy to do some crafting on the road. Maybe the PCs save a lone ratfolk from evil orcs, and the ratfolk just happens to know of a traveling troupe nearby. PCs are stuck in a megadungeon, but they're jonesing to use the new Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat the paladin picked up; oh look, they just happened to stumble upon some abandoned dwarven forge rooms.

One suggestion I stole for resting in dungeons you can adjust to crafting: the convenient door. This was in a Dungeon magazine from Paizo back in '07. If the party is stuck in the wilderness or in a dungeon but they need stuff like Restoration and such, they spot a door with no earthly reason to be there.

Turns out this leads to... and then there was a chart. Maybe its a tavern in Sigil, or a mead hall in Valhalla, or an elven court in the Fey Realms or whatever. The PCs can go there briefly, heal up, and the days they spend in this realm are actually only hours in the dungeon. After they finish whatever healing, or crafting they needed to do, the GM contrives some reason the PCs are ejected back to the Prime and the door disappears.

Like I said, there are ways to do it, if you're willing to use them.

[Claxon]

Derklord wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So what reasons or justifications are we GM's using to prevent PCs from using these skills and abilities? More than that, why don't we WANT them making their own gear?

Multiple reasons.

• I want to GM an adventure. Hanging around for days or weeks after every other encounter to craft something for the entire party is the exact opposite of that. This is Pathfinder, not Medieval Blacksmith Simulator 2000™.
• Having one PC whose downtime is worth significantly more is an open invitaiton for players to feel left out.
• Magic item creation totally breaks WBL. Unless you want to reduce loot, which isn't fun.
• Magic item creation puts more power into the hands of the already strongest classes, and most importantly the classes that already do the most out-of-combat.
• With magic item creation, I can't control what items the players have. In my current campaign, I took some steps to make magic items special, not the usual "buy it on magic amazon", and magic item creation would completely destroy that.

I have banned magic item creation (handing out bonus feats like PFS does in exachange for e.g. an Alchemist's Brew Potion). No ban on mundane creation, but if the party would dare to sit on their asses for weeks at a time, I'd have hostile forces congregate at the PC's location. Hell, I did that when the party sat around for a couple days without crafting!

Pretty much all this, I don't ban crafting outright but I let all my players know that it's not going to give them much mechanical benefit.

I allow players to have the crafting feats for free, but explain that there is no reduced cost for crafting an item. Basically the only benefit is that you could get something that is not otherwise available on the market.

In PF1, my group also used ABP a lot so it many of the items the party were interested in became unimportant to try to find/buy/craft.

[DungeonmasterCal]

If the plans for the next adventure call for a "rapid turnaround" with no time to settle in for a bit, then any crafting they wanted to do would have to wait. The only other possible reason would be the materials they needed weren't available at their location. I run very "player-centric" games with their actions and decisions being at least half of the driving force behind new adventures. They also carefully choose their Craft choices to fit their character concepts.

As far as the doubling of wealth by level goes, we (figuratively) tore the WBL rules out, picked up the dog's poop from the floor with them, and threw them away. As the GM I decide how much wealth they have and I've always been fair with my decisions. It's been this way since our first baby steps as a group 35+ years ago and it's never been an issue.

[Azothath]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

... a poster made a point about GMs that severely restrict or disallow the crafting of mundane or magic items, or restrict giving the PCs adequate resources or time between adventures to do so. Why?

a GM and a group make choices about the style of game they want to play.

Limiting this area of the game does simplify it to adventuring and simple negotiation on buying stuff.

The most pervasive and famous example is Organized Play (aka PFS).
Org Play limited it with some hedges. Adventures generally got a standard amount of gold per scenario(adventure) and 3 scenarios per level. For the first several years they were very stingy with any class items like spellbooks, later they were just stingy.
1) Prestige. Essentially a 2.5*$750GP per level give away for items/consumables you could not sell. You could 'stack' them but it lost value so better to save cash and buy what you wanted. It also let people 'bank' prestige in case they died (funny as if they had spent it they probably wouldn't have died). As I've rated at a flat amount it peters out as you increase level. Essentially this breaks a strict adherence to the WBL chart (Ohh! The secret is out! Another reason the game is biased towards the players.). This rule was actually a boost to spellcasters via First level wands and saved many adventurers via cure light potions and affliction curatives.
2) Class items. Bonded Objects and some masterwork items came in at zero to half price BUT you could only have one. You could buy another.
3) Custom Items take some skill to adjudicate and Org Play GMs are volunteers with varying experience. Banning it made it easy to run compared to a Home Game with custom stuff.

>>Saying eliminating crafting focuses the Game on the fun part is just biased. It all depends on what people want to do in the Game.<<

I've played where there were basically no restrictions, or abundant magic, or very little magic, or where we had NO resources and were trapped in a prison realm having to craft everything. Each campaign varies as do the challenges.

I'll add that in stylistic games having custom items and a look is particularly important. Often those items are bought as not all PCs can craft their own items or sew their own clothes. It is a lot of extra detail that the GM has to think about in response to player requests and creativity. Would you go adventuring in Lady Gaga's famous meat dress? Post-it note dress? lol... clearly for some people in some games it's important.

[Dragonchess Player]

First off, magic item crafting does NOT "double the PCs' wealth." What happens is the PCs sell unwanted magic items found during adventures at 50% of market price to craft wanted magic items at 50% of market price. Because trade goods and a few other items can be sold at full price, there is potentially a slight increase in wealth; however, the overall impact is mostly the same as what happens when the GM tailors adventure treasure to suit the PCs.

Second, unless the campaign bans (either outright or via "soft bans" to impose additional restrictions) item crafting a character does not need downtime. The magic item creation rules explicitly allow crafting during the adventuring day (4 hours crafting, 2 hours progress) and "in the field" (not in a forge/lab/workshop/etc.) at half normal progress. A ring of sustenance (2,500 gp) or restful quality on armor (such as a haramaki for characters that worry about ASF) allow an additional 4 hours of crafting (out of the 6 hours no longer spent sleeping) in addition to the 4 hours of "during the adventuring day" crafting. A valet familiar or adding +5 to the Spellcraft DC allows the full crafting progress for those 8 total hours, as well.

The only thing the crafting feats allow, if the GM keeps track of party wealth when adjusting treasure found in upcoming adventures to keep them close to system expectations, is the ability to have the items they actually want instead of making do with what they can find. Almost all of the arguments against crafting seem to be about GMs wanting to control the PCs' equipment.

[Dragonchess Player]

If crafting is allowed, the GM will need to review and approve any custom magic items, as well as set the market price. This may not always be straightforward, especially if misapplying the guidelines*.

Or the GM could just not allow custom magic items: only published items can be created or published armor/weapon qualities can be included.

*- such as pricing a constant duration mage armor spell effect (2,000 gp) instead of a +4 armor bonus (as bracers of armor +4; 16,000 gp)

[Diego Rossi]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

A ring of sustenance (2,500 gp) or restful quality on armor (such as a haramaki for characters that worry about ASF) allow an additional 4 hours of crafting (out of the 6 hours no longer spent sleeping) in addition to the 4 hours of "during the adventuring day" crafting.

Those 4 hours are only worth 2 hours of work unless you can cast Mage’s Magnificent Mansion, own an Instant fortress, or have other ways to create a safe and not distracting environment.

CRB wrote:

Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress (just as with the adventuring caster).

[Belafon]

All this was said above but I'll summarize the reasons a GM might disallow crafting here.

1) Requires more "paperwork," especially if time has to be tracked vs. in-game deadlines.

2) Can increase player wealth, especially if a large amount of treasure found is in the form of full-sale-price trade goods (diamonds, gold, etc.)

3) Requires GM to reactively decide what is allowed (player wants to craft "X") rather than proactively (you find item "Y"). Depending on the group, this can result in negative feelings.

All the PF1 campaigns I have played or GMed (outside of PFS) allowed crafting. However time spent crafting was time the BBEGs' plans were advancing unchecked. . .

[Azothath]

in response to Belafon
okay - crafting mundane items is way slower than magic items and it has far less of an overall game mechanics effect.

1) I think the expertise required is harder than doing the paperwork. Both for the GM & Player.
It does introduce complexity and details which some people might find boring... Yes - it's those same puzzle haters! lol

2) it increases the effective power of the group and the crafting PC. It's rare where the crafter doesn't fulfill requests from their own party or use said items for party support. Crafters don't go out adventuring on their own.

3) OMGosh, complicated. Some just do random table treasure. Others love to introduce detailed items or plot hooks and *lordy* cursed items. Again, the more detailed & creative GMs play with this and generic folks just give out gold/treasure bundles(lol).

I'm going to add that IF you/your group decide to do crafting, everyone in the party should have some skill or downtime activity. It is kinda a let down if other PCs have to stand about and twiddle their thumbs. This also means each player has to pick a skill and invest in it. The GM has to support them through in game options like businesses and venues where players can exert those skill points and feel a sense of accomplishment.
GMs need to do skill challenges whether or not PCs have invested in Craft/Perform/Profession or Crafting Feats.

[Boomerang Nebula]

I haven’t seen magic item creation derail a campaign so I’m not convinced that it is overpowered.

The only time I’ve considered banning magic item creation is for story reasons, e.g. that kind of magic lore was lost and forgotten and the PCs can find that lore and restore it as part of the overarching campaign storyline.

What I would like to do is go the other way and make magic creation much cheaper and quicker, but with the catch that magic doesn’t last long. The idea being to encourage the PCs to scout, infiltrate or otherwise interact with and understand the location I’ve created before they go blundering around killing everything in sight.

[Matthew Downie]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

First off, magic item crafting does NOT "double the PCs' wealth." What happens is the PCs sell unwanted magic items found during adventures at 50% of market price to craft wanted magic items at 50% of market price.

While a group that doesn't craft has to pay 100% of market price, meaning they only have half as much wealth (except for the magic loot they find that they want to keep, which in a typical adventure path is the minority).

[Matthew Downie]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If you didn't tell your players at character creation that Item Creation feats are banned, or that there likely won't be downtime portions in this campaign where expensive mundane or magic items can be made, then later you impose such restrictions on them, why?

Why didn't you ask during character creation?

There is too much stuff in Pathfinder for a GM to list everything they don't like. They tell their players, no Dazing Spell, no Sacred Geometry, no Chained Summoner, no guns, no Leadership, no Slumber hex. Maybe they forget to mention crafting.

[Temperans]

I don't like the idea of straight up saying "no crafting" or "you wont have a lot of time for crafting". The first is because high level players will just go to a large city and get their stuff anyways. The latter because a lot of it is dependent on what the players want to do when given downtime.

If the party takes 10 days traveling in the road and can craft fast enough there is no issue with crafting outside of potential "need a lab". But that can be done by making your own safe space as your travel.

Having said all that, yeah the reasons for not allowing cantrip all boil down to what type of campaign a GM wants to run and how much they want to focus on found loot vs crafted/purchased loot.

* P.S. I still would never prohibit a person with arcane bond from upgrading their chosen item.

[Dragonchess Player]

Diego Rossi wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

A ring of sustenance (2,500 gp) or restful quality on armor (such as a haramaki for characters that worry about ASF) allow an additional 4 hours of crafting (out of the 6 hours no longer spent sleeping) in addition to the 4 hours of "during the adventuring day" crafting.

Those 4 hours are only worth 2 hours of work unless you can cast Mage’s Magnificent Mansion, own an Instant fortress, or have other ways to create a safe and not distracting environment.

CRB wrote:

Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress (just as with the adventuring caster).

Or a valet familiar. Or just increasing the Spellcraft DC by +5. As I mentioned.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

A valet familiar or adding +5 to the Spellcraft DC allows the full crafting progress for those 8 total hours, as well.

Valet Familiar wrote:

A valet’s master treats the valet as if it had the Cooperative Crafting feat and shares Craft skills and item creation feats with the valet.

Cooperative Crafting wrote:

You provide a +2 circumstance bonus on any Craft or Spellcraft checks related to making an item, and your assistance doubles the gp value of items that can be crafted each day.

Magic Item Creation wrote:

This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5.

[Dragonchess Player]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

First off, magic item crafting does NOT "double the PCs' wealth." What happens is the PCs sell unwanted magic items found during adventures at 50% of market price to craft wanted magic items at 50% of market price.

While a group that doesn't craft has to pay 100% of market price, meaning they only have half as much wealth (except for the magic loot they find that they want to keep, which in a typical adventure path is the minority).

IF the treasure the GM is providing in adventures has so much "trash" that players want to sell all/most of it to purchase other magic items that they would be even coming close to doubling their character wealth with item crafting, that may indicate something. The players' character concepts are probably not being sufficiently supported by the GM.

See again my post:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

...the overall impact is mostly the same as what happens when the GM tailors adventure treasure to suit the PCs.

Simply changing armor and weapon types or substituting magic items of equal market price more suited for your particular group, instead of providing "generic treasure" or falling back on "the AP says" (you have no agency as a GM when running an AP/published adventure outside of PFS? Really?), is basic GM-ing.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

The only thing the crafting feats allow, if the GM keeps track of party wealth when adjusting treasure found in upcoming adventures to keep them close to system expectations, is the ability to have the items they actually want instead of making do with what they can find.

Note that checking PC wealth and adjusting future treasure rewards is (again) basic GM stuff. Not only does this help prevent unbalanced wealth for the party as a whole (for example, if they fight a lot of NPCs they will gain more wealth than expected and if they fight a lot of animals/magical beasts they will gain less), but it also helps prevent unbalances within the party (if you hand out a bunch of magic armor and weapons, the primary arcane casters will probably have lower wealth than the martials).

[Greylurker]

For my games I went with the Unchained rules. For one it sets the cost at 85% as default instead of 50%. It can go lower than that if you do well on the skill checks but that default of 85% keeps the Wealth/Level thing a bit better controlled.
Then I combined it with the Harvesting Trophies rules from Ultimate Wilderness. Players go out and they Get the stuff they need to make the item. Some components work better for specific types of magic so in those cases their value for crafting doubles.

In my current game the Party Druid made himself a Cloak of Resistance +1 out of Barghest Fur and because of one of the challenges it ended up with the Verdant Quirk, so it grew vines of ivy weaved through the cloak.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The idea of an 8-hour workday is a fairly recent idea. Throughout history people usually had a much longer workday. When doing anything you are probably spending 10 to 12 hours active instead of 8. So if you are crafting that means you are working for 14 to 16 hours. Item creation is still hard work, even if the physical demands are not that bad it takes a lot of mental energy. Anyone saying they can work 14 to 16 hours for weeks on end without being burnt out has never actually tried it. Any character trying to craft while adventuring should end up fatigued or exhausted.

The amount of progress you make is half if it is not in a comfortable environment free of distraction. Crafting while adventuring also halves the time. This means that most of the time the character is going to get credit for 1 hour per 4 hours spent.

If the character is traveling on a ship or similar transport where they don’t have to do anything I would allow them to craft, but it would be considered in a distracting environment. Riding a horse where you need to control it would not be allowed. This would be considered downtime, not adventuring.

If a player is taking item creation feats, I will tell them what to expect. For the most part most of my players don’t bother with item creation feats. For the most part I am fairly generous with access to magic items and the players don’t really have trouble getting access to appropriate items. I also use the ABP which further reduces the need to create items.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Why didn't you ask during character creation?

I do. Lots of players don't. In instances where the GM didn't restrict crafting up front but also the players didn't ask... then we fall back on RAW. By RAW, crafting mundane items is a pain in the rear unless you're using the optional rules or houseruling, but also many mundane and even Masterwork items don't really upset the balance of gameplay.

Magic Item crafting though, as others have pointed out above, can be done in tiny increments as ongoing work all the time in the background by RAW. Maybe you only get 2 hours' worth of work in, maybe you get a full 8 during a day of light travel; I don't care. Fact is, there's RAW to cover that. I started this thread b/c the person I was reacting to seemed to indicate that the GM was ignoring RAW and disallowing crafting altogether.

Belafon wrote:

All the PF1 campaigns I have played or GMed (outside of PFS) allowed crafting. However time spent crafting was time the BBEGs' plans were advancing unchecked. . .

So, every single adventure, as it ended, led directly into the next adventure? There was no "well, we destroyed this low level demon, but Lucifer's plans are still on track. We should try to research his next move..."? For that matter, every single villain/adversary the PCs ever faced had no villainous rivals, no scheming upstarts in their ranks, there were no NPCs of the party's general power and skill level, there were no Outsiders like Inevitables or Daemons looking to meddle in their affairs and so on?

For me, I strongly believe in player agency. The RAW others have cited above on magic item crafting exists for a reason. Even if they're only getting a tiny 2 hours' worth of crafting in during an adventuring day, that's still 2 hours by RAW. Me removing that, AFTER the player spent their PC's feat on an Item Creation feat I didn't tell them would be functionally useless in my game, is like saying to them "fine, if you WANT to go down THAT hallway in the dungeon, be my guest... you died."

I want my players' build choices and in-character decisions to have meaning and impact on the campaign. I want the players to be working WITH me to build the narrative of the campaign, and part of that is the pacing. This encompasses crafting, but it includes other personal choices too: Handle Animal to train pets or unique monster allies; creating strongholds in the wilderness; building relationships and truces, even with adversaries.

If the players are just there to take what treasure I give them, buy whatever I allow them to buy, advance my story at my pace, and otherwise follow the direction I lay down for them, I wonder what the point is of having players at my table. This is MY take though; you all have your own games and I'm not trying to point fingers here. This is just how it works for me.

[Diego Rossi]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Or just increasing the Spellcraft DC by +5. As I mentioned.

Actually, no. "This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof ) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5." is part of a way longer paragraph and don't work by itself.

Quote:

The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well lit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing spells is suitable for making items. Creating an item requires 8 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof ), with a minimum of at least 8 hours. Potions and scrolls are an exception to this rule; they can take as little as 2 hours to create (if their base price is 250 gp or less). Scrolls and potions whose base price is more than 250 gp, but less than 1,000 gp, take 8 hours to create, just like any other magic item. The character must spend the gold at the beginning of the construction process. Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day. This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof ) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5.

You advance in your magic item creation by 1,000 gp if you dedicate 4 hours of work in a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well lit place to it. As you can work 8 hours in a day you can get 2,000 gp of work done in a day.

It doesn't double your production speed, that is the shorthand we all tend to use, but it isn't what the rule does, so you can't apply it to working 4 hours in suboptimal conditions.

[Dragonchess Player]

@Mysterious Stranger and Diego Rossi:

So taking one sentence out of context and expanding on it (the non-laboratory conditions) invalidates another sentence of the RAW in your opinion.

Got it. GM-fiat hand waving.

[Dragonchess Player]

Here is the full text from the Magic Item Creation Rules:

Quote:

The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well lit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing spells is suitable for making items. Creating an item requires 8 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof), with a minimum of at least 8 hours. Potions and scrolls are an exception to this rule; they can take as little as 2 hours to create (if their base price is 250 gp or less). Scrolls and potions whose base price is more than 250 gp, but less than 1,000 gp, take 8 hours to create, just like any other magic item. The character must spend the gold at the beginning of the construction process. Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day. This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5.

The caster can work for up to 8 hours each day. He cannot rush the process by working longer each day, but the days need not be consecutive, and the caster can use the rest of his time as he sees fit. If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours’ worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night. If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks. This work is generally done in a controlled environment, where distractions are at a minimum, such as a laboratory or shrine. Work that is performed in a distracting or dangerous environment nets only half the amount of progress (just as with the adventuring caster).

Note that the context of the "work is generally done in a controlled environment" is immediately after "if time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks." It even explicitly states the "distracting or dangerous environment" adjustment is "just as with the adventuring caster" (no, the 2 hours of work "out adventuring" is not halved again). The 4 hours of creation "out adventuring" is in the context of "not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night."

Normal item creation spends 8 hours of work for 1,000 gp of item base price per day. Adding +5 to the Spellcraft DC results in "accelerated" progress of 4 hours of work for 1,000 gp of item base price per day.

Spending 4 hours on item creation "out adventuring" which is "not spent in one continuous period" and and additional "uninterrupted 4-hour block" completed in "a distracting or dangerous environment" totals 8 hours but yields 4 hours worth of work. "Accelerating" the item creation by adding +5 to the Spellcraft DC, that 4 hours of work results in 1,000 gp of item base price per day.

[Mysterious Stranger]

As I said the idea of an 8-hour workday is a modern idea. In games I run the party will typically be active for about 12 hours not counting breaks for meals or rest. Characters also need 8 hours sleep so that puts the hours used up to about 20 hours. Factor in breaks and meals and the character has about 2 hours of unallocated time. Basically, the party keeps going until they would be fatigued.

As for working during breaks and meals that means the character is not resting and or eating properly. This is going to result in the character being fatigued. Item creation like any skilled endeavor requires a lot of concentration and focus, so any character trying to do this on while keeping watch is going to take a big penalty on perception rolls to spot trouble.

The rules use an 8-hour workday as the norm, because that is most players are familiar with. That is not how I run my games and the players are well aware of it. If the players wish to travel slower then there will be consequences. Typically, they will be late for parts of the adventure. At best this usually means the opponents have had more time to prepare. At worst they may fail to achieve their objective.

In all honesty this rarely comes up because it is pretty rare for my players to take item creation feats unless they are part of the class. Typically, about the only item creation feats that are taken are scribe scroll and brew potion. Both of those can be created fairly quickly. I also give a decent amount of downtime between adventures.

[Diego Rossi]

Dragonchess Player, don't mix two posts that say different things. I never said that the four hours that net two hours of work are halved again, I said that the +5 is inapplicable, as it requires 4 uninterrupted hours in a controlled environment. And that is what the rules say.

If we want to be even more precise, it says: "If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours’ worth of work." RAW, if you are out adventuring you can only work for 4 hours and you net only 2 hours of progression, even if you don't need to sleep.

[Dragonchess Player]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

As I said the idea of an 8-hour workday is a modern idea. In games I run the party will typically be active for about 12 hours not counting breaks for meals or rest. Characters also need 8 hours sleep so that puts the hours used up to about 20 hours. Factor in breaks and meals and the character has about 2 hours of unallocated time. Basically, the party keeps going until they would be fatigued.

A ring of sustenance or armor with the restful property reduces the amount of rest from 8 hours per day to only 2 hours. The dedicated 4 hour block (on top of the 4 hours of piecemeal creation during the day) comes from the "extra" 6 hours not spent sleeping.

[Dragonchess Player]

Diego Rossi wrote:

Dragonchess Player, don't mix two posts that say different things. I never said that the four hours that net two hours of work are halved again, I said that the +5 is inapplicable, as it requires 4 uninterrupted hours in a controlled environment. And that is what the rules say.

No, the rules state that "This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof) by increasing the DC to create the item by +5." They do not state it needs to be uninterrupted.

The "uninterrupted" is specifically about dedicating work "if the caster is out adventuring:"

Quote:

If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours’ worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night. If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks.

Again, taking a sentence out of context and using it to invalidate another sentence in the RAW. There is no stated restriction on accelerating the item creation process by adding +5 to the Spellcraft DC. The restriction on solely on dedicating time for creation activities when adventuring (in a different paragraph).

[Derklord]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If you're running a PFS game or just don't want to deal with Item Creation feats so you ban it in your game, fine. That's not what I'm getting at here. If you didn't tell your players at character creation that Item Creation feats are banned, or that there likely won't be downtime portions in this campaign where expensive mundane or magic items can be made, then later you impose such restrictions on them, why?

I don't think anyone was talking about stealth nerfing players. Your opening post makes no mention of this discussion being about after-the-fact prohibitions, and I don't imagine anyone arguing in favor of doing that.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Downtime is boring? Ok, handwave it.

Handwave what, the time required, to make those feats even stronger? Or do you mean handwave the time spend? That's impossible in my campaign, becasue I don't GM a video game-esque campaign where the mosnter sit around doing nothing until the PCs get into aggro range, and the only objective is killing monsters for gold and experience.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Crafting breaks WBL? Give the PCs less wealth

Do you also increase all enemies' AC by 1 when the PCs take Weapon Focus? Because this is basically the same thing, de facto removing what the feat grants. The player paid for a feat that, due to the GM negatively compensating for it, has no benefit (or at least not its main benefit).

Crafting feats are like Leadership - it's not that I can't balance the game around it, it's that they give the PCs something I don't want PCs to have.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Like I said, there are ways to do it, if you're willing to use them.

What's the gain, though? Why do I need item creation? What good does it do? You're describing the GM doign a lot of changes, up to outright breaking the willing suspension of disbelieve in an obvious "it's here because it's a game" plot device, just so... what? The min-maxer can have the exact perfect item that is supposed to be only found in a small area on the other side of the planet? To make the greedy player believe they've found a way to circumvent limitations and get more powerful than intended?

If someone picks up a magic item creation feat because of the cost reduction, so that they can get more magic items than normal, I don't want to enable that. If someone picks up a magic item creation feat because they they don't get that this isn't Diablo/WoW/PoE, and want to wear "best in slot" in every magic item slot, I don't want to enable that.

And if someone only want to pick up a magic item creation feat because they worry about their Witch not being able to find any hexing rods, I can get them what they want without allowing crafting feats.

[Derklord]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Simply changing armor and weapon types or substituting magic items of equal market price more suited for your particular group, instead of providing "generic treasure" or falling back on "the AP says" (you have no agency as a GM when running an AP/published adventure outside of PFS? Really?), is basic GM-ing.

Considering that people generally run published adventures so that they dodn't have to put in the work, you're being rather condescending here.

Meanwhile, your "this is basic GM-ing" solution requires every single enemy with magic gear encountered to wear one of the same 2-3 types of armor, use one of the same 2-3 types of weapons, exclusively use big 6 wondrous items/magic jewelery, and be of the same size as the PCs. How is this supposed to work in somethign like Giantslayer, exactly? You could also only encounter very few enemies using such stuff, as everything but one armor, weapon, belt, etc. per PC inevitably gets sold, in which case your entire argument goes up in smoke.
If that's your idea of good GM-ing, I'm damn glad I don't have to play at your table, because I would puke.

[Temperans]

To be fair with the Giantslayer AP a lot of the magic items according to the rules resize themselves to fit the wearer. Now that is not every items, as given there is an item to resize those that don't resize themselves, but still.

I do agree with your overall point.

[Neriathale]

I like the idea of crafting feats, and I have a character in Jade Regent who crafts equipment for the party. The fact that the magic boots Thog is wearing are the ones Tillie made from the dragon we killed on the polar icecap adds a level of flavour to the game.

Some caveats:
1. There have been limited opportunities to sell magic items we have looted, and even more limited ones to buy new things, so getting hold of the ‘best’ item, or even one that is good for the character has to be done via crafting.
2. The AP involves a lot of travelling and we are using the 2 hours a day approach, so it takes a couple of weeks of game time to make even a small item
3. The roll to make the item uses a craft skill, not Spellcraft, reducing the range of items a character can make.

The real world admin time is negligible because it works out as one item every 3-4 sessions, and then only a single die roll.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Derklord wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If you're running a PFS game or just don't want to deal with Item Creation feats so you ban it in your game, fine. That's not what I'm getting at here. If you didn't tell your players at character creation that Item Creation feats are banned, or that there likely won't be downtime portions in this campaign where expensive mundane or magic items can be made, then later you impose such restrictions on them, why?

I don't think anyone was talking about stealth nerfing players. Your opening post makes no mention of this discussion being about after-the-fact prohibitions, and I don't imagine anyone arguing in favor of doing that.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Downtime is boring? Ok, handwave it.

Handwave what, the time required, to make those feats even stronger? Or do you mean handwave the time spend? That's impossible in my campaign, becasue I don't GM a video game-esque campaign where the mosnter sit around doing nothing until the PCs get into aggro range, and the only objective is killing monsters for gold and experience.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Crafting breaks WBL? Give the PCs less wealth

Do you also increase all enemies' AC by 1 when the PCs take Weapon Focus? Because this is basically the same thing, de facto removing what the feat grants. The player paid for a feat that, due to the GM negatively compensating for it, has no benefit (or at least not its main benefit).

Crafting feats are like Leadership - it's not that I can't balance the game around it, it's that they give the PCs something I don't want PCs to have.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Like I said, there are ways to do it, if you're willing to use them.

What's the gain, though? Why do I need item creation? What good does it do? You're describing the GM doign a lot of changes, up to outright breaking the willing suspension of disbelieve in an obvious "it's here because it's a game" plot device, just so... what? The min-maxer can have the exact perfect item that is supposed to be only found in a...

I understand now why you restrict crafting. I appreciate your response as always Derklord, as well as your candor. Never stop being you.

When I say "handwave it," I'm talking about narrating the Downtime. I still follow the RAW of item crafting in my games; 1 day per 1000 GP of the base cost for creation time. I haven't yet run into situations where the players are cranking out so many items that it becomes disruptive to gameplay but I will admit that after a couple of levels PCs in my games usually end up with a mountain of cheap consumables.

Do you realize, the Cleric Cohort of one of the PCs in my megadungeon game has 32 scrolls of Bless now? He's made so many over his 9 levels that he ended up not using that he's got an accordion file folder JUST for these scrolls! Fear doesn't really affect the APL 11 PCs anymore and a +1 to attack for a minute rarely comes up but just in case... 32 scrolls.

Anyway, yeah, now at APL 11 the PCs are looking to craft expensive rings and armor. 1 item can take, like, 16 days of Downtime. I handwave most of the narration but the PCs still have to deal with the any consequence of hanging around the city for 16 days. If they go off adventuring, the item is still being crafted in 2 hour increments but that's just delaying things further.

Yeah, it takes a bit of work to manage loot drops. If I want to hand out a CR11 pile of loot, the average would be 7k GP. I could normally just drop a 10,000 GP magic item and then a chest with 2000 GP worth of mixed coins and gems, but this might put the PCs over WBL. Normally what I do then is set the average loot drop back by -1 CR. A CR 11 encounter drops 5,540 GP instead. I can still include the 10k GP item, except now the "chest" is a coffer with 540 GP worth of mixed coins and gems.

The Diablo comparison I particularly love. On the one hand, you're suggesting Item Crafting may enable players to load their PC with "best in slot" items while players at my tables expect monsters to turn into piles of gold and items regardless of whether they want to craft items or not. When I reduce the "obvious" loot in a scene, my players get upset.

Treasure in my games isn't always a pile of gold and a magic item. I might have stuff hidden in secret compartments and such, but there might also be furnishings in the scene to make up for the lack of coins and such, an NPC that will pay them for the story rights, broken gear that can be salvaged and repaired and so on.

Point is, I'm already putting a lot of work into treasure. Having the PCs craft their own versus me having to add one more step to make sure the PCs have the RIGHT gear for their characters is a benefit, but mileage may vary.

As for the negative behaviors you reference: greediness, excessive optimization, circumvention of WBL and such... I'm not naive. I get that players like this can and will happen. Thing is, I don't think item crafting is what enables it or acts as the impetus. Players willing to negatively disrupt gameplay with these behaviors are going to do them whether or not they are making magic items.

I can restrict item crafting to motivate them to change; I can also switch to ABP or take other steps but in the end if the player needs to hoard wealth and power to a level where it impacts the campaign, they're going to mine for loopholes and exploits regardless of whatever obstacles are in place.

[PFRPGrognard]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So in another thread a poster made a point about GMs that severely restrict or disallow the crafting of mundane or magic items, or restrict giving the PCs adequate resources or time between adventures to do so. Why?

If a player chooses to put ranks into a Craft skill, or a Profession skill like Baker or Woodcutter that might have some crossover into crafting, or they take an Item Creation feat, chances are they intend their PC to be making stuff. Some classes rely on these functions; a prepared full arcane caster might be under-resourced for spells to cast in a day without scrolls and what is the point of an Alchemist having Fast Alchemy and a portable alchemy kit if they are never allowed to use them?

So what reasons or justifications are we GM's using to prevent PCs from using these skills and abilities? More than that, why don't we WANT them making their own gear?

Mainly because there's always that ONE player that tries to push it too far. I haven't yet disallowed crafting, I just try to not let in players that give me too many red flags. For example, if we're gathering players for a Session Zero, and one player starts talking about how they're going to specialize in crafting and then take leadership so they have minions that can constantly craft while the PC is off adventuring, then you're heading for a whole heap of trouble.

These players often have their own game that they are trying to impose on the Gm and the rest of the players and it's usually best that they find a game conducive to their long term schemes, rather than one with an ongoing story and long term group-oriented goals.

I can see why GMs disallow it, and I try to not follow the same, but like I said, it is best to pay attention to warning signs when building your group.

[Diego Rossi]

Personally, I like crafting because it allows me to make stuff that normally will not be found in the game.

One of the first items I made in Carrion crown was a pair of fingerless gloves for a character that was a Changeling and had a strong complex about her non-human features. Based on Alter Self they had a limited polymorph effect that allowed her to change her claws to normal fingernails and slightly alter her features. The net effect was giving her a +10 to disguise herself as a human while losing the claw attack. There was no bonus to disguising as a different person.
They had a small utility in the adventure, as some Ustalav people are hostile to changelings, but it was more a role-playing gift.

Another thing I like to make are items that help in everyday life, from a bracelet with ornamental beads that cast cantrips to help in house chores to the cloak that turns into a tent that sheds rain and keeps you at a comfortable temperature. Stuf that you normally don't find in battle loot, but that I feel plenty of spellcasters would make, assuming that they have the time and gold.

[Chell Raighn]

To add a little perspective to the discussion from the other thread… in the group I play with, crafting feats arn’t banned, though they are fairly rarely taken outside of free ones from class levels… when we have downtime or are in a town crafting is never really a problem… but when we are out adventuring our GMs tend to disallow crafting in the field… seemingly at random too… one session they have no issues with someone crafting arrows, alchemist fire, potions, or scrolls while camping… the next “you lack the time and/or resources to do that”… personally I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from them as to why they keep doing that.

Both of our main GMs actually hate the core crafting rules, but not for the reasons many tend to ban crafting for… rather they find them to be overly punative and take way too much time… one of them calculated the time to craft an Adamantine Full Plate to something like 8 and a half years… since by the core rules each crafting check represents 1 WEEK of crafting… 8 hours per day crafting, but a check is for a week of progress… its absurd… they run with their own alternate crafting rules that speeds things up ALOT…

[Diego Rossi]

Chell Raighn wrote:

they run with their own alternate crafting rules that speeds things up ALOT…

Maybe that is why allowing or disallowing crafting while adventuring seems random.

It is easy to forget to include something that to you seems evident when explaining a house rule.

I will not allow the crafting of adamantine items on the field, as several sources say that it requires special forges. In the Second darkness AP it was stated that Magnimar had one of the few foundries capable to work adamantine.

Making any metal armor would require plenty of coal, bringing that with you in an adventure would be problematic, and firing a forge will make you very visible.

[zza ni]

to be fair there is a difference between enchanting an item and crafting it with the craft skill.
i do not think one can craft an armor (using craft skill) while adventuring. but enchanting it (using the magic item creation) should be fine as it can be assumed the metal parts were bought as part of the crafting cost. like when enchanting an armor one already require the masterwork armor so that part is not made while adventuring.

[Matthew Downie]

Dragonchess Player wrote:

IF the treasure the GM is providing in adventures has so much "trash" that players want to sell all/most of it to purchase other magic items that they would be even coming close to doubling their character wealth with item crafting, that may indicate something. The players' character concepts are probably not being sufficiently supported by the GM.

That's a valid playstyle, though. I run prewritten material, the players find a ton of magical junk, they sell most of it for half-price, they buy the magic loot they actually want at full price, and that takes them to full WBL because of the generous quantity of gold and 'trash' available.

Assuming shops and NPC crafters are available, this lets the players get the specific gear they want, and doesn't make any extra work for me.

If we add unlimited crafting to this campaign, suddenly the party are way over WBL.

[zza ni]

the thing most people who complain about WBL forget, is that the players 'paid' for that extra wealth. they used up their feats for it. and while wealth can be easily obtained (to some extant, depend on gm and play) feats are limited resources.

the twist is when they craft for the rest of their party. the more character they craft for the 'better' the feat becomes.
but whoever said feats should only be taken for the character alone?
and power multipliers because of more team members is the base of some classes (bard for example) where the more allies they have the better their abilities become.

[OmniMage]

Crafting skills don't yield a whole lot of money, either thru making money or crafting items. The real money is in adventuring. The money you can gain adventuring, especially at later levels, is well beyond what you can make with your normal crafting or profession skills. In that regard, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for adventurers to do their own crafting. Better leave crafting to the professionals. It can be worth the trouble to find skilled craftsmen so they can craft you masterwork gear, or even make expensive gear such as adamantine full plate armor (which will take a long time to craft).

Later, wizards get the fabricate spell which can craft items in an instant. So having crafting skills can be useful then. You probably don't need any crafting skills total raised beyond 10 to craft masterwork items. Alchemy however, needs a total of 15 to craft the most difficult items. You should be able to take 10 when using fabricate to craft items with high degrees of craftsmanship.

Crafting magic items changes things quite a bit. Some say that it doubles your wealth. This is only true if you have a lot of coin or trade goods (which sell at full price). If you are selling magic items (at half price), so you can get the money needed to buy supplies to make new magic items (also at half price), then you are just trading magic items around with no real change in wealth. Though making magic items you want instead of keeping whatever was randomly generated gives you a bit more mileage for your money.

The big reason why to craft your own magic items is the lack of availability. You can't craft magic scrolls, potions, wands, or staves without the right spells, so you need a good class (for spell availability) and a high caster level (for high level spells). Other magic items can be made without needing specific spells, but that raises the spellcraft DC (or crafting skill). The big limiting factor is the item creation feats. If you don't have the appropriate creation feats, then you can't craft magic items of that type. Fortunately, you can share magic item creation feats by working together. So a wizard can help a cleric scribe a scroll of cure light wounds, a bard could help a druid to craft a magic wand, a fighter could even help a wizard craft magic weapons and armor, and so on.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Matthew Downie wrote:

I run prewritten material, the players find a ton of magical junk, they sell most of it for half-price, they buy the magic loot they actually want at full price, and that takes them to full WBL because of the generous quantity of gold and 'trash' available.

Assuming shops and NPC crafters are available, this lets the players get the specific gear they want, and doesn't make any extra work for me.

Do APs or canned adventures always provide a ready source of Settlements for PCs to buy and sell what they need? For that matter, you say "NPC crafters available;" are the PCs off adventuring while the crafting is done back in town, or are they waiting for items to be created, in which case why wouldn't they just craft their own items?

Technically the RAW on Settlements of smaller sizes you're supposed to randomly dice up what few magic items the place has and then if the PCs show up to sell their "trash" there might be limits on what the Settlement can actually afford. If you use that RAW, the PCs might not have what they want available or the PCs might not be able to offload their "trash" until they happen upon a larger Settlement.

I've only played Reign of Winter but there weren't a lot of chances to buy/sell magic items in the 9 levels' worth of play we got through. I also know of the first book of Rise of the Runelords but as I understand it the PCs spend a lot of time around Sandpoint which is a Small Town.

Small Town means PCs can only find 1k GP items to buy and the town's Purchase Limit is 5k GP. I'm guessing from 4th level on the AP assumes the party is traveling to Magnimar to buy/sell stuff? Well, that's what, 50-60 miles away? Until PCs can overland flight or teleport that means a couple days' travel, then buying selling for a day, then a couple days back to Sandpoint right?

In that time a generic PC with an Item Creation feat could have just crafted a 5k GP base cost item.

Again, I don't know how easy/hard it is broadly across all the APs to buy and sell magic items or to have items crafted for you while you adventure. I do know though that if you're not using the RAW to randomize what a Settlement has to offer the PCs, that means that this is another area where the GM is DECIDING whether or not the PCs get to have the gear they want, not the players controlling their own PCs and making decisions for themselves.

[Mysterious Stranger]

It will really come down to the type of campaign the GM is running and how accessible needed items are. If the GM is not giving out the items the players need either as treasure or, being able to purchase that can be a big problem. If the GM is providing the equipment the players need through normal channels crafting is necessary. If the game is using the ABP rules that is going to greatly reduce for crafting.

In the games I run I use the ABP rules because I want magic items to do more than just provide a bonus. I also allow characters to obtain a lot of items between adventures. The last campaign I ran the party was working directly for the church of Sarenrae. The players were all members of the church's hierarchy. So, the church supplied most of what they needed. At the start of each adventure arc the players were allowed to equip themselves according to the wealth by level chart. Any appropriate items they wanted were usually available without too much trouble. At the end of the adventure arc the characters turn over any unneeded items or treasure. This has resulted in a campaign were going after treasure is not really important. The player often gave away most of the treasure they found instead of keeping it. It was kind of refreshing to see the cleric and paladin be more concerned with helping people than accumulating wealth.

In all honesty there is really no reason for the players in my campaigns to take crafting feats except maybe to be able to refresh consumables. In the last campaign none of the characters bothered with crafting feats. Since I also use the background skill option most did take crafting or professional skills, but no one was interested in making mundane items.

If the GM is being stingy on giving out items, I can understand that could make crafting feats more attractive.

[Kasoh]

In most APs, there's usually a convenient city nearby that you can sell to with a little effort. And even if you roll specific items, there's still the 75% rule.

SRD wrote:

The number and types of magic items available in a community depend upon its size. Each community has a base value associated with it (see Table: Available Magic Items or Table: Available Magic Items. There is a 75% chance that any item of that value or lower can be found for sale with little effort in that community.

What I have seen happen is that the prospective purchases the PCs want soon outstrip the availability in those cities.

In Wrath of the Righteous, the rebuilt fortress city of Drezen had a higher than normal purchase limit because the PCs encouraged the economic development, but also because merchants knew that powerful adventurers were gathering there. Even then after a certain point the PCs often had to send their agents to Absalom or Alushinyrra to make the purchases they wanted.

The PCs in my Hell's Rebel's game had Kintargo and Vyre for a time, but eventually they needed an ally who teleported to Absalom for them to get them their +6 belts of physical perfection.

In Mummy's Mask, we eventually had access to Sothis, but in Mummy's Mask we pretty much only sold loot once at the end of a book.

But, once a PC has access to Greater Teleport or knows a friendly outsider who can they tend to do all their shopping in the largest city on the planet or the largest extraplanar city they can get access to.

I imagine few people actually track the purchase limit of settlements. Its one of those things that I wish I would do, but can't be bothered to actually enforce. In most cases, the selling of loot isn't the adventure and you want to get back to the neat bits. One day of downtime working the markets and you've offloaded those 14 suits of +1 Fullplate and 14 +1 Bastard Swords that you looted. Another day to buy 2 or 3 useful items for the party and you're done.