Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zan 09-20-04, 03:31 AM	A 5 lvl artificer has the ability of destroying a magic item to get the XP that were used to make it, so he can then use it to make another item (retain essence). Edit: There's a more broken way of using this and wishes, explained some posts down. At first I thought that, for a party of adventurers, a magic item usually has a selling price of 50% the buying price. So, an artisan could theoretically buy an item for 50% it's value, turn it into it's XP crafting cost and spend it's material cost (50%) to make a different same-priced item and sell it for it's 100% price. Therefore, an artisan can get 1 XP (actually an XP equivalent) for 25gp, or 12.5gp if he pays as a trader. However, with "legendary artisan" or "extraordinary artisan" feats, every time he does this exchange, he gets to win XP and/or money. For example: - buys a 2500 gp item for 1250gp. - turns it into 100 XP. - spends 75XP and 937.5gp in making a 2500gp item. - repeat the above transaction 4 times. - build a 2500gp item with the extra XP he got. for 937.5 gp He spent 9607.5gp and no XP. He got 12500gp in items. Time would be an issue, he'd need 17 days to build it all. However it's easy to build homunculi to craft the things. My problem is, with this kind of benefit, there's little explanation of why aren't cities filled with custom magic item crafting shops, eager to buy any crappy item for half it's selling price, and crafting custom items fast. Is there any miscalculation in this reasoning? I would post this in the Eberron forum, but what I'm looking for is a RAW analysis and I don't think I'd get a non world-tweaking related answer there. I know I can always make my world not have adventurers willing to sell half-priced items and buy custom crafted full priced items, but I hate world mechanics where, for some reason, the player characters follow different rules than everyone else.
malaegoth 09-20-04, 03:51 AM	In Eberron...there are. Seriously, everything I've read about Eberron is that its what a D&D world would really be like with the rules the way they are. Pretty much everything I ever read about it makes it more and more appealing to me.
Neonsamurai 09-20-04, 03:54 AM	Splendid! ;)
Zan 09-20-04, 04:24 AM	In Eberron...there are. Seriously, everything I've read about Eberron is that its what a D&D world would really be like with the rules the way they are. Pretty much everything I ever read about it makes it more and more appealing to me. But with this kind of benefit % I'd offer buying items for 60% it's selling price. Following the example I'd spend 10607.5 gp and get 12500 in customized items. Every 17 days and without even losing character's time. With more homunculi and dealing in higher cost items the benefit would increase exponentially. Are you suggesting that in Eberron there are constructs or simply employees aproaching you as you enter any city and offering to buy any magical item you have for 60% it's value and/or to craft you any item you want for it's full price (or maybe a little less if your a VIP client) in a day/100gp value? I could envision playing an artificer in such a way and retiring him for a year after 5 or 6 lvls only to come back filthy rich.
Zan 09-20-04, 07:53 AM	A more interesting way of using this: - Buy a ring of three wishes. -97950gp - retain essence on it. - use the XP to make items. -198975 gp - produce 397950 gp of magical items. +397950 gp. - profit. 101025 gp. :) And this doesn't even take into account the use of feats.
Bacris 09-20-04, 09:01 AM	Player's Guide to Faerun gives a feat to reduce the cost of item creation to 75% of normal, further breaking this :)
Zan 09-20-04, 09:44 AM	Player's Guide to Faerun gives a feat to reduce the cost of item creation to 75% of normal, further breaking this :) Yeah, but I concurr with those who think taking Legendary artisan and Magical artisan is a bit too cheesy. Anyway it isn't even needed. I'm still making calculations of what's the most cost effective and fast transaction. I would need to find the most XP expensive while gp cheap item; maybe a wand of wishes? :) Of course all this is to have fun while climbing on Caelic's wonderful artificer build (http://boards.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=287275) , as upon reaching lv 14 (Heir of Siberys 2) money would no longer be a problem, only having an army of homunculi.
Fwib 09-20-04, 12:33 PM	xp is only worth 5gp/xp judging by the core rules (added price for xp components etc.) so if you can't get it cheaper than that, less the opportunity cost of the time all this is taking, it isn't worth it. I personally wouldn't even value xp that highly, given how easy it is to get for a typical character. Even with feats to reduce it, I think that the big limitation in crafting magical items is time.
Blade2718 09-20-04, 12:42 PM	There is also a FR regional feat that lets you buy a single item a month for 75% market value, while your sales are at 75% market value instead of 50%. Food for thought.
catharz 09-20-04, 06:00 PM	There is also a FR regional feat that lets you buy a single item a month for 75% market value, while your sales are at 75% market value instead of 50%. Food for thought. This is mad, because it directly relates character power creep to downtime. I mean, you *could* fabricate five billion match sticks, but the 75% 1/month means that the character could theoretically be 25%+ richer in magical items depending on how much down time you get. Which, IMO, is not really how 'down time' is supposed to work.
Zan 09-20-04, 07:00 PM	xp is only worth 5gp/xp judging by the core rules (added price for xp components etc.) so if you can't get it cheaper than that, less the opportunity cost of the time all this is taking, it isn't worth it. I personally wouldn't even value xp that highly, given how easy it is to get for a typical character. Even with feats to reduce it, I think that the big limitation in crafting magical items is time. The problem is that XP is paid 5gp/xp when buying, but an artificer can multiply this xp value. So if a mage only gets 5gp for his xp, there will be an artificer making the other 20gp for nothing. Most time issues are solved with homunculi. So the two biggest limitations on making complete custom sets of items for the entire party have disappeared. I must admit I'm still waiting for one of my usual players to finish preparing our first Eberron campaign, but I don't think the world can reasonably reflect the effects of such people in it.
Zan 09-20-04, 07:03 PM	There is also a FR regional feat that lets you buy a single item a month for 75% market value, while your sales are at 75% market value instead of 50%. Food for thought. I don't think that would change the status quo. After all, in a month's time, adverturers generate much more money than 25% of their biggest allowed item. The above described method can be followed by an artificer who spends very little time supervising the process. So he could possibly have an army of homunculi buinding entire sets of magical inventory for a nation's army. Time matters are very little when fought exponentially.
Blade2718 09-20-04, 08:31 PM	I brought it up because you (well, somebody) wanted to maximize the cost-efficiency of buying an item, deconstructing it, and building new items.
ronyon 09-20-04, 10:27 PM	To me the a signifigant part of an Artificers power is the ability to become a "money changer" for XP.Suddenly there is a way to actually sell raw xp, and so it becomes a comodity. The key is to keep the cost of the trade units low. A 0 level spell that any caster could learn, that would do nothing but cost xp. Like arcane mark, but with the casting cost being say 100. Or better yet, any amount the caster likes. Then create whatever item you can that costs the least in gp. This arrangment is something like paying to have money transfered. Once this is set up, the cottage industry begins. Every hedge wizard, and hearth witch now has a way to sell those usless xp for gold, and also RP reason for the lack of ambition that thier NPC behind exhibit. Think of it as selling blood.It could be a great setup for a " modest proposal" come to life, with the wealthy buying the very life force of the poor. If the artificer can retain the essence of spells with a duration of permanant as well as that of magic items, then we can easily expand the net to siphon from those not gifted with item creation feats. A wonderous item or simple potion would allow anyone to comite months or years of acumulated expirience to the creation of a magical glyph that in turn could be worth thousands of GP.Magical exploitation! Noir enough for yah?
Norad 09-20-04, 10:31 PM	At first I thought that, for a party of adventurers, a magic item usually has a selling price of 50% the buying price. So, an artisan could theoretically buy an item for 50% it's value, turn it into it's XP crafting cost and spend it's material cost (50%) to make a different same-priced item and sell it for it's 100% price. It's worse than that really. Take Magical Artisan for the specific Item Creation feat you intend to use to work this angle and that lowers the gold piece cost by another 25%. Even beyond that, take Mercantile Background at 1st level, now you can sell items at 75% instead of 50%, and 1/month you can buy an item at 75% of market value instead of 100%. Suffice to say, making money seems to be the least of an Artificer's concerns in Eberron. My roommate is playing an Artificer with the Leadership feat, so he has an Artificer cohort who has all the feats to make this combo really hum, which leaves him free to use his feats for more practical purposes.