Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Thorsbjorn 01-27-08, 04:52 AM	The 3rd Ed Unearthed Arcana offers an optional rule giving the characters craft points. A character who crafts an item can remove the crafting time by using craft points equal to the market price divided by 10. (The rule changes only the creation time; the creator must still pay the regular cost in gold and experience.) The rule basically, in non-mechanical terms, assumes that the crafter has been tinkering with the magic item for some time and just puts the finishing touches on it during that one last day. I introduced the rule because my campaign tends to go day by day within the game, and for long stretches takes the PCs away from safe areas where they can just sit down and craft items. The rule works well for us and I regret only that I didn't have it earlier so that my first 3rd Ed campaign could have made use of craft points as well. Every character gets craft points per level equal to 1,000 x level, so that by 20th level a character has acquired 21,000 craft points. Craft feats grant additional craft points, like 500 for Scribe Scroll, 2,500 for Craft Magical Arms and Armor, and 6,000 for Craft Staff. The characters, as some of you know, have reached low epic levels. The wizard PC has reached 22nd level. So far I have just been following the non-epic progression of craft points, so that the 22nd-level wizard got 2,100 more at 21st level and 2,200 more at 22nd level. I have been wondering what to do, however, if he ever takes an epic craft feat. I think he is only one level away from having the ranks in Knowledge (arcana) to learn Craft Epic Wondrous Items. Simply extending the non-epic progression through epic levels will never allow him to speed up the creation of epic magic items. Even crafting, say, horseshoes of the peerless steed without the labor time would take 21,700 craft points, or more than all the craft points earned for the first character 20 levels. One option of course would be to do nothing, and basically just not allow any rapid crafting of epic items, but I have a feeling that such a rule would tend to prevent the crafting of any epic items by the PCs at all. Another option might be to give 10 times as many craft points for epic craft feats as for their non-epic counterparts, so, for instance, 15,000 for Craft Epic Wondrous Items. A third option might be to increase the per-level craft points by a factor of ten as well, so that he would get 21,000 for 21st level and 22,000 for 22nd level. I don't want to allow just essentially infinite creation of non-epic items without any labor time, however, so I might have to allow only 10% of that to go into the reservoir for creating non-epic items. Combining options 2 and 3 would basically allow the crafting of one low epic-level item per level. If the character saved up for several levels and took two crafting feats, he might be able to manage one pricier epic item. Let's say: 21st: 21,000 22nd: 22,000 23rd: 23,000 23rd: 15,000 (Craft Epic Wondrous Items) Total: 73,000 That would allow him, at 23rd level, if he took the first epic craft feat, to, say, create one item with a market value of up to 730,000 gp. He could make one amulet of natural armor +6, or one headband of intellect +8 with about 90,000 gp (9,000 craft points) left over that he couldn't use to make an epic wondrous item until he went up another level because epic wondrous items all cost more than that. It seems like combining options 2 and 3 represents a start, but doesn't really go far enough. Getting Craft Wondrous Items grants the ability to craft without the labor time 15,000 gp worth of wondrous items, which allows quite a number of options, but getting Craft Epic Wondrous Items would allow only the crafting of 150,000 gp worth of epic wondrous items, which means not even the least expensive one. Maybe if I doubled the amount for the craft feats, which in this case would allow the crafting of up to 300,000 gp worth of wondrous items with no crafting time. I could maybe do something like this: Item Granting Craft Points Non-Epic Craft Points Epic Craft Points Epic Level:......................Level times 1,000.....Level times 9,000 Epic Craft Feat:................Non-epic feat x 2.....Non-epic feat x 18 with the stipulation that you can use only non-epic craft points to craft non-epic items, but both non-epic craft points and epic craft points to craft epic items. What do you think?
Taeldrin Laesrash 01-27-08, 12:16 PM	The x10 modifier should work for most things. For the epic creation feats, they probably should give ten times the craft points the ordinary counterpart gives. I'd also recommend an 'Epic Talented Crafter' feat, for an extra 5000 or so skill points.
rob_douglas 01-28-08, 09:28 AM	I haven't played with craft points, but now I am intrigued. This is a nice way to deal with the downtime issues crafters face. I will have to get back to you on what I think is fair. But don't forget to take into account Efficient Item Creation. ROB
Thorsbjorn 01-28-08, 04:56 PM	I haven't played with craft points, but now I am intrigued. This is a nice way to deal with the downtime issues crafters face. I will have to get back to you on what I think is fair. But don't forget to take into account Efficient Item Creation. ROB I would depend on how I ran Efficient Item Creation with regard to craft points. Strictly as written, Efficient Item Creation wouldn't help at all because while it lowers the crafting time by a factor of ten it doesn't change the market price, and craft points work off the market price. It wouldn't be unreasonable, though, to treat Efficient Item Creation as effectively lowering the market price by a factor of 10, or raising the craft point divisor by a factor of 10 to 100. Basically though if I did that but didn't increase the craft points by a factor of 10 per level and 20 per comparable epic craft feat, only someone who had taken efficient item creation could use craft points to quickly make epic items, and I'm not sure that I want to require that feat too for anyone who wants to craft epic items in my campaign. Maybe I could run Efficient Item Creation that way and just increase all the epic craft points by a factor of 10 (instead of 10 and 20). I'm not sure. I was really leaning toward the 10x level/20x comparable craft feat alternative. Hmm.... The x10 modifier should work for most things. For the epic creation feats, they probably should give ten times the craft points the ordinary counterpart gives. I'd also recommend an 'Epic Talented Crafter' feat, for an extra 5000 or so skill points. Thank you for the feedback! Considering that non-epic feats already grant up to 6000 craft points, 5000 seems a little low for an epic feat. I mean I see that you're going off of Talented Crafter, which grants 500 points, but I can't imagine I'd bother to take Epic Talented Crafter for 5000 (or even 10,000) when I could take Craft Epic Wondrous Item for 15,000 (or 30,000), Craft Epic Arms and Armor for 25,000 (or 50,000), and Craft Epic Staff for 60,000 (or 120,000). For that matter though I don't see myself taking the non-epic one either given how few craft points it grants relative to other craft feats, so I suppose I could just allow the epic version as an option, following whichever rule I use (10x or 20x), just in case someone actually wanted to take it. Thanks! :)
Taeldrin Laesrash 01-28-08, 11:32 PM	Thank you for the feedback! Considering that non-epic feats already grant up to 6000 craft points, 5000 seems a little low for an epic feat. I mean I see that you're going off of Talented Crafter, which grants 500 points, but I can't imagine I'd bother to take Epic Talented Crafter for 5000 (or even 10,000) when I could take Craft Epic Wondrous Item for 15,000 (or 30,000), Craft Epic Arms and Armor for 25,000 (or 50,000), and Craft Epic Staff for 60,000 (or 120,000). For that matter though I don't see myself taking the non-epic one either given how few craft points it grants relative to other craft feats, so I suppose I could just allow the epic version as an option, following whichever rule I use (10x or 20x), just in case someone actually wanted to take it. Thanks! :) I see what you mean. It would only be useful after all the epic feats were taken, and by then, your per-level amount would exceed it by far.
rob_douglas 01-30-08, 06:34 PM	The problem with granting x10 Craft points is that not all epic items had their prices inflated by x10. An epic staff is a linear progression from non-epic ones (well, slightly geometric due to increases in caster level x increased spell level due to metamagic). I am not sure what the right solution is, but I think granting x10 craft points at epic will make any epic items that don't grant a bonus (causing the x10 price increase) will become very easy to make, time-wise. Like Rings of Unversal Energy Immunity for instance. OR Rods of Excellent Magic. ROB
Thorsbjorn 01-31-08, 04:52 AM	The problem with granting x10 Craft points is that not all epic items had their prices inflated by x10. An epic staff is a linear progression from non-epic ones (well, slightly geometric due to increases in caster level x increased spell level due to metamagic). I am not sure what the right solution is, but I think granting x10 craft points at epic will make any epic items that don't grant a bonus (causing the x10 price increase) will become very easy to make, time-wise. Like Rings of Unversal Energy Immunity for instance. OR Rods of Excellent Magic. ROB As I mentioned above, the cheapest epic wondrous item would take more craft points to make quickly than the entire total of craft points earned from 1st through 20th levels. The same applies to epic rings, rods and staffs. So raising the amounts by 10 times would be the minimum required realistically to allow the crafting of any of these items quickly. For epic scrolls, however, the market price remains at the low end of even non-epic items (30th-level epic scrolls have a market price of 14,250 gp), so I might simply exclude scrolls from the use of the epic portion of craft points.
rob_douglas 01-31-08, 06:04 PM	I caught that, I just didn't agree with it. Even for 20th level characters, it is clear from the rules that they didn't want to make it easy for you to craft 100,000 gp items quickly. You only gain enough at 20th to craft a 20,000gp item instantly. So your solution is to make 21st level characters able to craft 210,000gp items instantly. That is a huge jump. It doesn't follow from the logic of the craft point system. And it suddenly makes non-epic items trivial. Add to this that Epic items are not even expected to be a part of a characters equipment set until at least 24th level (barring scrolls of course) and this craft point set lets you make a lot of them as soon as you reach that level. What might be better is to have a separate Epic Craft Points that can only be spent on Epic Items. Then you don't have the crossover issue. But I still think the idea is that it takes somewhat less time at Epic, but it should still take some time - even more time than non-epic. Keeping the points the same, but allowing Efficient Item Creation to affect how many Craft Points you need to spend seems to more accurately mimic what is going on here. If you don't take that, you will never get enough Craft points to effectively shorten your Epic crafting time. THe base rules assume that you can't afford to craft more than a couple of epic items in a campaign. And don't forget that others can help and provide their crafting points. If you want to just multiply by 10, go ahead, but I think you will find that the party has a lot more epic items than you would want them to have as a result. ROB
Thorsbjorn 01-31-08, 07:21 PM	I caught that, I just didn't agree with it. Even for 20th level characters, it is clear from the rules that they didn't want to make it easy for you to craft 100,000 gp items quickly. You only gain enough at 20th to craft a 20,000gp item instantly. So your solution is to make 21st level characters able to craft 210,000gp items instantly. That is a huge jump. It doesn't follow from the logic of the craft point system. And it suddenly makes non-epic items trivial. Add to this that Epic items are not even expected to be a part of a characters equipment set until at least 24th level (barring scrolls of course) and this craft point set lets you make a lot of them as soon as you reach that level. What might be better is to have a separate Epic Craft Points that can only be spent on Epic Items. Then you don't have the crossover issue. But I still think the idea is that it takes somewhat less time at Epic, but it should still take some time - even more time than non-epic. Keeping the points the same, but allowing Efficient Item Creation to affect how many Craft Points you need to spend seems to more accurately mimic what is going on here. If you don't take that, you will never get enough Craft points to effectively shorten your Epic crafting time. THe base rules assume that you can't afford to craft more than a couple of epic items in a campaign. And don't forget that others can help and provide their crafting points. If you want to just multiply by 10, go ahead, but I think you will find that the party has a lot more epic items than you would want them to have as a result. ROB I did specifically mention applying the 10x craft points only to epic items (now excluding scrolls). For non-epic items you'd still be limited to the non-epic craft-point progression. And as my example above indicates, a character wouldn't even have an issue with crafting epic items until 24th level. Remember too that the base rules assume that you have substantial periods of "down time" between adventures, that the campaign is episodic in nature rather than, as in my case, largely continuous. So that addresses three of your objections. Once on the 3.5 Revision thread Blue Wizard claimed, as an example, that having epic spells be weak on offensive was good because it required every epic spellcaster to take metagmagic feats to become a good offensive spellcaster at epic levels. Of course I said that that's the very reason why having epic spells be weak on the offensive is bad: it leaves only one path to being a good offensive caster at epic levels. I like the players to have choices, and I like having different paths to similar goals. That allows for more customization and more adaptation of mechanics to support roleplaying rather than roleplaying to support the mechanics. While allowing Efficient Item Creation to apply to craft points too has some merit and appeal, I don't like the fact that it them becomes the only path by which an epic character can quickly make an epic magic item. I like the character to have choices. I'm not dead-set on doing the 10x craft points for epic non-scroll items, but I'm also not sure that using Efficient Item Creation is a better solution. :)
Paladin's Pride 01-31-08, 11:57 PM	the thing I don't like about craft points is that the rate that wealth increases is much quicker than the rate that craft points increase. Your craft points mean alot more at level 5 rather than level 20. For epic I'd say you really need to part with the progression from Unearthed Arcana and come up with one that scales more rapidly, even if you do make use of efficient item creation in the way you described.
Thorsbjorn 02-02-08, 06:04 AM	the thing I don't like about craft points is that the rate that wealth increases is much quicker than the rate that craft points increase. Your craft points mean alot more at level 5 rather than level 20. For epic I'd say you really need to part with the progression from Unearthed Arcana and come up with one that scales more rapidly, even if you do make use of efficient item creation in the way you described. That's why I've suggested the 10x craft points for epic (limiting 9x to epic and allowing the 1x for epic or non-epic) and also why the 10x seems so high to Rob at 21st level. We're comparing the top end of the non-epic to the bottom end of the epic. Sure, at 21st level you'd get enough craft points to craft an item worth 210,000 (assuming you could craft any epic items, which you can't) but at 30th level you're still looking at only 300,000 gp. While 210,000 might look like a lot at 21st level, 300,000 sure doesn't look like a lot at 30th level. Maybe the problem lies in using the same multiplier (100/level) at the non-epic rules, and they would work better if the multiplier scaled up. Maybe at 1st-5th it should remain 100/level, at 6th-10th rise to 133 per level, at 11th-15th go to 166 per level, and then from 16 to 20 go to 200 per level.
BillTheManiac 02-02-08, 06:42 PM	I did a little excel of craft points (total)/character wealth. The value drops precipitously 1-20 (falling to 1/12 of its level 2 value), and continues to do so at epic unless this is changed. To keep it semi-relevant I suggest freezing the ratio at its level 20 value (2.76%), and just multiplying that by wealth gained to get craft points gained. That might still not be enough, if the level 20 value is to o low. You can use the level 2 value (1/3) instead, or anything in between. But only a ratio will keep craft points relevant indefinitely.
rob_douglas 02-04-08, 11:47 AM	I agree with Bill - that would assuage my own concerns. Figuring out what ratio to set would be best. I think they kinda messed up the scaling of Craft Points. They do seem kind of weak after 10th level. What about fixing them at the 11th level ratio, and keeping that? I just didn't have the time and energy to put together the spreadsheet, but since you have it Bill, could you post a table showing craft points keeping the ratio to expected wealth steady from 20th on, and from 11th on? Maybe up to 30th? ROB
Thorsbjorn 02-06-08, 09:16 AM	I agree with Bill - that would assuage my own concerns. Figuring out what ratio to set would be best. I think they kinda messed up the scaling of Craft Points. They do seem kind of weak after 10th level. What about fixing them at the 11th level ratio, and keeping that? I just didn't have the time and energy to put together the spreadsheet, but since you have it Bill, could you post a table showing craft points keeping the ratio to expected wealth steady from 20th on, and from 11th on? Maybe up to 30th? ROB That would be great, Rob! Any chance of it, Bill? Thanks! :) By the way Rob, I just noticed that you're not very far away from me, at least as the crow flies. As the car drives though... :eek:
BillTheManiac 02-06-08, 10:37 AM	That would be great, Rob! Any chance of it, Bill? Thanks! :) By the way Rob, I just noticed that you're not very far away from me, at least as the crow flies. As the car drives though... :eek: too lazy. I don't think I saved my work and don't really feel like doing it again. However, here's the formula: 11th level craft points: 6600 gp. Divide that by 11th level wealth, and multiply by Xth level wealth to get Xth level total craft points. Then you just subtract to see how much is gained each level.
rob_douglas 02-06-08, 11:02 AM	OK. I worked it out. I have the columns for official Craft Points, and scaled Craft Points starting at 11th and 20th level for the scaling. At least this gives a point from which to start discussions: Level Wealth CP %wealth CP11 CP20 1 100 100 100.00% 100 100 2 900 200 22.22% 200 200 3 2700 300 11.11% 300 300 4 5,400 400 7.41% 400 400 5 9,000 500 5.56% 500 500 6 13,000 600 4.62% 600 600 7 19,000 700 3.68% 700 700 8 27,000 800 2.96% 800 800 9 36,000 900 2.50% 900 900 10 49,000 1000 2.04% 1000 1000 11 66,000 1100 1.67% 1100 1100 12 88,000 1200 1.36% 1467 1200 13 110,000 1300 1.18% 1833 1300 14 150,000 1400 0.93% 2500 1400 15 200,000 1500 0.75% 3333 1500 16 260,000 1600 0.62% 4333 1600 17 340,000 1700 0.50% 5667 1700 18 440,000 1800 0.41% 7333 1800 19 580,000 1900 0.33% 9667 1900 20 760,000 2000 0.26% 12667 2000 21 975,000 2100 0.22% 16250 2566 22 1,200,000 2200 0.18% 20000 3158 23 1,500,000 2300 0.15% 25000 3947 24 1,800,000 2400 0.13% 30000 4737 25 2,100,000 2500 0.12% 35000 5526 26 2,500,000 2600 0.10% 41667 6579 27 2,900,000 2700 0.09% 48333 7632 28 3,300,000 2800 0.08% 55000 8684 29 3,800,000 2900 0.08% 63333 10000 30 4,300,000 3000 0.07% 71667 11316 31 4,900,000 3100 0.06% 81667 12895 32 5,600,000 3200 0.06% 93333 14737 33 6,300,000 3300 0.05% 105000 16579 34 7,000,000 3400 0.05% 116667 18421 35 7,900,000 3500 0.04% 131667 20789 36 8,800,000 3600 0.04% 146667 23158 37 9,900,000 3700 0.04% 165000 26053 38 11,000,000 3800 0.03% 183333 28947 39 12,300,000 3900 0.03% 205000 32368 40 13,600,000 4000 0.03% 226667 35789 (And yeah Thors, I am right up the road. :) ) ROB
Paladin's Pride 02-07-08, 12:45 PM	the numbers based off of the level 11 ratio look fair to me. I might just base it off 2% instead of 1.67% to produce nice round numbers, but the column seems to give enough craft points to allow a character to make one or two level appropriate items per level.
rob_douglas 02-07-08, 03:29 PM	I see that, but I don't think the point of Craft Points was to allow 1 or 2 per level, but maybe 1 every 2 levels, or so. In that case, the Level 20 column might be right. I was also talking with one of my players, and we thought, since the stated D&D "sweet spot" is currently level 9-14, maybe it is actually balanced at 14th level, and we should start the scaling at 15th level. Another idea, basing this ability off of the Magic Item Levels from MIC, might be to allow the creation of 1 item of your level-2 per level. But, you could save those up and combine them according to the table on pg 228. So you are 17th level, you get 1-15th level item to craft. If you don't craft it, you have a 15th level "slot". Then at 18th, you get a 16th level slot. You could give up your 15th and 16th for an 18th level slot. Or you could save them and combine them with your 19th level 17th slot to get your a 21st level item.... That works fine from that POV, but is a little tougher when you bring in "assistants" as well as the points you get from a Craft Feat. Maybe when you take the Craft feat, as a bonus, you also get one, level appropriate item, instead of a fixed set of Craft points. Something to think about. E.g. You are 18th level and take Craft Staff - you can also get, for no time cost, but still all the other costs, a 16th level staff along with that feat - Staff of fire, or staff or True resurrection, etc. At 24th level, you take Craft Epic Arms and Armor, and craft a 22nd level arms or armor item - or you can combine that with the 22nd level item you get for 24th level anyway, and craft a 29th level item. A 29th level item is one costing 260K-280K. This may not work as the Item level by price table suffers the same problem - scaling after 20th level is +20K per level, static. ROB
Loren Pechtel 02-08-08, 05:03 PM	I agree with Bill - that would assuage my own concerns. Figuring out what ratio to set would be best. I think they kinda messed up the scaling of Craft Points. They do seem kind of weak after 10th level. What about fixing them at the 11th level ratio, and keeping that? I just didn't have the time and energy to put together the spreadsheet, but since you have it Bill, could you post a table showing craft points keeping the ratio to expected wealth steady from 20th on, and from 11th on? Maybe up to 30th? ROB The problem is actually far more fundamental. The ratio of gp to xp varies considerably over the levels. That's why epic items use a new xp formula--an attempt to patch over the problem. gp increases exponentially, xp increases linearly. There's no way to keep them in sync over a range.
Thorsbjorn 02-11-08, 02:58 AM	The problem is actually far more fundamental. The ratio of gp to xp varies considerably over the levels. That's why epic items use a new xp formula--an attempt to patch over the problem. gp increases exponentially, xp increases linearly. There's no way to keep them in sync over a range. Well then do you have a suggestion with regard to revamping the craft point option? Right now I'm leaning toward just going with the 10x (or 9x) epic craft points idea I had earlier, if nothing else than for simplicity's sake.
Loren Pechtel 02-11-08, 07:48 PM	Well then do you have a suggestion with regard to revamping the craft point option? Right now I'm leaning toward just going with the 10x (or 9x) epic craft points idea I had earlier, if nothing else than for simplicity's sake. I think what really needs to be done is to modify the XP per level and the encounter table. With that fixed the separate rules for epic XP costs go away and craft points can be a simple % of the XP per level. I haven't spent the time to rebuild the offending tables, though.
Thorsbjorn 02-11-08, 11:51 PM	I think what really needs to be done is to modify the XP per level and the encounter table. With that fixed the separate rules for epic XP costs go away and craft points can be a simple % of the XP per level. I haven't spent the time to rebuild the offending tables, though. What do you regard as broken with the experience and encounter tables?
MadPrak_Mark2 02-12-08, 01:01 AM	The sad thing is... crafting doesn't work, and needs a major overhaul.... You could try fixing it with crafting points, but it will likely still be an innane mess.
MadPrak_Mark2 02-12-08, 01:14 AM	What do you regard as broken with the experience and encounter tables? I'd say it's more along the lines of just not-working. The way experience works encourages the pcs to run around beating random monsters into unconsciousness rather than completing quests. Which is fine if your players are all Ravagers, but not if they're actually heros.
Thorsbjorn 02-12-08, 05:02 AM	The sad thing is... crafting doesn't work, and needs a major overhaul.... You could try fixing it with crafting points, but it will likely still be an innane mess. Actually I've been allowing the PCs to use craft points for some time now, and it has worked satisfactorily. It's just that the non-epic craft progression isn't sufficient for the large jump in price that comes with epic items. Edit: I'm thinking of maybe compromising and instead of granting epic craft points equal to 9x non-epic I'm thinking of going with 4x epic. I'm not sure though if that will really be enough points. Maybe I could combine that with making the epic craft feats grant 10x or even 20x (as I initially proposed) so that the epic crafter himself (or herself) has an advantage over the non-craft who simply donates craft points (albeit at a rate of 1 per 2). I'd say it's more along the lines of just not-working. The way experience works encourages the pcs to run around beating random monsters into unconsciousness rather than completing quests. Which is fine if your players are all Ravagers, but not if they're actually heros. I'm not sure, but I think that Loren Pechtel was saying that the experience levels needed for advancement aren't good, rather than arguing with the concept of experience itself. The D&D system has always skewed the game toward killing monsters. In earlier versions of the game we had to kill everything to get experience for it, so if something got away or we showed it mercy we lost out. In 2nd Ed they tried to address the problem by granting experience for characters doing things other than just killing monsters, like opening locks and healing wounds, as well as for role-playing. I'd actually already been giving out roleplaying awards, although I think I started doing it more after 2nd Ed came out. In 3rd Ed emphasizes awarding experience for defeating or overcoming challenges rather than for simply killing monsters, so that finding a way to bypass a guard (finding a secret passage, using a passwall, bribing the guard or sweet-taling the guard) earns you the same experience as knocking the guard out or killing him. I also still award a fair amount of experience for roleplaying, and I give out story completion awards as well. That's why, for instance, I gave the party full experience for paying the tribute demanded by a dragon turtle from their ship while it was on the way to complete a mission in a large port. Paying the dragon turtle kept the ship intact and saved the crew and freed slaves (it was a former pirate galley) so they could all be set free in the port. They ended up paying it 103,000 gold pieces worth of magical treasure, but it showed that they were more willing to make sacrifices of themselves than to sacrifice the innocents on board the ship. Anyway it seems like we're starting to stray from my original topic of how to deal with craft points at epic level. :)
Loren Pechtel 02-12-08, 01:05 PM	What do you regard as broken with the experience and encounter tables? The basic problem is that while everything is based on an assumption of 5gp = 1xp, this doesn't hold. Lets see what we really get: level, xp, gold, ratio of the changes 1: 0/<small> 2: 1000/900, .9 3: 3000/2700, .9 4: 6000/5400, .9 5: 10,000/9,000, .9 6: 15,000/13,000, .8 7: 21,000/19,000, 1 8: 28,000/27,000, 1.14 9: 36,000/36,000, 1.12 10: 45,000/49,000, 1.44 11: 55,000/66,000, 1.7 12: 66,000/88,000, 2 13: 78,000/110,000, 1.83 14: 91,000/150,000, 3.08 15: 105,000/200,000, 3.57 16: 120,000/260,000, 3.75 17: 136,000/340,000, 5 18: 153,000/440,000, 5.88 19: 171,000/580,000, 7.78 20: 190,000/760,000, 9.47 Note that the ratio between xp gained and gold gained varies by a factor of 10 over the first 20 levels. A first-level character should have no problem at all with trading an xp for 5gp (for example, scribing a scroll rather than buying it.) At 20th level, though, this would be an exceedingly bad deal. I believe either the xp or the gp needs to be adjusted to keep the ratio on the right basically constant. gp is tied to so many things but xp is only tied to the encounter table, level advancement and a few spells. Thus I believe it would be easier to change the xp table than the gp.
Thorsbjorn 02-13-08, 12:56 AM	The basic problem is that while everything is based on an assumption of 5gp = 1xp, this doesn't hold. Lets see what we really get: level, xp, gold, ratio of the changes 1: 0/<small> 2: 1000/900, .9 3: 3000/2700, .9 4: 6000/5400, .9 5: 10,000/9,000, .9 6: 15,000/13,000, .8 7: 21,000/19,000, 1 8: 28,000/27,000, 1.14 9: 36,000/36,000, 1.12 10: 45,000/49,000, 1.44 11: 55,000/66,000, 1.7 12: 66,000/88,000, 2 13: 78,000/110,000, 1.83 14: 91,000/150,000, 3.08 15: 105,000/200,000, 3.57 16: 120,000/260,000, 3.75 17: 136,000/340,000, 5 18: 153,000/440,000, 5.88 19: 171,000/580,000, 7.78 20: 190,000/760,000, 9.47 Note that the ratio between xp gained and gold gained varies by a factor of 10 over the first 20 levels. A first-level character should have no problem at all with trading an xp for 5gp (for example, scribing a scroll rather than buying it.) At 20th level, though, this would be an exceedingly bad deal. I believe either the xp or the gp needs to be adjusted to keep the ratio on the right basically constant. gp is tied to so many things but xp is only tied to the encounter table, level advancement and a few spells. Thus I believe it would be easier to change the xp table than the gp. I believe I've heard that 5 gp = 1 xp comment before, but I'm afraid that it's not immediately obvious how the whole system is based on that. In any case I'm not particularly inclined to change the whole experience system of the game just to make sure that they PCs have enough craft points at epic levels to craft a few epic magic items quickly. Just giving them 10x or 5x seems like a workable fix that doesn't require readjusting basics we've been using for more than five years.