Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CelestialBarbarian 03-17-07, 04:08 AM	The Epic Level Handbook contains a variant for cooperative experience point costs when making magic items. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience, either as a DM or a player, with applying this rule to the creation of non-epic magic items and if so how it worked out. Thanks! :)
Seeker95 03-17-07, 07:41 AM	I think most DMs have had experience with it. Just share the xp costs. No "how did this turn out" about it. It works just as easy as if the gold costs were shared. Everybody involved chips in.
Lafing Cat 03-17-07, 08:25 AM	My GM made it its own little spell. Drains EXP points from a willing target and stores them for use in item creation. It's worked fine for using it on party members, since item creation is done in down time, being out 1 more third level slot hasn't been meaningful, and I only have to cast it once per item made (or group of items commissioned by the same character). Not having to spend my own EXP is also the only way I'd be willing to make most magic items for the party, unless it was something specifically that the party *really needed* Like, for example, wands of lesser vigor or something. The GM *has* said I can use it on captured enemies and such (unconscious means willing in this case), but I haven't gotten the opportunity to do so, and am really not sure I want to. It seems... cheesy. Like, artificer cheesy.
runestar 03-17-07, 08:47 AM	I think I have mentioned somewhere else that I am a little against the idea of allowing PCs to share xp for item creation. I have not actually had any in-game experience with this, so any observations are purely hypothetical. I felt that if PCs could share xp, then no actually ends up paying the xp cost at all. Item creation can be very powerful in the appropriate setting, and one of the very few factors limiting its benefits is the fact that crafting items requires xp, which has to be paid by the item creator. As such, this limits the use of such feats since few wizards would be willing to play the role of party mule and stagnate at a particular lv, constantly churning out magic item after item for his other players, and watching them grow higher and higher in lvs while he remains at his relatively low lv. While I can safely say that no mage will be willing to be stuck at a certain lv crafting items to outfit all 5 of his other team-mates, each PC should have little reservations allocating some xp to obtain customized magic gear. This means that players may be potentially accessing more magic gear than what their wealth guidelines may otherwise indicate. If PCs could pay their own xp for magic items which they want, such as a fighter footing the xp bill for adding heavy fortification to his +5fullplate, or a rogue paying xp for his gloves of dex+6, this would mean that all the PCs in the party lose xp at roughly the same rate. Since they stagnate and lv at the same pace, it does not really seem like a penalty at all, since neither is really left behind. I am not sure what degree of impact this might actually have...I suppose there is always the reset button that is disjunction, but then again, I do not think the players deserve to be punished so severely, if at all.:( In theory, this could be spread out amongst the party by having each spellcaster take an item creation feat and specialize in it. For example, the wizard could take craft wondrous item in addition to scribe scroll. The cleric takes craft magic arms and armour, the paladin takes brew potion, the ranger takes craft wand etc...However, the impact is likely to be less. Hope you can make head or tail of my ramblings...:embarrass
CantripN 03-17-07, 09:01 AM	runestar, your argument has merit, but only if you keep sending foes that are fitting for the party's current level, rather than the one they'd have had they not crafted anything. Assuming the are 12th level (XP wise), but made enough items so that they are all at 11th level, just treat their party level as 12.
runestar 03-17-07, 09:08 AM	runestar, your argument has merit, but only if you keep sending foes that are fitting for the party's current level, rather than the one they'd have had they not crafted anything. Assuming the are 12th level (XP wise), but made enough items so that they are all at 11th level, just treat their party level as 12. I was contemplating that point even as I was typing my post. But I was unsure of how a 11th lv party with exceptional gear would stack up to a 12th lv party strengthwise. And lets not forget the way xp is accrued in dnd. While they might be as strong as a lv12th party, they are still treated as lv11 for purposes of gaining xp and lving. This means that a cr12 challenge will be considered a fair challenge to them, but they get more xp from the challenge nonetheless, compared to a 12th lv party. I dunno, but it seems like some sort of vicious cycle...:confused:With better gear, they are able to take on stronger foes than what their EL lets on. This in turn nets them more xp for even more item creation. Which in turn makes them even more powerful, and so on and so forth... Or maybe I am just being paranoid...this option was raised in one of the newer PHB or DMG splatbooks, was it not?:)
Pandaemoni 03-17-07, 09:26 AM	I think most DMs have had experience with it. Just share the xp costs. No "how did this turn out" about it. It works just as easy as if the gold costs were shared. Everybody involved chips in. Outside of Epic level, is that allowed though? I thought you had to use the Transference spell or a similar feat or magic item. (Why even have the that spell if the RAW allows free sharing?) The spell/feat/magic item can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a
Seeker95 03-17-07, 10:15 AM	I was contemplating that point even as I was typing my post. But I was unsure of how a 11th lv party with exceptional gear would stack up to a 12th lv party strengthwise. And lets not forget the way xp is accrued in dnd.Quite well. Voice of experience here. As for accruing experience... If you are crafting encounters based on the party being functionally equivalent to 12th level, then award experience as if the party were 12th level. (I also do this for parties larger than 4 for both crafting encounters and awarding experience.)
Seeker95 03-17-07, 10:17 AM	Outside of Epic level, is that allowed though?Via house rules, anything is allowed, unless you are in an RPGA game. That said, I actually don't allow sharing xp in item creation with one exception: commissioned items made by an NPC require it. (I also seriously limit PC magic item crafting for all items over 2000gp in value. Call it a quirk.)
runestar 03-17-07, 10:30 AM	If you are crafting encounters based on the party being functionally equivalent to 12th level, then award experience as if the party were 12th level. Possible. But would it be fair? It does sound like a viable solution, but will it unfairly screw the party over?
green_yawgmoth 03-17-07, 10:59 AM	Possible. But would it be fair? It does sound like a viable solution, but will it unfairly screw the party over?They're the ones who decided they'd rather have an extra 50% gp value in gear instead of a few extra hp, saves, bab, class features, etc. I'd say it's entirely fair. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Seeker95 03-17-07, 11:14 AM	will it unfairly screw the party over?What would your definition of "screw the party over" be?
Grelin69 03-17-07, 12:59 PM	Maybe just dull the penalty for the creator by having him have to pay half the exp and the group can split the other half. That way the creator still has to be behind the other just not so bad.
CelestialBarbarian 03-17-07, 03:43 PM	I was contemplating that point even as I was typing my post. But I was unsure of how a 11th lv party with exceptional gear would stack up to a 12th lv party strengthwise. And lets not forget the way xp is accrued in dnd. While they might be as strong as a lv12th party, they are still treated as lv11 for purposes of gaining xp and lving. This means that a cr12 challenge will be considered a fair challenge to them, but they get more xp from the challenge nonetheless, compared to a 12th lv party. I dunno, but it seems like some sort of vicious cycle...:confused:With better gear, they are able to take on stronger foes than what their EL lets on. This in turn nets them more xp for even more item creation. Which in turn makes them even more powerful, and so on and so forth... Or maybe I am just being paranoid...this option was raised in one of the newer PHB or DMG splatbooks, was it not?:) I actually had an experience with a vicious cycle based on excessive magical items in one campaign. At the start of the campaign four of our characters from a previous campaign (run by a different DM) appeared in the campaign world of the new DM. Our extra-dimensional spaces (Heward's handy haversacks and bags of holding) ended up containing random items rather than what we'd put into them in the first place because they accessed a new etheral plane (or something to that effect). We ended up with a bunch of better magical and especially psionic items, many of which the dour gnomes of the city on the edge of the desert considered to be ancient artifacts of a long-vanished civilization. So they paid us exhorbitant amounts for the random treasure. Our wizard was able to join the gnomes' wizard guild, and qualify for a guild discount on magic items we purchased from the guild. So we took our exhorbitant amount of money and used it to buy lots of powerful, discounted magic items. As a consquence our party was much more powerful than the average party of our level. Because we were much more powerful than our level would ordinarily indicate, we easily defeated more powerful foes, got much more experience and treasure, and continued to steamroll through everything in our path. We leveled up extremely fast, and added power to our magic items extremely fast too. Once as I recall everyone rose two levels at once, and one or two of the characters who had been close to leveling up before that experience came close to rising three levels. On the flip side, it was great fun. It might very well be the most fun I've ever had in a D&D campaign. So maybe overall it wasn't so bad afterall. Maybe we've all become too worried about munchkinism and have forgotten that the purpose of the game is to have fun. As for Seeker's suggestion of treating the party as higher level, that would require extra record keeping on the part of either the DM or the players. Someone would have to keep track of the total experience earned by each character and then treat the character as having reached whatever level the total experience would produce at a given moment. The DM would also have to take in to account such things as level drains, level loss from raise dead or resurrection, an allowance for "normal" xp spent by a spellcaster to create items, and perhaps xp spent through wishes and miracles for such things as saving the party from a TPK, etc. Without making such allowances the house rule of treating each PC as having attained the level dictated by the PC's total experience before subtractions would unfairly punish PCs under the circumstances to which the allowances apply. I was leaning toward allowing the cooperative experience, rule, but now I'm leaning against it. I don't want to do the extra record keeping or impose it in the players. I'm also torn between not wanting total maximized PCs and recalling how much fun it was to play very powerful PCs. I suspect that a cooperative experience rule wouldn't produce the excessive power level of the campaign I described, however, and it would take some of the onus off of the party's PC wizard and NPC sorcerer to make magic items for the rest. (Mostly the NPC sorcerer makes her own items, and she took the Craft Wondrous Items feat more so that she wouldn't have to wait for the wizard to decide he could afford the xp than to make items for other members of the party. She has, however, made a couple of items for others.)
Daosus 03-17-07, 09:55 PM	There are two issues at work here. The first is that the PCs will be gaining levels quite fast. If that's a problem, then don't use this mechanic. If it isn't a problem, then go ahead and use it. The other problem is that the PCs will have more treasure for their level. And, when they defeat powerful opponents, they will gain more XP and more treasure. Now, I'm only going to say this once, because it's important to keep balance. As dm, you ARE NOT A SLAVE TO RANDOM TREASURE TABLES. There, out of my system. What I mean to say is that if the party has too much treasure, level them up, but give them less treasure. Simple. I mean, you don't HAVE to give them as much treasure, and if they start complaining mention that they're becoming a bit more powerful. Granted, that still hurts the person creating the goods (he's spent a feat), but in return, they get magic items that they want, not randomly generated ones.
runestar 03-17-07, 10:54 PM	Or what if the person donating xp is not able to supply it at a 1:1 rate? If the item creator is supplying the xp, he spends it at a 1:1 rate. But if he wants the party fighter to share in the xp costs, not all the xp the fighter burns goes into item creation? Some might be lost(due to the "inefficiency" of the process), thus requiring him to expend more than what he would normally need to, but still less than if he had crafted it himself. Maybe require them to spend 50% more xp than the sum which they are donating or something? :P What would your definition of "screw the party over" be? I have no idea. I was just wondering if this sort of sanction would end up imposing a greater penalty to them, than the benefits they would reap from their extra gear. We merely want to maintain a level playing field, not penalize them unfairly and unduly.
Seeker95 03-18-07, 08:50 AM	We merely want to maintain a level playing field, not penalize them unfairly and unduly.Slowing experience point advancement is not a penalty. It is a uniform approach. Treating the party as a level lower is fair and equal since it applies to the whole party.
CelestialBarbarian 03-18-07, 08:04 PM	Slowing experience point advancement is not a penalty. It is a uniform approach. Treating the party as a level lower is fair and equal since it applies to the whole party. Do you mean treating them as a level higher?
Seeker95 03-18-07, 08:56 PM	Do you mean treating them as a level higher?Yes. I neglected to link my answer to this post to the original that described my proposed solution. If your 11th level party is outfitted with enough equipment to supply a 12th level party, go ahead and user EL12 encounters, and award experience as if the party were 12th level instead of 11th.
CelestialBarbarian 03-18-07, 09:00 PM	Yes. I neglected to link my answer to this post to the original that described my proposed solution. If your 11th level party is outfitted with enough equipment to supply a 12th level party, go ahead and user EL12 encounters, and award experience as if the party were 12th level instead of 11th. Right. That's what I thought you were saying. I'm assuming that rather than keeping a record of the total experience earned by each character and treating him as the level he would have reached had he not shared experience for making magic items with the crafter, you'd just fly by the seat of your pants in estimating the effective level of the party (or each character, since xp in 3.5 is awarded based on individual character level rather than average party level as in 3.0).
Feroz 03-19-07, 08:11 AM	Yes. I neglected to link my answer to this post to the original that described my proposed solution. If your 11th level party is outfitted with enough equipment to supply a 12th level party, go ahead and user EL12 encounters, and award experience as if the party were 12th level instead of 11th. The question is, how did your party get stuff up to the value of 12th level gear? Unless their rewards are coming in pure cash, they're still going to be pretty close to their own level in magic item wealth, it's just going to be tailored wealth. If they get their wealth in magic items to start with, and they go and sell it, they should only be getting about half value on selling it, and then if they use that to craft what they need, they're just getting back up to what they started with, except in a custom made form instead of a random treasure form.
Seeker95 03-19-07, 08:33 AM	rather than keeping a record of the total experience earned by each character [...], you'd just fly by the seat of your pants in estimating the effective level of the partyYes. this becomes even more accurate in those games I run without experience points!
prophet224 03-19-07, 02:02 PM	Good point Feroz! It seems that there are a few ways to even this out. Item creation just isn't particularly feasible or FUN for the caster when they have to give up not only a feat (or feats) to do it, but time and XP. Transferring evens this out, and allows the players to have FUN by having items that they actually want, rather than the 'Hat of Uber-Flower Making' or whatever might be random treasure. So, A.) Make sure they are selling treasure items for 1/2 price. B.) Use the campaign storyline and world events to limit the downtime. After all, crafting some of these items can take weeks or months... the world is still moving on. It would take a LONG time for one crafter to fully outfit one party, and it would probably take several feats. C.) Give treasure and XP based on your estimation, not the book. As a GM, if you feel the party is overpowered for their level, for whatever reason, start shaving off some XP from the rewards. If they are easily overpowering your adversaries, either the adversaries have to get more powerful or the rewards have to get less. A mature gaming group will understand this.
runestar 03-20-07, 02:07 AM	The question is, how did your party get stuff up to the value of 12th level gear? Unless their rewards are coming in pure cash, they're still going to be pretty close to their own level in magic item wealth, it's just going to be tailored wealth. If they get their wealth in magic items to start with, and they go and sell it, they should only be getting about half value on selling it, and then if they use that to craft what they need, they're just getting back up to what they started with, except in a custom made form instead of a random treasure form. Obviously, if PCs find treasure which they can use, then they are jolly well going to keep it for personal use rather selling it for gold with which to craft items which they can use...;) However, lets assume they find gear which are not suitable for them and sell them on the open market for 1/2 price. They can then opt to either use this money to purchase magic eq which they can use on the market for 100% market price, or craft it at 50% price and the expenditure of some xp. Up to a certain extent, I sure won't mind burning some of my own xp for a discount on my magic gear. I won't always use it, but at least the option is there for when it would be more beneficial for me to do so.:)
CelestialBarbarian 03-20-07, 04:50 AM	Obviously, if PCs find treasure which they can use, then they are jolly well going to keep it for personal use rather selling it for gold with which to craft items which they can use...;) However, lets assume they find gear which are not suitable for them and sell them on the open market for 1/2 price. They can then opt to either use this money to purchase magic eq which they can use on the market for 100% market price, or craft it at 50% price and the expenditure of some xp. Up to a certain extent, I sure won't mind burning some of my own xp for a discount on my magic gear. I won't always use it, but at least the option is there for when it would be more beneficial for me to do so.:) I think that the guy to whom you're responding is missing the point. They get treasure equal in value to 12th level treasure at 11th level by using their experience to make such items instead of leveling up from 11th to 12th. Edit: By the way, I went ahead and allowed some cooperative experience in the last session. One of the PCs raised one of the NPC's weapons from +3 to +5, and the NPC paid 75% of the xp cost. (I used the rule from the ELH requiring the crafter to contribute at least 25%.) Maybe I'm getting soft in my middle age, but I feel sorry for the party's PC wizard having to bear the full xp cost of enhancing almost everyone else's items. (The NPC sorceress enhances most of her own stuff, at least her wondrous items. ) Also the party is so weak compared to the characters of the munkins on the epic boards that I feel a little sorry for them. :D
Zherog 03-20-07, 10:56 AM	The Epic Level Handbook contains a variant for cooperative experience point costs when making magic items. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience, either as a DM or a player, with applying this rule to the creation of non-epic magic items and if so how it worked out. Thanks! :) I allow it - to the extent that if the fighter wants to upgrade his sword from a +1 to a +2, the fighter can pay the entire XP cost. Any character contributing and amount of XP must be present for the entire time the item is being crafted. For example, my party of 5 PCs made a portable hole as "group" treasure. They shared all the costs, including XP. Even though each PC only paid 160 XP out of the 800 XP cost, they all had to be there for the full 20 days it took the party wizard to make the item. This rule will allow a little more magic into the group - especially when different casters pick up different feats. You'll likely see a lot more disposable items (wands, scrolls, potions). Now, for example, if the warrior wants a potion of enlarge person, the wizard doesn't bicker over putting her XP into the item; she just arranges for a day when the warrior is free. In my group, it's also had the interesting side effect of causing them to better plan their "down" time. I typically give them anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months off between "main" adventures. As a group, they've realized that it's important to plan that time out a little more. It used to be, "Yeah, my ranger goes and buys some more arrows then lounges around while the wizard does her thing." Now, the ranger is involved in the downtime, helping to decide what stuff the party makes, what he wants and needs, and so on. We handle it via e-mail, so there's no game time lost to it. That's my experience with it. I've been playing with it this way since 3.0 came out, and I have yet to see any problems caused by it.
Zherog 03-20-07, 11:07 AM	As such, this limits the use of such feats since few wizards would be willing to play the role of party mule and stagnate at a particular lv, constantly churning out magic item after item for his other players, and watching them grow higher and higher in lvs while he remains at his relatively low lv. Good point Feroz! It seems that there are a few ways to even this out. Item creation just isn't particularly feasible or FUN for the caster when they have to give up not only a feat (or feats) to do it, but time and XP. One thing to keep in mind. XP is supposed to be figured out for the individual, not for the group. So let's say you have a party of four PCs. Three of them are 12th level, but the wizard is still 11th level because he crafted some scrolls and wands for himself. They go and take down a CR 12 creature. All of the 12th level characters receive 900 XP (one-quarter the XP award for a 12th level person defeating a CR 12 encounter). The 11th level wizard, however, receives 1167 XP (one-quarter the XP award for an 11th level person defeating a CR 12 encounter). Eventually, the wizard will get pretty close to catching up with the rest of the group.
CelestialBarbarian 03-20-07, 08:05 PM	I allow it - to the extent that if the fighter wants to upgrade his sword from a +1 to a +2, the fighter can pay the entire XP cost. Any character contributing and amount of XP must be present for the entire time the item is being crafted. For example, my party of 5 PCs made a portable hole as "group" treasure. They shared all the costs, including XP. Even though each PC only paid 160 XP out of the 800 XP cost, they all had to be there for the full 20 days it took the party wizard to make the item. This rule will allow a little more magic into the group - especially when different casters pick up different feats. You'll likely see a lot more disposable items (wands, scrolls, potions). Now, for example, if the warrior wants a potion of enlarge person, the wizard doesn't bicker over putting her XP into the item; she just arranges for a day when the warrior is free. In my group, it's also had the interesting side effect of causing them to better plan their "down" time. I typically give them anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months off between "main" adventures. As a group, they've realized that it's important to plan that time out a little more. It used to be, "Yeah, my ranger goes and buys some more arrows then lounges around while the wizard does her thing." Now, the ranger is involved in the downtime, helping to decide what stuff the party makes, what he wants and needs, and so on. We handle it via e-mail, so there's no game time lost to it. That's my experience with it. I've been playing with it this way since 3.0 came out, and I have yet to see any problems caused by it. Hey Zherog! I just came from the OOTS website so it's funny to see your Elan icon here! Anyway, thank you for the thoughtful reply. For the time being at least I'm sticking with the ELH book that requires the crafter to contribute at least 25% of the experience cost. Like you, however, I'm requiring any experience contributors to stay with the crafter for the whole process. I don't have official downtime in my campaign. If the PCs want to go pursue one of the many plots or subplots, thehy can usually do so at any time. If they want to work on magic items or whatever they can do that too. The campaign originally started as a long overland journey, so there really was no downtime and I adopoted the Unearthed Arcana variant of craft points to allow them to make magic items on the move. They still use craft points even now that they've long since both arrived at a city and developed the ability to teleport without error. Occasionally they have a "down" day or two when the wizard copies a spell or two into his spellbook and the other characters might not do that much. They've recently come into about a million gold pieces and the wizard has just taken the Epic Spellcasting feat, so I suspect that for the first time the campaign is going to start experiencing the downtime that's common in other campaigns. Alas that's probably going to leave the other characters with time on their hands since they can't share the experience of developing epic spells.
CelestialBarbarian 03-20-07, 08:06 PM	One thing to keep in mind. XP is supposed to be figured out for the individual, not for the group. So let's say you have a party of four PCs. Three of them are 12th level, but the wizard is still 11th level because he crafted some scrolls and wands for himself. They go and take down a CR 12 creature. All of the 12th level characters receive 900 XP (one-quarter the XP award for a 12th level person defeating a CR 12 encounter). The 11th level wizard, however, receives 1167 XP (one-quarter the XP award for an 11th level person defeating a CR 12 encounter). Eventually, the wizard will get pretty close to catching up with the rest of the group. That's exactly how a group with cooperative experience point costs could end up being more powerful than normal for its level.
Zherog 03-20-07, 09:11 PM	That's exactly how a group with cooperative experience point costs could end up being more powerful than normal for its level. I think it could go either way, really. Under the actual system the wizard can craft all the wondrous items and wands and whatever the group wants, knowing that he won't be lagging behind in XP for very long. On the other hand, with the shared XP system, if everybody is contributing XP to craft magic items, each person is gonna lose a few points; with everybody spending, I would think their XP totals would stay closer together in the long run. Like I said - I've never had a problem with it. One rule I have that I failed to mention: Anybody contributing must be completely willing and doing so of their own free will. So, no charming or dominating creatures to do it for you. ;)
CelestialBarbarian 03-20-07, 09:15 PM	I think it could go either way, really. Under the actual system the wizard can craft all the wondrous items and wands and whatever the group wants, knowing that he won't be lagging behind in XP for very long. On the other hand, with the shared XP system, if everybody is contributing XP to craft magic items, each person is gonna lose a few points; with everybody spending, I would think their XP totals would stay closer together in the long run. Like I said - I've never had a problem with it. One rule I have that I failed to mention: Anybody contributing must be completely willing and doing so of their own free will. So, no charming or dominating creatures to do it for you. ;) Yes, the ELH variant rule specifically states that the contribution must be willing and without any form of coercion, magical or otherwise. I think that's a must-have rule or unscrupulous munchkin players, of whom there are apparently far, far too many, would grossly abuse the variant rule.
runestar 03-20-07, 10:06 PM	Any compulsion or coercion would be more likely to take place in real life, over the gaming table...:P
CelestialBarbarian 03-20-07, 10:16 PM	Any compulsion or coercion would be more likely to take place in real life, over the gaming table...:P That could happen of course, but D&D players tend to be pretty stubborn. Mostly I see silent or most subtle coercion, as where people do evil things around the paladin knowing that nobody wants to be the one to start the argument. For the same reason though, it's less likely that someone will demand that the others contribute xp. I think mostly that this would be used by PCs very willing to contribute to xp to get the crafters to enchant or further enhance their magic items. As a player who rarely plays the crafter, I'd be happy to have this rule to allow my characters to contribute the experience, or at least the majority of the experience (25% minimum crafter contribution rule in ELH) to get someone to make or improve items for my characters.