Post/Author/DateTime	Post
00_Whupass 05-31-06, 03:07 PM	Some of you may have seen the other thread I recently started on this board regarding the reprocussions of removing prepared casters from the game and replacing them with spontaneous counterparts (Wizard replaced by Sorcrer, Druid by Spirit Shaman, Cleric by Favored soul). One of the things pointed out was the effect the reduced spells known list would have on types and number of items crafted in the setting. At the same time another poster had created a thread on the magic and spells board about how to handle magic items after removing all casters from his game, and while our problems weren't the same they certianly dovetailed well. In that thread it was proposed that magical items be crafted by exceptionally skilled, but otherwise mundane craftsmen investing years worth of work, rather than by spell casters. I like this very much as it creates the more Tolkienesque feel I wanted to create in my new setting regarding magical items. So here is the system that I proposed after thinking on the comments in both threads: Crafting Magic Items no longer has an XP cost The craftsman must still pay 1/2 the items market price for raw materials Item crafting feats no longer have caster level prerequisites Instead item crafting feats require a minimum number of ranks in the relevant craft skill to keep the minimum level the feat can be selected the same i.e. Brew Potion requires 5 ranks in Craft (Alchemy) while Craft Magic Arms requires 8 ranks in Craft (weaponsmith) etc. Like the masterwork component of masterwork items the magical component requires a separate craft check at a different DC Progress crafting the magical component takes twice as long as crafting its nonmagical counterparts. Progress checks are made weekly and the amount of progress made equals (Check result*DC)/2 in Silver Pieces The DC to craft the magical component depends on the type of magical item created (listed in the text of the relevent item crafting feat) and the Highest level spell being emulated by the crafter. Right now I'm operating under the assumption that the DC equals 15+prerequisite ranks for the relevant item crafting feat+the highest spell level to be emulated by the crafter. Therefore the Craft (Alchemy) DC to craft a potion of cure light wounds is 21 (15+5(minimum ranks for Brew Potion)+1(spell level of CLW) Using these guidelines and assuming the craftsman makes the minimum check result required to make progress on the item it takes 2 1/4 weeks to create a potion of cure light wounds, or 1 year 7 months and 3 weeks to create a +1 long sword, or 2 years 4 months to create a +2 stat item. This keeps item crafting alive and well in the setting but removes it from the purview of PCs, and creates the sort of legendary, epic feel I was going for, where Bevin Bjorn, a weaponsmith, might spend decades crafting a a +5 vorpal sword for the monarch and on his death bed hands off work on the project to his son, who finishes the weapon twenty years later (total time for a +5 vorpal sword in this system is 85 years 3 months) and names it "Bevin's Beheader" after his father who made it his lifes work. I also like that this means that it would be extremely unlikely for the same person to craft both a +1 longsword and Gloves of Dexterity, since it is unlikely that the craftsman will have 8 ranks in Craft (weaponsmith) and Craft Magic Arms while also having 6 ranks in Craft (Tailor) and Craft Wonderous Item, required to qualify to make both items. Would anyone like to offer feedback?
Zyphus 05-31-06, 04:13 PM	I'm thinking of a simpler, similar system. Only 3 feats - Create Minor Magic Item, Create Moderate Magic Item, and Create Major Magic Item. Minor - up to +3 enchantment/3rd level spells Moderate - up to +6 enchantment/6th level spells Major - up to +10 enchantment/9th level spells The DC to make something is Caster Level + Spell Level plus some base. Haven't decided what the base should be yet. You need caster level for wands of magic missile that fire more than one missile, etc. Right now I set DC 25 for Masterwork anything, so a base of 20 feels right, but needs testing. I might up it to 25 and allow complementary skill bonuses from Spellcraft and Knowledge skills. If you only do so many silver pieces per week, you will not finish anything in a reasonable amount of time. Even 30 * 30 / 2 silver = 45 gold for the week. You should be able to do at least 100 gold worth per day (and brew potions in batches). The standard is 1000 gold per day, and doing less than a tenth of that should frustrate players. 85 years for one sword? Over a year is enough to keep most players from even trying, especially if you can't be disturbed the whole time. If you allow them to put it off and do it in parts, well, you'd have to if it takes generations anyway. If it takes too long for PCs to do its easier to just rule the players can't do it. The only problem with the system if there is no xp cost is spellcasters could load up on tons of scrolls. But only if you have weeks or months of downtime.
00_Whupass 05-31-06, 04:37 PM	I'm thinking of a simpler, similar system. Only 3 feats - Create Minor Magic Item, Create Moderate Magic Item, and Create Major Magic Item. Minor - up to +3 enchantment/3rd level spells Moderate - up to +6 enchantment/6th level spells Major - up to +10 enchantment/9th level spells The DC to make something is Caster Level + Spell Level plus some base. Haven't decided what the base should be yet. You need caster level for wands of magic missile that fire more than one missile, etc. Right now I set DC 25 for Masterwork anything, so a base of 20 feels right, but needs testing. I might up it to 25 and allow complementary skill bonuses from Spellcraft and Knowledge skills. If you only do so many silver pieces per week, you will not finish anything in a reasonable amount of time. Even 30 * 30 / 2 silver = 45 gold for the week. You should be able to do at least 100 gold worth per day (and brew potions in batches). The standard is 1000 gold per day, and doing less than a tenth of that should frustrate players. 85 years for one sword? Over a year is enough to keep most players from even trying, especially if you can't be disturbed the whole time. If you allow them to put it off and do it in parts, well, you'd have to if it takes generations anyway. If it takes too long for PCs to do its easier to just rule the players can't do it. The only problem with the system if there is no xp cost is spellcasters could load up on tons of scrolls. But only if you have weeks or months of downtime. First a note on flavor. Think about the frequency of magic items in The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings, there's fewer than two dozen encountered by the fellowship in the whole the trillogy, and each and every one they encounter has a name and a story and people who care about it. Thats the kind of feeling I want to create. One of the greatest wars in the history of the human kingdoms of my setting was fought because the Emperor of Etrus feared and envied the +1 flaming long sword "Smolderblaze" that was passed down the line of Korusian Kings Ok addressing your specific concerns in reverse order. Scrolls: Not a concern in my specific setting since they do not exist. IMC magic is entirely beyond mortal understanding and cannot be recorded in writing or expressed in words, this is also where there are no wizards, since they rely on an intellectual understanding of magic, which is impossible in this world. But in more traditional settings you would be absolutely correct. I'm not entirely certain yet but I may likewise eliminate wands and rods, or continue to use the existing or slightly modified rules for these. Crafting Speed: This system certainly isn't written with the players in mind, I don't expect them to craft anything since crafting isn't suited to an adventurers lifestyle. Crafting is a sedentary activity investing weeks, months, or even years into your craft which doesn't leave time for adventuring. Where did you come up with the standard being 1000gp per day? The standard for the Craft skill is Check result*DC in silver per day, in order to get 1000gp/day you would need a check result of 100, and a DC of 100, certainly not possibly until epic levels, furthermore since it should be more difficult to craft magical items than mundane items I halved that standard to (Check*DC)/2 silver. Even if I rule that players can't do it, which this rule does implicitly if not explicitly, I still need rules to justify how my NPCs do it and thats what this system is for. This way if a player wants an item he would have to find a suitably skilled craftsman and commision it, these rules allow me to tell the player when he can come back and pick up his goods. Also note that this system doesn't require the craftsman to have any magical ability. In this setting its not that there are wizards sitting away in towers enchanting swords, its that there's some old crumdgeony swordsmith who's just so good at his trade that the blades he produces are supernaturally endowed.
Zyphus 06-01-06, 08:30 AM	Even if I rule that players can't do it, which this rule does implicitly if not explicitly, I still need rules to justify how my NPCs do it and thats what this system is for. This way if a player wants an item he would have to find a suitably skilled craftsman and commision it, these rules allow me to tell the player when he can come back and pick up his goods. But odds are they can find a "new" one much faster than commission one. It is much simpler to say "magic items take a long, long, time - about bonus squared years". This gives you a lot of room to work in, and the +5 item can still be done in about one generation - or much "faster" if a dwarf or elf. Most goblinoids would have to pass magic items generation to generation. I like low magic campaigns, but with magic this low you need fairly mundane opponents all the time too. For LotR it works - one dragon, one balrog, and lots of goblins, orcs, and spiders with the rare troll or wizard.
Cheza 06-01-06, 11:11 AM	@ 00_Whupass Crafting Magic Items no longer has an XP cost Are you sure? This would reduce the price of all magical weapons to 1/2 for the crafting character. So if you don't like the XP cost for magical items, just give your spellcaster bonus roleplaying XP for creating useful items. But I wouldn't cut the price you have to pay for a selfmade item. Ever thought about a XP <-> gold trade??? I allow my characters to bestow money or to "train" their skills to get some XP. My players can spend XP to get some money too. It's more or less a regular profession. So the ranks in your profession skill are important for the efficiency of this trade. I got this idea when I looked at the prices for the spell XP component. The DMG suggests a 5gp per xp trade. And 1/25 xp to "cut the price" to 1/2 means 1 XP is worth 12.5 gp. Instead item crafting feats require a minimum number of ranks in the relevant craft skill to keep the minimum level the feat can be selected the same i.e. Brew Potion requires 5 ranks in Craft (Alchemy) while Craft Magic Arms requires 8 ranks in Craft (weaponsmith) etc. Your spellcasters would have much more problemson creating magical items. A bow needs craft(bowmaking) and a weapon needs craft(weaponsmith). And what do you do with wonderous items? In my oppinion the base attack bonus and the caster level are summed up skills. Many other roleplaying games have skills like "axes, bows, ..." or simple "melee weapons". So what's the consequence? Powergamers maximizes 1 skill and ignore the rest. D&D in contrast summed it up to prevent that. You can however choose a favorite weapon and focus on it. It's the same with the "caster level" value. It represents a summed up list of skills - maybe all different schools (abjuration, divination, ...). So any caster level prerequisites represents a skill rank perrequisites. So in my eyes the main difference is the skill you need to create a magical device? Do you really think it's that much important how wel you can craft a weapon?? I think it's much more important to have a high level in magical know-how... and this is represented by the caster level.
00_Whupass 06-01-06, 01:30 PM	@ 00_Whupass Are you sure? This would reduce the price of all magical weapons to 1/2 for the crafting character. So if you don't like the XP cost for magical items, just give your spellcaster bonus roleplaying XP for creating useful items. But I wouldn't cut the price you have to pay for a selfmade item. I think you miss my point, I can't imagine a PC who wants to take this amount of time off from adventuring to craft items, this really isn't a system in which the PCs can make magical items. Techinically its possible, but clearly suboptimal. In the normal system the XP cost for the item represents an opportunity cost to create it (You could make the gauntlets of ogre power, or you could keep that XP and earn your next level a little sooner). In the proposed system this opportunity cost is the time invested in creating the item. If the average PC has four encounters of appropriate CR per adventuring day and it takes 13.5 encounters per level the average PC will level up once every 3 or 4 days, contrarily the person crafting in this new system won't adventure while their crafting thereby not gaining XP, this represents the opportunity cost in the new system. Ever thought about a XP <-> gold trade??? I allow my characters to bestow money or to "train" their skills to get some XP. My players can spend XP to get some money too. It's more or less a regular profession. So the ranks in your profession skill are important for the efficiency of this trade. I got this idea when I looked at the prices for the spell XP component. The DMG suggests a 5gp per xp trade. And 1/25 xp to "cut the price" to 1/2 means 1 XP is worth 12.5 gp. Your spellcasters would have much more problemson creating magical items. A bow needs craft(bowmaking) and a weapon needs craft(weaponsmith). And what do you do with wonderous items? Spellcasters won't be making magic items under this new system, most magical items will be made by individuals with levels in the expert class, who will each only make a single type of item. If you want a cloak of charisma you would have to find a skilled tailor whereas if you wanted a pearl of power you would have to find a skilled jeweler, different skills are required to create different items. In my oppinion the base attack bonus and the caster level are summed up skills. Many other roleplaying games have skills like "axes, bows, ..." or simple "melee weapons". So what's the consequence? Powergamers maximizes 1 skill and ignore the rest. D&D in contrast summed it up to prevent that. You can however choose a favorite weapon and focus on it. Here I agree with you completely. It's the same with the "caster level" value. It represents a summed up list of skills - maybe all different schools (abjuration, divination, ...). So any caster level prerequisites represents a skill rank perrequisites. Again we are in agreement So in my eyes the main difference is the skill you need to create a magical device? Do you really think it's that much important how wel you can craft a weapon?? I think it's much more important to have a high level in magical know-how... and this is represented by the caster level.Here is where the flavor I'm creating in my campaign setting differs from both the D&D norm and what you're saying. In this world it is Entirely how well you craft the item that matters, magical knowledge is completely irrelevant. I hope that helps to clairify my aim with this system But odds are they can find a "new" one much faster than commission one. It is much simpler to say "magic items take a long, long, time - about bonus squared years". This gives you a lot of room to work in, and the +5 item can still be done in about one generation - or much "faster" if a dwarf or elf. Most goblinoids would have to pass magic items generation to generation. I like low magic campaigns, but with magic this low you need fairly mundane opponents all the time too. For LotR it works - one dragon, one balrog, and lots of goblins, orcs, and spiders with the rare troll or wizard. I'm not sure if I'm really looking for a low magic setting, which is entirely why I'm allowing non-casters to create magic items. This setting has been completly without magic for thousands of years, and only in the last hundred has magic resurfaced. Therefore if only casters could create magic items there just wouldn't be very many, since only a small percentage of the population has any magical apptitude and those few only surfaced within the last hundred years little magic would exist. Contrarily if mundane craftsman who invest themselves into the long process of creating something of great beauty and function are able to create something beyond just a masterwork item, it opens up and actually increases the availability of magic items in the setting. After a little bit of thought I've decided that half progress on magic items doesn't really make sense. The increased time it takes to craft magical items is already covered in the exponentially increasing base prices. Therefore all the numbers I calculated earlier in the thread should be halved: 1 week 1 day for a potion of CLW, 9 months 3 weeks for a +1 longsword, and 42 years 7 months for the +5 vorpal Long sword (a +10 equivilent). Also note that as with all uses of the craft skill you can voluntarily increase the DC in increments of 10 to craft the item more quickly.
Cheza 06-01-06, 03:35 PM	I think you miss my point, I can't imagine a PC who wants to take this amount of time off from adventuring to craft items, this really isn't a system in which the PCs can make magical items. Techinically its possible, but clearly suboptimal. It's surely a question of game style. In my game it's nothing special if the players rest for a month or two until they go on the next adventure. Finding a trustworthy treasure map f.e. could be a very time-consuming mission. I can't just say "You have saved the world today, but tomorrow another king will need your help! So have a good rest" If the average PC has four encounters of appropriate CR per adventuring day and it takes 13.5 encounters per level the average PC will level up once every 3 or 4 days, contrarily the person crafting in this new system won't adventure while their crafting thereby not gaining XP, this represents the opportunity cost in the new system. That never ever happened in our group. Maybe I play this game a little bit different, but I don't send them 4 or more ogres a day, just because they are at the adequate level. Let's say, the have lvl 9. This means, they will have to kill a Fire elemental, a 8 headed pyro-hydra, a salamander noble AND Yrthak day by day!!! Sorry, but if you play your monsters right, they can be happy if noone dies during the battle. The hydra for example could deal 24d6 damage 88x3d6). Our wizard has 9d4+9 Hitpoints and with 31 he isn't that bad. It could toast him instantly. Sure, he can be invisible or could fly out of range, but the hydra could "play" tricky too. It could just defend or "retreat" until it could use the breath attack again. You can place her on top of a underground plateau, so your adventurers need to climb up. It's very hard, if you don't have a cleric in your group... potions aren't cheap. And if you give them "human" enemies, you'll be surprised how wealthy they get, if you send them 4 enemies per day. Most of the time, my characters spend their spells for "adventuring" quests. The cleric will have a true seeing memorized, without assurance that he'll need it. He needs to cast several healing spells, if someone falls from a narrow plateau or stepped into a trap. A druid will use his Wild shape ability to become a snake to slide trough a narrow passage. The wizard will cast a fly spell to get to the secret level to open a hidden passage. Or maybe a invisibility on the rogue, so that she gets to the watchtowers door unseen by the guards, so that they can't alarm the entire camp. So let's say you want to skip the XP cost. You should take the full price and reduce it by a certain amount per day of crafting (see the description in the PHB). Just reducing excluding XP cost for an increament of time wouldn't stop MY players from creating magical items. By the way, your population would be very wealthy, because high craft skills ain't that seldom, so crafting one sword after another would get you perhaps a little more than 1gp. a day. :cool:
00_Whupass 06-01-06, 04:56 PM	Well, you and I have different play styles, which is cool, but I'm surprised at characters who would take that kind of time. I understand a month or two, which would be enough to craft half a dozen CLW potions if you were so inclinded, but years of downtime between adventures? Any item with a base price of 3000gp will take over a year to craft using this system, and while I don't keep my PCs on a whirlwind pace where they jump from one adventure to another after a nights rest I also don't give them years between adventures. As you said its an issue of playstyle. I don't always use four encounters a day either, but its the standard recommended by the DMG, and I find that one encounter of a higher CR is not the same as multiple challenges of lesser CR. Besides this is irrelevant to my point which was the amount of experiance a character could gain by spending his time adventuring rather than crafting, which constitutes the opportunity cost of making the item. A single high CR encounter yeilds comperable XP to multiple lower CR encounters so the total XP loss for crafting vs adventuring is comperable. As to the wealth of my worlds population and the frequency of high craft skills, those are both world specific concerns that can differ wildly from one campaign to another. As far as the wealth of craftsman doing this please consider the following economic excersize: If the Total variable cost (labor & Materials, ie someone to work the belows, someone to keep the forge running, fuel for the forge, a shopkeep to tend to the day to day operations of the smithy) to craft a +1 longsword is 1,157gp 5sp for materials and 411gp for labor (3 laborers@5sp/day for 294 days) and the fixed cost to rent the capital necessary for construction (Forge, Belows, Anvil, Hammer, storefront, etc.) is 50gp/month, so 475gp for the 9 months 2 weeks to make the item then the Total cost to produce the +1 longsword is 2043.5gp which at a market price of 2315gp for the +1 longsword represents an accounting profit of 271.5gp which translates to 0.9234gp/day for the business owner slightly less than 1gp/day. These numbers were somewhat arbitrary but they do reflect the economic reality of the types of costs associated with any production plant. Also note that I used half the 1gp/day labor cost you perscribed. If I use the full cost to detirmine things, as you suggest then the total cost for smith trying to produce a longsword is 3201gp, which amounts to an accounting loss of 886gp per unit, which is well greater than the point at which the law of the shutdown decision applies, and such a smith would go out of business rather quickly. As for the number of crafsman with the requisite skills to do this remember that the Prerequisite to take Craft Magic Arms is Craft (Weaponsmithing) 8 ranks, therefore in order to do this at all the NPC must be at least 5th level. Furthermore at 5th level with a 12 int (slightly above average) the smith would have a craft check bonus of +9, against a DC 23 (which I still haven't finalized, but is my current estimate) he would have to roll at least a 14 to make progress towards completing the item and would actually lose progress towards completion on any roll less than 10. In order to be reliably successful(success when taking 10) the NPC would need to be at least 9th level. I think this is above most campaign's mean NPC level.
Cheza 06-01-06, 06:08 PM	I must apologize. I misunderstood your time calculation (to be able to read could be of importance! :D ) I use the 3.0 craft rules, so a DC x check result = money per week. Since you can take 10, any mid-level Smith (lvl 10) will get a 25-30 Bonus on his roll 13 skill ranks + 3 ability + 3 skill focus + 2 masterwork tool + 5-10 skill-bonus from magical sources (ability/skill enhancement, luck bonus, etc) I'm operating under the assumption that the DC equals 15+prerequisite ranks for the relevant item crafting feat+the highest spell level to be emulated by the crafter. So you can achieve up to 40 on a check. If the DC is 20, this will be 80gp. a week. So any good smith can create a magical longsword within 12-13 weeks. (I didn't saw the "twice as long" text passage, which will increase the time to 24-26 weeks)
00_Whupass 06-01-06, 06:48 PM	I must apologize. I misunderstood your time calculation (to be able to read could be of importance! :D ) I use the 3.0 craft rules, so a DC x check result = money per week. Since you can take 10, any mid-level Smith (lvl 10) will get a 25-30 Bonus on his roll 13 skill ranks + 3 ability + 3 skill focus + 2 masterwork tool + 5-10 skill-bonus from magical sources (ability/skill enhancement, luck bonus, etc) So you can achieve up to 40 on a check. If the DC is 20, this will be 80gp. a week. So any good smith can create a magical longsword within 12-13 weeks. (I didn't saw the "twice as long" text passage, which will increase the time to 24-26 weeks) Your example smith would produce 80gp worth of progress per week, however that still amounts to 25 weeks for the magical part of a +1 sword 2000/80=25, if I use the doubling rule (which I questioned using in a later post) that makes 50 weeks.
Archangel62 06-01-06, 11:59 PM	What about doing this while also implementing the craft point rules, it might help things out... or at least make certain craftings more manageable.