House rule on crafting, need advice. [Archive] - Wizards Community

House rule on crafting, need advice. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
darkeness
06-25-07, 02:13 PM I dislike the way the system uses Xp to create magic items. It distorts the whole wealth by level system. To fix this I am trying this system instead. Constructive opinions and suggestions would be appreciated.

All casters get a spell/crafting Xp pool that they may feed by draining magic items, much like the artificer from the Ebberon setting. Unlike the Artificier, this pool does not empty when the character gains a new level. A caster may drain any magic item and recieve Xp for their pool equal to 1/25 the base cost of the magic item. This Xp may be used for spells with an experience point cost or to craft other magic items. No longer will a caster loose xp for crafting items.

- Any caster that has a magic item crafting feat gains free xp on each level up. The number of Xp gained is 10 x new level x number of crafting feats. Should a caster gain a crafting feat due to leveling up the Xp will be 10 x the level the feat was aquired at. This means wizards automaticly start with 10 xp in their craft pool since they have the scribe scroll feat.

- For casters that start the game above first level, their craft pool xp will be 10 x current level x number of feats. It will be assumed that the xp from previous levels will have been used to craft other items earlier in their carrer. and they may spend their gold & XP accordingly to create items in the pregame.

- Spell requiring an Xp cost will be paid for using this pool as well and if the caster does not have the required Xp he/she can not cast the spell.

Using this system a caster can not up their power, lag behind the rest of the party in levels and then use the "catch up" ability of the Xp system to their advantage.

I am also considering changing the ritual so that a caster can simply use gold as well as magic items to get Xp for their crafting/casting pool, 25 gp = 1 XP.

We have been doing a little discusion on this sytem here (http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1890&start=60). It is a long a convulted thread with several subjects so it may take some reading to find the correct discusion.

I will post a few relevent parts below for ease of reading.

Lets say I have my character, lvl 4 cleric Darren with 1 craft feat. I have 40 craft XP due to:
4th level x 1 feat x 10= 40. So, upon reaching 5th level, I gain 5 x 1 x 10= 50, for a total of 90? Correct?

Then, at 6th level, I pick up the Craft Arms and Armor feat. Which gives me:
6 x 2 x 10= 120 new points, for a total of 170 craft XP? Then
7 x 2 x 10= 140 + 170= 310 total and
8 x 2 x 10= 160 + 310= 470 total and then...

At 9th level, I grab Craft Wand, which leads to:
9 x 3 x 10= 270 + 470= 740 total. Correct?

If that's the case, I did miss a vital part here. Your reasons for doing so are perfectly clear, and reasonable. I agree, for exactly the reason you pointed out. Dropping someone's XP makes it easier to boost their levels back to the rest of the group, but they still have the same GP amount as the others. Which, when crafting, doubles the GP value, and leads to similar level characters with double the treasure.

Let me see a test here, if I take a 9th level character with 740 craft XP. At 9th level, DMG says I should have roughly 36,000 gp worth of equipment, assuming some (small amount) of it went to potions and the like. This assumes that say your basic sword and board cleric could get the following without crafting:

Wand of Cure Light wounds (750 gp)
+2 Mace (8,308 gp)
+3 Full Plate (10,650 gp)
+3 Heavy wooden Shield (9,158 gp)
Periapt of Wisdom +2 = (4,000 gp)
Basic camp equipment. (30 gp)
3104 gp to spare

WITH Crafting and with the above feats mentioned:

+3 Full Plate= 360 Craft XP (740-360= 380 remaining); 6,150 gp (36,000 - 6,150= 29850 gp left)
+2 Mace= 320 Craft XP (380-320= 60 Craft XP remaining) 4308 gp (29850 - 4308= 25542 gp left)
+3 Heavy Wooden Shield (25542 - 9158 gp= 16384 gp left)
Wand of Cure light wounds x2= (60-60= 0 Craft XP) and (18,050 = 750 gp= 15634 gp)
Ring of Protection +2= (15634 - 8,000 gp= 7634 gp)
Periapt of Wisdom+2 = (7634 - 4,000 gp= 3634 gp)
Base Camp Equipment: 30 gp (3634 -30= 3604 gp)
3604 gp to spare

For the cost of three feats, this character would save 8,500 gp. All in all, it isn't worth it at all. I could craft an item to give me a bonus feat for oh, maybe 4,000 gp? That may need some tweaking, but it's not too far off at all. This might all be of help to you, or might not.

Yeah, pretty close. I come up with 840 xp for a 9th level character if they take a craft feat at levels 1, 6 & 9. Was that what you used in your example?

Assuming 840 bonus xp that works out to 21,000 gold worth of total additional equipment than a charcter without the craft feats. Combine that with some of the artisan feats from Ebberon and that enhances the wealth a bit more. (18,500 additional equipment if you are correct at 740 bonus xp).

What the feats do beyond that is allow a caster to make custom items for himself. Is it worth a feat? I don't know.

I used taking them at 3, 6 and 9. That's not much of a difference, but still 60 XP I believe? Involving the Legendary, Extraordinary and Exceptional Artisan feats from Eberron would be a help. But then again, you are still dealing with trading feats for cash. It ends up being quite a big change in the wealth exchange. Perhaps for the better.

The only issue I forsee is this. If we are stripping magic items for XP at the standard XP cost to craft them gained back, how does this balance out in a gp value exchange? If I end up needing to take both a stack of treasure to pay for the GP cost, and a stack of treasure to burn for the XP cost, will I come out ahead at all for having taken the feats over someone who doesn't and simply purchases the items at retail price? For example:

I want to put a +1 bonus on my full plate. That's a simple one, and the cost to me is:
500 gp, 40 XP, 100 craft. I save 500 gp in this process. That's clear cut. I trade a feat, and save half price on a very limited number of items to craft is essentially the bonus granted by the feat I took.

Now, if I were to want to craft something powerful, it gets tricky in balancing. Say, I wanted to drain a +1 Scale Mail, and a +1 Greataxe for XP, I get 40 XP from the Armor, and 80 XP from the greatsword. So, I get 120 XP. Which, if I had sold them, at 1/2 worth, I would get 1,500 gp for them. I need both gold and XP to craft. So, that ends up as a choice what to do with treasure then. Does it balance out though? At my level, destroying 2 +1 items is quite a bit of treasure.

Draining both of those items however, would grant me exactly enough XP in which I would need to upgrade the +1 full plate mentioned above to a +2 full plate. I would still need 1,500 gp, which is exactly what I could have gotten from selling the two items instead of draining them. It would seem balanced, although, I would need to find a double set of +1 armor and sword to pay for this to upgrade. Which is exactly what say, our Warblade would need as well to get the upgrade if the double set of armor and sword were simply handed to someone with my feat to craft for the character instead. I am not certain if that would hold up at higher levels as worth taking the feats? Costs improve in an almost exponential manner, will my XP reserve do the same? If the increase doesn't improve along the same increase rate, then that would cause a problem.

I don't really know either way on the issue though, and lack the time to dig through and do the math on various scenarios. I am willing to test it. However, in the event it becomes clear that the system put in place is out of balance, one way or the other, I do believe it should be fixed. Whether that be it ends up going in, or against my favor. My ending up with a gross amount of wealth that outstrips the party would need to be fixed in game, and vice versa. If I spend half of my characters available feats on item crafting, and I end up with a few thousand gold pieces worth of equipment extra, that doesn't hold well with power balance among the characters. My saving 5,000 gp come next level would be a big thing. However, my saving 30,000 gp over the course of a 20 level run...well, that wouldn't be such a big thing at all. Especially if I had to spend 4 feats to get it. At that point, that's a drop in the pond, and I may end up lagging behind considerably.

Just a thought for you. Perhaps someone else will take the time to provide input as well? In the event the system ends up not working properly, and I spend 3 feats on crafting and it puts me behind the power level of the others, I will end up wishing I had done the Extra Turning+Divine Metamagic+ Persistant Spell route instead and just tossed up say, Magic Vestment. At least that way, I could switch out the spell to Greater Magic Weapon in the event I wanted to be offensive instead of defensive for the day, and I wouldn't lost half the worth of the feats in doing so like I would in trading equipment to do the same.

Perhaps a bad example, as in a few levels, I can work both of those spells to be nearly half of the day with Extend spell. However, it may express my point? In a world where I can simply pay folks to craft things for me, there has to be a gain somewhere for those characters taking crafting feats. At this point, I see only even ground once I expend a very limited amount of XP. Spending 2 feats to get 1 suit of armor half cost for the rest of the game is what I am looking at right now without destroying treasure to do more. Is that a balanced exchange? It may very well be, as it would cost me exactly 25,000 gp in a gp exchange at that point. I honestly don't know enough however, so I thought I would just bring it up as a concern
darkeness
06-25-07, 02:31 PM So an example of how this sytem works:
A party has found +1 Scale mail (value 1,200 gp) and a +2 Greatsword (Value 4,350 gp). The party does not want these items so decide to let the mage salavage the Xp from them to recraft needed items. The mage performs his ritual and gets 48 xp from the armor (1200/25) & 174 xp from the sword. He may now craft 222 xp worth of items IF they have the cash to pay for them. So assuming the fighters Mw Fullplate needs to be enchanted to +1 (Time: 1 day, Cost: 500 gp & 40 xp) they would be able to do this. To increase it to +2 would cost an additional 1,500 gp & 120 xp and take 3 more days.

So the real question is, is it worth the feat slots to craft magic items under this system? Keep in mind you are getting a little free crafting xp at each level with the feats.
Kevin Andrew Murphy
06-25-07, 06:00 PM I personally dislike the "suck the XP out of an item" nonsense. It turns magic into lamp oil, and in a world where lamp oil is precious, nothing interesting or strange or just plain quirky and flavorful is going to survive. So we've got silver milkpail which gives you +5 on your Profession Milkmaid checks, made for the decadent Marie Antoinette-like queen who liked playing milkmaid but wasn't going to invest any skill ranks into the profession. As soon as she tires of this, in a world where artificers can suck the XP, that milkpail gets smashed to fuel the baron's war engine or something similarly boring rather than sitting around in the treasury in the "What in the heck do we do with this?" section along with the magic corn that makes reindeer fly. It also makes the business in the BoED p. 119 about "redeeming evil items" similarly pointless. Why on earth would anyone bother to "redeem" a Darkskull when you can just have an Artificer smash it for the XP? Mechanics-wise, the only possible perks to "redeeming evil items" are A. no extra expense in terms of GP, and B. possible door-prizes from the Forces of Good for having "redeemed" an evil item, rather than, say, smashing a Dark Skull and some Demon Armor and using the XP to make a Holy Avenger, an Apparatus of Kwalish or a collection of Ioun Stones.
darkeness
06-25-07, 09:03 PM It turns magic into lamp oil, and in a world where lamp oil is precious, nothing interesting or strange or just plain quirky and flavorful is going to survive.
That may be true and is one issue that I have with my own system, hence the possible option to convert (or "suck" :P ) gold into xp for the crafting pool.
Lawkeeper
06-27-07, 08:44 AM Do not convert gold into XP. Yeah, it's the easiest way, but it's only bringing a magic item's craft components to 70% of its market price, without flavor. I take 70% for the recommended value of 5gp per XP, as equipment purchased at creation by a PC who has an item-crafting feat. You could rule whatever exchange rate you'd rather have.

Instead, use special materials. Dragonshards in Eberron, for example. Other gems elsewhere. Or soul-gems (a la Morrowind). Or other materials, like an Essence of the Truest Dragon's Blood - whatever. The important part is that you pick a rare material, that has a cost.
Rule that this cost is equal to 20% of the market price (yep, same 5gp/XP), and has to be purchased in one go (that is, you'll need to go to a town or city in most cases, as villages/hamlets will have too low a market).

My advice is to do that only for permanent items. Have the non-permanent items, that is potions, scrolls & wands mostly, only require ordinary components. You'll just have introduced the idea/flavor that permanent items need some focus to keep their enchantment forever.

If you're then worried that characters might stay at home crafting items for a living, making a net 300gp benefit per day of work, you have an assortment of fixes :
- crafting it doesn't mean selling it : for a PC, selling an item depends solely on the goodwill of the DM
- instead of needing one day per 1000gp of market value, have the actual crafting follow the rules of the craft check ; say the DC of an item is 20+CL, using the spellcraft skill of the character, maybe counted in sp/day or gp/week instead of cp/day & sp/week - a CL5 item crafted by a spellcraft +15 PC taking 10 on his checks is gonna "craft" the equivalent of 25*25=625gp/week of work. 30% of that is 187.5gp, 750gp/month, which is already nice for a week's worth of work, easily putting him in the wealthiest style of livings.
- rule that a crafter has to make a Fort save after finishing an item to avoid being exhausted for a period equal to the time it took him to craft the item ; if he succeeds, he's fatigued instead (and you'd rather say he's fatigued for the whole crafting time proper)
Holy_Beholder
06-27-07, 10:58 AM I would say certain monsters have stuff that can be drained for XP. Basically you get 10xp*CR*Number of Supernatural abilities. So a basilisk is worth xp, because of their magic, namely petrification. A dragon is worth massive amounts of XP. This could be represented by saying that the eyes of a basilisk have magic, and all sorts of dragon parts have magic.
darkeness
06-28-07, 09:20 AM Using monster parts is a good idea and works to regulate wealth and as a plot device to prevent items from being made. Good suggestions, thanks.
Magrus
06-30-07, 01:27 PM I also like the ideas of draining monsters. That would lead to exciting quests! My cleric could deal with that. :D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
darkeness 06-25-07, 02:13 PM	I dislike the way the system uses Xp to create magic items. It distorts the whole wealth by level system. To fix this I am trying this system instead. Constructive opinions and suggestions would be appreciated. All casters get a spell/crafting Xp pool that they may feed by draining magic items, much like the artificer from the Ebberon setting. Unlike the Artificier, this pool does not empty when the character gains a new level. A caster may drain any magic item and recieve Xp for their pool equal to 1/25 the base cost of the magic item. This Xp may be used for spells with an experience point cost or to craft other magic items. No longer will a caster loose xp for crafting items. - Any caster that has a magic item crafting feat gains free xp on each level up. The number of Xp gained is 10 x new level x number of crafting feats. Should a caster gain a crafting feat due to leveling up the Xp will be 10 x the level the feat was aquired at. This means wizards automaticly start with 10 xp in their craft pool since they have the scribe scroll feat. - For casters that start the game above first level, their craft pool xp will be 10 x current level x number of feats. It will be assumed that the xp from previous levels will have been used to craft other items earlier in their carrer. and they may spend their gold & XP accordingly to create items in the pregame. - Spell requiring an Xp cost will be paid for using this pool as well and if the caster does not have the required Xp he/she can not cast the spell. Using this system a caster can not up their power, lag behind the rest of the party in levels and then use the "catch up" ability of the Xp system to their advantage. I am also considering changing the ritual so that a caster can simply use gold as well as magic items to get Xp for their crafting/casting pool, 25 gp = 1 XP. We have been doing a little discusion on this sytem here (http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1890&start=60). It is a long a convulted thread with several subjects so it may take some reading to find the correct discusion. I will post a few relevent parts below for ease of reading. Lets say I have my character, lvl 4 cleric Darren with 1 craft feat. I have 40 craft XP due to: 4th level x 1 feat x 10= 40. So, upon reaching 5th level, I gain 5 x 1 x 10= 50, for a total of 90? Correct? Then, at 6th level, I pick up the Craft Arms and Armor feat. Which gives me: 6 x 2 x 10= 120 new points, for a total of 170 craft XP? Then 7 x 2 x 10= 140 + 170= 310 total and 8 x 2 x 10= 160 + 310= 470 total and then... At 9th level, I grab Craft Wand, which leads to: 9 x 3 x 10= 270 + 470= 740 total. Correct? If that's the case, I did miss a vital part here. Your reasons for doing so are perfectly clear, and reasonable. I agree, for exactly the reason you pointed out. Dropping someone's XP makes it easier to boost their levels back to the rest of the group, but they still have the same GP amount as the others. Which, when crafting, doubles the GP value, and leads to similar level characters with double the treasure. Let me see a test here, if I take a 9th level character with 740 craft XP. At 9th level, DMG says I should have roughly 36,000 gp worth of equipment, assuming some (small amount) of it went to potions and the like. This assumes that say your basic sword and board cleric could get the following without crafting: Wand of Cure Light wounds (750 gp) +2 Mace (8,308 gp) +3 Full Plate (10,650 gp) +3 Heavy wooden Shield (9,158 gp) Periapt of Wisdom +2 = (4,000 gp) Basic camp equipment. (30 gp) 3104 gp to spare WITH Crafting and with the above feats mentioned: +3 Full Plate= 360 Craft XP (740-360= 380 remaining); 6,150 gp (36,000 - 6,150= 29850 gp left) +2 Mace= 320 Craft XP (380-320= 60 Craft XP remaining) 4308 gp (29850 - 4308= 25542 gp left) +3 Heavy Wooden Shield (25542 - 9158 gp= 16384 gp left) Wand of Cure light wounds x2= (60-60= 0 Craft XP) and (18,050 = 750 gp= 15634 gp) Ring of Protection +2= (15634 - 8,000 gp= 7634 gp) Periapt of Wisdom+2 = (7634 - 4,000 gp= 3634 gp) Base Camp Equipment: 30 gp (3634 -30= 3604 gp) 3604 gp to spare For the cost of three feats, this character would save 8,500 gp. All in all, it isn't worth it at all. I could craft an item to give me a bonus feat for oh, maybe 4,000 gp? That may need some tweaking, but it's not too far off at all. This might all be of help to you, or might not. Yeah, pretty close. I come up with 840 xp for a 9th level character if they take a craft feat at levels 1, 6 & 9. Was that what you used in your example? Assuming 840 bonus xp that works out to 21,000 gold worth of total additional equipment than a charcter without the craft feats. Combine that with some of the artisan feats from Ebberon and that enhances the wealth a bit more. (18,500 additional equipment if you are correct at 740 bonus xp). What the feats do beyond that is allow a caster to make custom items for himself. Is it worth a feat? I don't know. I used taking them at 3, 6 and 9. That's not much of a difference, but still 60 XP I believe? Involving the Legendary, Extraordinary and Exceptional Artisan feats from Eberron would be a help. But then again, you are still dealing with trading feats for cash. It ends up being quite a big change in the wealth exchange. Perhaps for the better. The only issue I forsee is this. If we are stripping magic items for XP at the standard XP cost to craft them gained back, how does this balance out in a gp value exchange? If I end up needing to take both a stack of treasure to pay for the GP cost, and a stack of treasure to burn for the XP cost, will I come out ahead at all for having taken the feats over someone who doesn't and simply purchases the items at retail price? For example: I want to put a +1 bonus on my full plate. That's a simple one, and the cost to me is: 500 gp, 40 XP, 100 craft. I save 500 gp in this process. That's clear cut. I trade a feat, and save half price on a very limited number of items to craft is essentially the bonus granted by the feat I took. Now, if I were to want to craft something powerful, it gets tricky in balancing. Say, I wanted to drain a +1 Scale Mail, and a +1 Greataxe for XP, I get 40 XP from the Armor, and 80 XP from the greatsword. So, I get 120 XP. Which, if I had sold them, at 1/2 worth, I would get 1,500 gp for them. I need both gold and XP to craft. So, that ends up as a choice what to do with treasure then. Does it balance out though? At my level, destroying 2 +1 items is quite a bit of treasure. Draining both of those items however, would grant me exactly enough XP in which I would need to upgrade the +1 full plate mentioned above to a +2 full plate. I would still need 1,500 gp, which is exactly what I could have gotten from selling the two items instead of draining them. It would seem balanced, although, I would need to find a double set of +1 armor and sword to pay for this to upgrade. Which is exactly what say, our Warblade would need as well to get the upgrade if the double set of armor and sword were simply handed to someone with my feat to craft for the character instead. I am not certain if that would hold up at higher levels as worth taking the feats? Costs improve in an almost exponential manner, will my XP reserve do the same? If the increase doesn't improve along the same increase rate, then that would cause a problem. I don't really know either way on the issue though, and lack the time to dig through and do the math on various scenarios. I am willing to test it. However, in the event it becomes clear that the system put in place is out of balance, one way or the other, I do believe it should be fixed. Whether that be it ends up going in, or against my favor. My ending up with a gross amount of wealth that outstrips the party would need to be fixed in game, and vice versa. If I spend half of my characters available feats on item crafting, and I end up with a few thousand gold pieces worth of equipment extra, that doesn't hold well with power balance among the characters. My saving 5,000 gp come next level would be a big thing. However, my saving 30,000 gp over the course of a 20 level run...well, that wouldn't be such a big thing at all. Especially if I had to spend 4 feats to get it. At that point, that's a drop in the pond, and I may end up lagging behind considerably. Just a thought for you. Perhaps someone else will take the time to provide input as well? In the event the system ends up not working properly, and I spend 3 feats on crafting and it puts me behind the power level of the others, I will end up wishing I had done the Extra Turning+Divine Metamagic+ Persistant Spell route instead and just tossed up say, Magic Vestment. At least that way, I could switch out the spell to Greater Magic Weapon in the event I wanted to be offensive instead of defensive for the day, and I wouldn't lost half the worth of the feats in doing so like I would in trading equipment to do the same. Perhaps a bad example, as in a few levels, I can work both of those spells to be nearly half of the day with Extend spell. However, it may express my point? In a world where I can simply pay folks to craft things for me, there has to be a gain somewhere for those characters taking crafting feats. At this point, I see only even ground once I expend a very limited amount of XP. Spending 2 feats to get 1 suit of armor half cost for the rest of the game is what I am looking at right now without destroying treasure to do more. Is that a balanced exchange? It may very well be, as it would cost me exactly 25,000 gp in a gp exchange at that point. I honestly don't know enough however, so I thought I would just bring it up as a concern
darkeness 06-25-07, 02:31 PM	So an example of how this sytem works: A party has found +1 Scale mail (value 1,200 gp) and a +2 Greatsword (Value 4,350 gp). The party does not want these items so decide to let the mage salavage the Xp from them to recraft needed items. The mage performs his ritual and gets 48 xp from the armor (1200/25) & 174 xp from the sword. He may now craft 222 xp worth of items IF they have the cash to pay for them. So assuming the fighters Mw Fullplate needs to be enchanted to +1 (Time: 1 day, Cost: 500 gp & 40 xp) they would be able to do this. To increase it to +2 would cost an additional 1,500 gp & 120 xp and take 3 more days. So the real question is, is it worth the feat slots to craft magic items under this system? Keep in mind you are getting a little free crafting xp at each level with the feats.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-25-07, 06:00 PM	I personally dislike the "suck the XP out of an item" nonsense. It turns magic into lamp oil, and in a world where lamp oil is precious, nothing interesting or strange or just plain quirky and flavorful is going to survive. So we've got silver milkpail which gives you +5 on your Profession Milkmaid checks, made for the decadent Marie Antoinette-like queen who liked playing milkmaid but wasn't going to invest any skill ranks into the profession. As soon as she tires of this, in a world where artificers can suck the XP, that milkpail gets smashed to fuel the baron's war engine or something similarly boring rather than sitting around in the treasury in the "What in the heck do we do with this?" section along with the magic corn that makes reindeer fly. It also makes the business in the BoED p. 119 about "redeeming evil items" similarly pointless. Why on earth would anyone bother to "redeem" a Darkskull when you can just have an Artificer smash it for the XP? Mechanics-wise, the only possible perks to "redeeming evil items" are A. no extra expense in terms of GP, and B. possible door-prizes from the Forces of Good for having "redeemed" an evil item, rather than, say, smashing a Dark Skull and some Demon Armor and using the XP to make a Holy Avenger, an Apparatus of Kwalish or a collection of Ioun Stones.
darkeness 06-25-07, 09:03 PM	It turns magic into lamp oil, and in a world where lamp oil is precious, nothing interesting or strange or just plain quirky and flavorful is going to survive. That may be true and is one issue that I have with my own system, hence the possible option to convert (or "suck" :P ) gold into xp for the crafting pool.
Lawkeeper 06-27-07, 08:44 AM	Do not convert gold into XP. Yeah, it's the easiest way, but it's only bringing a magic item's craft components to 70% of its market price, without flavor. I take 70% for the recommended value of 5gp per XP, as equipment purchased at creation by a PC who has an item-crafting feat. You could rule whatever exchange rate you'd rather have. Instead, use special materials. Dragonshards in Eberron, for example. Other gems elsewhere. Or soul-gems (a la Morrowind). Or other materials, like an Essence of the Truest Dragon's Blood - whatever. The important part is that you pick a rare material, that has a cost. Rule that this cost is equal to 20% of the market price (yep, same 5gp/XP), and has to be purchased in one go (that is, you'll need to go to a town or city in most cases, as villages/hamlets will have too low a market). My advice is to do that only for permanent items. Have the non-permanent items, that is potions, scrolls & wands mostly, only require ordinary components. You'll just have introduced the idea/flavor that permanent items need some focus to keep their enchantment forever. If you're then worried that characters might stay at home crafting items for a living, making a net 300gp benefit per day of work, you have an assortment of fixes : - crafting it doesn't mean selling it : for a PC, selling an item depends solely on the goodwill of the DM - instead of needing one day per 1000gp of market value, have the actual crafting follow the rules of the craft check ; say the DC of an item is 20+CL, using the spellcraft skill of the character, maybe counted in sp/day or gp/week instead of cp/day & sp/week - a CL5 item crafted by a spellcraft +15 PC taking 10 on his checks is gonna "craft" the equivalent of 25*25=625gp/week of work. 30% of that is 187.5gp, 750gp/month, which is already nice for a week's worth of work, easily putting him in the wealthiest style of livings. - rule that a crafter has to make a Fort save after finishing an item to avoid being exhausted for a period equal to the time it took him to craft the item ; if he succeeds, he's fatigued instead (and you'd rather say he's fatigued for the whole crafting time proper)
Holy_Beholder 06-27-07, 10:58 AM	I would say certain monsters have stuff that can be drained for XP. Basically you get 10xpCRNumber of Supernatural abilities. So a basilisk is worth xp, because of their magic, namely petrification. A dragon is worth massive amounts of XP. This could be represented by saying that the eyes of a basilisk have magic, and all sorts of dragon parts have magic.
darkeness 06-28-07, 09:20 AM	Using monster parts is a good idea and works to regulate wealth and as a plot device to prevent items from being made. Good suggestions, thanks.
Magrus 06-30-07, 01:27 PM	I also like the ideas of draining monsters. That would lead to exciting quests! My cleric could deal with that. :D