WBL and Crafting

[yougi]

Hi!

Yesterday, I was reviewing my players' equipment and how it compared to WBL, when I was completely stuck with the group's wizard: he has scribed numerous scrolls, and brewed quite a few potions, using up a lot of XP in the process (about 100 at 4th level).

Now, that means that he now has less XP and more gear, which means he is quite a lot over WBL. Now, if I give him less to account for what he crafted, that pretty much nullifies his feats, which is a pretty awful thing.

I am quite stuck in front of that. I thought of just saying "whatever you craft doesn't count in WBL", but then he can just craft an incredible number of wands and be A LOT higher than standard WBL.

All this to say, how do you guys deal with this?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hi!

Yesterday, I was reviewing my players' equipment and how it compared to WBL, when I was completely stuck with the group's wizard: he has scribed numerous scrolls, and brewed quite a few potions, using up a lot of XP in the process (about 100 at 4th level).

Now, that means that he now has less XP and more gear, which means he is quite a lot over WBL. Now, if I give him less to account for what he crafted, that pretty much nullifies his feats, which is a pretty awful thing.

I am quite stuck in front of that. I thought of just saying "whatever you craft doesn't count in WBL", but then he can just craft an incredible number of wands and be A LOT higher than standard WBL.

All this to say, how do you guys deal with this?

Single-use expendables shouldn't be counted against WBL. Until he picks up craft wand, woundrous item, or arms & armor, you need to keep him on WBL. When he does start crafting (semi-) permanent items, realize that unless he's outfitting the entire party he's got exactly the equipment he wants/needs, probably a lvl or two earlier than normal, and that -that- is the benefit of the craft feats.

Also, unless there's a significant level disparity between party members, you should keep everyone's WBL based in the average party level, rather than their individual character levels. This keeps the power of characters who permanently lose a level, or those that fall a level behind due to burning off xp, from becoming noticeably less powerful than the party members that pull ahead because of good fortune with survival or a DoMT.

[Mnemnosyne]

I use wealth by level only when a character is starting higher than level one. After that, they gain what they gain. I lay out encounters logically and enemies have what they should reasonably have.

Intentionally determining loot in such a way as to cause the players to land correctly on the wealth by level chart is no different than any other type of railroading, in my eyes. It makes no sense, it's tailoring the game world to the characters and reducing the value of their choices. If they choose to do things that should earn more money and I adjust the world so they get what they're 'supposed' to have, that invalidates their choice.

Now, if a character winds up so high on wealth that they have items that should be far beyond their capacity to have, well...maybe people hear about it. Maybe they can't protect their stuff quite as well as they think they can. Maybe someone higher level decides to come and steal from the rich, easy marks, and they have to chase this fella down and get their things back.

[Downysole]

As long as everyone ends up pretty well balanced, WBL should not be an issue. I'm playing in a game where we are all about 150% of WBL, and that's making it a high-powered game. We have to take on bigger bad guys to get the same challenge. It all balances out as we move forward though.

[Tyndmyr]

Hi!

Yesterday, I was reviewing my players' equipment and how it compared to WBL, when I was completely stuck with the group's wizard: he has scribed numerous scrolls, and brewed quite a few potions, using up a lot of XP in the process (about 100 at 4th level).

Now, that means that he now has less XP and more gear, which means he is quite a lot over WBL. Now, if I give him less to account for what he crafted, that pretty much nullifies his feats, which is a pretty awful thing.

I am quite stuck in front of that. I thought of just saying "whatever you craft doesn't count in WBL", but then he can just craft an incredible number of wands and be A LOT higher than standard WBL.

Well, WBL is a guideline. You can sacrifice other things for more wealth, certainly(Mercantile Background as a feat is an obvious one).

So, he has less XP and less feats, but more gear. Seems fair. I just allow people to do this at will. It seems like that's entirely the point of crafting. New chars come in at standard WBL. I do not attempt to force strict adherence to WBL.

[Doug Lampert]

Well, WBL is a guideline. You can sacrifice other things for more wealth, certainly(Mercantile Background as a feat is an obvious one).

So, he has less XP and less feats, but more gear. Seems fair. I just allow people to do this at will. It seems like that's entirely the point of crafting. New chars come in at standard WBL. I do not attempt to force strict adherence to WBL.

For that matter the rules for introducing characters at high level specify that characters with craft feats can sacrifice starting XP to have crafted prior to game start.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I wouldn't say that keeping the party within a certain margin of WBL is railroading. Railroading implies that the DM is limiting character choice unfairly to keep the party on-plot. Keeping the party within, lets say 20% of, WBL doesn't restrict their choice of action. It only restrains their power from diverging significantly from what's expected in-system, and that makes choosing level appropriate challenges easier for the DM. If you determine WBL based on the average level of the party, as I suggested; it also helps to keep the players' power levels balanced, in-spite of level disparity.

I think it may also be worth noting that I believe you should only count magical equipment against WBL. Cash doesn't affect the power of a character until it's spent.

[Tyndmyr]

Meh. If my players are creative and careful, they will spend less resources on consumables, find more loot, that sort of thing. If they overlook things, well...rezzes are expensive. Loot is often hidden. I've had parties both substantially above and below WBL.

I don't much care for the "no matter how good or bad you do, you end up about here" sort of balance.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Meh. If my players are creative and careful, they will spend less resources on consumables, find more loot, that sort of thing. If they overlook things, well...rezzes are expensive. Loot is often hidden. I've had parties both substantially above and below WBL.

I don't much care for the "no matter how good or bad you do, you end up about here" sort of balance.

That is entirely your prerogative. If you find that WBL has little impact on your game, you don't have to use it. However, the OP expressed concern about how crafting and WBL can affect his game, and I'm trying to give him what I believe is good advice on how to handle it.

WBL is part of the system, as written. If you use it correctly, you won't have to work as hard, to make the system function properly, as you would if you used it poorly or not at all.

[Tyndmyr]

In my experience, you can deviate pretty strongly from standard WBL without having major issues.

Going lower than about half WBL can be a severe issue for the magic-item bound classes. Going higher than about double WBL is going to entail some encounter adjustment.

Deviation can be larger on the high end if they're fond of non-optimal funsie type of items. A rod of wonder is expensive, but isn't really a balance concern.

[eggs]

I think it may also be worth noting that I believe you should only count magical equipment against WBL. Cash doesn't affect the power of a character until it's spent.
I don't disagree, but this gets interesting with Planar Ally.

[Tvtyrant]

Hi!

Yesterday, I was reviewing my players' equipment and how it compared to WBL, when I was completely stuck with the group's wizard: he has scribed numerous scrolls, and brewed quite a few potions, using up a lot of XP in the process (about 100 at 4th level).

Now, that means that he now has less XP and more gear, which means he is quite a lot over WBL. Now, if I give him less to account for what he crafted, that pretty much nullifies his feats, which is a pretty awful thing.

I am quite stuck in front of that. I thought of just saying "whatever you craft doesn't count in WBL", but then he can just craft an incredible number of wands and be A LOT higher than standard WBL.

All this to say, how do you guys deal with this?

Which means he is behind everyone else in his character strength. When the other members of the party level, he won't be able to until later on. His character will have items that make him stronger, but the character itself will be weaker and they will reach parity.

The feats and level equal out to the amount gained by the wands, especially on a full caster. He won't get level 3 spells until later then everyone else, which are much better than level 2 wands.

[The Boz]

I pretty much completely ignore keeping with WBL, too many problems with it. What happens if the party buys a house? Do two parties get the same loot by going through the same content if one party steals everything and kills everyone and the other party doesn't? What if one party member REALLY likes the Sunder maneuver? Does WBL count resurrections and other expenses? If no, what's the cost of death? If yes, why? And why doesn't it count using the resurrection scroll?
WBL is a very, very loose guideline. If you keep with it by accident, great. If you don't, don't bother adapting*.

* - except in extreme cases such as 4x/0.2x WBL, and you really have to try hard to have that problem.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't disagree, but this gets interesting with Planar Ally.

Not really. Planar ally Still represents a use of expendable resources. I just adjust the EL of encounters up a little, as though the party gained an extra member of a level roughly the ally's CR, without increasing xp gained. They make a little extra cash to offset what they paid for the ally, and level progression is unaffected.

The DM decides how much treasure to give in any given encounter even if he only accomplishes it by allowing a monster's "treasure:" line to influence his choice of opponents.

I can't deny that casters can be noticeably less affected by a lack of gear than non-magical classes, but keeping everyone at about the same level can help the non-casters keep up.

Disclaimer: I am aware of the radical difference in the potential between casters and non-casters. I'm also aware of a number of ways to minimize this potential, one of the most effective of which is to ask the casters not to be a douche about it.

[Devils_Advocate]

Um... A magic item crafter gets to have more wealth than he would otherwise, at the price of XP as well as feats. Like, that's explicitly how magic item crafting works. The DMG may not explicitly say "Magic item crafters are supposed to have wealth exceeding WBL", but that's blatantly the upshot, so why should it need to be spelled out?

Trading in levels for more power is totes legit. Lots of powerful races are handled using this principle. Heck, with Reducing Level Adjustments (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm), characters with those races ultimately wind up just behind on XP, just like magic item crafters.

Deliberately undoing the financial results of PC choices by handing out more or less loot is a big load of hooey anyhow. Unless you actually agree with the philosophy that player decisions having long-term impacts is a problem to be corrected, don't worry about it. C'mon, should the party really be rewarded by the DM for blowing through resources and punished for conserving resources?! How is that a good idea?

If anything, just worry about providing treasure appropriate to encounters.


Keeping the party within, lets say 20% of, WBL doesn't restrict their choice of action.
How do you do that without restricting them from actions that leave them significantly richer or poorer than that?


WBL is part of the system, as written.
But trading in experience points for wealth is also part of the system as written. Surely the benefits of spending feats and XP shouldn't be deliberately counteracted, right?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Crafting magic items does get you ahead of WBL, and there's nothing wrong with it if you don't get too far ahead of WBL. Every time a crafter makes something he gets an item that's worth twice what he paid for it. This is not a problem if he's only got a few such items. This becomes a problem if he ends up with twice as much gear as anyone in the party. If on the other hand he's gearing up the entire party, then he falls at least one level, but perhaps even two levels, behind in character level for no tangible benefits. By keeping the party near the given WBL figures, you avoid either of these problems.

Controlling player income is easy to accomplish as a DM by handing out more or less treasure in encounters after you've noticed a discrepancy.

If you feel this absolutely must be justified, then you can use monsters with a treasure line that reads something like, "treasure: half," or "treasure: half coins, double goods," and even the occasional, "treasure: none," to let them gain either normal xp with less gp or extra xp with normal gp. The reverse of course is accomplished by using high treasure monsters.

If you don't feel the need to justify the adjusted treasure or don't like using random treasure generation. You simply give average treasure for an encounter, plus or minus an appropriate percentage.

Either of these techniques can easily be disguised by using organized opponents who keep their treasure gathered together. When the PC's find the treasure vault, they'll be happy about the big pile of loot and you'll be happy because only the most miserly, penny-pinching PC's will notice that that big pile of loot maybe isn't as big as it should have been if you generated it randomly.

As for things like purchasing real estate or running a business, DON'T count it against their WBL. Only charged or permanent magic items should be counted.

If the party frequently uses expendables or otherwise uses money to gain one-time benefits, use one of the above techniques to either give them a little extra or catch back up, as appropriate.

The benefits of crafting items are in getting items you want, before you can normally afford them, and getting exactly what you want if it doesn't turn up in randomly generated treasure or the local magic item shop.

Edit: I don't mind if the PC's are filthy, stinking rich. As long as their gear is WBL appropriate they can have enough liquid assets to buy and sell kingdoms.

[Togo]

There's two separate issues here.

The first is that, by crafting, he gets half-price magic stuff. That's normal, expected and what the feats do. They are very powerful.

The second is that, by spending xp, he ends up with the same amount of treasure as the rest of the party, but is at a lower level. That's more of a problem. If you use individual awards, he'll make the xp back again, because of the way the xp system awards more xp to lower level characters for the same challenge. If you use group awards, then he faces the same challenges but has a longer adventuring career, and that will net him more wealth over his career than he'd otherwise get. Either way, the xp cost is not really the downside it first appears.

Because of the way WBL increases at higher levels, it's not really a huge problem, since high level cash dwarfs your gains at lower levels, even with some minor gaming of the system. But the disparity is there, and it annoys some people.

[dascarletm]

Crafting magic items does get you ahead of WBL, and there's nothing wrong with it if you don't get too far ahead of WBL. Every time a crafter makes something he gets an item that's worth twice what he paid for it. This is not a problem if he's only got a few such items. This becomes a problem if he ends up with twice as much gear as anyone in the party. If on the other hand he's gearing up the entire party, then he falls at least one level, but perhaps even two levels, behind in character level for no tangible benefits. By keeping the party near the given WBL figures, you avoid either of these problems.

Controlling player income is easy to accomplish as a DM by handing out more or less treasure in encounters after you've noticed a discrepancy.

If you feel this absolutely must be justified, then you can use monsters with a treasure line that reads something like, "treasure: half," or "treasure: half coins, double goods," and even the occasional, "treasure: none," to let them gain either normal xp with less gp or extra xp with normal gp. The reverse of course is accomplished by using high treasure monsters.

If you don't feel the need to justify the adjusted treasure or don't like using random treasure generation. You simply give average treasure for an encounter, plus or minus an appropriate percentage.

Either of these techniques can easily be disguised by using organized opponents who keep their treasure gathered together. When the PC's find the treasure vault, they'll be happy about the big pile of loot and you'll be happy because only the most miserly, penny-pinching PC's will notice that that big pile of loot maybe isn't as big as it should have been if you generated it randomly.

As for things like purchasing real estate or running a business, DON'T count it against their WBL. Only charged or permanent magic items should be counted.

If the party frequently uses expendables or otherwise uses money to gain one-time benefits, use one of the above techniques to either give them a little extra or catch back up, as appropriate.

The benefits of crafting items are in getting items you want, before you can normally afford them, and getting exactly what you want if it doesn't turn up in randomly generated treasure or the local magic item shop.

Edit: I don't mind if the PC's are filthy, stinking rich. As long as their gear is WBL appropriate they can have enough liquid assets to buy and sell kingdoms.

Note: If I'm ever in your game don't take crafting feats, and always spend tons of money on houses, and own every property I can. :smallbiggrin:

[shadow_archmagi]

For that matter the rules for introducing characters at high level specify that characters with craft feats can sacrifice starting XP to have crafted prior to game start.

Wait, really? I've never seen this rule. Citation please! This is something my group often stumbles over, and an official statement would go miles.

[Grimsage Matt]

I remember this great feat for crafting magic items from somewhere (Think it was in a Dragon magazine, it's been years), that let the magic item crafter do something very nice. If the fighter wanted his weapon enchanted? He could perticicpate, as the source of the exp to enchant it. The whole feat was pretty much ; You can use a willing creatures EXP in place of your own for crafting magic items.

So, this sound good?

[Deophaun]

The thing is, it's easy to keep a lid on wealth generated by magic item creation. The primary resource required is time. If you limit downtime, you limit the impact of craft feats. However, you should be upfront with your players beforehand. No fair waiting until a player has taken his third crafting feat and then springing a non-stop ride to the end of the campaign on them.

If you don't limit downtime, there are even worse ways to break WBL.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Note: If I'm ever in your game don't take crafting feats, and always spend tons of money on houses, and own every property I can. :smallbiggrin:
If thats how you want to play, and it doesn't hurt anyone else's fun, I'd happily work with that. It opens up hooks for plot-archs that can be difficult with the typical murder-hobo, who isn't grounded in a community. :smallbiggrin:

I remember this great feat for crafting magic items from somewhere (Think it was in a Dragon magazine, it's been years), that let the magic item crafter do something very nice. If the fighter wanted his weapon enchanted? He could perticicpate, as the source of the exp to enchant it. The whole feat was pretty much ; You can use a willing creatures EXP in place of your own for crafting magic items.

So, this sound good?

not a feat, just a suggestion in DMG2. I make use of it and a custom item that allows anyone to store xp for a crafter to use. The item is used in some parts of my home-brew setting as part of the economy, while in others it's seen as a blasphemy against nature. I like allowing my players to have the things they want, unless we're doing a campaign with a grittier feel.

[ericgrau]

Just count his crafted items at half price and don't worry about it. Not only did he spend the feats, he also managed to squeeze in the downtime. Or if this is a newly generated character, put limits on crafting time allowed. Also remember WBL is meant for new characters so for established characters it's only useful as a ballpark of where they should be, not an exact amount.

Expendables are another issue, but needless to say there's a reason he keeps making them. Among public opinion they are among the most feared because they disappear and yet they're also among the greatest things to get because adventuring is so crazy short. You'd usually pay way more for equivalent permanent items at any given stage in your career. For something you don't plan on doing 50 times in the near future (which, with 5 round combats, is most things), expendables are the way to go. In fact while having no single item over 1/4 WBL is only a house rule, limiting expendables to 1/4 WBL is recommended in the DMG for good reason.

All my casters tend to have a billion scrolls of anything that doesn't have a save or heavy caster level dependence. Especially of things that I don't use every single day or don't use one day and use 10 times the next day. It's extremely useful as I'm ready for 20 different things without having 20 spell slots. My noncasters stock up on potions & oils to give them something to do in the buffing round; with level 1 potions costing 50 gp there's always something affordable (and later I get level 2).

[Kish]

I'd worry about making sure that someone's total amount of wealth and XP equals the average wealth+XP total of the party, not about them all distributing it the same. If one party member has never crafted anything and is sixth level with exactly a sixth-level's WBL worth of gear, and another has crafted so much that she is fourth level with a seventh or eighth level's WBL worth of gear, neither is unambiguously more powerful and it's not a problem as long as they're both having fun playing the way they are.

[Tyndmyr]

Not really. Planar ally Still represents a use of expendable resources. I just adjust the EL of encounters up a little, as though the party gained an extra member of a level roughly the ally's CR, without increasing xp gained. They make a little extra cash to offset what they paid for the ally, and level progression is unaffected.

This sounds suspiciously like an auto-scaling world. Yknow, the sort in which, at level two, orcs and goblins and kobolds abound.

But which, at level 12...suddenly everything is more or less CR appropriate encounters then.

This is really hard on suspension of disbelief.

[Randomguy]

It still takes money to craft things, so give the things that he crafts a value equal to what he spent to craft them. So if he spends 25gp to craft a potion, count that potion as being worth 25gp in terms of WBL. This way things don't get too out of hand, but he still gets rewarded for his work.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Hi!

Yesterday, I was reviewing my players' equipment and how it compared to WBL, when I was completely stuck with the group's wizard: he has scribed numerous scrolls, and brewed quite a few potions, using up a lot of XP in the process (about 100 at 4th level).

Now, that means that he now has less XP and more gear, which means he is quite a lot over WBL. Now, if I give him less to account for what he crafted, that pretty much nullifies his feats, which is a pretty awful thing.

I am quite stuck in front of that. I thought of just saying "whatever you craft doesn't count in WBL", but then he can just craft an incredible number of wands and be A LOT higher than standard WBL.

All this to say, how do you guys deal with this?

4th level WBL is 5,400 gp. 100 xp spent on crafting is 2500 gp worth of items, which he paid 1250 gp and 100 xp for. That's almost a 25% increase in WBL, but it's all single-use items. After a few adventures, after he's used quite a few of those, he's actually going to be below standard WBL. The immediate benefit won't last, and long term he's actually worse off for having done this.

If you start the party at the minimum XP for their current level (which I've found to be a very bad policy in general), then he's also sacrificed a character level for those single-use items. The party is starting at 4th level with 4th level WBL, having spent XP on items may reduce his character level but it will not reduce his WBL because his character has earned the XP to reach 4th level. It would be extremely unfair for you to reduce his WBL because his current XP 3% below that required for 4th level.

About the only benefit he's going to see from this, apart from spending XP to provide the rest of his party with single-use items, is that he may actually pull ahead on XP depending on how you give out rewards. He's 3rd level while the rest of the party is 4th level. Let's say they have four encounters in a session, consisting of a CR 2 and a CR 3, two CR 3s, a CR 4, and a CR 5. For a party of four characters, the 4th level characters will get 1450 xp for that session, whereas his 3rd level character will get 1612 xp, putting him at the same level as the rest of the party but 62 xp ahead of everyone else. If you give xp rewards per-encounter and he levels up during the session he'll be at a disadvantage, but that's not a good practice anyway. If they have more and/or bigger encounters in a session, or if you don't give out XP until the end of an adventure spanning multiple sessions, then he'll be at an even greater advantage. Keep in mind however that most of that extra XP is going to be spent making more potions and scrolls for the rest of his party, so it should balance out in the long run.

If he charges his party members full price for those items then his wealth may go higher than the recommended WBL. He should not be expected to sell items he crafts to his party at-cost, because he's spent feats and XP that needs to be reimbursed, and depending on time constraints he may be limited in how many items he can craft. Selling crafted items to your party at 75% of full value is pretty fair, considering that the standard 5 gp per 1 xp fee accounts for 20% of an item's full value, plus the 50% cash cost, he's only getting a 5% profit for spending time and feats to craft. Again, remember that if the party is spending a lot on single-use items, then once those items are used up their actual wealth may fall far below the recommended WBL.

I wouldn't worry too much about this at all. Give out XP properly, and encourage him to sell crafted items to his party at a discount. If he tries to charge his party full price then have NPCs give them a discount so he won't be gouging his party to try to break the system.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This sounds suspiciously like an auto-scaling world. Yknow, the sort in which, at level two, orcs and goblins and kobolds abound.

But which, at level 12...suddenly everything is more or less CR appropriate encounters then.

This is really hard on suspension of disbelief.
Encounter level and Cr are useful tools, just like WBL. Level appropriate encounters can be made up of a pile of easily killed mooks just as easily and just as often as they can be made up of a single big bad. In fact, clever use of a group of small monsters is a great way to get your 20% "easy if handled correctly" encounters (look up tucker's kobolds for an extreme example.) I generally like to use 4 opponents of cr(party level minus 2-4) for most encounters.

By the same token, 5% of encounters are meant to be unwinnable in combat. Survival is what you should reward in these cases.

E.g. the party hears there's a green dragon in the forest. They go into the woods looking for it and its horde. As a Dm I decide, or randomly determine with a d100, that this particular dragon is beyond them. I let them find the horde first, adjusted for the party's WBL if necessary. Then when they face the dragon I use the old "it easily kills something you've struggled with in the past" trope to let them know fighting it head-on is a bad idea. An encounter in which they use the forest terrain to keep away until the dragon looses interest ensues. The party gets xp for surviving, and now has a villian set to recur after they gain a few levels.

[Downysole]

If the Mage is outstripping the rest of the group and it becomes a problem, you can always adjust the sales price of items. Sometimes when our DM wants us to be more geared up, he lets us try to influence buyers and we get more like a 60% sales price for items.

Other times if he wants to drop our wealth, he can have equipment stolen, cause buyers to be unfriendly, or just make us go through more hoops before we can get exactly the thing that we want (like go on a sidequest for starmetal or something).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Sometimes when our DM wants us to be more geared up, he lets us try to influence buyers and we get more like a 60% sales price for items.

Other times if he wants to drop our wealth, he can have equipment stolen, cause buyers to be unfriendly, or just make us go through more hoops before we can get exactly the thing that we want (like go on a sidequest for starmetal or something).

These are also valid techniques, though you want to be very careful with thefts. Outright stealing from the party should be either a last resort for WBL control, or a temporary obstacle to be overcome before getting the item(s) back.

[Downysole]

These are also valid techniques, though you want to be very careful with thefts. Outright stealing from the party should be either a last resort for WBL control, or a temporary obstacle to be overcome before getting the item(s) back.

You mean, take away their gear until they level, then give it back, so you solve the WBL problem two birds with one stone!

And yes, I did that to my group once. They were taken prisoner and stripped of all gear, then broke out and had to get back to all their stuff while dealing with a bunch of orcs. They were high enough level to deal with the orcs pretty easily, but with no gear, that made things a little different. Made for a fun game! Druid was pretty boss for that section of the adventure.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You mean, take away their gear until they level, then give it back, so you solve the WBL problem two birds with one stone!

And yes, I did that to my group once. They were taken prisoner and stripped of all gear, then broke out and had to get back to all their stuff while dealing with a bunch of orcs. They were high enough level to deal with the orcs pretty easily, but with no gear, that made things a little different. Made for a fun game! Druid was pretty boss for that section of the adventure.

I was thinking more like swiping an item that'd cause major issues for a small arch, then give them the opportunity to catch the thief before he liquidates it.

I do not advocate the' "taking the party prisoner" scenario except once in the blue-est of moons. Even then it's to be avoided except for the shortest of times, and only if you firmly believe that everyone in the party will be okay with it.

That said, it is a way to give a VoP character a real moment to shine.

[Jack of Trades]

I think people are overthinking.

Just treat the magic item crafter as if he were the level he would be if he had not expended the XP.

If the rest of the party is 10th level but he is at 8th level because he expended 2 levels worth of XP, then the party encounters and treasure should be for a straight 10th level party.

Remember he expended XP and this slows his level progression and thus his spell levels are lower than they normally would be.

So he may face a monster equipped with 4th level spells rather than 5th level spells. Hope whatever he made makes up for it.