Spending XP to make Items is B/s or balancing?

[silverwolfer]

So is a player who has to spend XP to make an item, is that a balancing act between activities, or do you believe it is b/s, when a player already has to divert skill points and feats to make items, that it cost xp also?

[demigodus]

Well, it costs you one feat per type of item. And without any other investment, lets you effectively double wealth by level.

Personally I would consider it balanced if you didn't allow feats that made crafting more efficient, and used the suggested rule where you increase the crafting cost by 5gp per xp needed in exchange for removing the xp cost.

However, in the current system where a dedicated crafted can increase the party's effective wealth by 10x if they felt like it, the xp cost is kinda necessary. And I think there are still ways to circumvent it with additional investment.

[Eldan]

Item crafting is really good. The problem is, XP costs don't work. Why? Because the paying player will drop a level behind sooner or later. And for being a level behind, they will get more XP, by the charts. So, they are not actually losing anything.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Unless you're crafting a metric crap-ton of items, the xp cost is almost illusory. At most it puts you behind the rest of the party 1 level, if you -are- crafting a ton of items. At that point encounters give the 1-level-lower crafter an extra 30%xp. If you can't craft all the items you ever wanted with an extra 30%xp, you're doing it wrong.

I'm not usually one to say, "you're doing it wrong," either. That's how bad you have to be at resource management to actually end up more than 1 level behind the rest of the party.


Far more likely though, you never end up more than an encounter or two behind your party. 1 or 2 encounters, in which you're 1 level lower, is a small price to pay for the ability to always have exactly the kind of items you want.

TL;DR: B.S. or balanced? Balanced.