Gold is an antiriver

[Story]

So the common advice is that "XP is a river" and therefore you should do a ton of crafting to break WBL and the like. However, from what I can tell, the WBL is a guideline to adjust treasure, regardless of the source of the PC's current treasure. So crafting should reduce the amount of future treasure until things even out. The only advantage I can see of crafting is that you can ensure that your WBL is spent on items that are actually useful.

[Thespianus]

Seems like a stingy DM move in that case.

The character that spends both XP and gold to get stuff should get more stuff than the character who only spends gold.

[Kumori]

I never liked that crafting costs XP. I don't know, it just bothers me. This is one of the reasons I like PF.

[Thespianus]

I never really liked it because it takes a lot of time.

In a time-constrained campaing (which is a pretty common way to get rid of the 15 round adventuring day), you don't really have time to craft all the stuff you want, and so even if you invest Feats to get the ability, you can't use it because of time pressure.

The DM can, ofcourse, handle this, but by RAW it requires more downtime than any other Feat I know of.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, I don't like it, XP as spell component that is, because it is so meta.
Personally, if players are spending feats and time to make something themselves, well, why the heck not? Personally, I like custom items over off the shelf, or dungeon floor, gear, as it feels more yours.

[Chilingsworth]

I never liked that crafting costs XP. I don't know, it just bothers me. This is one of the reasons I like PF.

Yeah. I wish my DM thought that.

He does XP via the Pathfinder method, but crafting by the 3.5 rules. :smallfurious:

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention: He also doesn't let us sell stuff for as much as normal, to encourage us to "use what we find, and/or craft stuff ourselves."

[Snails]

I think your last point is the important one: crafting generates items that are very useful.

The rest seems like overthinking, based on assumptions about the DM's style.

IME...The PCs have a range of XP and wealth. The DM just makes a rough guess of the Effective Party Level. He does not care how efficient your WBL is in generating power, as long as the delta is not huge when compared to other variances in the party. The net effect is crafting gives you more stuff, at the cost of a modest leveling lag. That is a pretty good deal, if you can stomach the added bookkeeping and have an iota of talent for minmaxing; however, it is not such a big win that it is necessary.

[Story]

The rest seems like overthinking, based on assumptions about the DM's style.


I was just going by the suggestions in the DMG. Not all DMs play with XP is a river either.

[Cranthis]

Why would the wealth they have acquired so far (and used to make into something else) take away from their WBL?

[Ravens_cry]

I was just going by the suggestions in the DMG. Not all DMs play with XP is a river either.
Heck, in all games with XP use, most of the time we go for periodic level ups instead, it has never been the case.
While an interesting concept, it is more work for the DM to figure out individual XP scores.

[Philistine]

So the common advice is that "XP is a river" and therefore you should do a ton of crafting to break WBL and the like. However, from what I can tell, the WBL is a guideline to adjust treasure, regardless of the source of the PC's current treasure. So crafting should reduce the amount of future treasure until things even out. The only advantage I can see of crafting is that you can ensure that your WBL is spent on items that are actually useful.

That's... really not the way WBL is supposed to "work." WBL is descriptive, not prescriptive, which is to say that it isn't really supposed to do anything. Certainly it isn't supposed to cripple your future wealth gains. It's a very rough guideline for how much stuff a character should have if starting higher than first level, based on the average treasure value acquired in overcoming an average number of average-CR encounters per level (less a small allowance for consumables). As best I've ever been able to tell, there is no mechanism - nor was there ever meant to be any mechanism - for "enforcing" WBL at the table in an ongoing adventure.

Also note that this idea of "enforcing WBL" works out extremely poorly for a party of PCs, of whom typically only one or two will have any Crafting Feats: do you reduce the entire party's haul because one or two can use it more efficiently, or do you divide it among the party unevenly (and enforcing that without causing friction in the group, is a whole 'nother can o' worms)? Also also note that this kinda works out as punishing the player for taking Crafting Feats - Feats are more precious than gold (for most characters), so a character who spends one of their handful of Feats they'll ever get on a way to use their wealth more efficiently... should probably be allowed to do that.

Bottom line: If you're going to go this route, you're probably better off just banning Crafting outright. Because you can do that! And it's easier! And more honest!

[ericgrau]

WBL is only for character creation. During a campaign you only use treasure tables.

I've even had DMs who let your craft during character creation, thus giving you more loot but less xp. That violated the "xp is a river" at first since the DMs didn't think of that, but eventually everyone caught up anyway.

Gold is actually a river in that treasure is so massive and levels so brief that anything you throw away now won't actually matter. If you can get a big temporary boost from throwing away expendable gear or spell material components you'll get so much loot that what was a lot 3 levels ago won't matter anymore. And then you can repeat that forever and be stronger than if you were stingy about your stuff. For equal power the permanent stuff is actually ridiculously expensive and the more costly way to go.

I've overcome an epic encounter for the whole party without bloodshed or danger by sacrificing a figurine of wondrous power costing I don't remember how many thousands of gp. Someone said there could have been cheaper ways. Maybe but our next treasure pile was 300,000 gp each. It just didn't matter.

[Story]

Here's the passage I'm referring to.

DMG page 51

Monitor the progress of treasure into the hands of the PCs. For instance, you may want to use lots of high treasure or low treasure monsters, yet still hand out a normal amount of treasure overall. The PCs needn't have average treasure at every stage in their careers, but if an imbalance (either high or low) persists for more than a few levels, you should take gradual action to correct it by awarding slightly more or slightly less treasure.

[ericgrau]

That's a rough guideline rather than a rule that relies on DM action to act only if things get out of hand. It's part of rule 0. Unless you manage to abuse crafting so much that it balloons out of control it often doesn't even come up.

It's not going for a strict match to WBL, but handles what to do if the players are way over or under it because then the game could fall apart. It's akin to saying "there's no point to optimizing at all because then the DM will only make the monsters harder." Which is half true, but misleading.

[Ravens_cry]

When PC start adding class, race, and alignment specific price reducers, *then* I start clamping down on crafting, in fact, I ban the above all together, but half price for a feat and a use for down time?
Sure, that seems fair to me.

[Gavinfoxx]

Time constrained campaign? Dedicated Wright + Workshop in an Enveloping Pit.

[Psyren]

I think the gold issue is a wash. Items that you find in a dungeon sell for half-price; however, crafting costs half-price anyway. So even if all you find are items you don't want, you sell them at half-price and pay half-price to craft what you want - resulting in the same net effect as if you had found exactly what you wanted.

It gets even better if you find currency (gold, gems etc.) These are typically valued at cost - each gold piece found is worth a gold piece.

[Andreaz]

That is a pretty good deal, if you can stomach the added bookkeeping and have an iota of talent for minmaxing;
an iota of talentYou know...Yotta is a LOT. 10^24 lot.
A million of millions of millions of millions lot.

[Psyren]

I think he said "iota (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/iota)" which means a very small amount.

[tyckspoon]

Time constrained campaign? Dedicated Wright + Workshop in an Enveloping Pit.

Just means you don't have to spend your personal time on things, which is good for small items like scrolls and lower-level wands. Doesn't help all that much if you want to make an item that takes 2 weeks to craft and your DM's style means you do an entire campaign arc in a week.

[Telonius]

I think he said "iota (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/iota)" which means a very small amount.

Size matters not. :smallbiggrin:

[Phelix-Mu]

I too have found time to be the biggest constraint in crafting. At higher levels, without the artisan time-reducers from Eberron stuff (very feat intensive at this point), crafting good items can take weeks or months. With the players responsible for stopping a war, saving the world from vampires, or ending the reign of a yuan-ti death cult, there is hardly time to be wasted. If they want to take time to do stuff, that is fine, but it's not like the enemies have any reason to take the month off (not when there is so much evil to be done).

Furthermore, I also find that while the wizard or *-smith is off crafting, the non-crafting party members usually get involved in some interesting role playing and plot development, which I usually try to reward with small experience awards to encourage role play. This exacerbates loss of experience spent crafting. I'd remove the experience cost to magic item crafting, but for balancing the economy, I find it indispensible (otherwise retired wizards produce way too much stuff to keep magic item supply balanced).

Wealth in general in a world that includes magic is problematic, not to mention the effect of the infinite planes multiverse concept on supply of materials. Ah, I guess it's really not key to game function that world economics be solvent, but I do like thinking about such a world and trying to make it work.:smalltongue:

[Snowbluff]

You know...Yotta is a LOT. 10^24 lot.
A million of millions of millions of millions lot.


I think he said "iota (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/iota)" which means a very small amount.

Dammit, Swordsaged.

[Spuddles]

Seems like a stingy DM move in that case.

The character that spends both XP and gold to get stuff should get more stuff than the character who only spends gold.

Why? Crafting lets you get exactly what you want. Ye olde magic shoppe where you can buy an unlimited amoun of any item ever is pretty much a metaconcept.


Well, I don't like it, XP as spell component that is, because it is so meta.
Personally, if players are spending feats and time to make something themselves, well, why the heck not? Personally, I like custom items over off the shelf, or dungeon floor, gear, as it feels more yours.

I've always seen the xp cost in spells like a lotr style cost- putting some of your soul and spirit into it.


Why would the wealth they have acquired so far (and used to make into something else) take away from their WBL?

If wbl is x, and you use crafting to get 2x, then by wbl tables, don't expect much treasure until your wbl is again equal to x.


That's a rough guideline rather than a rule that relies on DM action to act only if things get out of hand. It's part of rule 0. Unless you manage to abuse crafting so much that it balloons out of control it often doesn't even come up.

It's not going for a strict match to WBL, but handles what to do if the players are way over or under it because then the game could fall apart. It's akin to saying "there's no point to optimizing at all because then the DM will only make the monsters harder." Which is half true, but misleading.

WBL is treated as a god given right on these forums where sunder is regularly mocked. It's an amusingly player-centric and logic-poor position. The consistent position, of course, would be that wbl is absolute. If you decide to double your posessions with crafting, then expect to get a lot less loot. It's wealth by level, not wealth handed out by the dm per level plus whatever economic shenanigans I can pull per level. If wbl is as absolute as the playground treats it, sunder and crafting won't matter.

[Acanous]

I actually have a hybrid system in place for 3.P.
It works like this:

Item Crafting requires five things already:
1: Skill points in Spellcraft, which are used to beat the Craft DC.
2: Access to the spells involved in the crafting.
3: Gold for base materials.
4: Time to do the Crafting.
5: XP to something something dark side, something something complete.

Then you toss a feat on top.

So I've made it so the feat is not a prerequisite anymore, and the feat now allows you to ignore one of the 5 requirements (User's choice).

It hasn't unbalanced my campaign at all, and most people actually use it to cut out Time, Gold, or XP.

At an ordinary gaming table, people already familiar with PF crafting will actually note no change, except they have the option to pay XP and cut out one of the other requisites. People with 3.5 crafting experience will note the greatest change, as now the Rogue is taking crafting feats.