XP Loss

[Xar Zarath]

Hey everyone I'm a long time lurker, first time starter of a thread here and would like to know what are your thought about this.

1)When creating magic items, casting spells like permanency and wish, is the xp loss justified to maintain fairness between classes or what?

2)Can there ways to not lose xp? (besides dm houseruling)

3)In terms of lore is losing xp in this manner giving a piece of youself?

[prufock]

I'm not sure about the answers to your questions, but I'll point out a couple things.

1) Artificers get a craft reserve that they can spend instead of xp. There is a Craft Point (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/craftPoints.htm) variant rule. Pathfinder got rid of xp loss for creating items, using only gp cost. It seems to me that xp loss for creating items is not a necessary or even balancing factor.

2) In addition to the above, there are a few tricks to get infinite xp for such purposes. One involves level loss via any effect that imposes a negative level and the greater restoration spell. Another involves a bard inspiring heroics and a psion using Astral Seed. You can find these tricks in this forum with a google search.

3) Honestly I don't know. There are multiple ways to fluff it, but in a high-magic system like standard 3.5 "giving a piece of yourself" seems sort of meaningless in the long run.

[Vaz]

1) Yes and No. Casters are broken, Crafters and High Powered Spells were mistakenly given XP components to prevent their abuse, but used correctly, they only need to be used sparingly in the first place, while non-optimized non-magical characters cannot craft at all and struggle to make themselves keep up with magic users already. After all, a Wish can give a Wizard attaining his 16th Level (or whatever his first chance to get 9th Level Spells is), the ability to get +5 to any ability score. Although the Min-Maxers would suggest that this is best going into a Primary Stat, you can give yourself an immediately higher bonus to Strength, Dexterity or Constitution than a non-Caster got from levelling up during the same period (+5 for the Caster, +4 for the non-Caster).

2) A Thought Bottle I have heard allows the use of small amount of XP for free for the purposes of crafting, or something along those lines, but I've yet to properly read up on it, I've barely even started playing as a Caster yet, so the full tricks are way out of my understanding at the moment. I believe there is also some form of ritual magic (at least in Epic Characters; those whose Character Level is higher than 20) where you can decrease the amount of XP "Burned" at the expense of a higher DC to Learn and Cast the spell; conversely though, you can hire low level casters a Five-For-A-Pound who can contribute Spell-slots, XP and even their Lives to lower the DC, So You Don't Have ToTM.

3) Yes. Fluff-wise, the caster puts a little bit of themselves into everything they do; possibly a throwback to "She put her heart and soul into that". The Oriental Adventure's Samurai Class specifically states that a Samurai can awaken the Spirit's of his Ancestor's in his Daisho (in the form of granting the Weapon's the ability to take Enhancement Bonuses and Magical Abilities) by Fasting and Communing in a Ritual to connect his soul to that of the blade (by spending XP) or something along those lines.

[ShurikVch]

2)Can there ways to not lose xp? (besides dm houseruling)
Feat Extract Demonic Essence from Hordes of Abyss allow to
Siphon life force from a demon to halve XP cost when casting spells or creating items

Also, from Book of Vile Darkness:
SOULS AS POWER Souls are the incarnate manifestation of life energy. As such, they contain a vast amount of power. Their power is so great, in fact, that they serve as currency on the Lower Planes (see Chapter 7). Night hags or fiends gather evil souls in the form of larvae, then sell or trade them for goods, services, or simply as tribute to more powerful entities. Huge infernal machines and demonic devices are powered by souls in those dark realms (see Diabolic Engines and Demonic Devices in Chapter 6).
Souls can be used as spell components (see Chapter 3), and they can also replace experience point expenditures when creating magic items. Each soul is the equivalent of 10 experience points needed to create an item. When the creator finishes making the magic item, it is tainted with lasting evil as described in Lingering Effects of Evil, later in this chapter. Magic item creators can use souls in conjunction with dark craft experience points and dark craft gold pieces.
To use a soul in any way, it must be properly prepared and stored. The best way to do this is in a proper receptacle, such as the gem involved in a soul bind or trap the soul spell, or the storage object used in an imprison soul spell. The dark altar stone magic item is also useful in this regard. Subdued or captured larvae, or other extraplanar spirits of the dead (often called petitioners), can serve as souls if properly prepared. Even incorporeal undead can be used in this way if they can be imprisoned somehow.
Using a soul in any way other than simply transferring it as barter consumes it completely, destroying it forever. Destroying a soul is an evil act of the blackest sort, even if the soul was evil itself.

PAIN AS POWER Some spells and magic items (such as the liquid pain spell and the pain extractor wondrous item) allow pain to be stored in special receptacles. The distilled pain, often called agony, is a thick liquid.
Evil spellcasters can use liquid pain in magic item creation. Each dose is the equivalent of 3 experience points needed to create the item. Liquid pain can be used in conjunction with dark craft experience points and souls used for experience points.
A dose of pain can also be used as a special evil spell component (see Chapter 3). Some infernal magic items are powered by pain (see Diabolic Engines and Demonic Devices in Chapter 6).
It takes a full day to distill a dose of liquid pain with the liquid pain spell or a pain extractor. A victim cannot endure — or produce, to put it another way—more extractions of pain than it has points of Constitution.

[EPIC] PrC - Master Arcane Artisan (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20030314a), have
Item Creation XP Pool (Ex): A 2nd-level master arcane artisan has a source of magical energy from which she can draw the equivalent of XP to contribute toward the creation of magic items. At 2nd level, the pool has the equivalent of 3,000 XP in it. Every level thereafter, the pool gains a number of points equal to the level gained times 1,000 (+3,000 at 3rd level, +4,000 at 4th, and so on). These points can be spent only to create magic items, and once spent, the points are gone. and can
Cannibalize Magic Items (Ex): A 10th-level master arcane artisan gains the ability to cannibalize magic items to harvest the power held within. The process requires 1 day per 100,000 gp of the item (or fraction thereof), at the end of which the artisan can add a number of points to her item creation XP pool (see above) equal to one-half the XP required to create the item. For instance, if a master arcane artisan cannibalized a +5 longsword (which costs 2,000 XP to create) she would add 1,000 points to her pool. A charged item that isn't fully charged only contributes a proportional amount of XP. For instance, a wand with only 25 charges would contribute half the normal points of a fully charged wand. The power harvested from such activity contributes only to the character's item creation XP pool, not to her normal XP total.

[Fouredged Sword]

A thought bottle allows you to never loose more than 500exp when crafting. Getting one is a priority for high level crafters.

[The Viscount]

I had always thought of the XP costs of such stuff to deter people from using them all the time.

[Zubrowka74]

Players should lose all their XP, whether or not they are crafting.