Can followers be made to craft usefully?

[Glarnog]

Is there a way to turn followers in to magic item crafters? Hoping they can combine their abilities some way cooperatively to crank out some items while the PC is off adventuring? Not so much to save money or get free stuff, but mostly so the PC doesn't need to step away from the quest/campaign for 100s of days at a time. Are there any rules for shortening crafting times? I've never had a character where this has been a real possibility before. So all the crafting stuff is pretty new to me. I'm trying to read up on it. I know next to nothing about creating and using followers. I've always figure they stay at your home base keeping the day to day stuff going.
Thanks
Glarnog

Edit:PC is 15th lvl straight ranger with a leadership score of 20.

[Darth Stabber]

Is there a way to turn followers in to magic item crafters? Hoping they can combine their abilities some way cooperatively to crank out some items while the PC is off adventuring? Not so much to save money or get free stuff, but mostly so the PC doesn't need to step away from the quest/campaign for 100s of days at a time. Are there any rules for shortening crafting times? I've never had a character where this has been a real possibility before. So all the crafting stuff is pretty new to me. I'm trying to read up on it. I know next to nothing about creating and using followers. I've always figure they stay at your home base keeping the day to day stuff going.
Thanks
Glarnog

Have them form a labor union, control the local markets, gain political power, make money, and do good for the working man. It works for good, it works for evil, it works for law, and it works for chaos.

[Deophaun]

Make yourself a Dedicated Wright. Pg 285 in the Eberron Campaign Setting, does exactly what you want, and it's inexpensive.

Edit: Oh, you're a ranger trying to get followers to craft magic items. You're going to need the leadership feat to get a wizard follower. That's DM territory if they'll even allow the feat.

[Glarnog]

Deophaun,
The PC already has leadership. Sadly the chort is the group's tank. I was hoping there were some feats or spells or something that would let followers kind of work as a group so that they could craft some worth while gear for the PC.
thanks

[Kelb_Panthera]

What you want isn't a follower or group of followers (too much DM dependence). What you need is the dedicated wright homonculous out of ECS. Once you've got one, you give it the materials and some source of the spell (I highly suggest schemas from MoE for any spell of 6th level or lower) and it does the rest. You go about your adventuring and when you come back the homonculous has completed whichever project you left him with, providing you've been gone long enough.

If that's not available, then there are a few options amongst cohorts and followers but like I said, you've got to get the DM to approve the very existence of such a follower under your leadership. Far and away the most likely find is an adept or three with some crafting feats; good for making low-level items. If ECS is on the table there's also the magewright who can serve more or less the same function.

A little higher up there's the battlesmith PrC from races of stone; good for arms and armor though he needs a collaborator for items that require spells. If such a collaborator is available and the battlesmith is willing to take extra crafting feats then his much higher than normal caster level could prove useful.

A little higher still is a 12th level warlock; capable of crafting literally anything at all, providing he can make a UMD check and has the appropriate crafting feat.

The ultimate is, of course, ECS's artificer class. The entire class is designed around crafting magic items and doing so relatively quickly and cheaply. If you absolutely must use the leadership method of getting a crafter then getting an artificer as a cohort is -the- gold option. Followed immediately by a crafting focused wizard.

Hope that helps.

Edit: oops, forgot two salient points.

Circle magic can make collaborative efforts more effective than any single character's abilities but it's considered some pretty high-order cheese. It's also relatively rare and -always- campaign specific. There are two FR sources (the red wizard of thay; which is most recently printed in the DMG; and a PrC related to the witches of rashemen in either FCS or unapproachable east) and one in Ghostwalk (a feat can you believe?!).

...... and I forgot the other one again.

[Phelix-Mu]

The problem with the follower crafting an item is that--someone feel free to correct me here-- the experience points for making an item have to come from the crafter, and the follower doesn't have a reliable source of experience points. Even if initially they can craft, they will eventually burn through the experience they have available, and now they can't do anymore.

If you are using some other option for crafting besides using experience, then you can ignore this, but even some method of donating experience might be problematic (I would imagine the donor would have to be there for some substantial portion of the crafting).

I would second that crafter homonculus from the Eberron material. Very useful, maybe too useful, definitely most appropriate for a high magic world.

[HunterOfJello]

The problem with the follower crafting an item is that--someone feel free to correct me here-- the experience points for making an item have to come from the crafter, and the follower doesn't have a reliable source of experience points. Even if initially they can craft, they will eventually burn through the experience they have available, and now they can't do anymore.

If you are using some other option for crafting besides using experience, then you can ignore this, but even some method of donating experience might be problematic (I would imagine the donor would have to be there for some substantial portion of the crafting).

I would second that crafter homonculus from the Eberron material. Very useful, maybe too useful, definitely most appropriate for a high magic world.

There's a spell that allows anyone to put experience into an object that can later be used to create items. It allows an item to be created by using up the experience from someone like a Fighter or Monk instead of always using up your Wizard or Artificer's Exp.

It's on the WotC site somewhere.

[TuggyNE]

The problem with the follower crafting an item is that--someone feel free to correct me here-- the experience points for making an item have to come from the crafter, and the follower doesn't have a reliable source of experience points. Even if initially they can craft, they will eventually burn through the experience they have available, and now they can't do anymore.

This is more or less true, but it's not quite as bad as it seems.
It is possible for more than one character to cooperate in the creation of an item, with each participant providing one or more of the prerequisites. In some cases, cooperation may even be necessary.

If two or more characters cooperate to create an item, they must agree among themselves who will be considered the creator for the purpose of determinations where the creator’s level must be known. The character designated as the creator pays the XP required to make the item.

So you can basically shift between followers until all the spare XP is used up.

[Glarnog]

Phelix-Mu,
The DM has some house rules about xp and crafting. I still don't understand how the whole system works, but we can disenchant magic items in to shards. The shards can be used or actually in this campaign, i think, must be used for the xp requirement for crafted items. We get one shard per 1k gp value of the magic item disenchanted. Then each shard off sets the xp. I'm not sure at what rate. But I think for 100k item, it would require 50 shards. Expensive to be sure.

The DM doesn't really hand out xp. It's like we hit a mile stone or finish a chapter of the campagin or complete a big story arc and ding a level. Even with these shards he has rules that npc crafters don't craft items for sale because it costs them xp. That anyone willing to use up part of their soul, energy, life experince, how ever you want to look at it, is only going to do so if it's an item that's very important to them. And one they will want to use themselves. The npc crafters don't seem to use shards. As such, items, especially at our level aren't available. And if we do find one, it takes quite a bit of socializing to even get a chance to buy it. And usually at 2 to 3 times the cost. But we're pretty wealthy so we usually jump on any chance regardless of the price. Hell, finding scrolls of spells above 4th level is neigh impossible.
Thanks

[Kelb_Panthera]

Xp can be produced and purchased thanks to BoED and BoVD in the forms of the special materials ambrosia and agony. BoVD also has a couple other things, but we'll just stick to these two for now.

Either is produced by a spell (different spells for each one) targetting a creature experiencing either intense pain or profound joy. The resultant material can be consumed in the creation of magic items at a rate of 3xp per dose. They can also be used to provide the xp component for spells with such.

[Jeff the Green]

Xp can be produced and purchased thanks to BoED and BoVD in the forms of the special materials ambrosia and agony. BoVD also has a couple other things, but we'll just stick to these two for now.

Either is produced by a spell (different spells for each one) targetting a creature experiencing either intense pain or profound joy. The resultant material can be consumed in the creation of magic items at a rate of 3xp per dose. They can also be used to provide the xp component for spells with such.

Alas, the spells have a 1-day casting time, making them incredibly impractical, and buying them for use in crafting would end up being more expensive than just buying the item (they're 100 GP each, IIRC).

The only useful way to use them, as far as I've seen, is to have a self-resetting trap of one of the spells. Then you have a few options:

A symbol of pain spell.
A symbol of pain + a nipple clamp of exquisite pleasure.
A woman that doesn't need to sleep or eat and lots of lubricant. (Since men have less stamina because of their... let's say "plumbing" and leave it there.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Alas, the spells have a 1-day casting time, making them incredibly impractical, and buying them for use in crafting would end up being more expensive than just buying the item (they're 100 GP each, IIRC).

The only useful way to use them, as far as I've seen, is to have a self-resetting trap of one of the spells. Then you have a few options:

A symbol of pain spell.
A symbol of pain + a nipple clamp of exquisite pleasure.
A woman that doesn't need to sleep or eat and lots of lubricant. (Since men have less stamina because of their... let's say "plumbing" and leave it there.)


Impractical for one character, sure, but we're talking about a mess of followers here. A couple guys casting the spells to produce the substances while other followers are doing the actual crafting can be reasonably viable. Using the first two of the above suggestions is also certainly viable, though the third is probably not only inefficient but ineffective (I don't forsee a whole lot of joy for that woman after a few hours or without at least a few competent partners and I think the agony option is a bit squicky for most gaming groups).

[Jeff the Green]

Impractical for one character, sure, but we're talking about a mess of followers here. A couple guys casting the spells to produce the substances while other followers are doing the actual crafting can be reasonably viable. Using the first two of the above suggestions is also certainly viable, though the third is probably not only inefficient but ineffective (I don't forsee a whole lot of joy for that woman after a few hours or without at least a few competent partners and I think the agony option is a bit squicky for most gaming groups).

The problem is that liquid pain is a 4th-level spell (i.e. out of range of followers) and distilled joy is 3rd (i.e. very few followers—a maximum of 2—will have it). Putting your followers to work being tortured/pleasured is definitely feasible, but you're going to need someone else to do the casting.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The problem is that liquid pain is a 4th-level spell (i.e. out of range of followers) and distilled joy is 3rd (i.e. very few followers—a maximum of 2—will have it). Putting your followers to work being tortured/pleasured is definitely feasible, but you're going to need someone else to do the casting.

Distilled joy will just fit in an eternal wand. It'll be a while before it pays for itself, but it will eventually. If his DM is the generous sort, he might even get one that only casts 1/day at half the normal cost. Either way it's a slow, but unlimited source of xp for a one time gold cost.

[Darth Stabber]

Distilled joy will just fit in an eternal wand. It'll be a while before it pays for itself, but it will eventually. If his DM is the generous sort, he might even get one that only casts 1/day at half the normal cost. Either way it's a slow, but unlimited source of xp for a one time gold cost.

Open a brothel, include wand, you get money, and xp from 1-2 customers per day. Maybe not for the LG types, but it works.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Open a brothel, include wand, you get money, and xp from 1-2 customers per day. Maybe not for the LG types, but it works.

Or a day spa, if you wanna be a little classier. Sex is great, but it's hardly the only source of joy.

[Jeff the Green]

Or a day spa, if you wanna be a little classier. Sex is great, but it's hardly the only source of joy.

No, but it's the most reliable.

Another idea I had would be to cast this on a pauper the VoP druid had just given a generous handout to.

[Kelb_Panthera]

No, but it's the most reliable.

Another idea I had would be to cast this on a pauper the VoP druid had just given a generous handout to.

If sitcoms have taught me anything it's that the relationship between sex and satisfaction, much less joy, isn't the most reliable thing in the world. Though that applies just a bit more to women than to men. Trickier plumbing.

Hell, a good resturaunt can give many people that feel-good feeling the spell needs. Especially if it's one of those romantic numbers where marriage proposals are frequent.

[Darth Stabber]

If sitcoms have taught me anything it's that the relationship between sex and satisfaction, much less joy, isn't the most reliable thing in the world. Though that applies just a bit more to women than to men. Trickier plumbing.

Hell, a good resturaunt can give many people that feel-good feeling the spell needs. Especially if it's one of those romantic numbers where marriage proposals are frequent.

I'm guessing that the corelation between sex and satifaction is probably higher in paid transaction, since you are under no pressure to please another person. That being said you aren't forging a personal connection with a loved one (or liked one in certain cases, or in other cases, another drunk person), so make of it what you will, brothel was just the obvious low hanging fruit (I was having a debate with a friend earlier about the ethics of legalized prostitution, so it was fresh in my mind.

[JaronK]

Easiest method for joy harvesting: There's actually spells in BoED that cause joy. And if you can get the spell like ability version of Distill Joy, it takes a standard action. Now make a resetting trap that's triggered by pulling a level, and it just casts those spells back to back. Endless xp, and all you need is a follower willing to feel really happy for you a lot.

That handles the xp aspect.

JaronK

[Jeff the Green]

Easiest method for joy harvesting: There's actually spells in BoED that cause joy. And if you can get the spell like ability version of Distill Joy, it takes a standard action. Now make a resetting trap that's triggered by pulling a level, and it just casts those spells back to back. Endless xp, and all you need is a follower willing to feel really happy for you a lot.

That handles the xp aspect.

JaronK

Well, yeah, but I got a nipple clamp of exquisite pleasure in my stocking this year. What else am I going to use it for?

[Vaz]

Make lots of standard quality goods, sell lots of standadd quality goods, make lots of money, purchase items on request.

[JaronK]

Well, yeah, but I got a nipple clamp of exquisite pleasure in my stocking this year. What else am I going to use it for?

...I'll tell you when you're older.

JaronK