Alternative Crafting Rules - no XP

[LentilNinja]

I should be called "Forgetful in the Playground" for the amount of questions I ask like this.

I swear I saw an alternative rule for Crafting or something like that that allowed you to substitute the XP cost for 25% more gold & materials. Can someone verify this for me? It might not be for Crafting, but something similar.

[umbergod]

you could always go with PF's crafting system, which does away with the EXP cost.

[Slipperychicken]

you could always go with PF's crafting system, which does away with the EXP cost.

It's pretty much a copy-paste of 3.5, only you take the XP costs, remove them, and replace them with 5x that quantity in gp. So if an item would normally cost 1gp + 1xp to create, it now costs 6gp in materials. The same goes for spells: a spell which costs 5,000xp now costs 25,000gp instead.

I prefer removing XP costs altogether. It takes a lot of weirdness and shenanigans out of the game (i.e. "Sorry, but I'm physically unable to brew you that CLW potion 'till I solo another 5 bugbears").

[Kazudo]

Read through this variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/craftPoints.htm) and see what you think. It could be what you're looking for (or more easily modified to fit your needs than a whole system overhaul).

[JusticeZero]

Before I switched to PF, I used "Materia", similar to Ars Magica's Vis. In magical places, you would find some materia. Major undead would leave ashes that had negative Materia, firey places and enemies might leave fire Materia and so on. The Materia was used in crafting as components of item crafting, and was essentially crystallized XP.

It was useful for making adventures on the fly, and also explains why there are so many frost themed things in cold places, etc.; "I want to craft a sword of Fire Burst, but we've been fighting ice monsters in the Frozen North this whole time. I'll bet they need Ice Materia down south towards that volcano, so we need to arrange a trade.."

[Faily]

Before I switched to PF, I used "Materia", similar to Ars Magica's Vis. In magical places, you would find some materia. Major undead would leave ashes that had negative Materia, firey places and enemies might leave fire Materia and so on. The Materia was used in crafting as components of item crafting, and was essentially crystallized XP.

It was useful for making adventures on the fly, and also explains why there are so many frost themed things in cold places, etc.; "I want to craft a sword of Fire Burst, but we've been fighting ice monsters in the Frozen North this whole time. I'll bet they need Ice Materia down south towards that volcano, so we need to arrange a trade.."


That is actually a pretty neat idea. :smallsmile: I do like that item creation components are more than just "2000gp".

D&D Online actually uses Essences, which is similar enough to Ars Magica's Vis for one of their craftings. You have Essences of Chaos, Law, Evil, Good, Arcane, Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Mind and Body which are needed for different sorts of effects you want to apply.

[LentilNinja]

Thanks for the replies. I was looking for that specific variant rule (double checking in case I made it up), but I'll read the alternatives and see (or just use my "made up" rule :P)