ZeHgS
2016-04-10, 01:05 AM
So, what do you think of this feat, particularly for artificers? I don't know whether this is well known and often used, but I didn't see it mentioned in the Artificer guides I read. I only saw Favored in Guild (Arcane) mentioned, and it seems far, far worse.
Dungeon Master's Guide II, p. 227
Select one of your guild's associated skills. As long as you remain a member of that guild, you gain a +2 competence bonus on all checks made with that skill.
[...]
Mercantile: You can charge a little bit more for the goods and services you sell, since membership in the guild implies quality. Once per character level, you can sell a good or service for 100% markup over its regular price in any city where the organization maintains a guildhouse.
[...]
So considering the wealth by level table, a level 3 character would have around 2700 GP. Let's say he needs 850 GP for other things and has 1850 GP to spend on his newly acquired Craft Wondrous Item feat. If he took the Extraordinary Artisan feat at level 1, he can craft at 37.5% of the market price. Say he makes a Skill bonus (Competence) item for the price of 7² x 100 GP = 4900 * 0.375 = 1837.5 GP. He then sells this item with a huge markup for 9800, taking home a nice net profit of 7962.2, effectively more than quadrupling his initial investment (4.3x). His 2700 now became 8812 GP and he regrets not having invested those 850 GP. In fact, he is now considering asking the group for money and perhaps even setting up a pyramid scheme.
Compared to this, it's a joke:
Favored in Guild: Arcane: The guild subsidizes the creation of magic items, reducing your raw material costs by 5%.
It's just completely broken. At level one he is as rich as a level 5 character. For simplicity, considering he invested all of his wealth by level on a single item, sold it for 100% markup then deduced his normal wealth by level for adventuring expenditures at every level and saved the rest, then invested his entire accumulated wealth on a new item on the next level he would have 400.000 GP by level 6, almost as rich as a level 18 character. If he keeps doing this, by level 10 I'm pretty sure he could hire deities for bodyguards.
And this isn't even trying hard!
EDIT: Sorry, I found out even if you craft the item yourself standard rules say you sell it for 50% of the listed price, effectively halving the efficiency. However, it is still completely broken!
Dungeon Master's Guide II, p. 227
Select one of your guild's associated skills. As long as you remain a member of that guild, you gain a +2 competence bonus on all checks made with that skill.
[...]
Mercantile: You can charge a little bit more for the goods and services you sell, since membership in the guild implies quality. Once per character level, you can sell a good or service for 100% markup over its regular price in any city where the organization maintains a guildhouse.
[...]
So considering the wealth by level table, a level 3 character would have around 2700 GP. Let's say he needs 850 GP for other things and has 1850 GP to spend on his newly acquired Craft Wondrous Item feat. If he took the Extraordinary Artisan feat at level 1, he can craft at 37.5% of the market price. Say he makes a Skill bonus (Competence) item for the price of 7² x 100 GP = 4900 * 0.375 = 1837.5 GP. He then sells this item with a huge markup for 9800, taking home a nice net profit of 7962.2, effectively more than quadrupling his initial investment (4.3x). His 2700 now became 8812 GP and he regrets not having invested those 850 GP. In fact, he is now considering asking the group for money and perhaps even setting up a pyramid scheme.
Compared to this, it's a joke:
Favored in Guild: Arcane: The guild subsidizes the creation of magic items, reducing your raw material costs by 5%.
It's just completely broken. At level one he is as rich as a level 5 character. For simplicity, considering he invested all of his wealth by level on a single item, sold it for 100% markup then deduced his normal wealth by level for adventuring expenditures at every level and saved the rest, then invested his entire accumulated wealth on a new item on the next level he would have 400.000 GP by level 6, almost as rich as a level 18 character. If he keeps doing this, by level 10 I'm pretty sure he could hire deities for bodyguards.
And this isn't even trying hard!
EDIT: Sorry, I found out even if you craft the item yourself standard rules say you sell it for 50% of the listed price, effectively halving the efficiency. However, it is still completely broken!