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Leicontis
2007-07-20, 12:49 AM
My friends and I tend to run our campaigns without strict XP. This saves on bookkeeping, and allows the party to remain on par for level. The biggest difficulty we've experienced, however, is when PCs want to create magic items. With no XP, I'm not sure how to handle this. Ways I've tried or concieved include:

No XP costs - just pay half the base cost for materials.
Mini-quest - require a quest that would give the crafter a similar amount of XP
Item worthiness - require the item to have been used enough that it becomes 'worthy' of magical upgrade.
Gold for XP - pay some amount of gold to balance out the XP, which would probably just leave the feat effectively allowing a character to buy custom items at base price, plus some crafting time.

Does anybody have any thoughts on these, or any other ideas? Luckily, none of our campaigns currently have any item crafters, but that could change.

Gralamin
2007-07-20, 12:53 AM
Craft Point Variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/craftPoints.htm)

edit: oops wrong thing. I meant Craft Reserve let me go find that. (Might be Eberron only...)

edit: okay heres how it works:
You get a pool of XP that you can use instead of xp every level. Each level up, it is completely filled to the new amount (so if it went from 10 to 20, and there was 10 xp in the 10, it'd become 20, not 30).

paigeoliver
2007-07-20, 04:32 AM
I wouldn't worry about it too much at all. The XP totals for crafting are pretty minuscule. A crafter who crafted almost all his gold total over a 20 level career would only be about a level behind his peers.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-20, 06:34 AM
The mini quest idea is one I like to use myself. Instead of buying components in the shop, and spending all day at home crafting itens, the group needs to find special itens.
There's a game I used to play that used that rule, instead of using XP the caster already have.
For potions, you could make it just cost a bit more, or extend the crafting time. It wouldn't make much sense to go on quests to get ingredients to make cure light potions.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-07-20, 09:24 AM
I wouldn't worry about it too much at all. The XP totals for crafting are pretty minuscule.
Indeed. It's so tiny that I can only conclude the XP cost as being more of a flavor thing (representing the caster using some of his or her personal lifeforce or something similar) than a balance issue. Especially when you couple it with the "catch-up mechanism" in the XP rules.


A crafter who crafted almost all his gold total over a 20 level career would only be about a level behind his peers.
Or not behind at all. Factor in the "catch-up mechanism," and any spellcaster that falls behind will begin earning XP at a more rapid rate than his or her comrades. If the numbers fall just right, this caster could even wind up with total XP in excess of his or her teammates.

Really, XP costs for crafting could easily be removed without a replacement with no harm at all to game balance. Since it could be construed as a flavor thing, however, you can feel free to replace it with any system you like.

I don't have a lot to say about your potential replacement ideas at the time (maybe need a little more time to think them over), except for the mini-quest one: As we stated above, the XP cost is miniscule. It's going to be next to impossible to really create a quest equivalent to such a small bit of XP that's worth the time it takes to complete it in-game.

Leicontis
2007-07-20, 02:31 PM
True, a standard +1 sword would only cost 80XP to make, but XP costs can begin to add up. Part of the problem is explaining how NPC item crafters make all these magic items they sell without getting smacked back to level 1. The main problem, however, is that I'm not using XP at all. The party gains a level when I feel they've earned it. In some cases, this could mean leveling in consecutive meetings, if they're making incredible progress. In others, they could go quite some time at the same level if they're not accomplishing much. Either way, I want to have magic item creation cost more than the money and time that are required for other crafts. Also, there are spells that cost XP, as a balancing feature, so ideally any item creation system would also account for these costs.

I'm a little hesitant to implement a "crafting points" system, as that worsens the confusion over NPC enchanters.

adanedhel9
2007-07-20, 03:18 PM
Just a thought... maybe you could try deducting some component of the benefits of leveling from the crafter. Like, say, every 500 XP he spends, he loses 1 hp from his max.

You could really take this to the extreme and calculate exactly what benefits the crafter got last level, then create a progression of benefits spread out over the XP for that level. 'course, that would get kinda messy if he crafts, levels, and then crafts again.

But, as others have said, the effect of the XP loss due to crafting is so minimal as to not be important; so long as you keep that in mind, you should be fine.

JackMage666
2007-07-20, 03:33 PM
Make him scrap magic items of equivalent value. Basically, moving magic value from one item to another.
Take the scrapped item's XP to Create, and add it to a pool that the PC has. The PC may use this XP pool to craft items. Kinda like an Archivist can do (I think).

WhyBother
2007-07-20, 03:41 PM
Just determine how much the XP difference is between the PCs current level and his next level, multiply that by 10, and declare that he can't craft anything that costs more than that much gold without dropping a level. If he wants to craft multiple things, then just tally them all up. Alternatively, You could choose to let him go over that boundary and forgo the next level up if he doesn't make anything too powerful.

Yakk
2007-07-20, 04:09 PM
Profession(Enchanter):
This is the skill of gathering the magical energy needed to make magical items.

For every week spent concentrating magical energy into a magical item, you pay off (check/10) XP towards the creation of that item.

If you roll a 1 on this weekly check, you take 1d6+total check damage from a magical feedback.

There are magical "founts" that can be used to gather this energy faster. They are worth about 1000 gp for every +1 they grant on this roll (or 10,000 gp per XP per week they generate), and are generally immobile features of terrain.

Using a "fount" is dangerous, due to the risk of a massive backfire. Strong "fount"s can be split between multiple enchanters, splitting the benefit and the risk.

...

This gives out the usual d20+profession gp, charging a mere 10 gp per XP (a pretty decent rate!).

At 1000 gp per +1 (or 10,000 gp per +10), you are getting a 5% annual rate of return on "founts".

This explains how NPC enchanters work, why there isn't an infinite amount of magical items, and provides a means for your characters to make magical items.

You could also allow an item infused with XP to be enchanted by someone else. So players could receive infused treasure. :)

...

As more fun, you could say that items sometimes pick up natural infusion from adventuring. When your characters gain a level, pick 3 items they have had for the entire period. Grant them an infusion of (new level * 5) XP.

So by level 4, the Paladin's sword might have 45 XP worth of infusion in it.

A simple +1 enchantment costs 40 XP -- so the Cleric or Wizard could enchant the Paladins sword in a single day using 500 gp worth of materials, assuming the sword was masterwork to begin with.

One could imagine finding infused gems or infused metals as treasure.

Leicontis
2007-07-21, 10:54 AM
WhyBother, you're completely missing the point. Part of the reason I don't use XP in my campaigns is because I don't want my characters leveling unevenly.

Yakk, while your idea adds a bit of bookkeeping, it's easily bookkeeping I could make item-crafting players do for me. It seems like a more formalized version of the system I used to use.

nerulean
2007-07-21, 11:06 AM
Reinstate XP, but only for roleplaying. Our group has a running gag that every so often the DM will say things like 'You have an itch', and a response along the lines of 'I scratch it' earns you 2 XP. Allow the party to contribute their XP to any item they want so the wizard doesn't feel singled out.

Matthew
2007-07-23, 04:58 PM
I would just let them make whatever they want, ignoring the Experience Point Penalties. The real limitations are time and resources anyway.

TheOOB
2007-07-23, 05:18 PM
Create a specific type of item, like magic essence or power crystals, that holds the raw magical energy for crafting. These could be found, bought (perhaps 5-10 gp per XP) or made (requiring time and a modest GP cost). These items would of course be worth a certain number of XP that can be used to craft items, or at the GMs option cast spells with XP components.

This also helps the GM control how much crafting the players will be doing, if they give out lots of the items as rewards, that encourages lots of crafting , while if the players have to buy/make them, they will have to do so at the expense of time and or money, cutting into the time and money you'd normally use for item creation.

WhyBother
2007-07-23, 05:34 PM
WhyBother, you're completely missing the point. Part of the reason I don't use XP in my campaigns is because I don't want my characters leveling unevenly.

You seem to be missing mine as well. XP costs are only there to prevent low level characters from pooling their gold to create a single, level-inappropriate item, or else make sure that a powerful item doesn't unbalance the party by making the crafter temporarily give up levels. If you don't want uneven leveling, just look at the XP cost, and if it's more than they could afford by skipping a level -- that is, at the height of spare XP for their current level, without going into any "XP debt" -- then just don't let them craft it. Otherwise the item isn't that unbalancing, so XP can be ignored.

Darion
2007-07-23, 05:41 PM
When running XP-less games (something I tend to avoid), I've implemented the following as ways to make item-crafting "cost" the players. Most are easilly ported to NPC's and almost all represent some form of "cost to the body/mind/soul or the crafter."

~Create Scroll/Brew Potion: For a number of weeks equal to the level of the spell used, the caster's maximum number of spells at that level is reduced by one. So, say, your wizard wanted to scribe a scroll of teleport, he's down a fifth level slot for the next five weeks. This encourages players to think ahead about what they'll need and helps explain NPC crafter downtime (IE, that NPC cleric with only 1 4th is only making one cure serious potion a month, regardless of how much gold the PC's want to throw at him).

~Create Magic Arms/Armor: Creator takes a -2 penalty to one of Str/Con/Dex for every +1 of the item, lasting a number of weeks = to the + of the item. An item with more than +1 can spread the penalty (in 2 point increments) among the various physical stats. For example, a +1 chain shirt of heavy fortification is a +6 item, the creator chooses to loose 6 points of Strength, 4 of Dex, and 2 of Con for the next 6 weeks. Again, big items get very expensive and require a significant amount of down time to create, but a minor item is a small penalty.

~Create Wand: Maximum HP decreases by 5 per level of the spell for a week per level of the spell, so a basic wand of cure lesser vigor, you're down 5 for a week, etc.

~Create Wonderous Item: -1 penalty to all saves per 1,000 GP, lasts 1 week/thousand.

~Staff: -5 penalty to all skill checks per 1000 GP, lasts 1 week/thousand.

Overall, these modifications made item crafting a BIG DEAL, and often required side quests, not in terms of "finding the Hubcaps of Noonah" to create the item, but in exchange for the heavy cost required by NPC casters, etc.

Leicontis
2008-02-06, 05:41 PM
I just wanted to offer some belated thanks to Darion for his excellent suggestion, which I plan to use for my upcoming campaign. A suggested addition - for spells with XP costs, you take a penalty to your caster level (only as it affects spell range/damage/duration/etc) equal to the spell level for a number of weeks equal to the spell level.