Crafting Questions!

[Equinox90]

Hey, I just hit Level 4 on my Artificer and our party finally amassed some loot. So it's time I start crafting more than just scrolls. I have a few questions:

1) When crafting a magical item or a construct. I apply my cost reducers to the Cost of the item, not the secondary "crafting" cost that already assumes the 50% reduction. But, what if the item has no "Main cost" and only a crafting cost? Do I infer from there? Assuming its already 50% then add my 25% extra reduction from my feats?

2) When crafting with resources available, like potions or golems, do I still have to pay the GP cost for the materials? I ask because we happen to be in a golem workshop surrounded by abundant resources and there is a fully stocked herbalist room nearby.

3) I want to craft a combat construct, I took Craft Construct as my bonus L4 feat for Artificer. Is it better to craft a homonculus or a non-homonculus construct?

Thanks for your help!

[Sagetim]

Well, to start with:
2) that's entirely up to your GM, but it would be very reasonable (if you are allowed to use those resources mentioned) that it would reduce or eliminate the gp cost of crafting appropriate items with those resources. Bearing that in mind, the GM should probably determine how much those resources are worth for crafting, just so you can all be clear about that ooc. Or if they want to keep it vague so they can adjust it if they feel a particular number would be too low or hig later, they should at least have a ballpark figure for their own purposes and tell you when you're starting to run low on freebie resources.

3) You probably don't have the cash, xp, or prerequisites to craft anything other than a homunclus at level 4. I think there's some wooden bodyguard golems that red wizards of thay make, but that's a crapshoot on if you would be allowed to even craft them, let alone having to look them up, and potentially having to convert them from *3.0 from a Forgotten Realms splatbook. Those are the cheapest non-homunculus golems I can think of, off hand. And they still clock in at like, 8k each or something.

1) do the cost reducers say Base Cost, Market Value or similar wording? If not, I would assume (and could be wrong) that the cost reduction applies to the crafting cost.

*whoops, wrote 3.5 there.

[Coidzor]

Due to the way that math works, I think it's the transitive property, it generally makes no difference.

10,000 gp divided by 2 and then multiplied by 0.75 is the same as 10,000 gp multiplied by 0.75 and then divided by 2.

[Equinox90]

Oh no I agree. But my concern is that cost reducers adjust the market price of the item. And technically some items don't have market prices. So by RAW, I was wondering if I could still apply my adjusters.

[Sagetim]

Oh no I agree. But my concern is that cost reducers adjust the market price of the item. And technically some items don't have market prices. So by RAW, I was wondering if I could still apply my adjusters.

I would say yes. Just because someone had an oversight on a minor bit of technicality doesn't mean that your feat doesn't apply when it should reasonably apply.

[CIDE]

Well, to start with:
2) that's entirely up to your GM, but it would be very reasonable (if you are allowed to use those resources mentioned) that it would reduce or eliminate the gp cost of crafting appropriate items with those resources. Bearing that in mind, the GM should probably determine how much those resources are worth for crafting, just so you can all be clear about that ooc. Or if they want to keep it vague so they can adjust it if they feel a particular number would be too low or hig later, they should at least have a ballpark figure for their own purposes and tell you when you're starting to run low on freebie resources.

3) You probably don't have the cash, xp, or prerequisites to craft anything other than a homunclus at level 4. I think there's some wooden bodyguard golems that red wizards of thay make, but that's a crapshoot on if you would be allowed to even craft them, let alone having to look them up, and potentially having to convert them from *3.0 from a Forgotten Realms splatbook. Those are the cheapest non-homunculus golems I can think of, off hand. And they still clock in at like, 8k each or something.

1) do the cost reducers say Base Cost, Market Value or similar wording? If not, I would assume (and could be wrong) that the cost reduction applies to the crafting cost.

*whoops, wrote 3.5 there.

Effigy Creature template could be used for some cheaper constructs than 8k. They may not be as good or better than your aforementioned wooden bodyguard (Don't remember them) but they could be pretty awesome at a level as low as 4. Even a 1hd medium Effigy is going to have average 25.5 hit points, DR, decent AC, and decent attacks depending on form. Can't really check now but IIRC it was only around 5k for a 1hd medium Effigy.

[Coidzor]

I'd be interested in the name and source of that construct.

As far as I know, there's only Thayan Golems, and they have a ~20K market price but no creation cost, so they're the opposite of the OP's case.

[Gildedragon]

Iirc: Paper Golems are pretty cheap to make

[Sagetim]

As I recall, Thayan Golems had flavor text that included that the thayans would utterly overcharge for the damn things, even going for trying to get as much as 40k or more out of a single golem or some such thing, then the errata to update that book from 3.0 to 3.5 specified they only actually had a base price or a crafting price around 8k or something.