Elysiume
2017-06-26, 09:36 PM
How do people deal with crafting in their games? I just took Craft Wondrous Item, and the specifics of how it works with WBL are odd. The RAW rules I've found are this section: "However, game balance for the default campaign experience expects you and all other PCs to be close to the listed wealth values, so the GM shouldn't just let you craft double the normal amount of gear. As a guideline, allowing a crafting PC to exceed the Character Wealth by Level guidelines by about 25% is fair, or even up to 50% if the PC has multiple crafting feats." If I just craft items for myself, I could be expected to have (at level 6) a total WBL of ~20,000gp, the 16,000gp base with an additional 4,000gp from the crafting slushpool. Assuming I was precisely at my adjusted WBL, I could have 12,000gp in bought/found items and 8,000gp in crafted items to meet the expected guidelines.
Where it gets messier is crafting for party members. It later goes on to say that if you craft items for your party members, that saving in WBL is drawn from your increase pool. Selfishness aside (i.e. I don't want to be gifting what is effectively my gold to party members in excess of what is normally expected), it seems like it gets really clunky for WBL. The concern is moreso at the party level rather than the individual level, so a crafted 8,000gp item is effectively +4,000gp for the party, which is the extent of what a crafting feat should add. Whether another player gets an 8,000gp item for 4,000gp, or I charge them 8,000gp and pocket the 4,000gp, I shouldn't be crafting any more items until that item has left the party (by hook or by crook). As written, it's recommended that at that point I couldn't even craft an otherwise unavailable item at full price.
I do realize that WBL is just a guideline, but I'm already in a large party of six people, and I don't want to make my DMs life more difficult trying to balance an overgeared, underleveled party. How do people handle the crafting of items, both in terms of having it impact WBL and avoiding the awkwardness that comes in from crafting more cheaply for yourself?
Where it gets messier is crafting for party members. It later goes on to say that if you craft items for your party members, that saving in WBL is drawn from your increase pool. Selfishness aside (i.e. I don't want to be gifting what is effectively my gold to party members in excess of what is normally expected), it seems like it gets really clunky for WBL. The concern is moreso at the party level rather than the individual level, so a crafted 8,000gp item is effectively +4,000gp for the party, which is the extent of what a crafting feat should add. Whether another player gets an 8,000gp item for 4,000gp, or I charge them 8,000gp and pocket the 4,000gp, I shouldn't be crafting any more items until that item has left the party (by hook or by crook). As written, it's recommended that at that point I couldn't even craft an otherwise unavailable item at full price.
I do realize that WBL is just a guideline, but I'm already in a large party of six people, and I don't want to make my DMs life more difficult trying to balance an overgeared, underleveled party. How do people handle the crafting of items, both in terms of having it impact WBL and avoiding the awkwardness that comes in from crafting more cheaply for yourself?