Which would you say is more important? Legendary Artisan or Extraordinary Artisan?

[magicalmagicman]

Legendary Artisan cuts xp costs for creating magic items by 25% and Extraordinary Artisan cuts gp costs for creating magic items by 25%.

I am getting both, but which would you get first?

[BWR]

Depends on the game: which is harder to come by, xp or gp?

[DeadMech]

XP is a river... or however that went. Spending XP puts you behind but being behind just means you gain XP faster than the rest of the party so you'll end up catching up again eventually. Meanwhile GP is (if the DM follows wealth by level) static. Gold tends to be limited by how much the DM hands out regardless of what you do.

On the other hand it's easier to make your party members pay you gold for the things you make for them than it is to make them pay XP. (unless your DM let's you spend xp donated from willing party members to make things.)

[magicalmagicman]

XP is a river... or however that went. Spending XP puts you behind but being behind just means you gain XP faster than the rest of the party so you'll end up catching up again eventually. Meanwhile GP is (if the DM follows wealth by level) static. Gold tends to be limited by how much the DM hands out regardless of what you do.

Yeah this was my line of thinking. You will always get a ton of XP and eventually catch up but gold on the other hand, is completely at the mercy of the DM and there are no guarantees. But gold is however farmable so... but DMs usually don't let you farm gold.

Just wanted to see other people's opinions to see if I'm wrong or not.

[Eldariel]

Yeah this was my line of thinking. You will always get a ton of XP and eventually catch up but gold on the other hand, is completely at the mercy of the DM and there are no guarantees. But gold is however farmable so... but DMs usually don't let you farm gold.

Just wanted to see other people's opinions to see if I'm wrong or not.

It depends entirely on the campaign. Sandbox in particular operates on an entirely different paradigm than a logical adventure, which in turn has a different paradigm than a strict WBL campaign. Player agency features heavily into it; how much control do they have over what they go do and face? Will their opponents scale conveniently into level appropriate encounters regardless of what they do? Can they gain gold not synched with XP gain? The value of each is directly related to the style of game you're playing. In an open PC-driven adventure, both are very valuable but perhaps gold pulls ahead of XP by a bit due to the aforementioned increased XP gains when being behind the rest of the party.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Are you a primary spellcaster, secondary spellcaster, or a mundane? And will the DM allow you to use your resources to their full extent, or are you arbitrarily limited by ideas of "balance"? The more spellcasting options you have, the more valuable XP becomes and the less valuable GP becomes. The same holds true the less your GM puts a stranglehold on player agency. And philosophically, stronger spellcasting leads to higher player agency, if only because such characters can choose to ignore the mundane rules of reality and can choose when to substitute their own.

For primary spellcasters, XP is more valuable than GP, because for them the first is a limited resource, and the second is far less so. A wizard, as an example, gets access to unlimited gold rather easily. Wall of salt can be directly used in lieu of silver on a pound-for-pound basis. It can literally be used as money; the PHB says so. And that's not even including selling spellcasting services, which can make large amounts of money for very little effort.

Secondary spellcasters are more reliant on GP being a limited resource simply because they don't have access to as many magical ways to make it. XP is still quite valuable in this case, but the relative value of GP increases to match it.

Mundane characters typically have no use for XP because they have no means of actually using it that don't involve leveling up. GP, meanwhile, is incredibly valuable because they just don't have the means of whipping it up out of thin air.

I'm not going to seriously discuss DM limitations, because they are basically arbitrary, and I can't really predict how any given DM's random houserules will change this paradigm without knowing what they are. Suffice it to say, which is more valuable depends on what the DM's houserules are and how they affect one's acquisition of GP and XP.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Lots of good points here, but the basic rule i'd go by is this:
If your DM uses RAW XP rules gold is more important, if he gives everyone equal XP regardless of level (a common houserule ime) then reducing XP costs first is better.
The reason is that GP tends to come in at a fixed rate (loot) while spending XP just means you get more of it.
Well, unless the DM lets you use Wall of Salt and the like to effectively make unlimited money, but i've never seen that actually allowed in any game, so i'll assume a normal "crafting while adventuring" campaign where you can't just take half a year off to earn money to craft.

I'm not going to dig up the source, but someone calculated this a while ago. With RAW XP rules you're nearly always at most one level behind, even if you spend literally all your WBL on magic item crafting.
In exchange you have effectively double WBL, the value of which shouldn't need to be explained.

[Zanos]

GP is generally the primary limiting factor when it comes to crafting magic items.

[Jowgen]

(unless your DM let's you spend xp donated from willing party members to make things.)

Unless any of these (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a)are banned at the table, that is how things should work.

If the whole party chips in xp to have equipment made/upgraded, then no one trails behind in level. The party as a whole advances a bit slower, but at the same time everyone's gear gets significantly better, meaning they can take on greater challenges relative to their level and.. you guesses it... gain exp more quickly. Even if not, I can't think of a single scenario where Legendary Artisan wins out.

Of course, this whole thread is a trick question, and the real answer is MAGICAL ARTISAN applied to either.

[magicalmagicman]

Of course, this whole thread is a trick question, and the real answer is MAGICAL ARTISAN applied to either.

Why am I just learning about this feat.... No one mentioned it in all of my other artificer feats...

So how do they stack? Additively? Multiplicatively?

If I apply Magical Artisan to all three Legendary, Extraordinary, and Exceptional Artisan, what is the total item cost reduction? 1 - 0.75^4 = 68.4% cost reduction? Or 100% cost reduction?

Holy **** this changes everything!

[Yogibear41]

They are multiplicative.

If something costs 100 gold to make, and you reduce it by 25%, then reduce it again by 25% it costs 56.25 gold to make.

100(.75) = 75

75(.75) = 56.25

At least that's how I always assumed they worked.

[Jowgen]

They are multiplicative.

If something costs 100 gold to make, and you reduce it by 25%, then reduce it again by 25% it costs 56.25 gold to make.

100(.75) = 75

75(.75) = 56.25

At least that's how I always assumed they worked.

Basically this, but there is some ambiguity when you get down into the nitty gritty.

It's rather convoluted, as for one it matters what version of Magical Artisan you use. The OA and FRCS versions use the wording "multiply the base price by 75%", while PGtF says "pay only 75% of the normal cost". PGtF is arguably the latest (3.5) printing, but OA did get an update in Dragon mag which didn't errata the original feat, so that could be considered more up to date if you accept Dragon mag.

The Eberron Artisan feats say "reduce the base price by 25%". If you use OA/FRCS, both refer to the base price, so they could be considered to be additive (i.e. apply concurrently, reducing the base price as unmodified by the other, resulting in additive reduction), but even that is up for debate. With PGtF however, they are certainly multiplicative, as "normal cost" (whatever it means) will apply either before or after. On the whole, it very much favours multiplicative.

Now once you start adding in other cost reducers, all with their own specific wordings (e.g. "reduce raw material cost") or taking Magical Artisan multiple times applied to things like Bind Elemental... I recommend using an excel spreadsheet for formulas and running it by the DM. Or just treating everything as multiplicative for diminishing returns to keep things simpler.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The Eberron Artisan feats say "reduce the base price by 25%". If you use OA/FRCS, both refer to the base price, so they could be considered to be additive (i.e. apply concurrently, reducing the base price as unmodified by the other, resulting in additive reduction), but even that is up for debate. With PGtF however, they are certainly multiplicative, as "normal cost" (whatever it means) will apply either before or after. On the whole, it very much favours multiplicative.

The description of the Unbound Scroll PrC (specifically the Master Scribe ability) has Legendary Artisan stacking additively, for what it's worth.

[Jowgen]

The description of the Unbound Scroll PrC (specifically the Master Scribe ability) has Legendary Artisan stacking additively, for what it's worth.

I did not know that, and it's worth quite a bit. For reference:


reduce the gp and XP costs by 5% for each level in this class. These bonuses stack with those of Legendary Artisan and Extraordinary Artisan, so that a 5th-level unbound scroll with the Legendary Artisan feat reduces the XP cost of scroll creation by 50%.

As a precedent for the "infer from similar rules when in doubt" guideline, this does suggest that cost reducers should stack additively, as long as the wordings refer to "cost" or "base price" like the eberron feats say. It also weakens the argument that the PGtF's "normal cost" wording makes it inherently multiplicative, since Master Scribe also refers just "cost".