MagneticDuke
2020-07-26, 02:40 AM
Hello. I have a question wrapped up in a story for you all today; a player and I, let's call him George, are having a disagreement about crafting wondrous items in Pathfinder. My understanding of the situation is "If it's not listed on the requirements line, it's not a requirement." George, though, is insistent that a PC must meet or exceed the item's CL in order to create the item on top of other requirements. George and I have had rules debates before, and in the past I've been able to show him through RAW that he was misunderstanding. Similarly, George has given me some needed rules corrections, by bringing RAW to bear. He may have a habit of arguing with GMs, but most of the time it's a symbiotic relationship.
I know where George is coming from in this situation; older printings of the Pathfinder Core Rules and both printings of the Advanced Player's Guide say as such. However, both an FAQ from Paizo's website (Can't post the link due to having less than 10 posts) and core rulebook erratas for earlier printings from after the Advanced Player's Guide was published remove this line. Things get more complex; there is an errata for the APG that was published after the FAQ linked in the post, but before the core rulebook erratas, that doesn't remove the line about having to meet or exceed the item's CL in order to make it.
To prevent confusion, here's a quick timeline:
Publication of 2nd printing of Core Rulebook and APG
8/30/2010: FAQ goes live stating that the line in the APB that states that PC CL must meet or exceed CL of item is a mistake.
12/1/2010: APG errata published. No mention of the above FAQ item is in the errata, line still present in APG
5/30/2013: Final errata for Second Edition core rules printed, removes line stating that PC CL must meet or exceed item CL to craft.
To my knowledge, the APG has not had an updated errata, leading to contradictory information. I presented this to George, along with the Pearl of Power (If meeting/exceeding CL was a hard and fast requirement, why would a first-level Pearl of Power still have Cl 17?) as well as the living Wall construct, and he demanded an errata for the Core Rulebook's sixth printing. At this point, I announced "As the DM, I am final arbiter of all rules and rules decisions. If you want to run it differently at your table, that's on you."
This happened during a recent session, between downtime and combat. Is there any way I could have handled this more gracefully? Am I missing something obvious and is George actually correct? Is there a later publication that clears this up (or corrects the APG) that I'm missing? Do you have any suggestions for handling contradictory information in the future outside of my default of using the most recent information we can find?
Edited to fix typos.
I know where George is coming from in this situation; older printings of the Pathfinder Core Rules and both printings of the Advanced Player's Guide say as such. However, both an FAQ from Paizo's website (Can't post the link due to having less than 10 posts) and core rulebook erratas for earlier printings from after the Advanced Player's Guide was published remove this line. Things get more complex; there is an errata for the APG that was published after the FAQ linked in the post, but before the core rulebook erratas, that doesn't remove the line about having to meet or exceed the item's CL in order to make it.
To prevent confusion, here's a quick timeline:
Publication of 2nd printing of Core Rulebook and APG
8/30/2010: FAQ goes live stating that the line in the APB that states that PC CL must meet or exceed CL of item is a mistake.
12/1/2010: APG errata published. No mention of the above FAQ item is in the errata, line still present in APG
5/30/2013: Final errata for Second Edition core rules printed, removes line stating that PC CL must meet or exceed item CL to craft.
To my knowledge, the APG has not had an updated errata, leading to contradictory information. I presented this to George, along with the Pearl of Power (If meeting/exceeding CL was a hard and fast requirement, why would a first-level Pearl of Power still have Cl 17?) as well as the living Wall construct, and he demanded an errata for the Core Rulebook's sixth printing. At this point, I announced "As the DM, I am final arbiter of all rules and rules decisions. If you want to run it differently at your table, that's on you."
This happened during a recent session, between downtime and combat. Is there any way I could have handled this more gracefully? Am I missing something obvious and is George actually correct? Is there a later publication that clears this up (or corrects the APG) that I'm missing? Do you have any suggestions for handling contradictory information in the future outside of my default of using the most recent information we can find?
Edited to fix typos.