Yet another Crafting Exp farming method

[Jowgen]

Depending on individual lactose tolerance, people either love or hate things such as Thought Bottle abuse or Nipple Clamp Inc. Distilled Joy hospitals.

I personally quite like abusing the BoVD sacrifice rules, as they're quite efficient for Dark Craft exp, if a little badly worded (though no more so than the Liquid Pain/Distilled Joy spells).

Another method, accessible to the mostly mundane at low levels and at reasonable cost, might be known to some but is not widely talked about, so I thought I'd bring it up: The Craft skill.

The Drugs table on BoVD p. 43 lists the Alchemy DC for Liquid Pain at 25, even though the rest of the book seems to operate under the assumption that the stuff can only be created magically.

The Book of Vile Darkness specific FAQ (02/10/2002) clarifies that apparently, that DC 25 is not a typo, but that an alchemist supposedly can in fact just make the stuff. Normally it is wise to not put too much stock in the sage, but in this instance the RAW does provide a craft DC, and all the FAQ does is confirm that it is not a typo.

Now how do you create the literal physical manifestation of Pain as a concept using just a chemistry lab rather than actual magic? Beats me, but per the rules apparently you can.

So how efficient is this avenue?

A dose of Liquid pain costs 200 gp and is worth 3 exp for crafting. Using craft alchemy, you pay a third of the cost of the end result to create the stuff (not including Apprentice feat, affiliation benefits or similar cost reducers). That would place us at 66.66 gp cost per dose, or 22.22 gp per point of exp.

There is also the question of Craft (Poisonmaking). It works faster (progress in gp rather than silver) and costs less if there's a good supply of raw material (1/6th rather than 1/3rd). You can substitude Alchemy for it by accepting a -4 penalty. Now can you do the reverse and use Poisonmaking to make Drugs?

Fluff aside, the argument is that the text states that "In game terms, all drugs function like poisons" (LoD, the BoVD doesn't have the in game terms part), supported by multiple smaller instances of the text conflating the two. Meanwhile, the only actual source of RAW i know of that ties Drugs to the Craft (Alchemy) skill is that one BoVD table. So one can either present a text trumps table argument, or argue that there being a listed Alchemy DC doesn't preclude the possibility of using Poisonmaking as an alternative.

So it's very much YMMV, which if it works, halves the cost to 33.33 gp per dose or 11.11 gp per Exp.


In either case, we are now in a position wherein we can convert gp to exp for crafting at a not too terrible rate by means of a sufficiently optimised skill check approach. In terms of time needed for all this, assuming minimum DC 25 result, we make 62.5 gp (or 625 with poisonmaking) in a week. That is obviously not good enough. Unseen Crafters (availble as early as 3rd level, if you can get a +15 to the craft skill of choice by then) are likely your best friend until Fabricate comes along and makes time a non-factor.

As an example lets say you want to make a Lesser Crystal of Lifekeeping. Base cost 1000 gp, crafting cost 500 gp and 40 exp. You need 14 doses of Liquid Pain to cover that cost. If you sold those, you'd make 1400 gp. You paid either 933.33 gp or 466.66 gp in raw materials depending on which craft skill you were able to apply. Both of these are worse than the 200 gp you'd pay if there general 1 to 5 ratio was just available as a thing, but it's not too far off.

So what does this boil down to?

By magically optimising mundane crafting well enough as to make it time-efficient, it is possible to eschew the exp cost of magical crafting by paying an prox 187% or 94% sur-charge more atop the crafting GP cost. This may or may not be seen as a reasonable expenditure depending on how much you value exp or how open you are to cheesier options.

All you need is a +15 in your craft skill of choice and enough downtime to make your set up work, which is something Magical Craftsmen need to have sorted regardless.

[AvatarVecna]

The fine art of refining raw materials into effective poisons requires both patience and care (not to mention discretion, in areas where poisons are outlawed). Making poisons with the Craft (poisonmaking) skill follows the rules in the Player's Handbook for all Craft skills, with the following exceptions.

Price: The cost of raw materials varies widely depending on whether the character has access to the active ingredient - that is, the venom or plant that actually provides the toxin. If a supply is readily available, the raw materials cost one-sixth of the market price, not one-third. Otherwise, the raw materials cost at least three-quarters of the market price-assuming the substance in question is for sale at all.

Amount: To figure out how much poison you are able to create in a week, make a Craft (poisonmaking) check at the end of the week. If the check is successful, multiply the check result by the DC for the check. That result is how many gp worth of poison you created that week. When your total gp created equals or exceeds the market price of one dose of the poison, that dose is finished. (You may sometimes be able to create more than one dose in a week, depending on your check result and the market price of the poison.) If you fail the check by 4 or less, you make no progress that week. If you fail the check by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to buy them again.


When determining the gold piece cost in raw materials you need to craft any item, reduce the base price by 25%.


Craftsman: A craftsman mentor is skilled at building things. A craftsman grants his apprentice a +2 competence bonus on all Craft checks and a 10% discount when he purchases raw materials for items he makes (including items made with the Craft skill or with an item creation feat, but not spell components or services).


Choose one item creation feat that you possess. When you make an item with that feat, you pay only 75% of the normal cost to create the item.


The guild subsidizes the cost of goods, supplies, and guild-related services, reducing the price to a member by 10%.


Craft Expertise
When making a Craft skill check, you double the monetary value of the progress you make in a given period.

These first three feats will be right at home on a more typical crafter build, but also by their writing can affect mundane crafting as well. Joining a DMG II crafting guild is similarly common sense for such a character. The Dragon Magazine feat is less likely to be approved, and is stranger on the build than the others for non-poison purposes, but is included for completeness.

Altogether, we're looking at spending 15.19 gp per dose to be created, and craft at a speed of (2 x DC x Craft check) gp per week by default. Minimum DC and check (25 each) creates 1250 gp per week, or up to six doses.

...this gets way easier, and we can even use Alchemy instead of Poisonmaking.


Efficient Alchemy (Ex): You can manufacture alchemical items much more quickly than a typical alchemist. You make as much progress when creating an item with Craft (alchemy) in a day as a normal character would make in a week (check result × DC in sp), and as much progress in an hour as a normal character would make in a day (check result × DC in cp).

This wasn't useful in just 3.5 because it's x7 over normal crafting, which means going alchemy instead of poison requires spending more resources (including levels) to downgrade from poison's default x20 over normal crafting. However, in 3.P games, PF rules tend to be the default, and Alchemy is used for making alchemical stuff and poisons. This loses poisonmaking's default x20, but means we can combo Alchemist Savant with some fun PF stuff that's now on the table.


You receive a +2 bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks, and you may create mundane alchemical items much more quickly than normal. When making poisons, you can create a number of doses equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) at one time. These additional doses do not increase the time required, but they do increase the raw material cost.

In addition, whenever you make alchemical items or poisons using Craft (alchemy), use the item’s gp value as its sp value when determining your progress (do not multiply the item’s gp cost by 10 to determine its sp cost).

So instead of poisonmaking giving x10 progress and x1/2 cost, a single PF feat is giving us x10x[Int+1] progress speed. It's not as cheap, but it's much faster.


At 3rd level, an alchemist can create alchemical items with astounding speed. It takes an alchemist half the normal amount of time to create alchemical items, and he can apply poison to a weapon as a move action.

x2 progress.


An eldritch poisoner gains a +2 bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks to create poisons and antitoxins, and creates them in half the normal amount of time. This ability replaces Throw Anything.

x2 progress. +2 to checks.


Select one item creation feat known by the wizard. Whenever crafting an item using that feat, the amount of progress made in an 8-hour period increases by 200 gp (50 gp if crafting while adventuring). This does not reduce the cost of the item; it just increases the rate at which the item is crafted.

Every level you gain in a Favored Class, you select one Favored Class Bonus from those available to you. This is a popular choice for crafters, and that it's on a very solid class is just bonus.


5 Ranks: When determining your weekly progress, double the result of your Craft check before multiplying the result by the item’s DC.

10 Ranks: You do not ruin any of your raw materials unless you fail a check by 10 or more.

15 Ranks: When you determine your progress, the result of your check is how much work you complete each day in silver pieces.

20 Ranks: You can craft magic armor, magic weapons, magic rings, and wondrous items that fall under your category of Craft using the normal Craft rules.

At lvl 5, this is x2 progress. At lvl 15, that goes from x2 to x14.

Human (Heart of the Fields)
Wizard 12 (Universalist/Arcane Crafter)/Alchemist 3 (Eldritch Poisoner)/Alchemist Savant 1

Int 30 (Base 17, Race 2, Age 1, Level 4, Item 6)

Feats:
HD 1: Apprentice (Craftsman)
Flaw: Extraordinary Artisan
Flaw: Least Dragonmark (Cannith)
Human: Racial Heritage (Dwarf)
Wizard 1: Scribe Scroll
HD 3: Brew Potion
Wizard 3: Craft Wondrous Item
HD 5: Signature Skill (Unchained Craft)
Wizard 5: Master Alchemist
HD 7: Skill Focus (Craft: Alchemy)
HD 9: Magical Artisan (Extraordinary Artisan)
Wizard 10: Craft Wand
HD 11: Craft Rod
HD 13: Craft Expertise
HD 15: Forge Ring

Craft Alchemy +60
15: Ranks
3: Class Skill
10: Intelligence
2: Toxicologist
8: Heart Of The Fields
2: Apprentice (Craftsman)
2: Master Alchemist
6: Skill Focus
2: Alchemist's Lab
10: Competence item

When we go to craft alchemical items, we must pay 15.1875% of whatever the final market price would end up being. For each craft check made, we make [Check Result x DC x 1232] gp per day worth of the stuff. Even assuming we can only use Accelerated Crafting to improve the DC once, that's still minimum (61 x 35 x 1232) 2,630,320 gp of crafted poisons/drugs per day at lvl 16, with initial ingredient costs of 399,479.85 gp. We've turned 1 day and 400k gp into 39453 XP for crafting. Assuming that the actual crafting is 8 hours spent per day, that's ~2.74 doses crafted per round.

If the intention here is more about turning mundane crafters into Liquid Pain farms, then the above stuff can be a bit helpful (Master Alchemist can be a huge speed increase), but you're going to be looking more for something like this to build on.

[Crake]

I was gonna suggest some of the pathfinder things that help, but I avatar vecna beat me to it.

Still, I think most of tricks that involve xp farms focus on a fixed upfront cost, followed by an otherwise infinite farm. The issue with crafting is that it comes with a scaling cost, meaning that there comes a point where crafting becomes less cost efficient, and time efficiency is made irrelevant past a certain point as you can only perform so much magic item crafting in a day anyway, so all you need to do is match that bottleneck.

Now on a DIFFERENT note though: Why not.... combine the two ideas?

Admittedly it involves using custom magic items, but since most liquid pain farms assume some kind of magic item casting the liquid pain spell, I don't imagine it's that much of an issue. If we assume that a single dose of liquid pain is a single fluidic ounce, just like a potion, then that means there's 957.5 doses per cubic foot, which means 67,025 (rounded down to the nearest whole number) doses in a 70 cubic foot area. This is the limit of what a single cast of a CL 7 fabricate could create.

Now, that being said, we don't need that many doses per cast, that's honestly just overkill, what we really need is 40xp per day, or 20 doses, as that's enough to make up for the 1000gp/day crafting limit. 20 doses of liquid pain costs 4000gp, if we use the 1/6th cost of craft (poisonmaking) we drop that down to an amusing 666gp 66sp 67cp per cast. The issue here however is that an unlimited use item would cost 100x that. Even if we make it 1/day, it would only drop that cost to 50x, since the 1/day cost adjustment only affects base price.

The cheapest way to do it would be to try and minimize both the component cost (which for 20 doses per day is actually most efficiently done by simply making the item at-will, and crafting a single dose at a time), and the base cost, which can be most easily done through the use of wondrous architecture cost reductions reducing the base cost by a quarter. This results in a base cost of 7x4x1800x0.25, or 12,600gp, plus the cost of 100x the crafting reagents for a single craft, or 200*100/6, 3,333gp 33sp 33cp. The base cost can be reduced even further by requiring craft (poisoncrafting) for a further 10% reduction, dropping the final price to 14,673gp 33sp 33cp.

This allows you to craft, at no cost or materials, 1 vial of liquid pain per round ad infinitum, assuming you can take 10 on the craft check, or, if you have at least +5 on your check, you could take 20 and make 1 vial ever 20 rounds. This means that in 2 minutes you could make enough liquid pain to last you for a day of crafting, or, in 40 minutes, if you're the bare minimum of training needed to craft (or just have 20 intelligence if you forgo the 10% base cost reduction from requiring the poisonmaking skill).

Compared to actually just crafting these yourself using Vecna's combo, while mildly slower (making 1 dose per round, vs 2.74, meaning it takes 2 minutes vs 45 seconds to make a day's worth of liquid pain), it requires far less personal investment, and also pays itself off after a mere 22 days of magic item crafting compared to actually self crafting everything.

[thethird]

Another method, accessible to the mostly mundane at low levels and at reasonable cost, might be known to some but is not widely talked about, so I thought I'd bring it up: The Craft skill.

I like you. Have a cookie.

Let's see target DC is 25. Can we get a +15 for level 1 people that we can get from leadership? (Yes we can guidance of the avatar exists, can we do it in a less expensive way?)

Let's go with middle aged human for baseline, let's say we have a standard array (so 14 to int). For class as we need to be able to make alchemical items we need something that can cast spells, let's assume we are using magewright (an npc class). Feats are most likely skill focus and least mark of making or apprentice.

10 (taking 10)
+2 INT
+4 ranks in the skill
+3 Skill focus
+2 mark of making / or 2 apprentice (craftsman)
+5 magecraft
___
26

If we are producing only one dose of liquid pain then that's good enough, if not we need to account for magecraft not being thereWe need to pump those numbers up:

Since we are talking about followers let's use some wbl, our main character is most likely a crafter that will then use the xp.

+2 mw tools
+2 fancy laboratory (stronghold builders)
___
25

The fancy laboratory/workstation costs 3k for a craft (alchemy) and 2k for a craft (poisonmaking) and can be used by up to 4 people at the same time.

Now what we need is to reduce the cost. Apprentice craftsman should help, by making things more efficient. Reducing the xp costs to 20gp/xp (alchemy) or 10gp/xp (poisonmaking).

The best cost reducer once that's done... well, would be to craft/grow the components to be honest but that falls into the question what are the components for liquid pain?

If we can get flaws we could get extraordinary artisan (note that extraordinary artisan requires an item creation feat as a prerequisite) so with flaws we could get a 25% extra discount (gaining scribe scroll and then extraordinary artisan), to reduce it to 15gp/xp (alchemy) or 7.5gp/xp (poisonmaking)

If we are dealing with 3.pf then traits are on the table. Hedge magician doesn't work as it calls magic items. But duskwalker agent (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/regional-traits/trait-regional-duskwalker-agent/) should work, to reduce to 13.5gp/xp (alchemy) or 6.8gp/xp (poisonmaking).

Any other way to reduce the cost that comes to mind?

[redking]

Well done, sir. I consider myself fairly well versed in these kinds of hacks, but this is the first time I've seen this one. It looks solid too.

[Kalkra]

Another bit of cheese that can be combined with this is hiring a bunch of commoners (or getting a bunch of skeleton squirrels, whatever) to use aid another on the craft check, which can make things go much faster.

Also, remember that you can hire spellcasters. I'm not gonna do the math, but you could probably make a profit by hiring somebody to cast Fabricate for you.

[Crake]

So I just remembered that Reikars (MM3 p140) are a thing. They have at will fabricate at CL5, and 20 intelligence, meaning they can take take 20 to take 2 minutes to succeed in crafting 50 cubic feet of liquid pain, or 47,875 doses. Using your choice of planar binding or lesser planar ally, you could easily get one of these to craft you more than a campaign's worth of liquid pain. Plus side is that doing this requires absolutely 0 custom magic items or anything of the sort, entirely RAW legal, no need for bartering with the DM, and the only investment required is the cost of the scrolls needed to cast the spells, or the spellslots, if you're a wizard/cleric.

[Jowgen]

Geez, this got real popular real fast, thanks for the assorted kind words. :smallredface:

Lots of great ideas of varying degrees of cheesiness here, all seem workable.

What I'd like to contribute is a thought on the raw material question, which I looked into.

Liquid Pain only really gets discussed in BoVD as far as I can tell (there's one PgtF Prestige Class that has related fluff but no real crunch), and while it does always assume that you are using the spells or magic items to make the stuff, there is the odd bit of text that may serve to indicate how the raw material part actually works.

At the start of page 34, part of the introductory section on liquid pain, it mentions that the spell and pain extractor take 1 day per dose, but then in a seperate line it gives this.


A victim cannot endure— or produce, to put it another way—more extractions of pain than it has points of Constitution.

The above can be taken to be a stand alone general rule. Also, further on, the Lesser Artifact pain pit describes magical leeches draining pain from a victim, with multiple leeches being able to drain their own individual dose from a victim over the course of a day.

Based on the two above, I think the Mundane crafting process can be described as such:

The raw ingredient for mundane-created liquid pain is living creatures. As written, the trusty two-copper chicken would do, though the intent is probably sentient creatures by the same criteria as the Sacrifice rules. The creature must be experiencing continuous pain (e.g. the book helpfully provides torture devices if we want to avoid permanencied Symbol of Pain) and be hooked up to some alchemical apparatus. Liquid pain is described as being distilled, so the alchemical process invovled literally draws out the pain the hooked up creature is experiencing and distills it into the drug. As each creature can produce as many doses as it has constitution points, that is our raw material. Also, as we have an example of multiple doses being extracted concurrently, the mundane process should not have the 1 dose/day limit, though even if it does all you need is more individual crafters.

This, oddly enough, makes a given living creature worth 66.66 gp (or 33.33 gp depending) times its constitution score in pain.

This is great news for one simple reason: as long as we can source free torture victims totalling enough constitution points to keep up with our craft check outputs, the whole farm becomes free without having to resort to component-less Fabricate.

As for (sentient) torture victim sources, Halaster's Fetch can provide us with Called Celestial Dogs or Badgers at 15 Con a pop, or if you don't fancy magical beast cruelty, Lesser Spirit Binding can net us a very manageable and space efficient Grig, also at Con 15. As an example, a 4th level Minor Schema for either of these spells 1/day would be a 11.200 gp investment.

With 15 points of Con as raw material available each day, we can theoretically make 45 exp a day, which is enough to stay ahead of the 40exp/day crafting expenditure limit, sorting our crafting exp needs forever once the initial stock is up.

As this ammounts to having to make 5000 gp worth of poison/drugs in a day, Fabricate is kind of a nessecity, as a single creature doing it normally would need a craft check of 159 to do it in a day, with Craft expertise and using Poisoncrafting at that.

[Kalkra]

I always interpreted the con modifier thing as being for consecutive extractions, or something. I mean, whatever liquid pain is made out of, it should replenish eventually, right? I mean, given that distilled joy doesn't have the same restriction, it seems to be a limit on how much pain you can inflict, rather than how much pain goop a body can produce.

Then again, nothing from BoVD makes senses if you look too closely, so...

EDIT: It just occurred to me, if liquid pain (Soylent Green) is in fact people, you should be able to Fabricate it right out of people, FMA-style.

[unseenmage]

Does summoning 25/CL more Unseen Crafters via a War Magic version of the spell make this more cost effective at all?

It'll bump the spell up a spell level and researching this version of the spell will cost quite a bit putting us farther in the hole profit-wise.
At least we care less about that increased casting time than a combat spell does.

[Asmotherion]

There are multiple ways, but my favorite is Calling Creatures through planar Binding and "Training" with them. You get xp for Defeating, so you don't need to kill them, aka you can gather allies and substitute the XP you loose through this methode.

Feels a lot less like cheating your way through too, as you actually earn xp for it.

[redking]

Ideally, you want a team of experienced simulacrum alchemists with high ranks in Knowledge (Alchemy). The good thing about these simulacrum alchemists is that they can do the job as both torturers and as subjects. If you can get a Rod of Excellent Magic (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/rods.htm#excellentMagic) (costs 650,000 gp to buy outright) it lets you make one simulacrum per day. After you have created your team of alchemists, you'll need more simulacrums to guard your operation. Simulacrum trolls make excellent guards, and PERFECT torture victims with the ability to regenerate and 23 CON.

In addition to producing agony, you are probably co-generating ambrosia via nipple clamps of pain. Whatever you are doing, its important to do it LEGALLY. The worst thing that can happen is for paladins, good-aligned clerics or other squares to bust into your profitable business and put a stop to it. That means you have to coach your simulacrums, especially the simulacrums currently being tortured, to give the correct answers ("I am here of my own free will"). To disguise the torture, you might even set your operation up as a fake chirurgery. Torture? No! Its medical science!

Now you have your set up, all you need now is TIME. You need someone to cast Kissed by the Ages on you so you can be immortal. Since you are creating 365 simulacrums a year, you might as well check out my simulacrum homebrew prestige class (https://1drv.ms/b/s!At1QqAc0yBQTgYZC-6phkzypFR_KtQ?e=1MZlgp), for a spellcaster that specializes in creating simulacrums. Someone else can do the math, but at the very least your PC or NPC doing this will become very wealthy in time.

EDIT: It occurs to me that you also want simulacrums producing magical items for you via liquid pain. Ideally you want the simulacrum making your magical items to be a Spell Broker from the Dragonlance setting. They have this ability.

Item of Renown (Ex): At 4th level, the spell broker’s signature item achieves an even greater reputation. This item (which must be the same item chosen as the item of distinction) now has its creation costs reduced by 30%, and the spell broker gains a +2 bonus to effective caster level when determining level-dependent variables and spell save DCs. The Appraise DC for recognizing the item drops to 10. If they have other cost reducers as well, great.

Getting 650,000 gp to buy the Rod of Excellent Magic (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/rods.htm#excellentMagic) for your startup isn't going to be easy. WBL at 14th is 150,000 gp per PC. You could liquidate your party's wealth to buy the rod or better, borrow it the money. Alternatively at 20th level a single PC has sufficient wealth to buy the rod outright.