Paying crafting and spell XP costs in other ways

[Anon von Zilch]

I had the idea for a system where the XP costs of crafting magic items and casting certain spells could optionally be paid through… less savory methods. Specifically horrifying sacrifical rituals. Before I get to work hashing out my own rules, has anyone run into rules for something in this vein in a published book?

[DeTess]

I had the idea for a system where the XP costs of crafting magic items and casting certain spells could optionally be paid through… less savory methods. Specifically horrifying sacrifical rituals. Before I get to work hashing out my own rules, has anyone run into rules for something in this vein in a published book?

Yep, the book of vile darkness, page 26 details sacrifices and rewards, which can be so-called 'dark craft XP' or 'dark craft GP' which can be used in place of the real thing for crafting.

edit: and page 33 describes how you can use souls instead of XP for magic item crafting.

[Anon von Zilch]

…I can't believe I didn't think to look in BoVD. And I own that book! Thanks, I'll have a look.

[Wildstag]

The inverse of this would just be casting Distilled Joy repeatedly. Funnily enough, the spell does not have the (Good) descriptor, so it could still be used with someone who finds joy committing evil acts.

[Tvtyrant]

…I can't believe I didn't think to look in BoVD. And I own that book! Thanks, I'll have a look.

Also remember you can bind things and have them craft for you. That eases up on the crafting requirements by a lot, especially if you bind things with wishes and have them wish you magic items.

[Anon von Zilch]

Also remember you can bind things and have them craft for you. That eases up on the crafting requirements by a lot, especially if you bind things with wishes and have them wish you magic items.

That's not really what I'm looking for, though. The idea is for there to be a method to circumvent the XP requirement pretty much entirely. The expenditure of personal power is a "flaw" that current mortal spellcasters don't know can be avoided, so when players found out how all their ancient magical loot was made, they're in for a shock/moral dilemma.

[Tvtyrant]

That's not really what I'm looking for, though. The idea is for there to be a method to circumvent the XP requirement pretty much entirely. The expenditure of personal power is a "flaw" that current mortal spellcasters don't know can be avoided, so when players found out how all their ancient magical loot was made, they're in for a shock/moral dilemma.

Totally. I had a setting like this where it was E6 but used BoVD. The artifacts and wonders from the ancient high magic era were made by mass human sacrifices and binding devils, the only casters were cambian sorcerers/warlock.

The modern era wizards and artificers thought magic had declined due to deific interference, but actually the clerics and paladins put down the diabolic cults and there was no studied magic at the time.

[Asmotherion]

Yep, the book of vile darkness, page 26 details sacrifices and rewards, which can be so-called 'dark craft XP' or 'dark craft GP' which can be used in place of the real thing for crafting.

edit: and page 33 describes how you can use souls instead of XP for magic item crafting.

"Ah, yeah, nothing like the thrill of burning a small village to craft your next wand."
-The Lich next Door.

>_>

As much as I love 3.5 and the Book of Vile Darkness, sometimes I feel the designers actually Intended for players to become murderhobos.


That's not really what I'm looking for, though. The idea is for there to be a method to circumvent the XP requirement pretty much entirely. The expenditure of personal power is a "flaw" that current mortal spellcasters don't know can be avoided, so when players found out how all their ancient magical loot was made, they're in for a shock/moral dilemma.

I believe what you're looking for is the Thought Bottle, and can be found in Complete Arcane p.150. It's a completely broken item, but at least it does not encourage you to be a murderhobo, so I kinda like it more.

[Gruftzwerg]

Have also a look into this web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a).

3 Options, a spell, a feat or a magic item to transfer xp for crafting.

The options are mostly for willing targets, with a magic item agreed upon on. So use some kind of mind control first if you want to force it on victims. Easiest done with the spell option.

[Crake]

Have also a look into this web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a).

3 Options, a spell, a feat or a magic item to transfer xp for crafting.

The options are mostly for willing targets, with a magic item agreed upon on. So use some kind of mind control first if you want to force it on victims. Easiest done with the spell option.

The first rule species that no kind of mundane or magical coercion can be used to force an xp transfer, though it does then go on to say in a sidebar that the DM could devise an npc or item that breaks this rule, so... it's a grey area.

[Vaern]

As much as I love 3.5 and the Book of Vile Darkness, sometimes I feel the designers actually Intended for players to become murderhobos.
Page 1 literally says that the book is intended for the DM's use only and that players' access to the book should be restricted. The option to sacrifice a village to craft a magic item for free isn't meant to be available to PCs.

[Gruftzwerg]

The first rule species that no kind of mundane or magical coercion can be used to force an xp transfer, though it does then go on to say in a sidebar that the DM could devise an npc or item that breaks this rule, so... it's a grey area.

It's in the "needs DM approval" land. So you can't outright demand it to work from your DM, but it is within reasonable reach of the rules if needed (from a DM point of view). Imho it's not different from variant rules or adaptations. If you DM likes it, you are allowed it and it is still somewhat RAW and not homebrew.

And since we are talking about 3.5, we should mention that many of those sidebar/extra rules have become almost general rules while there also many which are almost never used at most tables. We should keep that in mind when making the decision if we want to go for it or not.

[Jowgen]

I've looked into this quite a bit.

Liquid Pain for Exp (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?616472-Yet-another-Crafting-Exp-farming-method)

Knowledge Religion for Dark Craft GP (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?597291-Making-a-DC-100-knowledge-Religion-check).

The two above are easily combined.

And if you want to get into crafting cost reductino minions (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?606740-Making-a-minion-to-help-with-crafting-cost-reduction)

Get these three plus a source of victims (e.g. any Conjuration [Calling] Effect) and the world of magic items is your oyster.

[mostlyharmful]

A while back I home-brewed a world where crafting locked off your spell slots for a certain amount of the, you paid the cost of xp in slot levelxdays locked, seemed to work well. The casters got a clear hit for cheaper equipment, nobody needed a separate xp calculation due to different levels, it felt like actual magic power was involved rather than just a chunk of a pcs memories, even made sense for using downtime caster power. Not perfect but workable.

[Anon von Zilch]

To clarify, I'm pondering this as a DM, not a player, so getting DM permission is a non-issue. And as this isn't really supposed to be for player use even if the characters knew about it (unless they really want a cadre of paladins on their trail), I could just handwave it and say "ancient magic-users powered their magic items through human sacrifice," but where's the fun in that?

Liquid pain has the problem of being a bit of a high-level affair, and the idea is that a wizard would instruct their apprentice to gather some parchment, a quill, some special inks, and a slave for their first Scroll Scribing 101 lesson.

Thought bottles are also out of the question, as they are expensive magical items (thus limiting their use by low-level characters) and do require the expenditure of experience. Transference is similarly out because it involves someone expending XP, which is supposed to be a foreign concept to those who practice these dark arts (which I should've been more clear about).

So I'm probably going to work out something based on dark craft XP, replacing Knowledge (religion) with (arcana) because this isn't a religious practice, but just how magic was done by the Ancients. Present-day casters are schmucks who expend their own life force because they don't know any better.

[Tvtyrant]

Have also a look into this web enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a).

3 Options, a spell, a feat or a magic item to transfer xp for crafting.

The options are mostly for willing targets, with a magic item agreed upon on. So use some kind of mind control first if you want to force it on victims. Easiest done with the spell option.

This seems like the perfect ritual for Thrallherds.

[Segev]

This seems like the perfect ritual for Thrallherds.

I’m also fond of letting things the PCs find or win or the like substitute for expensive components in crafting items. A few Jaculi skins can cover the crafting cost of a cloak of elvenkind. Just need the crafter willing and able to make it.