Optimizing a Setting(?): Magic Items(3.PF)

[Promethean]

Okay previous thread got a bit derailed. So I decided To split up the topic into Different posts.

So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect magic items and how people Used magic item?

If they had limited access to any material from any setting-specific books or *3rd party sources, including various production cost reducers, non-standard magic item types, and variant rules.

*by 3rd party I mostly mean the published 3rd party companies, let's leave out out homebrew(even balanced homebrew), because anyone can homebrew anything and making an exceptions list would make things complicated.


Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.

The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.

Basically trying to build a setting where optimization organically grew out of the circumstances as a form of technology.



Note 1: Let's also nerf any Infinite or Arbitrary high stat booster builds(for our purposes let's say the cap on these builds is 10x modifier on base stat), things that rely on creating new epic spells(the epic spells in published material[example: Athasian dragon or Aumvor's fragmented phylactery] are fine), and abusing "Greater Effects" wishes(standard effects of wish are fine).

Note 2:High PO and Low TO builds are fine. Broken, but reasonable builds are fine. "I ascend and slay the gods" builds are not. Otherwise, the setting will just become whatever the first person to discover these Wants it to be.

[Jervis]

For one thing assuming the DMG item guidelines don’t break down like they do in practice a continuous ring of Wraithstrike would be mass produced and bought by any martial with 50k. Conversely at that level magic items that give deflection bonuses to AC or make armor immune to wraithstrike would also be in demand. I’d imagine actual armor would fall out of favor in dueling at high levels for this reason.

I can also see magic items being much cheaper. Actual market price would probably go down a lot. Materials make up half, but everyone is taking the Fearun and Eberron feats that each reduce the cost by 25% and they’ll be slapping on class and alignment restrictions based on the customer they intend to sell to. Every crafters guild will of course have a thought bottle and/or traps of Curse of Lycanthropy (not the spell compendium version, that’s a completely different spell from the others), remove curse, and a level drain effect along with a way to restore drained levels. Because of this you have arbitrary amounts of XP to burn on crafting. Why even factor that into the cost, you have other guilds to compete against running the price down. Crafting time is largely pointless because you’ll have hundreds of dedicated wrights.

[Promethean]

For one thing assuming the DMG item guidelines don’t break down like they do in practice a continuous ring of Wraithstrike would be mass produced and bought by any martial with 50k. Conversely at that level magic items that give deflection bonuses to AC or make armor immune to wraithstrike would also be in demand. I’d imagine actual armor would fall out of favor in dueling at high levels for this reason.

I can also see magic items being much cheaper. Actual market price would probably go down a lot. Materials make up half, but everyone is taking the Fearun and Eberron feats that each reduce the cost by 25% and they’ll be slapping on class and alignment restrictions based on the customer they intend to sell to. Every crafters guild will of course have a thought bottle and/or traps of Curse of Lycanthropy (not the spell compendium version, that’s a completely different spell from the others), remove curse, and a level drain effect along with a way to restore drained levels. Because of this you have arbitrary amounts of XP to burn on crafting. Why even factor that into the cost, you have other guilds to compete against running the price down. Crafting time is largely pointless because you’ll have hundreds of dedicated wrights.

Honestly, I doubt that wraithstrike blade/ring would cost anywhere Near 50k. If you include just the Default stuff in the Cost Reduction Handbook (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1000.0) plus Web content for XP transfer (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a). You can get into single digit percent creation costs Before you include weirder stuff like Mechanika from Iron Kingdoms or Classes/Feats in the Quintessential/Encyclopedia Arcane series that let you craft things at 1/6th the cost.

It'd honestly be fair to say the best crafting focused guilds can take default costs, divide the gold cost by 100 and ignore XP entirely. That's before you get into how much higher the Shear Quality of available stuff will be. Dragonlance alone has the "Master" class, which has the option to improve the masterwork bonus on weapons/armor up to +5 on weapons/armor or +10 on tools, and with 2 books in the quintessential series you can push that to +7 and +12 respectively(at the cost of being an elf and taking 1 feat).

Heck if we talk about Iron Kingdoms Mechanika and Science form Ravenloft(Legacy of the blood, chapter six: mordheim family), then there's also the topic of straight up steampunk science and magictech breaking onto the scene.

[Jervis]

Honestly, I doubt that wraithstrike blade/ring would cost anywhere Near 50k. If you include just the Default stuff in the Cost Reduction Handbook (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1000.0) plus Web content for XP transfer (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a). You can get into single digit percent creation costs Before you include weirder stuff like Mechanika from Iron Kingdoms or Classes/Feats in the Quintessential/Encyclopedia Arcane series that let you craft things at 1/6th the cost.

It'd honestly be fair to say the best crafting focused guilds can take default costs, divide the gold cost by 100 and ignore XP entirely. That's before you get into how much higher the Shear Quality of available stuff will be. Dragonlance alone has the "Master" class, which has the option to improve the masterwork bonus on weapons/armor up to +5 on weapons/armor or +10 on tools, and with 2 books in the quintessential series you can push that to +7 and +12 respectively(at the cost of being an elf and taking 1 feat).

Heck if we talk about Iron Kingdoms Mechanika and Science form Ravenloft(Legacy of the blood, chapter six: mordheim family), then there's also the topic of straight up steampunk science and magictech breaking onto the scene.

Oh if iron kingdoms is involved then there’s a ton of stuff you can do to mix up crafting. I once put a +1 equivalent enhancement on two weapons for like, 2k total I think.

[Promethean]

Oh if iron kingdoms is involved then there’s a ton of stuff you can do to mix up crafting. I once put a +1 equivalent enhancement on two weapons for like, 2k total I think.

Yep. It weirdly enough Increases the value of gold.

Add that with other reducers and you pretty much end up with a setting with currency closer to Dark Sun, where gold and silver coins are only ever used for Massive movements of wealth unseen outside of business exchanges or extreme spending by monstrously wealthy individuals. Dragons might even stop hoarding magic items altogether as they loose value and start focusing on high-level currency or high-value artistic pieces for their hoards.

Greater availability of Thought Bottles and on-demand spells/powers(in the form of magic items) also does interesting things for leveling, changing classes/feats/build(psychic reformation and dark chaos shuffle), and certain spells. If XP isn't even a factor, then it becomes more affordable for people to just re-specialize themselves and in turn what a person takes levels in matters less than being a high level. Heck, a person's class would become less important than what starting stats, inherited templates, and race a person is born with, because those affect available ACFs, casting stats, and what classes you'd be able to be competitive in.

I could see super wealthy families investing in personalized Wish-doping, acquired template spells, and XP farms to make their kids more marketable than poorer families who couldn't afford those things.

[AvatarVecna]

So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect magic items and how people Used magic item?

Alright, a solid focused question to work with. Let's look at the scenario as presented:


Clarification: The idea proposed isn't that everyone wakes up one day with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and how to optimize them or that everyone in this setting is optimized.

The central idea of this post is that various societies in said world were able to figure out the "mechanics" by trial and error, that they'd gravitate toward improving magic/technology to improve their race/group's standard of living, and make efforts to standardize class education and builds to increase their power by reducing the number of "NPC classes". Not everyone would necessarily be optimized for the same reason that not everyone is a soldier, a farmer, or a computer engineer.

Alright, so before I get into anything else:

1) XP is a generally-understood concept (enough so that, with your own example, people might be abusing thought bottles for a leg-up on their competition).

2) Crafting Cost Reduction Stacking is a generally-understood concept.

3) Because artifice runs off UMD bonus, and skills are easy to cheese, anybody can be a successful artificer no matter how crappy their stats are (although guaranteeing this will usually require them to receive items they cant afford and then work to pay them off).

4) Society will generally encourage T1/T0 builds, which usually means pushing people towards wizard, artificer, cleric, druid, beguiler, and warmage. I've probably missed a few, but that's okay.

...

1 implies that XP farms will still be a thing. I'm leaning towards my Elite Toad farm idea from the previous thread, where toads are bred to have the elite array (and thus become CR 1). CR 1 enemies can level you up to 9th lvl. An artificer 9 can craft just about anything they want, and can replicate basically any spell in the game for item crafting purposes. This can be Elite Bats instead, although toads breed in mass quantities more easily. Bats do have an additional upside, though...

In this society, childhood is a time of self-exploration, and assisting ones family. You learn who you are, and what interests you. At some point you will reach the end of childhood, but you have not yet become an adult. When childhood ends, one must go to school - it doesn't matter what, all choices are valid, even if some are more useful or profitable. This will go on for some time. When you finish with school, and become the person you wished to be, you will be on the cusp of adulthood. Now it is time for the trials.

You will be locked into a room with a number of bats, and a stick. These bats are bred to be small and quick...and while they cannot hurt you, you will be hard-pressed to end them. You may leave the room at any time, but if any bats remain at the end of the day, you have failed and your trials are over. You will still be a fully-fledged adult if you fail. This will happen 8 days in a row, each day having more bats in the room than the previous day. On the last day, you must conquer 40 bats.

When you emerge on the morning of the ninth day, the Coming Of Age trials are over. You have become a fully-fledged Batman/Batwoman in the eyes of society. You are now 9th level, of whatever build was most appropriate for the life path you've chosen to lead. Most people pass - those that don't simply lack the fortitude to end a life frivolously. That is not weakness, it just means that they won't be able to help quite as much as those that had the wherewithal to see things through to the end. More trials await you, but they do not need to be completed immediately - you can take whatever time you need to prepare for the fights necessary to continue improving yourself.

This thread is focused on items, so let's focus on artificer. As discussed in the previous thread, artificer 9 will have access to basically any spell in the game that isn't specifically druid 7th+. That includes wish, which means even these basic Batmen will be capable of creating wish-replicating items that can be used to give inherent bonuses.

Human Artificer 9

Feats:

HD 1: Apprentice (Craftsman)
Human 1: Favored In Guild (Wizard Circle)
Flaw 1: Extraordinary Artisan
Flaw 1: Magical Artisan (Extraordinary Artisan)
Artificer 1: Scribe Scroll
Artificer 2: Brew Potion
HD 3: Legendary Artisan
Artificer 3: Craft Wondrous Item
Artificer 4: Exceptional Artisan
Artificer 5: Craft Magic Arms & Armor
HD 6: Magical Artisan (Legendary Artisan)
Artificer 6: Craft Wand
Artificer 8: Craft Rod
Artificer 8: [dealer's choice]
HD 9: Bind Elemental


Member of a sharn-style Wizard Circle for your guild. Member of an affiliation that gives a crafting benefit, although it'll take a few years or a lot of levels to get the crafting benefits without being a caster.

There are three Other Considerations that can reduce the actual Market Price of an item. Each one is an actual reduction rather than a multiplier, so applying all three will give -70% to Market Price of an item. This allows an item that would normally be worth 666,666 gp to be crafted pre-epic (in case that matters, since there could be tons of epic artificers running around if you want them to). Oh, and I know what the CCRH says, but Favored In Guild specifies "raw materials", which is always about GP crafting cost, not XP cost. Not that it matters since those wizard circles reduce XP cost for basic guild membership anyway.

We'll mark this as 30% being the basic market price. Let's see what our final crafting costs will generally be:



Source
GP
XP
Time


Market Price
1
1
1


Other Considerations
0.3
0.3
0.3


Base Multiplier
0.5
0.04
0.001


Extraordinary Artisan
0.75




Exceptional Artisan


0.75


Legendary Artisan

0.75



Magical Artisan
0.75
0.75



Apprentice
0.9




Wizard Circle
0.9
0.9



Favored In Guild
0.95




Bind Elemental
0.8




Total
0.05194125
0.006075
0.000225


Total (Alternate)
41,553 / 800,000
246 / 40,000
9 / 40,000



As an example item: something with market price of 666,666 gp (if it didn't have prereqs) would cost 34627.47 gp, 4100 XP, and 150 days to craft. We're clocking in at ~1/20th normal market price in gp.

Honestly, though, most of the build isn't necessary. As long as you have even a single reducer, you can make a profit from item crafting - and not a small profit either. The XP and Time costs will be pretty trivial in the long-run, at least in a society like what's being proposed. This leads to the next question: how does have arbitrary access to cheesed-out Artificer 9s change society?

Who Needs UMD
Scrolls and wands that replicate spell effects need the user to have either access to the spell in their spell list, or enough UMD to get around not having that access. Wondrous Items replicating spell effects don't need UMD checks by default, and it's in the artificer's best interest to not make items that require those checks - this frees up non-artificers in society to spend their skill ranks and money on other things. Sure, you still wanna build in a prereq for item use for that -10% market price, but it can be something more useful to non-artificers if it's for them.

Better People
The society has a focus on helping the populace improve in general, because better people makes for a better society. What we want is an item that casts Wish 5 times, but priced out the way a Ring Of The Ram is. The reason for this is that the manuals/tomes, and scrolls of wish, would require you to pay extra XP based on the XP cost of casting wish, but wondrous items in general aren't supposed to do that. So we're gonna make a custom wondrous item that casts wish 5 times to give inherent bonus, and then it's used up forever. 50 charges is 50% unlimited cost, so 5 charges is 5% unlimited cost. Such an item would have a no-prereq Market Price of 132,290 gp. Crafting costs would be 6871.31 gp, 814 XP, and 30 days. Make 6 of them per baby - you've got tons of artificers, they should be able to get this knocked out pretty easily. If you're worried about the time, either pull some planar shenanigans or have enough artificers level up a bit more and take Magical Artisan (Exceptional Artisan) so that it takes 75% as much time. Or hey, have them level up to epic and take Efficient Item Creation (Extraordinary Artisan) so that it also takes 10% as much time.

Magic Utility
So, what kind of spell-replicating wondrous items are we even looking at? What kind of spell level reduction/caster level reduction shenanigans can we pull off to make magic cheap?

Expert 9/Ur-Priest [X] will cast Cleric lvl [X] spells at CL [X]

Warrior 7/Divine Crusader X will do the same as above, but for domain spells.

Bard 1/Wizard 5/Rainbow Servant 10 (built on wizard CL)/Sublime Chord X (build on bard CL) will cast spells from the bard/cleric/sorcerer/wizard list at the following minimum CLs:
4th lvl: CL 2
5th lvl: CL 2
6th lvl: CL 4
7th lvl: CL 6
8th lvl: CL 8
9th lvl: CL 10

...unless a different method would have them even lower. Nar Demonbinder has a similar trick, but it's a much smaller list of spells.

Generally, Trapsmith and Runescarred Berserker will have early access in either spell level or caster level for certain spells.

I've not yet found a general trick that will allow for super-early access to druid list spells, but it's possible there's one out there to find.

These CL tricks will generally make items at least half as costly as they'd be if you weren't messing around with replicating the casting of weird builds. But since artificer gets to replicate that casting, the sky's the limit.

At-will Command Word [lvl 1 spell] would have post-prereq market price of 540 gp. lvl 2 spell would be 2160 gp. lvl 3 spell would be 4860 gp. lvl 4 would be 4320 gp. lvl 5 would be 5400 gp. lvl 6 would be 12960 gp. This is if buying them on the market with restrictions that allow you specifically to use them; if you just buy off-the-shelf, they're about 3 times as expensive. They're essentially custom orders that are cheaper, but you have to order them special. That shouldn't be a huge issue for the artificers crafting them, since they're also cheaper and faster to make than the generic items.

Imagine at-will command word CL 4 "Disintegrate" for 13k. This is what waste disposal looks like in this world.

[Jervis]

As an addition to the elite array bats I’d imagine that bloodlines related to powerful entities would be highly sought after. As gaining a actual level takes as many bats as gaining a bloodline level, but bloodline levels don’t make gaining further levels more difficult. And while each one doesn’t give much, they increase your cap on skills to MinMax harder and get into stronger prestige classes earlier (Chameleon gives a floating feat and access to literally every spell for wand purposes). More importantly they increase your artificer level for the purposes of level dependent effects only, IE the stuff you can craft. Stick a kid in for 3 more days and by the end you have a effective level 12 artificer that can emulate spells of up to CL 15 or 8th level spells. If you have a Gold Dragon and a Titan in your family then add 3 days into that and suddenly you have a level 9 artificer that can make scrolls of wish.

[AvatarVecna]

As an addition to the elite array bats I’d imagine that bloodlines related to powerful entities would be highly sought after. As gaining a actual level takes as many bats as gaining a bloodline level, but bloodline levels don’t make gaining further levels more difficult. And while each one doesn’t give much, they increase your cap on skills to MinMax harder and get into stronger prestige classes earlier (Chameleon gives a floating feat and access to literally every spell for wand purposes). More importantly they increase your artificer level for the purposes of level dependent effects only, IE the stuff you can craft. Stick a kid in for 3 more days and by the end you have a effective level 12 artificer that can emulate spells of up to CL 15 or 8th level spells. If you have a Gold Dragon and a Titan in your family then add 3 days into that and suddenly you have a level 9 artificer that can make scrolls of wish.

Only minor nitpick is that bloodline cheese isn't necessary for low level wishes: Artificer 7 can emulate the casting of a Divine Crusader 9 (envy domain) and replicate Wish in items.

Bloodlines are still super-useful for extending the usefulness of the XP farms and granting early ish access to Forge Ring and EIC.

[Promethean]

SNIP

Not to mention things like Iron kingdoms mechanika. Where normal item crafting could allow you to build a +5 armor for 25,000 gold(plus masterwork), a Mechanika armor would cost 11,225(plus masterwork) before factoring in cost reducers(it requires recharging every other day though). That's less than half the cost before special classes and feats.

On top of that, Mechanika component creation and assembly only requires scribe scroll, craft wonderous item, 6 ranks in Craft(alchemy) and focus on a specialized skill[craft(Mechanika)]. That's 2 feats plus 2 skills to substitute out all other craft feats. That means you have more room for cost reducer feats And that also means feats or bonuses that only effect one craft feat can all be focused on craft wonderous item.

[sreservoir]

Bloodline levels do still add to your artificer level for things like effective caster level for item creation, though, which can be plenty useful.

[Maat Mons]

Some standard items are Everfull Larder (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Platform of Healing (Draconomicon), Bed of Regeneration (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Hand of the Oak Father (Magic Item Compendium), Bed of Wellness (Stronghold Builder's Guide), and Dukar Hand Coral (Champions of Valor).

[Jervis]

Imagine at-will command word CL 4 "Disintegrate" for 13k. This is what waste disposal looks like in this world.

Also for what it’s worth I think the first time a Artificer’s Dump is discovered people will start dumping anything even vaguely magical from the magic item construction process into places near cities so you can get that 10% off on expensive builds once a month


Some standard items are Everfull Larder (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Platform of Healing (Draconomicon), Bed of Regeneration (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Hand of the Oak Father (Magic Item Compendium), Bed of Wellness (Stronghold Builder's Guide), and Dukar Hand Coral (Champions of Valor).

That goes into another question. How would people optimize the rules in SBG? Assuming people don’t have a epic level artificer on the call to make a scroll of the epic spell “destroy the fortress of that guy over there specifically” for 30 copper or all talk about everyone having a personal demiplane. The last thread devolved into arguing about wish abuse and epic level shenaniganry so I’d like to keep in in the rang of reasonability for fortresses.

[Promethean]

Some standard items are Everfull Larder (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Platform of Healing (Draconomicon), Bed of Regeneration (Stronghold Builder's Guide), Hand of the Oak Father (Magic Item Compendium), Bed of Wellness (Stronghold Builder's Guide), and Dukar Hand Coral (Champions of Valor).

Reminds me of This thread:Coolest-Combination-Items (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?318382-Coolest-Combination-Items)

[aglondier]

Since you are including Pathfinder...magic item crafting in pathfinder doesn't cost xp.

[Promethean]

Since you are including Pathfinder...magic item crafting in pathfinder doesn't cost xp.

With a 3.PF setting it Depends on GM. We're also planning things out under the assumption that you get feats at every 3rd level rather than every 2 levels and Non-pathfinder only classes are assumed to function as their 3.5 version for example.

[Jervis]

With a 3.PF setting it Depends on GM. We're also planning things out under the assumption that you get feats at every 3rd level rather than every 2 levels and Non-pathfinder only classes are assumed to function as their 3.5 version for example.

For some reason I didn’t realize pathfinder was available… In that case Path of War mystic is probably very common. Same abilities as a artificer but they can hit the DCs easier and use initiator level instead of class level

[Maat Mons]

Oh, I can't believe I forgot to mention Decanter of Endless Water (Dungeon Master's Guide) and Orb of Pleasant Breezes (Stronghold Builder's Guide). Those are my go-to items for building a desert civilization.

If you're not in any great hurry, Fey Cherry trees (Dragon 357, p56) ensure the area they cover stays between 50°F nd 80°F. They grow to be 500 feet tall, and judging by the picture, that would give the canopy a diameter of 700 feet on a full-grow specimen. Not sure how long it takes to get to that size, but sequoias average less that 2 feet of growth per year, so probably at least 250 years. But hey, if you're an elf, and you plant one when you reach adulthood, it will be reaching full height when you're in the early part of the Venerable age category.

I mean, the Orb covers 1,000 times the area for 11 times the cost, if you're buying saplings, and doesn't take 250 years to come to fruition, but the tree could have no cost if you're propagating from the seeds of trees you already own, and you only need 1st-level Commoners to expand the covered area, not 15th-level casters.

[Promethean]

Oh, I can't believe I forgot to mention Decanter of Endless Water (Dungeon Master's Guide) and Orb of Pleasant Breezes (Stronghold Builder's Guide). Those are my go-to items for building a desert civilization.

If you're not in any great hurry, Fey Cherry trees (Dragon 357, p56) ensure the area they cover stays between 50°F nd 80°F. They grow to be 500 feet tall, and judging by the picture, that would give the canopy a diameter of 700 feet on a full-grow specimen. Not sure how long it takes to get to that size, but sequoias average less that 2 feet of growth per year, so probably at least 250 years. But hey, if you're an elf, and you plant one when you reach adulthood, it will be reaching full height when you're in the early part of the Venerable age category.

I mean, the Orb covers 1,000 times the area for 11 times the cost, if you're buying saplings, and doesn't take 250 years to come to fruition, but the tree could have no cost if you're propagating from the seeds of trees you already own, and you only need 1st-level Commoners to expand the covered area, not 15th-level casters.

You could drastically cut down the growth time by having a planar shepard Casting Plant Growth, Fecund Growth, Nurturing Seeds, and tending to the saplings while under a Planar Bubble of a fast time Plane. After all, druid would be predisposed to wanting to grow a forest anyway.

[Seward]

So, Assuming that people in a D&D setting largely understood optimization and the "mechanics" to a degree, how would that effect magic items and how people Used magic item?


You're doing something interesting and I like where it is going, so I'll not comment on your effort, except to say a lot of how it turns out depends on the problems the society is trying to solve. If you want universal healthcare you will want most arcane casters to be bards and most divine to channel/spont cast heals. If you want to just kill them all and raise them as an undead army, you want arcane casters to specialize in necromancy and divine casters to channel/spont negative energy.

I've actually done this experiment with 1st edition and 3.5, where a society in desperate straits drafted everybody in the population who could "level" regardless of prior profession or stats and trained them as best spellcaster they could be with the stats they had, then organized them into military units. In 1st edition, there were rules for % of population who could level, as it was needed for henchmen recruitment, something everybody could do. In 3.0 I drafted only the teenage population (old enough to be mostly grown, young enouhg to not have wasted a class level on commoner or similar) used minimum caster stats (the army wanted only wizards, clerics and sorcerers). Spellbooks and spell picks were decided by the army, training involved mass use of same and the soldiers did their own item creation (under 1st and 3rd edition rules, which varied some, with labs provided by the state). It was a lawful society so 3.0 bards need not apply but they did want a 2-1 arcane to divine caster ratio. People whose mental stats were so low they couldn't qualify for any caster class generally got rogue or fighter training and served in a support capacity.

It worked pretty great until they destroyed all threats around them and then had a bunch of high level legions with nothing to do wondering why they were taking orders instead of taking over. All of this was based on the various threats the Ahlissan Empire was facing in the time when Gygax was writing about Greyhawk current events. The actual Ahilissan outcome had some parallels - they did some desperate things and made some choices that allowed regional survival but caused long term issues.

A few things....

Any spell or effect that lasts forever with no resources is godlike when you pass a critical mass of casters (magic mouth in 1st edition was used for nationwide communication and alarm systems that caused legions to teleport where needed, and your body was a resource after death for clerics that wrangled them for menial labor - again this all worked better in 1st than 3rd, where black onyx costs limit that tactic). Long running buffs are also very good - an entire army that marches with self-cast Endure Elements alone has a big edge in many environments and armies that start to get into things like phantom steed, GMW and similar spells get a big utility spike and significant power spike even when not fighting primarily with their spell slots.

Magic items that are generally useful will be made in mass quantities, others require commissioning a caster whose time (and xp) aren't spoken for. Probably in a society that really goes down the optimization road costs come down on more common items, which works better in a more free-form system (as in 3.x, that also affects xp to create item, which is awkward). Supply/demand don't work when hard xp costs and fixed costs apply (how does it work when you need 1000gp of diamond dust and there is a glut of diamond dust. Do you need more dust? Less?)

Whatever classes are most effective for the needs will be prioritized but normal people roll 3d6 randomly for each stat, so most casters in society that trains their commoners to PC classes will have crappy primary attributes. It doesn't matter, spells are just that useful, and the guys with bad stats can still usually cast fox cunning or whatever to use a higher level scroll at least. (armies buff out of spell slots, nova with consumables)

[Promethean]

You're doing something interesting and I like where it is going, so I'll not comment on your effort, except to say a lot of how it turns out depends on the problems the society is trying to solve. If you want universal healthcare you will want most arcane casters to be bards and most divine to channel/spont cast heals. If you want to just kill them all and raise them as an undead army, you want arcane casters to specialize in necromancy and divine casters to channel/spont negative energy.

I've actually done this experiment with 1st edition and 3.5, where a society in desperate straits drafted everybody in the population who could "level" regardless of prior profession or stats and trained them as best spellcaster they could be with the stats they had, then organized them into military units. In 1st edition, there were rules for % of population who could level, as it was needed for henchmen recruitment, something everybody could do. In 3.0 I drafted only the teenage population (old enough to be mostly grown, young enouhg to not have wasted a class level on commoner or similar) used minimum caster stats (the army wanted only wizards, clerics and sorcerers). Spellbooks and spell picks were decided by the army, training involved mass use of same and the soldiers did their own item creation (under 1st and 3rd edition rules, which varied some, with labs provided by the state). It was a lawful society so 3.0 bards need not apply but they did want a 2-1 arcane to divine caster ratio. People whose mental stats were so low they couldn't qualify for any caster class generally got rogue or fighter training and served in a support capacity.

It worked pretty great until they destroyed all threats around them and then had a bunch of high level legions with nothing to do wondering why they were taking orders instead of taking over. All of this was based on the various threats the Ahlissan Empire was facing in the time when Gygax was writing about Greyhawk current events. The actual Ahilissan outcome had some parallels - they did some desperate things and made some choices that allowed regional survival but caused long term issues.

A few things....

Any spell or effect that lasts forever with no resources is godlike when you pass a critical mass of casters (magic mouth in 1st edition was used for nationwide communication and alarm systems that caused legions to teleport where needed, and your body was a resource after death for clerics that wrangled them for menial labor - again this all worked better in 1st than 3rd, where black onyx costs limit that tactic). Long running buffs are also very good - an entire army that marches with self-cast Endure Elements alone has a big edge in many environments and armies that start to get into things like phantom steed, GMW and similar spells get a big utility spike and significant power spike even when not fighting primarily with their spell slots.

Magic items that are generally useful will be made in mass quantities, others require commissioning a caster whose time (and xp) aren't spoken for. Probably in a society that really goes down the optimization road costs come down on more common items, which works better in a more free-form system (as in 3.x, that also affects xp to create item, which is awkward). Supply/demand don't work when hard xp costs and fixed costs apply (how does it work when you need 1000gp of diamond dust and there is a glut of diamond dust. Do you need more dust? Less?)

Whatever classes are most effective for the needs will be prioritized but normal people roll 3d6 randomly for each stat, so most casters in society that trains their commoners to PC classes will have crappy primary attributes. It doesn't matter, spells are just that useful, and the guys with bad stats can still usually cast fox cunning or whatever to use a higher level scroll at least. (armies buff out of spell slots, nova with consumables)

Great thing about magic items(and SLAs) is that they can be made to ignore component costs. Spellstitched undead minions, eternal wands, and various other magic goodies will also gradually lessen the cost of using various spells as the initially massive costs of building free use items are paid for by a critical mass of spellcasters.

Another important note is Psions and Psionic items. Things like Psychic reformation allow for people to change professions more easily and Psionic Chirurgy allows for revolutionized forms of psychological healing.

[Maat Mons]

With Pathfinder on the table, there are to my knowledge 3 options for tier-1 Cha-based casting, Elder Mythos Cultist Cleric, Feyspeaker Druid, and Seducer Witch. Elder Mythos Cultist is limited to Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Neutral characters, so it's not well-suited as the basis for an organized force that betters the world. Both of the others should be workable. Seducer Witch is even compatible with the Cartomancer and Mirror Witch archetypes, if you really can't stand animals.

If Dragonlance material beyond the setting book is allowed, there's also the Dynamic Priest feat for getting 2/3rds of your spellcasting onto Cha.

There's something appealing about a Cha-based caster who prepares spells by gazing into a mirror though, so I'd have to go with Seducer Mirror Witch as the default path for training high-Cha citizens.

The tier-1 Wis-based classes in Pathfinder are Cleric, Druid, Shaman, Witch. Though with all the high-Cha citizens becoming, Feyspeaker Druids, and Seducer Witches, training the high-Wis citizens as Druids and Witches probably biases things towards those classes too heavily. So probably just Cleric and Shaman then.

The tier-1 Int-based classes in Pathfinder are Arcanist and Wizard.

On a societal level though, you probably don't need each person to be able to do everything. So it would most likely be fine to train people as Oracles, Psychics, and Sorcerers. Actually, can you train people as Oracles? … Or Sorcerers for that matter?

Maybe just stick with the Wizard / Cleric / Sexy Witch trifecta.

[Jervis]

On a societal level though, you probably don't need each person to be able to do everything. So it would most likely be fine to train people as Oracles, Psychics, and Sorcerers. Actually, can you train people as Oracles? … Or Sorcerers for that matter?

Maybe just stick with the Wizard / Cleric / Sexy Witch trifecta.

Fluff wise it depends. I know there’s one sorcerer archetype in pathfinder that was explicitly created by a wizard. Seeing as that’s a very good archetype with the ability to use divine magic items without consuming charges by using spell slots, I’d imagine those are more common than they usually would be.

[thethird]

Seriously at the level of optimization where you are going totally unbarred items wise you should get runes from a runecaster. Probably use chameleon crafting (to put any spell/power) into them. And probably use cooperative crafting to get some metamagic shenanigans in there. With enough runes you eventually don't need spellcasters anymore.

[Promethean]

A thought kind of just occured to me.

Between binding limit-breaking feats like reserves of strength to magic items, metamagic shenanigans, and Spell-like/supernatural wish-crafting item to break wealth limits, Won't magic items just generally end up more powerful than spell-casters except for a few Very specific builds?

I mean, if you have an optimized society with crafters guilds able to make items for dirt cheap/free and access to the full range of optimization tricks, couldn't that society put a "mailman" or "cheesemonger of Pelor" build on an "Activate by use" magic item rather than bother with training people?

[AvatarVecna]

A thought kind of just occured to me.

Between binding limit-breaking feats like reserves of strength to magic items, metamagic shenanigans, and Spell-like/supernatural wish-crafting item to break wealth limits, Won't magic items just generally end up more powerful than spell-casters except for a few Very specific builds?

I mean, if you have an optimized society with crafters guilds able to make items for dirt cheap/free and access to the full range of optimization tricks, couldn't that society put a "mailman" or "cheesemonger of Pelor" build on an "Activate by use" magic item rather than bother with training people?

The big issue at that point is epic limitations, particularly the 200k limit. At-will (or even just "frequently usable" is gonna be pretty expensive for more powerful spells, and those with expensive components. And the 200k limit is on market price instead of crafting price, so there's very little in the game that can give you wiggle room (and what does exist, the "Other Considerations", tends to be thought of as extra-cheesy). Of course, in PF, the nonepic 200k limit doesn't seem to exist, so make of that what you will.

The main limitations are going to be the crafting costs themselves. GP takes care of itself (any amount of reduction allows you to make a profit on magic items), and XP is easy enough to get back for low-level crafters (and not all that hard for high-level crafters), but Time can be a hard one to cheat. Exceptional Artisan, Magical Artisan (Exceptional Artisan), and Efficient Item Creation (Exceptional Artisan) altogether will let you craft 17777 gp worth per day. This can be raised as high as 59259 gp/day, depending on how you interpret the Other Considerations to stack. Since this is 3.PF, you can speed that up with Accelerated Magic Item Crafting to go twice as fast (35554 or 118513 gp per day, respectively). Either way, hitting the nonepic gp limit (200k-666k, depending) is gonna take you about 6 days of crafting. The main way to cheat the time would be a cheesed-out Phantom Thief, who crafts magic items using the nonmagic crafting rules. Nonmagic crafting works at speeds relative to the square of your bonus, so getting a really big bonus and enough "faster nonmagic crafting" effects can let you craft magic items much faster. Even so, really good spell items are going to be expensive, especially at-will or continuous. And not everybody is going to be an epic/nigh-epic crafting specialist. Some are gonna stop at Artificer 9 or Phantom Thief 14 and call it a day. Which is respectable.

If it helps visualize the issue, it's kinda like the difference between prepared and spontaneous casters: "prepared casters" (read: item crafters) have to sink a good deal of resources (particularly time) into preparing their magic, and are kinda screwed for the most part if they need some kind of on-the-fly solution, whereas "spontaneous casters" (read: prepared casters) can have the spells they need in as little as 15 minutes. Of course, if you've got a deep-epic CL item of at-will Quickened RoS'd Wish, that issue goes away. At-will Wish solves all kinds of problems.

It's expensive though. Even crafting for basically free (let's arbitrarily say...0.1% market price?), you could absolutely kit somebody out in the best non-epic gear (tons of at-will and continuous spell effects) for something like 30 million, and the bill would end up being 30 thousand. 30k is still a lot of money in regards to "maintaining an XP farm". It might well be cheaper to just buy yourself an epic wizard in training costs than it would be to buy that wish staff, and both are capable of solving your problems more or less equally well.

There's probably this point somewhere in mid-op where economancy is superior if you're cheating hard enough. But past a certain charop level, everything is arbitrarily powerful.

[Promethean]

There's probably this point somewhere in mid-op where economancy is superior if you're cheating hard enough. But past a certain charop level, everything is arbitrarily powerful.

Yeah trying to find the cut-off point between TO and arbitrary power is like pulling teeth.

On a different note: Some things that break economancy are free wishes. Wishes create the item you want instantly, Wishing to make a non-artifact(which I assume epic items count as artifacts for?) magic item never backfires, and a Ring of Three Wishes is a valid target for wishing a magic item into existence. The wishes from a ring of three wishes are Also free XP-wise.

That essentially allows people to make 1 non-epic magic item per round forever for anyone with access to to 1 wish. The rare time Actual Crafting of magic items would only ever be necessary for Epics and research into inventing New pre-epic magic items(I.E. crafting a theoretical magic item build to as a proof of concept before shipping the design to the wish-factories, like having an Ur-Priest make a magic item with a caster level below standard).

^The above is a loophole I found in the rules set by my own post while I was away from keyboard. I honestly give up on trying to close infinite loops. Just pretend anyone in-universe that tries to homogenize the setting(I.E. take over as a pun-pun type, train just-about every civilian into one class/build, or otherwise stagnate the setting) pisses off AO and dies horribly. This setting is AO's favorite TV channel and they hate it if a status-quo lasts too long.