Crafting without XP

[Alleine]

I've been planning on playing a fleshwarper for awhile now. The PrC looks awesome, and you only lose one CL to boot. I can live with that. The only problem is the the distinct lack of crafting points. At 10th level you barely have enough points to craft a single powerful graft even with the legendary artisan feat. I'm looking for a way around this, I want him to be able to graft anything without worrying about running out of points and having to use experience.

Aside from the Artificer and the Fleshwarper who both have reserves of points that act as XP just for crafting items, I'm having trouble finding other things that can replace XP. The Book of Vile Darkness has two variants in souls and liquid pain, but I was wondering what else is out there that might be less evil and easier to acquire than masses of souls and pain.

Does anyone know of any other sources to help reduce the strain on crafters?

[Bugbeartrap]

Have you considered the Item Familiar feat from Unearthed Arcana and then asking to houserule that the extra XP would only be used for crafting?

[Keld Denar]

Maybe not what you are looking for, but I DMed a game without XP at all. Instead, any caster could "harvest" xp from items they found which then goes into a craft reserve that the players could use to make something useful. It also pulled 1/2 the gold piece value out of the item.

So, a character that finds a +2 longsword could "disenchant" it into 320 xp and 4000g. Then the character could take a Masterwork Greatsword and, adding 4000g could create a +1 Keen Greatsword, assuming the caster had the right Item Creation feat and spells.

Allowed my players to get the gear they wanted (assuming someone had the feat and spells) and solved the uncomforable question of "how the heck am I gonna sell this +5 sword...the king doesn't even have enough cash".

And, since it came up in the game, XP cost spells are converted to GP costs, since gold was finite.

[Alleine]

Thanks! That should help a lot!

Wow, I completely forgot about the item familiar... *facepalm*
I guess it's just that actual XP is sort of a messy area for me. Calculating the experience point gain I would get at every level would most likely be tedious and confusing. But it is certainly worth it.

Anyone know of any other sources? Now I guess it's mostly out of curiosity.

EDIT: @^ So you basically gave them the Artificer's ability to take the XP from magic items? That's a pretty good idea.

[Irreverent Fool]

Thought Bottle, page 150 of the Complete Arcane

One of the things one can do with a Thought Bottle is 'store experience'. Basically you invest 500 XP to do so, and then at any later date, you can use the Thought Bottle to restore your XP to whatever its value was when you 'stored' it, minus that 500 XP.

This means that if you have a significant amount of downtime, you can spend 500 XP at the beginning, craft to your heart's content, and go and get your XP back when you're ready to go out adventuring again.

Warning: use of the Thought Bottle is considered kind of cheesy, and it can be stolen.

It has a base price of 20,000 gold, which is totally worth it just for this function.

obnoxious
sig

[magic9mushroom]

I've been planning on playing a fleshwarper for awhile now. The PrC looks awesome, and you only lose one CL to boot. I can live with that. The only problem is the the distinct lack of crafting points. At 10th level you barely have enough points to craft a single powerful graft even with the legendary artisan feat. I'm looking for a way around this, I want him to be able to graft anything without worrying about running out of points and having to use experience.

Aside from the Artificer and the Fleshwarper who both have reserves of points that act as XP just for crafting items, I'm having trouble finding other things that can replace XP. The Book of Vile Darkness has two variants in souls and liquid pain, but I was wondering what else is out there that might be less evil and easier to acquire than masses of souls and pain.

Does anyone know of any other sources to help reduce the strain on crafters?

There's a feat in Fiendish Codex I called Extract Demonic Essence that uses a demon to supply half the XP. The demon doesn't have to be willing, but if it's not, you have to Bind it, Dim Anchor it etc.

BoVD also has Dark Craft XP from sacrifices, though it's complicated. Also remember that you can extract quite a lot of pain from one being, and then trap its soul afterward as well, for 40 XP per person subjected to it. Cohorts and Followers can do the (4th level) pain extraction while you do the (8th level) soul binding (would be much easier if Imprison Soul hadn't got the nerf stick in 3.5). Using both of those you'd only have to torture to death and extinguish the souls of 106 people to make a Staff of Power.

If you were to use torture + sacrifices instead, then you can get much more XP per person (with the right item, feats and conditions, hitting Knowledge (religion) DCs of 50 is guaranteed at mid levels) so you'd be able to get around 180 XP per person, requiring only 24 kills for a Staff of Power (again with Extract Demonic Essence). That's without Legendary Artisan, with that you only need 18.

Problem: if you do this on a regular basis, you'll start attracting a lot of unwanted attention, in addition to having a permanent Evil Aura.

Easy ways to get high Knowledge(religion) checks for sacrifice:

Make an altar (+2)
Unhallow the area (+2)
Use Planar Binding to get a demon/devil/whatever (+2)
Take Leadership to get followers, which you need anyway (+1 at Leadership 13, +2 at Leadership 23)
They're going to be tortured, since you need that anyway for more XP (+1)
Said demon can easily be ordered to devour their extremities (+1)
They're going to have at least 1 HD (+1)
Suggestion them (+1)

That's a +11 modifier. You have to be at least 9th level anyway to get your cohort capable of casting Liquid Pain, so 12 ranks is +12. Custom item for +20. If you're an Ur-Theurge, you'll have a +3 from Int. Take Skill Focus and Sacrificial Mastery and you'll never get below 54 on your check. That gives 162 XP.

[Alleine]

Why is it that evil characters get so much stuff to help them craft?

Thanks guys, this will be really helpful.

[Nohwl]

this isnt crafting without xp, but you dont lose the xp, and well, thats good enough for me.

anyway, go into dweomerkeeper as a cleric or archivist(i think cleric works at least). use gate as a supernatural ability to call an extra planar dragon. one with 17 or more caster levels, you want it to be able to cast 9th level spells. just pick one that fits that description. i dont have the draconomicon, so i cant tell you what fits that category. now, order it to wait around by you for 3 or 4 days, craft whatever for you, and then give you complete and total control of whatever you had it craft. use the chaos shuffle as a supernatural ability to rearrange its feats to be able to craft for you (extra spell might be needed, if it cant cast a spell needed for what you are crafting). use wish as a supernatural ability to get the gold to pay for the dragons service, it shouldn't take more than 2 wishes to get enough gold to pay the dragon. its 1000 for every hit dice of the dragon. and then its divided by 2, because the action you are having it perform isnt threatening.

im pretty sure that works at least.

[herrhauptmann]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...60526a&pf=true

This is a method that crafting PCs can get the party to help out enchanting items.
3 options, a feat, an item, and a spell. With any of the 3, the fighter pays the XP so that his grandfather's sword can be upgraded to a +1 holy vorpal keen jabberwocky, and not you.

[The Glyphstone]

Don't forget about the crafting feats from Ebberon - there's one each for materials cost, XP, and Creation time, that reduce their respective factor by 25%. You can only take them once each, but they do stack with the Legendary Artisan feat from one of the Faerun books, that reduces both GP cost and XP by 25%.

[magic9mushroom]

Why is it that evil characters get so much stuff to help them craft?

Thanks guys, this will be really helpful.

Extract Demonic Essence isn't a vile feat. It's one of the real gems for item creation.

And evil guys get more stuff because there aren't many good ways to extract power from people.

[Xuincherguixe]

What about extracting the adoration people have for a kitten playing with a ball of string?

[Waspinator]

Evil being easier is a pretty standard fantasy thing. It's part of the reason why people go down the evil road in the first place. If training hard and studying to be able to wield magic was as easy as saying, "Pazuzu pazuzu pazuzu, now give me a staff of annihilation!", then why would anyone choose the evil route?

Likewise, since D&D seems to not like infinite crafting and requires the XP to come from somewhere, getting "free" XP basically requires you to get it from someone else. And unless they really, really like you, that usually means by force.

[Graymayre]

Thought Bottle, page 150 of the Complete Arcane

One of the things one can do with a Thought Bottle is 'store experience'. Basically you invest 500 XP to do so, and then at any later date, you can use the Thought Bottle to restore your XP to whatever its value was when you 'stored' it, minus that 500 XP.

This means that if you have a significant amount of downtime, you can spend 500 XP at the beginning, craft to your heart's content, and go and get your XP back when you're ready to go out adventuring again.

Warning: use of the Thought Bottle is considered kind of cheesy, and it can be stolen.

It has a base price of 20,000 gold, which is totally worth it just for this function.

obnoxious
sig

can the thought bottle be used more than once? Or is it one shot?

[Paramour Pink]

Maybe not what you are looking for, but I DMed a game without XP at all. Instead, any caster could "harvest" xp from items they found which then goes into a craft reserve that the players could use to make something useful. It also pulled 1/2 the gold piece value out of the item.

So, a character that finds a +2 longsword could "disenchant" it into 320 xp and 4000g. Then the character could take a Masterwork Greatsword and, adding 4000g could create a +1 Keen Greatsword, assuming the caster had the right Item Creation feat and spells.

Isn't that really close to what Artificers can do?

If it is, having a few artificer levels might help you out. Well...it should. The whole class is about making stuff.

[Graymayre]

Isn't that really close to what Artificers can do?

If it is, having a few artificer levels might help you out. Well...it should. The whole class is about making stuff.

Unfortunately, that ability only comes to artificers at a level too high for players to reasonably dip.

[hiryuu]

Don't forget that while it's obvious they want a 5th level wizard to get into Fleshwarper, it's not going to happen unless you dip a class with Heal as a class skill due to the moronically high requirement on Graft Flesh.

However, our group doesn't even use xp to begin with, we "story level," as it were. As far as items go, every day is a busy day, so I've never seen a wizard loaded down with scrolls or an artificer with wands (they're too busy making things for the party to use), but here's what we do. Most minor items don't cost anything but gold, money, and something freakish (I had a character who used a mixture of gold dust, charcoal, phosphorus (distilled from donkey urine), and his own stomach bile to make the ink for scrolls, for example). Major items, like, say, grafts, require you to get the materials yourself. Yes, I know in D&D nowadays they tell you to just go buy the items, but in most societies in the real world that had a belief in magic and the ability to make sacred objects, the act of harvesting the item itself is what carried the potency, making it impossible to just buy up things.

Now, I'm going to advise something. This is going to sound completely insane to most people: Sit down with your GM and work out what sorts of materials you're going to need and what actions you're going to have to perform to make said items. Forget the dice and the numbers for a second. They're only there to provide random number generation when you absolutely need it and a benchmark by which you can determine how hard something is (which is really very arbitrary in d20 - a level 4 Strong Hero can punch through a bank vault door and a level 7 Fighter can chop a carriage in half in one go, but neither of them can do even basic math unless they put their skill points in cross class skills). Work with your GM to produce a good story and make each graft a little personal; obviously this dude is a little crazy, he wants to chop up monsters and sew their parts onto other dudes, but hey, this is a good opportunity to look up techniques alchemists used to try to make chimeras in ye olden tymes and have a good, long conversation with your GM about the story and what sort of monster is next on your hit list. This works in lieu of xp because you're effectively having the entire group pay the cost for their next magic item with the xp they would have earned getting the materials.

[Gralamin]

I just remove the XP cost usually. when a penalty in the long run makes a group stronger, its not really a penalty. Due to the built in XP catchup mechanic (Lower level characters get more XP) it only helps a group to craft, as they'd be above WBL. There are two ways to really combat this: Replace the XP cost with something appropriate for your game (Like increase in gold, requirement to find some components, more time, etc., or bonus XP (causes them to level faster with less WBL).

[Kaiyanwang]

In my current campaing, I manage the thing this way:

My players iinvested a reasonable amount of skill points in professions, craft and the like.

When they kill a monster, they have the chance he "drops" reagents
Monster type brings the kind of reagent (i.e. fire elementals: good reagents for fire weapons) and the HD/GS is a suggestion for DM and player on item level adjudication.

Well processed with alchemy skill, reagents are used instead of XP in crafting.

[Alleine]

@ the_Glyphstone: I can't seem to find the feat you're talking about, but it appears Faerun does have a feat that reduces gold cost by 75%.

@ Graymayre: You can use the thought bottle as often as you want. It costs 500 xp to store the rest of your xp though.

@ hiryuu: Yeah, whoever DMs when I play this guy will probably be fine with me tweaking the requirements so that I can get in at a decent level. I'm still not sure how I want to handle the collection of grafting supplies.
On the one hand, technically me deciding that I'll just yank an arm off a demon and putting on myself won't work because the arm isn't actually worth anything. On the other hand, I REALLY want to be able to play this guy like the freak he will be and dissect all sorts of creatures in order to get the materials for grafting. I suppose monster bits could count as part of my treasure?

[Coidzor]

What feat was this that you found from Faerun?

So far I've only found the artisan feat that cuts gold cost by 25%.

[Alleine]

Its called Magical Artisan. And as long as Graft Flesh counts as an item creation feat, it will work. The prereq is any item creation feat, and it applies to all items created using that feat.

[elonin]

I'm not understanding this bit about the thought bottle as banking exp. The closest thing I remeber is someone mentioning creating a clone and storing it in suspended animation with a thought bottle incase they died even keeping stored spells. Perhaps I'm missing something though.

About getting a custom item by sacrifice will only work once according to BOVD.

If SLA's don't have xp cost then go archmage and get a wish as a SLA 3/day and use that to wish for items. Arein't there crafting pools in UA? If so convince your dm to allow those. And then there is spend a bunch of ranks in weapon smith etc and use fabricate.