Croesus, the Merchant Prince - a "PAY2WIN" build/guide

[Gruftzwerg]

Croesus, the Merchant Prince
-a "PAY2WIN" build/guide-

Welcome to my newest TO build. Did you had enough of DMs that don't drop enough gold/magic items?? This build's main goal is to win the game by becoming filthy rich. The other goal is make good use of the money by crafting items that are heavily abusable with UMD to an extend which sole warlocks can handle without error. A warning as always that this build is not intended for play. Even if you sole go for the money and discard all the other cheese of the build, the amount that you basically multiply your WBL will still break the game imho. So be aware of that or bribe your DM with lots of snacks and drinks if you really wanna PAY2WIN

Warlock 12 / Chameleon 2 / Marshall 1 / Merchant Prince 5

We'll combine a craftlock base (includes the Chameleon dip) with a further dip into Marshall for the extra UMD push. Finally, you guessed it, we end the build with Merchant Prince to fully break the WBL.

STR: 10
DEX: 14
CON: 10
INT: 16
WIS: 10
CHA: 16 (all boost go in here: +5 lvl; +5 whish, +6 item = 32max)



Skill "Profession: (Merchant / Shopkeeper)"
Imho this is an oversight in the rule books, but your opinion may vary here. In the PHB Profession types are not defined, but "Profession: (Merchant)" is a very common one in the rules over several books.
The Dungeon Master Guide 2 on the other hand starts to define business Profession types and one of em is "Shopkeeper" which includes all kinds of merchants. Even those without a settlement who are moving around with their "shop". As such I treated these as interchangeable since it makes imho no sense that "Shopkeeper" is defined as merchant, but should be a distinct profession. Really.. the 3.5 authors are giving me a headache here. If you/r DM have/has a problem with that, max Shopkeeper and keep Merchant at a minimum of 8 ranks (to enter merchant prince). I still did use the distinctions in the writeup for those who care/argue about it. For everybody else, assume that they are the same thing here.

Level	Class	BAB	For	Ref	Wil	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Warlock	+0	+0	+0	+2	Bluff: 4 Disguise: 4 Profession (M/SH): 4 Sense Motive: 4 Spellcraft: 4 UMD: 4	Able Learner Favored in Guild (Mercantile)	Eldritch Blast 1d6 Summon Swarm
2nd	Warlock	+1	+0	+0	+3	Appraise: 1 Disguise: 5 Diplomacy: 1 Profession (M/CH): 5 Sense Motive: 5 UMD: 5		Detect Magic Spiderwalk
3rd	Warlock	+2	+1	+1	+3	Appraise: 2 Disguise: 6 Diplomacy: 2 Profession (M/CH): 6 Sense Motive: 6 UMD: 6	Negotiator	Eldritch Blast 2d6 DR: 1 / cold iron
4th	Warlock	+3	+1	+1	+4	Appraise: 3 Disguise: 7 Diplomacy: 3 Profession (M/CH): 7 Sense Motive: 7 UMD: 7		Deceive Item Entropic Warding
5th	Warlock	+3	+1	+1	+4	Appraise: 4 Disguise: 8 Diplomacy: 4 Profession (M/CH): 8 Sense Motive: 8 UMD: 8		Eldritch Blast 3d6
6th	Warlock	+4	+2	+2	+5	Bluff: 6 (+2) Disguise: 9 Profession (M/CH): 9 Sense Motive: 9 UMD: 9	Craft Wand	- Spiderwalk + See the Unseen Fell Flight
7th	Warlock	+5	+2	+2	+5	Appraise: 5 Disguise: 10 Diplomacy: 5 Profession (M/CH): 10 Sense Motive: 10 UMD: 10		Eldritch Blast 4d6 DR: 2 / cold iron
8th	Warlock	+6	+2	+2	+6	Bluff: 8 (+2) Disguise: 11 Profession (M/CH): 11 Sense Motive: 11 UMD: 11		Fiendish Resiliance Walk Unseen
9th	Warlock	+6	+3	+3	+6	Appraise: 6 Disguise: 12 Diplomacy: 6 Profession (M/CH): 12 Sense Motive: 12 UMD: 12	Craft Wondrous Item	Eldritch Blast 5d6
10th	Warlock	+7	+3	+3	+7	Bluff: 10 (+2) Disguise: 13 Profession (M/CH): 13 Sense Motive: 13 UMD: 13		Energy Resistance 5 Crawling Eye
11th	Warlock	+8	+3	+3	+7	Appraise: 7 Disguise: 14 Diplomacy: 7 Profession (M/CH): 14 Sense Motive: 14 UMD: 14		Eldritch Blast 6d6 DR 3 / cold iron Devil's Whispers
12th	Warlock	+9	+4	+4	+8	Bluff: 12 (+2) Disguise: 15 Profession (M/CH): 15 Sense Motive: 15 UMD: 15	Obtain Familiar: --- (see Familiar section)	Imbue Item
13th	Chameleon	+9	+4	+4	+8	Appraise: 8 Bluff: 14 (+2) Disguise: 16 Diplomacy: 8 Profession (M/CH): 16 Sense Motive: 16 UMD: 16		Aptitude Focus: 1/day (+2)
14th	Chameleon	+10	+4	+4	+8	Bluff: 16 (+2) Disguise: 17 Profession (M/CH): 17 Sense Motive: 17 Spellcraft: 6 (+2) UMD: 17		Bonus (Floating) Feat
15th	Marshall	+10	+6	+4	+10	Appraise: 9 Bluff: 18 (+2) Disguise: 18 Diplomacy: 9 Profession (M/CH): 18 Sense Motive: 18 UMD: 18	Skill Focus (Profession:[Merchant])	Skill Focus (Diplomacy) Minor Aura: "Motivate Charisma"
16th	Merchant Prince (set Floating Feat to "Business Savvy" to qualify)	+10	+6	+6	+10	Appraise: 14 (+5) Bluff: 19 Disguise: 19 Profession (M/CH): 19 Sense Motive: 19 UMD: 19		Master of Commerce Mercantile Knowledge
17th	Merchant Prince	+11	+6	+7	+10	Appraise: 19 (+5) Bluff: 20 Disguise: 20 Profession (M/CH): 20 Sense Motive: 20 UMD: 20		Lliira's Heart
18th	Merchant Prince	+12	+7	+7	+11	Appraise: 21 (+2) Bluff: 21 Disguise: 21 Diplomacy: 12 (+3) Profession (M/CH): 21 Sense Motive: 21 UMD: 21	Craft Rod or Forge Ring (see Floating Feat section)	Gond's Forge
19th	Merchant Prince	+13	+7	+8	+11	Appraise: 22 Bluff: 22 Disguise: 22 Diplomacy: 16 (+4) Profession (M/CH): 22 Sense Motive: 22 UMD: 22		Shaundakul's Cloak
20th	Merchant Prince	+13	+7	+8	+11	Appraise: 23 Disguise: 23 Diplomacy: 20 (+4) Profession (M/CH): 23 Sense Motive: 23 UMD: 23		Wuakeen's Coin

Spoiler: 1-11

Show

We start as a simple Warlock who just wants to survive the early levels mostly safe until we hit the main power spike of the build.

Summon Swarm is a powerful early game tool in the hands of a warlock, since the invocation is sole a standard action. The swarm does dmg at the end of the turn, thus no need to keep up the concentration in the next round and to risk that that they move and friendly-fire. The bleeding of the batswarm is also nice to kill anything that tries to escape.
Spiderwalk allows the warlock to remain save from grounded melee enemies and allows you to easily get to otherwise difficult to reach positions. Handy in any non plain environment.
Entropic Warding helps a bit against ranged attacks and makes it harder for others to track the warlock.

Later we extend our mobility with Fell Flight. This makes Spiderwalk obsolete and thus it gets exchanged into See the Unseen. This is especially handy since humans lack Darkvision (which is also included in the invocation).
Walk Unseen combos well with our Summon Swarm ability (summoning doesn't break invisibility!). While the dmg is low, bleeding and/or poison will ensure that most stuff will die over time without any chance to fight you back. They would need to be able to see invisible targets, have an option to fight flying enemies, and would still need to deal with the swarm effects (save roll or be distracted. The DC is low but you get a chance every turn).
Crawling Eye is mostly there for a later combo when we pick a familiar (@ lvl 14). In the meanwhile it can be used with Invisibility and Fell Flight as a "stealthy scouting drone"^^.

Devil's Whispers is for dealing with non-combat encounters. Since you can spam it all day long, most people will fall for your suggestions and even "think it was their own idea". This is pure GOLD in the hands of a merchant.^^

Spoiler: 12

Show

While picking up Obtain Familiar, we don't pick a familiar immediately. We'll delay it to lvl 14 for reasons (see below).
Imbue Item finally gives the build access to crafting. Maybe you are wondering why I didn't go for an artificer. There are some reasons behind it:

Spoiler: Craftlock > Artificer

Show

First let me explain what I mean here. Artificers also have some nice gadgets compared to craftlocks, so don't get me wrong here. But I sole want to focus here on the things where the craftlock shines in a direct comprehension:

1) Warlock don't need to provide a spell's material component nor any possible XP costs for the spell
(! I'm not talking about general XP costs for crafting here !)

While both "fake" the spell needed via UMD, sole the Artificer has the specific exception that he still needs to provide the material components and xp costs. The warlock does not. He fakes the entire "spell cast", which includes material and xp costs according to the general rules to "casting spells". This is especially handy for things that rely on spells with extra costs (e.g. Whish scrolls).


2) Artificer use their own caster level to meet requirements. The warlock does not

The warlock's ability sole works via UMD to "fake" his spell. E.g. if the warlock wants to fake a divine spell he rolls UMD to emulate class features. This has several benefits. First you can access higher lvl spells earlier. Further you can reach higher clvl requirements much faster (e.g. +5 weapon/armor). Finally, you sole need 12 warlock levels (and a 2 lvl dip into chameleon..^^) and can then pick other stuff. An artificer is much more bound to his class due to the crafting feats he gets. If he wants to craft everything, he has to pick 14 lvls of artificer and still needs Infusion progression for the remaining levels. This is much more limited then a craftlock who can ignore his caster level for crafting and thus even go for non spell/invication progressing PRC like Merchant Prince (which has it's own niche spell casting ability).

3) Sole Warlocks can take 10 on UMD
While not a part of crafting, it affects how good you can use the stuff you have crafted. Anybody else who tries to (ab)use UMD has a constant 5% chance to roll a natural 1, which as result forbids the use for the next 24h (not even next day, it's 24 *f**king* hours!!!). Do you really wanna face a 5% chance of failure when each ongoing item requires 24 rolls for the day (1 UMD roll/hour)? I guess not. Items with ongoing effects are out of the league of anyone but warlocks. Same goes for stuff you want to use constantly (combat/healing wands). You don't wanna waste an action for a failed attempt and you don't wanna deny the use of that item for the next 24h. If you wanna master UMD, you have to be a warlock.

Imho the Artificer wins in the early game, since warlocks can't craft until lvl 12-14. But once the craftlock hits his powerspike, he will outshine most Artificer when it comes to crafting. Especially when it comes to abusing stuff (ignoring additional spell costs is a big plus as said).

We can finally start to craft some lil gadgets for our build (wands + wondrous items). See the crafting section for more info on that.

Spoiler: 13-14

Show

Chameleon is really hard to pass as craftlock. While the Aptitude Focus ability offers some lil gimmicks, we are mainly here for the floating Bonus Feat here. It basically gives access to any crafting feats we don't have yet and allows for metamagic for those thing where we have the needed crafting feat (e.g. wands). I will refer to the "Floating Feat" on several of the build.

While we are at the Floating Feat. Improved Familiar is the first thing to do here, since it is sole needed to pick an improved familiar but not to sustain it (that is done by Obtain Familiar). This gives the option to pick a "Dread Bloom Swarm" (see Dragon #329 page 98 for the option as familiar and MMIII page 45 for the stats) as familiar.
These are some formidable familiars for a warlock. They have swarm and plant traits which already make em very strong. Added CON dmg on the swarm attack is very nice to have. Further is has another poison ability with its pollen abiltiy which paralyzes (primary & secondary). Add the common Distraction ability for swarms and you have some fearsome offensive familiar. Regeneration 5 makes it very strudy combined with "half damage from slashing and piercing". And if all that wouldn't be awsome enough, its master is immune to all of its effects. Finally it can be healed via "Summon Swarm" (surpesses the "normal" effect of the spell when used as heal) which we can spam all day long. A truely OP familiar in the hands of a warlock.
Well, this wouldn't be a TO build of mine, if I wouldn't include any possible cheese that lies on the way. With our Crawling Eye we can apply a Symbiotic template on our swarm. This gives it the warlocks mental stats and all of its abilities! (Note this cheese is not needed for the main build to work, but it opens up a lot of other cheese. Thus the reason why I included it into the build). Now our swarm can finally use its otherwise unused standard action to use invocations (e.g. Summon Swarm for extra havok or for constant healing^^). Also note that it has double the masters ranks (once for being a familiar and getting the same value as bonus from the Symbiotic template). A truly fitting familiar for a TO build.

Familiar Feats:
Normally Dread Blossom Swarms have "INT: -" and can't pick any feats due to HD. But as familiar they get a fixed INT score according to their master's level. Thus our familiar can pick 3 feats for its 7HD. We'll pick Flyby Attack, Great Flyby Attack (GFA) & Weapon Finesse. Now our swarm can use a Full Round Action to fly in a straight line and attack up to its "DEX modifier" (+3). GFA is more specific than the swarm attack and thus we need to make a single attack roll and compare it to the AC of each target. It further denies AoO from those "targets" which is really handy to move into their spaces for a swarm.
With this feat the swarm can basically attack those "targets" twice a turn. First from GFA and later at the end of its turn the regular swarm attack. Combined with the added poison dmg this is really a deadly combo.
Finally note that all ability DCs scale with the master's HD (DC= 10base + 1/2 HD + CON).

Spoiler: 15-20

Show

The single lvl dip into Marshall will boost our CHA skills by basically doubling your CHA modifier to those skills. The main purpose here is for UMD. Especially important for combat since you don't wanna waste actions to push your UMD via spells to be able to use stuff.

Finally we enter Merchant Prince. Master of Commerce is the sole reason why we pick it. It gives "a 10% reduction in your capital costs per class level" which is just insane for this build. Crafting stuff yourself already cuts the price in half, but now you sole have to pay a quarter of the original base price of an item (@lvl 20). This has the potential to quadruple the "effective wealth" of each party member (also affecting the "extra wealth" created by the build itself).

MONEY IN MY POCKET

1) Be in a Trading Guild
We want to get filthy rich. So what could be better then to start as the favored member of a trading guild? Favored in Guild (mercantile) gives the option to spell one item/character level for double the base price. While not much, this should give you some extra income compared to the regular adventurer. Try to sell the most expensive item that drops. Even if someone needs it. You can buy it back later and still make profit. A lil advice here, make a lil bookkeeping and note which parts of your income are related to your character abilities/business and which parts are your regular WBL.

2) Become a "Shopkeeper" (business as in DMG2)
We won't bother with the small fishes here. Unless you have the luck to get enough wands with +skill boosts, it makes not much sense to make an early game shop. A shop in the wilderness may be cheap, but very risky when it comes to the profit checks. As such it is recommended to wait until you have saved up 32k gold for the initial investment needed to get a shop in a metropolis. Later when we can craft wand ourself (at lvl 12), we can boost the profit check as much as possible via spells (e.g. Divine Insight, Guidance of the Avatar..).

2.1) Hire 5 Specialists
Make sure that they have ranks as "Profession: (Shopkeeper)" so that you get a +2 bonus for each. The reason why we sole get 5 are the increasing costs for each one more that you hire (first 10g/month, each additional costs +20g more). The +2 bonus will earn us +100g more per month. As such, the 5th specialist will sole provide a neat gain of 10g (+100g gain - 90g cost). A 6th one would cost more then it benefit your income (110g cost > 100g extra income).

2.2) Abuse your Familiar for you business
Either as business partner (since it has the same skill ranks as the warlock) or by making him the owner (and working the min. 8h per week to not face a penalty for the profit check). More details on how to make the swarm the owner can be found in the UMD - Magic Item section below.

3) Expand into the Airship business
Starting at lvl 12 we can craft Halruaan Skyships (400k gold base price). While we might (?!) lack the finances at lvl 12 according to general WBL, there is the possibility we have earned enough extra cash already via Favored in Guild. Finally, finding investors shouldn't be a problem at all. We have good connections in the Trading Guild and have superior social skills (appraise + bluff + diplomacy + "Suggestion/Devil's Whispers" at will) when it comes to making money. Favored in Guild allows us to sell a ship per character level without the stressful RP needed normally to obtain the DM's fiat for such an act. So, by investing 200k, we make 600k profit. Enough to pay the investors. Even if we should have borrowed all the money needed. We already have almost as much WBL as a 20th lvl character (up to 600k + 88k base wbl for lvl12 + what else you earned via Favored in Guild) as a 12th lvl character!

3.1) Abuse your Familiar to sell more Airships
Starting at lvl 14, when we pick our familiar, we can start to sell 2 ships per lvl. This requires the before mentioned Symbiotic template. With that, our familiar also has Favored in Guild and can sell a ship too. This increases our income per lvl to 1,200,000g. Which means by the end of lvl 14 we have already sold 4 ships and thus have earned roughly ~ 2,400,000g extra compared to a reguar character at that lvl.

4) Increase profit margin via Merchant Prince
With Master of Commerce we gradually reduce our crating costs down to 25% of the original base price of the item. This means that by lvl 20 we make 700,000g profit per ship (= +1,400,000g extra profit).

5) Make even more business
Turn your familiar into a full time businessman. Make him own 7 business shops. One for each day of the week to work off the 8h minimum per week (to not face penalties for the profit check).

Final Tip: Unless you are in a decades lasting campaign, I wouldn't focus to much on the business. A business in a metropolis needs 1-3 years at least to pay off. Same goes for upgrading a business. It takes almost 2 years to pay off. Favored in Guild is the main income of the build and there is nothing that can compete with it.

Now you know all the important dirty lil tricks to get filthy rich. But what to do will all that money...?

a Craftlock's way to abuse UMD/crafting

I already explained above why "Take-10" is so important when it comes to UMD (5% failchance due to natural 1, which prevents the use of the item for the next 24h). With that we can abuse many items with ongoing effects without any chance of error (1 UMD roll per hour per ongoing magic item..). It also makes the roll result predictable which further ensures the chance of success. Now lets start with a small but very powerful collection of items to use with UMD: (I'm sole mentioning build specific stuff that is worth mentioning. Assume any items that you would normally pick)

Monk's Tattoo
I have mentioned this one very often. Note, you get (sole) the unarmed damage, not the monks US ability! Via emulate class feature you pretend to be a monk of "X.th" lvl (UMD roll -20) and get the unarmed dmg , movementspeed and AC bonus of a monk of "X+4th lvl".


Wild Shape Amulet
This one has 2 effects. The first adds +4 to your Wild Shape ability, the second gives you the Wild Shape ability as 5th lvl druid if you shouldn't already have it. Nothing in the items description prevents both effects to be active at the same time. As such you can pretend to be a druid of "X.th lvl" to get the +4HD bonus and also get the Wild Shape ability as a 5th lvl druid. The second effect gives the ability while the first effect increases your effective HD by your UMD roll (-20) +4. Now you have the Wild Shape ability of a 20th lvl druid (hardcap on the item).

Rags of Restraint
Heals you for expanding a daily use of your Stunning Fist ability (monk) or Ki ability (ninja). Heals for your class level. Thus we can heal for UMD-20 at will. Swift action activation!

Vest of the Archmagi
This is also for healing and has the same slot as the before mentioned Rags. It offers some other bonuses like +8 AC
and +5 to saves. The healing is measured by the "prepared spell's or spell-slot's level". As such, we pretend to spent spell slots (since "prepared spells" is a status and not a class feature). Again sole a swift action to heal (at will..).

Robe of Mysterious Conjuration (can be worn together with the vest/rag)
3/day spent a spell slot for Summon Monsters of the same lvl. Not gamebreaking but still nice to have.

Wand: (Sanctum Spell) Arcane Fusion
Via Sanctum Spell we can fit the 5th lvl spell Arcane Fusion as 4th lvl spell into a wand. I hear you saying "but you don't know any sorcerer spells..". Well that might be true, but UMD can take care of that. "Spells Known" is a class feature and thus emulatable. And the real great part is, you have to reroll it on every charge used. This allows you pretend other "Spells Known" every time you active it. Cast any (!!!) 1st and 1-4th Sorcerer spell for a single charge of your wand. This lil tool itself increases our power lvl immense.

Wand: (Sanctum Spell) "Any other 5th lvl spell that is important"
E.g. Teleport and other useful spells you want to use from a wand.

Rod of Absorption
This rod is a gamebreaker in the hands of warlock. It has 2 effects. The first absorbs any targeted spells (or SLA!) and rays directed at you. The spell lvls fuel the rod with charges (up to 50 charges can be absorbed). The charges can then be expended for "prepared spells or spells known". While we can emulate the ability to prepare spells, we can't emulate "spell(s) prepared", since that is a status effect (after you use the ability) and not the class ability itself. but as perviously shown, we can pretend to be spontaneous casting class and thus get access to all their spells. Basically this rod gives us access to any spontaneous castable spell there is as long as we have charges. Note that the rod's charges can sole be filled once and may not be recharged afterwards. But who cares. It sole costs 50k gold base price (25-12.5k gold for us, depending on Merchant Prince lvl). We can pay that from our "pocket money"^^. Craft enough of em to have a multiple backup rods. And with Invocations at will we can even charge em up for free if needed.

Floating Feat options

The floating feats fits multiple purposes for the build.
1) It saves us a feat to enter Merchant Prince
2) Can be used to get any crafting feat we didn't pick ourself.
2.1) Craft Contingent Spell is normally a really expensive "consumable", but in this build we can abuse it like no other. We have access to all spells and our familiar can use its own floating feat to assist with metamagic if needed. Like when you want to abuse a "Greater Arcane Fusion: (Sanctum Spell: Greater Arcane Fusion + ...) + ..." infinite loop to cast infinite 1-4th lvl spells. While we are at Greater Arcane Fusion. Get 2 sorcerer spells for the price of a single 8th lvl contingent spell. The options with this feat are endless. Abuse it for the entire party and any relevant NPC that you need to protect.
3) Metamagic for wands (mostly for Sanctum Spell)
4) "Eldritch Claws" if you wanna pimp your Wild Shape forms
5) "XXX Shape" to get other wild shape forms for the "amulet". (e.g. Dragon Wild Shape to get Alternate Form (humanoid); especially useful for our familiar. It can turn into a human/ourself and interact socially easier when it comes to business stuff.)
6) "Enhance Item" (if you have picked "Craft Rod") is from the EHB but doesn't has the epic tag. Now you can apply your CHA mod to the DC of items your craft.
7) "Extra Rings" (if you have picked "Forge Rings" as 18th lvl feat) allows you to wear 2 more rings then usual.

Purpose of the Disguise skill

Our character uses dozens of fake identities to make divination spells that need familiarity harder to use on him. Croesus is just one of em. And with his familiar being able to access humanoid forms, it can also disguise as the same fake identities to make it even more confusing. Running a big business needs the higher standards of secrecy. This also helps to differentiate private life, business life and the life as adventurer. Only a few selected people should know this secret and even they shouldn't know the full extend of your identities. Maybe even pretend to run competing businesses. Change your identities more often than others change their underwear^^.

Option: Let your familiar craft

If you are lazy (and have used the Symbiotic template trick), you can let your familiar do the dirt work when it comes to crafting. You just need a wand of the TRANSFERENCE spell to transfer the XP needed to your familiar.

Still not enough money???

Craft cheap simulacrum scrolls and use em on your familiar. Due to being a familiar it overcomes the regular downside of simulacrum. It still has HD, BAB and skills as dictated by its master's ability (by applying the effects in the most favorable order). Now each simulacrum can open and maintain 7 shops. Flood the market with your shops everywhere!

END

We end with a filthy rich and very strong build who has more money then the entire epic party next door..^^
We have made several million gold and can craft items for 1/4 of the base cost. The world of magic items belongs to us.^^

I hope that you enjoyed this lil dirty build and that you leave some feedback. Be it critique, question, suggestion or just your impression.

PS: On a sidenote. I'm still struggling with the fact that warlocks have been put into "Tier 3" by the community. I said it back then and I'll say it again. "Warlocks can be build to be T1" if you really go all out. I've multiple TO builds that rely on warlock and all of em are on a gamebreaking power level.
If we would have a Tierlist for Skills, UMD would be the sole Tier 1 skill. And warlocks are the best UMD users there is.
If we should ever make a new Tierlist for classes, I demand a better Tier for warlocks!^^

[Zarvistic]

How does master of commerce apply to crafting items?

And if it does, I suppose you could also use legacy champion or similar effects for 100% reduction?

[Gruftzwerg]

How does master of commerce apply to crafting items?

And if it does, I suppose you could also use legacy champion or similar effects for 100% reduction?

Crafting items have "capital costs" (one time costs) and are not "operational expenditures" (meaning ongoing cost as per hour/day/week/month...).

__

I'm not a fan of legacy champion cheese. And "similar effects" normally don't stack additive, but multiplicative.
And I don't think there is much more possible. Other crafting builds are much more gutted due to spell progression and other stuff. And craftlock comes online late and thus is also very limited in its variations.

Maybe someone can squeeze out more (effective) money, but at which (build) cost? I did gave other option like Artificer a long thought, but it nowhere comes near what is possible with warlocks (money & power lvl). Imho this build has the best "balance" between money and power ("balanced" in perspective for a TO build. I'm not calling the build balanced here ;)

[redking]

Capital costs don't decrease cost of crafting items. UMD for casting any spell via rod of absorption will will be shot down by DMs (90%).

[Gruftzwerg]

Capital costs don't decrease cost of crafting items. UMD for casting any spell via rod of absorption will will be shot down by DMs (90%).

I don't see why "Capital Costs" shouldn't include costs for crafting items:

Costs are either "Capital Costs" or "operational expenditures".

Crafting a single item for yourself is a one time expense and as such it fits the definition of capital costs according to wiki:

Capital costs are fixed, one-time expenses incurred on the purchase of land, buildings, construction, and equipment used in the production of goods or in the rendering of services. In other words, it is the total cost needed to bring a project to a commercially operable status. Whether a particular cost is capital or not depend on many factors such as accounting, tax laws, and materiality.

I'm not running a "service" business model (according to DMG2) as crafter here. And being a "shopkeeper" doesn't interfere with my private crafting. If I craft something in private (for myself of friends/teammates where I don't wanna make "profit"), it's a one time expense. I'm not mass-producing the same magic items over and over here to sell em (which would turn the costs into "operational expenditures". I'm crafting things to use for myself or my party. As such, this is imho a one time expense and thus a Capital Cost.

If you buy a weapon or expend gold to craft items, both are capital cost.
If you hire a hireling or rent a room, it's an "operational expenditure".


___________________

And yeah, the Rod of Absorption cheese is really OP. As such a DM would need to houserule it away. As said, the build is not intended for play. It sole showcases the maximum extend of RAW-TO. I'm not advertising to play the build with full cheese here, nor do I suggest to play it at all. But on the other hand this is still at the "limits of a playable build" if you find a DM who can handle such high optimization tables/builds. It's just that those DMs are very rare.

I think the same can even be said about the "Sanctum Spell - Arcane Fusion - wand". Imho it's to strong for most tables. You basically don't need to prepare spells and theoretically know all sorcerer spells up to 4th lvl (you can switch the spells known list at every activation..). A single wand is effectively overshadowing any wizard or sorcerer of 7/8th lvl due to access to all 1-4th spells for sorcerers. It's like effectively Quickening a 1st lvl spell and giving you 1st-4th spell ontop for a single charge and a single standard action used. You still have your swift and movement action left. While it comes online at lvl 12, it is still very strong imho due to its flexibility. Just think about how many wand you would need to compete here (and how you would handle that amount of wands). Here you have the full packet in a single 4th lvl wand.

There is a reason why I always put the optimization warnings into my builds ;)

[redking]

Capital costs are explained in page 183 and 185 of the DMG2.

Upgrading a Business
An owner can take steps such as buying the latest equipment, refurbishing buildings, or ordering a new brand of ale to improve his business, and these upgrades usually have a positive effect on the profi tability of the enterprise. Upgrades are essentially additional capital investments in the business. If the business owner invests 25% of the initial capital cost of the business, he rolls 1d4 and adds the result as a permanent bonus on future profit checks. A business owner can only benefit from one upgrade every three months.

You are barking up the wrong tree by seeking succor in a Wikipedia article. The merchant prince gets a discount on initial costs and upgrade costs. These are the "capital costs".

[Gruftzwerg]

Capital costs are explained in page 183 and 185 of the DMG2.



You are barking up the wrong tree by seeking succor in a Wikipedia article. The merchant prince gets a discount on initial costs and upgrade costs. These are the "capital costs".

It's "Capital" and not "Capital Cost" what is defined. And that definition belongs to the specific rules (since it's not in the PHB) to run a business and is tied to the table table 6-3.

Master of Commerce (Ex): Merchant princes have mastered the art of commerce. You receive a +2 insight bonus on your profit modifier (see page 183 of Dungeon Master's Guide II) per class level and a 10% reduction in your capital costs per class level.

The ability "Master of Commerce" is referring to "commerce" and not to "business overall" in the first place. Sole the first effect (+2 insight bonus) is referring to the business rules. This doesn't apply to the second effect of the ability which is using the (globally) undefined term "capital (cost)".
It may have not been the intention of the authors. But RAW doesn't care for that. If they had other intentions, they have failed once again to write fitting rules under the control of the omnipotent Primary Source Rule.

[redking]

The ability "Master of Commerce" is referring to "commerce" and not to "business overall" in the first place. Sole the first effect (+2 insight bonus) is referring to the business rules. This doesn't apply to the second effect of the ability which is using the (globally) undefined term "capital (cost)".
It may have not been the intention of the authors. But RAW doesn't care for that. If they had other intentions, they have failed once again to write fitting rules under the control of the omnipotent Primary Source Rule.

Given that you are given a page number for reference in the description of the class, and then the associated pages in the DMG2 gives a precise explanation, there is no conflict with RAW.

Let me put it another way - if merchant prince gave a 10% discount for crafting per level, then this would be in every single crafting discount handbook, yet it is in none of them. There are times when the WotC writers mess up and write something ambiguous or just plain wrong, but this is not one of those times.

[Rynjin]

It fits in with most "T0" builds anyway, using flavor text and outside-game sources to imagine rules text that isn't there.

Toss it on the pile with Pun-Pun and the Peasant Railgun.

[Gruftzwerg]

Given that you are given a page number for reference in the description of the class, and then the associated pages in the DMG2 gives a precise explanation, there is no conflict with RAW.

Imho the reference targets the first effect and not both. Business rules from DMG2 are specific rules. As such anything outside of that book need to make a call out on its own. The way the "(*reference*)" is placed, it sole targets the first half of the sentence. If they wanted to target the entire sentence, they would have needed to place the "()" behind the entire sentence (after the ".", not before since that would target the 2nd half of the sentence). RAI, you have a very strong argument (I'll admit that). But RAW they failed to place the syntax/reference at the right place to reflect their (assumed) intentions.
All I can say is, that it never even crossed my mind that "capital costs" should fall under the business rules the way it is presented by RAW.

Let me put it another way - if merchant prince gave a 10% discount for crafting per level, then this would be in every single crafting discount handbook, yet it is in none of them. There are times when the WotC writers mess up and write something ambiguous or just plain wrong, but this is not one of those times.

1) 10% discount for "capital costs" != 10% discount for "crafting (overall)"
As I said earlier, it doesn't affect all crafting costs. Sole those that you can book as "capital costs". Assume you would run the (DMG2) business model "Service". Your costs to craft for business purposes wouldn't be affected by "Master of Commerce". But it would decrease still your character's one time expenses for crafting stuff for himself/his teammates. Because those aren't operational expenditures like running your "Service".

2) People that write handbooks are rarely the same people who discover cheese. In most cases they are just kind people that contribute to the community with handbooks. It's not my fault that no one else seem to have drawn this cheesy RAW conclusion so far. And I don't see handbooks as a good source for RAW to begin with. It's most of the time not the primary aim of a handbook to showcase RAW cheese. Some handbooks do have that aim, but that is not a general rule, nor any proof/evidence. And at the rate at which we still discover new stuff about 3.5 in this forum, I wouldn't take any handbook as "complete".

[redking]

It's not my fault that no one else seem to have drawn this cheesy RAW conclusion so far. And I don't see handbooks as a good source for RAW to begin with. It's most of the time not the primary aim of a handbook to showcase RAW cheese

The problem is that you are looking for exploits, and you are finding them because you want to believe that the exploits are there.

"Running a business" section in the DMG2 is referenced specifically, and you are even told what costs you get a discount for - the initial capital costs and the upgrade costs. Wikipedia can't tell you anything about how to understand the abilities of the merchant prince.

[Malphegor]

Let me put it another way - if merchant prince gave a 10% discount for crafting per level, then this would be in every single crafting discount handbook, yet it is in none of them. There are times when the WotC writers mess up and write something ambiguous or just plain wrong, but this is not one of those times.

That is a potentially dangerous fallacy to fall down imho: just because all the handbooks and guides past haven’t seen a combo doesn’t mean it can’t exist, it might have been overlooked by all the people writing about this edition for any number of reasons.

The business rules are arcane and confusing and slightly boring unless you’re really invested in running a business in d&d as the main focus of your character.

As a side note My only suggestion (while I’m reading through this build still) for any business is to have a custom Affiliation (that business) to guarantee yourself at least a 200gp wage a month which you can use to smooth over any shortfalls in profit.

[AvatarVecna]

It's weird looking at a lvl 20 build called "Pay 2 Win" and the secret is that it's using the business rules. Like...you could be lvl 1 and use the business rules to break the game. It takes a lot of in-universe time, but if you're an elf, you can say "my lvl 1 elf hyper-specialized into these skills for moneymaking reasons, spent like 50 years running their business, and now owns the universe".

[pabelfly]

I'm not saying that undiscovered exploits don't exist in 3.5, but I think you're going to have to dive little harder than DMG II to find them

[ShurikVch]

Since it's a "craftlock" - how about to fit in a level in Maester (Complete Adventurer) - for Quick Crafting?
Or 1-3 levels of Alchemist Savant (Magic of Eberron) - for Efficient Alchemy?

[redking]

Since it's a "craftlock" - how about to fit in a level in Maester (Complete Adventurer) - for Quick Crafting?
Or 1-3 levels of Alchemist Savant (Magic of Eberron) - for Efficient Alchemy?

Or go with the suggested variant class, the Enclave Master instead of the Merchant Prince. It's supposed to be for wizards, but as a variant there is no reason why it could not progress invocations and eldritch blast instead of wizard spells. Then you get dark invocations too.

[Akal Saris]

"Nice airship, mate! Where'd you buy it?"

"I bought it off a very persuasive dread bloom swarm familiar by the name of Steve, in Waterdeep. He's the most entrepreneurial familiar I've ever met - he owns 7 airship companies in the city, and works at each of them one day a week!"

"Wow, all my familiar does is eat flies and give me +3 hit points!"

[Gruftzwerg]

Sorry for the late response. I'm very busy the past days again..
Thx everybody for you interest and feedback. Keep it coming^^

__________________________________________________ _____

The problem is that you are looking for exploits, and you are finding them because you want to believe that the exploits are there.

"Running a business" section in the DMG2 is referenced specifically, and you are even told what costs you get a discount for - the initial capital costs and the upgrade costs. Wikipedia can't tell you anything about how to understand the abilities of the merchant prince.

I have explained why by RAW the rules don't support this:

1. The Business Rules in the DMG2 are a "specific rule-set" and not the "general rules to play the game" (according to the Primary Source Rule the general rules are all in the PHB).
As such anything outside of that book that wants to make use of these rules has to make an explicit call out.

2. We sole have the callout for the first part of the sentence and not for the entire sentence.
The callout is made by a "(*reference*)" in a double-sentence (dunno how it's called in english sry) which is combined with the keyword "and" here. Depending where you place the "(*reference*)", you can target either the first part of the sentence (by placing the reference before the "and"), the second part (by placing the "(*reference*)" before the ".") or even the entire sentence ( by placing the "(*reference*)" behind the ".").
If the authors had other intentions they've failed by RAW.

It's like when you want to drive left with your car. You set your car's blinker/signal (dunno the name..) to left and not to right. Base logic. Same here. The reference of the business rules sole target the "+2 insight bonus on your profit modifier" and not the "10% reduction in your capital costs per class level".

As said, it may not be intended. But I'm not even sure about this. Imho both interpretations would be fitting abilities for the Merchant Prince (RAI), thus imho the intention of the designers are hard to reveal here. We can't be sure if they wanted one or the other. All I can say is what RAW dictates here and where they have placed the "(*reference*)"...

That is a potentially dangerous fallacy to fall down imho: just because all the handbooks and guides past haven’t seen a combo doesn’t mean it can’t exist, it might have been overlooked by all the people writing about this edition for any number of reasons.

The business rules are arcane and confusing and slightly boring unless you’re really invested in running a business in d&d as the main focus of your character.

I agree here. I wasn't even aware of the PRC (or lets better say, I assume that I have totally forgotten about it) until roughly a month ago a reddit post made me aware of it. And the source/book Powers of Faerun isn't the most used book/source either (I barely see it in the forum competitions to begin with..).
So it's a very underused prc from an underused source/book.

Finally, like in any game (even PC games), there are always some things which attracts more optimizers then other things. This causes that the many options/exploits/builds/whatsoever remain undiscovered for a long time/forever. I again refer to the forum competitions and TO showcases as evidence here, where we still get new stuff from time to time.

It's weird looking at a lvl 20 build called "Pay 2 Win" and the secret is that it's using the business rules. Like...you could be lvl 1 and use the business rules to break the game. It takes a lot of in-universe time, but if you're an elf, you can say "my lvl 1 elf hyper-specialized into these skills for moneymaking reasons, spent like 50 years running their business, and now owns the universe".

If you have read the entire build, you should be aware that the income from the business is very small compared to the profit made by the "Favored in Guild" feat. The feat is the foundation of the build and the main income.

A Lvl1 character won't make any "profit" if he wants to rely on the "business rules" (which sole exists to minimize the RP time involved to run the business, so that you don't have to RP any tiny bit of the business).
This is because he can't effort any of em with his starting gold. The cheapest business model in the cheapest location (wilderness) costs 500g to begin with. And if you should somehow manage that, you have still other issues...
So you are looking at a -34 modifier for your profit roll already (+1 "low risk", -10 "wilderness" - 25 "base profit modifier"). Unless you can push your profit roll up to 35, you won't make profit but losses. Unless you are pun-pun, this profit roll will break the idea of any 1st lvl character "running a business as in DMG2". As said, the rules are imho sole if you want to run a business more passively. If your campaign/adventure is all about money and making profit, you don't need the business rules. They are sole there if you wanna minimize the "PR time" the table needs to spend for the business.

The main reason the build relies on a business is, that it is a requirement to enter and progress MP (the prc has a specific rule for that!). So, no... the secret is not the business here..^^

And it's called "PAY2WIN" because we use the gold optimization to "pay" for the resources needed to craft strong magical items that help you to win the game. And since everything you need is provided by the rules (gold income & your ability to craft stuff), you don't need to rely on DM fiat here. You just become filthy rich and use your wealth to solve any problems. A DM would need to ban the feat or crafting to stop you... (this is why I heavily insist on not playing such a build at a "normal" table!).

Since it's a "craftlock" - how about to fit in a level in Maester (Complete Adventurer) - for Quick Crafting?
Or 1-3 levels of Alchemist Savant (Magic of Eberron) - for Efficient Alchemy?

I did give Maester and some other options a deep thought, but in the end my main focus was money optimization and not crafting optimization. There are already plenty of optimized crafter builds/guides/handbooks out there.
I still think that the cheesy Merchant Prince fits best here for TO purposes. (remind you: the build is not a play advice ^^).

Or go with the suggested variant class, the Enclave Master instead of the Merchant Prince. It's supposed to be for wizards, but as a variant there is no reason why it could not progress invocations and eldritch blast instead of wizard spells. Then you get dark invocations too.

I dislike variant options that aren't fleshed out enough (I have the same problem with arcane swordsage). Those require a DM to adjust and thus are a bad option for TO-showcases imho.


________________

Again, thx for all the feedback. I appreciate it <3


edit:

"Nice airship, mate! Where'd you buy it?"

"I bought it off a very persuasive dread bloom swarm familiar by the name of Steve, in Waterdeep. He's the most entrepreneurial familiar I've ever met - he owns 7 airship companies in the city, and works at each of them one day a week!"

"Wow, all my familiar does is eat flies and give me +3 hit points!"

Hehe^^ Now that I think about it, I forgot to mention the intention behind maxing the "disguise" skill.

"Disguise":
The main idea here is that "Croesus" is just one of many identities the character is running/pretending. This is to make it harder for divination casters to "know him well". They sole know his fake personas. And his familiar is even better at disguising as his master is (master's ranks from being a familiar + master's ranks as bonus from the Symbiotic template + Alternate Form from setting the Floating Feat to Draconic Wild Shape in combination with the Wild Shape Amulet).

[AvatarVecna]

And it's called "PAY2WIN" because we use the gold optimization to "pay" for the resources needed to craft strong magical items that help you to win the game. And since everything you need is provided by the rules (gold income & your ability to craft stuff), you don't need to rely on DM fiat here. You just become filthy rich and use your wealth to solve any problems. A DM would need to ban the feat or crafting to stop you... (this is why I heavily insist on not playing such a build at a "normal" table!).

This is kind of my point though. As long as you can get the money to run the business, and your profit check isn't absolute garbage, all it takes it time. It's a braindead "NI gp" machine. A commoner could do it. Additionally, DMG2 has rules for taking out loans up to 5000 gp (monthly 10% interest), or higher with a good Diplomacy check (on top of getting a loan from your guild, if you're a guild member), so potentially a first level commoner could do it.

Use craft skill or basic magic item creation to generate money, turn that money into a business, which generates passive monthly income that is slowly climbing towards "infinite monthly income".

EDIT: And the main reason a Commoner 1 couldn't get infinite money through this method isn't "they can't get the startup cash" (loans, guild, business partners, etc) or the profit check (even basic crafting can let you afford some nice +skill items, without getting into any nonsense involving spellcasting services), but the fact that some business events are a lil too dangerous for a commoner 1.

[Gruftzwerg]

This is kind of my point though. As long as you can get the money to run the business, and your profit check isn't absolute garbage, all it takes it time. It's a braindead "NI gp" machine. A commoner could do it. Additionally, DMG2 has rules for taking out loans up to 5000 gp (monthly 10% interest), or higher with a good Diplomacy check (on top of getting a loan from your guild, if you're a guild member), so potentially a first level commoner could do it.

Really? Let's do some math here.
Assuming a 1st lvl Human with CHA 18 and Skillfocus on Diplomacy (for the loan) & his Primary Profession/business skill (for the Profit roll).
So each skill has 4 ranks, +3 from Skillfocus and +4 from CHA. I'm not aware of any mundane items with +skillbonuses that could help here. If there are any, pls point me to em. With the option to Take-10, we are looking at a roll result of 21 here. Add the basic -25 Profit roll modifier, the -10 from the wilderness location and the +1 for a low risk buisness and you have a result of -13 here...
-13 x 10g = -130g loss per month if you Take-10 and if you don't Take-10, the average is still (-12.5 x 10g) -125g loss per month.

I don't see how a commoner without any DM fiat (e.g. Family members that work for free as business partners or specialists) should be able to do that, sorry. You need to squeeze out +13 bonus on the profit check to not make any profit or loss.

And do you get a high enough loan to build a business in the first place?

Up to the member’s monthly dues = DC 15
Up to the member’s monthly dues × 10 = DC 20
Up to the member’s monthly dues × 100 = DC 25

A member's monthly fee is 5g/character lvl. So a 1st lvl commoner pays 5g. To get the minimum 500 for the cheapest business he needs to hit DC 25 with a Diplomacy modifier of +11. Not impossible, but not guarantied either. A 40% chance of failure (unless you can find other +skill bonuses for a 1st lvl character).

As said, without DM fiat, the 1st lvl commoner can't do that. And even if you manage somehow, you don't have the permission to skip "time" after character creation. Downtimes are in the hands of the DM and not the PC. And if you just chose to stay at business, you don't participate in the intended adventure of the DM. No matter how I look at it, it doesn't work that way without big DM fiat.

Use craft skill or basic magic item creation to generate money, turn that money into a business, which generates passive monthly income that is slowly climbing towards "infinite monthly income".

Relies on roleplay and DM fiat to sell the stuff you create. The intention of the build is to have rules that back you up when making money so that a possible DM would need to houserule it away (as said, this is a TO build^^).
With enough DM fiat anything is possible.

EDIT: And the main reason a Commoner 1 couldn't get infinite money through this method isn't "they can't get the startup cash" (loans, guild, business partners, etc) or the profit check (even basic crafting can let you afford some nice +skill items, without getting into any nonsense involving spellcasting services), but the fact that some business events are a lil too dangerous for a commoner 1.

Imho there are more problems for a 1st lvl commoner as those you think, as mentioned above.

edit: Imho relying on DM fiat is "PRAY2WIN" and not "PAY2WIN" ^^

[Harrow]

For a Theoretical Optimization build, I find this... lacking. For one, it has already been mentioned Legacy Champion could be used to reduce the cost of capital into the negatives, generating infinite wealth. It can do a similar trick specifically with scroll costs using Unbound Scroll. I don't really care that you don't like it. This is already something that won't ever see play at a table, why are we limiting ourselves to only enough cheese that a DM would ban it without going all the way?

Legacy champion aside, I don't think you'd be getting as much mileage out of Craft Wand as you would from another feat. I would suggest pushing Favored in Guild back to level 3 and Negotiator to 6 (or using flaws. Again, TO) and picking up Mercantile Background at first so that you end up with both. That gets you an extra 300 gold at character creation, bonus gold for every item the party sells (as they'll likely be selling through you) and, once per month, gives you a hefty discount on one item.

I was also surprised I didn't see any mention of haggling. Complete Adventurer gives rules for getting a 10% discount if you can manage a Diplomacy check to change their attitude to "helpful". The DC to do so goes up by the target merchant's Diplomacy modifier, so normally these rules are very DM dependent, but in a TO build you A) should be able to get it high enough for most purposes and B) don't have a DM telling you 'no' so you should be able to assume that you're just buying from incompetent merchants.

[AvatarVecna]

Legacy Champion doesn't work actually. Merchant prince is only 5 levels IIRC.

[Gruftzwerg]

For a Theoretical Optimization build, I find this... lacking. For one, it has already been mentioned Legacy Champion could be used to reduce the cost of capital into the negatives, generating infinite wealth. It can do a similar trick specifically with scroll costs using Unbound Scroll. I don't really care that you don't like it. This is already something that won't ever see play at a table, why are we limiting ourselves to only enough cheese that a DM would ban it without going all the way?

So I guess you want the long version why I dislike LC cheese... Prepare yourself^^

1. LC allows you to progress a "class", a defined term in 3.5.
If we look it up, it refers to "Character Class" which says:

One of the eleven player character types -- barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, or wizard. Class defines a character's predominant talents and general function within an adventuring party. Character class may also refer to a nonplayer character class or a prestige class.

The definition makes clear that "class" is distinct from "prestige class".
As such you don't have any permission to progress Merchant Prince at all...

2. Merchant Prince has 5 levels.
Full-stop here. LC doesn't give you the permission to extrapolate rules from the Epic Player's Handbook (which even don't work for PRC with sole 5 lvls).

No matter how I look at LC cheese, it's imho not RAW but just made up believe from the 3.5 fandom. Sorry. It doesn't work that way.

Legacy champion aside, I don't think you'd be getting as much mileage out of Craft Wand as you would from another feat. I would suggest pushing Favored in Guild back to level 3 and Negotiator to 6 (or using flaws. Again, TO) and picking up Mercantile Background at first so that you end up with both. That gets you an extra 300 gold at character creation, bonus gold for every item the party sells (as they'll likely be selling through you) and, once per month, gives you a hefty discount on one item.

At first, (as already said) making good use of the money is also a part of the build. And while the Rod of Absorption may overshadow the wand of "Sanctum Spell Arcane Fusion" in some areas (any spontaneous caster's spell list; level 5+ spells), the wand still shines due to action economy and cost/gold efficiency over all levels.

Second, "Mercantile Background" wouldn't change much here imho. Lets have a look at the "Benefit":

When you sell weapons, magic items, or other adventuring goods, you get 75% of the list price instead of 50%. Once per month, you can buy any single item at 75% of the offered price. You also receive an extra 300 gp to spend as you see fit during character creation.

So you can sell your loot for 75% of the list price instead of 50%. If your sole WBL income is "selling loot" this is an effective increase of 50% to your WBL, wohoo..^^ Not bad, but still tiny compared to the wealth generated by the build, which effectively increases your WBL over several hundred %. Imho not worth the trade off in power here.

Then, the bonus doesn't stack with things you craft, since that is considered as "getting paid for a service" and not as selling stuff 3.5. That is the reason why a crafter gets the item's full list price and doesn't have to deal with the "50% for selling"-rule.

Finally, as crafter you will rarely "buy items". As such the final benefit also doesn't help the build much.

Imho the feat isn't worth it for "this build".

I was also surprised I didn't see any mention of haggling. Complete Adventurer gives rules for getting a 10% discount if you can manage a Diplomacy check to change their attitude to "helpful". The DC to do so goes up by the target merchant's Diplomacy modifier, so normally these rules are very DM dependent, but in a TO build you A) should be able to get it high enough for most purposes and B) don't have a DM telling you 'no' so you should be able to assume that you're just buying from incompetent merchants.

Because "Haggling" in 3.5 is sole beneficial paying an item or a service you want. It doesn't help you with selling your stuff more expensive. And as said above, this build intends to generate enough money due to "rules" and (ab)use it via crafting & UMD. Buying stuff involves always some DM fiat. This build tries to bypass such problems. Take the "Sanctum Spell - Arcane Fusion" wand as example. It's RAW, but if you want to buy it, a DM can always get away by just saying that it's very specific and that your don't even find the right "crafter" (crafting sorcerers are rare to begin with, and one with Sanctum Spell ontop will be extreme hard to impossible). But with this build, you can just do it (again the friendly reminder to just "not to do it" - don't play this build^^)

edit: "Glossary - Character Class" quote box wasn't showing up due to syntax error. I corrected it and further did bold the important keywords I originally had forgotten.. no important changes where made here.
edit2 : I also noticed that I've forgotten some minor details in the build (like the already mentioned "Disguise" skill), so a lil update will come in the near future. Nothing world changing, but I still want the build to be complete...

[redking]

You can't PAY2WIN with this build because almost every DM is going to shoot it down. Its not broken in the sense that WotC messed up again, its just wildly misinterpreted. There has never been any verbiage in 3.5E to the effect that capital costs = crafting costs, and the the Merchant Prince doesn't say so either.

Nothing to do with having to interpret designer intent. Its clear as day.

[Gruftzwerg]

You can't PAY2WIN with this build because almost every DM is going to shoot it down. Its not broken in the sense that WotC messed up again, its just wildly misinterpreted. There has never been any verbiage in 3.5E to the effect that capital costs = crafting costs, and the the Merchant Prince doesn't say so either.

Nothing to do with having to interpret designer intent. Its clear as day.

A DM can and should shoot everything down he can't fit into his table. No matter which reason. Be it just incompatible fluff for his campaign; Power Level; Cheese Level; or whatsoever.

As such, this is Theoretical Optimization build that relies sole on RAW. And I'm not advertising this build to play due to power lvl. Even if I sometimes make jokes about it. The sole thing I sometime do is to express my thoughts about the possibility to play such builds at highly optimized tables. But those (tables) should already know what they do and can handle and shouldn't care for my advice in the first place.

Capital Costs under base English/business context can include one-time costs for constructions and crafts.

Just because the first part of the sentence makes a reference you assume it has to automatically target the entire sentence. But as I've shown, it makes logically no sense since you have the option to target either the first half, the 2nd half, or the entire sentence depending on where you place your reference. And it's not as if the the text would stop to make sense if the reference was intended to sole target the first half. It still makes sense and would be a fitting and maybe even intended ability for a PRC like Merchant Prince. I don't see any evidence regarding that the reference "can only target the entire sentence".
And since it's definition is not in the PHB, it's not a general game rule where any other book automatically has to obey those keywords who have been defined by the "DMG2". As such, without the reference for the entire sentence, "Capital Cost" is not referring to the DMG2 definition.
Since we are aware that WotC failed often enough to find the right words for their intention (RAI), I can give you a point regarding the possibility of other intents. But RAW (and as such TO) doesn't care for those other possible intends (RAI).

[AvatarVecna]

Really? Let's do some math here.
Assuming a 1st lvl Human with CHA 18 and Skillfocus on Diplomacy (for the loan) & his Primary Profession/business skill (for the Profit roll).
So each skill has 4 ranks, +3 from Skillfocus and +4 from CHA. I'm not aware of any mundane items with +skillbonuses that could help here. If there are any, pls point me to em. With the option to Take-10, we are looking at a roll result of 21 here. Add the basic -25 Profit roll modifier, the -10 from the wilderness location and the +1 for a low risk buisness and you have a result of -13 here...
-13 x 10g = -130g loss per month if you Take-10 and if you don't Take-10, the average is still (-12.5 x 10g) -125g loss per month.

I don't see how a commoner without any DM fiat (e.g. Family members that work for free as business partners or specialists) should be able to do that, sorry. You need to squeeze out +13 bonus on the profit check to not make any profit or loss.

And do you get a high enough loan to build a business in the first place?

A member's monthly fee is 5g/character lvl. So a 1st lvl commoner pays 5g. To get the minimum 500 for the cheapest business he needs to hit DC 25 with a Diplomacy modifier of +11. Not impossible, but not guarantied either. A 40% chance of failure (unless you can find other +skill bonuses for a 1st lvl character).

As said, without DM fiat, the 1st lvl commoner can't do that. And even if you manage somehow, you don't have the permission to skip "time" after character creation. Downtimes are in the hands of the DM and not the PC. And if you just chose to stay at business, you don't participate in the intended adventure of the DM. No matter how I look at it, it doesn't work that way without big DM fiat.



Relies on roleplay and DM fiat to sell the stuff you create. The intention of the build is to have rules that back you up when making money so that a possible DM would need to houserule it away (as said, this is a TO build^^).
With enough DM fiat anything is possible.



Imho there are more problems for a 1st lvl commoner as those you think, as mentioned above.

edit: Imho relying on DM fiat is "PRAY2WIN" and not "PAY2WIN" ^^

Lmao are you seriously posting an argument for how a character can't get money above their WBL in your "TO Economancy" thread? Guild loans exist, bank loans exist, methods of making money exist...even for 1st level commoners. Shocking, I know, but they do in fact have the craft skill and can use that to make a living. Quite a decent one, as a matter of fact.

Masterwork tools are a thing. Easy +2.

There are +2/+2 feats which can get another +2. There are various feats that give a +2 through the edition, although you might have to *gasp* crack open a splatbook to find them. You can afford the feats using flaws, and you can use traits for a +1 bonus to a specific Profession check at the expense of others. Finally, you can use money not just to buy a business upfront, but to buy magic items boosting skill checks, whether in the form of competence bonuses or spell items. It gets easier if you can truly abuse the custom magic item creation rules, but even if your DM balks at them entirely, spellcasting services and wands can be purchased to make things go quicker.

It's very weird seeing an optimizer of your caliber putting together a thread that assumes WBL isn't a limit, and then insist that skills are hard to optimize. They're not. It doesn't require a Pun-Pun level bonus. It just requires +16 - even less if we save up for a shop in the big city instead of buying one the second the cheapest model available becomes affordable.

[Gruftzwerg]

Lmao are you seriously posting an argument for how a character can't get money above their WBL in your "TO Economancy" thread? Guild loans exist, bank loans exist, methods of making money exist...even for 1st level commoners. Shocking, I know, but they do in fact have the craft skill and can use that to make a living. Quite a decent one, as a matter of fact.

Masterwork tools are a thing. Easy +2.

There are +2/+2 feats which can get another +2. There are various feats that give a +2 through the edition, although you might have to *gasp* crack open a splatbook to find them. You can afford the feats using flaws, and you can use traits for a +1 bonus to a specific Profession check at the expense of others. Finally, you can use money not just to buy a business upfront, but to buy magic items boosting skill checks, whether in the form of competence bonuses or spell items. It gets easier if you can truly abuse the custom magic item creation rules, but even if your DM balks at them entirely, spellcasting services and wands can be purchased to make things go quicker.

It's very weird seeing an optimizer of your caliber putting together a thread that assumes WBL isn't a limit, and then insist that skills are hard to optimize. They're not. It doesn't require a Pun-Pun level bonus. It just requires +16 - even less if we save up for a shop in the big city instead of buying one the second the cheapest model available becomes affordable.

As said, for TO you rely on RAW and not on (variable) DM Fiat. Downtimes are under normal circumstances in the territory of the DM to decide. You can't just skip time between "character creation" and the begin of your first adventure. The rules don't give permission for that. You sole have the option to decide your age at "character creation". And even if you have background feats and are of older age, you still can't assume to have accumulated more wealth than your class and feats allow. Imho skipping time ain't an option for a "TO RAW Dummy DM".
The purpose of TO is not to showcase what is possible with DM Fiat (because you can assume any amount of DM Fiat and then it kinda loses the point..). It intends to showcase what is possible if you go strict RAW.

And as I showed you, it's hard to even have the gold for the cheapest business model at lvl 1. And even if you mange the capital costs I'm still not convinced that it is that easy to have a profitable business as 1st lvl character without lengthy timeskips/DM Fiat. And I don't get how many feats/flaws you want to have on a 1st lvl character (most times I try to avoid them. Sure, not always possible. But it shouldn't be more than 2). I already have assumed a human with Skill Focus (+3) for both, Diplomacy (for taking a loan) and your Primary Skill for your business (for the profit check).

And if you think that you still have enough gold left after opening the shop with your 1st lvl char, show me how you spent it to get more than an additional +13 (DC 34; we already have Take-10 +11 total modifier = +21) modifier on your Profit roll. You make 10 bugs for each point more than the 34DC. Good luck getting rich with that when you don't even know how much downtime you get. In worst case scenarios your lvl 1-20 campaign might end in just a few months or even less.

And for a bigger business you need to wait (WBL + WBL altering Feats + what else you got to alter your WBL). The earliest lvl according to "normal" WBL (and bypassing the "your most expensive item rule" since a business is not an item) where you could get a "risky business in a metropolis" by lvl 11. In my TO showcase, I can't assume downtimes, nor can I say how much money I made at each level with Favored in Guild. If you manage to have the money and the wands (for the profit check boosts) earlier, you can make the business earlier. If not, lvl 11 you should have the money according to WBL. By lvl 12 you should be able to get all wands needed.

And the option to craft stuff/airships starts earliest at lvl 12 (due to "Imbue Item", non warlocks even have to wait until caster level 15 for the airship).


But as I said multiple times now, the business (yeah even the big risky one in the metropolis) doesn't generate that much money. Have a look what a single high risk business in a metropolis with this build generates at lvl 20:
Familiar CHA: 3base + 5Wish +6item = 14 (+2 modifier)
Take 10 + 23 ranks (being a Familiar) + 23 racial bonus (from Symbiotic Template) +2 CHA +2 business savy (using the Floating Feat for the day of the Roll) +4 metropolis -4 high risk +1 low-resource business + 10 for five specialists +2 business partner (the master) -25 base Profit-roll modifier + 20 Guidance of Avatar wand +15 Divine Guidance wand = +83 x 50 g
= +4,150g / month
= +49,800g /year (it still takes more then a year for the business to pay off the initial capital costs for this full buffed and hardly optimized lvl 20 Profit roll)
= +490,000g / 10 years
Compare that to the 600,000g we get for each ship per lvl beginning at lvl 12 and to the 1,200,000++g after hitting lvl 14+ for selling two ships per level.

All that together with the problem of downtimes being in DM territory makes business sole a secondary income for this "TO build". It's not attractive enough to bother with it. It's just an option if you get the chance of very long downtimes and know it beforehand (DM Fiat: He asks you what you have done in the meanwhile after revealing the length of the downtime). Then sure, you can exploit it. But the nice fact is that this build doesn't need to hope for such rare opportunities to be able to PAY2WIN. We sole need to survive (which the build is capable off) until lvl 12 where we earn more then enough money to easily beat that lvl. And the next lvl we get again a big chunk of money to beat that lvl with all the stuff we can craft. It's more predictable compared to hoping for enough downtimes. Since the income is tied to the level, it makes it very easy to WIN that lvl by PAYing.


Regarding WBL and TO:
As in normal showcases and in competitions, TO also expects that you either try to stick to WBL if you spend gold on "stuff", or alter your WBL somehow (e.g. Crafting stuff yourself should affect how effectively you use your WBL changing your "effective WBL" compare to "normal WBL".).
E.g. Favored in Guild (mercantile) is a good example for that. What would be the point of selling stuff for more money if in the end it wouldn't alter your WBL? As such, we should assume that all those things can affect your WBL by RAW without any DM Fiat. And while the lengthy downtimes can affect stuff that interacts with your WBL, these are things not controlled by the TO build and are considered optional DM Fiat at best.

seeing an optimizer of your caliber ...

well.. I guess thx for the flowers..
I hope that my lengthy response could maybe restore your faith into my skills ^^

[Gruftzwerg]

A lil (and hopefully final) update:

- Added the missing "Purpose of Disguise" section as already mentioned

- A small note on Craft Contingent spell in the Floating Feat section (2.1)

- Added Familiar feats into the lvl 13-14 section. Check em out, they are really fitting imho.


___________________

Thx for the replies so far. I would appreciate any further feedback. Especially at the picked feats for the familiar (new comments on the entire build are also welcome).


edit:

Spoiler: Topic of the Next Build in Line

Show

(U) Can't Touch this (Gnome)