A Rather Odd Shovel [Judge: Bront]

[Trouvere]

"No one would ever connect Father Lakeward with, well, me. Tarag's just upset that he's never felt a sudden urge to prophesy. He'll come around," says Keldar, disconcerted.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

Fimble takes you to a nearby temple where you can buy wands.

[sblock=OOC: ]Do you want to roleplay the purchasing? Or can we just say, "You buy some stuff. You craft some stuff. (deduct money) What do you do?"

(Obviously I vote for handwaving through it. We've been dilly dallying long enough. )[/sblock]

 

[Boddynock]

OOC: Let's handwave. I'm just not sure what Tarag will create ... although I'm leaning towards Gauntlets of Ogre Power and a Periapt of Wisdom +2. It depends on what the others want.

 

[Trouvere]

[sblock=OOC]Fair enough.

After the tunnel fight, we looted:
small MW weapons with a sale value of 1601 gp, and also two MW steel shields - it wasn't stated whether they were light or heavy, so they're worth either 79.5 or 85;
a small +1 chain shirt, which could be sold for 625 here, or 750 at Rinaldo's later on;
100 gp in coins;
and two potions, auras necromancy and conjuration respectively, which Tommy and Fimble can each have a shot at identifying with Spellcraft.

Keldar is interested in a Hat of Disguise and Gloves of Dexterity +2.
Crafting costs are 900 gp, 72 XP, 180 CP and 2000 gp, 160 XP and 400 CP, requiring a total of 6 days. Keldar will of course contribute craft points. Disguise self and cat's grace are required, so only Tommy can make these. What will he charge?[/sblock]

 

[covaithe]

[sblock=fees]Er, same as what Tarag has been charging, I guess. I have hazy memories of that being something like 60% of SRD list price? Or was it 70%?

Tommy's top long-term priority is a blessed book. I don't think I have the funds for that now (though maybe after crafting other people's stuff? Not sure), so perhaps some other goals are in order, like a headband of intellect +2, or a wand of magic missile.

Can someone else contribute the spell for a wand-maker? Could Tommy and Tarag go together and make a wand of CLW cheaper than we could buy it? Not clear to me how all this works in LEW.
[/sblock]

 

[Trouvere]

[sblock=OOC]

Er, same as what Tarag has been charging, I guess. I have hazy memories of that being something like 60% of SRD list price? Or was it 70%?

You know what they say about horseshoe nails. Money in Tommy's pocket won't keep him alive as well as an extra item in the possession of Keldar, and rogues (or whatever he is now) are much more item-dependent than wizards. At 60%, Tommy would make a profit of 580 gp.

Can someone else contribute the spell for a wand-maker? Could Tommy and Tarag go together and make a wand of CLW cheaper than we could buy it? Not clear to me how all this works in LEW.

I believe there's no difficulty in cooperative crafting. But if we make CLW wands in house, Tommy - as the provider of the required feat - would have to pay the entire 30 XP cost and at least half the 75 CP cost. Is that worth the saving of 375 gp each time? I'd be fine with charging Keldar more for his 1/3 share of a crafted wand, say 175 gp, since he still comes out ahead. Perhaps then 125 gp for Tarag (who would contribute CP only and is made vastly more effective through removing the burden of healing duties from his shoulders ) and only 75 for Tommy? That might end up corresponding quite closely to the actual distribution of the charges in the long run!

CP seem more of a limited resource than XP. It's easy to earn more XP, and if you spend enough in crafting that you fail to level with the rest of the party, you tend to earn a little more until you catch up again.[/sblock]

 

[Boddynock]

[sblock=OOC]Tarag takes a further 10% off his best rate for friends, which does come to 60%.

Trouvere's right that CP are the more limited resource by far!

Mind you, I'm convinced that the CP system was introduced to get around the problem of players in the RDI taking vast amounts of (free) time and creating huge stockpiles of items. The expenditure of CP naturally limits that. In game, however, I think the ordinary rules of crafting apply ... along with the ordinary time constraints.

That being the case, I think that, in a situation like this where we are intentionally counting on the passage of time (to let things die down a little), it's entirely appropriate to craft items without the expenditure of CP.

I know that Rae takes a different view, however. I'm afraid, too, that at the moment I don't have time to research my argument and link to the relevant portions of the crafting rules. Perhaps on Monday.[/sblock]

 

[Trouvere]

[sblock=OOC]

Trouvere's right that CP are the more limited resource by far!

If you achieve expected wealth at each level, and spend all of that money to craft your own items, and take most of the usual crafting feats, then you run out of CP at around 14th level. At 14th, you're expected to have a total wealth of 150,000 gp. You can craft items with a street value of 300,000 gp, for 30,000 CP - you have 15,750 from levels and at best another 15,000 from item creation feats, probably less, and an insignificant amount from the job system. If you've spent CP on behalf of other people, you run out sooner.

So, the options are: (1) the system wasn't really thought out too well, or (2) primary casters were intended to run out of CP, so that they couldn't quite double their personal wealth with respect to non-casters (adding insult to injury), and they were meant to use their profits from providing crafting services to purchase items at full price themselves, and/or (3) some crafting was expected to occur during in-game time, without spending CP.

Certainly, non-casters have more CP than they know what to do with, but never enough gold, whereas the problem is reversed for casters.

[sblock=Bonus thought]It occurs to me belatedly that LEW's decision to have a low-magic Elminster-less world, where the PCs are the highest level classed individuals, will cause a problem later on. If >9th level casters are long-dead or never even existed (with the known exception of Rayne Liore (13th?) and some other Medibarian NPCs), how will our wizard PCs obtain more 6th through 9th level spells than their 2 free per level? There won't be scrolls lying around for purchase. There might be some ancient ones available as treasure, stretching incredulity. Without access to most 6th-9th level spells, wizards will be unable to craft a lot of items. And clerics and druids will rule the world, which is just unacceptable! So we're left with a need for active collusion between wizard PCs by which each picks a different pair of free spells on level up, and then everyone swaps. Without a sufficient number of colluding wizards, most 6th-9th level spells will remain unavailable. Some will be forced to use the spell-researching rules - which require 100 CP per spell level.[/sblock]

Mind you, I'm convinced that the CP system was introduced to get around the problem of players in the RDI taking vast amounts of (free) time and creating huge stockpiles of items. The expenditure of CP naturally limits that.

Yes, though the limiting factor in levels 1 to 12 is generally money (particularly for wizard crafters who need to spend money to obtain the spells required to make a desired item). There's an additional limit of available XP at any given level, but that's much harder to get your head around, and XP 'regenerates'.

In game, however, I think the ordinary rules of crafting apply ... along with the ordinary time constraints.

That being the case, I think that, in a situation like this where we are intentionally counting on the passage of time (to let things die down a little), it's entirely appropriate to craft items without the expenditure of CP.

I agree that by RAW, CP expenditure only applies to handwaved instacrafting outside adventures. But if CP availability was intended to act as a limiting factor on item acquisition, then it may become a problem if some PCs can take crafting downtime in adventures while others only ever craft between games and find themselves CP-limited with gold remaining. But is that a big enough difference to worry about? I really don't know. We might just end up with a suspicious number of adventures that start with an uneventful sea voyage to offer the opportunity to craft, leading to the subversion of the entire CP system.

On the other hand, if you sleep for 8 hours a day, prepare spells for 1 and travel for 7, you're left with 8 hours a day twiddling your thumbs in an adventure anyway, without taking any time off. That leaves time to craft all sorts of items in-game without handwaving, so long as they don't require an alchemy lab or a forge.

So I start to wonder what the point of CP is at all.

Hey, if you want to abuse the CP system, take Craft Construct, and make homunculi. A 6 HD homunculus costs you 9050 gp, 398 XP and 905 CP. But as a creature with an Int score, the homunculus comes with its very own 3150 CP, which it can share with you (besides its other varied uses).

We have seen worse cheese! I seem to recall someone gained a cohort who effectively had more than 25 point buy because she drew the precisely required ability score-increasing cards from a Deck of Many Things - offstage, in a Panglossian alternative timeline.[/sblock]

 

[Scott DeWar]

[Kabitz] don't forget that you get craft points from feats like crat wand and such (Yes I am still reading this story!)[/kabitz]

 

[Trouvere]

[sblock=OOC]

[At 14th level] you have 15,750 from levels and at best another 15,000 from item creation feats, probably less, and an insignificant amount from the job system.

Ahem.[/sblock]