Do your players expect discounts for party made magic items?

[ThirdWizard]

Huh, it never occurred to me to actually charge party members something for items crafted. Ad DM, I don't pay attention that much, but if memory serves, my playes have never charged each other. They arn't all that into item crafting, though, so the crafters don't spend enough xp to make a dent in their xp numbers really. I think over a campaign, more xp is lost to spellcasting than item crafting in the longrun.

 

[Aaron L]

Theres no universal way we would do this. Depends totally on the characters. Ive had a sorcerer who learned Craft Wondrous Item, and made everyone boots of speed as presents, and would generally make trinkets to give to everyone else. Ive had a wizard who charged the group the cost of supplies and expected favors in return for the lost life force (XP). He also made an occaisional gift, however. I had another wizard who would charge full price because he was an ass. I wouldnt dream of having every character in every campaign do things the same way. It smacks of "monopoly boot" characters. Every character is an individual.

 

[Li Shenron]

If a wizard required me to pay full price for a permanent magic item, I would pay it. I would still have the advantage of getting exactly what I want, instead of having to rely on random treasure or requesting the magic item to another NPC spellcaster (which generally requires more effort). We do have the occasional shop or merchant where to find magic items, but players cannot expect full choice in the merchandise.

As for demanding something to "protect the wizard's ass", well I honestly think it's utter BS. The wizard just protects the rest of the party's ass, unless perhaps you're playing OD&D at 1st level.

 

[Qvintus]

I think is fair to charge 75% because the wizard/cleric/what ever has used a feat on it and i do cost him xp... and the fighter still save 25%. I know if i have a friend thats a carpenter and i aske him to build me a house i would expet a small discount but i would expet i wuold have to pay him because its a lot of work for him (if im lucky he say's nvm), minior thing i think should be free like if i asked my carpenter friend for fix a chair (but i would be willing to pay)

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is completely at odds with my experience. usually, our only downtime was waiting for the wizzie to finish scribing or crafting. whether it took him two days or two months, the time passed with a wave of the DMs hand.

See, this is your DM, and your party. Most adventurers don't just phase in for adventures and phase out again during downtime. They DO things. The wizard is the only one who HAS to do things to stay viable.

besides, my Ftr isn't at the bar, he's training hard the whole time!

SUUURE he is. Probably earning a pretty penny too. Well, he should be... Downtime is only a waste if you let it be a waste.

XP is worth something, but I'd be pi$$y if a party member insisted on charging me full price.

See, this is what I'm talking about - you EXPECT a discount. You EXPECT mates rates. Sure if your character sucks up for it. Sure if the other guy decides to give you a discount, but if not: what are you going to do? Go to someone else at the same price just out of spite??

Cost to create plus something for the XP, but in general I'm never asking for more than an item or two anyway. I could see it getting annoying if other party members presented your caster with a 17 page list of the items they wanted your caster to create for them.

Which is really not that far on from simply expecting discounts.

It's wierd the way the world works - you'd think that if a friend did a job for you, you'd pay him more, not less for the same quality of work...

 

[Staffan]

I'm also in the "provide items at a discount" camp. If I was an item maker, I would only rarely make items for the rest of the party for free or at cost. Well, I might make them at cost if "at cost" also included the standard 5 gp = 1 XP charge, which would make "at cost" something like 70% of market price.

Now, if the item was something that was truly more of a party thing (e.g. a wand of CLW), I could be persuaded to see things differently, but I would normally expect some compensation for my XP.

 

[Nellisir]

There are two item creators in our group: my wizard (Scribe Scroll, Craft Wand, Craft Wondrous Item) and the cleric (Craft Arms & Armor). The cleric's been around longer and does everything at cost, taken from the "party fund"; my wizard plans on working the same way. He's still on his first adventure with the party, so no chance to create anything yet, but with the ability to teleport and a major city where "you can get anything you want", we're starting to fill in some holes in the party defenses.

High on my priority list are crafting some scrolls for myself, some low-level wands for the rogue to tote around, and transcribing some more scrolls into my spellbook.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

As the rsident item crafter in my campaign, the prices I charged fellow party members wasn't really externally consistant. See, it was largely derrived off of how much my character liked the other characters.

The fighter who lent me the 300 gold so I could buy a blessed book, then told me not to worry about it because "That's what friends do." gets priority treatment and all enchantments at cost. The ranger, who I talk with often, gets a slight mark up. The cleric, who is rude, and really really likes rasing undead (something my character is uncomfortable having around) has to pay even more than the others for the same work. The new, nosy, but friendly rogue pays somewhere in the middle.

Mind you, as I handle most of the money division, I tend to take a % off the top for things like identify spells, material components and other assorted things. It's like a party fund, but just for me.

I do my best to make sure my friends are equipped, but I do more of my best for the ones I know I can count on and the ones who'd do the same for me.

Thought Bubble - your are my hero. This is exactly hoiw I would like to see item creation handled in my groups. It isn't but I can always dream.

 

[Mr Vergee]

Of course everyone has a different style in this, but a group in which players are competing with eachother for the best equipment is not ideal. So you should try and keep things fair and balanced between PCs.

There are two ways of doing that: you can either go with what feels right or you can actually calculate how much everyone has. The first only works with players who aren't competing with eachother and who think from a party perspective. The second goes for any group and it is actually what we do in the group I play in. Whenver we have loot to divide, we (re)calculate how much each of us has at that time, and then we can spend the money to give each of us a new total that is equal for all.

It does take some bookkeeping, but we never have any discussion or jealousy in the group as far as owned items are concerned. Ultimately, it is the fairest system.

Of course any system you use, should also be supported by the dungeon master. Our DM is very lenient with buying and selling items and availability of stuff. I am much stricter with the group where I am DM. Selling things at 50 % (now 60 % since they have become good customers) and buying at full price from a very limited supply makes it harder on the players to optimize their character's equipment. This also implies that ldropped loot and item availability is more important, so I try to keep a healthy balance in that. If one of the characters is getting behind equipmentwise, I'll arrange a good drop for him or at least make sure there is a merchant who has an item he can use.

 

[Shallown]

My wizard doesn't charge for crafting items for the party so they get them for half price. It is polite to "tip" 25 gp per experience point used. Often it works out i get more than that and sometimes other characters just don't have the money then and "tip" me later when they do. My character sees it as his job to outfit the party as much as he sees it as the Bard's job to research and hunt down info while in town. For the cleric to work at the temple to curry favor (in my character's eyes). Etc.

Now we do split off a full share for the party fund. The party fund is used for daily living expenses of the party, which are honestly very minor at the level we are, barely a drop in the bucket. The fund also covers things like buying spells I scribe in my book and Scrolls I make that are for the party. I seperate my bought spells and scrolls into those I need to do my job as the party wizard and the rest that I would not get if I was not part of an adventuring party. So fireballs, walls of force etc those spells I would cast in battle to do my job I buy. Things the party needs like stone skins, Animal buffs, Teleports, legend lores etc the party fund buys. So I actually make out about even money wise in my mind.

Later