How much time do your players spend making magic?

[Zandy]

Hello all -

As the title says, I've been wondering about how other DMs/groups do their magic creation.

Where I'm coming from; Our group's current campaign has been going on for a year. We meet about every third friday. In game, only 27 days have passed.

I like to keep the action fast and furious for my players with plenty of side plots going on as well as a couple of main plots that may or may not be linked. This allows tons of role-playing chances as well as combat. Seems to be a nice mix, so far. This also gives the feeling to the players that the world is revolving and they are on for the ride (they have plenty of time to change and interact, don't worry...

The problem is, I gave the group a tome. They want to study it. *I* want them to study it, of course, or I wouldn't have given it to them. It seems like, with everything going on, they just don't have a chance to study, let alone even thing about making magic items. If I give them that time, the momentum of the game would be broken, I think.

This happened in our last big (5+ year) campaign. At one point, between adventures, time would run at "real" speed. This would give plenty of time for OOG stuff. That oppourtunity just doesn't seem to present itself.

So... is anyone running a fast paced game where time stops between sessions? How do you fit in things like studying or magic creation? Do you house rule it to be faster? Do you just ignore it all together?

Suggestions....?

 

[Psion]

Zero.

My players almost never make items. At best, they commission them.

 

[francisca]

Same as Psion. My players get their magic the old fashioned way: looting dead bodies, tombs, and treasure hordes.

 

[Ibram]

virtualy zero time is spent in the creation of magic items. thats due to several factors

1) the fact that the party is constantly broke
2) as a general rule my players dont like to play magic users
3) low magic campaign world makes magic item creation rather difficult.

 

[lotuseater]

your campaign sounds like a lot of fun. having time off to go home and make magic items sounds like a bit of a bore, in my opinion.

 

[Deadguy]

I have a Bard-Wizard who spends quite a lot of time scribing up new spells, and making magic items, both to order, and for himself and his bodyguard. The reason is twofold.

Firstly I don't generally force the pace. Events happen, and I have an idea of when they will happen. But I don't push the players into following up those events. I try not to give the impression that they must follow my plot clues or have nothing to do ever again. This means that they naturally spend time relaxing, kicking back and spending some of that money they've risked their lives to earn! Of course, for a professional Wizard, item crafting is fun, so he gets to do what he does best!

The other aspect was creating a basic downtime training mechanic. Essentially, if they can find appropriate trainers (or training establishments) they can 'gamble' cash to earn (limited) experience points. It's been particularly useful to represent unusual training (becomign a Devoted Defender), or to represent changes in career path. The amounts of XP aren't huge (theoretically a PC could get 1000XP in a month if he went to the finest academies, and spent large sums of money, and wasn't already skilled in a class), but it gives the non-crafters something specific to do in their downtime.

Contrary to lotuseater's opinion, item crafting needn't be boring. Indeed it's served to launch new plots, introduce important NPCs, and bring cities to life.

 

[arwink]

Variable.

My first 3e cmapaign, players took of months at a time in order to craft some items that were important to their characters or the plot. In part it was because they were exploring the rules and wanted to create things like golems, and in part it was because the party cleric really, really dug the fact that he'd had the same morningstar since the second session of the game. Kept enhancing the damn thing from masterwork through to a +5 holy flaming morningstar of disruption. He still loves the fact that it's an icon of his deities faith in later campaigns set in that world.

My second 3e campaign was built around the concept of the PC's being hunted and primarily enclosed in an urban area. This time around, no-one crafted items. Instead they made do with what they plundered, and made good use of the various magic stores around the city to keep themselves stocked with what they need. Some important items were commissioned from time to time, but that became less prominent when the people chasing them started setting watches on the known magic stores (which pushed them into the magic blackmarket in the sewers). If they needed stuff researched, they often hired someone to do so and got the report later.

Most campaigns since then have wavered between the two, usually settling on a middle ground. Casters tend to take creation feats that really jibe with their concepts, trading for magic items occurs, and people go searching out the casters that create the items they really really want if the party can't make it themselves. I use a lot of magic stores, trying to keep them all distinct, and the trade for magic has become an adventure hook more often than not.

There are still moments where the characters are pressed for time and unable to do any background work, but I tend to take the time to balance these with longer periods that can be used to get stuff done. Often I'll get a feel for what the players want early in the game, and work towards it from there.

 

[satori01]

Actually my group has enchanted a lot of items through craft magic arms and armor, and my game is rather fast paced with lots of action going on in the world. Admitedly most of this enchanting has been done when the PCs are holed up and lying low to avoid the factions, and npc they have annoyed. I also play out of a single city, so the characters do not do a lot of traveling around.

 

[Sammael]

Very little time. So far, only two of the PCs have taken the time to scribe a few scrolls, and that's it.

 

[Thanee]

In my PbP (3rd level PCs), the wizard spent a few days to create some scrolls (I allow up to 6 scrolls to be scribed within a single day as long as their combined price is below 1,000), while others visited the temple library to find out more about the undead horrors they faced earlier (those PCs were putting some ranks into Knowledge (religion) during the level up), for example.

In a long running campaign we had characters with various item creation feats, which saw quite a bit of use, mostly Craft Wondrous Item, of course, as this is so clearly superior to all the others.

Bye
Thanee