How useful is the Artificer's craft reserve?

[0-hr]

This question goes out to those who have played (or played next to) Arificers for a considerable time. How much of the Craft Reserve is typically used? If it is typically used up completely each level, how much xp is usually spent in addition?

My initial feeling is that most Artificers would use up slightly less than their craft reserve, and push to use up the bit that is left since it will go away otherwise.

Is that the case? Or do most Artificers easily burn through the Reserve and into their "real" xp each level? If they do, how much did the Reserve help? Did it account for half the xp that would have been spent? A fourth?

Craft Reserve: An artificer recieves a pool of points he can spend instead of experience points when crafting a magic item. Each time the artificer gains a new level, he receives a new craft reserve; leftover points from the previous level do not carry over. If hte points are not spent, they are lost. An artificer can also use his craft reserve to supplement the XP cost of the item from his craft reserve and a portion from his own XP.

I'm asking because I'm looking at a game without experience points. I need to figure out how much of a Craft Reserve to give normal folks in place of what they would usually spend. I want it to be set so that they craft about what normal characters would.

 

[Herzog]

I've played an artificer for several sessions, and just went up to lvl 2.

My first impression of the Craft Reserve is: very handy when your DM has the habit of giving you just enough XP to lvl.....

Second, at this low level I am hesitant to go outside my craft reserve, so I actually had several points left when we leveled. You never know what you might need them for. (Being able to craft a scroll with a spell none of the casters in your party has access to makes you hold back a bit.

Third, the amount of craft reserve/XP you spend on magical items very character specific. Casters interested in crafting will go for the crafting feats, while those not interested will go for the metamagic feats, and have a bunch of 'craft reserve' they will probably never use.

To balance out, you could include some kind of craft reserve in the item creation feats.
(Example: when you take 'scribe scroll', you get enough Craft Reserve per level to create 5(?) scrolls of the maximum level you can cast at that lvl)
As a bonus, you could introduce a 'Craft Reserve' Feat to increase that amount.

Herzog

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

Critical.

 

[Pyrex]

Assuming your DM gives you time to use it, the Craft Reserve is *very* useful.

I've got a L11 Artificer that I've been playing since L1 and generally spend all of my craft reserve plus another 1/3 to 1/2 that much more out of my XP.

Granted, I'm doing nearly all the item crafting for a party of 6...

 

[jasin]

This question goes out to those who have played (or played next to) Arificers for a considerable time. How much of the Craft Reserve is typically used? If it is typically used up completely each level, how much xp is usually spent in addition?

This varies so wildly even within a single game that I don't think there is a single reasonable answer.

FWIW, the artificers I've seen tried to use up their craft reserve rather than letting it go to waste, and didn't worry about spending their own XP if they needed to: after all, item creating wizards or clerics do it for every item they make and they manage fine.

For a game without XP, I don't think it would be terribly problematic to just waive the XP requirement for item creation completely. Most of the time, time and money are the limiting factors anyway. XP does become more important at higher levels, but even if you crafted all your 20th-level gear yourself, you'd be 18th and half way to 19th. Considering that lagging behind gets you more XP, and that no-one will be crafting a level's worth in XP of items in one go, I think you can assume that the crafters are about the same level as everyone else, and just need to spend the money and the time to craft.

Death and nonattendance are the source of much greater disparities in XP than item creation, IME.

 

[0-hr]

Thank you for the information thus far. I'm leary about waiving xp costs entirely as this is also going to be a campaign with LOTS of downtime. Money alone just doesn't seem enough of a hinderance (especially considering characters will be allowed to make money during downtime as well).

I've spent some time doing research and come up with the following (I know this is borderline "House Rules", but my actual questions is What percentage of an Artificer's total crafting experience point expenditure is the Craft Reserve meant to cover?". It's a real rule (or design decision rather) that I need to figure out in order to complete my House Rule (about which I have no actual question ). Anyway, here's my thoughts:


- - - -


For wonderous items and weapon/armor, you can craft 1000gp worth of item per day (so it takes 8 days to make a +2 Sword). This sort of crafting also costs 40xp per day. So if you have an idea as to what you want someone to be able to craft at a given level - or if you have an idea about how much time you want spent on crafting - then you can figure out how much of a Craft Reserve to award at that level.

Suppose you think that a crafter should be able to make two level-appropriate items per level (one for themselves, one for a friend or to break into smaller items). Let's say a +2 weapon is good for level 6, +4 for level 12, and +6 for level 18 (to generate some data points). This would yield the following

If a level 6 crafter should be able to make 16,000 gp worth of items (that's 2 swords +2), then they will need a Craft Reserve of 640xp. In other words:

Level 6 would be 16,000 gp (taking 16 days) and requiring 640xp.
Level 12 would be 64,000 gp (taking 64 days) and requiring 2560xp.
Level 18 would be 144,000 gp (taking 144 days) and requiring 5760xp.

The actual Artificer gains 150, 700, and 3000 at those levels, which seems kind of low. My guess is that the Craft Reserve is thus meant to defray the costs a little - not cover them completely (specifically, my math suggests the Reserve is meant to cover about a quarter of the xp costs each level).

- - -

 

[Pyrex]

...My guess is that the Craft Reserve is thus meant to defray the costs a little - not cover them completely (specifically, my math suggests the Reserve is meant to cover about a quarter of the xp costs each level).

My experience playing an artificer who does quite a bit of crafting shows that the craft reserve covers at least half if not 2/3's of total XP expenditure; and that's for one artificer in a party of 6.

In a party of 4, that is receiving expected treasure with the artificer making occasional use of Retain Essence to crack evil magic items for XP the Craft Reserve could cover nearly all the required crafting.

Keep in mind that the Artificer who just hit L18 probably isn't going to make a +6-equivalent weapon from scratch; he's going to be upgrading a +4/+5 weapon to +6.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

I've spent some time doing research and come up with the following (I know this is borderline "House Rules", but my actual questions is What percentage of an Artificer's total crafting experience point expenditure is the Craft Reserve meant to cover?".

The real answer - just enough and not quite enough. I've found it's roughly 2/3 - 3/4 of what you need if you go full bore.

 

[Capn_Danger]

If you take the artisan feats in the Eberron manual then you can really make crafting productive. You'll spend 37.5% the gold cost on items you make compared to if you had just bought them, and 3xp for every 100 gold you put into crafting.

So basically, you're trading 3xp to save 62.5 gold. The craft reserve takes a sizable bite out of xp costs, and even after that it is really worth it for an artificer to dump as much money as possible into item creation. I'd trade 3xp for 62 gold any day of the week. I don't think the craft reserve was meant to cover a certain percentage of costs, just to offset costs; it's up to the player how much crafting he or she thinks is worthwhile.

When and if you fall behind a level, you'll catch right back up in probably just one or two adventures due to a bigger xp reward for being a lower level.

There's also the ability to retain essence and get xp from old items that aren't being used and aren't going to be sold.

 

[Patlin]

There's also the ability to retain essence and get xp from old items that aren't being used and aren't going to be sold.

Or from items bought for the purpose.

"I've got a lot of my own projects, but if you'd be willing to provide the gold and a scroll of permanency I'd get right on it...."

2,045 xp into the reserve for a cost of 10,125 gp. Thats 1 xp for less than 5 gold. Combine this with the previous poster's conclusion that 3 xp can save 62.5 gp and you've got a nice little racket going.