Item Creation and Exp Loss

[prodawg]

Under the rules, the creator of magic item would lose experience points for creating the item. Let's say that there is only one magic user who can create items for the entire party. Under the core rules, the magic user would take all the exp loss while the other characters can get the items without exp loss. In the long run, it could add up. Would it be too unbalancing to have the receiver of the item take the exp loss? Are there any reasons why this is a "bad" rule?
Thanks for any inputs into this matter.

 

[Pax]

I've seen non-WOTC feats that allow item creators to have "donors" (willing only!) provide XP towards item creation, and they seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Most fighters woudl GLADLY pay the XP, for a 40% discount on their shiny new magic sword (with the rest paying for the wizard's time-and-feat-costs).

There's also the Book of Vile Darkness, that allows ritual sacrifice to accumulate XP that can be spent towards items ... but that's not a terribly good road to go down, if you're playing a mostly-good-aligned party ... heh.

 

[Staffan]

The spellcaster could always ask for more than just the cost of components in return for making the items. Using the old "1 XP = 5 gp" standard (used for pricing spellcasting and making items with extra XP outlays like the Tomes/Manuals), the caster's actual cost for making the item is 70% of the base price instead of 50% (4% of base price as XP, times 5 gp/XP).

In my current Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, the spellcasters charge other party members 75% of the item's base price for making items. That gives them compensation for their XP plus a little profit, which means they're able to make/buy more items for themselves to make up for the XP loss.

 

[green slime]

IMC the players sat around and discussed this. They came up with a solution that they like. The Creator is compensated for the loss of xp to the tune of 3-5 gp per xp ( I can't remember the exact number).

 

[Draugin]

Rewarding the spellcasters for XP loss is ok at low and mid levels, maybe only at very high levels XPs and GPs don't scale well. But I don't think that's a problem in most campaigns. Good idea!

I think we will use this rule in our Dungeon Bashing gaming sessions once per month.

 

[Derrick Reeves]

Solutions!

May I recommend:

- Allowing other characters to contribute up to half of the XP cost of an item (at the very least, other PCs will pitch in when they're having something made for them). (IIRC, this comes from the Epic Level Handbook.)

- Using the FRCS method for assigning XP - that is, using the level of each individual character to decide the size of pool that their share is drawn from. (As I am given to understand, this will be the default method in 3.5.)

 

[der_kluge]

Hate to keep plugging this, but well, it's a great book.

Coming very soon to an FLGS near you, Mystic Eye Games _Artificer's Handbook_ will provide numerous options for the XP cost problem. As well as including tons of new magic item creation rules. Over a year in the making.