[semi-Rant] As a DM, does item creation ever get you down?

[Pants]

I find that the Wizard in the group I DM with is fairly stingy with his XP. He has all of one Item Creation feat and has used it once, maybe twice. He's more of a nuke-n-run caster anyways (not that there's anything wrong with that )

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I find that the Wizard in the group I DM with is fairly stingy with his XP. He has all of one Item Creation feat and has used it once, maybe twice. He's more of a nuke-n-run caster anyways (not that there's anything wrong with that )

I play a wizard in a group and he spends so much xp on item creation it would make you puke.

I am lagging my fellow party members by roughly half a level, but I have twice as much magic in carefully selected items as my fellow party members and my spell selection rocks.

I will happily drop a full level behind.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Nope, but that's because it hasn't gotten to be an issue yet. At one point, buying and selling of items really began to annoy me. So I dropped an ultimatum. Shopping is to be done during the downtime when we're not playing, unless I think there's some significant potential for role playing, or a good reason (ie: Character got back from the dead to discover all his stuff has been sold just before a dungeon crawl). I have a tendancy to be quite a bit heavy handed about prices.

Mostly, I think it's part of the bigger picture of buying and selling. If the campaign focuses on it, you've got to be ready for it.

Good luck in the future.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

But does anyone else -as DM or Player- ever find that the "everything has a GP value" and "I have Keen added to my +1 Longsword of Frost" is a bit annoying?

As both, no, I don't find it annoying at all.

Of course, niether the game I play or DM in has that much magic available, so why would it?

 

[Wormwood]

As as DM, I love the fact that players can acquire magic items that they want (through crafting or commerce), rather than having to wait around for me to provide them.

This allows them to customize their characters to a degree that I would be hard pressed to match.

This frees up a lot of my time, which I use to devise better ways to kill them.

 

[Saeviomagy]

You sound like you're getting burnt out with your players buying stuff, rather than the fact that the magic is available.

My suggestion:
All trading takes place out-of-game.

Items sell for half value.

Items can be bought at book prices, up to a value X, determined by the size of the city, given by the DM when you enter the city.

Totally new items simply cannot be bought (a +x vorpal sword is fine. A ring of cure light wounds is not.)

No haggling will be entered into (ie - institute some flat method for determining an increase or decrease in price based on the appropriate skill).

Players who've bought items will hand over a sheet which shows the cost of whatever they got, and all the working to figure out that price. If it's wrong, you just didn't buy it. Full stop. If it's found to be wrong at a later date, the item will turn out to be cursed and/or faulty. Check your math or have another player check it.

There! Players can now have the gear they want, and you don't have to do the bookkeeping for it. Concentrate on the adventures, and really don't care about what weapons your players have.

If you want something really special, that's called an artifact, or a weapon which would normally be out of their league.

If your problem is more deep-seated than that, then I really don't know what you can do. Start a new campaign set somewhere lower-magic?

 

[jasper]

Oh please, In 1980 I wanted to buy items out of the dmg for set price. everything had a gp value back then.
New game rule set same problems different faces.

I have allow you going into town plunk down x gold pieces and you get y.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

S'mon tends to make us either make Gather Info rolls to find items and then charge up to 4x market price for them...or failing that just not make them available at all.

by S'mon
"Um, it's a +3 flaming burst sword. Would you sell it to some random fighter that wanted it?

Creating items is no problem...in fact he promotes it by saying that if you make a spellcraft check (not sure how he works out the DC) then you get the xp back from creating the item. this only applies if you've never created that item before.

ie creating a single belt of giant strength +4 might go xp free with a good check, however, making a production line of them will cost you, and fast.

 

[Nifft]

I love Item Creation for players. It frees me to consider what kind of stuff a monster would want to have on it, as opposed to what kind my players would like to find after killing it.

-- Nifft

 

[Ace]

I have no problems with letting the PCs get what they want, assuming they can afford it and the requirements aren't too rare.

It's better to deal with it quickly and get on with the 'real' adventure rather than having lots of pointless 'scavenger hunt' or 'suck up to the NPC' adventures.

Geoff.

I agree with you here. Why worry. If my players want to make or upgrade items in a high magic game (my default)) let em

DD3e is more the players game unlike previous editions which were more the DM's game

Just follow the rules and all will be pretty much OK

Now in my low magic game, its another matter. I do care about what magic they make and require some complex hoo-rah about power components

But I tell the players all about that upfront