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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 1756478" data-attributes="member: 13966">Technically, the reason a character should start with less XP due to creating magic items earlier, is that the character could then start with twice as many magic items as would normally be possible.  Making a magic item costs half as much in GP as it costs to buy it, normally, so if the DM allots each 15th-level character with, say, 100,000 GP for example, the wizard character with Scribe Scroll, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms & Armor, and Forge Ring could start himself out with actually 200,000 GP worth of magic items by making them all himself.  He could even start the rest of the party out with such an overload of magic items, at their request using their GP. The only balancing factor to account for this is that it costs XP as well to make magic items.  So that 15th-level Wizard may try to outfit himself and maybe the rest of his party with gads of magic items, but he'll start at a lower level than them because he'll have spent XP on making all those gads of magic items for half the normal GP value.  Thus, why the Rules As Written are worded that way. When it comes to having magic items in the character's backstory, I would say it's fine to ignore their XP and GP cost if the character never sold/traded them for any kind of profit.  If they sold their magic items at only their GP cost (very unlikely given the XP cost, and it wouldn't be any way to make a living either, they'd have to have been doing something else most of the time to afford their living expenses), then it would be fine IMO to ignore their GP and XP cost.  Otherwise however, they'd be getting something for nothing (unless, I suppose, whatever profit they made before was taken away by theft or disaster) and cheating the DM's guidelines  If the character scribed a scroll before and used it for something other than profit, like a Scroll of Magic Missile expended in battle, I wouldn't bother deducting the GP and XP cost since they didn't get anything out of it (after all, starting GP for high-level characters doesn't account for expendible items they used in battle and such for no monetary gain).  However, the stuff in this paragraph are not the RAW.</blockquote>

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