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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Timeboxer" data-source="post: 1756639" data-attributes="member: 21471">Hmm.  Based on a close textual reading ("assign an experience point total for them to use" for multiclassing purposes), I am forced to agree that XP is in fact a spendable pool.  But as for Wealth:"Equip the character....  Table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level (page 135) shows the total value of a player character's gear at a given level.  This value includes mundane items described in Chapter 7 of the Player's Handbook, but the bulk of it, especially at higher levels, is composed of magic items.  See Magic Items as Gear, below, for advice on how to govern what sort of magic items a PC can buy with this wealth.  Note that these values apply only to player characters."While the word "buy" is used, it's clear that an actual monetary exchange in gp terms isn't what it means; Wealth is not liquid.  You're allotted a certain amount of Wealth, the total value of your gear, and the worth of your gear must not exceed that value.I probably wasn't entirely clear before.  I'm not actually "paying" for the 1 XP using excess Wealth, as if I never lost it and spent money instead.  Rather, the Wealth accounts for the 1 XP loss, since they are of equivalent value.Or for a different angle: As I said, a self-created magic item can have its worth measured in two ways.  Given the definition of Wealth cited above, it appears that you should be able to choose in which way you wish to measure it.  If you wish to limit your player's options in this way, fine, but nothing explicitly requires you to choose one over the other.Remember, it's not free.I think I'd be somewhat upset if I made a character all primed to have levels of some kind of prestige class that requires that you "Must have survived taking an exotic instant-death potion," and the GM told me that I had to actually roll the Fortitude saves for it.  And then if I rolled a natural 1, he would say, "Oh, tough luck.  You die.  Care to roll up a new character?"But that, I think, isn't an entirely consistent ruling, in the sense that the exact same event results in a penalty for one character and no penalty for another, and inconsistency bugs me.  It is, as I said, a GM call, but I would be loath to suggest that such a ruling is or should be the standard for this reason.If it makes you feel better, I could always say that someone else was paying the XP cost, while I paid the raw materials cost and performed the daily castings that went into the item.  Which is a valid method of co-crafting magic items, I believe.  But I think this wouldn't fit into the strict definition of "magic item crafting" that you define.Though what I meant was that in terms of history, being an item crafter doesn't necessarily mean that you should lose XP for it.  You obviously should spend XP for an item that you craft in the present, and obviously you have spent XP for crafting an item in the past, but I don't see that this actually needs to come out of your current XP pool unless you have a usable item which represents that XP; after all, it's more than likely that that XP was made back.  You may not like the idea that someone who spent XP on an item a long time ago may have caught up and even gotten ahead, but this is where consistency rears its ugly head again...I would be doubtful about even getting raw materials at that point.  But I contend that it does stop with my backstory, because, firstly, I define my backstory while the GM defines the scenario that I play in, and secondly, the entire backstory is distilled, in game terms, into some XP quantity and some Wealth value.  One's actual backstory does not matter, in actual game terms, I think, as far as the RAW is concerned, and its main use is explaining why you are the way you are now.  There's no section that explains how to convert elements of backstory to actual gameplay changes, and I see no need to add one, really.Except for that whole Caster Level Prerequisite mess.  >.>Creating characters above 1st-level is outlined in the rules, and it involves an award of XP and allowing the character to equip herself using the Wealth value for her level.  But it really isn't clear on what the XP and gp "awarded" actually mean.  It says that you "can use" the XP and gp for item creation, but what this actually signifies (items you own now? items you used to own? items you've made but used?) isn't specified.  It does use the present tense ("can use... [in order] to make magic items"), which suggests to me that the actual act of item creation would take place just before or at the beginning of the game, or at least in such a way as to allow the use of the item during the game proper.And now I am so going to bed.</blockquote>

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