Thoughts on planar binding/ally for item creation?

[stonegod]

I am curious on other's opinion of using planar binding/planar ally and its friends for its possible use for item creation.

The idea is that the caster would call an item creation capable creature (an outsider with levels of artificer, for example). Finding the right outsider to call would be a different issue---I'm assuming some research would need to be done. The general idea is:
- The caster calls them
- Either forces (binding) or bargains (binding/ally) with the outsider to do the crafting

Balancing issues:
- The outsider would use their craft pool/Xp to craft it unless the DM uses the house rule that others can donate XP. If one forces/bargains to not use their XP, can that be balanced?
- The PCs would generally have to provide the materials needed for the crafting, as the outsider would not have access to them. (So, they are still paying the GP for crafting always).
- Similarly, the PCs would have to provide a space for the outsider to work with the appropriate tools.
- The crafting would be limited to 1/d per caster level, as most such tasks are limited (at least with binding; not sure about ally).

Thoughts and comments?

 

[lukelightning]

I have more experience with the binding spells, so I'll let someone else comment on the ally ones.

As a player I'd be very careful about this...it seems tailor made for the DM to have the bound critter sabotage the item and you end up with some cursed thing.

That being said, the planar binding spells do give you a lot of power of the the creature; it's binding them, not asking favors. Note that according to the spell you can get a bonus to your charisma check to bind the creature if you offer rewards/appropriate service but there is no penalty for not offering payment or anything of the sort. So if you can crank up your CHA check like my mage does you can bind things without much trouble and not worry about paying them or being nice to them.

 

[Jack Simth]

SG:

Theoretically, a player could arrange this. In practice, it's a bad idea.

Consider, for a minute, a Scroll of Wish:
Materials cost: 1912.5 gp
XP cost (not paid by the Binder, but by the Bound): 5,153 xp.
Crafting Time: 4 days.
The scroll is valued at 28,825, so you can just sell the scroll for 14412.5 gp, and make a profit of 12,500 gp.

Consider a scroll of Limited Wish:
Materials cost: 1137.5 gp.
XP cost (not paid by the Binder, but by the Bound): 391 xp.
Crafting Time: 3 days.
The scroll is valued at 3,775 gp; selling for half, that's 1887.5 gp, for a profit of 750 gp.

Consider a scroll of Lesser Planar Ally:
Materials cost: 350 gp.
XP cost (not paid by the Binder, but by the Bound): 130 xp.
Crafting Time: 1 day.
The scroll is valued at 1,200 gp; selling for half, that's 600 gp, for a profit of 250 gp.

Basically, with any scroll that has an XP component cost but no material component cost, you profit 2.5 gp/xp of material component cost. So the XP component for Lesser Planar Ally nets you 250 gp (100 * 2.5), the XP component for Limited Wish nets you 750 gp (300 * 2.5), and the XP component for Wish nets you 12,500 gp (5,000 * 2.5). This costs the Binder nothing but his time and a small investment (and the risk of the dreaded nat-1, of course).

This is heavily abuseable.

Now, if Bound critters never have any loose XP and never have any Crafting feats (for some bizzare reason ) this can work - the Binder has to Collaberate with the Bound, and the Binder has to act as the Creator (and thus provides all XP). This will be handy for when you want to Craft something that requires a spell you don't have (for instance, a Wizard wanting to Craft a Shield Guardian - requires Imbue with Spell Ability, which is Cleric only), but isn't nearly as abuseable.

 

[stonegod]

Jack: Good point about the XP. So, lets say we either rule items w/ extra XP over the normal creation cost (or we make the binder do it) to close that loop-hole. Anything else seem out of whack?