3.xth Edition: Crafting
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3.xth Edition: Crafting
With the discussions of magic economies and what not I have been questioning a few things about magic and tying it to currency. Crafting magic items... How should this be handled? What would be a cost that made sense? Would charging XP make more sense if you couldn't farm for XP? Should crafting be banned? Anybody found any good house rules over it? What do you use?
I was working on this for a while, but I ran out of interesting things to write.
Look up the Manual of Making Things in the It's My Own Invention board, as well as the Book of Gears.
Here's the basics:
Quit using XP, period. People level up when the DM says they do.
And magic items cost time to make. You can buy/trade for the materials you want and cut down the time, but you may not always be able to find what you want at the market or find someone willing to risk life and limb to go get something for you. And even if you can, you have to be able to trade them something they want--which could be money, but could also be materials or something altogether.
And powerful magic items take time, which is downtime the PCs may not actually have (depending on the campaign pacing).
Here's a link to the Manual thread.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49363&start=0
Look up the Manual of Making Things in the It's My Own Invention board, as well as the Book of Gears.
Here's the basics:
Quit using XP, period. People level up when the DM says they do.
And magic items cost time to make. You can buy/trade for the materials you want and cut down the time, but you may not always be able to find what you want at the market or find someone willing to risk life and limb to go get something for you. And even if you can, you have to be able to trade them something they want--which could be money, but could also be materials or something altogether.
And powerful magic items take time, which is downtime the PCs may not actually have (depending on the campaign pacing).
Here's a link to the Manual thread.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49363&start=0
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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CatharzGodfoot
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Which you can reduce via macguffin components.Maxus wrote: And powerful magic items take time, which is downtime the PCs may not actually have (depending on the campaign pacing).
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
-Josh Kablack
-Anatole France
Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.
-Josh Kablack
Yeup. It's up to the DM to decide if they can acquire the components so that should help keep things from getting out of hand.CatharzGodfoot wrote:Which you can reduce via macguffin components.Maxus wrote: And powerful magic items take time, which is downtime the PCs may not actually have (depending on the campaign pacing).
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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RandomCasualty2
- Prince
- Posts: 3295
- Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 4:22 pm
I like the idea of a crafting pool.
You can only create a finite amount of items at a time, and everytime you level, your crafting pool increases. I advise something like 25% of your wealth by level as the value of your crafting pool, and you can have that many GP worth of magic items in existence. If an item you crafted is destroyed, you get those craft points back.
Also, you can automatically sense the direction towards any item you made. So if one gets stolen you have a means of getting it back.
You can only create a finite amount of items at a time, and everytime you level, your crafting pool increases. I advise something like 25% of your wealth by level as the value of your crafting pool, and you can have that many GP worth of magic items in existence. If an item you crafted is destroyed, you get those craft points back.
Also, you can automatically sense the direction towards any item you made. So if one gets stolen you have a means of getting it back.
I've been thinking that I might incorporate a dependence system. Where you need a certain amount of ranks in a relevant craft skill to craft an item that can use a certain level of spell. You need an expert basket weaver to make a kick ass basket woven hat before you can enhance it to give you dark vision. So lower level craftsmen won't do for making magical items and mages probably won't want to take the skill tax in every craft to deck themselves out in magic items without help.
Going along with the idea that the craft skill can be used to make enchanted items, skilled craftsmen with a certain amount of ranks can craft items with enhancement bonuses but getting item abilities requires magic. Items can of course be reforged and their enhancement bonuses increased without buying a whole new item. So a tailor can craft clothes that give an armor bonus, or even resistance against the environment or a type of energy but needs a mage to glamor and to have it allow you to turn invisible on command.
I also briefly thought about incorporating profession into this so you'd need profession ranks to find special materials to craft items and perform certain rituals. But i nixed the idea at least for now.
Edit: While I'm at it does anyone know how inventions should be handled?
Extra Edit: I've also been thinking. The reason people don't like rituals in 4e is because gold is a limited resource that doesn't replenish between levels. Wouldn't experience be a hefty cost to make items if you have rules that prevent farming it? And I mean change it such as that you can't opt to just kill a bunch of mooks at moment's notice to refresh your xp pot.
Going along with the idea that the craft skill can be used to make enchanted items, skilled craftsmen with a certain amount of ranks can craft items with enhancement bonuses but getting item abilities requires magic. Items can of course be reforged and their enhancement bonuses increased without buying a whole new item. So a tailor can craft clothes that give an armor bonus, or even resistance against the environment or a type of energy but needs a mage to glamor and to have it allow you to turn invisible on command.
I also briefly thought about incorporating profession into this so you'd need profession ranks to find special materials to craft items and perform certain rituals. But i nixed the idea at least for now.
Edit: While I'm at it does anyone know how inventions should be handled?
Extra Edit: I've also been thinking. The reason people don't like rituals in 4e is because gold is a limited resource that doesn't replenish between levels. Wouldn't experience be a hefty cost to make items if you have rules that prevent farming it? And I mean change it such as that you can't opt to just kill a bunch of mooks at moment's notice to refresh your xp pot.
Last edited by MGuy on Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
Inspired by a recent topic I am reviving this thread instead of making a new one. I had dropped thinking about crafting for a while but because of the new thread along with my recent avoidance of it when ironing out crafting skills and craft related abilities I feel the need to bring it up again.
I would like to know what are the does and don'ts of creating a crafting and invention system for a game?
I would like to know what are the does and don'ts of creating a crafting and invention system for a game?