Quote from: Opaopajr;1110417Probably, it is likely meant for NPC logistics. But that doesn't stop it from being an adventure unto itself. Perhaps a PC is invested in making 'FU Lace' and is using downtime. Perhaps it's an unusual table (mine! that wants to make adventures in fashion, and they hear a rival lace process is in the works to make lace production cheaper and less prestigious! :mad: Now our intrepid adventurers have to contemplate industrial sabotage so 'FU Lace' can stay in fashion longer.

Again, context is only everything.

For some they want this production off-the-table, others on. Some want crafting easier to represent their setting conceits. Some want it elaborated converting the logistical abstracted amount into contextually relevant setting particulars. Some want to play with the madness as is just to see if PCs want to get involved (regardless how petty! ).

But as a guideline dial, it seems remarkably accessible to me.

In my D&D 5e campaign, one of my characters successfully lobbied agents of a Deity into giving him a magical spool of thread which can be of virtually any material of his choosing (other than precious metals) and which provides unlimited material, so that he could sew and repair fine clothing.  He's definitely just a 'simple tailor', and definitely not something more... sinister.  It honestly is likely of Tremendous material value, but it would be of far Greater material value in the hands of someone who was not constantly adventuring, and it was hardly game-breaking but provided tons of flavor.  It also provides endless plot hooks, because they weren't exactly clear on where they obtained this item from, and let's just say more people are interested in it than just him.  Even what is, basically, just "FU Lace" on a spool can be a huge enhancement to the campaign if used well.  I also very much concur- context is everything.  A Bottle of Air is useless to the vast majority of folks, but nearly limitless in value to those about to explore the elemental plane of water, as an example.  That's why I pretty much never use listed item price, it's pretty much always wildly off in one direction or another.

That spool sounds faboo! I might have to steal that idea for a heavy-crafting campaign. Yoink! I can imagine the internecine warfare among ateliers... It'll end up like a Vampire the Masquerade game: swanky parties, catty bitchery, blood in the streets.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110410Yeah I was gonna say, clearly some people made these magic items or they wouldn't be all over dungeons. Even if it's ancient empires millennia ago.

I've always supposed that some magic items acquire powers just by antiquity/association with someone legendary; maybe the Mace of St. Cuthbert was just a mace before Cuthbert became a saint. Some of the weird or self-destructive ones may arise from decay or crafting errors; I think a crafting system should entail some uncertainty (whether in quests to obtain the rare ingredients or in some risk that you get something you didn't expect).

Nobody seems to have referenced the Angry GM; there's a series of posts but the linked one is about 5e crafting.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1110406A bored Elf, Vampire, Lich, Fey, Dragon, Aberration, or Demon very much might.

You are trying to understand Imagination Land: Fantasy from a strictly human productivity perspective. Longevity changes the scale of whimsy. I know you are not asking to homogenize the motivations of all of Imagination Land: Fantasy, but have you considered you are falling into the trap of your "logic" is the only acceptable "logic"?

And this speaks nothing about Longevity of Institutions, the human counterpoint to individual longevity of fantastic creatures. These we have examples today of massive works projects that outlive the planners and builders. They are made for all sorts of reasons, but predominantly a status seeking -- of which whimsy can very much be a logical motive.

So, objectively (using real world facts about institutional long-term projects) you are wrong, and further wrong if taking into account the grandeur of Imagination Land: Fantasy! C'mon, dial this ex-cathedra bluster down and verbalize what specifically  you want for your campaign. We're all friends here, this ain't the Gaming Den.

That sounds like the punchline to a joke.

An Elf, Vampire, Lich, Fey, Dragon, Aberration, and Demon walk into a bar.....and the elf is carrying a Frost Brand sword. The dwarven bartender says:

Dwarven Bartender: "That a nice sword you've got there, elf. Where'd you get it?"
Elf: "I made it. It's a Frost Brand sword. It's not much more efficient in combat than a normal sword, but it looks nice, right?"
Dwarven Bartender: "You made that? Nice quality, elf. It must have taken a long time for you to craft this."
Elf: "It did. It took me five-and-a-half years, for eight hours a day....every day.
Dwarven Bartender: "Five-and-a-half years?! That's insane! It must have cost you a fortune to craft this.
Elf: "It sure did. It cost me 50,000 gold pieces to craft it."
Dwarven Bartender: "Yeah? I'll buy it off you for 12,500 gold pieces."
Elf: "12,500?! Are you nuts? Why would I sell a fifty thousand gold piece item that I spent five-and-a-half years killing myself for, eight hours a day......every single day, for one-fourth of what it cost me?"
Dwarven Bartender: "Whoa there, dude......you sound like a capitalist. We don't serve your kind here."
Demon: "Hey, elf. I'll buy that sword off you for 25,000 gold pieces."
Elf: "You're kidding, right? You heard that it cost me 50,000 gold pieces and five-and-a-half years of my life to craft this, right? Crafting this thing nearly cost me my sanity. So why would I sell this sword to you for a loss?"
Demon: "Sell me the sword for 25,000 gold pieces, and as a bonus.....I'll punch the dwarf in the face."
Elf: "It's a deal."

Actually, the real joke here is that this situation isn't a joke. The joke.....is that this is how the game system actually works. It is virtually impossible for you to sell a magic item that you craft for profit, and it takes forever for you to craft a magic weapon that is scarcely more combat efficient than a normal weapon or weapon +1.

Like I said, many flaws.....

It's not a flaw. They just don't want you doing a lot of stuff with magic items. It's a design choice you don't like.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110834It's not a flaw. They just don't want you doing a lot of stuff with magic items. It's a design choice you don't like.

Yeah, the default is certainly set up to discourage making items for speculative trade (which was the case even in 3e), or making the more powerful items. It's a way to have powerful items in the game without letting PCs min-max their gear.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110832That sounds like the punchline to a joke.

An Elf, Vampire, Lich, Fey, Dragon, Aberration, and Demon walk into a bar.....and the elf is carrying a Frost Brand sword. The dwarven bartender says:

Dwarven Bartender: "That a nice sword you've got there, elf. Where'd you get it?"
Elf: "I made it. It's a Frost Brand sword. It's not much more efficient in combat than a normal sword, but it looks nice, right?"
Dwarven Bartender: "You made that? Nice quality, elf. It must have taken a long time for you to craft this."
Elf: "It did. It took me five-and-a-half years, for eight hours a day....every day.
Dwarven Bartender: "Five-and-a-half years?! That's insane! It must have cost you a fortune to craft this.
Elf: "It sure did. It cost me 50,000 gold pieces to craft it."
Dwarven Bartender: "Yeah? I'll buy it off you for 12,500 gold pieces."
Elf: "12,500?! Are you nuts? Why would I sell a fifty thousand gold piece item that I spent five-and-a-half years killing myself for, eight hours a day......every single day, for one-fourth of what it cost me?"
Dwarven Bartender: "Whoa there, dude......you sound like a capitalist. We don't serve your kind here."
Demon: "Hey, elf. I'll buy that sword off you for 25,000 gold pieces."
Elf: "You're kidding, right? You heard that it cost me 50,000 gold pieces and five-and-a-half years of my life to craft this, right? Crafting this thing nearly cost me my sanity. So why would I sell this sword to you for a loss?"
Demon: "Sell me the sword for 25,000 gold pieces, and as a bonus.....I'll punch the dwarf in the face."
Elf: "It's a deal."
[...]

That's the spirit! Why so serious?

This humor still relies on human conceptions of time and labor costs. Part of the fun of long lived aliens is their blasé attitude to time and resources, if not outright decadence. You don't need to have much of a reason for aliens to do alien things.

Besides we humans do similar here, for far less functional stuff. I'm sure there's some campaign sucking their teeth at the waste of Fabergé Eggs if they were ever ported into an RPG -- "Feh, just mere treasure, without nary an enchantment on it!" But that's players' mercenary thinking, going for gamist efficiency, not being in the world per se.

Again, you are deflecting. Your "logic" is not universal: not for fellow GMs, not for long-lived fantastic creatures, not even for real world humans and their a) grander scales of institutional longevity or b) wealth in a scale where wants can exceed needs. You are assuming your logic is the only one that makes sense, yet your topic's premise is disagreed with outright. This makes for an uninteresting impasse.

But what makes for an interestig topic is: What do you want for your table? How does D&D 5e DMG not get there? And how can we get it there? By defining your aesthetics we can discuss how best to get there because we have a roughly established, and agreed to, goal. I don't have to agree (or ever play) with your aesthetics to be able to fruitfully share how to improve on 5e DMG system.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110834It's not a flaw. They just don't want you doing a lot of stuff with magic items. It's a design choice you don't like.

Quote from: S'mon;1110851Yeah, the default is certainly set up to discourage making items for speculative trade (which was the case even in 3e), or making the more powerful items. It's a way to have powerful items in the game without letting PCs min-max their gear.

Or at the very least force a PC to go out and gather some people to assist in speeding up the process. See my notes prior on things like creating a guild or even a cult simply to get people to assist in a really big project. It also places a slight emphasis on the importance of long lived races in the crafting of the top end stuff.

Elf makes a magic sword at relatively little investment (from an elf point of view) and values the investment less than someone punching an annoying dwarf:

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110832The joke.....is that this is how the game system actually works. It is virtually impossible for you to sell a magic item that you craft for profit, and it takes forever for you to craft a magic weapon that is scarcely more combat efficient than a normal weapon or weapon +1.

Like I said, many flaws.....

If the elf got XP based on his loss, then PCs in D&D land would magically transform to advocates of a gift economy, chasing down dwarf bartenders to foist items on them that they really, really don't want. Lots of modules have NPCs giving the PCs a magic item after they've done something heroic; rare to have a PC giving away even a useless, trash magic item without expecting something in return.

As a simulation, it would be desirable to have an option in which ordinary commerce makes reasonable profits; that's not D&D 5e by default but you can get there by setting the DMG options and adding house rules for what you want. (Robust domain management rules would be a bigger priority for me.) Given the way players optimize character builds, you'd need to proceed with a lot of care, though; players may view your simulation as a game to be beaten.

As a game, any way of advancing (in money, XP, items - and note that items are to some extent equivalent to XP, increasing many of the things that increase with levels and some that you can't get from levels, although mostly not HP which always has been the main perk of leveling) that does not entail risk ruins it as a game. I want to play a game where my character might die, not run a simulated business. Converting rare items available only by delving into dungeons would be OK (large quantities of gold in OD&D; actual XP in AD&D; body parts of rare and dangerous monsters lots of times) and would address player dissatisfaction with tediously repetitive adventuring waiting for the exact magic item they want to appear at random. (It's usually better to address that by letting players pursue rumors and use divination to steer them toward whatever they really want.) In the real world, it seems to be more cost effective to extract fossil fuels from the ground than to craft biofuels.

Why are there magic items in dungeons if nobody in the present day would make them? Because the ancient guild of artificers that knew how to craft efficiently the way you want to made them but their secrets were lost? Because they were created at the order of ancient god-kings who could make thousands of their subjects labor endlessly to craft permanent magic items even though nobody would use them? Because they fell through dimensional cracks from worlds that follow your crafting preferences? Because they appear spontaneously like flies from rotting meat? Because actual gods created them? If someone asks me as a player at my table, my DM response is "how are you going to find out?".

Quote from: Opaopajr;1110856Again, you are deflecting. Your "logic" is not universal: not for fellow GMs, not for long-lived fantastic creatures, not even for real world humans and their a) grander scales of institutional longevity or b) wealth in a scale where wants can exceed needs. You are assuming your logic is the only one that makes sense, yet your topic's premise is disagreed with outright. This makes for an uninteresting impasse.

But what makes for an interestig topic is: What do you want for your table? How does D&D 5e DMG not get there? And how can we get it there? By defining your aesthetics we can discuss how best to get there because we have a roughly established, and agreed to, goal. I don't have to agree (or ever play) with your aesthetics to be able to fruitfully share how to improve on 5e DMG system.

Opaopajr speaks wisely.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110832That sounds like the punchline to a joke.

An Elf, Vampire, Lich, Fey, Dragon, Aberration, and Demon walk into a bar.....and the elf is carrying a Frost Brand sword. The dwarven bartender says:

Dwarven Bartender: "That a nice sword you've got there, elf. Where'd you get it?"
Elf: "I made it. It's a Frost Brand sword. It's not much more efficient in combat than a normal sword, but it looks nice, right?"
Dwarven Bartender: "You made that? Nice quality, elf. It must have taken a long time for you to craft this."
Elf: "It did. It took me five-and-a-half years, for eight hours a day....every day.
Dwarven Bartender: "Five-and-a-half years?! That's insane! It must have cost you a fortune to craft this.
Elf: "It sure did. It cost me 50,000 gold pieces to craft it."
Dwarven Bartender: "Yeah? I'll buy it off you for 12,500 gold pieces."
Elf: "12,500?! Are you nuts? Why would I sell a fifty thousand gold piece item that I spent five-and-a-half years killing myself for, eight hours a day......every single day, for one-fourth of what it cost me?"
Dwarven Bartender: "Whoa there, dude......you sound like a capitalist. We don't serve your kind here."
Demon: "Hey, elf. I'll buy that sword off you for 25,000 gold pieces."
Elf: "You're kidding, right? You heard that it cost me 50,000 gold pieces and five-and-a-half years of my life to craft this, right? Crafting this thing nearly cost me my sanity. So why would I sell this sword to you for a loss?"
Demon: "Sell me the sword for 25,000 gold pieces, and as a bonus.....I'll punch the dwarf in the face."
Elf: "It's a deal."

Actually, the real joke here is that this situation isn't a joke. The joke.....is that this is how the game system actually works. It is virtually impossible for you to sell a magic item that you craft for profit, and it takes forever for you to craft a magic weapon that is scarcely more combat efficient than a normal weapon or weapon +1.

Like I said, many flaws.....

Huh?  Why is it impossible to sell a magic item for profit?  Is that stated anywhere in any books, or is that how your DM normally runs it, or is that just what you believe based on your own internal conception of the game world?  

Also, how is it "not much more efficient than a normal sword" when it deals nearly double the damage of a normal sword, in addition to its myriad of other properties, not the least of which is resistance to fire damage?  Someone who could normally take on a flame elemental in an even fight could take on 3 while wielding that blade.  Sorry, but though I agree the 5e system has flaws, I don't see how any of the claims you've made in this post are accurate or indicative of any flaws.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110834It's not a flaw. They just don't want you doing a lot of stuff with magic items. It's a design choice you don't like.

False. It's a FLAW. Whether we're dealing with a human or an animal, all living beings are motivated by INCENTIVE. There is ZERO INCENTIVE to create any weapon greater than a sword +1 in 5e. Why? The reason is very simple. Even extremely long-lived beings, like elves or liches or vampires do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of the world; they are not separate from it. Therefore, no sentient being will take the massive amount of time and effort to craft a magic item that is not appreciably more combat efficient than a meager sword +1. Time is money.....even for people who think that they reject capitalistic ideas. And sitting in a dark room creating some gimpy shit weapon is not a practical use of anyone's time.

A single sufficiently knowledgeable person could build a car in a fraction of the time it takes a D&D character to craft one shitty Frost Brand sword. Remember that this is not a powerful weapon. Look at the stats for it. In fact, powerful weapons largely do not exist in 5th edition. So what's the rational motivation in crafting a weapon that is not any more efficient in killing most opponents than a normal fucking sword? The answer is that there is absolutely zero motivation for doing this, and cop-out answers such as:

* the elf lives for centuries, or even millenia
* the demon or lich has an alien mindset
* the real methods of crafting have been lost in time
* a demigod made it

Blah, blah, blah. These are all bullshit cop-out answers. All of them. :rolleyes:

Nobody is going to spend five-and-a-years crafting a gimp sword that isn't any better at killing a Hook Horror or Mind Flayer than a nonmagical sword. Nobody is going to spend five-and-a-half years crafting some gimp sword that they cannot even sell at a profit.

It doesn't make any logical sense.

Here's an example of four different Horns of Valhalla:

(1.) Horn of Valhalla (Silver) [summon 2d4+2 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days, minimum crafter level: 6th, creation cost: 5,000 gp, takes 200 days to craft]
(2.) Horn of Valhalla (Brass) [summon 3d4+3 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days, minimum crafter level: 6th, creation cost: 5,000 gp, takes 200 days to craft]
(3.) Horn of Valhalla (Bronze) [summon 4d4+4 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days, minimum crafter level: 11th, creation cost: 50,000 gp, takes 2,000 days to craft]
(4.) Horn of Valhalla (Iron) [summon 5d4+5 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days, minimum crafter level: 17th, creation cost: 500,000 gp, takes 20,000 days to craft]

A brass horn is objectively better than a silver horn, but they both require the exact same amount of time and money to craft (almost 7 months and 5,000 gp). An iron horn takes us almost 55 years to craft. 55 fucking years. Entire civilizations can rise and fall in that period of time. An iron horn takes 100 times longer to craft than a brass horn, and is 100 times more expensive. What is the INCENTIVE for spending 55 years crafting a magic item that is not much better than the item that takes less than 7 months to craft?

The answer: There is no incentive.

This entire system is borked. It's too stupid for me to endure.

Quote from: S'monYeah, the default is certainly set up to discourage making items for speculative trade (which was the case even in 3e), or making the more powerful items. It's a way to have powerful items in the game without letting PCs min-max their gear.

The problem with 5e's system for selling magic items, is that it ignores human nature. Nobody is going to sell a magic item for less than it cost to craft it. It's not going to happen. It's not logical; it doesn't make any sense....and it ignores every aspect of human behavior.

How do you know those who craft them also aren't using special ways to do it? This is to only establish a baseline, of what it would take if you just tried to grind it out.

But no, people waste money on stuff irrationally all the time. Ever heard of people gambling away their money? Or kings bankrupting their treasuries? You're acting like everyone is a 100% rational agent. What if they get some emotional significance out of it?

Look at how much money countries pour into purely symbolic things all the time. What exactly did the Pyramids do for some dead guy that a simple morgue couldn't have? They could be making these super expensive magic items as simply a show of status. Which I might add, IS a rational thing, and fits into your logic -- it's just not an immediate combat use.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110880False. It's a FLAW.

It's a fucking game, not real life.

The shit crafting rules were a design decision, most likely to disincentivize crafting. Because fucking surprise, building a reasonable not-shit crafting system is math-heavy work, a concept anathema to Mearls.

QuoteIt's too stupid for me to endure.

Yet here we are on page 5 of this stupid thread, and you're still bitching about them.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110880The problem with 5e's system for selling magic items, is that it ignores human nature. Nobody is going to sell a magic item for less than it cost to craft it. It's not going to happen. It's not logical; it doesn't make any sense....and it ignores every aspect of human behavior.

Just because you want to sell something for X, does not mean someone wants to pay you X. The sales system is designed for PCs dumping looted items, it says nothing about commissioned works.

Indeed, they're terrible. They're what, 2 pages long? If the game were called "Crafting and Carpenters" I suppose this level of outrage would be reasonable, but the game is called Dungeons and Dragons, i.e., about exploring weird places and fighting bizarre creatures.

I would have preferred 50 fewer pages on spells and 50 more pages on exploration but that's just me. As far as crafting, well, those two pages are crap, but I can ignore them easily enough, especially since D&D snaps in half if players cherry-pick their magic items (kinda learned that in 3e, eh?).

We all agree it's crap, some see the underlying message of "don't make items beyond a few simple things."