Author Topic: Pure Crafting  (Read 61330 times)

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #60 on: April 07, 2013, 06:54:30 PM »
Gold, despite supposedly being a bad weapon, is granting a save or die effect? I am... confused. The Relicwork ability seems seriously out of place. Not to mention that the Masterwork property damages their saves. :eh

Liking the armour abilities, though. Shinyshiny ally-buffing protection (though I have to wonder if making archers even more useless is intended, given the Artifactwork ability).

The special ability says Pure Iron, and the way it's worded seems... self-protecting. Basically, so long as you're near it, no-one can attack you, because they're all indifferent at worst. So, too, will they not really want to disrupt the protection, because... y'know, they don't care about you. Also kind of... vague, given the way Diplomacy works. Same with the shackles.

@Above: be a Fighter. Make your tower shield a Pure Mythril alloy. Probably not a sane option, but at least you get rid of the annoying attack penalty. XD
« Last Edit: April 07, 2013, 07:11:31 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #61 on: April 07, 2013, 07:21:15 PM »
Added Pure Gold, aka Bling of War. Including powder and shackles option.

Relicwork Weapon: It doesn't have the standard action/charge language that the other weapons do.  Is this intentional?
Ack, I was working from an earlier draft version and ended up using the older wording, fixed.

Unrelated question: Can the multi-alloy feats be used on shackles?
Yes, but unless you keep holding it after puting them on, the benefit is lost as soon as you let them go.

All of these shields really make me wish that using a Tower Shield was more viable.
Just as planned. Also, +1 to Pure  Mytril tower shield. :p

Gold, despite supposedly being a bad weapon, is granting a save or die effect? I am... confused. The Relicwork ability seems seriously out of place. Not to mention that the Masterwork property damages their saves. :eh
Only while adjacent to the target, so not so good for sniping stuff. Also all the weapons have some variant of the "cripple" ability at relicwork.

Liking the armour abilities, though. Shinyshiny ally-buffing protection (though I have to wonder if making archers even more useless is intended, given the Artifactwork ability).
It also screws over melees, since if you fail the charge, you're stuck in place, whereas the archer can probably try some more shots for the turn.

The special ability says Pure Iron, and the way it's worded seems... self-protecting. Basically, so long as you're near it, no-one can attack you, because they're all indifferent at worst. So, too, will they not really want to disrupt the protection, because... y'know, they don't care about you. Also kind of... vague, given the way Diplomacy works. Same with the shackles.
Fixed typo.

Also if they become indifferent, they may not want to attack you, but they'll probably still go "Oh, shiny item of gold not nailed to the wall! Can probably sell it for a pretty coin!"

Altough yes it is suposed to be "Love me because I'm rich!"
« Last Edit: April 07, 2013, 07:23:22 PM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #62 on: April 07, 2013, 07:27:40 PM »
I think you have just rendered all kings immune to regicide, which is a crying shame. How can I have my political intrigue when everyone with any money buys a bunch of armour and their enemies stop caring about murder? ;-;

Love me because I'm rich? Reminding me of something, here.
(click to show/hide)

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #63 on: April 07, 2013, 07:41:21 PM »
I would say pure gold armor actually increases political intrigue. Hostile gets reduced to unfriendly, which means people no longer just walk into your throne room and try to stab you in the open. Instead they go for "safer" ways, like slow poisoning, spreading bad rumors and whatnot.  They wish you ill, but will not take direct risks to hurt you. Or they simply find a way of luring you away from your protection area.

Also from what episode is that scene? I would love to know the context. Even tough Gilgamesh always was quite generous, always showering others with expensive fancy relics, that just hapened to be somewhat sharp. :D

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #64 on: April 07, 2013, 07:46:36 PM »
... you know, I think this means I've lost a step on the Diplomacy chart. Yup, I went straight from Hostile to Indifferent. :banghead

It's from one of the Carnival Phantasm episodes where Saber works in the café, after she becomes Saber Alter. It'd ruin the fun to explain why he's got that reaction. :p

Fun fact: Enuma Elish can now consist of throwing three galaxies at the enemy. Gilgamesh is now Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, only under six feet tall.

Offline zioth

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #65 on: April 07, 2013, 09:09:59 PM »
Having to spend class levels on +1 BaB classes is not use of a finite resource which should reduce item cost. Everyone's going to choose their class levels regardless of what items you put in the game. In your system, melee characters will already have their high BaB, and then they'll decide (inevitably) to go for pure metal items.

The real question you have to ask, if you want both pure metal and magic items in your game, is, would a character of class X ever choose magic items? The answer?

Fighter, barbarian, rogue, warblade, swordsage, or any other class without spellcasting: No. Pure metal is vastly more powerful for the cost, so it's stupid to choose magic items.

Ranger, paladin, and other classes with weak spellcasting: No, in my opinion. Pure metal is more powerful than weak spellcasting plus magic items. If these classes don't get pure metal items, they'll be at a huge disadvantage.

Any low-level character or NPC class: No. You can get hugely powerful items for 2gp with pure metal, while the cheapest magic weapon costs a thousand times that.

Monk: It's not really possible to play a monk with this rule in the game. Several other classes and PrCs, such as Duskblade, also become unplayable.

Spellcasters: Yes. Full spellcasters must keep using magic items. In the case of cleric, this is a good balancing factor. Bards who want to be jacks of all trades, rather than focus on spellcasting, get hit pretty hard though.


Does all of this make the game unplayable as a whole? No. It just makes it into a different game. If you don't care that some classes disappear, and magic items are effectively not allowed for pure melee classes, then this pure metal vs magic item balance issue doesn't destroy the game in and of itself. Price vs power is still an issue though.

I like the implications of this system. I like thinking about a world where spellcasters are afraid of every shadow, and fighters and barbarians rule. But I still think the balance needs work. 2gp mundane items that are equivalent in power to 10,000-100,000gp magic items, and 3500gp items comperable to epic magic items, just takes away the choice from melee characters. If you choose magic over mundane, you simply lose. If you're a spellcaster going up against enemies with pure metal equipment, you also lose, unless you have your own pure-metal-wielding bodyguards.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #66 on: April 07, 2013, 09:17:30 PM »
Time to add something requiring you to make the stuff, rather than buying it, I wonder?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #67 on: April 08, 2013, 06:30:15 AM »
Having to spend class levels on +1 BaB classes is not use of a finite resource which should reduce item cost. Everyone's going to choose their class levels regardless of what items you put in the game. In your system, melee characters will already have their high BaB, and then they'll decide (inevitably) to go for pure metal items.

The real question you have to ask, if you want both pure metal and magic items in your game, is, would a character of class X ever choose magic items? The answer?

Fighter, barbarian, rogue, warblade, swordsage, or any other class without spellcasting: No. Pure metal is vastly more powerful for the cost, so it's stupid to choose magic items.
By the same logic, spellcasting classes are vastly more powerful for the cost than full Bab classes, so it's stupid to choose full bab classes. :p

At least magic items can be greatly enanched by stacking even more magic on them (greater magic weapon, crystals, oils and whatnot).

Ranger, paladin, and other classes with weak spellcasting: No, in my opinion. Pure metal is more powerful than weak spellcasting plus magic items. If these classes don't get pure metal items, they'll be at a huge disadvantage.
Again, go check all the awesome magic options rangers and paladins get in splats.

Any low-level character or NPC class: No. You can get hugely powerful items for 2gp with pure metal, while the cheapest magic weapon costs a thousand times that.
Maybe now someone will care about NPCs other than the Adept then.

Monk: It's not really possible to play a monk with this rule in the game. Several other classes and PrCs, such as Duskblade, also become unplayable.
You're almost making it sound like monks were playable before. You ever noticed they're tecnically not proficient with their own unarmed strikes?

Spellcasters: Yes. Full spellcasters must keep using magic items. In the case of cleric, this is a good balancing factor. Bards who want to be jacks of all trades, rather than focus on spellcasting, get hit pretty hard though.
Snowflake wardance, ho!

Does all of this make the game unplayable as a whole? No. It just makes it into a different game. If you don't care that some classes disappear, and magic items are effectively not allowed for pure melee classes, then this pure metal vs magic item balance issue doesn't destroy the game in and of itself. Price vs power is still an issue though.

I like the implications of this system. I like thinking about a world where spellcasters are afraid of every shadow, and fighters and barbarians rule. But I still think the balance needs work. 2gp mundane items that are equivalent in power to 10,000-100,000gp magic items, and 3500gp items comperable to epic magic items, just takes away the choice from melee characters. If you choose magic over mundane, you simply lose. If you're a spellcaster going up against enemies with pure metal equipment, you also lose, unless you have your own pure-metal-wielding bodyguards.
Look, if you want to convince me, you better start showing me some solid number comparisations instead of random values.

What can a warrior with just pure metal items do against a forcecage? Or a Gate spell? Or if the spellcaster is just floating in the air, invisible while messing up the weather to make it impossible for you to shoot or move by yourself while raining down destruction on you?

Have you ever seen a self-buffed druid/cleric's combat numbers?

What does the spellcaster care that he can't cast defensively when he still can just 5-feet step out of your reach or has a million ways of geting concealment or cover to stop your aoos (if not all of your attacks) dead cold.

Don't argue like spellcasters are just walking around unbuffed and just throwing unpimped magic missiles and fireballs.

Time to add something requiring you to make the stuff, rather than buying it, I wonder?
That's also against the base idea. I want pure metal to be lootable/rewardable "Oh, yes, this fancy armor I got from king Julius, and this sword from Kroc the unstopable".
« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 06:34:51 AM by oslecamo »

Offline Concerned Ninja Citizen

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #68 on: April 08, 2013, 07:24:03 AM »
The real question you have to ask, if you want both pure metal and magic items in your game, is, would a character of class X ever choose magic items? The answer?

Fighter, barbarian, rogue, warblade, swordsage, or any other class without spellcasting: No. Pure metal is vastly more powerful for the cost, so it's stupid to choose magic items.

Even if the bolded portion is completely accurate, magic items are still far more versatile than pure metal items, and I was under the impression that versatility often beats power in char op (otherwise why are bards tier 3 when non adept uberchargers are tier 4?)

How many of these "necessary" answers can pure metal provide? How many can it provide for a given character at a given time?

You lump rogue in with the combat classes as a class that would never take magic items over pure metal. But can a pure metal item make a rogue better at sneaking? How about finding traps? Carrying large amounts of loot? Granting flanked/denied dex for sneak attack?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #69 on: April 08, 2013, 08:12:42 AM »
That too, magic items do offer a lot more versatility, thanks for reminding me.

Rogues in particular don't want pure metal because they have Use Magic Device, so they can use cheap scrolls and wands to great effect.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #70 on: April 08, 2013, 08:36:10 AM »
I get the feeling I would hate to see this come up as loot. @_@

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #71 on: April 08, 2013, 08:39:20 AM »
Hmmm, why exactly? Finding cool stuff in chests/enemy remains has always been a staple of D&D.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #72 on: April 08, 2013, 09:14:35 AM »
Partly the deal with missing out on a load of abilities without a matching shield and armour, partly the fact that you'll start tripping over artefacts constantly at higher levels due to the artifactwork stuff. It makes it seem too common, I guess.

Also, what's the actual value of the items? As it is, it's the sum of the base value + material costs + 300 (Masterwork) + 3,500 (Relicwork) + 35,000 (Artifactwork) + 350,000 (Phantasmwork). We also seem to be making it at the same level it costs...

Might be getting confused on something, though--when you pay to make a masterwork item, does the base cost increase by 100 (1/3 the increase in value) or 300?

Offline Concerned Ninja Citizen

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #73 on: April 08, 2013, 09:44:27 AM »
Flavor wise, would Pure Metal items fit in the Nintendo Worlds Elibe campaign?

Also, how much do these items cost to buy vs craft?

The OP is a little vague. As far as I can tell it's standard price for the item (+ standard price for the material? Could this be included in the material descriptions?) for basic.

The OP doesn't mention a price for masterwork, so it's the basic cost + the standard 300 for a weapon or 150 for armor/ shield? Is that added to the production cost or the market price or is it the same for both (the SRD isn't clear on this point)?

Then relicwork costs 3,500 on top of that to craft. So it costs 7,000 to buy? Same question for artifact/phantasmwork.

Offline zioth

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #74 on: April 08, 2013, 09:51:16 AM »
By the same logic, spellcasting classes are vastly more powerful for the cost than full Bab classes, so it's stupid to choose full bab classes. :p
I get your point, but the fact that the game has imbalances is not an excuse to add an additional imbalance.

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Again, go check all the awesome magic options rangers and paladins get in splats.
You've mentioned those. I don't think they're as powerful as pure metal. Let's put it this way: If you were forced to play a ranger from level 1-20 in your system, would you even consider picking magic items over pure metal? This isn't a leading question -- it's just something you should think through. At the very least, it will help you balance the items for your own system.


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Any low-level character or NPC class: No. You can get hugely powerful items for 2gp with pure metal, while the cheapest magic weapon costs a thousand times that.
Maybe now someone will care about NPCs other than the Adept then.
You missed part of this, which admittedly was only implied: Even a level 1 wizard is probably better off wielding a pure metal crossbow. Even adding a +500 or +1000gp cost to these items would fix that problem, without getting rid of the balance you're looking for.


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You're almost making it sound like monks were playable before. You ever noticed they're tecnically not proficient with their own unarmed strikes?
This is getting off topic, but I've always thought that's a silly argument against monks. Not listing unarmed strike among the monk's proficiencies was an obvious mistake. It could even have been omitted deliberately, so as not to insult the intelligence of the reader. Who would ever read the Monk description and think they weren't proficient with unarmed strike? The answer is, only someone specifically setting out to degrade the monk.

In fact, monks actually are playable, though they have many flaws. In a lower-power campaign, they can be quite fun, especially at lower levels. In a high-power campaign, they have to be multiclass to be competitive, but 1, 2 or 3 levels are still worthwhile (3 to qualify for Psionic Fist). I played a monk-like character (2 levels of monk, focused on unarmed strike) for 25 levels or so without feeling like I was the weakest member of the party. But back on topic...


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Look, if you want to convince me, you better start showing me some solid number comparisations instead of random values.

Ok. Pure Iron Dagger. Cost=2gp.

Powers:
* One size category higher. This is similar to Improved Natural Attack. Some feats are priced at 25,000gp, so let's start with that.
* Don't miss on a 1. Hard to price. It's effectively +5% damage if you hit often, or less if you don't.
* Add BaB to damage: Anything from +4 to +20 damage. Again, not sure how to price this. 20 damage is almost the equivalent of 6d6 though, which, on a magic weapon, would cost at least 72,000gp.
* Critical threat increased by 1-5. Unknown price.
* Ignores miss chances on a 20. Unknown price.
* Can crit elementals. Unknown price.

If you say each unknown factor is worth 5000gp (which seems low for some of them), you're getting at item worth roughly 117,000gp for 2gp.


Pure Iron Chain Shirt plus heavy steel shield. Cost=120gp.

Powers:
* Hardness 3 (effectively DR 3/-): You can get this from adamantine armor, so let's price it at 9000gp or so.
* +3 touch AC: Worth about 9000gp
* Add half BaB to AC twice, plus 2: At level 20, this is +22 AC. which would be priced as an epic item at 4.84 million gp. However, this is a non-standard bonus type, which would probably double that cost to 9.68 million.


And these are some of the cheapest items with the weakest powers that pure metal offers.


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What can a warrior with just pure metal items do against a forcecage?
Disable the caster beforehand, which is quite easy with pure metal.


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Or a Gate spell?
Use his superior equipment to fight whatever monster comes through, or better yet, kill the caster easily first so he can't cast a second gate spell.


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Or if the spellcaster is just floating in the air, invisible while messing up the weather to make it impossible for you to shoot or move by yourself while raining down destruction on you?
How did I get into this situation? I should have disabled the caster before he cast all these spells.


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Have you ever seen a self-buffed druid/cleric's combat numbers?

You don't have to convince me that spellcasters are overpowered. This is why, in the midst of all my criticism, I keep complementing you on the overall feel and structure of your system. It does a great job of balancing mundanes and casters. It just has a few balance issues of its own.


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Don't argue like spellcasters are just walking around unbuffed and just throwing unpimped magic missiles and fireballs.

I did play with someone like that once. Even worse, he would often cast no spells at all, and use his single level of Eldrich Knight as an excuse to break out his non-magical sword.



I just realized one more thing, which might have been a mistake on your part: You say you can change the radius of the AMF at will, with Artifactwork Cold Iron armor. This means you could change the radius to 0', and be permanently immune to all magic.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #75 on: April 08, 2013, 09:58:29 AM »
If you're going to argue that a 2GP dagger is underpriced, can you at least stick with BAB 1 or BAB 0, rather than assuming it would be in the hands of someone 20th level? :huh

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This is getting off topic, but I've always thought that's a silly argument against monks. Not listing unarmed strike among the monk's proficiencies was an obvious mistake. It could even have been omitted deliberately, so as not to insult the intelligence of the reader. Who would ever read the Monk description and think they weren't proficient with unarmed strike? The answer is, only someone specifically setting out to degrade the monk.

In fact, monks actually are playable, though they have many flaws. In a lower-power campaign, they can be quite fun, especially at lower levels. In a high-power campaign, they have to be multiclass to be competitive, but 1, 2 or 3 levels are still worthwhile (3 to qualify for Psionic Fist). I played a monk-like character (2 levels of monk, focused on unarmed strike) for 25 levels or so without feeling like I was the weakest member of the party. But back on topic...

I'm not sure it speaks well for the monk if it's only worth two or three levels to get the punching abilities.

Offline Concerned Ninja Citizen

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #76 on: April 08, 2013, 10:35:20 AM »
I'm leaving most of this for Oslecamo because you're responding mainly to him. A few things, though.

By the same logic, spellcasting classes are vastly more powerful for the cost than full Bab classes, so it's stupid to choose full bab classes. :p
I get your point, but the fact that the game has imbalances is not an excuse to add an additional imbalance.

If one side of the scale is too heavy, you add some weight to the other side. That's how balance works.

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Again, go check all the awesome magic options rangers and paladins get in splats.
You've mentioned those. I don't think they're as powerful as pure metal. Let's put it this way: If you were forced to play a ranger from level 1-20 in your system, would you even consider picking magic items over pure metal? This isn't a leading question -- it's just something you should think through. At the very least, it will help you balance the items for your own system.

For my part, it would be a genuine choice to use pure metal on a character with no innate magic at all. Magic items are so much more flexible than pure metal and losing out on things like the handy haversack, healing belt, and other staple items would be a wrench. To respond to your thought experiment in kind, have a look at threads like this, this, and this and think about how many of those items can be duplicated by pure metal.

Pretty much the only character I would definitely use pure metal on over magic items is a fighter (well and this guy but he's the reason pure metal was created) and that's only because of the pure alloy feats. In fact, it's more accurate to say that I'd only play an SRD fighter because of pure metal rather than the other way around.

As far as rangers and paladins go, you should keep in mind that, at the level of play pure metal is intended for, those classes are considered underpowered by many and are often subject to fixes which frequently include giving them a better spell progression. For instance, sirpercival's houserules give the paladin, ranger, and hexblade the casting progression of the duskblade. Choosing between magic and pure metal gear for a character using that fix, I'd go with magic every time.

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What can a warrior with just pure metal items do against a forcecage?
Disable the caster beforehand, which is quite easy with pure metal.

You've mentioned initiative before so I think this is worth pointing out. There is no pure metal item that boosts your initiative. Casters can auto win with celerity but since you're locked out of most of the good boosts, they don't need to do that. Nerveskitter + a warning weapon will put them high enough that you'll never ever win.

So "do X beforehand" is not a valid argument in this context.

There's also contingency/ craft contingent spell which absolutely assures that the caster will get the drop on you every time if they want to. And that's if the caster is on the defensive. God forbid they decide to scry and die you.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #77 on: April 08, 2013, 10:40:25 AM »
After some of the arguments here, changed the base rules a bit by making the base cost for pure metal be a flat +200 GP instead of doubling base cost. It's how special materials worked anyway (a regular adamantine dagger will cost you almost as much as an adamantine greatsword after all).

Partly the deal with missing out on a load of abilities without a matching shield and armour, partly the fact that you'll start tripping over artefacts constantly at higher levels due to the artifactwork stuff. It makes it seem too common, I guess.
Not exactly, since only high level humanoidesque NPCs will be interested on it (gets expensive awfull quickly if you're a giant or another big being, kinda useless for monsters focusing on natural weapons and spellcasting-types).

Also, what's the actual value of the items? As it is, it's the sum of the base value + material costs + 300 (Masterwork) + 3,500 (Relicwork) + 35,000 (Artifactwork) + 350,000 (Phantasmwork). We also seem to be making it at the same level it costs...
That's for the raw materials. Aka 1/3 of the total cost. Triple the final sum for actual value.

Might be getting confused on something, though--when you pay to make a masterwork item, does the base cost increase by 100 (1/3 the increase in value) or 300?
Adding Masterwork will cost an extra 100 GP on raw materials if you're crafting it.

Flavor wise, would Pure Metal items fit in the Nintendo Worlds Elibe campaign?
Sure! Actually a lot of the abilities here were inspired from Fire Emblem itself, where you want to swap between diferent "mundane" weapons depending on the situation, while needing a certain amount of skill to wield the stronger stuff.

Also, how much do these items cost to buy vs craft?

The OP is a little vague. As far as I can tell it's standard price for the item (+ standard price for the material? Could this be included in the material descriptions?) for basic.

The OP doesn't mention a price for masterwork, so it's the basic cost + the standard 300 for a weapon or 150 for armor/ shield? Is that added to the production cost or the market price or is it the same for both (the SRD isn't clear on this point)?

Then relicwork costs 3,500 on top of that to craft. So it costs 7,000 to buy? Same question for artifact/phantasmwork.

That should have been already clarified on my reply to Raineh Daze.

So for example:
Crafting pure iron relicwork fullplate-500 base+200 pure+50 MW+3500 relicwork=4550 GP.
Buying pure iron fullplate-1500 base+600 pure+150 MW+10500 relicwork=13650 GP.

Adding artifactwork adds 35 000 GP cost to craft or 105 000 if buying, and the same logic for phantasmwork.

Fancier materials like adamantine or cold iron will add to the base cost.

But again, assuming they're available to sell at all.

By the same logic, spellcasting classes are vastly more powerful for the cost than full Bab classes, so it's stupid to choose full bab classes. :p
I get your point, but the fact that the game has imbalances is not an excuse to add an additional imbalance.
That's a good argument. However I'm trying to show you pure metal isn't nearly unbalanced as you're claiming.

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Again, go check all the awesome magic options rangers and paladins get in splats.
You've mentioned those. I don't think they're as powerful as pure metal. Let's put it this way: If you were forced to play a ranger from level 1-20 in your system, would you even consider picking magic items over pure metal? This isn't a leading question -- it's just something you should think through. At the very least, it will help you balance the items for your own system.
Personally, I wouldn't give pure metal armor to the ranger and rather have his awesome buffs available, but would secure some pure metal weapons and ammo handy for when I run out of spells or they aren't apropriate for the situation.

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Any low-level character or NPC class: No. You can get hugely powerful items for 2gp with pure metal, while the cheapest magic weapon costs a thousand times that.
Maybe now someone will care about NPCs other than the Adept then.
You missed part of this, which admittedly was only implied: Even a level 1 wizard is probably better off wielding a pure metal crossbow. Even adding a +500 or +1000gp cost to these items would fix that problem, without getting rid of the balance you're looking for.
A pure iron light crossbow runs you 70 GP, and all you get is +1 crit threat (and ignoring miss chances on nat 20s, but nobody really has them at first level). The wizard is still better off throwing color sprays.
Anything pure metal more expensive will simply be too expensive for a starting character (silver would be 110 GP, pure cold iron 280, adamantine a whooping 3070 GP, pure mytral is +1000 GP per lb for a weapon).

But I'll admit that may indeed not scale very well between diferent materials and small/big weapons, so changed the rules so that instead of doubling the base cost, it's instead an extra 200 GP worth of raw materials (thus tripled for selling purposes).

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Look, if you want to convince me, you better start showing me some solid number comparisations instead of random values.

Ok. Pure Iron Dagger. Cost=2gp.

Powers:
* One size category higher. This is similar to Improved Natural Attack. Some feats are priced at 25,000gp, so let's start with that.
* Don't miss on a 1. Hard to price. It's effectively +5% damage if you hit often, or less if you don't.
* Add BaB to damage: Anything from +4 to +20 damage. Again, not sure how to price this. 20 damage is almost the equivalent of 6d6 though, which, on a magic weapon, would cost at least 72,000gp.
* Critical threat increased by 1-5. Unknown price.
* Ignores miss chances on a 20. Unknown price.
* Can crit elementals. Unknown price.

If you say each unknown factor is worth 5000gp (which seems low for some of them), you're getting at item worth roughly 117,000gp for 2gp.
Now c'mon, keen is both a feat and well known weapon property, true strike ignores miss chances, and there's at least one splat spell to crit elementals, and I bet a weapon crystal to boot.

Pure Iron Chain Shirt plus heavy steel shield. Cost=120gp.

Powers:
* Hardness 3 (effectively DR 3/-): You can get this from adamantine armor, so let's price it at 9000gp or so.
* +3 touch AC: Worth about 9000gp
* Add half BaB to AC twice, plus 2: At level 20, this is +22 AC. which would be priced as an epic item at 4.84 million gp. However, this is a non-standard bonus type, which would probably double that cost to 9.68 million.


And these are some of the cheapest items with the weakest powers that pure metal offers.
AC bonus are horribly overcosted in 3.X. Monsters regularly have nat armors with values above the 30s at high levels, while a warrior have to pay an arm and a leg to upgrade their fullplate to a measly +13.

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What can a warrior with just pure metal items do against a forcecage?
Disable the caster beforehand, which is quite easy with pure metal.
Pure metal and what detection methods again? The warrior doesn't even have spot/listen as class skills, let alone anything to beat invisibility or illusions.

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Or a Gate spell?
Use his superior equipment to fight whatever monster comes through, or better yet, kill the caster easily first so he can't cast a second gate spell.
Well that's for what time stop is, gating a bunch of stuff and then taking cover before time resumes.

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Or if the spellcaster is just floating in the air, invisible while messing up the weather to make it impossible for you to shoot or move by yourself while raining down destruction on you?
How did I get into this situation? I should have disabled the caster before he cast all these spells.
Overland flight and phantom steed are both hours/level. Control weather is 4d12 hours. Plenty of illusions have long durations as well.

Stuff like nerveskeeter and foresight give the caster the advantage iniative.

Then there's stuff like arcane eye or simple summons to scout ahead.

I just realized one more thing, which might have been a mistake on your part: You say you can change the radius of the AMF at will, with Artifactwork Cold Iron armor. This means you could change the radius to 0', and be permanently immune to all magic.
Instant conjurations go trough AMFs just fine.

Offline zioth

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #78 on: April 08, 2013, 11:25:38 AM »
Now c'mon, keen is both a feat and well known weapon property, true strike ignores miss chances, and there's at least one splat spell to crit elementals, and I bet a weapon crystal to boot.
Keen can't increase your threat range by 5, or even 2 on most weapons. This is the equivalent of up to five stacking keen properties, which would be valued at roughly 50,000gp.

You can't use True Strike as an argument for lower value. Putting continuous True Strike on an item costs 8 million gold. Okay, really it would be 2,000gp, because you're not getting the +20 from True Strike. :)

Critting elementals still has a cost, and I bet it's something like 5,000gp (which is how I priced it). I'm not worried even a little bit about this power though. I was just trying to give you the numbers you asked for. I think I effectively showed that Pure Metal weapons, in the extreme, can be had for 1/50,000 of the cost of the equivalent magic weapons (down to 1/500 with your new pricing). Pure metal armors can be had for 1/30,000 of the cost with your new pricing.

The new pricing does help some. You'll no longer have low-level wizards and commoners running around with these things.


I just realized one more thing, which might have been a mistake on your part: You say you can change the radius of the AMF at will, with Artifactwork Cold Iron armor. This means you could change the radius to 0', and be permanently immune to all magic.
Instant conjurations go trough AMFs just fine.

Okay, most magic. It's still pretty powerful to be immune to almost every targetted or AoO spell, SLA and SU in the game, with no penalty to yourself at all (since you're not using magic items). In the normal game, Antimagic Field comes with serious down-sides.


It's good to hear that at least two people around here think that they would still pick magic items over pure metal. That shows that it's not quite as unbalanced as I think, at least not in the types of games that two people play in (highly optimized games, I assume). Really, this probably just needs to be playtested. I imagine that I'm right about some of the balance problems, and wrong about others. In particular, it would be worth testing what happens when a party of PCs with magic equipment go up against a party of monsters with pure metal (and maybe one spellcaster, to balance things out).


Regarding AC, yes, AC is probably overpriced, especially on armor, but it's still an important factor. If you use standard, unmodified monsters from the Monster Manual, and your AC is 22 higher than expected, there's a good chance the monsters aren't going to be able to hit you, except on a 20. By providing such a huge AC bonus, you're forcing monsters to have better equipment or class levels, or common access to certain spells.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Pure Crafting
« Reply #79 on: April 08, 2013, 11:29:24 AM »
Looking at the above: the Tarrasque has a +57 to hit, and another five at +52. I don't think you're going to stop something like that from hitting you so easily, even if you get 67 AC it'll still hit you at least half the time.

Admittedly, that's the only brute monster I can name off the top of my head. And it's far weaker than something so renowned should be, so... eh. XD