One of the more interesting additions to the 3E rule set is that magic items now have a cost in xps as well as material costs. I understand that this is reflective of the "personal energies" that an artificer puts into the items he creates. What seems funny is this: back in the day (yes, I am an old gamer) we used to reward the successful creation of a magic item with some kind of xp award. After all, the "x" stands for "experience." It seems like this new cost precludes any chance of rewarding a PC for what is one of the neatest things a charecter can do. It's one thing to blast some critter with a wand you found in somethings lair, but it is much cooler to blast it with a wand that you made from scratch.
Any thoughts on this?
R.Carter
X.P. Cost In Item Creation
I think WotC intended for item creation to become far more widespread in 3E than in previous editions. Indeed progress through the levels is so much quicker now that it doesn't seem like a big loss to give up xp for items. More heart-breaking is to lose xp when casting certain high-level spells; the higher-level psionic powers that cost xp are even more numerous.
In my campaign I allow "mules" to be used by the players. i.e. They can have a character for regular play with all the bells and whistles of wisely allocated skills & feats; or they can use, for any given outing, their mule character whose purpose it is to gain xp which he will later use to create items for the main character. In some cases the mule may actually turn out to be a more important character than the player's original power pc, but that's up to the DM ultimately.
In my campaign I allow "mules" to be used by the players. i.e. They can have a character for regular play with all the bells and whistles of wisely allocated skills & feats; or they can use, for any given outing, their mule character whose purpose it is to gain xp which he will later use to create items for the main character. In some cases the mule may actually turn out to be a more important character than the player's original power pc, but that's up to the DM ultimately.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.
Do you find that your "mules" get abused? It seems like that could be a consideration.
What our group is trying out is this: instead of using xps as a measure of "self," we are trying out a temporary stat drain. The descriptions for Wisdom and Charisma are more like what "self" is supposed to be. We equate xps with on-the-job-training received.
What do you think?
R.Carter
What our group is trying out is this: instead of using xps as a measure of "self," we are trying out a temporary stat drain. The descriptions for Wisdom and Charisma are more like what "self" is supposed to be. We equate xps with on-the-job-training received.
What do you think?
R.Carter
That's pretty cool. I don't use temporary stat changes nearly enough, pretty much only when a character/creature suffers stat damage such as from poison.
Re: mules (a term first used in Ultima Online I believe): I don't let them abuse the gameplay at all since I'm the God of the game. But for those who want more concrete legislation, it's quite feasible for a player character to have followers whose purpose it is to create items.
Re: mules (a term first used in Ultima Online I believe): I don't let them abuse the gameplay at all since I'm the God of the game. But for those who want more concrete legislation, it's quite feasible for a player character to have followers whose purpose it is to create items.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.
Well not quite. We all take turns managing our own campaigns but we all contribute to the creative progression of our world. Working out of an urban centre, we're quite liberal with which characters we choose to use for any given gaming session. It's the player's choice. What has happened naturally over the months has been that we all have characters who create items, but those characters don't necessarily interact with all the other characters. If the player seeks to have his item creator meet with his super dungeoner, it is the player's onus to work around the strict story management of the DM for whatever campaign is being played at the time. I know it sounds odd, but what we've done of a sorts is we've made the very story of our world & mythos into an experience far more malleable by players than the average game. It's a true challenge for the DM having to keep track of the many personae of any given player since the player is expected to be strategic with his characters' actions with regards to getting them to help each other grow more powerful.
e.g. I've got wizard who is only now starting to create items and I'd like to get him somewhere near my ranger/paladin on the outskirts of town. But I haven't really revealed this to the DM of that campaign because surely he'll do everything in his power to maintain the randomness and reality of the fact that my wizard does not know my ranger/paladin.
As for followers, I'm all for it, and when I got that idea yesterday from this discussion I immediately began planning to give certain characters of mine Leadership. I dunno why we hadn't come up with that idea yet. I expect it'll be quite the coup.
e.g. I've got wizard who is only now starting to create items and I'd like to get him somewhere near my ranger/paladin on the outskirts of town. But I haven't really revealed this to the DM of that campaign because surely he'll do everything in his power to maintain the randomness and reality of the fact that my wizard does not know my ranger/paladin.
As for followers, I'm all for it, and when I got that idea yesterday from this discussion I immediately began planning to give certain characters of mine Leadership. I dunno why we hadn't come up with that idea yet. I expect it'll be quite the coup.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.
It sounds like your group is doing something similair to what my group has done in the past. This past campaign that I ran was developed by a sort of group effort. We would periodically meet, and develop geographies and histories for parts of the world. As DM, it was my job to flesh out the details (NPC stats, quirks, actual politics, etc.) but the bulk of the work was done by the entire group. It made the world seem much more alive to all of the players. It had the added bonus of not having to devote a large amount of time or effort to explaining background details to them. It was a given that their charecters knew what the players knew about that kind of stuff.
How long has your group been doing this "cross-campaign" thing that you have described? It sounds very neat. We have experimented with it, but nothing more than on a cameo level. I'd be interested in hearing about how you all manage it.
R.Carter
How long has your group been doing this "cross-campaign" thing that you have described? It sounds very neat. We have experimented with it, but nothing more than on a cameo level. I'd be interested in hearing about how you all manage it.
R.Carter
Well we're pretty elitist and biased with regards to who within our group can contribute so heavily to the story (i.e. have both DM & PC rights). Otherwise some of our rather less-experienced players might wreak havoc upon our sensible setting. Those people who do take turns being DM keep a log of what characters participated in whatever session the DM just ran. So there's strict adherence to chronology, geographic location, and common sense (alignment issues, class features, etc.).
Sometimes one of us may prepare a very detailed session for the evening, coinciding with an on-going plot, whilst other times we plan short little adventures which we call "Frazetta's" after the famous fantasy artist. These short dungeons or wilderness outings are meant to exhibit a certain theme (such as a fight with a T-Rex, or elves battling orcs) in Frazetta's high fantasy/ dark sorcery style. Thus our characters consist of those who participate in the larger plot, and those who are mercenary types or transients. We even run a few monster-pc's for these minor sessions. It's with these minor characters that we can strategize so as to improve the movers & shakers of our world.
Sometimes one of us may prepare a very detailed session for the evening, coinciding with an on-going plot, whilst other times we plan short little adventures which we call "Frazetta's" after the famous fantasy artist. These short dungeons or wilderness outings are meant to exhibit a certain theme (such as a fight with a T-Rex, or elves battling orcs) in Frazetta's high fantasy/ dark sorcery style. Thus our characters consist of those who participate in the larger plot, and those who are mercenary types or transients. We even run a few monster-pc's for these minor sessions. It's with these minor characters that we can strategize so as to improve the movers & shakers of our world.
I see the right, and I approve it too; condemn the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.