[RPG] New Player joining with Craft Magic Arms and Armor

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I'm GMing a Pathfinder game that's been going on for awhile now and wanted some advice.

We have a new player that's joining a game in progress. The rest of the party is level 8. He's coming in at that level too, and has the standard money you'd expect at that level to spend on gear. He's taken the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat and is intending to "craft" all his gear at half price using the feat.

I have issues with this since the rest of the party didn't have the opportunity to use that feat until recently. They spent their early money, at full price. It feels like he's ignoring the fact that he would have had to have spent time without that feat and bypassing the in game time it would have taken him to actually craft the items by jumping ahead.

How would you advise handling the situation?

At some point he would have had the feat and could have crafted half price items. But some of the budget would have been full price.

Best Answer

The general guidelines make no mention of the Item Creation Feats, but I'll quote it for completeness:

Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins.

My groups have had success with using the first portion of that "no more than half their total wealth on a single item" and expanding that (as a homerule) to be "no more than half of their wealth can be spent on crafted items". We also rule that the value (not crafted cost) of your most expensive item cannot be greater than half your wealth.

By doing this, you end up with a character that is rewarded for having a party-oriented Feat, but is only slightly more "wealthy" than the rest of the party. The way that magical item value increases with level will ensure the medium gap is quickly closed as the party makes use of their new best friend and finds things of greater value than any of them had before.

Additionally, I would average the "wealth" of existing members (who are able to calculate it) for the new player rather than going off the Wealth By Level table, if possible. This will keep them closer to the rest of the party in case your actual value numbers are significantly above or below average.

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