"evil", xp and artificers

[dreadwind80]

So reviewing economics for Eberron game with dragonmarked and noticing that evil characters would end up being the people prodcuing most items.

The liquid pain spell is mort effective than the good version and has items already to extract it set up. The evil caster can scarifice to gain Dark craft xp or gold for item creation. The evil caster can use souls as source of xp, though the item is 'evil' afterwards.

I also forsee that evils caster more inclined towards prectige classes like the red wizard, in which circle magic could extract more power for crafting. In Eberron with its lack of High casters this would be attractive. Nothing stopping good characters using circle magic.

Given these factors, evil seems geared up to produce gear.

Would this lead to ethical buying? "Can you tell me the source of magical power? who would certify this? and the burning question when articiers use their class feature to take apart items for xp, do they get tainted? Does the xp become clean? Is everyone slowly being dammed by plentiful, useful magic items?

[Bronk]

Perhaps the act of turning old evil magic items into new neutral or good magic items would be considered 'good', or at least 'recycling' type of good.

[Firest Kathon]

I also forsee that evils caster more inclined towards prectige classes like the red wizard, in which circle magic could extract more power for crafting. In Eberron with its lack of High casters this would be attractive. Nothing stopping good characters using circle magic.

IIRC, the Red Wizard is a prestige class specific to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and as such not available in a pure Eberron game.

[Segev]

While this strays into "D&D is very much not the real world" territory, the Good version which allows you to extract crafting juice from pleasure means you can actually get a lot more willing donors. While it may be more efficient on paper to go the evil route, it assumes equal availability of contributors. Given that people will strive hard to avoid pain, including fighting back, running away, and generally not showing up, while people will go to such lengths to enjoy pleasures that they will go out of their way to avoid laws preventing it (and risk being caught), if you don't outlaw it and offer the pleasures for free, you could easily wind up with a situation wherein your limiting factor is number of people able to perform the magic to harvest the crafting juice. (I forget what the Good equivalent of Liquid Pain is.)

A cult of a love goddess running a "sacred brothel" could have clerics and artificers working 24/7 and never require their supplicants to donate a thing other than their enjoyment of the services. In a city of any reasonable size, they would have "worshippers" showing up all day and all night in whatever quantity they could handle, provided it was legal and the guarantee of cleanliness (easily done with regular applications of Remove Disease and Prestidigitation) was well-known. Since the moral aspect is assumed to be "okay" (given this is a Good goddess we're talking about, and this isn't the real world so real world morals can be swept aside), this could even be a positive way to keep wayward youths off the streets. Meals could even be provided, as Create Food and Water is something a handful of clerics could produce. Especially if they churn some of the crafting juice into a magic item that casts it at will.

[Phelix-Mu]

The good liquid pain spell is distill joy, which I believe is from the Book of Exalted Deeds. I think the ambrosia substance can also help here, though I forget if that is associated with good creatures or not. Also from BoED, I think. Or maybe distill joy creates ambrosia. Can't remember, but Segev's point is pretty accurate. Torturing people for power is a lot less effective than having them line up for a hit on the bong. The first requires other spell use to support, the second only requires that you convince the authorities not to worry about the distilling of the joy (and the fluff suggests that this shouldn't be too hard...at least compared to the legality of torture farms).

[Extra Anchovies]

Item of continuous Wrack + That one BoVD nipple clamp item = unlimited source of distilled joy

[Necroticplague]

Item of continuous Wrack + That one BoVD nipple clamp item = unlimited source of distilled joy

This. Liquid Pain eventually kills the dude if you keep extracting it, this set-up lets you get around that problem.

Of course, Sacrifices can also give you a lot of Dark Craft xp with a good k:religion roll, to help balance out the good vs. evil crafting.

[Extra Anchovies]

Of course, Sacrifices can also give you a lot of Dark Craft xp with a good k:religion roll, to help balance out the good vs. evil crafting.

The issue I have with dark craft XP via sacrifice is you have to request Z amount of xp before making the sacrifice. If you don't roll well enough to get Z xp, you get zero; if you roll well enough to get more than Z, you only get Z. (ETA: You can't take 10 or 20 on K(R) checks for sacrifices) Also, you can only use one sacrifice per item. It's finnicky enough that infinite distilled joy producers are usually better (put them on a cohort, or a hireling).

[dreadwind80]

The good brothel is an option - I forsee the dragon marked house of hospitality which runs inns having a very profitable sideline.

Potentail issues about making prositution legal and down right encouraged, could lead to interesting options on rooms.

As customers not likely to want to be charged the same, if the inn profits on their time or want a discount if they do.

though could be comedy gold with the right inn keeper - the morning after, when he notes how many times the magic meter triggered and by whom :)

[Necroticplague]

The issue I have with dark craft XP via sacrifice is you have to request Z amount of xp before making the sacrifice. If you don't roll well enough to get Z xp, you get zero; if you roll well enough to get more than Z, you only get Z. (ETA: You can't take 10 or 20 on K(R) checks for sacrifices) Also, you can only use one sacrifice per item. It's finnicky enough that infinite distilled joy producers are usually better (put them on a cohort, or a hireling).

Thank the Heavens its possible to get the check up pretty high so you get a good amount even if you go for the amount you get on a 1. What with Aid Other, skill boosters, that whole table of things that boost the check. And that's before you get into crap like "artificer infusion that lets you change the type of bonus provided+several wands of guidance of the avatar".

[Extra Anchovies]

Dang, I'd forgotten about GotA. Also, custom magic item of +30 circumstance to K(R)? 9,000 GP. That, plus GotA, plus, let's say, a base modifier of +12, with about +7 or so from various favorable modifiers, means you can hinge on rolling a 1 and still get 210 dark craft xp. Enough to fully cover the xp cost for an item of up to... 10,500 GP in value. Not too shabby, but not the greatest. Distilled Joy can be use willy-nilly, though so it's easier to cover very high xp costs with it.

If you can find some way to cast Distilled Joy on a target 10 times per day (magic traps and/or spellclocks would work nicely), that's enough to keep up with the craft rate (i.e. it takes 1 day/1000 GP to make an item; with 10 Distilled Joys per day, you accrue xp at the same proportional rate). Weird thing about Distilled Joy, though: it has a casting time of 1 day. There's no specifics as to when during the casting time the target must experience the joy, so presumably it's at the conclusion of the casting time. That could lead to some awkward requests:

Wizard: Hey Joe, I need some craft xp. Can I ask something of you?
Joe: Sure, what is it?
Wizard: I'm about to start casting Distilled Joy. Do you think you could orgasm exactly 24 hours from now?

[Divide by Zero]

Also, custom magic item of +30 circumstance to K(R)? 9,000 GP.

90,000 actually (bonus^2 * 100). Not nearly as cheap, but still totally worth it for some skills once it's affordable.

[Extra Anchovies]

90,000 actually (bonus^2 * 100). Not nearly as cheap, but still totally worth it for some skills once it's affordable.

That's true. Thanks for catching my math error; now that I think about it, 9000 GP seems really underpriced. Should've noticed that myself.