Breaking Down Dark Craft Exp

[Jowgen]

Looking for input on how to properly read this.

Experience points and gold pieces can be granted as rewards after a sacrifice (see the last two entries in Table 2–2, below). These so-called dark craft rewards have no actual physical manifestation, but the celebrant senses their presence like a shadow on the soul. Dark craft gold pieces and dark craft experience points can’t be used to buy goods or attain higher levels, but they can be used instead of actual gold pieces or experience points when making a magic item. Only a single application of dark craft experience points and dark craft gold pieces can be applied toward a magic item’s creation process.
The time spent creating the item does not change when the celebrant uses dark craft resources. When the celebrant completes a magic item created by the use of any dark craft resources (as little as 1 gp or 1 XP), the item is tainted with evil. Others can sense this evil, as described for an object of lasting evil (see Lingering Effects of Evil, later in this chapter). Dark craft experience points and dark craft gold pieces can be combined with the destruction of souls to make a magic item even easier to build (see Souls as Power, later in this chapter).

The point of contention is bold above, question being what "a single application" is in reference to.

Option A: Both Dark Craft GP and Dark Craft EXP can be applied, but they can respectively only be sourced from a single sacrifice.

In this scenario, a single magic item can at most benefit from 2 sacrifices, one made for Dark GP and one for Dark Exp. This requires you to keep track of all Dark Craft resources in separate batches, with minimum DCs respectively netting of 45 Exp and 100 gp. If less than the total of a batch is spent (e.g. 30 Exp for a basic 750 gp wand), then the remaining dark craft resource remains until either used for something that it covers (e.g. 15 exp for 0 level wand) or is combined with regular crafting resources (e.g. 15 exp to supplement another 30 exp expenditure).

Option B: You have to choose between applying either Dark Craft Gp or Dark Craft Exp.

Under this reading, you can not create a whole magic item using only dark craft resources (e.g. whole 0-2 nd level scrolls with just sacrifices), but you can stack up rewards from multiple sacrifices over time to cover either the whole Exp or GP cost as needed. This only requires one to keep one tally of dark craft gp and exp.


Option C: Only one character cooperating in the crafting of a magic item can elect to provide a single Dark Craft resource to the process.

This interpretation can be combined with either A or B if desired, simply adding the stipulation that only one of the cooperating crafters can provide (part) of their contribution with dark craft resources.

So thoughts anyone?

[Feantar]

I always read it as option A, because it says dark craft experience points and dark craft gold pieces and not dark craft experience points or dark craft gold pieces. It is essentially applying non-stacking rules to a resource. It also feels thematically appropriate to be able to make a (minor) magic item through sacrifices alone. Although I keep wondering what dark craft gp actually do, in game. Does the item materialise out of thin air out of sheer malice? Do you just pick up a branch and make it into a wand by infusing it with malevolence? Who knows?

[Jowgen]

I always read it as option A, because it says dark craft experience points and dark craft gold pieces and not dark craft experience points or dark craft gold pieces. It is essentially applying non-stacking rules to a resource.

I also thought so, until someone pointed out reading B and then I just realised that reading C could also be theoretically valid.

"Single application" is not a defined unit/game term and the sentence is actually being rather redundant when is says one application can be applied. "Application" is otherwise used as a term for stuff like Blister Oil (RotD), where a vial contains 1d8 applications and each application covers x amount of object surface.

Option A requires us to assume "single application" is a defined unit size of "stemming from one sacrifice", which is entirely made up considering that neither regular GP nor Exp are ever counted that way anywhere else in the game ever.

Option A also requires us to read a "respectively" into the sentence, so that GP and Exp are treated separate but still individually valid to apply to one item. Because otherwise, it wouldn't work to have two instances as a "single application".

If it were to say "single application of dark craft exp or dark craft gp", the same "respectively" could still be read into to sentence no issue, changing nothing. It would make reading it as Option B more intuitive, but has no actual bearing on how the sentence can be read.

Option B does not require one to define "single application" as a unit as an entirely novel way of counting gp/exp, or read in an extra "respectively" into the sentence so we can apply both Dark Craft GP and Exp in-spite of the "one application" stipulation. All that is required is one to accept that they made an odd choice of word in combing "single application" with that "and".

Lastly, Option C is actually more sensible in terms of RAI than I had originally thought. There is no limit to how many individuals can come together to provide part of the materials for crafting an item, so this line could simply have been meant to prevent 100 cultists of coming together and each throwing 100 Dark Craft GP onto the pile to make a 10000 gp item. It also fits thematically with the "no one else can help with the check" precedent from the sacrifice making rules.

I see your point as option A being analogous to a non-stacking, but considering that gp and exp are not things that get added to die rolls/bonuses, this would seem to be a really weird design choice.

It also feels thematically appropriate to be able to make a (minor) magic item through sacrifices alone. Although I keep wondering what dark craft gp actually do, in game. Does the item materialise out of thin air out of sheer malice? Do you just pick up a branch and make it into a wand by infusing it with malevolence? Who knows?

Well they are described as something you sense as "a shadow on the soul". We know that the devils of baator harness divine power from damned souls through torture, wherein the more power (i.e. exp/HD) a soul had in life, the more power they can wring out of it. And HD is the single biggest contributor to the sacrifice check made for dark craft rewards.

Based on that I would argue that dark craft rewards are in essence the same thing, a distillation of the exp of your victim that gets added to your soul as "bonus soul power". In the case of Dark Craft GP, you simply manage to refine it a bit more/differently as to allow you manifest it physically, to cover raw material cost instead of pure essence/power.

Personally, I think it makes sense that the different grades of refinement would mean that you can't use both dark craft gp and exp on a single project, as they tap two different reservoirs of dark power tacked onto your soul. And it makes the idea that you need to somehow break up your "bonus soul power" reservoir in units of what schmucks you ganked to fill it seem rather nonsensical. Baator doesn't do it with their power furnaces, regular living exp/gp don't do it, why in the world would dark craft exp?

Thematics, fluff and ease of use at table (e.g. keeping a single dark craft reward total vs of a ledger of every check ever) aside, I think there be balance concerns with allowing both dark craft gp and exp to be applied, at low to mid-low levels at least. All a 1st level player would need is some downtime, a desecrated temple and a supply of victims (i.e. 1 HD commoners that fail against as single save or loose), and they could then start to stock up on 0-2nd level scrolls almost indefinitely at no cost. If you're limited to either gp or exp, then you need to at the very least have some other source of resource income to keep production going.

[Jowgen]

No one else feeling like weighing in? Well, to TL;DR my opinion:

The reading that you can apply both dark craft GP and Exp, but are limited to amounts gained from a single sacrifice on each, has a slew of problems with it.

- "Single application" needs to be treated as a unit of measurement
- There is no text to suggest that this imaginary GP/Exp unit should be based on an individual sacrifice
- There is no precedent of regular GP or Exp ever being tallied in a non-continuous manner (i.e. one running total)
- The text never says dark craft GP/Exp work differently than normal exp/GP beyond being limited for use in crafting (see prior point)
- Nothing in the flavour text suggests that you need to keep track of the dark craft rewards for each sacrifice individually, which considering the book-keeping required, would be a massive oversight

Also

- You need to read a "respectively", "each" or similar word into the sentence for it to work
- Applying two types rewards to one item goes against the idea of "single application" (see prior point)
- Even if it said "dark craft experience points or dark craft gold pieces" it wouldn't change how the sentence can be read, as you could still read that "respectively" into the sentence to apply both.

Meanwhile, the reading that you must choose between dark craft GP and Exp, but are not limited in the amount, has none of those issues. "Single Application" isn't a unit of measurement you have to arbitrarily define, but simply describes that you have to pick between applying either Dark Craft GP or Exp. No need to change how GP/Exp are normally counted or keep a spreadsheet specifically to do so. All that is required is to accept that the writer made an odd choice of words when writing that sentence.

Also, more conductive to in-game balance by preventing murder-only crafting and in keeping with the described fluff.