Ask a Simple Question; Get a Simple Answer. Version 5.0

[Runestar]

Q 216 - How does the bestow power trick work ? I get the whole reduce cost part. But to me it looks like you need to manifest it on another being ?

A216) Actually, despite the somewhat awkward wording (the part about linking minds), the power's target entry suggests that you can manifest this power on yourself. So you spend 1PP to regain 2PP. 

[TunFiskeMad]

thanks alot - I thought that it was weird too. Is there any any officiel statement on this or is it more or less up to people ?

[PhaedrusXY]

Q 217 - Do Psi Crystals get feats and stat increases from the HD's it gains ?

A217 Ask your DM. Per the RAW, they should. It was not RAI, though, as WotC has clarified.

[winter_soldier]

Q 218: Whether or not Spell Resistance applies doesn't matter when Counterspelling, right? For example, you should be able to counter one Dispel Magic with another, right?

[snakeman830]

A 218: Correct.  SR means nothing when counterspelling.

[Takanaki]

Q219 - What are some good feats that reduce the cost of buying items / Increase overall wealth or capability to produce wealth and good feats for increasing profits by selling higher or whatever else there might be.

Currently looking on the big giant feat list, but there isn't a search for 'merchant' option so : / halp!

[McPoyo]

Q219 - What are some good feats that reduce the cost of buying items / Increase overall wealth or capability to produce wealth and good feats for increasing profits by selling higher or whatever else there might be.

Currently looking on the big giant feat list, but there isn't a search for 'merchant' option so : / halp!

Arcane Thesis: Flesh to Salt + chainspell...

 

[The_Mad_Linguist]

merchantile background?

[Viletta Vadim]

Q219 - What are some good feats that reduce the cost of buying items / Increase overall wealth or capability to produce wealth and good feats for increasing profits by selling higher or whatever else there might be.

Mercantile Background is in one of the FR books (PGtF, I think).  It lets you sell at 75% market rather than 50%, and once a month it lets you but at 75%.

When used for item creation, Craft (Poisonmaking) advances in gp rather than sp, meaning it can create ten times the value of items in the same time frame, and if you have a reliable source of ingredients, it only costs 1/6 market to get the ingredients rather than 1/3.

Going cross-setting, Dedicated Wrights are a kind of homunculus from Eberron that can craft for you.  Make some, give them masterwork poisonmaking tools, and set them to work making whatever poison you can manage to secure both an ingredient source and a buyer for.  They should pay for themselves within a year, after which it's pure profit.  If you're feeling cheezy, use planar travel to speed up that first year.

If you have Mercantile Background, and lower your production costs enough, you can reliably turn a profit.  If you're an Artificer with Extraordinary Artisan and Legendary Artisan (-25% gp and XP costs for all crafting), you can stack Magical Artisan from FR (-25% XP and GP costs for a single item creation feat, we'll say Craft Wondrous Item) and Apprentice: Craftsman (DMG2, -10% GP costs for all crafting), then when you make something, it costs you 25.3125% market in GP and 2.25% market in XP.

So, if you were to make, say, gauntlets of Ogre's Strength (4000g), it'd run you 1012.5 gold and 90XP.  You can buy magic items and then salvage them with Retain Essence to get the XP you need, using your monthly discount and running you 1687.5g, for a total of... 2700g.  And you sell it for 3000g.

Gee, that's not much of a profit.  7.5% of market value, once a month... I thought it would be better, though I suppose if you made something considerably bigger, you'd turn a much larger profit.  7.5%, still, of course, but 7.5% of a much greater base.

[Agita]

Q219 - What are some good feats that reduce the cost of buying items / Increase overall wealth or capability to produce wealth and good feats for increasing profits by selling higher or whatever else there might be.

Mercantile Background is in one of the FR books (PGtF, I think).  It lets you sell at 75% market rather than 50%, and once a month it lets you but at 75%.

When used for item creation, Craft (Poisonmaking) advances in gp rather than sp, meaning it can create ten times the value of items in the same time frame, and if you have a reliable source of ingredients, it only costs 1/6 market to get the ingredients rather than 1/3.

Going cross-setting, Dedicated Wrights are a kind of homunculus from Eberron that can craft for you.  Make some, give them masterwork poisonmaking tools, and set them to work making whatever poison you can manage to secure both an ingredient source and a buyer for.  They should pay for themselves within a year, after which it's pure profit.  If you're feeling cheezy, use planar travel to speed up that first year.

If you have Mercantile Background, and lower your production costs enough, you can reliably turn a profit.  If you're an Artificer with Extraordinary Artisan and Legendary Artisan (-25% gp and XP costs for all crafting), you can stack Magical Artisan from FR (-25% XP and GP costs for a single item creation feat, we'll say Craft Wondrous Item) and Apprentice: Craftsman (DMG2, -10% GP costs for all crafting), then when you make something, it costs you 25.3125% market in GP and 2.25% market in XP.

So, if you were to make, say, gauntlets of Ogre's Strength (4000g), it'd run you 1012.5 gold and 90XP.  You can buy magic items and then salvage them with Retain Essence to get the XP you need, using your monthly discount and running you 1687.5g, for a total of... 2700g.  And you sell it for 3000g.

Gee, that's not much of a profit.  7.5% of market value, once a month... I thought it would be better, though I suppose if you made something considerably bigger, you'd turn a much larger profit.  7.5%, still, of course, but 7.5% of a much greater base.

Or you could do it like modern corporations and make human sacrifices to decrease costs, as per BoVD.

[Viletta Vadim]

Or you could do it like modern corporations and make human sacrifices to decrease costs, as per BoVD.

Actually, that works quite well, if you're into the splutteringly evil tact.  Toss in Guidance of the Avatar and a modifier of 30+ at level 5 isn't at all unreasonable.  So, assuming a result of, say, 35, that's 105 dark craft XP, that'll cover full XP costs for an item of up to about 4600g, including our gauntlets of ogre's strength.  So, a peasant and 1012.5 gold.  May as well sacrifice another peasant to bring that down by 175g, to 837.5g and two peasants.  2162.5 gold profit, minus procurement costs for the peasants.  Lords of Madness prices the lowest of slaves at 100g, so if you're getting your peasants that way, it's 1962.5g profit.  Not bad.  And of course, piling on more Knowledge: Religion boosts increases the caliber of the items you can make this way.  Good times, good times.

[SeekingKnight]

Q 220:

I have not read through all the pages so I hope I am not repeating a question.  Is it possible to have more then one alternate class feature of the same class?  Like say lion totem barbarian with ferocious barbarian.  I would think that is ok as they change two seperate things of the class.  Thanks.

[Agita]

Q 220:

I have not read through all the pages so I hope I am not repeating a question.  Is it possible to have more then one alternate class feature of the same class?  Like say lion totem barbarian with ferocious barbarian.  I would think that is ok as they change two seperate things of the class.  Thanks.

A 220

Having more than one ACF is perfectly acceptable, so long as they don't replace the same feature (for example, you couldn't take Lion Totem and another ACF that replaces Fast Movement).

[Nanshork]

A 200:  As long as the alternate class features effect different class features then you can take as many as you want.  You just can't take two ACFs that both replace fast movement or anything along those lines.

Edit: Ninja'd!

Edit edit: Agita, I like how we used the same basic example for what not to do.   

[SeekingKnight]

Wow...thanks guys for the fast responce.  Take care! 

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Or you could do it like modern corporations and make human sacrifices to decrease costs, as per BoVD.

Actually, that works quite well, if you're into the splutteringly evil tact.  Toss in Guidance of the Avatar and a modifier of 30+ at level 5 isn't at all unreasonable.  So, assuming a result of, say, 35, that's 105 dark craft XP, that'll cover full XP costs for an item of up to about 4600g, including our gauntlets of ogre's strength.  So, a peasant and 1012.5 gold.  May as well sacrifice another peasant to bring that down by 175g, to 837.5g and two peasants.  2162.5 gold profit, minus procurement costs for the peasants.  Lords of Madness prices the lowest of slaves at 100g, so if you're getting your peasants that way, it's 1962.5g profit.  Not bad.  And of course, piling on more Knowledge: Religion boosts increases the caliber of the items you can make this way.  Good times, good times.

Nah, be socially conscious, and get some 3/day items of "extract agony" and "cure disease".  Start up a series of clinics, offer free disease curing to the poor, and undercut all the temples in the area.   Use the diseased patients as targets for extracting liquid pain, then cure them.   Your daily income is 600 gp/machine, or whatever the xp value of liquid agony, and your only expenses are buildings.

The free health care then drives the alternative sources out of business.  That's when you start increasing prices and making profit off both ends.

[McPoyo]

Or you could do it like modern corporations and make human sacrifices to decrease costs, as per BoVD.

Actually, that works quite well, if you're into the splutteringly evil tact.  Toss in Guidance of the Avatar and a modifier of 30+ at level 5 isn't at all unreasonable.  So, assuming a result of, say, 35, that's 105 dark craft XP, that'll cover full XP costs for an item of up to about 4600g, including our gauntlets of ogre's strength.  So, a peasant and 1012.5 gold.  May as well sacrifice another peasant to bring that down by 175g, to 837.5g and two peasants.  2162.5 gold profit, minus procurement costs for the peasants.  Lords of Madness prices the lowest of slaves at 100g, so if you're getting your peasants that way, it's 1962.5g profit.  Not bad.  And of course, piling on more Knowledge: Religion boosts increases the caliber of the items you can make this way.  Good times, good times.

Nah, be socially conscious, and get some 3/day items of "extract agony" and "cure disease".  Start up a series of clinics, offer free disease curing to the poor, and undercut all the temples in the area.   Use the diseased patients as targets for extracting liquid pain, then cure them.   Your daily income is 600 gp/machine, or whatever the xp value of liquid agony, and your only expenses are buildings.

The free health care then drives the alternative sources out of business.  That's when you start increasing prices and making profit off both ends.

That's evil. Socialized Healthcare at its finest I like

[Takanaki]

Q221 - What is a 'True Dragonmark' and what do I have to do to get one?

[McPoyo]

Q221 - What is a 'True Dragonmark' and what do I have to do to get one?

Any dragonmark that isn't gained through the Aberrant Dragonmark feat. Which means it has a racial pre-req. To gain them, take any of the Least, Lesser, or Greater Dragonmark feats from the Eberron Campaign Setting book.

[TheEndIsNear]

A 216: From my "lists of stuff"...

Slippery Mind
Rogue 10
Shadowdancer 7, ecl 14
Spymaster 4, ecl 9, Complete Adventurer
Spirit Shaman 5, Complete Divine
Contemplative 2, ecl 12, Complete Divine
Spirit Shaman 5, Complete Divine, "follow the guide"
Lurk 15, Complete Psionic
Mountebank 7, ecl 12, Complete Scoundrel
Binder 9, Tome of Magic
Witch Slayer 4, ecl 9, Tome of Magic
Dragon Descendant 4, ecl 9, Dragon Magic
Ninja Spy 9, ecl 16, Oriental Adventures
Yakuza 10, ecl 17, Oriental Adventures
Zhentarim Spy 4, ecl 10(9?), FR: Player's Guide to Faerun
Night Mask Deathbringer 6, ecl 11, FR: Champions of Ruin
Eldeen Ranger (Gatekeeper) 5, ECL 10, Eberron campaign Setting
Silver Key 8, ecl 11, Eberron: Dragonmarked
Gatekeeper Mystagogue 6, ecl 11, Player's Guide to Eberron
Deepwarden 5, ecl 10, Races of Stone, "Stubborn Mind"

Special Mention
Master Specialist (enchantment) 7, ecl 10, Complete Mage - see text
Armor Special Ability (45,000 gp) DMG2
Liberation, cleric domain, Complete Divine

Perfect! thank you!

EDIT: Question 222~ What is the deadly traveller build? and what's it do?