"With our powers combined..." (merging magic items)

[ffone]

So I understand the pricing rules for multiple ability items (most expensive ability plus 1.5 x the others, with MiC 'updating' the rule to 'exempt' some of the more common vanilla things like ability score enhancement, deflection and natural armor, and resistance to saves, to 'just adding').

Given two pre-existing items, though - say, an amulet of Constitution (periapt of health) that a PC had, and an amulet of natural armor they found - is there an in-game way to 'combine' them into a single item by magic item crafting? Like paying a crafting cost of half the lesser ability (to 1.5x it, or not in this example with the MiC rule) plus maybe some other 'merging' cost, to combine them into one item that uses the amulet chakra?

Note that this is not so much a question about how to *price* an item with both abilities or when using item crafting to add one ability to an item with the other - it's about whether it's possible to combine two preexisting items with the same chakra, and if so, if there are any special costs or prereqs for that.

[Tyndmyr]

Find an artificer. You're set.

[Douglas]

As far as I know, there is no RAW way to do this. An Artificer could sort-of do it, but it wouldn't be "combining" so much as "demolishing one, then upgrading the other." An Artificer can permanently drain the magic from a magic item to add the item's crafting XP cost to his crafting pool. He could then use the points gained from that to help pay for upgrading another item, but he'd have to pay extra for the markup unless the addition is exempt due to MIC rules, and he'd have to pay the gp cost of the upgrade in its entirety. Only the XP, not the gold, gets recovered from the drained magic item.

[ffone]

That's interesting, thanks for sharing.

Thing is, though....unless you care much much more about XP than GP....wouldn't you be better off jut selling the item?

Crafting XP is 1/25th of item market price in GP. For items with 'extra' XP involved, such as being based on a spell with an XP cost, or hiring an NPC caster to cast a spell for you, the default conversion is 1 XP = 5 GP (possibly with other multipliers for how much the item's charges or charges per day, etc.). For example, people who houserule GP-only crafting usually apply the 1:5 to get that crafting cost = 70% of market price, since the 1/25th crafting XP becomes 1/5th, added to the half.

So, let's say you hire an NPC adept to do this item-meltdown-for-XP thing. The XP will probably be worth, as a GP discount the crafter gives you on the new item, 20% of the items's market price. That's worse than you'd get for just selling the thing at 50%.

This also means that PC Artificers will be better off selling the items, and using that money to buy other items they would otherwise have crafted themselves.

I'm not saying there's no situation where this couldn't be useful (PC Artificer who cares much more about their own XP, and doesn't have access to Magic Items R Us in Waterdeep), and I certainly appreciate being availed of it. But my current situation is, no artificer or 'regular' item crafter in the party, trying to figure out if it's possible for an NPC to do this and if so what they'd charge the PCs.

Or am I misunderstanding - does an artifier drain items at a better ate, i.e. does each XP from the drained item give her effectively many XP towards a new item (or whatever it works out to in 'craft points').

[dsmiles]

I'd allow for an Artificer, an Arcane Mechanick, or possibly Bodger to be capable of it, but it would take some research on my part to get the mechanics of it straight. Probably have to *GASP!* homebrew it. :smalltongue:

[Douglas]

So, let's say you hire an NPC adept to do this item-meltdown-for-XP thing. The XP will probably be worth, as a GP discount the crafter gives you on the new item, 20% of the items's market price. That's worse than you'd get for just selling the thing at 50%.
That's why this is pretty much a non-factor for buying and selling magic items. That class feature was designed with Artificers crafting for themselves and for their buddies in mind.


This also means that PC Artificers will be better off selling the items, and using that money to buy other items they would otherwise have crafted themselves.
For the PC Artificer, he'll be doing the crafting himself so he gets that same 25-to-1 conversion rate for the crafting as he does for the extraction. It works out to a break even for crafting vs sell-and-buy. Say you have an item that costs X and you want to replace it with a different item also costing X. Sell-and-buy, you sell for X/2, add X/2 of your own money, and buy the new item. Net cost to you: X/2. Meltdown-and-craft, you extract X/25 xp, then craft for X/25 xp and X/2 gp. The xp cancels out, net cost to you is X/2 gold. Either way, you spend X/2 gp to swap the items.

Now if your PC Artificer has one or more of the feats that reduce crafting costs, then meltdown-and-craft starts looking like a good idea. It also handily deals with any issues regarding access to MagicMart.


I'm not saying there's no situation where this couldn't be useful (PC Artificer who cares much more about their own XP, and doesn't have access to Magic Items R Us in Waterdeep), and I certainly appreciate being availed of it. But my current situation is, no artificer or 'regular' item crafter in the party, trying to figure out if it's possible for an NPC to do this and if so what they'd charge the PCs.
To really combine the items rather than selling one to fund upgrading the other, you'd have to homebrew it. I'd say treat it as crafting an item with a market price equal to any markup that would be incurred for the combination plus some fraction of the cheaper item's price. The fraction of the lesser item's price charged should be less than 1/2 or it won't be better than just selling the item and buying an upgrade separately; how much less is a matter of taste.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Refluffing would also work. Just say that the items were fused together rather than one being torn apart for parts and use the same mechanics.

[AerykVyrion]

I was an Artificer in my campaign, and did this a couple times. The DM ruled that I could do it by paying 50% of the making cost of the less espensive item, but it would only take 1 day (8 hours), and no XP. That way the final item would have an effective market price equal to what the same item made from scratch would be, but be cheaper (and quicker) to make than merely adding the other's ability onto one.

To show:

Amulet of Natural Armor +1 = 2000gp market price
Amulet of Health +2 = 4000gp market price
Take an AoH and add +1 NA to it: pay 1000 (for +1 NA) + 500 (for 50% of lower priced ability, and additional 50% for making price) = 1500gp, 2 days, 60XP.
4000 + 1500x2 = 7000gp market price

Combine both: pay 500gp (for 50% of lower priced item, and additional 50% for making price) = 500gp, 1 day
4000 + 2000 + 500x2 = 7000gp market price :)