Non spellcaster itemsmith

[Ferreon]

What ways are there to have a character who can make magical items, particularly weapons and armour, without having to become a spellcaster?

I know of at least one, possibly two, Ironsoul Forgemaster from Magic of Incarnum and (possibly) Battlesmith from Races of Stone, are there any others?

[Gerrtt]

A Warlock can and technically isn't a spellcaster, but something tells me you want something different.

Other than that you want an artificer.

[stack]

In pathfinder there is a feat, master craftsman (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-craftsman---final), that let's you use craft or profession to qualify for some crafting feats.

[Diovid]

Technically an artificer is not a spellcaster so there's that.

The feats Bonded Item from DMG II and Ancestral Relic from BoED might suit you. The feat Item Familliar falls into a similar category I guess.

There's the Kensai prc from Complete Warrior which can enchant it's own weapon.

Oh and you could look at the book Weapons of Legacy.

[Shalist]

For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities or invocations instead of spells use either their fixed caster level or their class level to determine qualification.
For example, Craft Wondrous Item has a requirement of caster level 3rd, so both a 3rd-level warlock and a nixie (caster level 4th for its charm person spell-like ability) meet the requirement.

So a whisper gnome can snag 'craft wondrous items' at level 1; some templates offer gobs of higher level SLAs, etc. Alternately, for 15,000 gold:


Forge of Thautam: A dwarf using this forge can create magic weapons and armor as if he had the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat.

And regarding other crafting prereqs like spells / specific CL:


Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions. These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item’s creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed)

For low level stuff, wands with just a few charges are pretty cheap and easy to use; later on, UMD/scrolls shouldn't be too much of a problem. I suppose hiring NPCs to meet casting requirements works too, but that probably defeats the purpose of this :P