Consolidating Craft [X] Feats?

[PrinceOfMadness]

We'll be starting a 3.5 game soonish (hopefully) and it's our first time out for 3.5. I'll be playing a wizard (5th level, if it matters) and will likely end up as the party crafter. I don't have a problem with this, but looking at the number of feats required for a serious crafter....well, it's frankly insanely feat-intensive. So I was wondering what the Playground thought about consolidating all item creation feats (with the possible exceptions of scribe scroll and brew potion) into one catch all Craft [X] feat. Would this be too horribly imbalanced? I figure you still have to pay the relevant costs in gold, time, and exp, so it shouldn't throw off game balance too much.

[hymer]

It's a considerable buff to non-artificer crafting. These crafters tend to be tier1s already (that is 'potentially highly powerful and versatile'), with the warlock as a notable exception. I wouldn't do it as DM.
But you should be speaking to your own DM about this.

[ArcturusV]

I dunno. Maybe. Depends.

Having a wizard be able to take Craft Magic Item, and be able to cover everything but Potions and Scrolls would take a lot of bite out of things like the Kensai PrC, Ancestral Relic, the Samurai "Ancestral Daisho" ability, etc, as their chief draw is to sink class levels/feats into being able to "enchant" items without needing a mage.

Plus side, Divine characters like Druids and Clerics would LOVE that, one feat to rule them all in an otherwise really feat intensive class.

I dunno. Honestly I've never really seen Wizards as being all that Feat Constrained. You already get the free feats at 5, 10, 15, 20. And a bunch of ACFs that amount to free feats (Or better) at Level 1 (Including Specialist Wizard). And it's not like I ever really felt as a Wizard that I NEEDED feats to be running on all cylinders. Only time I really sweat Feats is PrC Requirements. But even then I don't really need the PrCs as Wizard 20 tends to be insanely powerful on its own.

So the short of it? Yes, breaking up Craft is effectively a "Feat Tax". So if you hate the idea of Feat Taxes in game, it wouldn't really hurt. But the "Feat Tax" isn't painful for wizards.

Beware what this consolidation might do for Clerics, Druids, and other Divine Casters who typically are more Feat Starved and will get A LOT more mileage out of it than Wizards.

[Chronos]

You could get access to the significant majority of items with just Craft Wondrous, and a big chunk of what's left with Arms and Armor. Anything after that, your party can just get the old-fashioned way, by prying it off the charred and mutilated corpses of your enemies (or buying it, whatever). There's nothing that says that all of your gear has to be crafted.

Alternately, you can take a couple of levels of the Chameleon prestige class, and use your changeable bonus feat on whichever Craft feat you need for the item you're working on. Though this will cost you two levels of spellcasting. And Chameleon is probably not the best idea for someone just starting on D&D, as they can be somewhat complicated.