Making +5 Tomes/Manuals of X for cheap

[WebTiefling]

Cheap being a relative term.

Artificer 15.

Creating a +5 Tome/Manual normally costs 6,250 gp + 25,500 XP. However, with his Extraordinary, Legendary, and Magical Artificer feats it only costs him 3515 gp and 14343 XP.

A) Buys 3 scrolls of Wish. Costs 86475 gp. Drains them for 5153 crafting points each, 15459 total.

B) Crafts the +5 Tome/Manual. Has 1116 CP left over.

Total cost: 89990 gp.
Gains: +5 to an attribute and 1116 XP to use elsewhere.

To purchase one it typically costs 137500 gp.

40,000 gp savings and 1116 extra CP to use afterwards is pretty nifty.

Just a little quirk I noticed.

[Emperor Tippy]

Planar Bind a Hound Archon, a Coutal, and a Nightmare.
Buy 1 Tome.
Have the Coutal take the Hound Archon to the Astral Plane.
Use Astral Projection from the Nightmare.
Arrive on Astral Plane with copy of Tome. Have Hound Archon greater teleport to pick it up from you and take it back to the Coutal to Plane Shift back to your body.
End Astral Projection.
Get second Tome from Hound Archon.

Repeat.

You double your Tomes with every iteration.

That is just one of dozens of ways of getting dirt cheap (i.e. free) magic items.

[WebTiefling]

As usual, I think you win. Holy mackerel!

Though with Gate, all things are possible and many will get a book upside your head courtesy of the DM.

[Zanos]

There's a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267642) I bookmarked with an interesting trick that was posted earlier this year, and is a tad less likely to have your GM bludgeon you, as it's not free.