Cheesing magic item creation

[Eaglejarl]

Wish can "create or improve" magic items, but:

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When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.
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Ok, I'll be honest: I want to Wish for a Ring of Three Wishes. This is as part of my story http://tinyurl.com/two_year_emperor, in which the hero (stuck in a strict-RAW D&D world) is desperately trying to cheese his way out of a war against a far more powerful nation. I would like to play this partly for effectiveness and partly for humor: I'll have him use this loop a few times, be all impressive, and then I'll drop an anvil on his head to make him cut it out and render it impossible in the future.

But, since it costs 5,000 XP to cast the wish and then (15,918 * 2 + 5000=) 36,836 XP to create the ring, this isn't practical at any non-epic level.

Is there a way (under *very* strict RAW) to cheese around this? Can a group of characters share the XP costs? Can they reduce the costs by wishing for a ring with only 2 rubies in it? What exactly are the rules for "improving magic items" -- could they add the 'wish' ability to a Ring of Endure Elements (or whatever) for less than the cost of creating one ex nihilo?


I've been reading up on the Thought Bottle loop, but I'm not sure it works for this. As I understand it, the sequence would go:

1) Pay 500 XP to the TB to get a checkpoint.

2) Get hit with enough Enervations, then fail your saves so that you drop multiple levels, thereby losing ~42,000 XP.

3) Use the TB to reset your XP.

4) Spend another 500 to set a new checkpoint, then, instead of leveling back to your original point, burn up all the XP on item creation.

5) Use the TB to reset back to where you were.

(This is based on the idea that the TB can only reset you once per 500 XP expenditure -- correct?)

Here's the part I'm not clear on -- you get the XP back, but that should bamf you straight to your old level, and you can't spend enough XP to go down a level, so that XP is not available for crafting. Alternatively, IIRC there is a rule that says a character cannot go up more than one level at a time and if they somehow end up with enough XP to go up multiple levels, then they are left with N-1 XP where N is the level two above. In this case, if you were trying to reset from, say, a drained level of 15 to an original level of 19, I think you would actually get stuck one point away from 17 and the remaining XP would be lost.

So, either way, I don't think TBs will work for crafting large items. (In fact, I'm not even convinced the TB loop *works*.)

Again, is there a way to cheese around this?

[AuraTwilight]

Bear in mind that wishes cast from a Ring of Three Wishes don't cost XP, so once you have the Ring, you should be set.

[Eaglejarl]

Bear in mind that wishes cast from a Ring of Three Wishes don't cost XP, so once you have the Ring, you should be set.

They don't? Oh, right, because the costs were paid at creation time! Shiny. Thanks. Now I just need to figure out how to get it in the first place. (I would prefer not to just have one lying around, but I'll do that if need be.)

If the Wishes were coming from an efreeti or noble djinni (are there other monsters that grant Wishes?) would the person making the Wish pay the XP cost, or does it come for free because the efreeti is the one "casting" it?

[AuraTwilight]

The person casting it would pay it, so the Efreeti in this case; but since the Efreeti has Wish as a Spell-like Ability, it doesn't pay the usual XP cost (only in the case of things like crafting or replicating other spells, iirc, but even then that's arguable).

Another error you see is that you're only trying to use one Thought Bottle. Tricks with the item work best if you have atleast two. Even then, though, you can work around this by paying XP incrementally on the item. Spend all spare XP, reset to the checkpoint. Make new checkpoint, spend all spare XP.

Rinse and repeat and you have your Ring.

[unseenmage]

Another method of xp gathering for Item Creation is to use the Talisman of Transference (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a) and just pay NPCs to provide you with item crafting xp at 5gp per 1xp.

There's also putting Create Water (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/createWater.htm), Water to Acid (St), Elation (BoED), and Distilled Joy (BoED) into a Spellsong Nightingale (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070115a) and using the Create Water + Water to Acid combo to pay for multiple rechargings of the Nightingale and using the leftover charges to make Ambrosia.
It's a little time consuming but it will net you infinite Crafting xp, eventually.

Additionally, buying a Spell Clock (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) with Wish: Create/Upgrade Magic Item already in it is about the cheesiest thing I've ever come up with.



My plan to defeat a superior force involves using the line from MIC about "Any character can generally find the Magic Item they're looking for with a successful Gather Information check." to buy on average 7 items per day for as long as I have before the big fight. The first of which are Spell Clocks of Greater Humanoid Essence (RoE), True Creation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/spells/trueCreation.htm): Shapesand (Sa), and Awaken Sand (Sa).

(The Greater Humanoid Essence is so I can Diplomacy the Awakened Sand creature into Fanatics using the epic Diplomacy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#diplomacy) chart and Guidance of the Avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a) + Divine Insight (CAd) + Improvisation (SC) + Aid Another checks as needed.)

Each Awakened Sand Shapesand creature can go buy more Spell Clocks; buying NPC castings of Greater Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm) or Greater Plane Shift (SC) as needed to access other cities and planar metropolises (MIC) as necessary.

I use Wondrous Architecture from Stronghold Builder's Guide to Greater Humanoid Essence a large area so I can just Diplomacy check the lot of them every hour as they're created and the one's whose Fanatic condition might be wearing off. (Whether Constructs shrug off the Fanatic disposition after becoming Constructs again when Greater Humanoid Essence wears off is up for debate.)

As Spell Clocks autocast once per hour this quickly snowballs out of control and DMs are well within their rights to hurl books at your head for farming their cosmos for OP Spell Clocks. (The planar metropolis of Union in the Epic Level Handbook is a city of interplanar trade and is called out as being the place to go for magic item farming shenanigans. Sigil or the City of Brass work too.)



For even more thrown books add in the War Spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=306567) spell template from Dragon Magazine 309 page 44. This will net you 25 per CL Awakened Shapesand per casting instead of one per. And with each one going out and restarting your process you wind up with a very very huge army of amorphous reshapable sand Constructs very very quickly.



One last bit of cheese, Constructs can be interpreted as being Magic Items. It's implied for all Constructs but it's explicitly stated for Golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/golem.htm) in a couple of places. Which means you can add your Magic Item effects to the Golem that you just Wished for via Spell Clock via another Spell Clock set to Wish: Improve Magic Item.
This is likely to get entire bookshelves hurled at your skull so be wary.