crafting !

[grandar]

hi all,

i've been following [and loving] oots for a number of years but never managed to make it as far as the forums.
...until now... [dun-dun-DUNNNNnnn...] :)
so, 'well met!'

anyway, i just wanted to solicit opinions on some of the crafting feats, particularly level pre-reqs. for example, why would you need to be 12th level to craft a ring, but only 3rd level to make many other kinds of miscellaneous magic items ? i personally don't see what's so special about rings and would just as soon make them both the same level.

opinions on this ?

[noob]

hi all,

i've been following [and loving] oots for a number of years but never managed to make it as far as the forums.
...until now... [dun-dun-DUNNNNnnn...] :)
so, 'well met!'

anyway, i just wanted to solicit opinions on some of the crafting feats, particularly level pre-reqs. for example, why would you need to be 12th level to craft a ring, but only 3rd level to make many other kinds of miscellaneous magic items ? i personally don't see what's so special about rings and would just as soon make them both the same level.

opinions on this ?

It depends a lot on how much permissive your gm is on custom item crafting.

[ezekielraiden]

Rings have a tendency to be pretty powerful, whereas an awful lot of wondrous items are junk or highly situational. With admitted exceptions, rings tend to be big-ticket items (ring of invisibility or protection), whereas loads of wondrous items are more "build-enabling" than "vitally necessary."

Further, the CL of an item isn't a crafting requirement (at least in PF, I dunno of that was ever specified in 3e). Most super-awesome CWI options are very expensive even if crafted, whereas most rings, while not cheap, are not fantastically expensive either.

So my guess is, they wanted low-level chars to be able to make cheap wondrous items, but didn't want to make rings crazy expensive. Making the first feat low-level, but have big scaling costs, and the second feat high-level but not scaling that fast, solves that problem relatively nicely, even before you account for 3e's near total lack of balance past level 8 or so (for optimized parties.)

[Saintheart]

Opinion/Rant:

The mishmash of separate item crafting feats is a ludicrous mess of needless granularity. Not-insignificantly, many house rules condense all the PHB item crafting feats down to three: Create an expendable magic item (Potions and Scrolls), Create a charged magic item (Rods, Staves, Wands), and Create an enduring magic item (Weapons, Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items).

Forge Ring might have been made with the belief that magic rings were going to be the most powerful magic items around, but in practice it's the spell or the enchantment that goes into the item that makes it powerful. About the only ring that is really puissant is the Ring of Three Wishes, and the cost is so astronomically high most sane players go and pick up Wish in their spell lists or go and damn well buy a casting of it. There is a grab bag of stuff you can put on a ring - Invisibility, Sustenance - but the conditions on their use are such that you can get the same bonuses out of other stuff and not lose a lot of function or efficiency in doing so.

All that the separate item crafting feats do, at best, is guarantee that if forced to it, you're going to make rods and wands. Why? Because you have to be a caster to build anything, and generally you'll be crafting and using your own stuff, and rods and wands make you a more versatile spellcaster, they free up spell slots for other stuff. Things like rings, weapons, armor, and wondrous items are one-offs for which it's not worth wasting a feat slot, particularly if you can buy it or pry it from a monster's cold dead hands. I mean, seriously, nine item creation feats, and that's just the PHB, go search up a list of D&D 3.5's total list of item crafting feats and it gets even more stupid. Anyone who even wants to specialise in crafting magical stuff is never going to be able to be the master smith who can build anything, which is really what anyone specialising in crafting magical stuff is likely aiming to do anyway. There's no synergy in the choices, not any. "Oh, I can make a magic wand, but I can't make a magic stick that's about one foot shorter, or a magic long stick that's about two feet longer. Oh, I can make the most intricately-designed magical armor, weave spells into blades, oh, I can make gorgeous little magical figurines, but my big stubby fingers just can't make a magic ring no matter how hard I try."

But then the magic item crafting system is a bit broken in 3.5 for larger reasons than "too many feats". Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork".

Above that, crafting magic items is just out of step with the rest of the game. It's a downtime activity, and downtime is already a bit wonky in 3.5 as it is.

[AOKost]

Opinion/Rant:

The mishmash of separate item crafting feats is a ludicrous mess of needless granularity. Not-insignificantly, many house rules condense all the PHB item crafting feats down to three: Create an expendable magic item (Potions and Scrolls), Create a charged magic item (Rods, Staves, Wands), and Create an enduring magic item (Weapons, Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items).

Forge Ring might have been made with the belief that magic rings were going to be the most powerful magic items around, but in practice it's the spell or the enchantment that goes into the item that makes it powerful. About the only ring that is really puissant is the Ring of Three Wishes, and the cost is so astronomically high most sane players go and pick up Wish in their spell lists or go and damn well buy a casting of it. There is a grab bag of stuff you can put on a ring - Invisibility, Sustenance - but the conditions on their use are such that you can get the same bonuses out of other stuff and not lose a lot of function or efficiency in doing so.

All that the separate item crafting feats do, at best, is guarantee that if forced to it, you're going to make rods and wands. Why? Because you have to be a caster to build anything, and generally you'll be crafting and using your own stuff, and rods and wands make you a more versatile spellcaster, they free up spell slots for other stuff. Things like rings, weapons, armor, and wondrous items are one-offs for which it's not worth wasting a feat slot, particularly if you can buy it or pry it from a monster's cold dead hands. I mean, seriously, nine item creation feats, and that's just the PHB, go search up a list of D&D 3.5's total list of item crafting feats and it gets even more stupid. Anyone who even wants to specialise in crafting magical stuff is never going to be able to be the master smith who can build anything, which is really what anyone specialising in crafting magical stuff is likely aiming to do anyway. There's no synergy in the choices, not any. "Oh, I can make a magic wand, but I can't make a magic stick that's about one foot shorter, or a magic long stick that's about two feet longer. Oh, I can make the most intricately-designed magical armor, weave spells into blades, oh, I can make gorgeous little magical figurines, but my big stubby fingers just can't make a magic ring no matter how hard I try."

But then the magic item crafting system is a bit broken in 3.5 for larger reasons than "too many feats". Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork".

Above that, crafting magic items is just out of step with the rest of the game. It's a downtime activity, and downtime is already a bit wonky in 3.5 as it is.

I really appreciate what you have to say, and agree with virtually everything. I've almost always exclusively played some form of 'Crafter' and know exactly what you mean. Even Artificers, who get almost all the 'standard' Item Creation Feats could never hope to have them all, especially if they wanted to do anything other than craft...

I am intrigued with the possibility of reducing the overall number of Item Creation Feats down to a handful for a number of reasons but I'd really like to continue the discussion as to some of the benefits this might have, and some of the possible drawbacks.

The first, major benefit I see is the reduction of Feat Slots required to get most of the 'important' Item Creation Feats, but as you mentioned, that leaves a lot of other Item Creation Feats unaccounted for. Such as Craft Construct, all the Organic/Monstrous Item Creation Feats, etc.

If I'm convinced, I'm likely to Homebrew a reduced number of Item Creation Feats that encompass much more!

While Pathfinder does remedy some of your points (Master Craftsman Feat allows you to use your ranks in the appropriate Craft Skill as you Caster Level when crafting Magic Items using the appropriate skills. It can be taken multiple times, with a different skill each time).

P.S.: I love your Brunor reference!

[Telonius]

I think the real reason is that it's a holdover from Tolkien. Rings are supposed to be awesome, so not every random hedge wizard is going to be able to make one.

[Quarian Rex]

Opinion/Rant:

The mishmash of separate item crafting feats is a ludicrous mess of needless granularity. Not-insignificantly, many house rules condense all the PHB item crafting feats down to three: Create an expendable magic item (Potions and Scrolls), Create a charged magic item (Rods, Staves, Wands), and Create an enduring magic item (Weapons, Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items).

Forge Ring might have been made with the belief that magic rings were going to be the most powerful magic items around, but in practice it's the spell or the enchantment that goes into the item that makes it powerful. About the only ring that is really puissant is the Ring of Three Wishes, and the cost is so astronomically high most sane players go and pick up Wish in their spell lists or go and damn well buy a casting of it. There is a grab bag of stuff you can put on a ring - Invisibility, Sustenance - but the conditions on their use are such that you can get the same bonuses out of other stuff and not lose a lot of function or efficiency in doing so.

All that the separate item crafting feats do, at best, is guarantee that if forced to it, you're going to make rods and wands. Why? Because you have to be a caster to build anything, and generally you'll be crafting and using your own stuff, and rods and wands make you a more versatile spellcaster, they free up spell slots for other stuff. Things like rings, weapons, armor, and wondrous items are one-offs for which it's not worth wasting a feat slot, particularly if you can buy it or pry it from a monster's cold dead hands. I mean, seriously, nine item creation feats, and that's just the PHB, go search up a list of D&D 3.5's total list of item crafting feats and it gets even more stupid. Anyone who even wants to specialise in crafting magical stuff is never going to be able to be the master smith who can build anything, which is really what anyone specialising in crafting magical stuff is likely aiming to do anyway. There's no synergy in the choices, not any. "Oh, I can make a magic wand, but I can't make a magic stick that's about one foot shorter, or a magic long stick that's about two feet longer. Oh, I can make the most intricately-designed magical armor, weave spells into blades, oh, I can make gorgeous little magical figurines, but my big stubby fingers just can't make a magic ring no matter how hard I try."

But then the magic item crafting system is a bit broken in 3.5 for larger reasons than "too many feats". Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork".

Above that, crafting magic items is just out of step with the rest of the game. It's a downtime activity, and downtime is already a bit wonky in 3.5 as it is.


I really appreciate what you have to say, and agree with virtually everything. I've almost always exclusively played some form of 'Crafter' and know exactly what you mean. Even Artificers, who get almost all the 'standard' Item Creation Feats could never hope to have them all, especially if they wanted to do anything other than craft...

I am intrigued with the possibility of reducing the overall number of Item Creation Feats down to a handful for a number of reasons but I'd really like to continue the discussion as to some of the benefits this might have, and some of the possible drawbacks.

The first, major benefit I see is the reduction of Feat Slots required to get most of the 'important' Item Creation Feats, but as you mentioned, that leaves a lot of other Item Creation Feats unaccounted for. Such as Craft Construct, all the Organic/Monstrous Item Creation Feats, etc.

If I'm convinced, I'm likely to Homebrew a reduced number of Item Creation Feats that encompass much more!

While Pathfinder does remedy some of your points (Master Craftsman Feat allows you to use your ranks in the appropriate Craft Skill as you Caster Level when crafting Magic Items using the appropriate skills. It can be taken multiple times, with a different skill each time).

P.S.: I love your Brunor reference!


You really need to check out The Practical Enchanter (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51242/The-Practical-Enchanter). Buddy did a complete rewrite of the magic item creation rules and feats and it is good. The base Magic Item Creation feats are broken down into Enchantment (“Command Word” and “Use Activated” magic items), Imbuement (spell-trigger devices), and Scribing (spell-completion items). With those three feats a caster can create every magic item in existence (constructs are a matter of Enchantment). This now leaves a lot of room for further specialization and the book delivers sooo many options. Each of the base creation feats can be selected multiple times (selecting two options out of a list) allowing the caster to do things like getting discounts on item creation, apply the creators ability modifier to the save DC of the item, allow the user to use it's own caster level/ability modifier instead of the item's, allowing the enchantment of living things/words/ideas/etc., and more.

It also has a lot of extra creation feats allowing specialized additional creation options, things like Harvest of Artifice (providing a renewable, but limited, craft reserve with further options if selected more than once), Intuitive Enchantment [the ability to enchant a single bonus type, or a single item (like a Samurai's best class feature in a feat), without the need for knowing any spells or even any other magic item creation feats], Mystic Conversion (you can use gems, art, existing magic items, or anything else that has a monetary value to directly pay the creation cost of an item), Spirit Binding (does what it says on the tin, providing items that can have some of the power of the bound creature), and Transference (other can donate XP to items you create).

That book is so full of useful goodness (I haven't even mentioned all of the spell templates, Applied Spellcraft, social magic items, Wealth Templates, etc.) that it pains me that it is not better known. The link that I posted is to the free version so there is no excuse not to check it out.

[weckar]

I thought the Chameleon basically solved this?

[Deophaun]

I'm torn between "yeah, the level requirements don't make sense and the granularity is a pain" and "you're a caster, stop your #$%&ing."

[ShurikVch]

Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork". Bruenor used a scroll - looks like UMD to fulfill the spellcasting requirments
There are Midgard Dwarves in Frostburn, and Battlesmith PrC in Races of Stone
Isn't it kinda logical? You're should be psionical to make psionic items, so why magic should be different? Because smiths are all secretly warlocks?
The most shameful things about 3.5 crafting is that bung about "You must be a spellcaster to craft" anything with Craft (alchemy)
Alchemy isn't a magic, dammit! :smallmad:
Alchemy is medieval SCIENCE!!!

[Saintheart]

Bruenor used a scroll - looks like UMD to fulfill the spellcasting requirments
There are Midgard Dwarves in Frostburn, and Battlesmith PrC in Races of Stone
Isn't it kinda logical? You're should be psionical to make psionic items, so why magic should be different? Because smiths are all secretly warlocks?
The most shameful things about 3.5 crafting is that bung about "You must be a spellcaster to craft" anything with Craft (alchemy)
Alchemy isn't a magic, dammit! :smallmad:
Alchemy is medieval SCIENCE!!!

Opinion/Rant 2.0:

(1) Fair enough that Bruenor used a scroll and likely UMD to cast it. At a DC of 20 + Caster Level, though, let's hope that the DM allowed him to Take 20, and that his INT score was high enough to use it, or else it's another UMD check as well.

(2) Sure there are Midgard Dwarves. Ever played one as a PC? With RHD of 8 and a LA of +4, my guess is probably not. And their abilities are essentially written to cheat the magic item crafting system, which I see as highlighting a serious weakness in the system rather than demonstrating its strengths. Can't think of many other monsters, PCs or classes that are explicitly said to meet all prerequisite requirements for creating any magic item out there.

As for Battlesmiths: it gets halfway there in that it allows PrC levels to substitute for caster level, but then muffs it:
(a) The highest ECL a Battlesmith can give you is 15 on its own. Five PrC levels, multiplied by 3. So no highest-end weapons or armor for you, if it has a CL of 16 or above, you're no better off than the dude down the village forge. You want higher than that, you have to take caster levels. Thus the same old rubbish comes back again: it's still paywalling magic item creation behind "You Must Be A Caster." In fact dipping Battlesmith makes more sense for bloody casters because they get a 3-to-1 return on effective caster level for making magic weapons, it's designed to advantage casters even more!
(b) Pretty much the only stuff you can really build with a no-caster-levels Battlesmith is the standard +5 sword or +5 armor. That's it. You want a flaming weapon, vorpal weapon, anything like that, it's back to begging off casters, which sort of defeats the point to my mind.
(c) We're back to stupid granularity of feats again. You're a Battlesmith, you can make swords and shields and even bows, but you can't make a quarterstaff that does anything but hit people slightly harder. Can't use any of that skill acquired making tens of thousands of individual circular links for suits of chain mail to create one gods-damned ring, your stubby dwarven fingers can create symphonies of metal but making the wife's magic wedding ring is just beyond your powers!

(3) I guess it depends on what one's concept of magic gear is. If - as seems to be D&D 3.5's concept settled to - it's essentially workaday gear available at every corner drug store, then having the casters as the makers of magical gear I suppose makes sense. But it seems to me that D&D 3.5 started out with a wobbly concept of what really awe-inspiring magical equipment was. The feat Forge Ring, as others have noted, immediately evokes that you're creating rings of the kind Tolkien had in mind. In practice, you're making Rings of Protection +1 or the very low level and insanely useful Ring of Sustenance or Ring of Communication.

In many high fantasy settings, magic was not just the province of Merlin, it could be the province of someone extraordinarily talented who puts much of himself into an item that subsequently is magical because of its perfection. (Bob Salvatore in that Bruenor scene I think referred obliquely if not directly to that concept, suggesting that the creation of Aegis-Fang was a once-in-a-lifetime event for the dwarf and he'd never make another weapon as beautiful or as perfectly; the perfection of the crafting awakened the life of magic in the warhammer, at least in part - allowing for the fact there was some overt magic involved too. Or, somewhat out of genre but still arguably a fantasy: consider the making of the Bride's weapon in Kill Bill. Similar thing: a weapon that literally will cut God, leaving aside all the other meanings in that particular bit of dialogue.) The fact a magic weapon has to be masterwork first doesn't really convey this properly, it just adds about 100 gp to the cost, chump change for adventurers.

That aside, the obvious response to that proposition is: Major and Minor Artifacts, which usually aren't amenable to creation by PC characters; they're sort of meant as truly epic gear. But the problem to me is twofold: first, said artifacts don't often confer a hell of a lot of power in game terms, not compared to the sort of thing you can pull off with much lesser magic items. Second, the problem is that you can't build them and you're never going to be able to; there's no suggestion you can ever aspire to those heights of creator perfection, which to me is a shame. Legacy Weapons could have filled this gap, but, again, the execution was utterly whiffed.

[Ghen]

I think that the original thought behind the glut of creation feats was probably something along the lines of making sure that the book price for items was still relevant. If with only three feats or so I can make literally every magic item in the game myself (short of artifacts or what have you), then no PC or NPC will ever pay that listed price. I'm not talking about just casters; any rogue or fighter would put points into social skills enough to persuade or bully casters into letting them have magical items at cost to create instead of paying your local merchant for the item.

It may be an unpopular opinion here, but I kind of like the system in place for magic item crafting. Creating magic items should be difficult, cost-prohibitive, and time-consuming. Otherwise everybody's Grandmas would go grocery shopping with their portable holes, and magic items wouldn't feel like anything special anymore.

[Saintheart]

It may be an unpopular opinion here, but I kind of like the system in place for magic item crafting. Creating magic items should be difficult, cost-prohibitive, and time-consuming. Otherwise everybody's Grandmas would go grocery shopping with their portable holes, and magic items wouldn't feel like anything special anymore.

No problem with your opinion, but the argument I would make in response to that is: magic items don't feel special in D&D 3.5. And the reason they don't feel special is because they're so difficult, cost-prohibitive, and time-consuming for people to craft for themselves, along with being pretty dull and uninteresting once made ... and combined with the head shot of basically being essential for everybody who doesn't wiggle their fingers or bother the gods for a living.

As a result, everyone does go grocery shopping to the local magic mart to pick up their gear. You can't customise them easily, upgrading them is more tedious and expensive than just going out and buying something new, meaning you have no real vested interest in keeping your old sword and thus at least investing it with some history. As said, Legacy Weapons could have fixed this, but, well, didn't.

[Jack_Simth]

I thought the Chameleon basically solved this?
Nope. A chameleon must qualify for whatever they pick up with the floating feat, the focus doesn't let them qualify for feats,and so they need to have the caster levels to qualify some other way. They'll also have issues getting spells over 6th level when needed. It makes a useful 2 level dip for an artificer or other full caster, but there will still be various feats you don't qualify for.

[ayvango]

Bruenor used a scroll - looks like UMD to fulfill the spellcasting requirments
Why not assume that he used some caster service? SRD doesn't restrict magic item creation process to be performed single-handedly. One character may invest his crafting skills, another could provide spellcaster ability, the third may fulfill other requirements like alignment.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Bruenor used a scroll - looks like UMD to fulfill the spellcasting requirments
There are Midgard Dwarves in Frostburn, and Battlesmith PrC in Races of Stone
Isn't it kinda logical? You're should be psionical to make psionic items, so why magic should be different? Because smiths are all secretly warlocks?
The most shameful things about 3.5 crafting is that bung about "You must be a spellcaster to craft" anything with Craft (alchemy)
Alchemy isn't a magic, dammit! :smallmad:
Alchemy is medieval SCIENCE!!!

What about the Ironsoul Forgemaster PrC? Even if you consider incarnum-users to be casters, you can pick off the meldshaping requirement with a single feat as a martial. At that point, you don't look any more like a real caster than literally any Gnome for having Speak with Animals as an SLA 1/day. Sure, the PrC's meldshaping progression is wasted on you, but a Dwarf Whatever 5/Ironsoul Forgemaster 7 already rocks a CL high enough to satisfy that requirement for any non-Epic arms and armor.

As for Craft (alchemy) requiring you to be a caster, yes this is silly. Being fixable by houserule doesn't negate its sillyness, but I've never seen a DM not houserule this into not being a thing, or just plain forget that it is a thing.

[ericgrau]

hi all,

i've been following [and loving] oots for a number of years but never managed to make it as far as the forums.
...until now... [dun-dun-DUNNNNnnn...] :)
so, 'well met!'

anyway, i just wanted to solicit opinions on some of the crafting feats, particularly level pre-reqs. for example, why would you need to be 12th level to craft a ring, but only 3rd level to make many other kinds of miscellaneous magic items ? i personally don't see what's so special about rings and would just as soon make them both the same level.

opinions on this ?

Lord of the Rings influence maybe?

But besides that rings are expensive. At least the ones in the DMG. You won't be making any at level 3. You can at least make one-off wondrous items at that level. Same with the other feats that have higher level requirements. And similar to their cost maybe the items themselves are viewed as more special and complicated to make. If your party loves crafting and can't seem to fit them in on time, maybe you could reduce all the level requirements by 3 (min 1). Or even ditching them won't really hurt anything. You'll get more crafting gishes than before, but oh well. It might make items feel a little less special as some mentioned, but it won't ruin game balance. And D&D already suffers a bit from magic mart syndrome. And as I said dropping level requirements won't make crafting that much easier, so you're not actually making the magic mart syndrome much worse.

[ShurikVch]

In many high fantasy settings, magic was not just the province of Merlin, it could be the province of someone extraordinarily talented who puts much of himself into an item that subsequently is magical because of its perfection. (Bob Salvatore in that Bruenor scene I think referred obliquely if not directly to that concept, suggesting that the creation of Aegis-Fang was a once-in-a-lifetime event for the dwarf and he'd never make another weapon as beautiful or as perfectly; the perfection of the crafting awakened the life of magic in the warhammer, at least in part - allowing for the fact there was some overt magic involved too. Or, somewhat out of genre but still arguably a fantasy: consider the making of the Bride's weapon in Kill Bill. Similar thing: a weapon that literally will cut God, leaving aside all the other meanings in that particular bit of dialogue.)Actually, all this is coming from the traditional beliefs: in ancient times, smiths are counted as shamans
They - along with potters (hello, Harry!) - were collectively known as "the masters of fire"
Later, when paganism was displaced with monotheism, "shaman" was substituted with "warlock"

In the Christmas Eve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Eve_(Gogol)), Vakula straddled a devil to fly to the capital and back:

https://miridei.com/files/img/c/idei-dosuga/kakuyu-knigu-pochitat/95829862_large_Olga_Ionaytis__The_Night_Before_Chr istmas_2.jpg

In one legend, devil (in disguise) even apprenticed to a blacksmith!

Despite it, smiths (and potters) are almost never villains in the old stories



Why not assume that he used some caster service? SRD doesn't restrict magic item creation process to be performed single-handedly. One character may invest his crafting skills, another could provide spellcaster ability, the third may fulfill other requirements like alignment.Because of text of the story:
... Then he took the silver scroll tube and gently removed its diamond cap. He sighed in relief when he saw that the parchment inside had survived the decades. Wiping the oily sweat from his hands, he removed the scroll and slowly unrolled it, laying it on the flat of the anvil. At first, the page seemed blank, but gradually the rays of the full moon coaxed its symbols, the secret runes of power, to appear.
These were Bruenor's heritage, and though he had never seen them before, their arcane lines and curves seemed comfortably familiar to him. His hand steady with confidence, the dwarf placed the silver chisel between the symbols he had inscribed of the two gods and began etching the secret runes onto the warhammer. He felt their magic transferring from the parchment through him to the weapon and watched in amazement as each one disappeared from the scroll after he had inscribed it onto the mithral.
...
Trying to sort through his mixed emotions, the dwarf put the silver mallet and chisel back into their golden coffer and replaced the scroll in its tube, though the parchment was blank and the magical runes would never reappear.So, as we can see, Bruenor used some scroll (and moreover - arcane scroll!)



What about the Ironsoul Forgemaster PrC?This one is good too, but I wasn't sure how well it fit into "non-mage" theme


As for Craft (alchemy) requiring you to be a caster, yes this is silly. Being fixable by houserule doesn't negate its sillyness, but I've never seen a DM not houserule this into not being a thing, or just plain forget that it is a thing.And it was specifically added in 3.5 update! :smallmad:
Into the Dragons' Lair - one of earlier 3.0 adventures - have some amount of Goblin Alchemists; most of them are Commoners with some ranks in Alchemy

[Segev]

I feel I need to bring up that Pathfinder introduced the ability to substitute increased DC on the spellcraft check for lacking nearly any component - most especially the spell(s) - in item crafting, and had feats that allowed non-casters to qualify for crafting feats without CL. Removing the CL requirement (and the feat tax for non-casters) wouldn't be too hard to house rule.

[Jay R]

Because the powerful Wondrous Items also require high-level spell-casting, so it doesn't matter when you get Craft Wondrous Item. Mostly the Wondrous Items you can make at third level are one-time use and/or low powered items.

But all rings (except wishes) are permanent abilities.

[Ghen]

No problem with your opinion, but the argument I would make in response to that is: magic items don't feel special in D&D 3.5. And the reason they don't feel special is because they're so difficult, cost-prohibitive, and time-consuming for people to craft for themselves, along with being pretty dull and uninteresting once made ... and combined with the head shot of basically being essential for everybody who doesn't wiggle their fingers or bother the gods for a living.

As a result, everyone does go grocery shopping to the local magic mart to pick up their gear. You can't customise them easily, upgrading them is more tedious and expensive than just going out and buying something new, meaning you have no real vested interest in keeping your old sword and thus at least investing it with some history. As said, Legacy Weapons could have fixed this, but, well, didn't.

Touche'. Well I'll definitely agree that the requirement of magic items for people who can't possibly create them is a problem.

[Florian]

Personally, I see the "problem" not with the feats themselves, but with the inconsistent legacy approach forced by the combination of porting over traditional (A)D&D items and and the modular crafting rules that came with 3E (or rather, that the authors themselves were inconsistent in their approach). As in, it would totally make sense that there would be a "power tier" associated with the form an item can take, with the crafting feat with the higher level prerequisite being the necessarily entry-point to be able to craft something of a more powerful "tier". Ok, a bit of a stupid example, but conceptually, it would make sense to limit a numerical bonus above +4 or the effective use of Wish to rings, with a corresponding cap on "lower" item types. In practice, you can basically slap on a +5 deflection bonus on any other item type or go slotless entirely, with Ioun Stone and such, or dual-wield Luck Blades instead of using a Ring of Three Wishes, if you get my drift.

[Melcar]

hi all,

i've been following [and loving] oots for a number of years but never managed to make it as far as the forums.
...until now... [dun-dun-DUNNNNnnn...] :)
so, 'well met!'

anyway, i just wanted to solicit opinions on some of the crafting feats, particularly level pre-reqs. for example, why would you need to be 12th level to craft a ring, but only 3rd level to make many other kinds of miscellaneous magic items ? i personally don't see what's so special about rings and would just as soon make them both the same level.

opinions on this ?

That's actually a great question. Considering that any enchantment can be placed on any items, there is absolutely no reason for having different level requirements for different item creation feats. I could make a Mask of Protection or a Ring of Ogre Strength or Monocle of Sprinting and Striding or even a Belt of Resistance




That aside, the obvious response to that proposition is: Major and Minor Artifacts, which usually aren't amenable to creation by PC characters; they're sort of meant as truly epic gear. But the problem to me is twofold: first, said artifacts don't often confer a hell of a lot of power in game terms, not compared to the sort of thing you can pull off with much lesser magic items. Second, the problem is that you can't build them and you're never going to be able to; there's no suggestion you can ever aspire to those heights of creator perfection, which to me is a shame. Legacy Weapons could have filled this gap, but, again, the execution was utterly whiffed.

I totally agree... Just think; the three Elfblades of Cormanthor are only +4 enchanted... How weak is that! Granted they confer other powers too, but why are they not at least +5?


But, there are actually a few truly awesome artifacts in the game:

1) The Nether Scrolls - which by the way grants the ability to craft Artifacts

2) The Ring of Winter - Basically the most powerful ring in Forgotten Realms - On par with The One Ring

3) The Highfire Crown - Holds the minds of 13 Elven High Mages for the ability to cast Myriad Rituals single-handedly

4 The Seven Imaskacana - contains the entire body of knowledge of the Imaskar Empire!

5) The Grand Staff - The most powerful staff in Forgotten Realms - which is the staff that Staff of the Magi is a lesser version of!

[Crake]

Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork".

Pathfinder has a feat that solves this problem. (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-craftsman/) If you're not utilizing pathfinder material in your 3.5 games, you're wasting a whole lot of great material.

That said, I've run some no-magic-item e6 games, where master craftsmen did amazing stuff with weapons for the players, creating some highly memorable items. Take a look at weapon/armor templates, and the massive list of mundane special materials. I even made a nifty little spreadsheet. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q1AQQET4o_Uy-U7eMP9nD0eFze5m-kGRk3kbmVvJoug/edit) (note: zencraft is refluffed githcraft, since gith don't exist in my setting).

[flappeercraft]

Opinion/Rant 2.0:
As for Battlesmiths: it gets halfway there in that it allows PrC levels to substitute for caster level, but then muffs it:
(a) The highest ECL a Battlesmith can give you is 15 on its own. Five PrC levels, multiplied by 3. So no highest-end weapons or armor for you, if it has a CL of 16 or above, you're no better off than the dude down the village forge. You want higher than that, you have to take caster levels. Thus the same old rubbish comes back again: it's still paywalling magic item creation behind "You Must Be A Caster." In fact dipping Battlesmith makes more sense for bloody casters because they get a 3-to-1 return on effective caster level for making magic weapons, it's designed to advantage casters even more!


Not really. There are various ways to boost it way past 15.

Something I have come up with in literally under 2 minutes is an Expert 7/Battlesmith 5/Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 5. No levels in caster classes or magic whatsoever. Still can craft magic items with CL 33.

That's without getting to bloodlines which depending on readings might not even add to Character Level with which if you assume that reading you could get to crafting magic items with CL 42 by level 20 all without getting a single actual caster level.

Edit:
For reference, the highest caster level required to craft an epic magic item is 40, the Cabinet of Feasting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm).

[Melcar]

Not really. There are various ways to boost it way past 15.

Something I have come up with in literally under 2 minutes is an Expert 7/Battlesmith 5/Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 5. No levels in caster classes or magic whatsoever. Still can craft magic items with CL 33.

That's without getting to bloodlines which depending on readings might not even add to Character Level with which if you assume that reading you could get to crafting magic items with CL 42 by level 20 all without getting a single actual caster level.

I would like to know more... How does it work? And at what level does this build start being able to create magic items?




Edit:
For reference, the highest caster level required to craft an epic magic item is 40, the Cabinet of Feasting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm).

Since there is no max - you can make a +100 Headband of Intellect - would this still only have caster level 40?

[noob]

I would like to know more... How does it work? And at what level does this build start being able to create magic items?




Since there is no max - you can make a +100 Headband of Intellect - would this still only have caster level 40?

Headbands of intellects have a caster level needed for crafting which does not depends on the modifier but on whenever it is epic or not.
All the epic headbands of intellect have a cl of 20 and all the non epic ones have a cl of 8
So a +100 headband of intellect would have a cl of 20 and a +infinity headband of intellect would still have a cl of 20.

[flappeercraft]

I would like to know more... How does it work? And at what level does this build start being able to create magic items?




Since there is no max - you can make a +100 Headband of Intellect - would this still only have caster level 40?

Since the headband of intellect thing is already covered I will only explain the first thing.


Expert 7 is for qualifying for all subsequent classes. Battlesmith requires a BAB of +5 and 10 ranks in craft weaponsmithing so 7 levels of Expert fit perfectly. The three feat requirements cna be acquired on the 1st, 3rd and 6th level slots. In addition due to the high amount of skill points of expert it is also really good for getting into Uncanny Trickster since it requires 4 skills with 8 ranks and 4 skill tricks. Legacy Champion barely has any requirements except knowledge history which the expert can also meet.

Ok so to get to the meat of all of this. Expert 7 is for qualifying, Battlesmith 5 is the core of the idea, it gets you Secrets of the Forge which is the class feature that gets you your Battlesmith Levelx3 in Caster level for crafting magic items. Uncanny Trickster has the nifty class feature that it progresses class features of one other class you already have at levels 2 and 3. Now you are effectively a level 7 battlesmith. Legacy Champion has that as well and gets us 4 more effective levels which nets an effective battlesmith level of 11 or a caster level of 33. Bloodlines do the same and if you take a Major Bloodline then you get Battlesmith 14 or for the purposes of crafting magic items, a Caster level of 42.

It can start making magic items at level 8.

[Saintheart]

Not really. There are various ways to boost it way past 15.

Something I have come up with in literally under 2 minutes is an Expert 7/Battlesmith 5/Uncanny Trickster 3/Legacy Champion 5. No levels in caster classes or magic whatsoever. Still can craft magic items with CL 33.

That's without getting to bloodlines which depending on readings might not even add to Character Level with which if you assume that reading you could get to crafting magic items with CL 42 by level 20 all without getting a single actual caster level.

Edit:
For reference, the highest caster level required to craft an epic magic item is 40, the Cabinet of Feasting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm).

Too bad that character by definition won't be able to construct it, since he needs to be able to cast Heroes' Feast as a prerequisite to make it. Thus my point: paywalling it behind the requirement that you must be a caster.

[flappeercraft]

Too bad that character by definition won't be able to construct it, since he needs to be able to cast Heroes' Feast as a prerequisite to make it. Thus my point: paywalling it behind the requirement that you must be a caster.

Well there is actually another reason you are completely neglecting. Battlesmith can only make weapons and armor as if he had CL, anything else and he is as helpless as every other chump without a caster level.

[noob]

Well there is actually another reason you are completely neglecting. Battlesmith can only make weapons and armor as if he had CL, anything else and he is as helpless as every other chump without a caster level.

Some people abuse the rule and then smash people with a cabinet then say it is a weapon then turn it into a cabinet of feasting since it is a weapon and thus they can upgrade it with battlesmith.

[Hua]

Simplest answer is to go with "rings" allowing 2 items on the 'finger' slot.
Just one thing that happens to go around a finger is a wonderous item
Shame you can't add a second to the fingers on the other hand.
That takes higher level magic to cause it to allow a second item in the same slot.
No other creation feat allows 2 items. it is Pair of boots, or Pair of gloves. Just one necklace. Just one wrist(bracer).

It takes higher magic because it allows two.

[ayvango]

No other creation feat allows 2 items. it is Pair of boots, or Pair of gloves. Just one necklace. Just one wrist(bracer).
Any item can be made slotless for the 2x cost. My favorite is slotless hand of glory :)

[Erloas]

Having thought about it more, it seems like all crafting should be moved to teamwork tasks rather than personal feats or skills. While a fighter might not have the magic to make a magic sword, a wizard wouldn't have the strength and endurance to forge a sword either. The magic should only be a part of the process, not the whole thing. And the wizard can't just buy a mundane sword because the magic needs to be done during the whole creation process, not just a spell at the end.

You can then remove crafting specific feats and put the whole thing as party based tasks.

Skills... not really sure, the idea is good but the practical application is lacking. The daily skill check isn't really a game enhancing roll. I would really just say let the DM handle it because it is ultimately up to them anyway. If that want you to have something or really don't want you to that trumps skills anyway, so why bother gating it behind a skill anyway.

[Calthropstu]

Opinion/Rant:

The mishmash of separate item crafting feats is a ludicrous mess of needless granularity. Not-insignificantly, many house rules condense all the PHB item crafting feats down to three: Create an expendable magic item (Potions and Scrolls), Create a charged magic item (Rods, Staves, Wands), and Create an enduring magic item (Weapons, Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items).

Forge Ring might have been made with the belief that magic rings were going to be the most powerful magic items around, but in practice it's the spell or the enchantment that goes into the item that makes it powerful. About the only ring that is really puissant is the Ring of Three Wishes, and the cost is so astronomically high most sane players go and pick up Wish in their spell lists or go and damn well buy a casting of it. There is a grab bag of stuff you can put on a ring - Invisibility, Sustenance - but the conditions on their use are such that you can get the same bonuses out of other stuff and not lose a lot of function or efficiency in doing so.

All that the separate item crafting feats do, at best, is guarantee that if forced to it, you're going to make rods and wands. Why? Because you have to be a caster to build anything, and generally you'll be crafting and using your own stuff, and rods and wands make you a more versatile spellcaster, they free up spell slots for other stuff. Things like rings, weapons, armor, and wondrous items are one-offs for which it's not worth wasting a feat slot, particularly if you can buy it or pry it from a monster's cold dead hands. I mean, seriously, nine item creation feats, and that's just the PHB, go search up a list of D&D 3.5's total list of item crafting feats and it gets even more stupid. Anyone who even wants to specialise in crafting magical stuff is never going to be able to be the master smith who can build anything, which is really what anyone specialising in crafting magical stuff is likely aiming to do anyway. There's no synergy in the choices, not any. "Oh, I can make a magic wand, but I can't make a magic stick that's about one foot shorter, or a magic long stick that's about two feet longer. Oh, I can make the most intricately-designed magical armor, weave spells into blades, oh, I can make gorgeous little magical figurines, but my big stubby fingers just can't make a magic ring no matter how hard I try."

But then the magic item crafting system is a bit broken in 3.5 for larger reasons than "too many feats". Perhaps its biggest problem is that it hides crafting magic items away behind the paywall of "Must Be A Caster". 3.5 doesn't care if your name is Bruenor Battlehammer and you produce a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on a moonlit night and throw diamond dust in the air; if you ain't got that Wizard 1 or Cleric 1, that big old lump of warhammer metal is staying a lump of warhammer ... or at best a "masterwork".

Above that, crafting magic items is just out of step with the rest of the game. It's a downtime activity, and downtime is already a bit wonky in 3.5 as it is.

Hogwash. Rings are easily one of the most essential items in both pf and 3.5.

The biggest 2 are freedom of movement and protection+5. Both of those are taken by almost every single character by level 15. But there are numerous other great contenders such as elemental resistance rings, ring of counterspell, ring of spell storing...

I have also NEVER seen a table condense the feats like that. Crafting is absurdly advantageous, especially in pf where there is no xp component. Halving the cost of magic items is huge. The feat tax in comparison is piddling to a party.

Granted, your down time assertion is accurate. That generally needs a decent gm to pull off right.

[Saintheart]

Hogwash. Rings are easily one of the most essential items in both pf and 3.5.

The biggest 2 are freedom of movement and protection+5. Both of those are taken by almost every single character by level 15. But there are numerous other great contenders such as elemental resistance rings, ring of counterspell, ring of spell storing...

I have also NEVER seen a table condense the feats like that. Crafting is absurdly advantageous, especially in pf where there is no xp component. Halving the cost of magic items is huge. The feat tax in comparison is piddling to a party.

Just as you've never seen a table condense the feats down like that, I've yet to see a table where one caster character took Forge Ring. Ever. And I've seen precious few optimised builds -- caster or even martial -- that have it as a must-have or even as a secondary, or even as a B- option, either.

Again and again, the reason for this puzzling absence of crafting casters is because rings are generally one-shot purchases or stuff recovered off corpses, not the sort of rubbish you waste feat slots or time on. Ring of Protection +5? So my choices are either spend 25,000 gp and about 2000 XP, as a minimum 15th level caster for something that gives me a +5 deflection bonus -- bearing in mind total WBL for a 15th level character is 200,000 gp -- or do I put on something like Luminous Armour, Greater Luminous Armour, Greater Mage Armor, Magic Vestment, or hell, how bout I just plunk out the Shield of Faith spell which is a Ring of Protection's prerequisite and then DMM Persist it (assuming I can convince them that touch range spells qualify?)

How about we spend some more of that WBL on the other "biggie", the freedom of movement ring? Minimum 20,000 gp and 1600 XP assuming I make it myself, again, really worth one tenth of my total wealth as a 15th level character, much more than that if I pick it up at 12th level, which is the first occasion on which I can create it?

These costs accelerate as you pick up more and more "great contenders", the XP cost in particular being the worst offender. If you can convince your DM to ignore that rule, great, but otherwise it's by default making yourself more stupid than you were when you started.

[Calthropstu]

Just as you've never seen a table condense the feats down like that, I've yet to see a table where one caster character took Forge Ring. Ever. And I've seen precious few optimised builds -- caster or even martial -- that have it as a must-have or even as a secondary, or even as a B- option, either.

Again and again, the reason for this puzzling absence of crafting casters is because rings are generally one-shot purchases or stuff recovered off corpses, not the sort of rubbish you waste feat slots or time on. Ring of Protection +5? So my choices are either spend 25,000 gp and about 2000 XP, as a minimum 15th level caster for something that gives me a +5 deflection bonus -- bearing in mind total WBL for a 15th level character is 200,000 gp -- or do I put on something like Luminous Armour, Greater Luminous Armour, Greater Mage Armor, Magic Vestment, or hell, how bout I just plunk out the Shield of Faith spell which is a Ring of Protection's prerequisite and then DMM Persist it (assuming I can convince them that touch range spells qualify?)

How about we spend some more of that WBL on the other "biggie", the freedom of movement ring? Minimum 20,000 gp and 1600 XP assuming I make it myself, again, really worth one tenth of my total wealth as a 15th level character, much more than that if I pick it up at 12th level, which is the first occasion on which I can create it?

These costs accelerate as you pick up more and more "great contenders", the XP cost in particular being the worst offender. If you can convince your DM to ignore that rule, great, but otherwise it's by default making yourself more stupid than you were when you started.

Yeah, xp costs made crafting suck. Which is why I'm glad PF got rid of that. But your thinking is missing a key element. You can craft for other people as well. And, if you can find a work around to the xp costs (they do exist) or eliminate them entirely (pf or gm approval) you can craft not just for yourself, but the rest of the party as well. That saving of 25k gold for +5 deflection just became saving 125k gold for a party of 5. Or maybe you just craft them and sell them to your party members pocketing the extra 100k for yourself. Either way, it starts getting way up there in savings. If your allies eventually want an elemental command ring, it becomes HUGE having that feat. And custom rings become even more ridiculous because then they just keep adding onto the one ring. And that can push price into the stratosphere, especially if they want one that's intelligent.

I once crafted a 5.4 million gp ring in PF because an ally said "I want all the things." I charged my party member 3.8 mil, pocketing 1.1 M gp. (By then, I had blown wbl out of the water, and I had a good +118 on my spellcraft roll)

So yeah, the advantage from crafting feats is pretty big at higher levels. Especially the big ticket items that whole parties get such as rings or wondrous items. Staff, Rod or Wand? That may be another story.

[Erloas]

Crafting = saving money or blowing up WBL don't really seem like good uses of character skill. It is a sure fire way to increase character power, but you're also taking what should be the domain of the DM and giving it to the players.
It sort of redefines the setting and game style and it's hard to see a game not going down the Monte Hall road. If the players and DM want to have all the money and magic items that can be done in a hundred ways. If the DM doesn't want that it makes the skill useless. As such, it really seems like a non issue.
Crafting itself is not directly engaging as it is.

And if you're crafting a 5million GP item you're already way past the level 20 WBL design so "saving money" is sort of a meaningless concept at that point.
That would be about a level 26s entire WBL in a single item. (At least based on PFs WBL design)

[Calthropstu]

Crafting = saving money or blowing up WBL don't really seem like good uses of character skill. It is a sure fire way to increase character power, but you're also taking what should be the domain of the DM and giving it to the players.
It sort of redefines the setting and game style and it's hard to see a game not going down the Monte Hall road. If the players and DM want to have all the money and magic items that can be done in a hundred ways. If the DM doesn't want that it makes the skill useless. As such, it really seems like a non issue.
Crafting itself is not directly engaging as it is.

And if you're crafting a 5million GP item you're already way past the level 20 WBL design so "saving money" is sort of a meaningless concept at that point.

Fair, that character obliterated WBL by a huge margin. I think that ring had something like 30-50 abilities on it. I'm surprised the GM allowed it tbh. To be fair, I had so much wealth by that point, I could have simply bought the BBEG. My crafting kinda ended the game. But the game had to end soon anyways as our GM was headed to Afghanistan for deployment.

[ayvango]

Just as you've never seen a table condense the feats down like that, I've yet to see a table where one caster character took Forge Ring. Ever.
Adventuring is a passing fad. Crafting it the true purpose for lifetime.

Let us see how much time consumes adventuring. Party need to kill about 14 mooks to level up. Which never poses a problem. For any enemy there is an appropriate elimination scheme. Sometimes buffing is more beneficial, sometimes nuking, some situations could be solved with battle field control followed by attrition an enemy that lacks mobility.

The only resource needed for completing 1st level is about 10 wand of lesser vigor charges. Taking 14 mooks in one strike without resting is like piece of cake. The really hard task is to find the aforementioned cake. Party spends most time on hiding from too powerful monsters and searching for appropriately leveled monsters to farm. Not so obvious fact: XP reward system doesn't reward you for clearing deadly encounters. You get the same amount XP for killing 10 mooks at the time and for killing them one-by-one. The first mission is obviously much more dangerous than the last. So you should keep balance between wasting resource to contend deadly encounters and wasting time to search and destroy easy targets.

In either case regardless of level adventurer spend most his time on logistics. Searching for information, searching for monsters, meeting quest holders, negotiating with merchants, reconnoitering expected battlefield, organizing resources for the battle. Points of interest tends to be far apart, so you spend much time on traveling between them avoiding dangers on the way.

So the biggest piece of adventuring life is logistics. The second biggest is massacre. And the last is random encounters. At lower level logistics take about 6 days in a week with massacre at the weekend. So you need a week to levelup. 12 weeks for 12 levels. At that point teleport and other fast travel modes become available. So party spend only one day for preparations, casts 24 hours spells, rests, prepare spells for a fight and finally slaughters designated XP source. 2 days to level-up. 3 more weeks.

So, 15 weeks passed from start of the adventure, and now you achieved all your goals and maximum level. You could earn more XP, but there is no use for it. And many years of meaningless existence awaits you. The only fun you could afford is to respec into crafter (thanks to DCFS and Psychic Reformation) and spend your days and XP on creating magical items.


as a minimum 15th level caster for something that gives me a +5 deflection bonu
Waiting for 15th level to craft something is ridiculous. 15th CL means you could use greater teleport to the plane's biggest market and just buy what you need. If your plane suffers critical deficiency of magic items you could use plane shift prior to greater teleport and go to the interplanar trading spot. Spending dozen of days for crafting trivial item is just waste of time: you could levelup many times during that period and earn enough loot to buy dozens of such items.