Creating Magic Items?

[ByOdin'sBeard]

Okay so I completely understand the "estimating magic item gold piece value" table; however, I don't understand how the "summary of magic items creation costs" works.

I mostly don't understand the "magic supplies cost" section of the latter table. It says half the value on table: armor and shields, table: weapons for the respective categories. But for rings and rods it tells you to refer to the estimating gold piece value table.

Does this mean that I don't pay a magic supplies cost on rings, and rods? Because it seems kind of ridiculous to pay half the base price to craft a RING. We are talking maybe 2 grams of material. Am I reading something wrong? Or am I just not getting this? I'm quite new to creating custom magic items.

[skunk3]

I might be wrong but as far as I know, the cost of creating a magic item is basically 1/2 the 'street price' in GP and 1/25 of the 'street price' in XP. If the spells needed to craft the item have any material components that need to be used, you must figure that cost in as well if you are casting the spell from your daily allotment. If you are using a scroll it doesn't matter. For a particular weapon or armor the cost of the materials (AFAIK) is included in the 'street price' so if you craft it it's still just the same formula for the cost you'd spend.


For example: A Ring of Feather Falling is 2,200 GP. If you crafted it yourself it would cost 1,100 GP and 88 XP. The materials cost is included in that price.

[Biggus]

Magic supplies for items are always half of the base price in gp and 1/25 of the base price in XP.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#

EDIT: to answer your point about "it seems kind of ridiculous to pay half the base price to craft a RING. We are talking maybe 2 grams of material", according to my understanding the actual materials used to make the object are usually a fairly trivial part of the cost of the item. The cost is more like having expensive material components for spells, the item can't be made without expending certain resources. IIRC in earlier editions they specified what rare substances you needed to make a particular item, sometimes leading to a quest to find said item(s) if they were not something that could be bought on the open market, but this was removed in 3E and replaced with just a component price.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Weapons and armor and shields have a base item cost that's not magical.

For example, a +1 Greatsword costs 2,350 gp, and of that, 350 gp is the mundane Masterwork Greatsword, while the remaining 2,000 gp is the magical portion. The mundane portion is at full price (or you can use craft skills to make them), the magical portion is the part that the magic item creation rules apply to (1/2 base price in gp, 1/25 in xp).

A Mithral Full Plate of Speed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#mithralFullPlateofSpeed) is a Mithral (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialMaterials.htm#mithral) Full Plate (10,500 gp mundane) with a 16,000 gp magical enchantment on it. That's why the cost to create it is 18,500 gp (1/2 of 16,000 plus 10,500) and 640 xp (1/25 of 16,000).

[ByOdin'sBeard]

Awesome thank you for clearing that up so quick for me guys, gotta love the playground!