NPC Binder/Magewright crafting tricks wanted

[TalonOfAnathrax]

For various reasons, I'll probably be hosting a oneshot soon where the PCs will be trying to track down a villain while he's crafting things. Therefore his crafting schedule actually matters quite a lot (what will he have when he's finally found?), and I'm trying to check what sort of things such an NPC could craft.
This NPC is a Magewright 1 / Anima Mage 10 / Legacy Champion 9, who therefore casts spells like a Magewright 18 and has EBL 17 (Zceryll will be constantly bound).

Note that we'll be using the rule that spells from Summoned creatures end after they go back home. He also has constant Mind Blank and 1/day Contingency (self-only) from a Legacy item. This legacy item is his only item beyond mundane items he could steal or magical items he could craft.

Questions :

He has Uncanny Forethought and Versatile Spellcaster. Can he use Runestaffs?
Can he use SLAs while crafting magic items? He'll need them to renew the Polymorph spell that he'll use to get Crafting feats (there's a form with all Crafting feats as racial feats, AFAIK).
He has Contingency, but nothing to use it with until he somehow crafts a Runestaff with Celerity. Any suggestions on Magewright spells that could be good to have with Contingency?
Can he cast Sanctified spells despite being Neutral? Is there a feat for that? Getting Distilled Joy would be great. Setting up a Distilled Joy factory would delay him, but it would make sense from his point of view. Or is there an Evil alternative to Distilled Joy? I could make this NPC Evil, but not Good.
He'll be crafting items and summoning Ursinals until he gets one with the spell he wants prepared so that he can use it as a prerequisite to craft the item needed. Is there a better method to achieve this? Can a Binder somehow summon a creature by name or something?
Can he use Versatile Spellcaster to access a level 6 spell? He doesn't know any level 6 spells, but he could have one on a Runestaff.
Is there some other awesome crafting trick I'm missing?


FYI, the plot of the oneshot will probably be "this person was accidentally summoned into a modern-day setting. The PCs are all martial or skilled characters who're members of a SHIELD-equivalent group (so they'll have a tiny amount of magical support, a lot of money, tech - but no actual archmages or anything, this setting doesn't have much actual magic), and your job is to find this Binder and either recruit them, kill them or make sure they're not a problem.

The Binder is paranoid, but is absolutely terrible at fitting into the local culture and environment. The Binder is also a megalomanic, but beyond that personality is undecided for now.

[Troacctid]

He has Uncanny Forethought and Versatile Spellcaster. Can he use Runestaffs?
Any arcane caster can use a runestaff, as long as the spell it contains is on their class spell list. I'm not sure what those feats have to do with it; neither of them interacts with runestaffs in any meaningful way.


Can he use SLAs while crafting magic items? He'll need them to renew the Polymorph spell that he'll use to get Crafting feats (there's a form with all Crafting feats as racial feats, AFAIK).
Yes, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to just use Astaroth (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070307a) as his second vestige.


He has Contingency, but nothing to use it with until he somehow crafts a Runestaff with Celerity. Any suggestions on Magewright spells that could be good to have with Contingency?
The magewright spell list isn't very long. It's on page 256 of Eberron Campaign Setting. The only spell that was later added to it was unseen crafter in Races of Eberron, I believe. So, there you are. Shouldn't be too tough to pick out the useful ones.


Can he cast Sanctified spells despite being Neutral? Is there a feat for that? Getting Distilled Joy would be great. Setting up a Distilled Joy factory would delay him, but it would make sense from his point of view. Or is there an Evil alternative to Distilled Joy? I could make this NPC Evil, but not Good.
Distilled joy is not a sanctified spell. It can be cast by any sorcerer, wizard, or Joy domain cleric, regardless of alignment. The more relevant restrictions are a. it's not normally available to magewrights and b. regardless of who cast the spell, the distilled joy that results for it will be useless to any crafter who is not Good-aligned, as only Good-aligned spellcasters can use it in item creation.

What you want is the inverse: liquid pain. Only Evil-aligned spellcasters can use it for crafting. It can be extracted with the 4th level spell liquid pain, or by using a pain extractor, which is a magic item with a price of 64,000 gp. Either method basically requires torturing someone for a full 24 hours to create a single dose worth 3 xp for crafting purposes.


He'll be crafting items and summoning Ursinals until he gets one with the spell he wants prepared so that he can use it as a prerequisite to craft the item needed. Is there a better method to achieve this? Can a Binder somehow summon a creature by name or something?
You're the DM, so you get to decide what spells the summoned creature has prepared.


Can he use Versatile Spellcaster to access a level 6 spell? He doesn't know any level 6 spells, but he could have one on a Runestaff.
He's a prepared caster, so he actually doesn't qualify for Versatile Spellcaster at all. But even if he did, no, that would not work.


Is there some other awesome crafting trick I'm missing?
Probably.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Any arcane caster can use a runestaff, as long as the spell it contains is on their class spell list. I'm not sure what those feats have to do with it; neither of them interacts with runestaffs in any meaningful way.


Yes, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to just use Astaroth (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070307a) as his second vestige.


The magewright spell list isn't very long. It's on page 256 of Eberron Campaign Setting. The only spell that was later added to it was unseen crafter in Races of Eberron, I believe. So, there you are. Shouldn't be too tough to pick out the useful ones.


Distilled joy is not a sanctified spell. It can be cast by any sorcerer, wizard, or Joy domain cleric, regardless of alignment. The more relevant restrictions are a. it's not normally available to magewrights and b. regardless of who cast the spell, the distilled joy that results for it will be useless to any crafter who is not Good-aligned, as only Good-aligned spellcasters can use it in item creation.

What you want is the inverse: liquid pain. Only Evil-aligned spellcasters can use it for crafting. It can be extracted with the 4th level spell liquid pain, or by using a pain extractor, which is a magic item with a price of 64,000 gp. Either method basically requires torturing someone for a full 24 hours to create a single dose worth 3 xp for crafting purposes.


You're the DM, so you get to decide what spells the summoned creature has prepared.


He's a prepared caster, so he actually doesn't qualify for Versatile Spellcaster at all. But even if he did, no, that would not work.


Probably.
Thank you for your reply. As you can guess, I wrote that question without my books on hand. Thank you for pointing out my misapprehensions :)

So Runestaffs can't expand your spell list beyond your class list. What a shame. Ah well, I guess that I can always just have him try for a few days until he summons an Ursinal with the spell he needs so that he can craft an item of it.

I hadn't seen that vestige in Races of Destiny. Thanks for the link !