Alternative/Variant/House Rule to Item Creation Feats?

[LaurindoRC]

Hello playground!
As always, thank you for all the help I always get from you guys!

Pretty straightforward: Any variants or house rules so my players can craft magical stuff without getting the feats?

Like, can't the Druid just brew healing potions (like, "from herbs") like you would think a Druid could do?

Or this will simply mess up wih our game and I'm talking nonsense?

(P.S: They don't even have a Wizard XD )

[Psyren]

You could simply give them for free to any class as soon as they meet the prerequisites. For example, anyone who achieves CL 3 gets Brew Potion and Craft Wondrous Item for free.

Alternatively, don't change anything about them, but simply give them access to crafting NPCs that have the feats. The players will still need to cooperate with them (supplying necessary spells, gold etc) but they can spend their own feats on other things.

[Efrate]

Pathfinder has the master craftsman feat which let's anyone craft just increases the craft dc. Pathfinder also removes xp and reduces time for crafting, and allows crafting while adventuring.

[skunk3]

In my current campaign the DM said that to make crafting more accessible to all one doesn't need to take each item creation feat separately. Instead we just take one feat called "craft magic items" and it covers all of the bases, at least until epic level and then you'd only have to take another feat that is simply called "craft epic magic items." Of course you still need the ability to craft whatever it is that you want to craft. He didn't make any changes to costs (gold or xp) nor crafting time though, but if you're serious about crafting and are or will be playing in a high level campaign there is an epic prestige class called "Master Arcane Artisan" that can significantly reduce crafting times. The character that I am playing is currently level 24 and a Warlock so I am able to craft 30,000 GP worth of items per day which is significantly faster than the normal 1,000 GP / day limit. There's also some feats that reduce base crafting times as well as base crafting costs, both GP and XP. Last but not least there is a pretty affordable item called "Heward's Fortifying Bedroll" which lets you get the equivalent of 8 hours of rest in just 1 hour which definitely helps when it comes to crafting while traveling.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder has the master craftsman feat which let's anyone craft just increases the craft dc. Pathfinder also removes xp and reduces time for crafting, and allows crafting while adventuring.

This only works for Wondrous Item and Magic Arms & Armor however. You still need the regular crafting feats (and requisite caster levels) for the rest, including brewing potions, scribing scrolls, crafting rods/wands, forging rings etc.

Granted, you can get a lot done with Wondrous Items, especially if your GM is open to custom ones - e.g. making "elixirs" and "ointments" instead of potions and oils.

[RNightstalker]

I would essentially combine the craft feats into the craft skills. A fighter could make his sword while the wizard works on his staff while the rogue works on her cloak, etc.

It would also allow the raising of the DC to get things done more quickly. If the only way to gain access to some of the classic items is to create them, who wants to spend 200 days to make a Staff of the Magi? Who's got the time in or out of game?

[MonstarDM]

Well, I do this:

Drop the ''spellcaster only" bit from the Craft Magic Feats, and give ALL classes a bonus feat of their choice starting at 3rd level, and every three levels after that.

Then drop the whole ''cast a spell" part of magic item creation and replace it with ''conduct a ritual".

This allows anyone of any class to make any magic item they want.

For a fun Role Playing twist, from all the way back from 2E, you can add in some ''fantastic fantasy" requierment too. Not ''just" a red dragon scale....but the scale of a red dragon king who has killed at least one good dragon of each metalic color.

[Bphill561]

Silver Marches book in Forgotten realms on page 62, the college benefits section at the bottom. A wizard can join the wizard college for 5,000gp a year. This allows them to craft any item as if they had the item creation feats, but they still need the spells and other pre-reqs. They get charged a cost of 10% of the final market value of the item to to this. That is still a pretty cheap deal, especially since it includes every variant item creation feat in the game. Consider the non-epic feat in the epic book that lets you improve an item's DC to match your caster ability score. I always wondered if Magic Artisan was also on the table...

There is also Gremma's Cauldron on page 217 of Expedition to Undermoutain. The cauldron lets you brew potions even if you don't have the feat, or in half the time if you do. It costs 5000 gp and is only 5lbs.

Races of the stone has several Dwarven Anvils, including one that lets dwarfs craft as if they had Craft magic Arms and Armor. It is 15,000gp but generally cannot be moved. UMD is your friend

At higher levels, shapechange can let you turn into a Midguard drawf that can autocraft any armor, shield, ring, or wonderous item without pre-req's. But that is shapechange for you.

Leadership can also be used to brokenly craft items with warlock or artificer cohort. Especially considering again there is a web enhancement that has a tool that lets you put xp in it to give to a crafter to use. You cohort crafter will also get xp for sitting at home using the leadership xp mechanic so no need to risk them or worry about down time for the party unless you need to wait for them to finish. Also you could throw one level of Maester on your gnome cohort to double your crafting speeds to 2,000gp a day. There is also the spell Research Aid (Level 4) in Dragon 342, pg55 that halves crafting times boosting you up to 4,000gp a day. Seems like a good first item for your artificer to craft or start with in his NPC equipment (level dependent).

The embrace/shun feat shuffle could let you move a single feat around for crafting. 500xp on top of the normal crafting cost would not be unreasonable to pay to only have one crafting feat that you can change in your down time. Also a legitimate use of the spells if you use it on a feat you select and don't swap out bonus armor feats. Still a high level option. Likewise you could retrain the feat, but that is even more time on crafting times.

If you party is good, ancestral relic lets you pray to enhance a single magic item. Similarly there ware the ritual in the DMG II that also have a similar mechanic.

There is an auto quill somewhere in a web enhancement.

Overall any of these items, tricks, or college could be available in your game. The main enemy is usually time, gold and xp keep coming (and the xp is faster of course if you are a level behind from all your "crafting")

[Jack_Simth]

You could try rolling it into the Craft skills. Magic staffs are made with Craft(Staff), magic armors are made with Craft(Armorsmithing), magic weapons are made with Craft(Weapons), and so on. Anyone can make any magic item... if they're skilled at making that sort of item. Change the caster level requirement to a skill rank requirement, replace the spell requirements with some sort of skill check requirements, drop the feat costs, and you're good to go.



For a fun Role Playing twist, from all the way back from 2E, you can add in some ''fantastic fantasy" requierment too. Not ''just" a red dragon scale....but the scale of a red dragon king who has killed at least one good dragon of each metalic color.This is very double-edged, and there's a reason they dropped it in the 2e->3e transition. Yeah, it makes for fun and memorable items the first time or two... but on your fourth item? Your tenth? How do you handle that the PC's leveled up a few times when seeking out the dragon in question, and now the armor they were making is no longer level appropriate?

[Quarian Rex]

You might want to take a look at The Practical Enchanter (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51242/The-Practical-Enchanter). It completely revamps the magic item creation process (in a good way I think). You would still have to house rule that all of the Item Creation feats are free bonus feats but they do have a pretty huge advantage over the normal system. All of the feats can be selected multiple times for increased effect. There are even creation feats that allow you to make things in truly non-standard ways, like Create Artifact and Create Relic.

This would allow the (N)PCs to craft more casually but still allow the meaningful existence of dedicated crafters capable of enchanting in more interesting/powerful ways (like at a discount, or enchanting living things, or using the user's caster level instead of the item's, etc.). Just some thoughts.

[LaurindoRC]

So many great suggestions! Thank you all!
The most important thing I got from here is: "you can give the feats for free, is not dumb or will ruin the game"

I'll see to it that our warlock uses his UMD to create some stuff as he doesn't need the feat

Thanks playground!