pi4t
2020-03-14, 03:31 PM
Introduction
By default, magic item crafting in Pathfinder is...a little lacking. It's basically treated the same as buying an item from a shop, but with a significant discount and complete freedom in what items to make. Only one person can contribute (without taking extra feats like Cooperative Crafting). The time it takes to make the item is rather arbitrary. There's no way for players to incorporate objects found during previous adventures in their crafting in a mechanical way. There's no need to consider different materials that could be used. In short, the whole system feels more like ordering an item online and waiting for it to be delivered than forging it from raw materials using magic. The size of the cost reduction, and the ease with which it's accessed, also tends to attract criticism for being overpowered.
This system aims to correct this, providing a much more in-depth crafting system based on Spheres of Power. Under these rules, during their adventures PCs will gather magical ingredients associated with specific types of magic, and will then turn these ingredients (possibly supplemented by extra ingredients bought from shops) into custom magic items. A mixture of skills and powers will be required for all this, and the whole party has the chance to be involved in the process. Players who aren't interested in crafting can sell the ingredients they find as loot, or can commission NPCs to do the crafting for them for a fee.
This system is built around Drop Dead Studios' excellent Spheres of Power. Spheres of Power divides magic into themed spheres, and allows you to make almost any kind of spellcaster imaginable by choosing appropriate abilities from the spheres. It also has its own robust rules for pricing custom items, which is handy as it lets the crafting system adapt those rules to set its own recipes. You could use the in depth crafting system with vanilla Pathfinder, but you'd need to manually create a recipe for every wondrous item, ring, rod, etc that your PCs consider making. You might also want to change the Attunements of ingredients to not be based on the spheres. In short, it would take an awful lot of work.
If you want to use Spheres of Power but also want to include some of the vanilla Paizo items, you have two options. If you only want to add a few items which have a direct mechanical effect (e.g. pearls of power) your best option is probably to make them into new charms. I've already done this with a couple of items – the carrying capacity charm is borrowed from muleback cords. If you want to include all of them, then you should add Craft Wondrous Item back in as a separate feat to Craft Marvellous Item, to avoid adding too much to Forge Charm.
Ingredients
An Ingredient is simply an object infused with magical power which can be used for crafting Products – magic items with useful abilities. They come in many physical shapes – the scales of an ancient red dragon, a bunch of herbs with magical healing properties, an ectoplasmic residue left by a ghost and a blade that was broken in killing a dark lord might all be considered ingredients, at the GM's option.
Mechanically, an Ingredient is described by two properties: its Potency, and its Attunement. The ingredient's Potency determines how powerful a Product it can be used to create and how much it contributes to that Product, and should typically be about equal to the CR of the creature it came from (or the hazard that the PCs had to overcome to obtain it). Its Attunement describes what type of magic it's imbued with, and can be either a magic sphere or an element.
At the GM's discretion, Ingredients might have multiple Attunements if they seem to fit in multiple categories. In this case, each Attunement will be associated with its own Potency. A crafter using an ingredient with multiple Attunements can choose any one (and only one) of its Attunements to use in the crafting. The Potencies should be kept fairly close together – since only one Attunement can be used and the others are ignored, it would be unusual for a crafter to waste an Ingredient's high Potency by using an Attunement that's a lot weaker.
Looking at the examples above, the dragon scales might be a Fire 19/Protection 16 ingredient. The herbs might be a Life 3 ingredient, the ectoplasm Death 7, and the blade a War 10 ingredient.
It might be less than obvious what Ingredients should be Attuned to certain spheres. While ultimately it's up to the GM to decide what the most suitable Attunement for an ingredient is, these are some suggestions for where different ingredients could come from.
Table 1: Attunements
Attunement
Suggested Sources
Sample Ingredients
Air/Earth/Fire/Sonic/Water
Creatures which do elemental damage, or have high resistance to the element
Red dragon scales (fire), rock from an earth elemental (earth)
Alteration
Shapechangers, Hybrid creatures
Werewolf pelt, chimera tooth, water gathered from a magical pool during the full moon
Conjuration
Extraplanar beings, summoned creatures
Blood of an eidolon, Djinn's broken lamp
Creation
Creatures that can make physical material, magically-imbued raw materials
Giant spider chitin, iron from a meteorite
Dark
Monsters with the ability to summon darkness or light sensitivity
Cloaker tail, black pearls that have never been exposed to sunlight
Death
Undead, disease, poisonous plants
Skeleton's thigh bone, ectoplasm from a ghost, boils from someone who died of the plague, soil from an unmarked grave, black lotus extract
Destruction
Creatures with a notable “blasting” power, monsters and things that mindlessly destroy
Lung of a dragon, core of a gelatinous cube, gold coins found concealed behind a sphere of annihilation
Divination
Creatures with unusual senses, (valuable) items used in divination
Dire bat skull, Linnorm eye, clear water from a pool in the distant mountains
Enhancement
Constructs, Ingredients that aren't obviously connected to a different Attunement, creatures with magically improved stats. Frequently a secondary Attunement on other Ingredients.
Iron salvaged from an iron golem, gargoyle tail
Fate
Alignment focussed creatures
Demon's blood, angel's feathers, cornerstone of a great temple
Illusion
Trickster type enemies, invisibility-users
Pixie dust, invisible stalker's...invisible remains
Life
Monsters with regeneration, rare herbs and medicines
Troll fat, athelas
Light
Plants and creatures that create or reflect light
Phosphorescent herbs, plasma from a lantern archon, gold that has been kept in constant sunlight for an entire year
Mana
Creatures with a lots of spellcasting abilities
Hag's hair, beholder eyestalk, implement used in a great ritual
Mind
Mind-controlling creatures, sentient undead, awakened animals
Illithid brain, lich's phylactery
Nature
Powerful animals/animal-like magical beasts, plant creatures
Dire wolf pelt, fruit from the tree at the centre of a druids' grove
Protection
Enemies with notably high DR or unusual defences
Dragon scales, stone from a ruined castle wall
Telekinesis
Creatures with supernatural fly speeds, creatures which implicitly use telekinesis to hold together
Eye of a beholder, sprite's wing, mysterious floating gemstone, bone meal from a skeleton
Time
Supernaturally accelerated or extremely old/immortal creatures
Winding key for a clockwork golem, Fluxwraith ectoplasm, Sun orchid nectar
War
Relics from important battles, trophies taken from martial leaders
Shard of Narsil, armour plate from an ancient battle, crown of a hobgoblin chief
Warp
Teleporting creatures
Finger bone of a dimensional shambler, remnants of a gate to hell that the party closed
Weather
Extreme weather phenomena
Bottled wind from a tornado
Bear
Bears
Bear pelt
Blood
Vampires, secondary Attunement on any ingredients from a creature's blood
Dust from a staked vampire, dragon's blood
Fallen Fey
Fey
Pixie dust
Technomancy
Technological creatures and objects
Trigger for a proximity mine
Harvesting Ingredients
Most of the Ingredients players gain will be found during adventuring, either as part of the treasure or in the form of body parts of monsters killed. It's easy to discover and identify Ingredients. Detect Magic and similar effects will allow you to do so automatically (with Potency and Attunement being revealed in the third round), or failing that a simple DC 10 Spellcraft check will reveal any Ingredients present. You can't identify Ingredients that are part of a living (or undead, or otherwise animated) creature, however – you have to kill it before you can loot it.
Harvesting an Ingredient is a bit harder. Sometimes this may already have been done for you if it's part of a creature's treasure, but if it's found in its natural form a skill check will usually be needed to extract it without ruining it. The DC is 10+the highest Potency of the ingredient. The skill used varies, but is generally either Heal (for ingredients being extracted from creatures) or Survival (for other ingredients). You may not take 10 on this check, even if you have an ability which lets you do so in situations you normally couldn't.
When planning encounters and placing treasure, the GM should consider each Ingredients to be worth 200gp * the highest level of Potency on the ingredient. The Potency of the ingredient should be about equal to the CR of the creature it came from. As long as the usual wealth by level guidelines are adhered to, it doesn't matter how frequent the GM decides to make Ingredients – the system will work fine whether Ingredients are an occasional item the PCs find or the core of their loot. The balance of different Potencies is important to keep balanced, though – if you want them to make more than potions and scrolls, PCs should get a relatively small number of high Potency (ie roughly equal to APL) ingredients to act as Keystones (see below) and a larger number of somewhat lower Potency ingredients of various sorts. It's also good to try and include a mixture of different Attunements on the high Potency ingredients, and to consider letting the group go on a sidequest to track down a source of a particularly elusive Attunement.
Trading ingredients
Ingredients have a market value of 200gp * the highest Potency of the ingredient. Like other items, they can be sold for half their value, and a few might be available for purchase in shops. However, there should be some scarcity here – players shouldn't be able to freely buy ingredients with precisely the Potencies and Attunements they want. Magic shops might reasonably sell a handful of premade items, a few high Potency ingredients, and a small number of lower Potency ones, but PCs shouldn't be able to wander up and buy themselves a Potency 17 Bear ingredient from the village shop.
Since the market value of an Product is normally 200gp * the total Potency required to make it, it's not generally possible to make a profit by buying Ingredients and crafting items to sell.
At the GM's option, NPCs may exist who are able to craft items for the PCs in return for payment. These are generally not active adventurers, and will need the PCs to supply them with the Ingredients for the Product to be made (or at least the ingredients of high Potency: they might have a small amount of lower Potency ingredients available for the PCs to buy). They'll also typically charge a commission of half the Product's market value, although of course they might reduce or waive the cost for friends and allies. It's generally safe to assume that if an NPC will accept a job crafting Products of a given caster level, then they have enough skill and magical help to automatically pass all the skill checks required.
The crafting system isn't designed for so called “magic mart” settings, where players can buy any item they like, simply because it has a listed market value. It's assumed that magic shops will sell at most a handful of level-appropriate items selected by the GM, and perhaps a larger number of less powerful items. As written, buying all the ingredients for a magic item and then crafting it won't save you any money – in fact, it might even end up marginally more expensive than buying the item directly! The main benefit of crafting in this system – other than getting full value for ingredients rather than selling them at half price – is that you get to choose precisely what item to make. This benefit is made rather worthless if you're able to buy custom magic items from the local shop.
To make the system work in a magic mart setting, consider reducing the market value of ingredients to 150gp per point of Potency. This won't completely solve the problem, but it at least makes crafting worth considering. Don't reduce the price down to 100gp, or you'll allow a group with a single item creation feat to “sell” any ingredients they find for their full market value by crafting them into simple magic items before selling them.
Conversely, it should be relatively simple to replace the gold economy entirely with this system, if you want to run a game where the PCs don't have access to magic shops at all. If you do this, I recommend giving everyone all the item creation feats for free, as well as the Artisan's Disenchant ability (see the Artisan spoiler at the bottom of this post). Keep in mind that any premade magic items the PCs can't use will “sell” for considerably less than the usual half-market-value, so adjust loot accordingly. Obviously, if anyone actually wants to play an Artisan or other crafting-focussed class, you'll need to do give them something to replace the abilities everyone's getting for free.
Crafting Items
Instead of spending gold on nebulous “raw materials”, crafting a magic item requires a number of ingredients of varying Potency and Attunement depending on the Product being made. The following sections say what Ingredients are needed for the various Products you can make. The power for the enchantment comes from the Ingredients rather than your own magic, so unlike in the vanilla rules, there are no CL limits on what you can make provided you have the Ingredients. In fact, you don't even need to be a spellcaster at all: the caster level prerequisites for item creation feats are removed. Most other prerequisites for individual items are also removed; the only thing you need in order to begin making a Product is the appropriate feat and some Ingredients.
Each Ingredient being used in a Product takes one day of work to prepare. At the end of that day, you may make a Use Magic Device check of DC 10+the Potency of the Ingredient. If the Ingredient has multiple Potencies, then use the highest. On a success the Ingredient is prepared; if the check fails, then the Ingredient is ruined and a replacement must be found if the item is still to be crafted. A spellcaster who has access to the sphere the Ingredient is attuned to (or a talent focussed on the correct element, if the Attunement is elemental) may use a Spellcraft check of the same DC in place of the UMD check. (At the GM's discretion, non-sphere magical classes might also qualify for doing this with certain spheres, though it's best to avoid giving access to more than a few Attunements in this way. In particular, Vancian casters should probably only be able to do this for the mana and enhancement spheres, and any areas they've particularly specialised in.) As with harvesting Ingredients, you may not take 10 on this check.
The preparation is specific to the recipe you plan to use the Ingredient in – if you later change your mind and decide to use the Ingredient in a different recipe instead then you must prepare all it again from scratch. At the GM's discretion, this may be skipped if the new Product is sufficiently similar to the original (e.g. if you simply increased the caster level of the item but otherwise kept it the same).
If all goes to plan, then eventually all the Ingredients will be prepared. At this point, you must make a Craft check of DC 10+the caster level of the item. Again, you can't take 10. The specialisation of the Craft check must be suitable to the item being enchanted – craft (weapons) would be suitable for enchanting a sword, while a ring would need something like craft (jewellery). As with preparing ingredients, if you are a spellcaster with access to the item's associated sphere, you may use a Spellcraft check in place of the Craft check. On a successful check, the item is completed. On a failure, a cursed item is produced instead.
Assisting the Crafting
Other characters can assist with the crafting process in one of two ways. First, anyone can prepare ingredients on your behalf. They make their own Use Magic Device or Spellcraft check (which can be helpful, if for example they qualify to use Spellcraft with a particular Ingredient and you don't). The process takes a day per Ingredient, as usual. You need to be present to provide general instruction to the helpers throughout the day, but can work on your own crafting activities at the same time, or even undertake other reasonable downtime activities that won't stop you having frequent contact with your assistants.
You do have to spend at least a day working on the item personally. Even if you don't prepare any of the ingredients, you must still devote a day to crafting at some point in the process, before you can make the final Craft check.
Secondly, if another character has an item creation feat which you lack, they can provide their expertise to help you make that type of item. Both you and the helper must be present to provide instruction during the crafting as described above, and you must both spend at least a day working on the item. This does not entitle you to craft magic items if you have no item creation feats at all – the assistant just helps you apply the knowledge you do have to a different sort of enchantment.
All item creation feats: Remove the caster level prerequisite.
Master Craftsman: Removed. Any class feature which would have given you the feat instead gives you an item creation feat, or Skill Focus in any craft skill.
Cooperative Crafting: Removed (unless a player really wants to help someone else with mundane crafting for some reason). Any class feature which would have given you the feat instead gives you an item creation feat, or a teamwork feat.
It may seem unreasonable to have such a lot of rolls required. In particular, you have to make a UMD roll for every single ingredient. And you can't even take 10. Won't this get really tiresome, not to mention ruin lots of ingredients?
Not really. The DCs for most of the checks are quite low – normally you'll be dealing with relatively small (compared to your level) Potencies for non-Keystone items. With a little investment, the use of masterwork tools, charms and perhaps a ritual version of Crafter's Fortune for the craft checks should let a crafter meet the DCs even on a natural 1. At that point, of course, no roll is needed – remember that a natural 1 isn't an automatic failure on skill checks! GMs should allow their players to do this, as the system is designed with this process in mind.
If you normally have failures on a natural 1 for skill checks, I strongly recommend waiving that rule for checks connected with this system.
Recipes
All magic item recipes have a similar structure. Every recipe requires one or more “Keystone” Ingredients. These form the core of the enchantment, and must have an appropriate Attunement and a Potency at least equal to the intended caster level for the Product. An Attunement is considered appropriate if it's either the sphere which the enchantment is associated with, or it's of an element that's connected to the effect. Most Weather and Nature sphere effects could use an elemental Attunement in their keystones, as could several Destruction effects and some enchantments from other spheres.
In addition, the recipe also requires extra Ingredients to be added. These Ingredients augment the main enchantment by supplying extra magic power, and they can be of any Attunement and Potency. Some ingredients are less suitable to the crafting, however. If an ingredient's Attunement is not appropriate to the item, the Attunement is not to mana (which can be used for any item without penalty), and the GM judges that its physical form is not appropriate to the item being made (such as a leather pelt being used to make a sword, or a vial of blood being used for a ring) then the ingredient's effective Potency is reduced by 5. The GM should be generous here – if an Ingredient's physical form doesn't really fit with any item at all, and the player can offer a reasonable explanation of how they're using it in their crafting, then they shouldn't suffer the penalty. Keystone ingredients never suffer this penalty. Rituals don't have a physical form at all, so this penalty never applies when inventing a ritual.
For talent-based recipes, the object being enchanted should also be chosen to reflect the intended enchantment as far as possible. If a player chooses not to do this, the Potency required for the Keystones increases by 5. Again, the GM should be fairly generous in adjudicating this: in particular, sometimes there may not be any items that seem particularly suitable, in which case the GM should choose whichever items seem the most reasonable even if they don't fit all that well. The point is to encourage players to choose appropriate items for their enchantments, not to make enchantments more difficult if they don't happen to map neatly onto a specific item.
To complete the enchantment, the Total Potency of all the Ingredients used must reach a number specified in the tables below. However, there is also limit to the total number of Ingredients that can be used in the recipe. Keystone ingredients contribute towards the Total Potency, but also count towards the maximum number of Ingredients. If an Ingredient has multiple Attunements (and thus multiple Potencies) the crafter must choose just one of those Attunements to make use of and gets no benefit at all from the other Attunement. A Destruction 10/Enhancement 7 Ingredient will thus contribute only 10 Potency – or 7 if the crafter decides to use it as an Enhancement Ingredient (perhaps to avoid the -5 penalty to effective Potency, or because it's being used as a keystone for an Enhancement based Product).
For consumable items, it might happen that the keystones alone contribute more than enough Potency to make the item. If that happens, you may create multiple items simultaneously using just the keystones – divide the sum of the keystones' ingredients by the total Potency required to find how many copies of the item can be made. This can only be done with scrolls and compounds.
Finally, the GM might also add a token cost – typically no more than 100gp – for mundane raw materials if none of the ingredients fit the item's physical form. For example, if you're trying to make a magic gold ring and none of your ingredients happen to contain any gold, then the GM might reasonably say you need to spend some money to buy the actual gold for the ring.
These two tables specify the ingredients required for each item.
Feat
Type of Item
# Keystones
Total Potency
Max. Ingredients
Capture Spell
Scroll
1
CL*Complexity/8
1+Complexity
Distil Compound
Potion/Oil/Powder
1
CL*Complexity/4
1+Complexity
Marvellous Item
1/day
2
CL*Complexity*2
2+2*Complexity
2/day
2
CL*Complexity*4
4+4*Complexity
n/day
2
CL*Complexity*2n
2n*(1+Complexity)
50 uses total
1
CL*Complexity*5
5+5*Complexity
At will
4
CL*Complexity*10
10+10*Complexity
Craft Apparatus
Constant Effect
4
CL*Complexity*10
10+10*Complexity
Feat
Type of Item
Caster level
# Keystones
Attunement
Total Potency
Max. Ingredients
Craft Rituals
Ritual
2*Ritual level
1
Sphere of Ritual
Development Cost/200
5+Ritual Level
Craft Spell Engine1
Spell Engine
Varies
1 per 2CL
Sphere of Engine
(Old CL + New CL) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Craft Implement1
Implement of Power
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
Forge Charm1
Physical Ability
2*bonus
1 per 2 points
Enhancement or Alteration
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Mental Ability
2*bonus
1 per 2 points
Enhancement or Mind
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
AC (Deflection)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Protection
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
AC (Natural)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Alteration
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
Energy Resistance (one element)
1/2 resistance
1
Enhancement or [Element]
Difference * 8
(20 less if the enchantment is being created new rather than upgraded)
Difference * 4
Saves (Resistance)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Protection
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Skill (Competence)
1*bonus
1
Enhancement or Mind
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference /2
Difference
Spell Resistance3
1/2 resistance
1
Mana or Protection
50*Difference
20*Difference
CMB/CMD (enhancement, one maneuver)4
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or War
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Land Speed
3 per 10ft added
1 per 10ft added
Enhancement or Time
(Old bonus + New bonus) * increase in move speed in ft
20 per 10ft added
Carry Capacity
3
1
Enhancement or Alteration
5
2
Forge Construct
Construct5
Varies
Varies
Enhancement or variable
Market value/ 200
Varies
Smith Magical Weapons & Armour1
Weapons
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + new bonus) * difference * 10
Difference * 20
Armour
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + new bonus) * difference * 5
Difference * 10
1: The prices for these items are given for increasing an enchantment to a stronger one. For most of them, the number of keystones required depends on how big the increase is – for example, increasing an implement from an (effective) +3 to +4 requires one keystone; increasing it straight to +5 needs two. All keystones must be of Potency equal to the item's new caster level.
2: The Attunement requirements for these items depend on the specific enchantment being added. Simple + bonuses on weapons need either war or enhancement; + bonuses on armour can use protection or enhancement; and + bonuses on implements use mana or any sphere the implement's bonus applies to. The different +n equivalent enchantments require different Attunements depending on what they do. If the enchantment has a fixed price, it's generally better to emulate it using the talent-based crafting feats.
3: Minimum spell resistance is 13. Treat an unenchanted item as having spell resistance 12 for calculating the total Potency and maximum ingredients
4: Enhancement bonuses to maneuvers don't stack with weapon enhancement bonuses.
5: Constructs have no particular pattern to their prices, so we can't define a set price scheme and the number of keystones and maximum ingredients must be determined by the GM. Generally, a construct should be attuned to Enhancement, although there are exceptions.
Two new Charms are added:
Speed: Grants an enhancement bonus to the wearer's base land speed. The increase must be a multiple of 10ft, and is priced at (Bonus/10) squared*2000gp. The caster level is 3*bonus/10.
Carrying Capacity: Multiples carrying capacity by 8, as muleback cords. Costs 1000gp, and has CL 3. (Weaker versions with a smaller multiplier are theoretically possible but rarely made since they still have the same Total Potency and maximum Ingredients, just a lower caster level.)
A few other charms have been tweaked, or removed, to fix some issues with the Spheres of Power charms' maths. In particular, the “(other)” bonuses to saves and AC can't be crafted without special permission from the GM as they mess up the pricing of bonuses. They might, of course, still be found while adventuring.
Bonuses to combat maneuvers have been changed from competence to enhancement. This is because some maneuvers can technically be used with enchanted weapons, allowing players to double-dip and get both the weapon's bonus and the charm's bonus to attack rolls.
Any wearable object can be made into a charm. You can even place multiple types of enchantment onto a single charm, although if you add a second enchantment from the same category (e.g. a bonus to a second physical ability score) then the Total Potency for the second enchantment is multiplied by 1.5. If you wear two different charms from the same category, then only one of the enchantments functions (your choice which) and the other is disabled. This creates the same effect on pricing that the "slot" system of normal Pathfinder does, without ending up with everyone having to wear lots of miscellaneous magic belts, headbands, etc. You should be able to ignore slot restrictions entirely with these rules if you want to.
Mana Ingredients
Ingredients with an Attunement to Mana have a few special properties. Firstly, they never count as unsuitable ingredients for any item. Secondly, a high Potency Mana ingredient may be used as a special extra keystone in a recipe. Used in this way, the ingredient doesn't contribute towards the number of keystones required, but it increases the item's caster level to up to three points above the Potency of its other keystones, to a maximum of the Mana ingredient's own Potency. So upgrading a +1 weapon to +2, which would normally require an Enhancement keystone of Potency 6, could instead be made using an Enhancement keystone of Potency as little as 3 and a Mana keystone of at least 6 Potency. Both keystones contribute towards the total Potency and maximum ingredients. For items where it is relevant, the Total Potency and Maximum Ingredients are calculated using the increased caster level.
Of course, a Mana attuned ingredient may also be used as a normal keystone in a recipe calling for a Mana keystone.
With an improved crafting system, players may be interested in a class focussed on crafting. There are a number of crafting-focussed classes in Pathfinder, but they need adjusting to work with the new system, and indeed with the Spheres of Power items in general. This is a summary of how to adapt my personal favourite crafting class, Drop Dead Studios' Artisan. If you want to adapt other classes, this will hopefully give you some ideas. I advise against giving NPC crafters this class, as the discounts to recipes the class gets shouldn't be accessible to the PCs without investing levels. Changes in italics only apply if Spheres of Might is being used.
Class skills: Add Heal and Survival to the list.
Proficiencies: Replace with simple weapons, light armour, and a martial tradition.
Master Craftsman: Removed entirely, replaced by the new class skills and improvement to the Essence Pool. This feature only existed at all in order to allow the Artisan to function as a crafter; with this system that's no longer necessary.
Enhancement Pool: A point from your enhancement pool may also be used in place of a spell point to recharge a spell engine whose caster level is no higher than your level. This may be done multiple times per day, even recharging the same spell engine multiple times.
Creation Feat: Replace the options listed with the Spheres item creation feats, any of which may be selected from 1st level. Instead of decreasing the cost of raw materials, improving your efficiency with a feat reduces the total Potency required for an item by 5% (rounded down).
Magical Essence: The Artisan always seems to have just the right ingredients on hand. His Essence Pool represents the selection of ingredients he's picked up in the background during his travels. Divide the listed value of the pool by 200 (rounding up) to determine the total Potency available to him. At any time, the Artisan may spend up to his level in points from his Essence Pool to obtain an ingredient with an Attunement of his choice and a Potency equal to the number of points spent. This ingredient is considered suitable for any item being crafted.
Crafter's Art: Instead of decreasing the required time for an item, when making an item within your crafter's art, unsuitable ingredients take only a -2 penalty to their Potency (rather than -5).
Weapon User: Instead choose a discipline talent from the equipment sphere
Defensive Training: Instead, receive either Armour Training or Shield Training from the equipment sphere
Enhanced Rings: You may capture a spell into a ring without taking the usual -5 penalty for an unsuitable medium. You can use your own ring-scrolls without needing a use magic device check.
Ring Lord: You may wear charms which have enchantments from the same category (eg bonuses to two different physical ability scores) and benefit from both of them. Their bonuses don't stack, but overlap. At least one of the charms must be a piece of jewellery.
Arcana: Applies to scrolls, spell engines and implements of power. The special abilities of this specialisation apply when activating scrolls and spell engines.
Consumables: Applies to scrolls, compounds, and marvellous items with 50 total uses.
Powerful Potions: Enhance Potion can be used on any compound.
Improved Potions: Consumables you create function at 2CL higher than their keystones and total Potency indicate.
Potions Master: Extend Potion and Eternal Potion can be used on any compound. Instead of receiving Dilution, halve the total Potency required for any compound you craft.
Craftsman Techniques: The following techniques have been changed or removed
Apprentice Wizard: Applies to scrolls and spell engines
Efficient Enchanting: Decrease the total Potency and maximum number of ingredients in a recipe by 25%
Expert Enchanting: Increase the maximum number of ingredients in a recipe by 50%
Metamagic rod mastery: Removed
Rod combatant: Removed
Rod mastery: Removed
Scroll artistry: Removed
Scroll mastery: Removed
Staff Empowerment: Applies to spell engines
Wand Empowerment: Removed
Wand Mastery: Removed
In addition, the following new techniques may be selected:
Arcana Mastery: [Prerequisite: Apprentice Wizard] Add your intelligence modifier to the DC of effects from scrolls and spell engines you use. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Combat Training: Gain a combat talent of your choice.
Consumable Mastery: Add your intelligence modifier to the DCs of effects produced from scrolls, compounds and marvellous items with 50 total uses. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Implement Use: You may use an implement to improve the caster level of spell engines and talent-based magic items which you activate, as if you were using the sphere abilities yourself. If a special ability on an implement would require you to spend a spell point to activate it, you may instead spend an enhancement point to do so.
Capacitance's limit applies to total complexity instead of spell point cost
Magic Talent grants its talent to any spell apparatus of an appropriate sphere
Marvellous Item Mastery: Add your intelligence modifier to the DCs of effects produced from marvellous items and apparatuses. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Quick Crafter: Preparing an ingredient takes you only half the usual time
Scavenger: Add half your level to any skill checks to obtain ingredients
Homunculus: Instead of the usual costs, a homunculus familiar has a caster level equal to your own level. It requires a single Keystone, and a total Potency of 5+level (with a maximum of 3 ingredients). The Attunement of the Keystone determines the type of homunculus produced:
Basic: Enhancement, Life, Nature, Weather
Brute: Alteration, Bear, Destruction, Protection, War
Swiftling Messenger: Conjuration, Divination, Time, Telekinesis
Runeforged: Fallen Fey, Fate, Mana, Mind
Stealthful Striker: Blood, Dark, Death, Illusion
Indentured Servant*: Creation, Light, Technomancy, Warp
*Instead of the normal Master Craftsman ability, the Indentured Servant may prepare ingredients without its master being present to provide instruction. The item being made must be one which its master has the item creation feat for, and it must be given clear instructions on what ingredients to prepare and for what recipe to prepare them. However, the homunculus' master can then leave it unattended for days and it will continue preparing the ingredients, rather than requiring guidance every day as other helpers and homunculi would. The Indentured Servant can even be given complex instructions, like “prepare the ingredients for every item on this list” or “prepare the ingredients for this item, but stop preparing them if you ruin any of them”. It also swaps out its +7 bonus to Craft for a +8 bonus to Use Magic Device, and Prodigy for Skill Focus (UMD). (Also remember that as a familiar, the homunculus can use your ranks in skills.)
Animate Object: Increased to an 8th level ability to replace Staff Mastery. An animated object always requires an Enhancement keystone, a total Potency of (HD+CP)*5, and a maximum of 8 ingredients.
Disenchant: Disenchanting an item doesn't add any points to your essence pool, but allows you to recover the keystone ingredients used in the item.
Staff Mastery: Removed.
Supreme Technique:
Master Enchanter: Instead of the usual benefit, the maximum number of ingredients in a recipe is doubled, the time the Artisan personally takes to prepare an ingredient is reduced to one hour, and the Potency required for a keystone is reduced by 5.
Staff Lord: Applies to all talent-based items, and spell engines
By default, magic item crafting in Pathfinder is...a little lacking. It's basically treated the same as buying an item from a shop, but with a significant discount and complete freedom in what items to make. Only one person can contribute (without taking extra feats like Cooperative Crafting). The time it takes to make the item is rather arbitrary. There's no way for players to incorporate objects found during previous adventures in their crafting in a mechanical way. There's no need to consider different materials that could be used. In short, the whole system feels more like ordering an item online and waiting for it to be delivered than forging it from raw materials using magic. The size of the cost reduction, and the ease with which it's accessed, also tends to attract criticism for being overpowered.
This system aims to correct this, providing a much more in-depth crafting system based on Spheres of Power. Under these rules, during their adventures PCs will gather magical ingredients associated with specific types of magic, and will then turn these ingredients (possibly supplemented by extra ingredients bought from shops) into custom magic items. A mixture of skills and powers will be required for all this, and the whole party has the chance to be involved in the process. Players who aren't interested in crafting can sell the ingredients they find as loot, or can commission NPCs to do the crafting for them for a fee.
This system is built around Drop Dead Studios' excellent Spheres of Power. Spheres of Power divides magic into themed spheres, and allows you to make almost any kind of spellcaster imaginable by choosing appropriate abilities from the spheres. It also has its own robust rules for pricing custom items, which is handy as it lets the crafting system adapt those rules to set its own recipes. You could use the in depth crafting system with vanilla Pathfinder, but you'd need to manually create a recipe for every wondrous item, ring, rod, etc that your PCs consider making. You might also want to change the Attunements of ingredients to not be based on the spheres. In short, it would take an awful lot of work.
If you want to use Spheres of Power but also want to include some of the vanilla Paizo items, you have two options. If you only want to add a few items which have a direct mechanical effect (e.g. pearls of power) your best option is probably to make them into new charms. I've already done this with a couple of items – the carrying capacity charm is borrowed from muleback cords. If you want to include all of them, then you should add Craft Wondrous Item back in as a separate feat to Craft Marvellous Item, to avoid adding too much to Forge Charm.
Ingredients
An Ingredient is simply an object infused with magical power which can be used for crafting Products – magic items with useful abilities. They come in many physical shapes – the scales of an ancient red dragon, a bunch of herbs with magical healing properties, an ectoplasmic residue left by a ghost and a blade that was broken in killing a dark lord might all be considered ingredients, at the GM's option.
Mechanically, an Ingredient is described by two properties: its Potency, and its Attunement. The ingredient's Potency determines how powerful a Product it can be used to create and how much it contributes to that Product, and should typically be about equal to the CR of the creature it came from (or the hazard that the PCs had to overcome to obtain it). Its Attunement describes what type of magic it's imbued with, and can be either a magic sphere or an element.
At the GM's discretion, Ingredients might have multiple Attunements if they seem to fit in multiple categories. In this case, each Attunement will be associated with its own Potency. A crafter using an ingredient with multiple Attunements can choose any one (and only one) of its Attunements to use in the crafting. The Potencies should be kept fairly close together – since only one Attunement can be used and the others are ignored, it would be unusual for a crafter to waste an Ingredient's high Potency by using an Attunement that's a lot weaker.
Looking at the examples above, the dragon scales might be a Fire 19/Protection 16 ingredient. The herbs might be a Life 3 ingredient, the ectoplasm Death 7, and the blade a War 10 ingredient.
It might be less than obvious what Ingredients should be Attuned to certain spheres. While ultimately it's up to the GM to decide what the most suitable Attunement for an ingredient is, these are some suggestions for where different ingredients could come from.
Table 1: Attunements
Attunement
Suggested Sources
Sample Ingredients
Air/Earth/Fire/Sonic/Water
Creatures which do elemental damage, or have high resistance to the element
Red dragon scales (fire), rock from an earth elemental (earth)
Alteration
Shapechangers, Hybrid creatures
Werewolf pelt, chimera tooth, water gathered from a magical pool during the full moon
Conjuration
Extraplanar beings, summoned creatures
Blood of an eidolon, Djinn's broken lamp
Creation
Creatures that can make physical material, magically-imbued raw materials
Giant spider chitin, iron from a meteorite
Dark
Monsters with the ability to summon darkness or light sensitivity
Cloaker tail, black pearls that have never been exposed to sunlight
Death
Undead, disease, poisonous plants
Skeleton's thigh bone, ectoplasm from a ghost, boils from someone who died of the plague, soil from an unmarked grave, black lotus extract
Destruction
Creatures with a notable “blasting” power, monsters and things that mindlessly destroy
Lung of a dragon, core of a gelatinous cube, gold coins found concealed behind a sphere of annihilation
Divination
Creatures with unusual senses, (valuable) items used in divination
Dire bat skull, Linnorm eye, clear water from a pool in the distant mountains
Enhancement
Constructs, Ingredients that aren't obviously connected to a different Attunement, creatures with magically improved stats. Frequently a secondary Attunement on other Ingredients.
Iron salvaged from an iron golem, gargoyle tail
Fate
Alignment focussed creatures
Demon's blood, angel's feathers, cornerstone of a great temple
Illusion
Trickster type enemies, invisibility-users
Pixie dust, invisible stalker's...invisible remains
Life
Monsters with regeneration, rare herbs and medicines
Troll fat, athelas
Light
Plants and creatures that create or reflect light
Phosphorescent herbs, plasma from a lantern archon, gold that has been kept in constant sunlight for an entire year
Mana
Creatures with a lots of spellcasting abilities
Hag's hair, beholder eyestalk, implement used in a great ritual
Mind
Mind-controlling creatures, sentient undead, awakened animals
Illithid brain, lich's phylactery
Nature
Powerful animals/animal-like magical beasts, plant creatures
Dire wolf pelt, fruit from the tree at the centre of a druids' grove
Protection
Enemies with notably high DR or unusual defences
Dragon scales, stone from a ruined castle wall
Telekinesis
Creatures with supernatural fly speeds, creatures which implicitly use telekinesis to hold together
Eye of a beholder, sprite's wing, mysterious floating gemstone, bone meal from a skeleton
Time
Supernaturally accelerated or extremely old/immortal creatures
Winding key for a clockwork golem, Fluxwraith ectoplasm, Sun orchid nectar
War
Relics from important battles, trophies taken from martial leaders
Shard of Narsil, armour plate from an ancient battle, crown of a hobgoblin chief
Warp
Teleporting creatures
Finger bone of a dimensional shambler, remnants of a gate to hell that the party closed
Weather
Extreme weather phenomena
Bottled wind from a tornado
Bear
Bears
Bear pelt
Blood
Vampires, secondary Attunement on any ingredients from a creature's blood
Dust from a staked vampire, dragon's blood
Fallen Fey
Fey
Pixie dust
Technomancy
Technological creatures and objects
Trigger for a proximity mine
Harvesting Ingredients
Most of the Ingredients players gain will be found during adventuring, either as part of the treasure or in the form of body parts of monsters killed. It's easy to discover and identify Ingredients. Detect Magic and similar effects will allow you to do so automatically (with Potency and Attunement being revealed in the third round), or failing that a simple DC 10 Spellcraft check will reveal any Ingredients present. You can't identify Ingredients that are part of a living (or undead, or otherwise animated) creature, however – you have to kill it before you can loot it.
Harvesting an Ingredient is a bit harder. Sometimes this may already have been done for you if it's part of a creature's treasure, but if it's found in its natural form a skill check will usually be needed to extract it without ruining it. The DC is 10+the highest Potency of the ingredient. The skill used varies, but is generally either Heal (for ingredients being extracted from creatures) or Survival (for other ingredients). You may not take 10 on this check, even if you have an ability which lets you do so in situations you normally couldn't.
When planning encounters and placing treasure, the GM should consider each Ingredients to be worth 200gp * the highest level of Potency on the ingredient. The Potency of the ingredient should be about equal to the CR of the creature it came from. As long as the usual wealth by level guidelines are adhered to, it doesn't matter how frequent the GM decides to make Ingredients – the system will work fine whether Ingredients are an occasional item the PCs find or the core of their loot. The balance of different Potencies is important to keep balanced, though – if you want them to make more than potions and scrolls, PCs should get a relatively small number of high Potency (ie roughly equal to APL) ingredients to act as Keystones (see below) and a larger number of somewhat lower Potency ingredients of various sorts. It's also good to try and include a mixture of different Attunements on the high Potency ingredients, and to consider letting the group go on a sidequest to track down a source of a particularly elusive Attunement.
Trading ingredients
Ingredients have a market value of 200gp * the highest Potency of the ingredient. Like other items, they can be sold for half their value, and a few might be available for purchase in shops. However, there should be some scarcity here – players shouldn't be able to freely buy ingredients with precisely the Potencies and Attunements they want. Magic shops might reasonably sell a handful of premade items, a few high Potency ingredients, and a small number of lower Potency ones, but PCs shouldn't be able to wander up and buy themselves a Potency 17 Bear ingredient from the village shop.
Since the market value of an Product is normally 200gp * the total Potency required to make it, it's not generally possible to make a profit by buying Ingredients and crafting items to sell.
At the GM's option, NPCs may exist who are able to craft items for the PCs in return for payment. These are generally not active adventurers, and will need the PCs to supply them with the Ingredients for the Product to be made (or at least the ingredients of high Potency: they might have a small amount of lower Potency ingredients available for the PCs to buy). They'll also typically charge a commission of half the Product's market value, although of course they might reduce or waive the cost for friends and allies. It's generally safe to assume that if an NPC will accept a job crafting Products of a given caster level, then they have enough skill and magical help to automatically pass all the skill checks required.
The crafting system isn't designed for so called “magic mart” settings, where players can buy any item they like, simply because it has a listed market value. It's assumed that magic shops will sell at most a handful of level-appropriate items selected by the GM, and perhaps a larger number of less powerful items. As written, buying all the ingredients for a magic item and then crafting it won't save you any money – in fact, it might even end up marginally more expensive than buying the item directly! The main benefit of crafting in this system – other than getting full value for ingredients rather than selling them at half price – is that you get to choose precisely what item to make. This benefit is made rather worthless if you're able to buy custom magic items from the local shop.
To make the system work in a magic mart setting, consider reducing the market value of ingredients to 150gp per point of Potency. This won't completely solve the problem, but it at least makes crafting worth considering. Don't reduce the price down to 100gp, or you'll allow a group with a single item creation feat to “sell” any ingredients they find for their full market value by crafting them into simple magic items before selling them.
Conversely, it should be relatively simple to replace the gold economy entirely with this system, if you want to run a game where the PCs don't have access to magic shops at all. If you do this, I recommend giving everyone all the item creation feats for free, as well as the Artisan's Disenchant ability (see the Artisan spoiler at the bottom of this post). Keep in mind that any premade magic items the PCs can't use will “sell” for considerably less than the usual half-market-value, so adjust loot accordingly. Obviously, if anyone actually wants to play an Artisan or other crafting-focussed class, you'll need to do give them something to replace the abilities everyone's getting for free.
Crafting Items
Instead of spending gold on nebulous “raw materials”, crafting a magic item requires a number of ingredients of varying Potency and Attunement depending on the Product being made. The following sections say what Ingredients are needed for the various Products you can make. The power for the enchantment comes from the Ingredients rather than your own magic, so unlike in the vanilla rules, there are no CL limits on what you can make provided you have the Ingredients. In fact, you don't even need to be a spellcaster at all: the caster level prerequisites for item creation feats are removed. Most other prerequisites for individual items are also removed; the only thing you need in order to begin making a Product is the appropriate feat and some Ingredients.
Each Ingredient being used in a Product takes one day of work to prepare. At the end of that day, you may make a Use Magic Device check of DC 10+the Potency of the Ingredient. If the Ingredient has multiple Potencies, then use the highest. On a success the Ingredient is prepared; if the check fails, then the Ingredient is ruined and a replacement must be found if the item is still to be crafted. A spellcaster who has access to the sphere the Ingredient is attuned to (or a talent focussed on the correct element, if the Attunement is elemental) may use a Spellcraft check of the same DC in place of the UMD check. (At the GM's discretion, non-sphere magical classes might also qualify for doing this with certain spheres, though it's best to avoid giving access to more than a few Attunements in this way. In particular, Vancian casters should probably only be able to do this for the mana and enhancement spheres, and any areas they've particularly specialised in.) As with harvesting Ingredients, you may not take 10 on this check.
The preparation is specific to the recipe you plan to use the Ingredient in – if you later change your mind and decide to use the Ingredient in a different recipe instead then you must prepare all it again from scratch. At the GM's discretion, this may be skipped if the new Product is sufficiently similar to the original (e.g. if you simply increased the caster level of the item but otherwise kept it the same).
If all goes to plan, then eventually all the Ingredients will be prepared. At this point, you must make a Craft check of DC 10+the caster level of the item. Again, you can't take 10. The specialisation of the Craft check must be suitable to the item being enchanted – craft (weapons) would be suitable for enchanting a sword, while a ring would need something like craft (jewellery). As with preparing ingredients, if you are a spellcaster with access to the item's associated sphere, you may use a Spellcraft check in place of the Craft check. On a successful check, the item is completed. On a failure, a cursed item is produced instead.
Assisting the Crafting
Other characters can assist with the crafting process in one of two ways. First, anyone can prepare ingredients on your behalf. They make their own Use Magic Device or Spellcraft check (which can be helpful, if for example they qualify to use Spellcraft with a particular Ingredient and you don't). The process takes a day per Ingredient, as usual. You need to be present to provide general instruction to the helpers throughout the day, but can work on your own crafting activities at the same time, or even undertake other reasonable downtime activities that won't stop you having frequent contact with your assistants.
You do have to spend at least a day working on the item personally. Even if you don't prepare any of the ingredients, you must still devote a day to crafting at some point in the process, before you can make the final Craft check.
Secondly, if another character has an item creation feat which you lack, they can provide their expertise to help you make that type of item. Both you and the helper must be present to provide instruction during the crafting as described above, and you must both spend at least a day working on the item. This does not entitle you to craft magic items if you have no item creation feats at all – the assistant just helps you apply the knowledge you do have to a different sort of enchantment.
All item creation feats: Remove the caster level prerequisite.
Master Craftsman: Removed. Any class feature which would have given you the feat instead gives you an item creation feat, or Skill Focus in any craft skill.
Cooperative Crafting: Removed (unless a player really wants to help someone else with mundane crafting for some reason). Any class feature which would have given you the feat instead gives you an item creation feat, or a teamwork feat.
It may seem unreasonable to have such a lot of rolls required. In particular, you have to make a UMD roll for every single ingredient. And you can't even take 10. Won't this get really tiresome, not to mention ruin lots of ingredients?
Not really. The DCs for most of the checks are quite low – normally you'll be dealing with relatively small (compared to your level) Potencies for non-Keystone items. With a little investment, the use of masterwork tools, charms and perhaps a ritual version of Crafter's Fortune for the craft checks should let a crafter meet the DCs even on a natural 1. At that point, of course, no roll is needed – remember that a natural 1 isn't an automatic failure on skill checks! GMs should allow their players to do this, as the system is designed with this process in mind.
If you normally have failures on a natural 1 for skill checks, I strongly recommend waiving that rule for checks connected with this system.
Recipes
All magic item recipes have a similar structure. Every recipe requires one or more “Keystone” Ingredients. These form the core of the enchantment, and must have an appropriate Attunement and a Potency at least equal to the intended caster level for the Product. An Attunement is considered appropriate if it's either the sphere which the enchantment is associated with, or it's of an element that's connected to the effect. Most Weather and Nature sphere effects could use an elemental Attunement in their keystones, as could several Destruction effects and some enchantments from other spheres.
In addition, the recipe also requires extra Ingredients to be added. These Ingredients augment the main enchantment by supplying extra magic power, and they can be of any Attunement and Potency. Some ingredients are less suitable to the crafting, however. If an ingredient's Attunement is not appropriate to the item, the Attunement is not to mana (which can be used for any item without penalty), and the GM judges that its physical form is not appropriate to the item being made (such as a leather pelt being used to make a sword, or a vial of blood being used for a ring) then the ingredient's effective Potency is reduced by 5. The GM should be generous here – if an Ingredient's physical form doesn't really fit with any item at all, and the player can offer a reasonable explanation of how they're using it in their crafting, then they shouldn't suffer the penalty. Keystone ingredients never suffer this penalty. Rituals don't have a physical form at all, so this penalty never applies when inventing a ritual.
For talent-based recipes, the object being enchanted should also be chosen to reflect the intended enchantment as far as possible. If a player chooses not to do this, the Potency required for the Keystones increases by 5. Again, the GM should be fairly generous in adjudicating this: in particular, sometimes there may not be any items that seem particularly suitable, in which case the GM should choose whichever items seem the most reasonable even if they don't fit all that well. The point is to encourage players to choose appropriate items for their enchantments, not to make enchantments more difficult if they don't happen to map neatly onto a specific item.
To complete the enchantment, the Total Potency of all the Ingredients used must reach a number specified in the tables below. However, there is also limit to the total number of Ingredients that can be used in the recipe. Keystone ingredients contribute towards the Total Potency, but also count towards the maximum number of Ingredients. If an Ingredient has multiple Attunements (and thus multiple Potencies) the crafter must choose just one of those Attunements to make use of and gets no benefit at all from the other Attunement. A Destruction 10/Enhancement 7 Ingredient will thus contribute only 10 Potency – or 7 if the crafter decides to use it as an Enhancement Ingredient (perhaps to avoid the -5 penalty to effective Potency, or because it's being used as a keystone for an Enhancement based Product).
For consumable items, it might happen that the keystones alone contribute more than enough Potency to make the item. If that happens, you may create multiple items simultaneously using just the keystones – divide the sum of the keystones' ingredients by the total Potency required to find how many copies of the item can be made. This can only be done with scrolls and compounds.
Finally, the GM might also add a token cost – typically no more than 100gp – for mundane raw materials if none of the ingredients fit the item's physical form. For example, if you're trying to make a magic gold ring and none of your ingredients happen to contain any gold, then the GM might reasonably say you need to spend some money to buy the actual gold for the ring.
These two tables specify the ingredients required for each item.
Feat
Type of Item
# Keystones
Total Potency
Max. Ingredients
Capture Spell
Scroll
1
CL*Complexity/8
1+Complexity
Distil Compound
Potion/Oil/Powder
1
CL*Complexity/4
1+Complexity
Marvellous Item
1/day
2
CL*Complexity*2
2+2*Complexity
2/day
2
CL*Complexity*4
4+4*Complexity
n/day
2
CL*Complexity*2n
2n*(1+Complexity)
50 uses total
1
CL*Complexity*5
5+5*Complexity
At will
4
CL*Complexity*10
10+10*Complexity
Craft Apparatus
Constant Effect
4
CL*Complexity*10
10+10*Complexity
Feat
Type of Item
Caster level
# Keystones
Attunement
Total Potency
Max. Ingredients
Craft Rituals
Ritual
2*Ritual level
1
Sphere of Ritual
Development Cost/200
5+Ritual Level
Craft Spell Engine1
Spell Engine
Varies
1 per 2CL
Sphere of Engine
(Old CL + New CL) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Craft Implement1
Implement of Power
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
Forge Charm1
Physical Ability
2*bonus
1 per 2 points
Enhancement or Alteration
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Mental Ability
2*bonus
1 per 2 points
Enhancement or Mind
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
AC (Deflection)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Protection
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
AC (Natural)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Alteration
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 10
Difference * 20
Energy Resistance (one element)
1/2 resistance
1
Enhancement or [Element]
Difference * 8
(20 less if the enchantment is being created new rather than upgraded)
Difference * 4
Saves (Resistance)
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or Protection
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Skill (Competence)
1*bonus
1
Enhancement or Mind
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference /2
Difference
Spell Resistance3
1/2 resistance
1
Mana or Protection
50*Difference
20*Difference
CMB/CMD (enhancement, one maneuver)4
3*bonus
1 per point
Enhancement or War
(Old bonus + New bonus) * Difference * 5
Difference * 10
Land Speed
3 per 10ft added
1 per 10ft added
Enhancement or Time
(Old bonus + New bonus) * increase in move speed in ft
20 per 10ft added
Carry Capacity
3
1
Enhancement or Alteration
5
2
Forge Construct
Construct5
Varies
Varies
Enhancement or variable
Market value/ 200
Varies
Smith Magical Weapons & Armour1
Weapons
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + new bonus) * difference * 10
Difference * 20
Armour
Higher of 3*enhancement bonus and highest CL of a special enchantment
1 per point
Varies2
(Old bonus + new bonus) * difference * 5
Difference * 10
1: The prices for these items are given for increasing an enchantment to a stronger one. For most of them, the number of keystones required depends on how big the increase is – for example, increasing an implement from an (effective) +3 to +4 requires one keystone; increasing it straight to +5 needs two. All keystones must be of Potency equal to the item's new caster level.
2: The Attunement requirements for these items depend on the specific enchantment being added. Simple + bonuses on weapons need either war or enhancement; + bonuses on armour can use protection or enhancement; and + bonuses on implements use mana or any sphere the implement's bonus applies to. The different +n equivalent enchantments require different Attunements depending on what they do. If the enchantment has a fixed price, it's generally better to emulate it using the talent-based crafting feats.
3: Minimum spell resistance is 13. Treat an unenchanted item as having spell resistance 12 for calculating the total Potency and maximum ingredients
4: Enhancement bonuses to maneuvers don't stack with weapon enhancement bonuses.
5: Constructs have no particular pattern to their prices, so we can't define a set price scheme and the number of keystones and maximum ingredients must be determined by the GM. Generally, a construct should be attuned to Enhancement, although there are exceptions.
Two new Charms are added:
Speed: Grants an enhancement bonus to the wearer's base land speed. The increase must be a multiple of 10ft, and is priced at (Bonus/10) squared*2000gp. The caster level is 3*bonus/10.
Carrying Capacity: Multiples carrying capacity by 8, as muleback cords. Costs 1000gp, and has CL 3. (Weaker versions with a smaller multiplier are theoretically possible but rarely made since they still have the same Total Potency and maximum Ingredients, just a lower caster level.)
A few other charms have been tweaked, or removed, to fix some issues with the Spheres of Power charms' maths. In particular, the “(other)” bonuses to saves and AC can't be crafted without special permission from the GM as they mess up the pricing of bonuses. They might, of course, still be found while adventuring.
Bonuses to combat maneuvers have been changed from competence to enhancement. This is because some maneuvers can technically be used with enchanted weapons, allowing players to double-dip and get both the weapon's bonus and the charm's bonus to attack rolls.
Any wearable object can be made into a charm. You can even place multiple types of enchantment onto a single charm, although if you add a second enchantment from the same category (e.g. a bonus to a second physical ability score) then the Total Potency for the second enchantment is multiplied by 1.5. If you wear two different charms from the same category, then only one of the enchantments functions (your choice which) and the other is disabled. This creates the same effect on pricing that the "slot" system of normal Pathfinder does, without ending up with everyone having to wear lots of miscellaneous magic belts, headbands, etc. You should be able to ignore slot restrictions entirely with these rules if you want to.
Mana Ingredients
Ingredients with an Attunement to Mana have a few special properties. Firstly, they never count as unsuitable ingredients for any item. Secondly, a high Potency Mana ingredient may be used as a special extra keystone in a recipe. Used in this way, the ingredient doesn't contribute towards the number of keystones required, but it increases the item's caster level to up to three points above the Potency of its other keystones, to a maximum of the Mana ingredient's own Potency. So upgrading a +1 weapon to +2, which would normally require an Enhancement keystone of Potency 6, could instead be made using an Enhancement keystone of Potency as little as 3 and a Mana keystone of at least 6 Potency. Both keystones contribute towards the total Potency and maximum ingredients. For items where it is relevant, the Total Potency and Maximum Ingredients are calculated using the increased caster level.
Of course, a Mana attuned ingredient may also be used as a normal keystone in a recipe calling for a Mana keystone.
With an improved crafting system, players may be interested in a class focussed on crafting. There are a number of crafting-focussed classes in Pathfinder, but they need adjusting to work with the new system, and indeed with the Spheres of Power items in general. This is a summary of how to adapt my personal favourite crafting class, Drop Dead Studios' Artisan. If you want to adapt other classes, this will hopefully give you some ideas. I advise against giving NPC crafters this class, as the discounts to recipes the class gets shouldn't be accessible to the PCs without investing levels. Changes in italics only apply if Spheres of Might is being used.
Class skills: Add Heal and Survival to the list.
Proficiencies: Replace with simple weapons, light armour, and a martial tradition.
Master Craftsman: Removed entirely, replaced by the new class skills and improvement to the Essence Pool. This feature only existed at all in order to allow the Artisan to function as a crafter; with this system that's no longer necessary.
Enhancement Pool: A point from your enhancement pool may also be used in place of a spell point to recharge a spell engine whose caster level is no higher than your level. This may be done multiple times per day, even recharging the same spell engine multiple times.
Creation Feat: Replace the options listed with the Spheres item creation feats, any of which may be selected from 1st level. Instead of decreasing the cost of raw materials, improving your efficiency with a feat reduces the total Potency required for an item by 5% (rounded down).
Magical Essence: The Artisan always seems to have just the right ingredients on hand. His Essence Pool represents the selection of ingredients he's picked up in the background during his travels. Divide the listed value of the pool by 200 (rounding up) to determine the total Potency available to him. At any time, the Artisan may spend up to his level in points from his Essence Pool to obtain an ingredient with an Attunement of his choice and a Potency equal to the number of points spent. This ingredient is considered suitable for any item being crafted.
Crafter's Art: Instead of decreasing the required time for an item, when making an item within your crafter's art, unsuitable ingredients take only a -2 penalty to their Potency (rather than -5).
Weapon User: Instead choose a discipline talent from the equipment sphere
Defensive Training: Instead, receive either Armour Training or Shield Training from the equipment sphere
Enhanced Rings: You may capture a spell into a ring without taking the usual -5 penalty for an unsuitable medium. You can use your own ring-scrolls without needing a use magic device check.
Ring Lord: You may wear charms which have enchantments from the same category (eg bonuses to two different physical ability scores) and benefit from both of them. Their bonuses don't stack, but overlap. At least one of the charms must be a piece of jewellery.
Arcana: Applies to scrolls, spell engines and implements of power. The special abilities of this specialisation apply when activating scrolls and spell engines.
Consumables: Applies to scrolls, compounds, and marvellous items with 50 total uses.
Powerful Potions: Enhance Potion can be used on any compound.
Improved Potions: Consumables you create function at 2CL higher than their keystones and total Potency indicate.
Potions Master: Extend Potion and Eternal Potion can be used on any compound. Instead of receiving Dilution, halve the total Potency required for any compound you craft.
Craftsman Techniques: The following techniques have been changed or removed
Apprentice Wizard: Applies to scrolls and spell engines
Efficient Enchanting: Decrease the total Potency and maximum number of ingredients in a recipe by 25%
Expert Enchanting: Increase the maximum number of ingredients in a recipe by 50%
Metamagic rod mastery: Removed
Rod combatant: Removed
Rod mastery: Removed
Scroll artistry: Removed
Scroll mastery: Removed
Staff Empowerment: Applies to spell engines
Wand Empowerment: Removed
Wand Mastery: Removed
In addition, the following new techniques may be selected:
Arcana Mastery: [Prerequisite: Apprentice Wizard] Add your intelligence modifier to the DC of effects from scrolls and spell engines you use. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Combat Training: Gain a combat talent of your choice.
Consumable Mastery: Add your intelligence modifier to the DCs of effects produced from scrolls, compounds and marvellous items with 50 total uses. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Implement Use: You may use an implement to improve the caster level of spell engines and talent-based magic items which you activate, as if you were using the sphere abilities yourself. If a special ability on an implement would require you to spend a spell point to activate it, you may instead spend an enhancement point to do so.
Capacitance's limit applies to total complexity instead of spell point cost
Magic Talent grants its talent to any spell apparatus of an appropriate sphere
Marvellous Item Mastery: Add your intelligence modifier to the DCs of effects produced from marvellous items and apparatuses. Doesn't stack with other “mastery” techniques.
Quick Crafter: Preparing an ingredient takes you only half the usual time
Scavenger: Add half your level to any skill checks to obtain ingredients
Homunculus: Instead of the usual costs, a homunculus familiar has a caster level equal to your own level. It requires a single Keystone, and a total Potency of 5+level (with a maximum of 3 ingredients). The Attunement of the Keystone determines the type of homunculus produced:
Basic: Enhancement, Life, Nature, Weather
Brute: Alteration, Bear, Destruction, Protection, War
Swiftling Messenger: Conjuration, Divination, Time, Telekinesis
Runeforged: Fallen Fey, Fate, Mana, Mind
Stealthful Striker: Blood, Dark, Death, Illusion
Indentured Servant*: Creation, Light, Technomancy, Warp
*Instead of the normal Master Craftsman ability, the Indentured Servant may prepare ingredients without its master being present to provide instruction. The item being made must be one which its master has the item creation feat for, and it must be given clear instructions on what ingredients to prepare and for what recipe to prepare them. However, the homunculus' master can then leave it unattended for days and it will continue preparing the ingredients, rather than requiring guidance every day as other helpers and homunculi would. The Indentured Servant can even be given complex instructions, like “prepare the ingredients for every item on this list” or “prepare the ingredients for this item, but stop preparing them if you ruin any of them”. It also swaps out its +7 bonus to Craft for a +8 bonus to Use Magic Device, and Prodigy for Skill Focus (UMD). (Also remember that as a familiar, the homunculus can use your ranks in skills.)
Animate Object: Increased to an 8th level ability to replace Staff Mastery. An animated object always requires an Enhancement keystone, a total Potency of (HD+CP)*5, and a maximum of 8 ingredients.
Disenchant: Disenchanting an item doesn't add any points to your essence pool, but allows you to recover the keystone ingredients used in the item.
Staff Mastery: Removed.
Supreme Technique:
Master Enchanter: Instead of the usual benefit, the maximum number of ingredients in a recipe is doubled, the time the Artisan personally takes to prepare an ingredient is reduced to one hour, and the Potency required for a keystone is reduced by 5.
Staff Lord: Applies to all talent-based items, and spell engines