Creating Magic Items

Creating a magic item, such as a potion, salve, weapon, armor, or wand takes a lot of training and practice, and is a time consuming and costly business. Creating a magical item requires aptitude, experience, and training in the appropriate field. Magic items are rare but present in the Lands of Skye, and herein lie the details of their creation.

Please note that these rules are different than the rules in the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide, and replace them. My feats replace the feats listed in the Players Handbook.

The requirements for creating any magic item:

1. You must possess the appropriate feat to create the item in question. The feats are Craft Charged Item, Craft Constant Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Single Use Item, Craft Spell Completion Item.. These feats replace the featsBrew Potion, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Rod, Craft Staff, Craft Wand, Craft Wonderous Item, Forge Ring,and Scribe Scroll found in the Players Handbook.
2. You must be skilled in the mundane craft of the item you are making, or have secured the cooperation of a competent craftsman. (ie, to create a Decanter of Endless Water, the wizard must either be have skill in Craft (Pottery) or Craft (Metalworking), or secure the assistance of someone with one of these skills). If a craftsman's help is used, the craftsman must spend the entire creation time in the company of the spellcaster.
3. In order to make an item, you must first obtain the ingredients necessary to forge an item. The cost of such ingredients is one-half of the base price of the item. Any special material requirements of the spells also need to be obtained to create the item.
4. You must also qualify under the minimum requirements to make that item. If you do not possess every spell necessary to craft the item, you may have one or more other wizards assist you in creating the item. Whomever you have assisting you must assist you during the entire creation process. You do not get a circumstance bonus to your item creation roll from anyone who is assisting you by fulfilling a requirement that you cannot satisfy yourself.
5. You need to dedicate time equal to 1 day in preparation for each 1000 gp of the items base cost. If you double this time, you may Take 10 on your item creation roll. During this time each spell required to prepare this item is used each day (ie, the spell requirements take up their appropriate slots.) You may not adventure or be overly distraced during this time.

Determining the cost, minimum caster level, and base DC to create or enhance any item:

Item Crafting Feat	Base Price of Item	Base DC
Craft Charged Item	Caster Level x Spell Level x 750	15 + Caster Level
Craft Constant Item	Caster Level x Spell Level x2000	22 + Caster Level
Craft Magic Arms and Armor	(Adjusted Armor Bonus)^2 x 1000 (Adjusted Weapon Bonus)^2 x 2000	10 + (8 x Adjusted Armor or Weapon Bonus)
Craft One Use Item	Caster Level x Spell Level x 50	13 + Caster Level
Craft Spell Completion Item	Caster Level x Spell Level x 25	11 + Caster Level

 

Repairing a magic item:

You may repair a magic item by spending 1 day and 1/10 of the Cost of the item, and at the end of the day making a successful Item creation roll for the DC to create the entire item.

Adding powers to a magic item: Some item creation feats allow you to modify the powers of magic items. Please see the individual feats for details and limitations. The DC is usually increased by taking the highest DC of a single power, and adding the spell level of each additional power to it. All powers of a single item must have the same caster level.

Superior materials and assistance:

For each additional person helping to forge the item who qualifies by themselves to forge the item, or team of assistants that together qualify to forge the item, you get a +2 circumstance bonus to your Item Creation Roll. Additionally, you gain circumstance bonuses for using superior materials (mithril, red gold, a Displacer Beast hide for a Cloak of Displacement) usually gained through quests at your DMs discretion.

The Item Creation Roll:

The item is forged on the last day of preparation. First the magicks are spent in a burst of energy and formed with the raw components. The primary spellcaster makes an Item Creation Roll based on the following formula:

Craft Roll = D20 + relevant Craft skill ranks the caster has + approprate ability score bonus* + the spellcaster level + any circumstance bonuses
* - the ability bonus uses the ability associated with the spellcaster class (Intelligence for wizards, Wisdom for Clerics, etc.)
If successful, the item is created. If a 1 is rolled, the item produced is cursed, regardless of the modified total (note that a curse check is required even if the "take 10" is invoked, even if "taking 10" normally implies that the item iis created.) If a 20 is rolled, the item is masterfully created, and the enchantments are strengthened. A failed die roll means that although the effort was spent, the item was ruined upon creation. Regardless of success or failure, the efforts result in one or more fatigued wizards.

Experience gain for creating any magic item:

The experience gain for such an item is 1/25 of the base price of the item. If there are multiple participants in the item creation, then the primary spellcaster receives half of the experience, and all the other participants divide a quarter of the experience sum (leaving a quarter to not be lost).

Temperary Fatigue for creating any magic item:

Fatigue for item creation is a temporary gain of negative energy levels, called Fatigue Levels. A Fatigue Level suffers the same detriments that a negative energy level possesses, but goes away on its own over time. Each assistant involved in the item creation receives 1d4 Fatigue Levels. Fatigue Levels dissipate 1 day/1000 gp of item market value, and only 1 will dissipate at a time. So a 8000 gp +2 sword creation will impose d4 Fatigue Levels, and 1 will vanish every 8 days. The worst case will be that the wizard will be Fatigued for 32 days (8 days at 4 Fatigue Levels, 8 days at 3 Fatigue Levels, etc...), but will be Fatigued at least 8 days after creation. For items requiring a caster level of 12 or greater, the fatigue die roll increases to 2d4. This represents the incredible drain on the creator. For items whose market value is less than 1000 gp, the Fatigue levels dissipate 1 hour/100 gp of market value. So a 300 gp potion will have a maximum fatigue time of 12 hours.

Assistants also gain fatigue levels if they fail a fortitude save vs. DC 15. If they succeed in this roll, they still suffer 1 fatigue level.

IIf an item is cursed, make another item creation roll against the same DC. If the second attempt fails, the wizards suffer a doubling of their fatigue levels.

Craft Skills and Associated Magic Items

For many items, there should be an easy choice as to what skill works best.druids, knowledge (Nature) may be substituted where appropriate. For items like wands, staves, and rods, determine what they are made of and select the appropriate craft skill.

Alchemy	Dusta, powders, oiltments
Armorsmithing	Armors and Shields
Basketweaving	baskets, containers
Bookbinding	Books and Scrolls
Bowmaking	Bows, arrows, bolts, and other projectiles
Blacksmithing	horseshoes, other iron goods
Brewer	Potions
Calligraphy	Scrolls, runes, tattoes
Carpentry	bridges, structures
Cartwright	Carts, carriages
Cobbling	Boots, shoes
Gemcutting	Gems, jewelry
Glassblowing	Glass items, mirrors
Leatherworking	Gloves, clothes
Locksmithing	Locks, lockpicks
Painting	Paint and paintings
Pottery	jars, jugs, pots
Sculpting	figurines,
Shipmaking	sails, rigs, oars, boats
Siege Engineering	ballistas, catapaults, weapons of war
Stonecarving	stoneware
Stonemasonry	stoneware
Tailoring	clothes and hats
Tanning	leather goods and furs
Tinkering	wands and rods
Trapmaking	traps
Weaponsmithing	weapons
Weaving	cloaks and rugs
Woodcutter	staves, wands, rods (perhaps Knowledge - Nature for druids)