Criar itens mágicos a partir de um único pergaminho seria equilibrado?

3

Disclaimer: prompted by Sorcerer with item crafting of a warlock?.

In D&D, crafting a magical item generally requires a specific spell (or several), which must be cast every day the crafting progresses (see Criando itens mágicos).

This generally restrict crafting magical items to spellcasters, or individuals with ready access to spellcasters. Using scrolls, wands, etc... is possible but caro.

Furthermore, this also generally restrict crafting magical items to spellcasters who preparar their spells (Wizards, Clerics, Druids, ...) because spellcasters who conhecer their spells (Sorcerers, ...) will generally only know a very few spells of each level, which they need for other purposes.

On the other hand, simply waiving the requirement for access to the underlying spell seems like a recipe for cheesedom. It massively cheapens the cost of magic items, and gives a lote of freedom to the players (a DM can at least control which spells a Wizard finds, or a deity is ready to hand out to its Clerics).


I was wondering if there could be a way to:

  1. Make crafting magical items accessible to any class (though not necessarily any construir),
  2. With the DM retaining some control over what can actually be crafted,
  3. And without cheapening magical items too much.

One potential idea I had was to simply allow crafting from a single scroll (not one scroll per day) or a single charge.

The would-be crafter would have to be able to actually use the scroll/charged item, possibly making the requisite Use dispositivo mágico check each day, and the scroll/charge would be consumed on the last day, its energy siphoned into the magical item created.

Furthermore, should the spell have an XP or material cost, said XP and material would have to be expended each day, except the last.

Note: Items Creation Feats would still be required, however a Caster Level N prerequisite would become ECL N.


This seems, on the surface, to meet the requirements stated above and open up crafting to more members in the party, however I am concerned about the potential consequences of such a rule.

Would this make the PCs overpowered? Or otherwise radically tilt the power balance radically?

If there is such an issue, has anyone experience with a better alternative?

por Matthieu M. 06.06.2017 / 20:02

2 respostas

So far as I can tell, to summarize, the house rules change two things about item creation:

  • An item creation feat's prerequisite is não caster level but, instead, effective character level equal to the feat's caster level. For instance, the feat Brew Potion has a prerequisite não of caster level 3 but of ECL 3.
  • Spells that are prerequisites for creating a magic item need não be supplied every day of a magic item's creation, but, instead, only uma vez and at the end of the magic item's creation. For example, a creature that wants to brew a poção de pressa [trans] (PH 239) (3rd-level spell at caster level 20) (3,000 gp; 0.1 lbs.) need not supply the pressa soletrar três times (once per day for each day necessary to create the potion) but, instead, only once.

I don't think these house rules will have much impact on the PCs. That's because my experience has been that players find the idéia of magic item creation exciting but, in actual play, find the process uninteresting and inconvenient. It's interessante to quest for unusual raw materials or to secure obscure spells that will be used in item creation—those're adventures!—, but sitting around waiting for the metaphorical pot to boil is entediante. Likewise, it's mais conveniente to buy magic items—price be damned!—because a criação de the magic item from scratch expends more of the PCs' resources than just comprando the magic item outright (e.g. money contra feats, raw materials (i.e. "Ainda half the money!"), time, and spells—if that last is even a significant concern; see below).

Consider the dedicated wright

The only workaround I've seen PCs employ that encorajados item creation is a PC using a dedicated wright (Configuração de campanha Eberron 285) because then item creation didn't slow down the PCs! And consensus seems to be that when a magic item is created by a dedicated wright, the second bulleted house rule applies—except that the prerequisite spells are cast at the process's começo rather than at the process's realização. (Ver aqui.)

War Story

In one campaign a PC had many item creation feats, but the PCs consistently put themselves on too tight of a clock to ruthlessly exploit the item creator's item creation abilities. It wasn't until the PCs were levels 19 and 20—the campaign nearing its end—that the item creator had time enough to do awesome stuff. Even then, though, it was easier to purchase, for example, several attuned gems of wish [univ] (PH 302-3) (9th-level spell at caster level 17) (33,100 gp; 0 lbs.) from the City of Brass than it was to wait over a month for the craftsman—or his wright—to make one.

So for the 2,100 gp price of a dedicated wright—assuming the DM allows a creature that participates in its creation to be considered the dedicated wright's owner (não a big assumption; Descobridor, for instance, describes how noncasters get homunculi)—, a creature can essentially take se off the item creation clock and put his servant on it instead so that item creation occurs, essentially, in the background, off-screen not on-screen. Further, the item's real creator need only cast the magic item's prerequisite spells uma vez. (In the War Story campaign, the PCs outfitted an poço envolvente (Compêndio de Item Mágico 159) (3,600 gp; 0 lbs.)—one of the game's mais deals—with a laboratory suitable for item creation and carried the cova with them, dedicated wright slaving away within, creating magic items whilst they adventured.)

That 2,100 gp is a sum small enough that I could imagine just awarding the effects of a dedicated wright to all PCs at levels 7 or 8 even in an otherwise normal campaign—like a house rule saying that a caster that possesses the appropriate item creation feat and that casts each prerequisite spell uma vez on a pile of appropriate raw materials eventually (i.e. when the appropriate normal amount of time for item creation has passed) causes the raw materials simply to transformar into the desired magic item, but a caster can only have one magic item in progress at a time. I don't foresee this Easy-Bake magic item process significantly ferir the campaign: the pieces are there. Making this house rule available to todos no nível 1 is more significant, but wizards ganhar D & D, so it's not a big deal if wizards win a pequeno harder while everybody else gets a leg up, too.

"Item creation feats for some, miniature American flags for others!"

I'm not sure opening up the item creation feats to any creature is the best choice. It's been my experience that those creatures that não have access to item creation feats are the most feat-starved. While a rogue would love to, for example, craft his own wondrous items, he's mal fazer tradicional rogue stuff with his tiny number of precious feats! I suspect you'll find opening up item creation feats to noncasters means there may be um extra item creation feat in a traditional party of four, and I suspect the item creation feat may be one you didn't expect, like a barbarian taking Tattoo Magic (Raças de Faerûn 170) so that he can make inexpensive magic items he can activate while he's raging, or a rogue taking Craft Drilbu (The Mind's Eye Web column "The Crystalsinger (Prestiege [sic] Class)") so as to push the limits of magic–psionic transparency. In short, this, too, is not a big deal… on an individual scale.

No campanha scale, however… wow. Remember: plebeus get feats. A level 1 human commoner can now take the feat Scribe Scroll (PH 99-100)—the universe yawns—, but então that same level 1 human commoner can take any one of the feats Exceptional, Extraordinary, or Legendary Artisan (ECS 52, 53, and 56, respectively) to significantly reduce the time, price, or XP cost of magic items he helps to create! Suddenly, those level 1 human commoners are extremamente popular with all the folks who can na realidade make magic items! Such a campaign should see magic item prices em geral drop by 25% and, I suppose, an overall rise in the standard of living for pretty much todos. And that's just to start. Like I said, this isn't particularly important to the PCs, but to maintain the setting's verisimilitude the fixação must accommodate this increased access to item creation feats… especially those that don't, per se, na realidade create items!

With all this in mind, I'm not sure your house rules accomplish your goals. I've already mentioned how this change likely should make magic items in general less expensive. Further, the game allows the DM to change or nix—out of hand, for whatever reason—magic items, spells, or anything else the DM doesn't like, but the house rules afrouxar the DM's otherwise iron grip. That is, while it normally takes a number of scrolls equal to each 1,000 gp of the item's base price to make a spell completion or spell trigger magic item, instead that um scroll can make of that spell a wand, scepter (Impérios Perdidos de Faerûn 8), staff, or even varinha eterna (Compêndio de Item Mágico 159-60) or minor schema (Magia de Eberron 47), turning that one scroll into fifty or quase infinito copies of that spell! That spell the DM only put one scroll of in the campaign? Once it's found, it'll be out in the wild in short order, its DRM totally hacked. A campaign like this should have dezenas de milhares of crazy, niche spells because spell knowledge can spread tão rápido. That sounds fun and fascinating me, but I'm not sure that's what you're looking for. (But for comparison also see the obscure 6th-level Sor/Wiz spell the Hamagess' staffsprout [trans] (Mintiper’s Chapbook Web column "Part 10: Chronicler’s Compedium").

Finally, if a goal is to make crafting magical items accessible to any classe (though not necessarily any construir), that's goal's alcançado, but making something acessível doesn't necessarily make something desejável—a fighter will still likely find his feats better spent on fighting and a rogue's on… doing rogue stuff. They need aqueles feats doing what those feat already do to do what those caracteres need to do! To realmente test the long-term impact of this—which I haven't done—, a house rule would need to be made that says something like for every three, five, seven, ten or whatever levels a creature takes in classes that não cast spells—maybe even including the first—the creature gains a bonus item creation feat. Then see what folks pick and how that changes the campaign.

An aside: nuking item creation feats altogether

When I first read the question, I thought the house rules tb eliminated item creation feats—a fairly radical change but one not without precedent. That is, the Forgotten Realms supplement Marchas de prata includes a magic college, the Conclave of Silverymoon (62-3), where a creature that attends can supply the cash, spells, and XP but a hapless undergrad the item creation feat. The cost for this service? Ten percent of the magic item's price. (I should note that to receive this benefit—and several others—a wizard pays por ano 500 gp plus 500 gp per wizard level above 1 up to a maximum of 4,000 gp for a creature with 7 levels of wizard—a pricing scheme complicated enough to rival actual college. While this may sound like a lot of cash, amortizing this over a year to 77 gp a week should make it affordable in all but the most parsimonious of adventurers.) In other words, completely eliminating item creation feats and increasing magic item prices by 10% (plus, perhaps, a consummate increase in the cost of living?) is another possibility to consider, although such a change—unsurprisingly since it comes out of the Realms—hurts noncasters muito more than it helps casters.

08.06.2017 / 06:52

The Sorcerer

Wizards pay:

  • Price of 1 scroll
  • Price to store 1 spell in spellbook(100g * spell level)
  • Normal crafting costs, including feats, slots, etc.

Wizards get:

  • 1 spell in spellbook
  • item

Sorcerers pay:

  • Price of 1 scroll
  • Normal crafting costs, including feats, slots, etc.

Sorcerers get or retain:

  • item
  • Price to store 1 spell in spellbook(100g * spell level)

The balance change here is quantified as the difference in power associated with not being able to store the spell in one's spellbook opposed to the discount from not scribing it into the spellbook in the first place. If you charged this difference in price as well, the Sorcerer would, categorically and objectively still be weaker than the Wizard, as he already is.

This would still be a power increase for the Sorcerer, regardless, but the quantification relative to the Wizard, measured in figures less than 1kgp per item(usually 400g or less), suggests that this would not be incredibly destabilizing to the game's balance.

Divine Tier 1 Casters

Mostly Clerics, Druids and Archivists. These classes are strong enough that giving them access to arcane crafting is a tad worrisome.

At a minimum, though, Greater Anyspell might already qualify the Cleric for much of the balance-space being discussed.

I'd be hesitant to allow these classes to craft from spells they couldn't cast.

Otoh, I do not think it will SIGNIFICANLTY unbalance tier 1 classes, partially because crafting is often viewed as a negative for personal investment.

Divine Tier 2 Casters

I'm not sure what classes fit this taxonomy because they're often obscure and unused, but they sit in the gap between the Sorcerer and the Tier 1 Divine casters in terms of how this change affects them. None would be more unbalanced than a Druid or Cleric, nor less so than a Sorcerer(which, as discussed, was minimal).

O Artífice

Any change of this nature harms the Artificer, as crafting is their domain. However, an Artificer is still good enough at doing it that they will always have a niche, coupled with the sheer power they wield already, including via their early-access capabilities.

Full Manifesters

Psions, Wilders, Erudites and Ardents(if given customized or customizable mantles) are perhaps the toughest categorization to deal with, as they have their own little party of crafting items.

On the assumption that a wand crafted by a psion to contain an arcane fireball could not be usable by said Psion(and similar), I would make a best-guess that this would be no worse than Divine Tier 1 Casters.

Other Tier 1-2 Classes

ATM, I can't think of any, but I'll update this list if I find them.

Outside Tier 1-2

Below tier 2, I can say absolutely, that classes will not become more powerful than a Wizard by the changes you're proposing. As an entirety, they lack sufficient power to craft themselves into out-competing the Wizard.

06.06.2017 / 20:34