D&D 5E PCs Making Their Own Magic Items

Hussar · Oct 10, 2012

I'd like to see magic items get back to the idea of "special quests" but actually have guidelines in the DMG on how to craft those special quests.

Don't just leave it up to the DM to make something up.

Honestly, I'd love to see one shot magic items not be craftable. That's mostly where the problems with 3e come from. It's not that you can craft a +4 sword. Nobody actually does that because it's too bloody expensive. It's that you can craft half a hundred scrolls by the time you're fifth or sixth level and your casters never run out of spells again.

So, yeah, I'd love to see craftable expendable magic items get tossed into the wood chipper.

Li Shenron · Oct 10, 2012

"Other": not so much special "quests" but specific recipies to discover and components to harvest. This would be my favourite.

Gothikaiju · Oct 10, 2012

"Special Quest"... but I would prefer items that are story-based "MacGuffins," with NO impact on the character's capabilities, rules-wise-- or that every Character/Class might need a "Special Quest" (involving an item or not) to exercise epic level abilities. Maybe a Wizard needs to wrest an ancient Tome from a Lich to learn the highest level spells, or maybe a Paladin needs a specially blessed sword that won't shatter when he is epically Smiting Evil.

Gothikaiju · Oct 10, 2012

Double-post

Ahnehnois · Oct 10, 2012

I don't like any of the choices.

A flat no is really not appropriate. There need to be (optional) rules to cover a topic this important.

XP costs are a dreadful concept, taking a metagame pacing mechanic and injecting it into the game rules is not a good idea, and it's flavorless and potentially crippling.

Straight-up gold costs are also flavorless and make things way too easy.

Quests are one idea, but are not always appropriate.

***

For me, the best thing is to offer a few options. Story-based prerequisites might be one. Another might be something that causes a small permanent loss to the character; losing a hit point or somesuch (explains why there aren't that many magic items if you need that explained).

tlantl · Oct 10, 2012

GameDoc said:
2) Expendable items like healing potions, scrolls, and wand charges are within the means of characters between adventures.

Wands and staves recharge over night in this time. Have a closer look at the magic items packet.

As for the poll; Yes, I'd like there to be crafting.
No, it should not be easy.

FJammet · Oct 10, 2012

ZombieRoboNinja said:
It should be pretty common to make scrolls, possible to learn to make +1 weapons and armor eventually, and almost impossible to make anything else except through lots of questing.

Exactly that !

GameDoc · Oct 10, 2012

tlantl said:
Wands and staves recharge over night in this time. Have a closer look at the magic.

D'oh! My bad. That's a nice mechanic. It also creates the possibility of having to sacrifice an item in a crisis by spending the last charge to avert a tragedy. Good grist for the roleplaying mill.

Blackwarder · Oct 10, 2012

I voted other but I don't like the poll.

First of all I would like to have magic creation rules with a huge red OPTIONAL before them, I think that magic creation rules are highly dependant on the individual campaign.

I would like to see them added in a separate appendix in the DM or better yet in a different book altogether, item creation rules should be the poster child of modularity and having a moving scale to fit them into your own individual campaign.

I have no problem with DM empowerment in the current edition, generally the DM is the guy busting his ass making sure that everyone is having fun and crafting the advantures so leaving the decision in his hand of the DM is good enough for me.

On a side note, I really like the fact that there are random tables for generating magic items, I like rolling those with my players when we do sandboxing.

Warder

Kavon · Oct 10, 2012

I voted for everything except the one where players would never be able to create magical items.

I believe it should be completely optional. I would also like to see several different ways of handling the magical item creation (3e, 4e, quest, some other ways, combinations of these, etc).