D&D 5E PCs Making Their Own Magic Items

nightwalker450 · Oct 12, 2012

Magic Item crafting should just be included in Spell Crafting. It's there for the later levels, when your characters are to the point of becoming more than adventurers.

Crafting then should be based around special ingrediants (or gold if you can buy the ingrediants). But for the most part you can't sell magic items. Because we shouldn't have magic item stores, and the majority of people can't buy them. So the way to turn a profit is that a person requests for you to craft the item, then you can barter/negotiate with that person as to what it will take for you to make them. Not making a backpackful of trinkets that cost more than what most people can afford that you just unload at the local pawn shop.

Potions and Scrolls Great! Even scrolls that place an enchantment on a item for a few minutes/hours would be great, but permanent items are not something that every wizard can make.

Mattachine · Oct 12, 2012

One thing I liked about AD&D style crafting was that it was DM mediated--recipes, formulas, and special ingredients were always needed.

If the DM wanted item creation to be easy, alchemy shops simply sold those things.

If the DM wanted item creation rare, then characters had to hunt these things down through special shops, sages, and adventures.

If the DM wanted strict control over item creation, then the required items and formulas would be part of treasure or the result of a specific quest.

cmbarona · Oct 12, 2012

I voted quests-only, though I've seen some interesting discussion since casting my vote. I mainly voted that way because it seems to best fit the assumptions that 5e makes about magic pervasiveness. 3e and 4e both had lots of magic inherent in the system (in most cases), meaning it behooved them to make easy-to-use item creation rules. Exceptions to this assumption could then remove those rules. Of the two, I much preferred 4e, simply because it became easier as a DM to assume a level among my players and build encounters accordingly. That gets a lot more fidgety when some are spending XP that others aren't.

5e (and, it seems, pre-3e) seem to assume magic is very special and rare. The flat math reflects this, and the current item list was made under this assumption. Perhaps "Common" items could be crafted if you have a specialty or class feature which allows it (artificers could make this their bread and butter), like the Healer currently does. Perhaps VERY specialized cases could craft Uncommon items. But either the cost or the benefit should be handled in such a way that having these items won't break the game. That's already the case with healing potions, or so it seems. Combat tends to be quick and deadly (or would be if those damned monsters could hit :rant:

), so chugging a potion doesn't break the game. Nor would a +1 sword, though it shouldn't be easy to get. Past this point, I'd prefer to see quests as the means of creating items.

nightwalker450 · Oct 12, 2012

The larger problem is once it is possible to craft +x weapons and armor, they are going to end up being assumed, and all the flat math is a wash.

Balesir · Oct 12, 2012

I don't think I have ever come accross a game of D&D (or similar fantasy RPGs) that did not have "recipies" for acquiring magic items. Some of those recipies have been "have knowledge of X ritual and sepnd Y amount of gold on ingredients, and you will have your magic item". Others have been more like "the dragon Xalviart is rumoured to have one of those in his hoard; go to his lair and defeat the dragon (or sneak in and steal part of his hoard) and you will have your magic item". Still others read something like "you must find the large toenail of a Tarrasque, the blood of an enraged siren and the tears of a twighlight fairy, then find the ritual instructions (thought to be held by the Witch of the Western Woods) and follow the recipe - then you will have your magic item".

To be honest, I think once you admit that there are mechanisms by which characters can find out how to acquire the item(s) they want and these methods are basically within their capabilities, it's all semantics from there on in. To say that "you must quest for these ingredients yourself, they are not available to buy" implies that, if they manage to get hold of the ingredients but don't want the item any more, they cannot sell them. That, in turn, implies that there are no NPCs interested in the aforementioned items, which seems very dubious, to me.

In short, then, it seems to me that not only everyone, but also everything has its price. Best, then, to simply give estimates for how much money is required to make those items that can possibly be made.

Items that cannot ever be made are another kettle of fish. They are quite conceivable, but must necessarily be rare and (probably) difficult or impossible to destroy. They do not, necessarily, have to be "powerful" in the "game" sense.

These two, very distinct types of magic item were - brilliantly, in my view - separated from one another in one edition of the game. I strongly feel that they should be so again. Each "classification" may then be treated as a "module"; not every campaign needs to have both types.

As for what to call them - how about plain "magic items" for the type that can be created in the game, and "artifacts" for those that can't (just off the top of my head...)?

Obryn · Oct 12, 2012

One of my two choices was "quest based" but I think I am changing my mind. In theory, it's another thing that sounds awesome. In practice, I've become unsure...

There's three big reasons for this.

(1) The whole party is going on a quest so one party member can make one magic item. It can work in a sandbox, but it's devoting a lot of limited table time to a very specific need.
(2) With the advancement rate as it is, the party may advance far enough nobody cares anymore.
(3) ... aren't you going to find more magic items on your quest to make that one magic item? Will you still care?

I dunno. Seems less fun than it sounded.

-O

Balesir · Oct 12, 2012

Obryn said:
One of my two choices was "quest based" but I think I am changing my mind. In theory, it's another thing that sounds awesome. In practice, I've become unsure...

Can't put this as xp (have to "spread the love"), but I agree, as I said in my post just before yours. The "quest" is basically just a fancy form of recipe, and with the expectation of (other) items found while questing it doesn't work out as well as it sounds as if it might.

Questing for "artifacts" - which cannot be made in the "modern" world - works fine, though. The problem with "artifacts" is that any more than a rare few of them gets implausible, fast.

Which is why, to retain the expected magical loot of D&D and at the same time get the mystery, coolness and "specialness" of specific "one-of-a-kind" items, I think that the artifact/enchanted item split in 4E was genius and should be retained.

blalien · Oct 12, 2012

I don't like the idea of questing for specific items or ingredients, unless the item is vital to the story, or if the quest is a minor detour. I don't think it's fair to the party to make them go on a quest just to help one guy get his magic sword.

I think common items should be easy to buy, find, or craft. Legendary items and artifacts should be impossible to find unless the DM wills it. That leaves us with the items in between.

I propose an optional modular ingredient system. There would be a list of ingredients which includes rare metals, gems, herbs, and other such components. Some of these items would appear on random treasure tables and as part of hordes. Some items might only be found from specific monsters or locations. Each uncommon, rare, and very rare item has a list of two or three ingredients required to make it. The very rare items would require more and harder to find ingredients. As an example, a flame tongue longsword might require a ruby worth at least 1000gp and a bar of steel that's been scorched by a dragon's fire. A potion of flying would require a feather from a large-sized bird, a vial of air collected from an air elemental, and a dash of poison that makes its victim feel light-headed. After the ingredients are found, the players can craft the item with an expenditure of gold and time.

The advantage of this system is that the players will get the magic items they want...eventually. The DM does not have to go out of their way to provide the items they want or write mini quests for them. Attentive players will know to harvest monsters for ingredients, and every few adventures the players will have enough ingredients to craft a new item, even if it's not the specific item they wanted. A player who really wants a specific item can wait and call dibs whenever an ingredient they want comes up, and they'll get that item sooner than if they waited for it to appear on a random treasure table.

However magic item creation works, I'm finding this aspect of D&D Next a huge improvement over 4e. I manage the treasury for my 4e party, and we currently have 18 items we intend to sell the next time we're in town. If the D&D Next rules work as planned, I hope the party never has to get rid of a single item.

Obryn · Oct 12, 2012

blalien said:
However magic item creation works, I'm finding this aspect of D&D Next a huge improvement over 4e. I manage the treasury for my 4e party, and we currently have 18 items we intend to sell the next time we're in town. If the D&D Next rules work as planned, I hope the party never has to get rid of a single item.

Inherent bonuses. Use them. Love them. Feel the freedom. Decide you're never running 4e without them again.

-O

Ed_Laprade · Oct 12, 2012

tlantl said:
Well unless fighters and rogues and other non-casters can make magic items for XP then no one gets it from me.

I actually think the cost of making items shouldn't be too egregious, it's not like you're going to be getting rich off of stuff no one can afford. Looking at the prices of things and listening to the devs I get the impression a lot of the mistakes of WotC game design are going into the garbage can where they rightly belong.

What's the first thing your thief player wants to do when he finds a magic mart? Thats right he wants to rob the place. Why? Because that's where the money and magic items are found.

My biggest arms dealer is a lich who lives in a fully stocked dungeon. My players still wanted to rob the guy.

In the perfect D&D world there would be other things the non-casters could get XP for that the casters couldn't, but yeah, that's a problem. (Rogues should be able to get some for stealing, for ex.) Maybe just a really small amount could be awarded to show that they're actually doing something constructive, rather than penalizing them for it.

IMHO having magic item creation cost a lot of time or money ought to keep the magic mart problem under control. The occasional townie wizard might have an item or two for sale, but that doesn't mean it'd be something the characters wanted. To be sure they got what they wanted they'd either have to wait til it was ready, pony up a lot of cash, or go questing for the right ingrediants to speed up the process. (But quests ought to be short. Too much time spent on them and complaints will start rolling in!)