Acquiring epic items

[Trainz]

Since their early levels, my players have crafted their own magic items. This way, there was no need for magic shops and other weird stuff IMC in order for them to keep up with the magic items reliance that adventuring necessitates.

They just hit epic, and they're faced with a dire decision.

Crafting epic items is a whole new ball game. It takes a LONG time to craft a single epic item, and in order to somewhat shorten that crafting time, the player must take two feats for each category of item to make. Plus the XP cost is very high.

They have thus decided to forego crafting epic items altogether. Epic adventuring *requires* to eventually get the epic items, or your players simply won't be able to keep up with the challenges at cr's 25+. I guess I must make sure that they can access epic items shop (Union), or the game will soon end.

Your thoughts ?

 

[S'mon]

I houserule that epic items take 1 day per 10,000gp, so the time it takes is in line with their actual power level. I haven't had PCs wanting to craft epic magic - I'm not sure the 2-Feats requirement is really OTT? If they won't do that, let them commission epic items from epic crafters up to some reasonable limit, say 2 million gp (the cost of a +10 Epic weapon).

 

[S'mon]

I never have magic shops IMC (except for temples selling clw potions & such); I always make the PCs commission items. At 10,000gp/day a 1 million gp item takes 100 days, seems fair to me. If you're running a time-limited quest just give them what they need.

 

[vexare]

We tend to houserule that any feat that naturally scales with the player also scales with epic levels. This eliminates the need for several epic feats that just seem a little redundant such as epic track, epic heighten spell, epic crafts, ect. As for the time it takes to make such items, i believe there are some items out there, allthough i forget which book and what exactly they do, but for example there is a forge that gives you +20 to your craft, which in turn allows you to take a -20 penalty for a speedy creation. And other similar items. If you do houserule the xp cost i would make sure to keep it very high, prohibitively so until mid 20's. Epic items are powerful and should not be taken lightly. Most people don't acquire their first piece of epic gear until several levels after they themselves have become epic. The sudden skyrocket in price is prohibitive to all until at least their mid 20's-ish. This isn't all bad however, it forces players to round out their charecter, spending money maxing out their other slots instead of dumping everything into one all powerfull sword ect.

 

[vexare]

Should add that with the hefty xp cost being the limiting factor, your players won't level up very quickly at all. This can lead to the fealing that they aren't really progressing. Another option would be to drastically reduce the xp cost and also lower the average treasure amount so that they would have a relatively hard time purchasing the required materials to forge the equipment.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

One of the things that I've noticed is that Epic items - especially, say, weapons and wondrous items - have an oversized "Epic surcharge."

That is to say, a +6 sword, despite not being terribly much more useful than a +5 sword, has such a huge increase in cost that it isn't really worthwhile.

Consider dropping, halving, or otherwise modifying the Epic surcharge, and your players might be more willing to craft on their own.

By the by, kudos to you for being a DM who not only allows item creation feats, but seems to go out of his way to let his players use them!

 

[azhrei_fje]

By the by, kudos to you for being a DM who not only allows item creation feats, but seems to go out of his way to let his players use them!

Oh man, I should've posted here first, then I would've gotten the kudos!

My players also prefer to make their own, for the most part. Although the party item crafter has pretty much used up all of the mithral in the area making chain shirts (!) and at 12th level the party has a single adamantine weapon...

 

[Crothian]

This is what your epic cohort is for. He crafts the items, you set him up with lots of great workshops, and ale and wenches for his off time.

 

[Yig]

By the by, kudos to you for being a DM who not only allows item creation feats, but seems to go out of his way to let his players use them!

Yeah, he's not a bad DM

 

[jmucchiello]

Crafting epic items is a whole new ball game. It takes a LONG time to craft a single epic item, and in order to somewhat shorten that crafting time, the player must take two feats for each category of item to make. Plus the XP cost is very high.

If this is your problem, change the times. The XP and GP costs are the only important costs in item creation. In most campaigns 1 week or 10 weeks is the same in terms of inconvenience. Change the time to something flat per item: 1,000,000 gp / month, max 1 month per item regardless of cost.

By the by, kudos to you for being a DM who not only allows item creation feats, but seems to go out of his way to let his players use them!

Ditto