Anybody else HATE item creation feats?

[333 Dave]

I just was thinking about item creation feats and it occured to me: They suck the DM's job down the toilette. I mean really, most of the arguments I've had with players were over what could and could not be made. "I'm sorry, but you just can't make a +1 Earing of Dexterity." or "NO, a bow of True Strike would cost WAY more than anything a stupid chart will say"

I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble coping with the fact that any attempt at a low magic setting would be in vain if no restrictions were put on Item Creation feats. Your players simply aren't going to go "OOOOhhh a magic sword!" when the party wizard already made one for everybody. ::Shudder::

And don't tell me that the level of money was factored into CRs, thats BS, you know as well as I do that CRs were designed by what is essentially the same thing as "Guess the number of marbles in the jar".

Scribe Scroll & Brew potion seem to be the best to me, seeings how well defined their effects are, and how little my players are willing to spend on something that will get used once then dissapear. Hell, everytime they find potions they either use them ASAP (in the case of healing potions) or sell them ASAP (for anything else). After all, who could concievably need a Potion of Spider Climb .

Sorry for the rant everyone, but it just really pisses me off the way that my players treat magic so mundanely, and Item Creation feats don't help one bit.

 

[Romotre]

i'm running a low magic campaign where the character can't take item creation feats. easy way out? maybe. good game? definetly? question + answer format stupid? shut up.

 

[Crothian]

Low magic campaign? well there needs to be a reason why they are rarer. make the XP cost ten times and the GP price double what it says in the DMG.

 

[Negative Zero]

seems to me that you're really pissed at your players and not the system. i play in a magic poor world and there is no restriction on what creation feats you can take. there is a significant issue with where you can make items though. you have to find a place of power to create true magic items. of course, most of the few that exist are already controlled by some powerful organisation. and it's not a simple matter to find new ones.

the idea that "they suck the DM's job down the toilette" seems a lil harsh and somewhat misplaced to me. first of all, the DM has a long list of duties on his job card already, item being only one of them. secondly, it seems lazy to me to just assume that it ruins the game. it's up to you to find a method that works to accomplish what you want, that's good for you and your players.

again though, i think that, from what you've said and the way you've said it, the problem isn't the feats, but your players. and maybe to a lesser extent your outlook.

 

[starwolf]

Why do they suck in a low-magic game? Not from the DM's view point surely? The campaign my group is currently in is a low-magic game and I can tell you that even though I have a couple of craft item feats I find it damnably hard to craft anything on a whim, but that may be because the game is balanced for both magic AND money. It is made much harder if the characters have very little in the way of liguid assets to spend on the item costs. Time is also the other factor involved. If the campaign is paced in such a way as to limit the "downtime" between actions then the magic wielding characters have very little chance to make the items.
If I had a beef at all with the Craft Xmagic Item feats is that there has been such a inflation in the sheer number of them that have started finding their way into the d20 system. I mean how many different ones do we need?

 

[LostSoul]

I'm running a low magic game, and the magic item creation feats are fine with me.

The thing I've "changed" was to take the gold piece cost and detail what components were needed. The gold piece cost remains the same; but a couple of pounds of gold isn't going to cut it. You need to buy the proper components, or somehow come across them.

So a "potion of endurance" can't be made with a Wizard with just X amount of gold. He needs to get his hands on some gursnip root first.

 

[kenjib]

LostSoul,

You bring up a good point. My biggest complaints about the 3e magic item creation system:

1. As LostSoul points out, there is no accounting for where the gold piece cost gets spent or what limitations there might be on acquiring the necessary components. For all we know the gold pieces magically meld with the item during the creation. Some guidelines for this would have been nice - especially considering that they could have easily tied it into the gp limit based on city size for starters. What the heck are you spending 50,000gp on and what kind of markets can support such extravagance???

2. There is no requirement of a laboratory or other facilities. You can create magic items anywhere you can meditate for spells. I find this completely unbelievable. What did all that gold get spent on and how is it used in the enchantment process? I guess it all just magically fuses into the item? Pshaw!

3. Just because you know how to cast water breathing and freedom of movement you automatically know how to create a cloak of the manta ray with the right feat. I would have liked to see a treatise required for creating each specific item, probably just using the rules for researching or scribing (should you find someone else's research journal) new spells. Ah well...house rules.

The rules have a few holes here and there. I think they were left out for the sake of simplicity. They seem to want you to be able to quickly translate gold into magic items without too much trouble. It's not my preference though.

It sounds like a nice area for one of those magic supplements to expand upon. #3 would be a rules variant but #1 and #2 could be done just as explaning the current rules, not coming up with a variant. The current rules are missing a few things.

 

[Ace]

Why worry about I. The players enjoy making magic items every bit as much as finding them and JMO the game works better with lots of magic rather than less.

YMMV of course

As far as my campaign I use the DMG power components rule from the DMG for flavor as much as anything else and let the players make what they like. I figure the bad guys can get a lot of magic too so its all even.

 

[Victim]

Yes, item creation feats really suck when the DM rolls the treasure randomly. After all, you have to keep any useful items away from the characters. Without item creation feats, most of the characters would still be relying on the fear we entered the game with.

Why should people go "Ohhhhhh, a magic whatzimajig!" when they can probably duplicate its effects with long lasting spells like Bull's Strength or Greater magic Weapon? Why isn't spending a week in prayer to one's god, while making massive sacrifices, so that a Holy weapon can be forged what can defeat X creature more bland than picking one up off some dead guy? I think it's much cooler to enchant and upgrade your items than to switch out everytime you kill someone and they have something nice, or if some self important NPC gives you stuff as gift. In theory, a character can use the same weapon from the 1st moment he finds or makes a masterwork weapon until the day he die for good or retires. If the DM allows you start with a masterwork weapon, or spend some gold to add masterworking to an existing one, then a character could use the same weapon - like a family heirloom - from first level to 20th or even beyond. If you want players to be impressed by a magic item, make it one that would be too expensive for them to create easily, or one that they don't have the spells or feats to make.

If you don't want the players to make items, then limit TIME and GOLD. Without both of those factors, item creation either goes nowhere, or is limited mostly to low level potions and scrolls. It's hard to make stuff when broke and under near constant attack.

Of course existing CRs factor in magic items. Run a fight between a fully equiped 13th level party and a beholder 3 times, and then run it without items. Without the magically boosted saves, the fatalities will probably be much higher on the "naked" heroes. With the boosted saves, and more powerful attacks, etc, the beholder might get toasted easily. Granted CRs could be adjusted so that the base is no magic, or less magic. However, I think that a certain level of magic is needed for balance between classes. At high levels, most foes can fly and turn invisible. If your swordsmaster can't do the same via items, he's just a spectator until someone takes pity on him. By that point, it may be too late.

EDIT:

When playing a cleric, I always viewed item creation cost as a sacrifice to the character's god. If the cleric knows how to channel divine power into the item (the feat), makes the sacrifices, and prays, then the diety empowers the item through the priest.

Wizards are trickier, but perhaps each spell includes instructions for making items in the spell book. After all, all those pages have to get filled up somehow.

 

[PenguinKing]

Before you deride what the system is "missing", ask yourself this: what is most useful to the largest number of people, a simple, bare-bones magic item design system that is trivially easy to modify and adapt to any level of magic in your setting, or a campaign-specific, assumption-ridden monstrosity that requires you to extensively reverse-engineer to change anything?

- Sir Bob.