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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chilibean" data-source="post: 169772" data-attributes="member: 2220">It seems to me that one of the things that most of the people that have problems with the magic item creation feats have in common is the arbitrary simplicity of spending the money to create the items.How about this analogy:  Suppose that I was a talented painter and I needed to find a particular old style of chair that I wanted to paint (lets ignore questions of why anyone would want to paint a chair for now).  Suppose also that I have a wad of dollars burning a hole in my pocket.  So what happens, do I just *poof* buy a chair that is automatically the right one.  No.  I get out the yellow pages, surf the internet, drive around shopping at antique stores, etc...  Maybe I find it, maybe I don't.Now back to D&D.  All we need is a system to simply and effectively simulate the process of gathering the necessary things you need to enchant the item.  So how about this for a system:Each day the person working on purchasing the necessary supplies to begin enchanting the item he rolls a gather information check against a DC based on the city size and whatever else the DM thinks in important.  Make a metropolis about a 15 and a small village about a 25.  Or something like that.  If you succeed your gather info check, you have found something you need for your item.  The value of this "item" is 1d10% of the GP limit of the town.Now make a diplomacy check to try to purchase the item.  Have the DM dream up some reasonable DC for this check.  If you pass, you can buy the item for it's actual value.  If you roll a natural 20, you can buy it at half price.  if you fail, for every point you fail add 10% to the cost of the item, but it still only counts the same amount towards finishing the item.Now you repeat the process until you either fail by more than 10 to find the item you need (in which case you've searched everywhere you can think of and can't search again for 1d10 days), or you have spent enough money to have all the stuff you need to make the item (and thus can actually start making the item now), or you give up and head to another town that's bigger (or might have a lower DC on the gather info check for some other reason).This would make expensive items take longer to make.  It would also introduce more chances for the rest of the party to try to help find components.  It would also be a nice way to introduce more side plot hooks (the widget you need is owned by a stingy nobleman who isn't selling unless you do  ....).  It would also advertise the parties big money pot to everyone in town who might want to steal stuff from them.  A party without someone with a good gather info skill might be forced to hire someone to help them find what they need and always jacks up the price as the middle man.  The town authorities might require spell casters to get permission (and pay a fee of course) before the undertaking any "dangerous" enchanting in the city.Would a house rule system like this help some of your campaigns?</blockquote>

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