D&D 5E Approaches to Magic Item Crafting

[Hexmage-EN]

Since 5E doesn't really have extensive magic item crafting rules, what approaches have you used or seen used, and which are your favorites?

Some sample implementations I've seen:

• From the Bastion UA: A Masterwork weapon retains the effects of a Magic Weapon spell permanently.
• Building off the former and reaching back to 3E, the creator of the magic item or someone assisting in the creation must have certain relevant spells prepared.
• Magic items of each tier require increasingly rare materials to create
• Magic items require unique components that require a special quest to obtain

 

[ichabod]

I wrote up crafting rules for my game. Basically it is the same as crafting other items, but it requires access to a formula for the item and special ingredients. The special ingredients come from high CR monsters. You can get special alchemical containers and harvest those ingredients when you kill creatures. You need to be a spell caster of a certain level and you need to have access to a magical lab.

 

[zottel]

The dungeon Dudes have a system for crafting in the works that sounds interesting and thought out. They talked about it in a recent video: Our New Rules for Crafting Magic Items in D&D 5e May be worth a watch!
AFAIR you need to get recipes, then gather ingredients, whose rarity and number increase from common to uncommon to rare etc. It is designed to tune the number of items a player can craft each tier, and seems rather customizable.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My general take is that crafting a magic item should always involve questing for components. It should never be as simple as insert gold, get magic item. So whether it's a specific ore only found in a section of the Underdark, or the feather of an albino harpy, creating a magic item should always drive adventures.

 

[bloodtide]

My homebrew is:
*Anyone can (attempt) to create a magic item
*The physical item needs to be made with rare, exotic ingredients....the more powerful, the more rare and exotic
*The creator must follow a unique ritual for each item to enchant it.
*And part of the ritual is to do a 'task' and use that 'experience' to activate the item.
*Each item needs at least one 'beyond' ingredient.... 'the laugh of an elven princess', 'the curse of a dying demon' or something like that. With more power equaling more hard to find ones.

For my groups...this works out perfectly. Player are often "making a magic item" all the time. The fact that they need "The seed of a Zvolius flower", "a drop of blood from a goblin king" and a 'pond of frogs singing on a moonless night" keeps all the players actively going on adventures for things. And the more clever players collect things that might be useful in the future.

Lots of items have similar needs...like "defeat an evil king", so this gets players to work together.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I used to be a fan of the power component you have to quest for method, but after a couple of campaigns just became fetch quests just to get the cool thing while ignoring like... the plot and theme... I'm firmly on the side of money + time + spell or skill = item,

 

[Stalker0]

if you want something simple, you could with the classic "year and a day" kind of idea.

To craft the item, pick spells XY and Z.

The magic must cast those spells on the item each day for a year and a day to imbue the item.

 

[Stormonu]

I use a lot of the 3E rules for item creation, to me they had the most fleshed-out version so far.

 

[Wolfram stout]

The dungeon Dudes have a system for crafting in the works that sounds interesting and thought out. They talked about it in a recent video: Our New Rules for Crafting Magic Items in D&D 5e May be worth a watch!
AFAIR you need to get recipes, then gather ingredients, whose rarity and number increase from common to uncommon to rare etc. It is designed to tune the number of items a player can craft each tier, and seems rather customizable.

I saw that and liked it very much. No rolls needed, you have to find the recipe, then gather the ingrediants, then have a short amount of time and boom you got it. No ingrediants come from humanoids, and each player has enough time to harvest 1 ingrediant from each monster after a battle.

 

[overgeeked]

Use the Quest For It rules from Dungeon Crawl Classics. Though, to be fair, they’re not rules per se. Instead of crafting the item, have the PCs go on a quest to find the item or have a master crafter make it for them. Design adventures around the materials required for crafting. “I need the heart of a dragon, the tongue of an honest liar, and that guy’s arm.” And the like.

Or something dead simple like a clock. Every set amount of time spent (weeks or months) plus every so much gold spent (1000s most likely) gets a box checked. Just decide how many boxes of each it requires. But I find most crafting systems boring. And would much rather use DCC’s Quest For It.