D&D 5E Approaches to Magic Item Crafting

[kigmatzomat]

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.

We tend to do it backwards. "Well, we killed an albino harpy, two mind flayers, a mess of oozes and slimes plus we found that weird metal that casts no shadow in dim light but casts two shadows in bright light. What can we make with this?" "Hrmmm, with materials we can easily collect or buy, I think we could figure out a cloak of displacement, ring of mind shielding, a helm of telepathy or an ioun stone of Intellect."

Which is not to say we never quest for enchanting supplies. Just not frequently.

Our gm has one of the vague formula systems that reduces materials to kinds of mystic "essences". I.e. a red dragon has fire essence, life essence and evil essence. It's heart has the most life, it's eyes the most evil, the tongue the most fire, but there's some in all of it, at least on older dragons. Giants have strength, windlings speed, etc, etc. There's a couple of guidelines for how many total essences of how many types should be used based on either rarity or a magic item value tables, plus advice to require "thematically appropriate" sources.

There are also rules for using extra potent materials to make things easier. Kind of like using a chunk of uranium to make a flashlight that won't go out for 9 million years. It's super easy to make but also kind of a waste.

E.g. We fought a kraken, an aboleth plus some weird franken-squid aboleth constructs. All of them were just full of tentacles, poison, grappling and magic essences so we were able to easily make a grappling/poisoning whip ("poison strand" from a kobold press book) for the monk. Using poisonous, grappling, whip-like material components that have twice as much essence as needed and are almost insanely thematically appropriate meant we could make the whip without having an explicit formula and have a DC that was something sane (at least for a party with two bards with Expertise(Arcana) and a cleric with enough spell slots to keep them both under Enhance Attribute all day)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My house rule is incantations can be used to get "spell slots" for crafting of magic. Then a level 1 cleric could craft a potion with a level 3 effect, but it would need more time.

And you can collect "residuum" as "alternate money". And residuum can be refined into different variants: black, white, red, green and blue.

Sorcerers can spend spells to craft magic single-use items (potions, scrolls, talismans and tatoos). For example if you will need "feather fall" only once in an emergency, a talisman would be enough.

 

[el-remmen]

I’ve had various ritual/recipe rules that no one ever took advantage of. I do make creating potions and spell scrolls easier to make (but still not automatic) and people have made those.

No ingrediants come from humanoids

Seems like a missed opportunity for drama, I like the idea of being tempted to doing evil for power by needing something that challenges their ethics.

Edited b/c "sad" was not the right word.

 

[jmartkdr2]

My goal with magic item crafting in 5e is to let characters who learned to craft (took tool proficiencies) to use that knowledge for benefits without letting them get more stuff than they would have i no one bothered. I want to fulfill the fantasy without breaking the game.

To that end, I really want to use the last method of "go on a quest for a specific ingredient" but it can be a pain to fit in individual side quests for each pc without disrupting the pace of the campaign - so I make it a lot easier than a "quest" and more "do a little roleplay please" to just kind of buy the ingredient with regular resources and make a craft check to see how long it takes (though a nat 1 of nat 20 on the craft check will have special results).

 

[Yaarel]

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

For me,

Magic item creation is a kind of "ritual" that the DM controls. This ritual can be a found formula, or something that the character innovates.

The DM controls item crafting by requiring "rare ingredients" or special "astronomical events" or whatever, if necessary. This control is to prevent crazy gaming imbalances from catching the DM off-guard.

Crafting magic items doesnt need special items, unless the DM says it does. But it deepens the flavor, the player commitment to it, and the flavor of the item. I encourage players to make their own magic items − and in the same way to modify found magic items. It personalizes the magic item concept, makes the character flavorful, and encourages the reallife players to immerse in narratives about their characters and the narrative world around them.

All magic item creation is "crafting", using tool checks and skill checks. Magic items are gated by tier, so some attempts autofail until an appropriately high level. Fighters can also make magic items via tools, and a master swordsmith forging a magical blade is a reallife trope.

Note, all magic items are quasi-sentient in the sense that they transmit the intentions of their creators. Thus a magic item can "refuse" to attune during attunement, if the attempter is too dissonant against the original intention. However, "Common" items are specifically with the intention for the masses to use freely and easily.

Likewise, when a character crafts a magic item, the item has a special affinity with the character.


I hope the 2024 DMs Guide has great advice for the DM to allow players to create magic items, within a system that safeguards gaming balance.

 

[Yaarel]

By the way, for DMs.

I sometimes refer to the indy pdf, Sane Magical Prices. (The pdf is anonymous but is apparently the work of Inconnunom?)

These "sane" prices, and more importantly their corresponding Rarity, are helpful when deciding how powerful a magic item actually is.

In my settings, it is impossible to buy and sell magic items, except for Common items. Items generally refuse to attune, undermining their marketability. Generally, a transfer of items correlates with "services" on behalf of the original item creator, which attunement makes known.

So, crafting a magic item oneself is the way to get a specific sought-after item!


As a rule-of-thumb, the Rarity correlates with the tier that the item becomes and attunable and craftable.

Levels 1 thru 4: Common
Levels 5 thru 8: Uncommon
Levels 9 thru 12: Rare
Levels 13 thru 16: Very Rare
Levels 17 thru 20: Unique (Legendary)

A DM can make exceptions, but then is closely monitoring it in the context of game balance.

 

[kigmatzomat]

By the way, for DMs.

I sometimes refer to the indy pdf, Sane Magical Prices. (The pdf is anonymous but is apparently the work of Inconnunom?)

The second paragraph of the PDF attributes the contents of the PDF to Saidoro, who compiled the list with lots of feedback from forums and wrote all the text, besides the introduction. Saidoro is also who posted the the thread.

Inconnunom turned it from a wall of text into a very pretty PDF.

And we also use the list, for similar reasons. While I think everyone can find something to quibble about, it has been directionally appropriate far more often than the simple rarity mechanism in the dmg.

We have the high rarity/low cost item requiring some particular, rare-but-not-crazy-expensive-to-acquire element (a sunflower picked during an eclipse) or have unpleasant side effects (craftsman smells foul for a month).

 

[aco175]

And we also use the list, for similar reasons. While I think everyone can find something to quibble about, it has been directionally appropriate far more often than the simple rarity mechanism in the dmg.

I was just looking at the PDF and quibbling without giving it a proper reading. Thank you for pointing out that you find it overall useful.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

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

One of my favorite things about 3e was its magic creation system. Not just how you did it, but how you could customize magic weapons with all sorts of modular enchantments. It was really easy to create a flavorful magic item that wasn't terribly broken.

We tend to do it backwards. "Well, we killed an albino harpy, two mind flayers, a mess of oozes and slimes plus we found that weird metal that casts no shadow in dim light but casts two shadows in bright light. What can we make with this?" "Hrmmm, with materials we can easily collect or buy, I think we could figure out a cloak of displacement, ring of mind shielding, a helm of telepathy or an ioun stone of Intellect."

Which is not to say we never quest for enchanting supplies. Just not frequently.

Our gm has one of the vague formula systems that reduces materials to kinds of mystic "essences". I.e. a red dragon has fire essence, life essence and evil essence. It's heart has the most life, it's eyes the most evil, the tongue the most fire, but there's some in all of it, at least on older dragons. Giants have strength, windlings speed, etc, etc. There's a couple of guidelines for how many total essences of how many types should be used based on either rarity or a magic item value tables, plus advice to require "thematically appropriate" sources.

There are also rules for using extra potent materials to make things easier. Kind of like using a chunk of uranium to make a flashlight that won't go out for 9 million years. It's super easy to make but also kind of a waste.

E.g. We fought a kraken, an aboleth plus some weird franken-squid aboleth constructs. All of them were just full of tentacles, poison, grappling and magic essences so we were able to easily make a grappling/poisoning whip ("poison strand" from a kobold press book) for the monk. Using poisonous, grappling, whip-like material components that have twice as much essence as needed and are almost insanely thematically appropriate meant we could make the whip without having an explicit formula and have a DC that was something sane (at least for a party with two bards with Expertise(Arcana) and a cleric with enough spell slots to keep them both under Enhance Attribute all day)

Kinda reminds me of cooking in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!

What I love is when crafting magic items is a narrative. When you need to go on adventures to make them. Not when it's just pouring gold out, measuring it only in gold pieces.