D&D 4E Crafting in 4e

[pemerton]

Early in the campaign the PCs used a Make Whole ritual to repair gates and doors in a homestead that they were defending. And they erected some simple obstacles (modelled on WW2 tank traps, I think - one of the players is a military history buff) to slow the charge of wolf-mounted goblins. But yesterday, via email, the first bona-fide crafting took place.

The context is one in which one of the PCs - Jett, a drow chaos sorcerer - had pooled together and focused a large amount of chaotic energy leaking from a number of sources: a dead firedrake, a dead mooncalf, a portal to the Elemental Chaos, and the Underdark. He used Cyclone Vortex to draw all the chaotic energy to him, and then a series of Arcana checks to imbue it into himself (granting himself the Gift of Fire from HotEC) and into an Elven hunting horn the party had found on an earlier adventure (creating a Fire Horn from PHB2).

Sometime after this successful manipulation of chaotic forces, the party got a chance to take an extend rest, which is where our session ended. Here is the follow-up email from my player:

After 4 hours of trance, Jett starts making light scratches on the surface of the silver horn with his thieves' tools. He draws some copper wire into a finer thread and lays it down onto the horn, pulls forth his Wyrmtooth Dagger and very gently and slowly channels his Spark Form power through the blade, melting and fusing the copper into the grooves. On one side of the silver horn, in a fine, coppery filigree are two words in Primordial. On the other is a bat, breathing flames in the same coppery filigree (the flames look like Van Gogh’s Starry Night). Behold “Flame Bringer”.​

The PC is trained in Thievery (monk multiclass). He is a member of a secret society whose symbol is a bat. And the copper wire was taken from the kitchen in the Chamber of Eyes (H2 Thunderspire Laybrinth), many levels ago now.

This is how I had always envisaged crafting to work in 4e, and it's nice to now see it take place in my game!

Has anyone else had any crafting happen in their games?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I often wish for it, but our group never really has anything like that going on.

 

[Grimmjow]

Its a work in progress. lol

My bladesinger took a golden skull mask off of a necromancer that the group killed and had it melted down and changed so it has two horns that come up something like a bull.

HE does some weird things with that, like implemented attacks (stabbing at them with a head but) "bull" rushing, and casting his light spell between the horns.

What he's working on doing is finding a way to enchant it so he can cast two magic missile out of the horns.

 

[Saagael]

As Gnome said, this is how I would love for crafting to go at my table, but it never does. This is something I think you have to train the players for over several sessions. Show them an example of how crafting might work (an NPC doing it), and copiously reward players who attempt this freeform playing to encourage others to do it.

I have a house rule that brings back crafting components for making magic items. Its not as in-depth as what you've got (I'd love for it to be though), but it makes the players think about how the item in world terms. A safewing amulet might require a pixie wing or harpy feather to create, a flaming sword might require the skin of a fire giant, or the hand of an efreet. I let the players choose which components to use, and adjudicate what item the components create.

 

[pemerton]

As Gnome said, this is how I would love for crafting to go at my table, but it never does. This is something I think you have to train the players for over several sessions. Show them an example of how crafting might work (an NPC doing it), and copiously reward players who attempt this freeform playing to encourage others to do it.

In my game, both the creation of magic items like this and the inlaying of the horn with copper were ideas initiated by the player in question.

Before this particular episode, the same PC had an NPC crafter make him a Wyrmtooth Dagger out of the tooth he took from a black dragon the party killed, and he used a different source of chaotic energy (plus some of the essence of his mephit familiar) to turn a gem into a Polyglot gem of speaking Primordial.

I have a house rule that brings back crafting components for making magic items. Its not as in-depth as what you've got (I'd love for it to be though), but it makes the players think about how the item in world terms. A safewing amulet might require a pixie wing or harpy feather to create, a flaming sword might require the skin of a fire giant, or the hand of an efreet. I let the players choose which components to use, and adjudicate what item the components create.

Sounds cool. The wizard PC in my game has the Enchant Item ritual, and has had it for quite a while, but for various reasons hasn't actually used it yet!

One of those reasons is that I'm reasonably generous in giving effect to wish lists. Another is that a lot of the item gain in my game is in the form of spontaneous upgrades of existing items (per the rules in Adventurer's Vault) rather than new items found. So there's less stuff to Disenchant into residuum.

 

[Ikalos]

Well, my group doesn't really craft things (unfortunate really.)

In an effort to entice them, I've dropped them into the Emberverse and added the necessary crafting skills as rituals (or I will if I get past the rough draft).

 

[pemerton]

The wizard in my game finally used Enchant Item.

For many levels the party has had a Basket of Everlasting Provisions. But they recently headed off unexpectedly through a portal-style vortex, and so had to leave the basket behind with their NPC valet/herald (Gutboy Barrelhouse) who was left to look after their horses, and also to look after a very big pile of books that they are in the process of moving from point A to point B.

The PCs had assumed that it would be only a short trip from the other side of the vortex to their destination, but it turned out to take a couple of days. And they were only carrying one adventurer's kit's worth of rations. On the second day, with hunger gnawing at his belly, the wizard sat down with a spare backpack and 840 gp worth of residuum and crafted a Backpack of Everlasting Provisions. (Before he became a mage, the character was a pastry chef, so the food should be fine even if the backpack is a bit tatty.)