D&D 5E Crafting Scrolls and Brewing Potions

[Athinar]

Everyone is forgetting the first thing that is needed in creating magic items

A magic item formula explains how to make a particular magic item. Such a formula can be an excellent reward if you allow player characters to craft magic items, as explained in
chapter 6, "Between Adventures."

you need the formula before you can start crafting a scroll, potion, or perm item
Good luck in finding the formula, the green goblin stole it, back to formula, yea right

 

[jodyjohnson]

I like the addition of getting the formula.

I would change the pricing but needing the formula is a nice gate on the magic mart economy.

 

[derickmoore25]

From the recent DMG Errata:

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Crafting a Magic Item (p. 129). The first sentence under the Crafting Magic Items table now reads, “An item has a creation cost specified in the Crafting Magic Items table (half that cost for a consumable, such as a potion or scroll).”

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Edit - Ninja'd

I guess I just can't understand why cost to make something is the same as cost to buy it. The PHB says a healing potion costs 50 the DMG 50 to make lol. I'd find a new career and let the adventurers die

 

[BoldItalic]

I guess I just can't understand why cost to make something is the same as cost to buy it. The PHB says a healing potion costs 50 the DMG 50 to make lol. I'd find a new career and let the adventurers die

Maybe a professional, full-time alchemist can actually make them for 40 if he buys ingredients wholesale, re-uses equipment and so on. Then he sells them for 50 and makes a living. Adventurers are amateurs by comparison and can't achieve economies of scale.

 

[Tanarii]

But here is the problem in the game that I'm in,

Took time off to copy spells from the spell book of the Wizard Bedbug, only 6 hours to copy the spells, so what happened, the group left for more adventuring and left me at the inn. they gain experience and got gold and I had a couple more 1st level spells. lost gold, experience and gained a couple 1st level spells. was not happy, the group could have stayed for one day but did not.

Still not happy about it

so unless the group stays with you when you take the down time to make the potions, scrolls, charms, etc.. you will lose in the end, so don't make any thing and stay with the end.

thats not a big, that's a feature. Downtime is a resource just like any other resource, if you choose to use some, and others don't, then you've trading adventuring for some other benefit.

That said, you should know or be warned that you're playing in a game style that strictly enforces of that feature before you choose to make a downtime intensive character. Such as alWizard. Many game-styles intentionally choose to ignore or hand wave the downtime feature of the game, or enforce it as a part-wide thing, to keep the group together, so some players have come to expect it as the norm. Knowing which style of game you're going to be playing in advance is important.

It's like choosing to play an archer. You should be told in advance if the style of game you're playing in will or won't be following strict Ammunition requirements. And preferably be given warning if chances to stock up will be rare and put you behind the rest of the party in effectiveness.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

That's one problem that is instantly fixed by changing the levelling process from gaining XP by killing things, to gaining levels by accomplishing things. In the xp-leads-to-levelling gaming, it almost becomes a videogame. "Gotta kill everything for bags of XP".

I've also found that it makes the players much more involved in the game when they don't see big XP-signs on everything/everyone they meet.

Yep. i don't track XP, levels are gained based on the story and actual 'experience' in my campaigns. Of course, magic items are a lot more common in my campaigns as well. Consumable magic items in particular. The players get to use temporary extra abilities, and have a lot of fun figuring out when they will be the most beneficial.

Not to mention, the other things that the rest of the party wants/needs to do in town take a lot of time as well. Need to repair some armor and weapons? Resupply? I have lingering injuries and such that take some time as well. Playing strictly by the rules, going from 1st to 15th level can occur in a few months of game time, which often equates to weeks of actual in-game time.

So yeah, a day or two passes and you continue...

Ilbranteloth

 

[77IM]

I once wondered what you could make with Alchemist's Tools and decided that it could be used to brew magic potions using the mundane crafting rules:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...mist-s-Tools&p=6564850&viewfull=1#post6564850

 

[Rygar]

That's one problem that is instantly fixed by changing the levelling process from gaining XP by killing things, to gaining levels by accomplishing things. In the xp-leads-to-levelling gaming, it almost becomes a videogame. "Gotta kill everything for bags of XP".

I've also found that it makes the players much more involved in the game when they don't see big XP-signs on everything/everyone they meet.

My experience has been quite the opposite. I've found that the game generally tends to end after a thirty minute arguement of (And this was a real arguement):

"Let me get this straight, I can kill a million goblins and I won't get any better?"
"Yes"
"But some Wizard tasks me with going to the marketplace and getting him some paper, and because I completed a "Quest" I gain in experience??"
"Yes"

Every instance I've seen pulls the players right out of the game, into a fairly major arguement around how a Character would improve in skill with "Accomplishment" (Read quest based as that's what it really is) experience, then half the group or more stops coming and the campaign ends.

Of course, the official WOTC "Give your players a level now!" went over even worse with the players I've shown that to.

I've found that both Quest based and Instantaneous leveling requires a very specific type of group, and outside of that group it becomes extremely polarizing.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

My experience has been quite the opposite. I've found that the game generally tends to end after a thirty minute arguement of (And this was a real arguement):

"Let me get this straight, I can kill a million goblins and I won't get any better?"
"Yes"
"But some Wizard tasks me with going to the marketplace and getting him some paper, and because I completed a "Quest" I gain in experience??"
"Yes"

Every instance I've seen pulls the players right out of the game, into a fairly major arguement around how a Character would improve in skill with "Accomplishment" (Read quest based as that's what it really is) experience, then half the group or more stops coming and the campaign ends.

Of course, the official WOTC "Give your players a level now!" went over even worse with the players I've shown that to.

I've found that both Quest based and Instantaneous leveling requires a very specific type of group, and outside of that group it becomes extremely polarizing.

Then for the past 35+ years I've had very specific types of groups.

Ilbranteloth

 

[GX.Sigma]

My experience has been quite the opposite. I've found that the game generally tends to end after a thirty minute arguement of (And this was a real arguement):

"Let me get this straight, I can kill a million goblins and I won't get any better?"
"Yes"
"But some Wizard tasks me with going to the marketplace and getting him some paper, and because I completed a "Quest" I gain in experience??"
"Yes"

Every instance I've seen pulls the players right out of the game, into a fairly major arguement around how a Character would improve in skill with "Accomplishment" (Read quest based as that's what it really is) experience, then half the group or more stops coming and the campaign ends.

Of course, the official WOTC "Give your players a level now!" went over even worse with the players I've shown that to.

I've found that both Quest based and Instantaneous leveling requires a very specific type of group, and outside of that group it becomes extremely polarizing.

Anecdotal here, but no group I've ever played with has cared at all about XP. You just play the game, and you level up every once in a while. As long as it's established from the start and consistent, there's been no problem using any and all XP systems.