Do you ever use item creation feats?

[Elrith]

Yes, I'm honourbound to

I am a firm believer that players "purchase" the kind of campaign they get to play in (the rangers favoured enemy shows up often enough, the cleric has to deal with at least a bit of undead). Therefore, my players get to use the feats they take, and by taking item creation feats, I as DM have to give them time to use them. I often provide little breaks, a few weeks, months or even years where players get to manage their own time and really develop their characters in a manner either depedent or independent of my plotline.

In my current campaign, the wizard has gotten downright merchantile and actually started a business that has grown into a full-blown wizards academy--the player made very wise investments and created items that are useful (I have house rules detailing how to track sales and inventory). When her character is away, the store and academy are staffed by her cohort and followers, which is a fun (and realistic) use of the leadership feat. Since the party has now hit 14th level, her PC is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the world, and her store and school fits her status quite nicely.

 

[Thanee]

All the time. Well, not in a literal sense... but they are used quite a bit.

Most of all Scribe Scroll and Craft Woundrous Item, of course.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Guldensupp]

Last campaign, my players made dozens of magic items. The campaign before, they just bought off the rack. This campaign, we'll see.

Gregory

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I voted only a little. In the past I've had some, but not much item creation. Mostly staffs, scrolls and some wondrous items.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My necrotheurge uses Craft Wondrous Items constantly. I think I've spent about 4500 XP on stuff. He makes items for the rest of the group, at 80% of book value, time permitting.

 

[HellHound]

Uhmmm...

None of the above.

We have some campaigns that make use of Crafting fairly often, and others that don't.

Some only saw the crafting of wands of cure light wounds and a few other utility spells, another was almost entrely magic arms and armor (the party had very exotic weapon tastes), and a few staves.

So, not all the time, but definitely not 'just little stuff'.

 

[Kershek]

As far as downtime for non-spellcasters are concerned, it's simple. We say something like, "the wizard spends 50 days creating items for the party and the rest of the party relaxes and enjoys the downtime." We might add a few extra days for the wizard to relax (if that's in his/her persona) and then go to the next plot hook.

My wizard is a gnome illusionist. He has Magical Artisan: Craft Wondrous Item and charges 2-3gp per XP spent because, well, he likes money, especially sparkly gems. It also pays for the XP he loses. Even with the extra charge, it still comes out to less than half market price. It's a win-win situation, because he gets extra money to spend on his own items and the party member still gets it cheaper.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Item Creation Feats ROCK! They are so cool that they are probably close to, although not quite, being broken. A spell caster can outfit his party with the most useful items in the game for a pittance in XP and some gold. Take Craft Wondrous Item and Magical Artisan and your character will crank out nearly every magical item that your party could ever need. You could effectively double your character's equipment value with time, a small amount of XP, and some gold. To make it all that much better, the game is built to let characters that are lower level than their peers to catch up, a system which more than makes up for the XP one burns to craft. I have considered disallowing them because it yanks control of the distribution of magic from the DM. Later!

This is about how I feel. Item creation gives you so much freedom and power over your items and loadout. You don't need to worry about the DM giving you what you need, you just need the Fighter to put ranks in the appropriate Craft skills, and you can enspell armor and weapons, as well as more durable metal magic items and wands...the possibilities only depend on your timetable.

 

[Ahnehnois]

What is this Magical Artisan feat you speak of? I'm not familiar with it.

 

[der_kluge]

If you hate the item creation rules as written, you owe it to yourself to check out the Artificer's Handbook.