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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7187849" data-attributes="member: 4937">Really?  Ok, allow me to quote from those non-onerous conditions.  First, the least onerous and most accessible, "Enchant An Item"First, it's a 6th level spell so at minimum you need to be 11th level and you have to have tested this spell and made into your minimum known spells - even with an 18 INT there is at least a 15% you'll never be able to learn this spell at all.  Here is what the spell reads like, cleaned up a bit to not fill up the whole screen: "The item to be prepared must be touched manually by the spell caster.  This touching must be constant and continual during the casting time which is a base 16 hours plus an additional 8-64 hours [divided over 8 hours working days]  All work must be uninterrupted, and during rest periods the item must never be more than 1' distant from the spell caster, for if it is, the whole spell is spoiled and must be performed again.... absolutely no other form of magic may be performed and the magic-user must remain quiet and in isolation.  At the end of the spell the caster will "know" that the item is ready for the final test.  He or she will then pronounce the final magic syllable [and if the spell-caster the passes a saving throw versus magic], the spell is completed.  Once the spell is completed, the magic-user may begin to place the desired dweomer on the item, and the spell he or she plans to place on or within the item must [be begun] with 24 hours or the preparatory spell fades, and the item must again be enchanted.   Each spell subsequently cast up on the object bearing an enchant an item spell requires 4 hours plus 4-8 additional hours per spell level of the magic being cast [and each of these may secretly fail as the DM rolls saving throws in secret without informing the caster is he's just wasted his time, thus it is possible to go through this whole process and end up with a magical item that does nothing]...No magic placed on or onto an item is permanent unless a permanency spell is used as a finishing touch... Scrolls or magical devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an item being prepared."Doesn't sound too bad, lets consider that permanency spell.Well, to start with, it's a 8th level spell, and if I have an 18 INT there is a 15% chance I'll never learn it at all (so more than a quarter of 15th level 18 INT M-U's can't create permanent magic items).   If you want to make a wand starting at 11th level, you can do that.   But if you want to make a mere sword +1, you need to be 15th level!  I don't think I've ever seen a 15th level M-U started legitimately, and I certainly never got a character that high.   But that's not remotely the onerous part.  The bad part is every time you cast permanency, you have a 5% chance of losing a point of Constitution permanently!  I have no idea what idiots actually create sword +1's in D&D, because I have a hard time imagining a 15th level M-U ever deciding to risk a point of Constitution to create an implement that is so mundane and of so little use to himself as a sword +1, but there it is.  The DMG also notes regarding this process that once it is complete, the M-U finds it so draining that the spell caster must rest for one full day for each 100 g.p. of the items experience point value, and during this period the caster is unable to use spells or undertake any but the most mild exercise.  So even if you could create a Manual of Bodily Exercise, you'd be 50 days in bed before you could get any even after having completed the work.But even the 5% chance of Constitution loss and the death spiral that entails isn't the worst of it.   The worst of it is that you are vaguely up to the whim of the DM who is encouraged by the text to make the process as onerous as possible.   For example, this is the proposed process for creating an example magic item in the DMG:"For example, a player character wizard desires to create a Ring of Spell Storing.  He or she commissions a platinum smith to fashion a ring of the finest quality and pays 5000 g.p, for materials and labor.  He or she then casts enchant an item spell according to the Players Handbook instructions.   As DM you know inform him or her that in order contain and accept the spells he or she desires to store in the device, a scroll bearing the desired spells must be scribed, and then a permanency spell cast upon the scroll, then the scroll must be merged with the ring by some means (typically a wish spell)."Now, this is even worse than it sounds, because to do that, we have to come by a wish - which according to the Player's Handbook, can't come from a scroll or device if it is to be used in the manufacturing process, so in other words we are now in this case up to a 17th level character.  Plus, he has to craft the scroll, which means that for each spell he has to discover a secret ink invented by the DM and containing whatever rare and fiendish ingredients that the DM demands (typically monster body parts, which then must be found and harvested).  And the whole thing could still fail because the item fails a saving throw versus magic, some time after the special scroll is prepared (with chance of CON loss) and the wish then cast.Now if that is the standard we are using, then asked to invent the recipe for actually desirable and 'chase' or 'kit' items, I'm as a DM going to be much harsher than that.  I suppose there are groups out there that forgo some or all of these restrictions in practice or by declaration, but as a practical matter I have never seen a party in 1e AD&D create more than a few potions for their own use.   The full force of the rules is designed in my opinion to ensure that parties generally prefer to acquire items through adventuring, rather than create magic marts.I may have misremembered or misinterpreted, but this is what I read: "Books (including tomes, librams and manuals), artifacts and relics are of ancient manufacture, possibly from a superior human or demihuman technology, perhaps of divine origin, thus books artifacts and relics cannot be made by players and come ONLY from the Dungeon Master."It seems pretty plain to me that PC's can't make a Manual of Bodily Health or a Libram of Silver Magic.Maybe.  Or it could be that they were just reading the rules, something that was in my experience notably rare at the time.</blockquote>

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