Item Crafters! where do you shop?

[Quidam]

When you Craft your items, where does the gold go? Does it magically disappear from your pouch upon casting the spell to be placed into the item, or does your DM have you shop for appropriate ingredients? Obviously, you need a masterwork item for arms 'n' armor, but aside from that.... ground up gems? Fifty pounds of Umpbert's All-Purpose Magical Goo from the magic shop on the corner?

If you've got to get the components from somewhere, how does this hinder your ability to create items? While creating a new item from scratch would arguably require scads of odd bits of this 'n' that to create, upgrading a +1 longsword into a +1 shocking longsword could be envisioned requiring very little- able to be done without acquiring new materials.

How do you adjudicate it?

 

[Crothian]

IMC and in the games I play in, the crafter needs to aquire the componetns. Tese can be done through adventuring and gather of power components (monster parts, rare herbs, etc) or through going to the local shop. Now the local shop is ussually the Wizard Guild or in a highly magical city.

 

[Deadguy]

For myself, I require anyone who is crafting items to ppurchase the materials they need from alchemists, jewellers, herbalists, etc. Basically, I assume that in a sizeable city they will be able to find the materials that they need from a variety of stores. I don't normally play through the purchases (though if there's a story I want to tell about such people,, or a 'chance' encounter with a NPC, I will do some of the process).

As for the time taken to do this, I subsume it into the creation process, unless the base item itself is special, in which case that must be crafted/purchased separately.

At its root, the process is just colour but it is one that can help create a real atmosphere for the campaign (visits to the Alchemists' Quarter or the Wizard District can be a strange, and even dangerous, experience).