item creation feat house rules?

[Afrodyte]

Let me get this out of the way. I like the idea of spellcasting PCs making their own magic items. I was thrilled with the inclusion of Item Creation feats in the PHB. However, the requirements struck me as very odd. How can they require spellcaster levels but no ranks in Craft? Why the different spellcasting level requirements for different types of magical items? For instance, what makes forging say, a ring of invisibility more difficult (Forge Ring feat; required caster level 12+) than crafting a robe of invisibility (Craft Wondrous Item feat; required caster level 3+)?

What have you done about magic item creation to make it more intuitive?

An idea I have is to have one feat called Craft magical item that allows spellcasters to enchant objects with spells they know how to cast. Aside from making the Craft skill play a larger role, everything else (XP, time required, materials, etc) would be the same. Off the top of my head, it'd go like this:

Craft Magical Item (Item Creation)
You can craft a wide variety of magical items, such as rings, wands, weapons, armor, and other objects.
Prerequisites: Spellcaster. At least four ranks in the appropriate Craft skill. (Since magic items are essentially spells that are rendered permanent, it requires more of the personal touch than temporary enchantments. I'd thought about allowing the Craft skill requirement to be bypassed by being able to cast the Permanency spell, but I could not find the divine caster equivalent, so I did away with it.)
Benefit: You can create magical items provided you meet the prerequisites and have enough XP. If you make the item yourself, you must make a successful masterwork Craft check (depending on the item in question). The types of magical items you can make depends on what Craft skills you have. A cleric with Craft (clothes) cannot create magical weapons. A wizard with Craft (armorsmith) cannot use this feat to make magic wands. Following this, you must enchant the item. Doing so takes days or weeks of concentrated effort. More information can be found in the DMG.

 

[Trainz]

I like the idea of having only one feat to craft all items (so far, the only craft feats taken IMC's are for scrolls or wands).

I'm not sure about the skills though... it would demand too much out of the crafters. Any class other than wizards that can craft magic items have a very low number of skill points.

 

[der_kluge]

Dude, you owe it to yourself to pick up the Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games. All stupidness dealing with magic item creation is removed, and replaced with better rules.

 

[Afrodyte]

I like the idea of having only one feat to craft all items (so far, the only craft feats taken IMC's are for scrolls or wands).

I'm not sure about the skills though... it would demand too much out of the crafters. Any class other than wizards that can craft magic items have a very low number of skill points.

I see what you mean. The obvious answer to that would be to give more skill points to those classes, but issues of balance may crop up. Granted, for me, skill points are an excellent way to make a character more well-rounded. However, if I am realistic, I see that players will often use them to boost things like Concentration and Spellcraft. It's a tricky situation, but I am (perhaps foolishly) leaning toward giving more options for players who want more well-rounded characters than preventing powergamers from powergaming.

Of course, since Craft is based on Intelligence, I can very well see potential PCs based around creating magical items placing a high priority on this stat, which would increase the skill points they get anyway.

 

[Afrodyte]

Dude, you owe it to yourself to pick up the Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games. All stupidness dealing with magic item creation is removed, and replaced with better rules.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen this product, and even if I did, I usually don't have the funds to pick it up.

 

[Hecateus]

IIRC, one main difference between Craft Wonderous Item and Forge Ring is that items made via the later (other than only being rings) are much tougher, ie have more hitpoints, higher hardness, better saves etc.

 

[Staffan]

I kind of liked the streamlining of item creation feats Monte Cook did in Arcana Unearthed:
Craft Spell-completion item
Craft Single-use item
Craft Charged item
Craft Magic Arms & Armor
Craft Constant Item

The only thing I add myself is a "Greater Charged Item" that has the nifty staff stuff (use wielder's caster level/stats if greater than the staff's, and allow multiple spells).

 

[Staffan]

IIRC, one main difference between Craft Wonderous Item and Forge Ring is that items made via the later (other than only being rings) are much tougher, ie have more hitpoints, higher hardness, better saves etc.

Another difference in 3.5e is that rings never get affinity cost increases. You can put pretty much any effect in a ring.

 

[timer]

This has been a recent topic of debat in my campaign. I'm a very open DM and if a player finds something in print in the books I let it run. I made a decision to allow the netbooks in as well, they're an excellent resource and they're free can't beat that.
One of my player who I shall name Sneaky, decided on making magic items. The character he made was 16th level, which fit in well enough in the 18th level party. You'll see why it fit out in a second.
Sneaky here is a crafty devil, he's slow as a snail but he's crafty. He spent roughly 1 month devising his character and working out all the details. Then he explained the concept showed me print outs of the classes (which I doubled checked) and any rule he used. It all seemed fine and it was in fact legit however there was a problem that arose when other player found out the sheer level of power he could through about.
Sneaky's character class picks started with a wizard then added in two different artificer prestiege classes. They were different enough that it was feasible to be both. The combination resulted in Sneaky having two different caster levels with different spell lists accordingly. When out adventuring he functioned as a 5th level wizard. That could get him killed right there but the other end of the stick is when he made items he functioned as a 23rd level wizard quite the stick isn't it?
That alone gave him the ability to make just about anything he could get his mind around. At first it looked to me like he'd gotten a bad trade then I realize my folly as I looked at his 'toy' part way through our first session with the character. His 'toy' is/was a staff and it could toss about quite a few 9th level spells. Not bad, others could cast them on their own so on its face it wasn't too bad then I saw how often it could cast them 3/day each without draining a single charge. Suddenly dread started filling in. The other abilities worked out to similar benefits, the thing made most artificats look like childrens toys.
I spent 2 hours after the session working out how he did it, and the frightening thing is I saw ways he could have made it more powerful and still stayed within the rules.
With staves (his specialty) he had a modifier to cost that made it so he only paid 10% of the actual cost. That is if it had a base cost of 200,00gc he paid 20,000gc. His staff ended up with a base cost of 1.9 million gc he had to pay 190,000 for it. At 16th level an average character has 260,00gc which is what I alloted him and that staff fell right into it. Exp wise it worked out in a similar fashion. I think the staff cost him 3,000xp to create and only aged his character about a year in the process.
It would have been fine to transition between sessions but sadly Sneaky died. One might think that to be a blessing but no Sneaky is the kind of player that pouts and moans and generally pisses everyone else off when he doesn't get his way. He's like a 21 year old grade school kid. In his pouting he starts mouthing how his staff should survive his death how it's too powerful because it's solid admantine. I thought about it and I gave the staff a saving throw which it failed. To elaborate Sneaky was hit dead on by a Great Red Wyrms breath weapon from point blank. Sneaky was dead regardless though in failing his save he was turned to less than ash -60 or there abouts. The staff became an issue it had 200hps and had just taken about 150 in damage from the breath weapon. It failed its save and by all means was 75% destroyed but he kept arguing that since some of its hps were there it should survive. In any case in the arguing he mentioned a bit too often what his 'toy' could do. Meteor Swarm, True Seeing at will, Prismatic Sphere ect it quickly became a mater of "That's sick, you shouldn't have that" No other player wanted anything like it, I can't blame them it ruins the fun of the game...in fact 1 of the players used a plot device in the campaign to rid himself of all his magic items. (If you read the Exhalted deads book you'll probably know what he's in store for) Anyway I spent a couple of days trying to figure out ways to limit such things from reaccuring. So far I haven't found a printed rule that prevents it and I hate saying "It doesn't work because I say so" that's as bad as letting him use the bloody thing.
I came up with a system of checks that in a sense prevent the super sick items like that but still allow for nearly every item in the books to be used as was intended.
I devised a way of using the Craft Check used to make an item the limiter. I gave masterwork items a Check of 20 and stated that a magic items craft check must be equal to or greater than 1/10,000th of its base cost. Thus a 200,000gc item needs a Check of 20 or a masterwork item. So the books are rather transparent in change. However since this works off base costs and not modified costs Sneaky's toy would now require an item crafted with a Check of 190 to get made. Something completely epic in nature. Materials add in to what the items check is, Mithral adds +5, Admantine +10. Then each Epic Item creation feat adds in +5. Thus it's possible to make the item in the ELH at epic levels but not before, and it prevents insane items from being crafted too soon.
I'm not sure if it's a perfect or even a good system yet, it hasn't been tested out except in the math. If anyone would like to give me feedback on it I'd be very appreciative.

 

[Arken]

timer: Which PrCs were those?