Item Creation Rituals - several points

[Fede]

[...]The way I've done it in my game is that I convert parcel gold in encounter with weird or magical creatures that wouldn't care about money into ritual components[...]

That's exactly the same thing that i've done in my campaign.

 

[Rel]

I think that's a great house rule. In this instance, do you mean you could find a specific scroll for cloaks in general, or is it even more specific; a scroll to make X magic cloak?

I was doing a separate ritual for each magic cloak or sword or whatever. My thinking was that the ritual for enchanting a fire blade would be very different from enchanting a frost blade. However the PC's are only 2nd level and not even eligible for the base Enchant ritual for another two levels. If this level of granularity feels cumbersome then I might allow them to use a flame blade ritual + Arcana Check to simulate a frost blade ritual.

Most of my rulings with 4e are fairly loose and flexible so I'm willing to compromise if the players don't want to have to track 50 rituals they know.

 

[77IM]

Now that I think about it, a number of my house rules address the OP's feelings on item creation. (Maybe this should be on the House Rules forum?)

High-Quality Items
These items are the finest available -- they are ornately decorated with filigree and inlaid gems, and are better balanced and more comfortable to use than similar items of their type, and are slightly sturdier. High-Quality Items cost more: 100 gp for a simple weapon or light armor or a shield, 150 gp for a military or superior weapon, heavy armor, or implement, and 50 gp for other sorts of items (such as adventuring gear). Fortunately, they also count as "art objects" and thus can be sold at full price.

Special Components
You may find ritual components that are worth more when used in a certain fashion. For example, if you have 200 gp worth of elemental fire, it functions as 100 gp worth of alchemical reagents, OR as 400 gp worth of reagents when used in a fire-oriented ritual (such as granting a weapon a flaming enchantment).

Rituals
Disenchant Magic Item: This ritual disenchants the item without destroying it. It becomes a non-magical High-Quality Item which can then be sold or re-enchanted. Disenchanting produces residuum in value equal to half the market price of the item (not one-fifth market price).
Enchant Magic Item: This ritual can only be cast on a High-Quality Item. In addition, you can use it to improve the enchantment of an existing magic item. The material component cost of doing so is the difference between the market price of the new item and the market price of the original item. See "Enchanting Items," Adventurer's Vault, p.198.
Transfer Enchantment: This ritual (from Adventurer's Vault) is allowed, but might not always work. Certain enchantments are linked to intrinsic physical properties of the item and may not be transferable (e.g., a cold iron weapon).

I also allow magic items to be sold for 1/2 value. The main reason I allow this (and allow them to be disenchanted for 1/2 value) is that I place items from the PC's Wish Lists less than half the time. I try to make sure people get the items they want most, but beyond that, I think it's more important to have treasures that are interesting and make sense than for people to miraculously stumble upon whatever they were looking for. This means players have more need to disenchant/sell items to make new ones, so the value of doing so is increased. Also, the ability to buy and sell items and components is not guaranteed -- local merchants can only do so much. Since it's not as easy to convert gold into items, I made it easier to convert items into items.

-- 77IM