Sorcerer Crafter

[roguerouge]

Okay, I run a 1 PC campaign. The PC's friend is an Expert gaining levels in Sorcerer. (She was going to be a wizard, but the narrative moved this NPC towards being a Sorcerer. Eventually, she'll become a Lore Master.) This NPC needs to fill a support role and the player wants this NPC to be an item crafter.

Obviously, this sorcerer as Q (from the Bond series, not the ST:tNG series) is a rough fit. But because it's a one PC campaign and it's a support NPC anyway, I'm trying to make this happen with minimal disruption to system balance.

So, any help you can give me with the following would be much appreciated:

1. What spells should a sorcerer choose because they make their way into the most magic items?

2. For spells that the NPC doesn't know, is it a bad idea to simply have the research and costs of crafting the item remain the same, but add the cost of 1 scroll with the spell required? (This would replace the requirement of having to cast the spell every day.) Or is that TOO unbalancing?

3. Is this an impossible task and I should try to find a way to get her towards a wizard/sorcerer mix ASAP?

 

[moritheil]

Just curious - why not an artificer?

 

[roguerouge]

I don't have Eberron books, mostly. It's in that campaign setting's books, yes?

Also, after years trying and failing as a wizard's apprentice, she ended up being pushed over the edge one adventure and spontaneously cast magic missile.

 

[Jack Simth]

Sorcerers make bad crafters.

Most the items that you'll want (except for things like a Cloak of Charisma, a Vest of Resistance, Bracers of Armor, and an Amulet of Health) essentially duplicate spells - and they tend to require the spells they duplicate. If you can craft the item, you know the spell, and can make the effect happen basically on a whim anyway ... which means you don't really need the item. It's pretty much only the scaling items that are based on non-scaling spells (the Cloak of Charisma, Best of Resistance, Bracers of Armor, and Amulet of Health, listed above) that you'll really want to craft... and there's really only a handful of them.

While you can, perfectly RAW, use scrolls or wands to Craft stuff, you need one charge (one scroll, or one zap from the wand) for each day of crafting. That Cloak of Charisma +6 that you want to craft takes 36 days - so you'll need 36 scrolls of Eagle's Splendor. Or 36 charges from a wand of it. This is in addition to the 18.000 gp of magical supplies.

As it's an NPC, and there's only the one PC (so no worries about party balance), just homebrew a feat to let the NPC make UMD checks in place of required spells - most the spells are flavor more than balance anyway, so it shouldn't be particularly game-breaking.

 

[szilard]

The other option...

make the NPC a warlock. His eldritch blast just looks a whole lot like Magic Missile (which makes sense given his background). There's no reason for him to realize that he isn't a sorcerer at first.

Warlocks make great crafters.

-Stuart

 

[roguerouge]

I like the UMD emulate mechanic. That's a good one.

And the player has a real dislike for the warlock class, so I'm not going to change the sorcerer class choice on the fly. (Besides, the NPC's in an associate's degree program for controlling sorcerous powers...)