D&D 5E Special Ingredients for Crafting +x Items

[pukunui]

Hey all,

I really like the buying / selling / crafting magic item downtime activities from Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and I generally defer to them when my players want to buy / sell / craft magic items.

This evening, my players bequeathed a 750 gp "gem-studded cloak fit for a king" to the local dwarven community. They had recovered it from some duergar who had been looting an old dwarven ruin. They were hoping that, in exchange, the dwarves would be able to craft a magic weapon for the barbarian PC. I said sure and promptly looked up the crafting magic items rules in XGE.

I'm happy to say that the dwarven smith has an appropriate formula already. The PCs can pay the gold and wait the required amount of time. But the rules also call for the acquisition of a special ingredient. They say, "If appropriate, pick a monster or a location that is a thematic fit for the item to be crafted. For example, creating mariner’s armor might require the essence of a water weird. Crafting a staff of charming might require the cooperation of a specific arcanaloth, who will help only if the characters complete a task for it."

OK. That's all well and good ... but what if the item to be crafted is a plain old generic +X item with no special thematic features?

In this particular case, the players want to have the dwarves make the barbarian a +2 battleaxe.

A +2 weapon is rare, so they need to face a creature with a CR of 9-12 in order to get the special ingredient, although it doesn't necessarily need to be a body part. I'm having a look through the CR 9-12 creatures on D&D Beyond, but so far nothing's jumping out.

Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Curse of Strahd has the CR 10 Amber Golem, which could possibly provide either amber dust to be used as flux for the metal, or piece of amber (perhaps from its core, where the magic was most concentrated) to be carved, polished, and embedded into the weapon to "hold" the enchantments to it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Anyone got any suggestions?

Sure....

1. The haft of the axe needs to be made from the wood of a treant (CR 9). They can convince one to help them or kill it and take some of its wood, as they desire...

2. The fire to stoke the forge must come from at least a young gold dragon (CR 10). The dwarves know of a dragon that might help, but the PCs have to find it and of course help it/ do something for it before it will help them.

3. The axe blade, to finish the forging of it, must be bathed in the blood of at least a young red dragon (CR 10). The dwarves know of a dragon that is causing trouble nearby. The PCs must find it and gain its blood.

OR the red dragon lives in a "lake of fire" and the PCs need water from the lake to bath the blade in...

4. As 2/3 above, but make it an Efreeti (CR 11).

 

[jgsugden]

If you want a default, dragon bone/blood/etc... has a generic acceptability that can allow it to 'plug and play' in almost any item.

However, I handle this stuff a bit different. I set a cost for item construction (in time and gp). Then, I allow the provision of specific materials to reduce the time and gp cost associated with the creation of an item. The PCs can research options and then hunt down what was suggested, or they can suggest something and we'll determine how much it helps.

I try to keep it from feeling like a MMORPG 'miniquest' that is just a nuisance for most of the party and that the group wants to rush through. I want it to feel more organic, and less burdensome. To that end, capitalizing upon things they have already encountered and harvested, or harvesting something convenient along the way is less budensome. And, if they really need the cost reduction, there is a route to find one even if they can't come up with anything.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think there are a lot of good ideas in these replies.

I think one question you need to ask is how magic items are in your world. Are any magic items rare and special? I wonder because you used the phrase 'plain old generic +X item', and sometimes we say things that give more context we haven't thought about.

Are magic weapons special in that seeing even a 'plain' +2 weapon is something special? Or, are magic items more like the Forgotten Realms in 3.x, where the Red Wizards of Thay ran magic-item creation businesses so the PCs had easy access to magic items with the in-world explanation that the Red Wizards were essentially power-levelling their members?

Let's say with your example of a +2 axe, with an appropriate crafter with the formula, I'd say you're looking at: meteoric/extraplanar ore (luckily, there's a crash site off in the distance), you'd need an appropriately hot enough flame (maybe find some cinder from the Plane of Fire), and pure water to quench the steel. Maybe the cinder keeps the blade permanently hot and it needs to be used to strike the killing blow on some creature of ice/water? YMMV

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

If you want generic, you could go with a Scroll of Magic Weapon of the appropriate +X and and arcane lodstone set into the weapon to serve as a permanancy anchor for the spell.

Or a Smith's Hammer blessed by your game's god of Forge/Craft, which can only be used once to grant the wanted property.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

On a random tangent, another concept I like for magic items - and I admit it depends on the setting - was the way the first edition of Legend of the Five Rings treated 'magic items' like katanas. Sometimes, it was the master craftsmanship, but often the weapons were more effective because, over countless generations, the spirit of the item became awakened due to proper respect being paid to it and the repetition of its use.

Maybe that's something you could use in a weapon crafting - guiding a proper spirit into a weapon, even if it's just a 'base' +X weapon. Shouldn't be hard to find a soul that wants revenge, or to keep fighting

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I haven't actually had anyone try to craft a magic item in a campaign yet, but one suggestion I found online is to look for spells that require material components and have effects at least thematically similar to whatever the magic item does.

Unfortunately, the magic weapon spell doesn't require a material component.

I then looked to spells that increase attack bonus or Strength and noticed Enhance Ability: Bull's Strength. This spell requires the hair of a beast (in this case a bull, presumably), but just a normal bull doesn't sound impressive enough for a +2 battleaxe. However, two CR 5 gorgons (a bull-like beast with iron scales) make a CR 9 encounter, so maybe they could get the largest, least damaged scales from two gorgons?

The AD&D book Volo's Guide to All Things Magical might be of use for anyone looking to create magic item crafting recipes. It lists the magical uses of various materials, including wood, gems, metal, etc.

 

[DND_Reborn]

FWIW, a while ago I started on a project for rules and formula/process for crafting every magic item in the DMG, but didn't get much interest in it at the time so abandoned the project...

 

[DND_Reborn]

@pukunui

Here is the link to a sample I did more than a year ago:

D&D 5E - What do you want out of crafting rules?

Cue a very angry man. https://theangrygm.com/series/crafting-crafting/ I always go through stages of reading everything this man says like it's holy writ or getting overloaded by his ... flowery prose and just can't. That said, this looks promising. I like the general assumptions and goals of...

www.enworld.org