el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
The recent thread about what folks want out of crafting rules happened just as I was including my first such "magical item recipe" in my 5E game. I posted a version in that thread, but I have modified it since.
In their very first adventure, the PCs found a small spellbook that had belong to a necromancer. At the time, no one in the party was a wizard, so they left it behind with the sage that hired them for their first job, who promised to discover if it was trapped or cursed, and hold on to it until such a future time the party had a use for it (or just wanted it back). The party agreed and recently they were called back to that village to deal with a different threat and in the process are going to finally get the book back (and in the meantime, the party gnome bard has multiclassed to take a level of wizard so he can use it).
Anyway, I thought other people might want to see how I wrote up the spellbook. It is more than just a list of the spells it contains. I see wizard spell books as not just containers of spells, but all kinds of knowledge and notes - so I often try to include some tidbits or potential adventure hooks when they are found.
Furthermore, the only exception to our standing "core books only" rule (with a handful of house rules), are the spells from other sources that I might include in such a find as a "rare spell." Players cannot automatically choose from these spells when they go up levels, but I do slowly introduce some of them as a trickle when thematically appropriate for them to choose from or take the time to learn. One of the side-effects of this are cantrips, which according to the rules are not written in spellbooks, but I scratched that and have included non-core cantrips in a similar way (the marginalia allows a PC to figure it out with a day's study and practice - I know this is longer than a leveled spell, but I figure you are learning to cast it any time you want on the fly and it lets them circumvent the trade known spells out when you go up a level by allowing them to switch out a known cantrip - the max # known by level still applies and switching back or to another cantrip still has to wait for a level advancement like normal).
Oh and one other house rule: spells take up a number of pages equal to their level.
As for crafting magical items, I decided since I will be developing list of ingredients and other instructions as it comes up (though sometimes in conjunction with a player doing the crafting), that I would significantly lower the crafting time listed in the DMG because finding the necessary components will likely take up some game-time why add even more downtime requirement to that? So items now take one full day of ritualized crafting (not including making the item to be enchanted itself or having it made) per 500 gps of the base price, modified by relevant spell casting ability modifier (to a minimum of one full day). Thus a Wizard with a 16 INT could craft an item with a 5000 gp base price in (5000 ÷ 500) - 3 days. So 7 days.
Yes, that means that both common and uncommon items can be made in "one day" but like I said, since item intructions/ingredients will actually make that longer if you include the prep necessary to even start making it. Since some items will require being made at special times and/or places, this can also be used to modify when and how easily it is made. I got rid of level limits for making items, since the requirements to the make the items often come with de facto level limits - though in theory there might be ways around them if a PC can find another way to case a necessary spell for example.
Each person beyond the first that helps craft an item must also be able to meet the spellcasting requirements and lowers the crafting time by one day (to minimum of one day). Many items have maximum number of people who can work on it at once. The ability score modifier is only applied once using the highest score of those doing the work.
Anyway, I put this all together in PDF as a handout for the wizard player. I have attached it.
https://www.enworld.org/attachments...133535/?hash=0d56dfdd44b5ec71b9df40ad8aa50b3a
In their very first adventure, the PCs found a small spellbook that had belong to a necromancer. At the time, no one in the party was a wizard, so they left it behind with the sage that hired them for their first job, who promised to discover if it was trapped or cursed, and hold on to it until such a future time the party had a use for it (or just wanted it back). The party agreed and recently they were called back to that village to deal with a different threat and in the process are going to finally get the book back (and in the meantime, the party gnome bard has multiclassed to take a level of wizard so he can use it).
Anyway, I thought other people might want to see how I wrote up the spellbook. It is more than just a list of the spells it contains. I see wizard spell books as not just containers of spells, but all kinds of knowledge and notes - so I often try to include some tidbits or potential adventure hooks when they are found.
Furthermore, the only exception to our standing "core books only" rule (with a handful of house rules), are the spells from other sources that I might include in such a find as a "rare spell." Players cannot automatically choose from these spells when they go up levels, but I do slowly introduce some of them as a trickle when thematically appropriate for them to choose from or take the time to learn. One of the side-effects of this are cantrips, which according to the rules are not written in spellbooks, but I scratched that and have included non-core cantrips in a similar way (the marginalia allows a PC to figure it out with a day's study and practice - I know this is longer than a leveled spell, but I figure you are learning to cast it any time you want on the fly and it lets them circumvent the trade known spells out when you go up a level by allowing them to switch out a known cantrip - the max # known by level still applies and switching back or to another cantrip still has to wait for a level advancement like normal).
Oh and one other house rule: spells take up a number of pages equal to their level.
As for crafting magical items, I decided since I will be developing list of ingredients and other instructions as it comes up (though sometimes in conjunction with a player doing the crafting), that I would significantly lower the crafting time listed in the DMG because finding the necessary components will likely take up some game-time why add even more downtime requirement to that? So items now take one full day of ritualized crafting (not including making the item to be enchanted itself or having it made) per 500 gps of the base price, modified by relevant spell casting ability modifier (to a minimum of one full day). Thus a Wizard with a 16 INT could craft an item with a 5000 gp base price in (5000 ÷ 500) - 3 days. So 7 days.
Yes, that means that both common and uncommon items can be made in "one day" but like I said, since item intructions/ingredients will actually make that longer if you include the prep necessary to even start making it. Since some items will require being made at special times and/or places, this can also be used to modify when and how easily it is made. I got rid of level limits for making items, since the requirements to the make the items often come with de facto level limits - though in theory there might be ways around them if a PC can find another way to case a necessary spell for example.
Each person beyond the first that helps craft an item must also be able to meet the spellcasting requirements and lowers the crafting time by one day (to minimum of one day). Many items have maximum number of people who can work on it at once. The ability score modifier is only applied once using the highest score of those doing the work.
Anyway, I put this all together in PDF as a handout for the wizard player. I have attached it.
https://www.enworld.org/attachments...133535/?hash=0d56dfdd44b5ec71b9df40ad8aa50b3a
