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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9333526" data-attributes="member: 4937">The 1e DMG implied demihuman NPCs of maximum level would obtain the ability to craft magical items through esoteric racially specific items.&nbsp; It also strongly implied no PC could ever learn this ability.&nbsp; So presumably 8th level Dwarven fighters with knowledge of smithing were the source of certain dwarven magical arms and armors but it was handed waved into background.&nbsp; In general, 1e AD&amp;D tended to embrace at the same time that the PC's were special and vastly superior to bulk of the worlds NPCs, but also that there were NPCs that were just cooler and more special than the PCs ever could be.&nbsp; Thus &quot;NPC classes&quot; back in the day often referred to &quot;boss monster&quot; classes that were just vastly more powerful than PCs, and NPCs often had attributes that PCs could never reasonably get or obtain by virtue of being the bad guy or ruler or whatever.&nbsp; The net result of this along with the other decisions about crafting in magical items is that most tables never say any crafting occur because it was so heavily DM driven and Gygax's inclinations were always to warn DM's to not be pushovers for the sake of maintaining the integrity of the campaign as opposed to warning DMs to not be too stingy and thus frustrate the players (though to be fair, he also warned against that).&nbsp; But in the case of making magic items I think he raised the barrier too high.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9333526, member: 4937"] The 1e DMG implied demihuman NPCs of maximum level would obtain the ability to craft magical items through esoteric racially specific items. It also strongly implied no PC could ever learn this ability. So presumably 8th level Dwarven fighters with knowledge of smithing were the source of certain dwarven magical arms and armors but it was handed waved into background. In general, 1e AD&D tended to embrace at the same time that the PC's were special and vastly superior to bulk of the worlds NPCs, but also that there were NPCs that were just cooler and more special than the PCs ever could be. Thus "NPC classes" back in the day often referred to "boss monster" classes that were just vastly more powerful than PCs, and NPCs often had attributes that PCs could never reasonably get or obtain by virtue of being the bad guy or ruler or whatever. The net result of this along with the other decisions about crafting in magical items is that most tables never say any crafting occur because it was so heavily DM driven and Gygax's inclinations were always to warn DM's to not be pushovers for the sake of maintaining the integrity of the campaign as opposed to warning DMs to not be too stingy and thus frustrate the players (though to be fair, he also warned against that). But in the case of making magic items I think he raised the barrier too high. [/QUOTE]

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