Alternate Item Creation feats[3.5]

[Lord Vukodlak]

I've found there are just to many item creation feats in the game, and quite often most aren't worth taking. Craft rod, there are certainly a good amount of nice rods, but not really
enough to warrant taking a feat if you aren't an artificer.

Craft Wand is fine until you realize that a staff can do the exact same thing.
It also kind of bugged me that you could make every kind of jewelry

So I came up with a new set of item creation feats that attempts to even them out a bit more.
*Nothing in creation costs is changed*
These are written mostly for clarity and not for fluff

Craft Magical Arms and Armor remains unchanged as it encompasses enough items.


Craft Spell Capacitors
You can craft magical wands and eventually staves
Prerequisite: Caster level 5th
Upon taking this feat you gain the ability to craft magic wands, at caster level 12th you can craft Staves. Wands and staves are very similar items so they are merged into one feat.


Craft Magical Apparel
Prerequisite: Caster level 3rd.
You can craft magically enchanted clothing such as clocks, bracers, vestments, amulets ioun stones and other jewelry but not initially rings. In essence every wondrous item that was worn falls under this feat. When you reach Caster level 12 you can use this feat to forge magical rings as well

*To be absolutely clear if the prerequisites feat WAS craft wondrous and you wore the item, this covers it plus rings.*

Craft Magical Tools
Prerequisite
Caster level 3rd.
Craft Magical Apparel allows the caster to craft various wondrous items that are not worn.
This includes rods and all wondrous items not covered by magical apparel.
Any item that formally fell under craft wondrous that was not worn would be in magical tools.
The spell caster can not create rods until 9th level.
*If the prerequisite feat to craft the item was rod, or a wondrous item that wasn't actually worn in a body slot, this feat covers it]*

Most would say I could have just added in rings and rods into wondrous items, but really it was already the best item creation feat there was no need to make it any more bloated, so I split it between worn wondrous

Imbune Spell Property
This combines Brew Potion and Scribe Scroll into one feat.

Craft Construct is gained automatically when you have Craft Magical Apparel, Tools and Magical arms and armor. It took 3 feats to make constructs before, it still takes 3 feats now.

I will place a reminder this doesn't change creation costs or methods in anyway, it just reduces nine item creation feats into only five. It could be further reduced by splitting arms and armor into tools and apparel

[Zexion]

Nice idea here. You might want to tweak the item creation costs to fit this, however.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Nice idea here. You might want to tweak the item creation costs to fit this, however.

Why? and how would they be tweaked? should a ring of deflection cost any more or less just because it uses craft magical apparel to make it instead of forge ring?

All the creation costs remain the same this simply changes the prerequisite feats.

[Zexion]

Well, when you pay for a staff you are also paying for the experience necessary to create the staff, correct? Therefore, if it becomes easier to create the staff, the cost of the item should drop, correct?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well a magic items price should be based off its power not how easy it is to make. The creator is still paying the same gold and xp, it easier to make a variety of a magic items with fewer creation feats but that shouldn't lower prices.

[Zexion]

Basic economics says that it should. Trust me. If it requires less training to construct an item then the item costs less. In this case, it takes the same amount of training, but the training that is required is less specialized, meaning that it requires less specific resources. Therefore, it should cost less.

[Glimbur]

Basic economics says that it should. Trust me. If it requires less training to construct an item then the item costs less. In this case, it takes the same amount of training, but the training that is required is less specialized, meaning that it requires less specific resources. Therefore, it should cost less.

It's magic! Seriously though, the game is supposedly balanced to have things cost what they cost. Reducing the price of things changes the balance that exists. There are feats that reduce costs, do we really want to roll those in to these already larger feats?

[Zexion]

It's magic! Seriously though, the game is supposedly balanced to have things cost what they cost.
That is because it takes specialized training to create a magic item.


Reducing the price of things changes the balance that exists.
No, THIS set of feats changes the balance. I am trying to rebalance it.


There are feats that reduce costs, do we really want to roll those in to these already larger feats?
I'm not saying "Let's make magic items cheaper!"
I am saying that if magic items become easier to train to make, they should become cheaper to balance the game.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Basic economics says that it should. Trust me. If it requires less training to construct an item then the item costs less. In this case, it takes the same amount of training, but the training that is required is less specialized, meaning that it requires less specific resources. Therefore, it should cost less.

Which means absolutely nothing in D&D, that's not how the prices of items are calculated. Staves aren't even any easier to make, you still have to be 12th level.

It doesn't change the raw materials cost, and in the economics of D&D magic items the cost to create a magic item is half its market value.
Then you have the xp cost.
In essence a spellcaster charges based on how much experience he spent creating the item 25gp per point of xp. Buying a +1 weapon costs 2,000gp+the base mw weapon. It cost the creator 80xp to perform the enchantment. 80x25=2,000.

So the real economics of magic items are based on that.
Lowering the cost of items would drastically alter the balance of the game because it be cheaper to buy them so then characters would have a good deal more treasure then normal.

If making a toaster required a pint of your own blood, that would have a much more drastic effect on its cost then how easy it is to make.

And you do know the cost to create a staff with a single 4th level spell or lower is exactly the same as a wand. If anything wands SHOULD be cheaper to compensate they are completely and utterly outclassed by staves except for being more portable but that is mostly a separate issue from feats.
At least this way the ability to create wands doesn't become negated when you get access to make staves.

[Zexion]

I see your point, however, think about the specialization required to build a staff. In your system, you can build a staff or a wand with the same feat, and it makes it pay off more for the crafter, as he has more variety. In the normal system, taking the feat only pays off because he can sell the items he makes. This system benefits the crafter more, therefore to balance it the crafter should gain less from the sale of his items.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Game balance is determined by its effects on the PC.

A PC usually won't make a magic item just to sell it, he'll make it for the party or himself to use, because creating a magic item costs xp. The xp cost exists so PC's don't just manufacture magic items for profit.
A PC sells a magic item they have no need of in order to finance another project.
By lowering the cost of magic items the balance is damaged because it becomes even more favorable for PC's to buy items instead of make them.
In which case why did I bother compacting the feats to begin with.

[Temotei]

I see your point, however, think about the specialization required to build a staff. In your system, you can build a staff or a wand with the same feat, and it makes it pay off more for the crafter, as he has more variety. In the normal system, taking the feat only pays off because he can sell the items he makes. This system benefits the crafter more, therefore to balance it the crafter should gain less from the sale of his items.

Not necessarily. A lot of games don't have specific items the PC wants. Some DM's simply won't have stores carry some items. For those, the PC will have to craft.

[Zexion]

I suppose that is true...

[Glimbur]

The problem is that money isn't money, it's another kind of power. This is generally true, but in a level-based game like D&D characters of equal level should have roughly equal power (that's a lie, but it's a comfortable fiction). Part of the expected power is in Wealth By Level. If your wealth goes further in terms of magic items, then you are altering game balance. These feats increase power of PC's by letting them do more (have more crafting options) with less (fewer feats). Decreasing the cost of magic items also increases PC power by letting them do more (have more charges of items) for less (wealth). Therefore, the way to balance after increasing PC power is not by increasing PC power.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I think the power gained from reducing the number of item creation feats is rather minimal. If they start crafting more stuff they'll pay for it in xp.


What I think this does do is equalize the power between item creation feats.
With the standard selection.
Craft wondrous items is the most powerful item creation feat by far. It does just about everything. When a PC spends a feat slot on an item creation feat this more often then not is the one they take.

Craft wand suffered because the later feat craft staff completely outclassed it.
Essentially craft staff lets you make any wand, its just a five foot wand.
After all whats the cost difference aside from a staff of cure critical wounds and a wand of cure critical wounds? nothing. Which is better? the staff because you can use your own caster level if higher.

Then after combining those other items I figured I probably shouldn't leave potions and scrolls all by themselves

I think the balance comes back because craft wondrous is no longer such a catch all creation feat and it people won't be taking less item creation feats because there more encompassing but more creation feats because they're more balanced with one another.

And a metamagic feat can be just as powerful as an item creation feat.

[Zexion]

I suppose. I now retire from this argument and will give only constructive criticism.