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Endarire
2010-12-20, 02:01 AM
Craft Wondrous Item covers most your magic item needs. You're spending a feat for the privilege of spending gold or/and XP to make what you want.

I believe there should be no more than 2 magic item creation feats, Craft Charged Item for things with a fixed number of charges (1 for most scrolls, 50 for most wands, etc.) and Craft Continuous Item for everything else. That includes constructs.

Classes that can only create certain types of items (scrolls for Wizards, certain item types for Artificers) would still be limited to these.

There could still be artisan feats, like Extraordinary Artisan to reduce craft costs.

What say you?

Marnath
2010-12-20, 03:22 AM
Where did you get the notion that wizards can only craft scrolls? :smallconfused: Or that artificers can only make certain types of items? They both can take any item creation feat.

Fizban
2010-12-20, 03:57 AM
He means that if the class can normally gets a certain crafting feat, they can only create that item. Wizards get scribe scroll for free, which creates a charged item, but that would not allow them to craft any other charged items without taking the general charged item crafting feat.

SoC175
2010-12-20, 04:02 AM
Crafting Items is very powerful. You save 50% of the gp cost, thus getting far ahead of the gold by level curve. You also spend some XP, which is actually a boon, as it allows you to get even further ahead of the recommended gold by level.

E.g. in Living Greyhawk players would deliberately kill their high level PCs or craft a lot of items just to burn XP because the level loss after resurrection and the XP loss from crafting made them effectively stronger than they were supposed to be at that level.

HunterOfJello
2010-12-20, 04:07 AM
Crafting items breaks the wealth by level setup of the game and allows players to multiply their wealth.


Also, since a high enough Caster Level is usually required for an item creation feat, the Tier 1 classes are the most likely candidate for item creation. Changing feats around so that Tier 1 classes become even more versatile and richer than a normal character will create even greater unbalance between the classes.

~

The wizard and artificer are bad examples to bring up when talking about magical item crafting. Artificers are a class based on crafting magical items and help establish the entire Eberron campaign setting. Wizards get the Scribe Scroll feat because their entire magic system is based on scrolls and spellbooks.

~

I do agree that some of the crafting feats could be condensed together because they are too specific on their own or didn't have enough items created for them. I love Minor Schemas as items, but I don't think they're worth the Etch Schema feat to be able to craft. Forge Ring, Bind Elemental and Craft Rune circle are also each so narrow that they don't seem like they should cost a whole feat each.

Just having 2 feats for all item creation is too few to me, but I can understand if the number was reduced from where it currently is.

Bakkan
2010-12-20, 05:54 AM
What if you reduced the number of core feats from eight to four (with renaming as necessary)

Craft Magic Arms and Armor - As currently written
Craft Wondrous Item - Roll rings and rods into this (or put rings into Arms and Armor and rods into Wand if this would make Craft Wondrous Item too powerful)
Craft Wand - Have this also be used to craft staffs
Scribe Scroll - Includes brewing potions

This would allow a character to grab all of the item creation feats without having to completely forgo all other feats or get forced into classes with bonus item creation feats.

As far as the other craft feats go, some of them could probably be rolled into the four I've described here. I think Craft Construct still deserves to be its own feat, though.

Saintheart
2010-12-20, 09:42 AM
In my old RHOD campaign we modded it down to three feats:

Craft Consumable Magic Item (scrolls and potions) - spellcaster could get it at level 1.
Craft Charged Magic Item (wands, rods, etc) - spellcaster could get it at level 3.
Craft Enduring Magic Item (magic arms, armour, everything else.) - spellcaster could get it at level 5.

Seemed to work out fine. Course, we were in RHOD where there wasn't much time to sit back and craft, and the wealth was pretty short. Still worked out fine! :)

Saph
2010-12-20, 10:02 AM
Craft Magic Arms and Armor - As currently written
Craft Wondrous Item - Roll rings and rods into this (or put rings into Arms and Armor and rods into Wand if this would make Craft Wondrous Item too powerful)
Craft Wand - Have this also be used to craft staffs
Scribe Scroll - Includes brewing potions

I think I'd make it five:

Craft Wondrous Item (good enough that it doesn't need boosting)
Craft Arms and Armour (also leave, it does two things anyway)
Craft Wand - Include staffs (it's now 'craft spell trigger item')
Craft Rod - Include rings
Scribe Scroll - Include potions

This means that the weaker feats (Brew Potion, Forge Ring, Craft Staff) are paired up with the stronger ones (Scribe Scroll, Craft Rod, Craft Wand). Craft Wand is probably a bit weaker, but Craft Staff is a bit stronger, so it evens out.

Psyren
2010-12-20, 10:07 AM
I think I'd make it five:

Craft Wondrous Item (good enough that it doesn't need boosting)
Craft Arms and Armour (also leave, it does two things anyway)
Craft Wand - Include staffs (it's now 'craft spell trigger item')
Craft Rod - Include rings
Scribe Scroll - Include potions

This means that the weaker feats (Brew Potion, Forge Ring, Craft Staff) are paired up with the stronger ones (Scribe Scroll, Craft Rod, Craft Wand). Craft Wand is probably a bit weaker, but Craft Staff is a bit stronger, so it evens out.

Hear, hear!
Oh wait, low-content post.

Along these lines, I'll supply the Psionic equivalents:

(Scribe Scroll + Brew Potion) = (Imprint Stone and Scribe Tattoo)
CWI = Craft Universal Item
CMA&A = CPA&A
(Craft Staff+Wand) = (Craft Dorje + Psicrown)
(Forge Ring + Craft Rod) = (Craft Cognizance Crystal + Craft Psionic Construct)

(seriously, Cognizance Crystals needed their own separate feat?)

gbprime
2010-12-20, 10:09 AM
Crafting items breaks the wealth by level setup of the game and allows players to multiply their wealth.

Also, since a high enough Caster Level is usually required for an item creation feat, the Tier 1 classes are the most likely candidate for item creation. Changing feats around so that Tier 1 classes become even more versatile and richer than a normal character will create even greater unbalance between the classes.

It's hard to get any more unbalanced than a good T1 caster. Pop your Thought Bottle, use Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos to trade scribe scroll or other feat out for the crafting feat you want to use, make item, Embrace/Shun to put original feat back in place (optional), chug Thought Bottle. Whole process costs only 500xp and you never need to spend a feat on crafting.

monkey3
2010-12-20, 01:17 PM
I might as well make my own proposal :)

Craft Arms & armor
Craft Magic Enhancers (rod, staff, wand, potions, scroll)
Craft Wearable (rings, amulets, robes, gloves, hats, etc.) Think item slot
Craft Misc Item (all else)

Starbuck_II
2010-12-20, 03:09 PM
I think I'd make it five:

Craft Wondrous Item (good enough that it doesn't need boosting)
Craft Arms and Armour (also leave, it does two things anyway)
Craft Wand - Include staffs (it's now 'craft spell trigger item')
Craft Rod - Include rings
Scribe Scroll - Include potions

This means that the weaker feats (Brew Potion, Forge Ring, Craft Staff) are paired up with the stronger ones (Scribe Scroll, Craft Rod, Craft Wand). Craft Wand is probably a bit weaker, but Craft Staff is a bit stronger, so it evens out.

I like.
Rings are very, very strong. They are like slotless magic items of any other magic item without slotless cost (but limited to 2 of them).
So With Craft Rod makes sense.

Potions and scrolls? Why not. No extra power allowing potions at 1st.

You left out Craft Construct.

Stegyre
2010-12-20, 03:18 PM
What's so special about rings? They aren't slotless, so that doesn't seem to be a valid reason.

For myself, I don't see why many/most/all ring effects could be done in a wondrous item and vice versa. Why should rings be a special item, not only requiring a separate feat, but a substantially higher CL, too? :smallconfused:

Saph
2010-12-20, 03:19 PM
I like.
Rings are very, very strong. They are like slotless magic items of any other magic item without slotless cost (but limited to 2 of them).
So With Craft Rod makes sense.

There are some very good rings out there - the problem is that Forge Ring fills 2 magic item slots while Craft Wondrous Item fills 10 (and can make tools and one-shot items as well).

As for constructs, well, they're not really items. :)

Psyren
2010-12-20, 03:29 PM
As for constructs, well, they're not really items. :)

Craft Construct comes up in these discussions because Magic of Eberron makes them equivalent to "Forge Ring" on the Psionic Artificer conversion table.

...which I find odd, because there are psionic rings, and they are made with CUI... I say just ditch Forge Ring and roll it into CWI.

O_Y
2010-12-20, 03:53 PM
If intra-party balance is the concern, I don't see how allowing extra item creation would exacerbate the system's problems. It seems like it would, if anything, reduce the discrepancies between caster/non-caster options.

A party with no/low wealth is going to have flying, invisible game-bending casters and fighters that scurry around being ineffective.

A party with high wealth is going to have flying, invisible game-bending casters and flying, invisible fighters that scurry around being relatively useful.

Also, given the time cost of crafting, I agree with the OP. Item crafting is typically more beneficial to non-caster party members (who can gain new actions and options through new items) than to the characters who would be making the swag (who typically only get more iterations/day of abilities already at their disposal).

Coidzor
2010-12-20, 04:02 PM
Craft Arms and Armour (also leave, it does two things anyway)

If you count two sides of the same coin as two things anyway.

Saph
2010-12-20, 04:03 PM
Also, given the time cost of crafting, I agree with the OP. Item crafting is typically more beneficial to non-caster party members (who can gain new actions and options through new items) than to the characters who would be making the swag (who typically only get more iterations/day of abilities already at their disposal).

That's not really how it works, in my experience. It's the casters who get to make items, not the non-casters. Sure, it's possible that the casters will spend their time and XP making items for the party fighters, but it's just as possible that the casters will spend all their spell slots on buffing them directly. I've yet to see a game where increased item crafting helped anyone except the crafters (which is pretty much what you'd expect - they wouldn't be spending feats on it if it didn't give them some kind of return).

Coidzor
2010-12-20, 04:09 PM
That's not really how it works, in my experience. It's the casters who get to make items, not the non-casters. Sure, it's possible that the casters will spend their time and XP making items for the party fighters, but it's just as possible that the casters will spend all their spell slots on buffing them directly. I've yet to see a game where increased item crafting helped anyone except the crafters (which is pretty much what you'd expect - they wouldn't be spending feats on it if it didn't give them some kind of return).

Weird. :smallconfused: Either they don't know their economics or they were in too much of a time crunch (which makes sense, as, well, that's the one out of the two primary ways of keeping them from getting too out of hand). As it's actually in the best interest of the crafters to craft the items of the party in general, as it benefits themselves as well. And would benefit the rest of the party too.

Self-interest and whatnot.


As for what number I'd go with, I'd have consumables, probably with charged as separate from consumables, wondrous items, grafts, and creatures. So that's 4-5 that i can think of offhand.

And alchemical items would just be a trained only application of the craft skill rather than caster dependent.

Psyren
2010-12-20, 04:25 PM
Weird. :smallconfused: Either they don't know their economics or they were in too much of a time crunch (which makes sense, as, well, that's the one out of the two primary ways of keeping them from getting too out of hand). As it's actually in the best interest of the crafters to craft the items of the party in general, as it benefits themselves as well. And would benefit the rest of the party too.

There's a resource-problem though - namely, time. Not all campaigns are doom-free, giving the party the luxury of spending several days outfitting the group, then repeating the process in a few levels when their gear becomes obsolete. And if they aren't, you can bet I'd be crafting items for myself first, since I blew my feats on the craft chain.

Saph
2010-12-20, 04:34 PM
There's a resource-problem though - namely, time. Not all campaigns are doom-free, giving the party the luxury of spending several days outfitting the group, then repeating the process in a few levels when their gear becomes obsolete. And if they aren't, you can bet I'd be crafting items for myself first, since I blew my feats on the craft chain.

*nods* Time's usually a limited resource. Crafting times aren't a problem at low levels, because you only have a couple of thousand gold to spend and you'll have used it all up in a few days. Once you get to levels 10-12, though, crafting becomes a serious time sink. If you want to make yourself a +6 stat booster, you're talking over a month of sitting around doing nothing else, and even if there's no end-of-the-world scenario on the cards, if there's any kind of plot going on you've nearly always got some sort of time pressure.

Doug Lampert
2010-12-20, 05:28 PM
That's not really how it works, in my experience. It's the casters who get to make items, not the non-casters. Sure, it's possible that the casters will spend their time and XP making items for the party fighters, but it's just as possible that the casters will spend all their spell slots on buffing them directly. I've yet to see a game where increased item crafting helped anyone except the crafters (which is pretty much what you'd expect - they wouldn't be spending feats on it if it didn't give them some kind of return).

You craft for the rest of your party at 80% cost. This boosts everyone (casters most, but it's a real boost for the rest).


*nods* Time's usually a limited resource. Crafting times aren't a problem at low levels, because you only have a couple of thousand gold to spend and you'll have used it all up in a few days. Once you get to levels 10-12, though, crafting becomes a serious time sink. If you want to make yourself a +6 stat booster, you're talking over a month of sitting around doing nothing else, and even if there's no end-of-the-world scenario on the cards, if there's any kind of plot going on you've nearly always got some sort of time pressure.

IME by level 10-12 your minimum threat worth an adventure for a semi-optimized group is something that could concievably reasonably DESTROY the campaign center (home town, home kingdom, whatever) without the PCs intevention.

Which means if these happen independently much more often than once every few YEARS you've blown any possible hope of suspension of belief (how does anything survive without the PCs if city threatening foes that no one else can or will deal with shows up much more often than that?).

Say 3 years, and you can craft something in 8 hours per day, and the days need not be consecutive, so you can take time off for social stuff ANY day, and take multiple days off ANY time, and as long as you manage 36 days prior to the next real adventure that +6 item is done.

At level 2 you can easily spare the time to buy a suit of masterwork full plate (which must be custom fitted, at a cost of 2d4 * 100 GP if premade and otherwise must be manufactured to fit). That takes a master craftsman something like a YEAR to make (up to 20 weeks to just refit an existing suit). But at level 10 you can't afford 36 days?!

How's that work?

Saph
2010-12-20, 05:40 PM
How's that work?

Like this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139572)

General rule: if the DM is running a game, it's because he's prepared adventures. An adventure involves things happening. If you miss enough of the things that are happening, you miss the adventure, and most players are not all that happy about this.

Now, its true that there are some campaigns (sandbox ones, especially) where the PCs really can afford to take a season off between adventures. But they're generally the exception rather than the rule - if you look at popular modules like Red Hand of Doom there's usually some sort of time track. You can afford to lose a few days, but not a few months.

Roderick_BR
2010-12-20, 05:52 PM
Why do you need to make caster EVEN MORE powerful?

Lord Denyuar
2010-12-20, 06:00 PM
I remember seeing crafting broken down into 3-5 feats before somewhere (maybe it was on crystalkeep), but the crafting feats were mainly kept to about 3 feats each one allowing the crafting of magical items based on spell levels needed. For example, crafting 1 was for all magical items with needed spell level 3 or less; crafting 2 was spell level 6 or less; and crafting 3 was spell level 9 or less with each crafting feat needing the lower feat as a pre-req. Although, I think I remember those feats not covering either staffs or rings, so separate feats were needed for those (not sure why with the rings). I thought that was a viable solution to reducing crafting feats, especially if you needed low level items across the board (for say a minor wizard item crafter NPC).

Doug Lampert
2010-12-20, 06:01 PM
Like this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139572)

General rule: if the DM is running a game, it's because he's prepared adventures. An adventure involves things happening. If you miss enough of the things that are happening, you miss the adventure, and most players are not all that happy about this.

Now, its true that there are some campaigns (sandbox ones, especially) where the PCs really can afford to take a season off between adventures. But they're generally the exception rather than the rule - if you look at popular modules like Red Hand of Doom there's usually some sort of time track. You can afford to lose a few days, but not a few months.

IME most NON sandbox games you run an adventure, then you take an arbitrary amount of time off set by agreement of the players and the GM, then something happens to start the next adventure.

And few adventures advance you more than 2-3 levels.

This is ESPECIALLY true of modules.

Strangely, a pause every 2-3 levels is plenty often enough to take time off for crafting.

So I fail to see why you can't take time off at high levels for crafting just because you're running from modules rather than sandbox.

AslanCross
2010-12-20, 06:05 PM
Now, its true that there are some campaigns (sandbox ones, especially) where the PCs really can afford to take a season off between adventures. But they're generally the exception rather than the rule - if you look at popular modules like Red Hand of Doom there's usually some sort of time track. You can afford to lose a few days, but not a few months.

Truth. This is why in my run of Red Hand of Doom (where my initial party included an artificer), I used the Craft Point Variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/craftPoints.htm) which somewhat bypasses the "you have to spend entire days working on an item and doing only that" rule. Unfortunately the artificer died before she ever got to make anything past her initial gear.

In a nutshell, the Craft Point variant gives every character a pool of Craft Points (separate from the Artificer's Craft Reserve, which is for XP) that the character can spend to boost the time it takes to make an item. Ultimately you spend the points and get to make the item in one day. It applies to both the Craft skill and magical crafting.

Coidzor
2010-12-20, 07:00 PM
Now, its true that there are some campaigns (sandbox ones, especially) where the PCs really can afford to take a season off between adventures. But they're generally the exception rather than the rule - if you look at popular modules like Red Hand of Doom there's usually some sort of time track. You can afford to lose a few days, but not a few months.

:smallconfused: ...That's not between adventures, and you should know it better than most.

Zeful
2010-12-20, 07:02 PM
So I fail to see why you can't take time off at high levels for crafting just because you're running from modules rather than sandbox.

It depends on the DM, I track time (down to the round if needed), and between sessions (or depending on circumstance during a session) update the world based on the time it takes PCs to do something, despite popular belief, everything has a time limit, even if it's how long someone waits before declaring you dead or whatever and hiring someone else (but again, depending on circumstance, this could be years). You could take a couple of months downtime crafting items, researching new spells/powers, devising new methods for doing things (Feats), but the world will move on without you if you do, something I will make very clear to you before hand.

As for the OP itself: I'm fine with the number of Item Creation feats, they work as a decent Feat tax to keep some of the more powerful classes from being anymore overpowered.

Psyren
2010-12-20, 07:05 PM
IME most NON sandbox games you run an adventure, then you take an arbitrary amount of time off set by agreement of the players and the GM, then something happens to start the next adventure.


So your feats are only useful when you're not actually playing?
I'm not sure how this is countering the thread's premise.

Saph
2010-12-20, 07:06 PM
:smallconfused: ...That's not between adventures, and you should know it better than most.

Here's how our Red Hand of Doom campaign worked.

We started with the PCs at level 4, on day 1 of the time track.
We finished with the PCs at level 10, on day (something) of the time track.

After the module was over, the PCs had plenty of time to craft. That's because after the module was over, the campaign was finished.

Coidzor
2010-12-20, 07:20 PM
Here's how our Red Hand of Doom campaign worked.

We started with the PCs at level 4, on day 1 of the time track.
We finished with the PCs at level 10, on day (something) of the time track.

After the module was over, the PCs had plenty of time to craft. That's because after the module was over, the campaign was finished.

And that was your choice to end the campaign there.

Simply put, RHOD is a module that is somewhere between actively discouraging crafting and making it impossible, especially since so many individuals decide to have it as the entirety of the campaign and of the characters' lives. There's also no between adventures in it, because the entire thing is one adventure, and there's maybe a day or two of downtime between all of the travel and the week where you're actually doing something to further the adventure.

Between adventures would be the time period before RHOD and the time period after RHOD.

So, you didn't actually address my point. :smallconfused:

Psyren
2010-12-20, 07:33 PM
So, you didn't actually address my point. :smallconfused:

And you see nothing wrong with a crafting system that works best when the players aren't actually playing the game?

With less feats, everyone could take the ones they need (the fighter probably doesn't want spell trigger items, e.g.), still build their characters the way they want, and craft in parallel. This would shave the time needed considerably.

Heliomance
2010-12-20, 07:41 PM
DM I had really liked players crafting stuff and actively encouraged it. He'd let us harvest reagents off defeated monsters to make crafting cheaper and faster, and suchlike. Oh, we got so much dragon blood. He also dropped the feats down to Craft Non-permanent Magic Item and Craft Permanent Magic Item. I don't know if Craft Construct was separate from Craft Permanent - I'd make them different, myself.

Oh, and there was also Craft Artefact, for gods. Apotheosis was a time-honoured route to power in that setting.

Coidzor
2010-12-20, 07:42 PM
And you see nothing wrong with crafting system that works best when the players aren't actually playing the game?

With less feats, everyone could take the ones they need (the fighter probably doesn't want spell trigger items, e.g.), still build their characters the way they want, and craft in parallel. This would shave the time needed considerably.

Oh, no, I do have my own issues with the system. Though there might be some problems with suspension of disbelief if the crafting times were too short as well. I'd favor static times per item category rather than based upon the level of the item as expressed in who can afford it. But that's not what the thread was initially about so I didn't mention it earlier. I do agree with the idea of cutting down on all of the feats in terms of the barrier they pose to actually using the crafting system though.

Something feels wrong to me though, about not having the ability to make effigies and golems separate from the ability to make magical equipment. So that's why I felt there should be a couple still, though having 6 is still a lot even after cutting off the scrolls and potions and rings and staves and their psionic equivalents... Hm...

I was just saying that Saph's example seemed flawed as the system is only usable between adventures and RHOD has no time in it that is "between adventures," so much as "enroute to the next place where one slaughters one's enemies and loses between a quarter and a half of the party."

Saph
2010-12-20, 07:51 PM
Simply put, RHOD is a module that is somewhere between actively discouraging crafting and making it impossible, especially since so many individuals decide to have it as the entirety of the campaign and of the characters' lives. There's also no between adventures in it, because the entire thing is one adventure, and there's maybe a day or two of downtime between all of the travel and the week where you're actually doing something to further the adventure.

. . . which means time is a valuable resource. I really don't care much whether you call that 'between adventures' or 'one adventure'. The point is that you can't afford to spend months on crafting in RHoD, and many modules are similar.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-12-21, 07:21 PM
Since we are really on the same side, don't take this the wrong way but... you really like boosting casters don't you? :smallconfused:

Coidzor
2010-12-21, 07:38 PM
Well, if the DM allows the feat to be taken, I feel it should be able to be used.

And if it's going to be used, it might as well be used to benefit the party as a whole rather than to only make the caster all the more powerful than his fellows because they're still playing the buy your gear game and he's able to not have to at least in some cases, esp. with things like dedicated wrights in portable holes and such. While crafting throws off the balance of the game/WBL, only one character benefiting from crafting seems like it throws off the intraparty balance even further.

If you were addressing me with that remark. :smallconfused:

Psyren
2010-12-21, 07:46 PM
Since we are really on the same side, don't take this the wrong way but... you really like boosting casters don't you? :smallconfused:

Buffing item creation helps everyone. It's not like he's merging metamagic feats. :smalltongue:

Endarire
2010-12-21, 10:29 PM
It's mostly the non-casters who need the magic items. I could manage fairly well as a Wizard or Druid with merely mundane equipment, though I'd probably find that game boring.

bokodasu
2010-12-22, 09:10 AM
Just going on record as possibly the one person in all of history who is playing in a campaign with a wizard who crafts specifically to make the rest of the party stronger. Unfortunately, this means our wizard is level 15 while the rest of us are hitting epic levels, but we've worked around that a bit so he should catch up soon. (He's also missed a bunch of sessions and so gets 1/2 xp for them.)

Back to the original post, I think item creation is a) too feat-heavy and b) scales poorly. It's 1 day/k, until you get to epic, and then suddenly it's a day/10k, and somewhere in between there you fall into a hole where it becomes difficult if not impossible to craft your own items due to time constraints. I'd prefer

a) Consolidating item creation into scaling feats:

Craft Consumables grants Scribe Scroll at CL1 and Brew Potion at CL3
Craft Gear grants Wondrous Items at CL3, Arms & Armor at CL5, and Forge Ring at CL12
Craft Sticks grants Wands at CL5, Rods at CL9, and Staffs at CL12


b) Adding in feats that affect crafting time; "Speedy Crafting" (1 day/2k), requires CL8 and 1 Item Creation feat, and "Quick Crafting" (1 day/5k), requires CL 12 and Speedy Crafting. Or something like that. Maybe add some gp or xp costs when using the sped-up crafting feats.

Wizards would get Craft Consumables for free as their Level 1 bonus.

Stegyre
2010-12-22, 11:36 AM
FWIW, my own thoughts on crafting:

(Caveat: this is for E6, so high level crafting is a non-issue.)

1. Use the rules for Bonded Magic Items (DMGII at 231): essentially, every character, caster or not, has the ability to create/improve one magic item, without feat cost.

2. Whether an item is psionic or magic depends upon whether the creator is using CL or ML (and you must have the ML or CL, as appropriate, to create the particular item; for example, wizards cannot create cognizance crystals). There is no distinction in the feats, themselves.

2. Item creation feats:
- Craft Single-Use Item (subsumes Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Imprint Stone, Scribe Tattoo, and similar feats)
- Craft Charged Item (subsumes existing Craft Wand, Craft Dorje, Craft Cognizance Crystal)
- Craft Arms and Armor
- Craft Item (subsumes wondrous items, universal items, forge ring)
- Craft Construct (these are special enough that it should be a separate feat, including the current prereqs of Craft Arms and Armor and Craft Item)

3. The -25% feats from ECS (reducing any one vector - time, XP, gold cost) and Magic Artisan from FRCS (reducing all three vectors -25% for one feat) are available; as is the Maester PrC (-50% to crafting time). None of these stack with each other; they overlap, so the character simply takes the best reduction available to him on each specific cost vector.

I'm uncertain about portals and rune circles, whether these should even exist and if so, whether they should be separate feats or rolled into one of the above.

ericgrau
2010-12-22, 12:15 PM
Craft Wondrous Item covers most your magic item needs. You're spending a feat for the privilege of spending gold or/and XP to make what you want.

I believe there should be no more than 2 magic item creation feats, Craft Charged Item for things with a fixed number of charges (1 for most scrolls, 50 for most wands, etc.) and Craft Continuous Item for everything else. That includes constructs.

Classes that can only create certain types of items (scrolls for Wizards, certain item types for Artificers) would still be limited to these.

There could still be artisan feats, like Extraordinary Artisan to reduce craft costs.

What say you?
Okay, it's no different than combining other feats. Gives a power boost to any of the combined feats though. If you want to, go ahead, as long as you understand the impact.

I assume you're putting use per day items under the continuous category and charged rings/rods under the charged category. I mean there are a lot of use per day items and there wouldn't be many affordable continuous items left otherwise.

If your goal is merely to make it possible to grab all the feats in a build, then I think you could do pretty well with wondrous, ring and weapon and armor. Only 3. Some groups might want rods and staffs, but not all. Potions, scrolls and wands are usually affordable enough without crafting unless you go crazy. In which case it might be for a wizard with free scribe scroll anyway. So maybe 1 or 2 more feats depending on the group, but rarely should it take more than 4.

Susano-wo
2010-12-22, 04:08 PM
couple points, not on folding in genereal, but on rings and crafting between adventures.
ON rings, I think the slotless item coment is on the ease of logistics and swappability of rings. Its easy to carry many with you, and to switch them as needed.

I don't have a problem with crafting during downtime. ITs not even a matter of between adventures, etc. Its just a matter of you need time to make somethings, which often means that you won't have time to do so during the events on an advenrue, but only during lul points, such as waiting for winter to end so you can go through the pass and retreive the macguffin, etc. Its not htat it works when the players are not playing, its that the effects are only seen where there is downtime. This could be in the middle of a session. ("Ok, well is everyone fine with skipping to the end of winter?" "Sure, and I'll be doing some crafting during that time""ok, just let me know what you made"plyer then proceeds to look up items costs etc, while everyone describes what they have been doing, etc, or alretnately waits until the session has ended to go through the books, if it would bog the gtame down.

icefractal
2010-12-22, 04:35 PM
Sure, it's possible that the casters will spend their time and XP making items for the party fighters,In Pathfinder however, item creation doesn't cost XP, only money and time. This means that unless the spellcaster in question is actually antagonistic to the other party members, there's no reason not make them stuff. Having a spellcaster with item creation in the party lets everyone effectively "buy" items at half price, as long as there's enough downtime.

So no, I don't think that easier item creation boosts casters more-so than anyone else.

Thrawn183
2010-12-22, 05:22 PM
My issue with item creation is the difference between the chassis of a melee character and a caster. A real melee'r will generally need Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip and Combat Reflexes. A full caster doesn't need any feats at all. I'm serious, you can play a perfectly effective full caster without taking a single feat. They can afford to spend feats to make magic items.

I also don't have a problem with a caster having to spend basically all of their feats to be able to make any item in the game.