Quote Originally Posted by dehro View Post
Why the schematic if it's an original concept by the crafter?
In this case, you could first handle the creation of the blueprint (fluffed as research and development). So you're creating two magic items: first, the recipe for the item, then the item itself.

Creating a recipe or blueprint would likely be a lot harder than creating the item itself, especially since you can create copies of that item once you have the recipe. It's also why finding a recipe would be a lot easier than making one yourself.

So to create a recipe, you obviously wouldn't need a recipe for the recipe. But you'd probably still need a rare ingredient (consumed during R&D), crafting downtime, and a lot of gold. Something else might take the place of the recipe requirement, like a second rare ingredient, or more downtime or gold. Although, the recipe being one step rarer than the item it's for might also account for that.