I apologize if there is a similar handbook elsewhere. I couldn’t find it. I plan to clean it up a bit in the next few days, this is my first try for a handbook-like thing.
What this is: A guide to optimization practices for low to mid (mostly 3-15 or so) level characters who are interested in item creation as a sideline to their optimized character.
What this is not:
1. A guide to artificers
Why not? : A. Artificers aren’t casual item creators. The guidelines herein are either meaningless to them or so important as to be critical to their class.
B. There are perfectly good artificers handbooks on the list.
C. I have never played an artificer. Any advice I gave would be bad. Their
class features are in some cases directly contrary to rules that govern every other crafter.
2. A guide to dedicated crafters
Why not? : A. This is the Optimization board. Spending more than 2 feats on crafting is not usually going to be optimized. (Because in a given day of downtime, you can only use 1 feat, maybe 2 with scribe scroll and a magic pen.
B. By the time you become a dedicated crafter, everything here should be virtually automatic.
On its face, item creation seems bad for an optimized character. You are giving up 1-2 feat slots that would otherwise mesh into your uber-build, and spending experience that can put you behind other party members. There are, however, several primary reasons.
1. Playing the Role you want to play.
Example: You are the party’s divine caster. You have carefully crafted your CoDzilla into a dragon killing machine, perfectly designed to slay. After a big fight, in which you ruled utterly, all the other party members get raised from the dead, and they are really angry. “Where were our heals? Where were the buffs we needed to play the roles we built OUR characters to play”.
They aren’t wrong. They don’t have the right to tell you how to play your character. They do have some expectations based on the role your character fills in the party line-up. You COULD switch out your spells and play their healer/buff puppy, but that isn’t what you want to do, and its badly optimized because you designed your character to do something else. If you can make items that solve their problem, you have spent 1-2 feats in order to salvage your build and play the character you want, and that is very optimized.
2. Filling the gap
Example: Your DM has a low magic world. You can find low level items in stores, but only infrequently and unreliably. You made a (Ranger/Paladin/Gish) and it is the best build you ever saw, but it relies on an exotic weapon. Your DM absolutely refuses to put the +5 holy adamantine spiked chain in a dungeon as loot, and you are suffering because you can’t fight the monsters you are facing without one. Your party casters make sympathetic noises, but spent their feats elsewhere.
Example B: Same situation as above. Subtract the exotic weapon build. Add the party cleric from above who never heals. You have died 3 times already. You think if you had a wand of Cure Serious Wounds, you would stop dying. Cleric is willing to make it (if you spend the xp), but not to sacrifice the feat from his uber build.
If an item fixes your build, or keeps you from losing levels, it is optimized to spend a feat to get that item if there is no other way to get it in that world.
3. The Gentlest Nerf
Is the one you apply yourself.
Example: You have an awesome (Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Archivist). Your party members include a samurai, a ninja, and a badly designed fighter with an ecl adjusted race. Every fight, you manage to pull it out, but as you go up in levels you and the DM are watching the other characters fade into obscurity. Every time you want to get a new spell, or assume a new form, your (ooc) ESP lets you see the fear in the DMs mind “How much worse will this make the party imbalance. Maybe I should end it now. Maybe I should kill that character”.
Item creation takes away a feat from your cheesy build, while still doing something useful. It lets you shift power from yourself to otherwise gimped party members. In the above example, even if the caster crafts himself down a full level, he will never be outperformed by those other characters. By making them items, he is readjusting the party balance. If, by giving them a chance to shine, the DM feels better about letting you learn the spell you want, and he doesn’t send monsters to kill your character while you are sleeping (because obviously, if awake, you are invincible) your feat selection was optimized.
4. Do the math
Make a level 7 character with 30,000 gold worth of items. Then make a level 6 character with 60,000 gold worth of items and 1 creation feat (he spent 1 level of xp to make the items, trading at equal value with another party member with a different creation feat if necessary). Most of the time, the gold value will more than equal the level.
OR. To be mean, take a level 7 character with 30,000 gold worth of items CHOSEN RANDOMLY from the tables in the DMG without regard to utility or class appropriateness. Compare with a level 6 character with 30,000 gold worth of items of his choice (he sold his random loot at 50% and made what he wanted.)
Barring houserules and differences in which books are allowed, most classes will be roughly equally good or bad in most campaigns (I know there are exceptions, they aren’t relevant here. But the cheesiest classes always shine and the samurai always drags).
This is NOT true with item creation feats. Without the elements (described below) you may as well take something else. Item feats can be the strongest feats in the game, or they can be worse than Endurance.
Note: Do not argue with your DM on these. It isn’t worth it. They aren’t cheating you. They aren’t wrong. If you don’t know your DM well enough to say how these factors will apply, ask beforehand. Something like “I am interested in taking item creation feats. Do you support them in your game? How do you plan to treat (insert element here) I don’t want to make something that isn’t appropriate to the game that you want to run.”
This approach will almost always receive a positive answer, and it puts you in a good position (if what he said turns out not to be right) to have a productive discussion about increasing one of the elements or at least swapping out the feat which you only took because he said it would be useful. If the DM stalls, or seems very uncertain or evasive, take something else instead.
Greater Elements for an Item Creator.
A. Time (in Character). This one is KEY. If you are on a world changing quest, and you never spend more than a few days in any town, you are probably lost as an item creator. I was in one campaign where we gamed for 2 months real time, to cover 4 days in character. In either of these situations, item creation is not optimized.
(Note: this one isn’t ALWAYS a DM decision. If the other party members have a fit whenever the DM tries to say “2 months pass in town uneventfully” you are just as bad off as if the DM is keeping you from crafting.)
B. Gold. If your DM is running a campaign with below average gold, it can make it very hard for the item creator.
C. Experience. Most campaigns give this one, but some keep players at very low level for a long time, and a few will give just enough experience for players to level, which means that the creator will always be a level behind.
Lesser Elements for an Item Creator-DM dependant
A. House rules
Can you craft in the back of a cart? In the hold of a ship? In a cave in a dungeon? Exactly what materials do you need? Ask if buying something like the Alchemists Kit but aimed at item creation would change any of the above answers.
Are the material components that you need for item creation common items that you can buy anywhere (if you have the money) or are they rare things that only a city with a wizard tower can supply?
Are custom items possible? Pay particular attention to the stacking item effects rules in the Magic Item Compendium. If your DM says they are too cheap (and IMO some of them are) see if you can do the same things at a 50% or even 100% markup. Especially with the cheap items in that book, paying an extra few thousand gold to greatly increase the utility of an item can be worth it. If you are a wild shaping druid this counts double for you.
Retraining (PHII) is another big + for Item crafters. It lets you take crafting feats when you need them, then swap them either for other crafting feats or different feats as you progress in levels.
B. Campaign Setting
If every town has a shop where you can buy any item listed in the DMG, and a level 15 wizard willing to custom enchant what he doesn’t have on hand, item creation is less important.
If the court magician of the kingdom is level 6 and magic item shops are unheard of, item creation is critical to having the equipment you want.
The ability to resell found items is also important. If you can sell any magic equipment you find in almost any settlement at 50% or more of sale price, you can transform items you don’t like to items you do.
C. Books in use
The Magic Item Compendium (Hereafter MIC) is what you really want, but almost every book in play has one or two gems for the dedicated item creator to find.
Lesser Elements for an Item Creator-PC Dependant
A. Time (Out of Character)
Item creation benefits more from 5 hours spent between sessions doing research than any other area of play. The MIC helps this, but doesn’t eliminate it. If poring through books trying to stretch your exp and gold to the maximum use sounds boring to you, or your life doesn’t allow it, you have lost a lot of utility as an Item creator.
B. Spell Selection/Planning
This will be covered more fully under Wizard. It is important with the item creator to look ahead a few levels and see what you are likely to want then, in order to make sure that you have the gold on hand and correct spells known to make it.
C. Party Cooperation
Can you convince your party to set aside a certain amount of gold, either individually or as a group, to fund item making?
Can you convince party members to learn essential crafting spells or feats (and use them in crafting in conjunction with you).
I usually find that it works well to require a small surcharge in item creation (60-75% of market cost, as opposed to the 50% it costs you), then funnel the proceeds back into making the items you want.
I. Wizard
Pros: The hands down champion of casual item creation. You have potentially vast access to great item creating spells, Scribe Scroll for free, and bonus feats. You are the only pure caster who can actually take Craft Wands or Arms & Armor at level 5. Almost any of the feats is good for the Wizard (although Arms/Armor and Potions are only truly helpful for other part members).
Cons: Look back at the section on Campaigns. If you have lots of gold and ready access to scrolls or spellbooks to scribe, you are a god, BUT if your campaign world makes it hard to get scrolls as needed your spellbook isn’t much bigger than a sorcerer.
As a wizard, you need to pay close attention to the items you will want in a few levels, to make sure your spellbook contains all the spells. Consider taking one of your free spells at every level because it is something you want to cast, and the other one because it unlocks an important item.
Selection of a specialist school weakens your crafting, because you are trading spell availability, which helps you, for spells per day, which does nothing for crafting.
II. Archivist
Pros: You have potential access to the widest spell list in the game. With proper planning there is very little you can’t make
Cons: Just like the Wizard. Look back at the section on Campaigns. If you have lots of gold and ready access to scrolls or spellbooks to scribe, you are a god, BUT if your campaign world makes it hard to get scrolls as needed your spellbook isn’t much bigger than a sorcerer.
As an Archivist, you need to pay close attention to the items you will want in a few levels, to make sure your spellbook contains all the spells. Consider taking one of your free spells at every level because it is something you want to cast, and the other one because it unlocks an important item.
III. Cleric
Pros: You are a full caster with a good casting list. You get all available spells known, so no troublesome decisions between the spells you want to cast and the ones you want to craft with. Some domain choices contain excellent spells for crafting.
Cons: I can’t think of any.
IV. Druid
Pros: Like the cleric, you have a good casting list for crafting, and you don’t need to learn spells just to craft with them. Craft Wondrous Items becomes vastly important if your DM (foolishly?) allows wildling clasps, because you will need to craft a wildling clasp for every slot you want in Wildshape.
Cons: The level 6 feat slot is almost certainly going to be Natural Spell, so Arms/Armor or Wands have to wait until at least 9th level.
If you are going to spend a lot of time in Wildshape, most types of items can be difficult to manipulate, and they will meld into your form whenever you shift, unless you drop them or trade them to another party member first.
V. Spirit Shaman
Pros: You get the druid spell list for crafting with, but don't have to worry about taking natural spell or Wildshape limitations.
Cons: None.
VI. Spontaneous versions of base casters (Sorcerer, Favored Soul)
Pros: As a full caster, you potentially have good crafting options, and you can get craft feats at their normal levels.
Cons: Your tiny numbers of spells known really handcuff your crafting choices, unless either: 1. you are willing to pick spells known with crafting in mind, or 2. your party contains one or more other casters who will cooperate with you.
VII. Bard
Pros: You are a full caster. Your high Charisma and Use Magic Device, along with armor and weapon use mean that you can benefit from a wide variety of crafting feats, even for items you couldn’t make alone.
Cons: See Spontaneous versions of base casters above.
VIII. Spontaneous Specialists (Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necro)
Pros: You are a full caster. Your knowledge of all available spells known means no difficulties in picking spells for crafting use.
Cons: Unlike the spontaneous casters, you have a very small selection of items usable. I.E. A sorcerer with the Craft Wands feat can get his Wizard friend to make a wand of fireball, even if he doesn’t know that spell. A Dread Necro lacks that option (although the beguiler can fake it with UMD).
IX. Semi-Spell users (Paladin, Ranger, many gish builds)
Pros: You really benefit if someone in the party has Craft Wands and Craft Arms/Armor. If your other casters choose other creation feats or no creation feats, you can pick up the slack.
Remember that if Craft Arms and Armor lets you add +2 to your weapon, +2 to your armor and +1 to your shield, or raise their bonuses by those amounts when you wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do so, it is roughly equal to Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Heavy Armor Optimization, Dodge, and Shield Specialization. Even if all of those weren’t at the top of your list, that’s 5 feats for 1.
Cons: Your small spell lists and late spell acquisition really limit the number of items you can make without cooperating. Your low caster level can delay getting the feats you want.
Dictum's Wands Users Guide
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=869795&highlight=wands+handbook
Crafting feats:
Scribe Scroll (Level 1):[/b]
Wizards get this one automatically unless they trade it away for a class option. This feat is cheap to use, and excellent for packing away one or two scrolls of all the weird situational spells that aren’t likely to be needed but would be very helpful if they are.
Brew Potion (Level 1):
Double the cost of scribe scroll for the benefit of allowing non-casters to use it and the ability to activate in silence. Not as useful in longer campaigns, because the level cap restricts it.
Craft Wondrous Items (Level 3):
One of the best crafting feats. Even if you restrict yourself to making cheap quick items, you can really add a lot of utility by filling all of your parties body slots. Also, virtually every character in the game will benefit from wondrous items, as opposed to Wands or Armor that really only shine for certain classes. This also includes the stat enhancement items which virtually all characters will want at some point.
Craft Arms/Armor (Level 5):
Although of limited use to most wizard/sorcerer builds, your non-casters will love you for taking this one. Many fighters who shrug and accept a vest of resistance will get enthusiastic about making their weapon better. Scales very well into high level use.
Craft Wands (Level 5):
Cheaper per spell than scrolls, this is the (non Reserve feat) way to go for the caster who always wants something useful to do in combat. The wide variety of wands gives this a lot of utility. Of special note is that any Bard, Paladin, Ranger or anyone with good UMD can pretend to be a decent healer cleric if they are packing a level appropriate cure wand. The limitation on caster and spell level makes this feat top out at around level 10, then slowly fade by comparison with staves.
Craft Rods (Level 9):
More rare in my experience than many other crafting feats, Rods mostly shines for its metamagic applications. It also has some odd utility devices and stacks well with Craft Arms/Armor.
Craft Staff (level 12):
There are some truly breathtaking staves. This feat will keep performing well into your 20s. Drawbacks include the very high pricetags and creation times for your favorite toys. If you are unlikely to get 2 months downtime, sigh and pass on this one. Also, while you can get this feat at level 12, many of the staves require 9th level spells to craft.
Forge Rings (level 12?!)
Why is this level 12 again? It’s like a game designer had been reading Tolkein and thought Forge Ring= Craft Nazgul. This feat is like Craft Wondrous Item, except that instead of 8 slots (Head, Face, Hands, Arms, Throat, Torso, Shoulders, Boots) you get 2. Some rings are excellent, but not really better than most of the other feats. If you could get your DM to let you take it at level 6, it would be better, but Craft Wondrous will still beat it almost all the time.
Craft Rune Circle (level 5, RoS)
Not very useful in most campaigns. If you can make the monsters come to where you spent days preparing a circle, it’s great. If you plan on going to where the monsters usually hang out…uhm.
Inscribe Rune (Level ?, ???)
Non Crafting Feats
Leadership (Level 6)
A magic using Cohort can add to the spell list for item creations and can know additional crafting feats of his own. Some DMs may limit your NPC's willingness to spend lots of exp for your benefit, but you can always spend the exp yourself.
Any feat or item which raises your caster level (Practiced Spell Caster (C Div, Persistant (Greater) Consumptive Field, etc.) will allow you to qualify for item creation feats before you would otherwise be able to.
Reserved for Future edit
First, the Midgaurd Dwarf (Frostburn) is an outsider that can make any Wonderous Item, Ring, Weapon, or Armour. Very handy... and as an Outsider, you can summon them with Planar Binding. This can let you craft items without any feat investment. With that said, read their entry... they might get mad at you, and that could be a very bad thing. Still, it's something to consider. With Dread Necromancers, you can summon them, kill them, raise them as a Bone Creature, and now you've got yourself a wonderful little craftsman pet without any feat investment.
Second, the Anima Mage PrC is amazing if you want to craft without feat investment, as one of the later online vestiges gives any item crafting feat of your choice whenever you bind him, allowing you to effectively use any item creation feat you happen to need that day, so long as you meet the prerequisites for that feat.
Third, non magic item creation: Wizards can rock at this with the use of the Magecraft spell. Magecraft + Masterwork tools + 16 or higher Int is enough to take 10 making Masterwork items.
JaronK
I like taking Crafting Arms and Armor on my fighters and paladins... I know its silly, but I really like it...
The benefit of use-activation or constant effect spell items is simple: Unlike wands and scrolls, EVERYONE can use them.
Prime examples (price given is FULL price, halfed for home crafting):
Divine Power (CL 7, 10080G 1/d, 50400G unlimited use/d, 224K constant effect)
Quickened Div. Power (CL 13, unlimited uses, 163800)
You can reduce the price by adding restrictions of who can use the item. (By skill, race, class, etc.)
The basic rules can be found in the SRD http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/magicItemsCreation.html
Still has a single feat investment but it is way more bang for your buck (if you DM allows it...).
You forgot the whole "buy back xp while crafting at a 5:1 ratio" thing. Basically, instead of spending 50% of the cost in gold and 4% of the cost in xp, you spend 70% of the cost in gold and get to keep your xp. This, IMO, is a vastly superior option. If you become the party craft-*****, and have them give you 75% of the price for each item you make, you can outfit the whole team and end up ahead of the game overall with the piles of gold you'll have. It's good for casual crafters too, since now you can craft all you want without losing levels.
What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
It's a variant option that I've been told (by my old DM, and by someone in the Simple Questions Simple Answer thread) was printed by WotC at some point, but I can't remember where. Basically, it allows you to reduce the xp cost by 1 for every extra 5 gp you put into crafting, over and above the minimum 50%. If anyone else can confirm or deny this, or give a source, I'd appreciate it.
Its like a Brew Potion, without the cap, plus it take ten minuets to craft a Rune.
Thats it. Just 10 minutes.
The main down side is that runes can only be made of Divine spells. and a skill check must be made.
Other than that they pretty much rule.
As for the GP to Xp thing, it is listed under the Magic Items here:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#tableEstimatingMagicItemGoldPieceValues
This references paying extra for Items made with spells that cost XP to cast.
Could be what your thinking of.
There is also this:http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a
If this is in use, everything changes.
Then again, a Soulborn/Ironsoul Forgemaster would make an effective combatant and the crafting abilities combined with the ability to bind your weapons and armor to your chakras would be an added plus.
Ok.The best crafting feat for casual crafting is Inscribe Rune.
Its like a Brew Potion, without the cap, plus it take ten minuets to craft a Rune.
Thats it. Just 10 minutes.
The main down side is that runes can only be made of Divine spells. and a skill check must be made.
Other than that they pretty much rule.
As for the GP to Xp thing, it is listed under the Magic Items here:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#tableEstimatingMagicItemGoldPieceValues
This references paying extra for Items made with spells that cost XP to cast.
Could be what your thinking of.
There is also this:http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a
If this is in use, everything changes.
The second one is a good set of rules, a similar set of rules was printed in the ELH, and again in BoED. In the ELH it covers epic item creation being too costly to actually be achievable by a single wizard so you can have others cover part of the exp cost(5gp:1EXP price tag, or willing party member). The BoED covers it in the ascetic section on expensive material components and paying the material cost of spells instead with exp(again at a 5gp:1exp). Those are the only other 2 references that i can site for you.
The Prime Susepct
P.S. Braithwaite, nice job on your first Handbook. Its pretty well organized, looks good, but could use a little tweaking. As you said though, it's still a work in progress. Over all, I think it's worth a
Just another way to handle it. This also made the DM's life easier as he didn't have to deal with different level PC's in the same party.
...snip...This also made the DM's life easier as he didn't have to deal with different level PC's in the same party.
Actually, having a lower level character who crafts is beneficial, the lower level character gets a EXP bump for being lower level(even if its only 1 level) and can manage to lag just behind the group while still getting enough EXP to craft. Check out the "Experience is a River" thread. I do like the approach however, but there is a machenic built into the game for taking care of the wizard(or CoDzilla) in your party
The Prime Suspect
Actually, having a lower level character who crafts is beneficial, the lower level character gets a EXP bump for being lower level(even if its only 1 level) and can manage to lag just behind the group while still getting enough EXP to craft.
Yes, but what aaaron0 actually said was that it made the DM's life easier. Having to calculate different experience values for each member of the party is a pain in the neck, as is figuring out appropriate encounters for mixed-level parties in which some characters are drastically overequipped to boot. Definitely a reasonable sort of house rule for a DM looking to reduce his bookkeeping in a crafthappy party.
Also Chameleon is worth a mention, as its level 2 variable feat is great for crafting and used in warlock builds.
Yes, but what aaaron0 actually said was that it made the DM's life easier. Having to calculate different experience values for each member of the party is a pain in the neck, as is figuring out appropriate encounters for mixed-level parties in which some characters are drastically overequipped to boot. Definitely a reasonable sort of house rule for a DM looking to reduce his bookkeeping in a crafthappy party.
Oops, I must have forogtten to mention that it was a great/well balanced idea for handeling a complicated rule. Kudos to the GM on that one.
The Prime Suspect
I remember someone (Carnivore?... and I'm having Deja Vu...) posting a build that could make a staff of fire alot earlier than normal, for some reason or another.
Also... Ur-Priests can make great crafters due to their lower than normal minimum caster level. They are from the Book of Vile Darkness, and get 1st level cleric spells at level 1, 2nd level spells at level 2, etc, all the way up to 9th level spells at 9th.
And retraining rules (PHB2 I think, and other feat swapping "tricks" like Psychic Reformation (XPH), Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos, etc) can let anyone be a casual crafter without nerfing themselves permanently.
Some things to consider for the casual itemcrafter:
Second, the Anima Mage PrC is amazing if you want to craft without feat investment, as one of the later online vestiges gives any item crafting feat of your choice whenever you bind him, allowing you to effectively use any item creation feat you happen to need that day, so long as you meet the prerequisites for that feat.
JaronK
Thanks JaronK. I don't think I have that book, so if you want to list the source and maybe a brief blurb, I'll include it.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070307a
The Master Craftsman ability is what he's referring to.