Crafting Walkthrough for Artificer
Lets go through an example of the entire process using a fairly simple item from the DMG:[sblock=The Scabbard of Keen Edges]Found on page 266 of the DMG, the Scabbard of Keen Edges has the following crafting information:
“Faint transmutation; CL 5th, Craft Wondrous Item, keen edge; Price 16,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.”
From this, we pick out the information we need.
It’s crafting level is 5.
It’s market price is 16,000 gp.
It has Keen Edge as a spell prereq.
The rest of the information we don’t really need to worry about (aside from that you need to have Craft Wondrous Item before you can even start to make it). We now need to extract the other information we need out of the market price:
Cost to Craft (in gp) = market price / 2 = 16,000 gp / 2 = 8,000 gp.
It will cost us 8,000 gp to make this item
Cost to Craft (in xp) = market price / 25 = 16,000 gp / 25 = 640 xp.
It will cost 640 xp to make this item, which will have to come from the Craft Reserve, your actual xp total, or a combination of the two (so if you only have 600 points in your reserve, you could spend all 600, and only have to pay 40 real xp).
Time to Craft (in days) = market price / 1,000 = 16,000 / 1,000 = 16 days.
It will take just over 2 weeks of work (16 days) in order to make this item.
Use Magic Device Skill = UMD
Now, the only thing we have left to figure out is what DC the UMD check is going to be, so we go to the PHB and look up the Keen Edge spell, and find that it is a lvl 3 spell, which means the minimum caster level for it is 5th. And we know that the UMD DC is 20 + Caster level, meaning this spell requires a DC 25 UMD check to successfully fake.
We bring all of that information together, and we get this:
Cost: 8,000 gp
XP: 640
Time: 16 days
UMD DC: 25
Assuming we have the necessary magical laboratory to work in, and that we have all of the needed supplies, we can start crafting. Lets assume we have the minimum level Artificer required to make this item, lvl 3 (don’t forget that while the item has a crafting level prereq of 5, the Artificer counts as being 2 levels higher than he really is for this), and we’ll just assume somebody else gave him enough gold to be able to afford it. We’ll also assume that he has a total of +8 to his UMD checks (+6 for max ranks, +2 for a Charisma of 14).
Day 1: Enchanting Begins.
Flavor text aside, the only mechanical aspect you need to worry about is the UMD check. Its DC 25, and you have a +8 to your UMD check, meaning you need to roll a 17 or higher to succeed. Pretty steep odds, so lets assume you fail the check. No big deal. Since it will take 16 days to craft, you get 16 tries to make the roll, plus an extra one at the end.
Day 2-12: Constant Progress, Constant Failure
You are working diligently, things are coming along, but you still haven’t made that UMD check yet.
Day 13: Success!
You rolled a 19 for today’s UMD check, meaning you passed. Hooray, no more skill checks required, you’re on easy street from here out.
Day 16: The End
You made your check, so at the end of this day of crafting, you will have your Scabbard of Keen Edges. If you had not made the check before today, you would get your normal check for the day, and if you failed that, you would get your last ditch emergency check to try and salvage everything.
Here’s the kicker though. If you fail that check every single time, then you will fail at making the item, and all of the money and xp/craft points you put into making it will be wasted as well. That is a LOT of time and money to flush down the drain, so should you actually find yourself using that emergency roll at the end, you should spend an Action Point to boost the outcome. Remember though that you can only spend an AP before you know if your roll succeeded or failed, and since you’re going up against a known, set DC, that means you’ll need to burn it before you make the roll. But by this point, potentially wasting an AP is far better than potentially failing the roll and wasting all that time and money. And if you still fail, well, you did everything you could, better luck next time.[/sblock]Now, lets throw some extra complications into the mix. What if your Artificer has some of the Artisan feats to reduce the time/gold/xp costs of making an item? Lets look at that Scabbard of Keen Edges again, this time with the Extraordinary Artisan feat.[sblock=Scabbard of Keen Edges with Extraordinary Artisan]Lets first grab the necessary information from the previous example, no need going through all of it again.
Crafting
Cost: 8,000 gp
XP: 640
Time: 16 days
UMD DC: 25
Now, Extraordinary Artisan lowers the gp cost of the item by 25%, which seems pretty easy at first, but it has some pitfalls. Even though the feat says market price, it ONLY affects the cost to craft, nothing else. First, lets find out how much of a reduction we get. Market Price is 16,000 gp, to find the lower price we can either multiply the market price by .25 and subtract that number from the original, or we can just multiply the original by .75, either way we get that the new price is 12,000 gp.
Now here is where people mess up. You use that 12,000 gp price to determine only the crafting price (which will be 6,000 gp now, instead of 8,000 gp). You do not use the 12,000 gp price to determine time or xp costs, for those you still have to use the original 16,000 gp price.
You would use the same procedure with the other Artisan feats, changing each cost as appropriate. If you haven’t noticed it already, and didn’t read it in the feats section, Exceptional Artisan reduces the crafting time by 25%, which reduces the number of days required to craft the item 25%. That means you will have 25% fewer chances to make your UMD check to successfully create the item, which generally makes taking this feat a handicap to your crafting abilities.And now that you know how to make the items once you know their costs, lets spend a moment on how to correctly determine the price for custom made items.
The first step in making any custom magic item is to talk it over with your DM. Actually, talking it over with your DM should be the first step in making any magical item with your Artificer. (S)He may have an adventure ready for you that your new item idea could ruin, might not allow that particular item in their game, or have suggestions on how to modify the item to be a better fit with the existing game. Magic items as a whole are the domain of your DM, not you as a Player, even if you are playing an Artificer (which comes with certain assumed rights to being able to make magical items). Assuming you get the go ahead, somebody is going to have to stat this item up. Many times, this will happen one of two ways. One, the DM will let the player requesting to make the item stat it up, and then either okay or reject the finished item once you hand it to them. The other option is that the DM may ask you to describe everything you want the item to do to him (or her), and then they will create the item themselves, and give you the specifics on it when they are done. Either way, expect there to be some haggling back and forth over a custom magic item as you both try to make it into what you want it to be.
And remember, the guidelines in the DMG about how to price a magical item are just that, guidelines. They are not set in stone, and if a price sounds too low or too high when you use those rules, then chances are it is too high/low, and you’ve found another example of where the guidelines don’t work very well.