Hi everyone, I'm looking for opinions on my homebrew Magic Item Creation system called Spellcrafting. So please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, concerns you see that I might be missing, etc.
So with this system, all magic items are created by casting a unique spell that creates it. Spellcrafting- Potion of Healing, Spellcrafting - Weapon +1, Spellcrafting - Wand of Smiles, etc. Each Spellcrafting spell can create one type of item. Every cast of the spell allows you to make one day of progress in the crafting process. Common items need 5 days, all the way to legendary items needing 250 days.
These spells are 2 hour cast, the ritual option extends that to 8 hours. Half of the item's market value is the base material requirement. And a quarter market value is the consumable materials that are used up in each casting of the spell, though this cost is split up by however many castings are needed to craft it.
It breaks down as follows:
Common: 50 gp Base, 5 gp Consumed per cast, needs 5 days progress. Spellcasting spell is 2nd.
Uncommon: 200 gp Base, 10 gp Consumed per cast, needs 10 days progress. Spellcasting spell is 3rd.
Rare: 2,000 gp Base, 20 gp Consumed per cast, needs 50 days progress. Spellcasting spell is 4th.
Very Rare: 20,000 gp Base, 80 gp Consumed per cast, needs 125 days progress. Spellcasting spell is 5th.
Legendary: 100,000 gp Base, 200 gp Consumed per cast, needs 250 days progress. Spellcasting spell is 6th.
These are general guidelines of course... as some items need their market value tweaked. For instance, consumables market prices are half their non-consumable counterparts, so the base materials and days required are roughly halved to match.
So as we covered earlier, the default total cost of creating a magic item with this system is only 75% of their market value, potentially even less. There is a counterbalance for that, in that each casting of a Spellcraft spell requires an Arcana check to succeed. Failing the check simply wastes the resources you just expended for no progress. And those checks are harder for rarer items. Making no progress and spoiling some consumables is a real possibility, but becomes less so as you go up in level.
Also, the Spellcasting spells can all be cast at a higher level spell slot, each level adds an extra day of progress. So a high enough caster could cast Common Spellcrafting - Cloak of Billowing with a 6th level spell slot, and assuming they pass the arcana check, have 5 days of progress in a single cast, completing the Common Magic Item in one go.
Why I like this method:
Each Magic item essentially has a recipe, schema, etc, in the form of a unique spell that is designed to create it.
Characters would need to weight the pros/cons of learning how to create magic items with not taking up too many spells known/prepared.
It tilts in favor of wizards or artificers in time and cost efficiency, because of the arcana checks, but spellcasters that can freely swap spells might be granted these Spellcrafting spells that their higher power promotes simply by asking nicely instead of having to find/research them or being locked into it.
Ritual casting these spells is the assumed default, but more powerful or dedicated spellcasters can dump extra magical energy into the process to speed it up.
I like the idea of players making use of stuff they find or harvest in the world, and this gives plenty of opportunity for that. Opens up new treasure rewards besides just ingredient/parts, such as scrolls of Spellcraft or even partially completed magic items.
The 2-hour non-ritual casting is designed for the spellcaster on the go to squeeze in some progress even with a busy lifestyle, at the cost of slots.
A 20th level Wizard shouldn't need to take a whole week to make a Wand of Smiles. The scaling speed and cost track more reasonably with the rate by which a caster would be better at this sort of thing as they go up in levels.
Example Spell:
Common Spellcraft - Potion of Healing
LEVEL
2nd
CASTING TIME
2 Hours (Ritual**)
RANGE/AREA
Touch
COMPONENTS
V, S, M *
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Evocation
ATTACK/SAVE
None
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Creation
You can create standard Potions of Healing, these ubiquitous droughts are found across the world and are in every soldier's or adventurer's emergency supplies, if they can afford them.
At the end of the casting time, the 5 gp tinctured exotic blood is consumed and the 1st level spell slot of cure wounds is expended, then you may make a DC 10 arcana check. If you succeed this check you make 1 day of progress in crafting your Potion of Healing. On a failed check you make no progress. Your Potion of Healing is completed when you reach 3 days of progress.
At Higher Levels. You make an additional day of progress for each spell slot level used higher than 2nd.
*You must have the Cure Wounds known, prepared, or otherwise available and expend a 1st level spell slot in addition to casting the Common Spellcrafting spell. This remains true even if you cast Common Spellcrafting as a ritual spell.
**Ritual Cast Time: When this spell is cast as a Ritual Spell, the casting time is 8 hours.
* - (20 gp Base Materials: Vial containing blend of herbs and minerals, 5 gp Special Ingredient: tinctured exotic blood, Specific Spell: Cure Wounds)
So, feedback me, please! Lemme know what flaws you see in this system, if it needs any tweaks, or if you like it as is.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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Hi everyone, I'm looking for opinions on my homebrew Magic Item Creation system called Spellcrafting. So please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, concerns you see that I might be missing, etc.
So with this system, all magic items are created by casting a unique spell that creates it. Spellcrafting- Potion of Healing, Spellcrafting - Weapon +1, Spellcrafting - Wand of Smiles, etc. Each Spellcrafting spell can create one type of item. Every cast of the spell allows you to make one day of progress in the crafting process. Common items need 5 days, all the way to legendary items needing 250 days.
These spells are 2 hour cast, the ritual option extends that to 8 hours. Half of the item's market value is the base material requirement. And a quarter market value is the consumable materials that are used up in each casting of the spell, though this cost is split up by however many castings are needed to craft it.
It breaks down as follows:
These are general guidelines of course... as some items need their market value tweaked. For instance, consumables market prices are half their non-consumable counterparts, so the base materials and days required are roughly halved to match.
So as we covered earlier, the default total cost of creating a magic item with this system is only 75% of their market value, potentially even less. There is a counterbalance for that, in that each casting of a Spellcraft spell requires an Arcana check to succeed. Failing the check simply wastes the resources you just expended for no progress. And those checks are harder for rarer items. Making no progress and spoiling some consumables is a real possibility, but becomes less so as you go up in level.
Also, the Spellcasting spells can all be cast at a higher level spell slot, each level adds an extra day of progress. So a high enough caster could cast Common Spellcrafting - Cloak of Billowing with a 6th level spell slot, and assuming they pass the arcana check, have 5 days of progress in a single cast, completing the Common Magic Item in one go.
Why I like this method:
Example Spell:
So, feedback me, please! Lemme know what flaws you see in this system, if it needs any tweaks, or if you like it as is.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.