Can someone give me there opinion or explain to me why creating a scroll (that allow you to cast a spell once and it then destroyed) is similar then creating a magic item (of course this would be permanent and infinite long term use).
They are both around the same time and cost.
To me, this make no sense at all and was poorly thought and built.
I have added link to both table and copied them here to explain my point.
To me it look as if someone at WotC simply use 1 table to inspire himself of the other without asking himself. How can I explain that a scroll is rare and magic item are not easy to find.
Just to give some example. A ring of Three Wishes more economical then a scroll with a wish spell. An elemental Gem is a 1 also a time uncommon item, so 2 week and 200 gold vs a conjure elemental scroll that would take 5 weeks and 5000 gold.
Wand of fireball might be 10 weeks and 2000 gold vs the fireball scroll at 2 weeks and 500 gold. But first it has 7 fireballs and it renew some of them every day.
I am sure there is a full truck load of case like those.
In my opinion, those rules don't make sense and the economic of any world wouldn't make sense.
So the cost of scribing an Uncommon scroll (2nd or 3rd level) is either half the cost of a regular Uncommon item, or equal cost when it's the higher-level spell. This holds true for the Rare scrolls (4th & 5th level) but the values are more wibbly for 6th through 8th since all three of those are all Very Rare. But for a Legendary scroll it's half the cost of a Legendary item.
Basically, the Xanathar's amounts are assuming the use of a special ingredient that was acquired via a quest or from defeating a monster, and the material costs are less because it's assumed the special ingredient is over half the value of all the required material. So the 200gp for crafting an uncommon item covers the other materials besides that ingredient, which you got with a quest instead of paying gold. If you just want to make something without undertaking a Special Quest, you'd pay the full DMG amount for all materials including the Special Ingredient that we're assuming Ye Olde Magic Shoppe happens to have in stock.
However, scrolls don't use a unique ingredient, it's just the usual scribing material but in higher amounts etc. So you don't have that option to reduce the cost by saving bits of the monsters you've defeated. That's why the amounts correlate with the DMG magic item crafting and not the Xanathar's magic item crafting, even if this specific clarification on scroll costs is also in Xanathar's. (Just don't ask me about the Xanathar's Brewing Potions of Healing amounts, but I'm glad they let the material cost be less for those frankly...)
Another way to think about it, since I see your concern about rarity of magic items & scrolls: uncommon or higher magic items *require* a Special Ingredient, so availability of *that* is what limits the availability of those items, more than the gold cost of non-special materials involved. Meanwhile you can make any spell scroll if you spend enough gold and time and know the spell. In that case the limiting factor for 9th-level spell scrolls is how few high-level casters there are in the world, let alone ones willing to spend the time & money to scribe the scroll.
Me I have been encouraging my player to overpower the game by using logic. Like killing a group of enemy stuck in a room and filling that room of water with spell or magic item like Decanter of Endless Water and wait until they are all drowned. So basicaly, if they can beat the rules and/or beat my scenario. Then I think there action was awesome and I give them extra rewards.
So I really have a problem to explain to them that creating a 1 time use item could be almost as costly and especially take almost the same time to create then an item with multiple use or infinite reuse.
Anyway I guess I have no choice to create myself a homebrew rule for scrool making to make it more interesting. This will be part of there mission preparations and a very good way to encourage them to spend there gold.
I mean, sure? I was basically just explaining that the numbers weren't being yanked at random out of the Astral Sea. And you're right, it's generally more time-efficient to make a repeat-use magic item than a spell scroll. By RAW you can reduce the cost of crafting a magic item by following the Xanathar's rules, but you also need to have a quest to gain the Special Ingredient by dealing with a monster of CR per the table in that section:
Magic Item Ingredients
Item Rarity
CR Range
Common
1–3
Uncommon
4–8
Rare
9–12
Very rare
13–18
Legendary
19+
So that'd mean facing a CR 19 or higher monster to craft that Ring of Three Wishes, in addition to 100,000 gp for other material costs and 50 workweeks. That might seem excessive, but if you follow the original DMG magic-item crafting without a quest, it's 500,000 gp, and another 500,000gp worth needs to be contributed in crafting labor at 25gp per person per day. Which would be 20,000 days or 4,000 work-weeks if it's just a single crafter, half that for a scroll, so the newer Xanathar's rules puts it *way* more in the realm of possibility.
But then again, we're talking about Legendary items. It's very rare (pun intended) for DMs to allow players to craft Legendary, such items and scrolls are meant to be found while adventuring. A sort of side reason for magic-item crafting rules to be somewhat "unfair" and underdeveloped is so that crafting doesn't remove the reason for players to go out adventuring in the first place. The Xanathar's crafting scheme helps avert that issue by making the process easier in exchange for needing to do some reasonable-challenge adventuring first. And hey, there's been oodles of complaints about the rarity of a magic item not correlating with its power, with one example being the uncommon Winged Boots versus the rare Wings of Flying. That's certainly one avenue for your players to exploit existing logic loopholes, if nothing else.
You're clearly wanting to give your players a lot more freedom in what they choose to do, and reward clever ideas. And even the DMG magic-item crafting section says "You are free to adjust the costs to better suit your campaign." If you think the relative time involved is unfair for something, go ahead and reduce it! And/or allow a way for, say, multiple qualified characters to work on scribing a scroll so it takes less time. And/or let them come up with whole new ideas for magic items to craft, there's a section in the DMG to help a DM assign a rarity to a new magic item. The purpose of the game is to have fun, so go ahead and try adjusting things to work with what you and your players enjoy!
I am curious though - do any DMs here have experience with allowing this sort of carte blanche for magic-item crafting? How did it end up working out?
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Can someone give me there opinion or explain to me why creating a scroll (that allow you to cast a spell once and it then destroyed) is similar then creating a magic item (of course this would be permanent and infinite long term use).
They are both around the same time and cost.
To me, this make no sense at all and was poorly thought and built.
I have added link to both table and copied them here to explain my point.
Xanatar : Magic Item Crafting Time and Cost table.
Xanatar : Scribing a spell Scroll
To me it look as if someone at WotC simply use 1 table to inspire himself of the other without asking himself.
How can I explain that a scroll is rare and magic item are not easy to find.
Just to give some example.
A ring of Three Wishes more economical then a scroll with a wish spell.
An elemental Gem is a 1 also a time uncommon item, so 2 week and 200 gold vs a conjure elemental scroll that would take 5 weeks and 5000 gold.
Wand of fireball might be 10 weeks and 2000 gold vs the fireball scroll at 2 weeks and 500 gold. But first it has 7 fireballs and it renew some of them every day.
I am sure there is a full truck load of case like those.
In my opinion, those rules don't make sense and the economic of any world wouldn't make sense.
Yeah, I've been grappling with much the same questions you're having. It helps to compare it with the original DMG Downtime Magic Item Crafting info (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/between-adventures#DowntimeActivities), the table for which I'll show here:
So the cost of scribing an Uncommon scroll (2nd or 3rd level) is either half the cost of a regular Uncommon item, or equal cost when it's the higher-level spell. This holds true for the Rare scrolls (4th & 5th level) but the values are more wibbly for 6th through 8th since all three of those are all Very Rare. But for a Legendary scroll it's half the cost of a Legendary item.
Basically, the Xanathar's amounts are assuming the use of a special ingredient that was acquired via a quest or from defeating a monster, and the material costs are less because it's assumed the special ingredient is over half the value of all the required material. So the 200gp for crafting an uncommon item covers the other materials besides that ingredient, which you got with a quest instead of paying gold. If you just want to make something without undertaking a Special Quest, you'd pay the full DMG amount for all materials including the Special Ingredient that we're assuming Ye Olde Magic Shoppe happens to have in stock.
However, scrolls don't use a unique ingredient, it's just the usual scribing material but in higher amounts etc. So you don't have that option to reduce the cost by saving bits of the monsters you've defeated. That's why the amounts correlate with the DMG magic item crafting and not the Xanathar's magic item crafting, even if this specific clarification on scroll costs is also in Xanathar's. (Just don't ask me about the Xanathar's Brewing Potions of Healing amounts, but I'm glad they let the material cost be less for those frankly...)
Another way to think about it, since I see your concern about rarity of magic items & scrolls: uncommon or higher magic items *require* a Special Ingredient, so availability of *that* is what limits the availability of those items, more than the gold cost of non-special materials involved. Meanwhile you can make any spell scroll if you spend enough gold and time and know the spell. In that case the limiting factor for 9th-level spell scrolls is how few high-level casters there are in the world, let alone ones willing to spend the time & money to scribe the scroll.
Thank bonnkansan:
I really appreciate your input.
Me I have been encouraging my player to overpower the game by using logic.
Like killing a group of enemy stuck in a room and filling that room of water with spell or magic item like Decanter of Endless Water and wait until they are all drowned.
So basicaly, if they can beat the rules and/or beat my scenario. Then I think there action was awesome and I give them extra rewards.
So I really have a problem to explain to them that creating a 1 time use item could be almost as costly and especially take almost the same time to create then an item with multiple use or infinite reuse.
Anyway I guess I have no choice to create myself a homebrew rule for scrool making to make it more interesting.
This will be part of there mission preparations and a very good way to encourage them to spend there gold.
I mean, sure? I was basically just explaining that the numbers weren't being yanked at random out of the Astral Sea. And you're right, it's generally more time-efficient to make a repeat-use magic item than a spell scroll. By RAW you can reduce the cost of crafting a magic item by following the Xanathar's rules, but you also need to have a quest to gain the Special Ingredient by dealing with a monster of CR per the table in that section:
Magic Item Ingredients
So that'd mean facing a CR 19 or higher monster to craft that Ring of Three Wishes, in addition to 100,000 gp for other material costs and 50 workweeks. That might seem excessive, but if you follow the original DMG magic-item crafting without a quest, it's 500,000 gp, and another 500,000gp worth needs to be contributed in crafting labor at 25gp per person per day. Which would be 20,000 days or 4,000 work-weeks if it's just a single crafter, half that for a scroll, so the newer Xanathar's rules puts it *way* more in the realm of possibility.
But then again, we're talking about Legendary items. It's very rare (pun intended) for DMs to allow players to craft Legendary, such items and scrolls are meant to be found while adventuring. A sort of side reason for magic-item crafting rules to be somewhat "unfair" and underdeveloped is so that crafting doesn't remove the reason for players to go out adventuring in the first place. The Xanathar's crafting scheme helps avert that issue by making the process easier in exchange for needing to do some reasonable-challenge adventuring first. And hey, there's been oodles of complaints about the rarity of a magic item not correlating with its power, with one example being the uncommon Winged Boots versus the rare Wings of Flying. That's certainly one avenue for your players to exploit existing logic loopholes, if nothing else.
You're clearly wanting to give your players a lot more freedom in what they choose to do, and reward clever ideas. And even the DMG magic-item crafting section says "You are free to adjust the costs to better suit your campaign." If you think the relative time involved is unfair for something, go ahead and reduce it! And/or allow a way for, say, multiple qualified characters to work on scribing a scroll so it takes less time. And/or let them come up with whole new ideas for magic items to craft, there's a section in the DMG to help a DM assign a rarity to a new magic item. The purpose of the game is to have fun, so go ahead and try adjusting things to work with what you and your players enjoy!
I am curious though - do any DMs here have experience with allowing this sort of carte blanche for magic-item crafting? How did it end up working out?