My party is currently finishing Rime of the Frostmaiden after which we will drop back into a home-brew FR world. Most of my players are first timers and therefore I have set them up in a high magic campaign with lots of loot, but not a lot of magic items. Two of the players want to acquire plans to craft legendary items from the weapons they are currently using but I am struggling with a good mechanic that doesn't involve multiple years of downtime. For example, using XGTE, crafting a vorpal sword would take 2,000 work weeks to complete once all the components and resources are obtained. This seems like an obscenely long time when you consider that 2,000 work weeks of adventuring, if survived, would see PCs likely hitting their highest levels. If any of you know of some good resources for me to look at I am much obliged for your knowledge.
There’s the dragon horde items in fizban. You could say the players realize their swords were horde items all along, now they just have to find an appropriate dragon, kill it, and let the item simmer for a long rest to be upgraded. Wildemount has something similar with vestiges of divergence, but those are more tied to thematic character moments.
I realize those aren’t crafting, but they are kind of cool ways to upgrade an existing weapon.
If you do want to go the crafting route, and they already have a magic item, you could give them credit for whatever they have. Like if it’s a +1 sword, and that would take 100 work weeks, you could deduct that from the 2,000. Also, additional workers help. If you could find, say, 10 people, the item could be done in 200 weeks instead of 2,000.
Of course, probably the simplest choice, is to just make up a number yourself. Decide it will take them 5 weeks, or any other arbitrary number and go for it. Just be careful of the precedent it may set if you do.
You don't need to use the standard crafting rules.
With a homebrew campaign you can decide what ingredients are required to imbue their weapons with legendariness, and then they can go looking for that knowledge, and for the items that are required.
1) The PCs need to find out HOW to make their weapons legendary.
2) The PCs need to collect all the ingredients to make their weapons legendary - e.g. for an intelligent weapon, where they are going to get a consciousness that is willing (or will be forced) to be inside that weapon.
3) They will have to find the location in which to make their weapons legendary, (Step 1 might only tell them "in a forge hot enough to melt X - without mentioning WHERE such a forge can be found).
Typically PCs don’t create Legendary items, they find them. I personally restrict players to creating Very Rare items in part because of the exact reason you sited. The other reason is because, if anyone could potentially make one it wouldn’t be “legendary.” Perhaps they might consider questing to locate legendary items they have heard of instead of crafting them? Or perhaps they would consider crafting weapons of slightly lower power instead? Or perhaps both?
I thonk the clue is in the name, legendary items are the stuff of legends, they can't be made by any old craftsman in a couple of weeks they are a lifetimes work of the most skilled craftman in the history of the world. Lorewise it makes sense that they take 2000 work weeks to craft, or even that they are legendary because the skills to make them have been lost. Usually the party get their hands on legendary items by finding them, as I see it you have a couple of options:
Have part of the campaign in finding the plans then have it step forward 20-50 years to a time where they have cpompleted there crafting and a new menace appears to threaten the world thet they need to defeat.
If the players are more concerned with having legendary items than crafting them they could find the items themselves rather than the plans, or find that their existing weapons can be awakened and made more powerful.
You could ignore the rules and say they can make a legendary item in a few weeks of downtime.
Thank you for all the insightful replies and for pointing out the potential pitfalls. One of my goals with this initial campaign is for the PCs to create the Legendary NPCs for future campaigns and one shots, something and old DM of mine did back in AD&D. The idea of Chomsky, the gnome trickster appearing with his Prismatic Sunblade and putting the new characters in an awkward situation screams shenanigans to me and will mean so much more if the PC creates the items.
As others have said I would generally treat legendary items the same as artifacts - normal PCs can’t make them. My own version of FR runs into epic levels as a homebrew and legendary items can be created by epic level characters. My world also has 4 epic characters that have read over half the nether scrolls including some of the artifact crafting scrolls and so can create selected artifacts. However while the started as characters of mine they are now strictly NPCs in my game not PCs.
My party is currently finishing Rime of the Frostmaiden after which we will drop back into a home-brew FR world. Most of my players are first timers and therefore I have set them up in a high magic campaign with lots of loot, but not a lot of magic items. Two of the players want to acquire plans to craft legendary items from the weapons they are currently using but I am struggling with a good mechanic that doesn't involve multiple years of downtime. For example, using XGTE, crafting a vorpal sword would take 2,000 work weeks to complete once all the components and resources are obtained. This seems like an obscenely long time when you consider that 2,000 work weeks of adventuring, if survived, would see PCs likely hitting their highest levels. If any of you know of some good resources for me to look at I am much obliged for your knowledge.
There’s the dragon horde items in fizban. You could say the players realize their swords were horde items all along, now they just have to find an appropriate dragon, kill it, and let the item simmer for a long rest to be upgraded. Wildemount has something similar with vestiges of divergence, but those are more tied to thematic character moments.
I realize those aren’t crafting, but they are kind of cool ways to upgrade an existing weapon.
If you do want to go the crafting route, and they already have a magic item, you could give them credit for whatever they have. Like if it’s a +1 sword, and that would take 100 work weeks, you could deduct that from the 2,000. Also, additional workers help. If you could find, say, 10 people, the item could be done in 200 weeks instead of 2,000.
Of course, probably the simplest choice, is to just make up a number yourself. Decide it will take them 5 weeks, or any other arbitrary number and go for it. Just be careful of the precedent it may set if you do.
You don't need to use the standard crafting rules.
With a homebrew campaign you can decide what ingredients are required to imbue their weapons with legendariness, and then they can go looking for that knowledge, and for the items that are required.
1) The PCs need to find out HOW to make their weapons legendary.
2) The PCs need to collect all the ingredients to make their weapons legendary - e.g. for an intelligent weapon, where they are going to get a consciousness that is willing (or will be forced) to be inside that weapon.
3) They will have to find the location in which to make their weapons legendary, (Step 1 might only tell them "in a forge hot enough to melt X - without mentioning WHERE such a forge can be found).
Typically PCs don’t create Legendary items, they find them. I personally restrict players to creating Very Rare items in part because of the exact reason you sited. The other reason is because, if anyone could potentially make one it wouldn’t be “legendary.” Perhaps they might consider questing to locate legendary items they have heard of instead of crafting them? Or perhaps they would consider crafting weapons of slightly lower power instead? Or perhaps both?
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I thonk the clue is in the name, legendary items are the stuff of legends, they can't be made by any old craftsman in a couple of weeks they are a lifetimes work of the most skilled craftman in the history of the world. Lorewise it makes sense that they take 2000 work weeks to craft, or even that they are legendary because the skills to make them have been lost. Usually the party get their hands on legendary items by finding them, as I see it you have a couple of options:
Thank you for all the insightful replies and for pointing out the potential pitfalls. One of my goals with this initial campaign is for the PCs to create the Legendary NPCs for future campaigns and one shots, something and old DM of mine did back in AD&D. The idea of Chomsky, the gnome trickster appearing with his Prismatic Sunblade and putting the new characters in an awkward situation screams shenanigans to me and will mean so much more if the PC creates the items.
As others have said I would generally treat legendary items the same as artifacts - normal PCs can’t make them. My own version of FR runs into epic levels as a homebrew and legendary items can be created by epic level characters. My world also has 4 epic characters that have read over half the nether scrolls including some of the artifact crafting scrolls and so can create selected artifacts. However while the started as characters of mine they are now strictly NPCs in my game not PCs.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.