I'm going to try to ignore the massive clusteruck of the ACKS thread (on the Gaming Den), where Frank just keeps self-righteously spreading his libelous verbal diarrhea of viciousness and deception (against Pundit, Gygax, and especially against amacris). :mad: Instead, I will focus on writing about the many flaws of the 5e crafting system.

For reasons that escape me, nobody seems to tackle this issue......and everyone just pretends that the 5e crafting system works. Quite frankly, it doesn't work at all. Not even a little. We'll start with examining the system for magic item creation in 5e, since we have to begin....somewhere.

Item Rarity___Creation Cost____Minimum Level____Enchantment Time

Common____________100 gp___________3rd_____________4 days
Uncommon__________500 gp___________3rd____________20 days
Rare_____________5,000 gp____________6th____________200 days (6 months + 20 days)
Very Rare_______50,000 gp___________11th__________2,000 days (5 years + 5 months + 25 days)
Legendary_______500,000 gp__________17th_______20,000 days (54 years + 9 months +20 days)

I'm not formatting this very well, but....whatever. I'd like to note that the enchantment time for crafting magic items is not clearly delineated, and is in fact, not listed in the "Crafting Magic Items" table in the DMG on page 129.

It's not there, but is listed below instead. I suspect that the reason for this is that the authors of this book want people to completely gloss over the stupidity of the writing, which subtly discourages DMs and players from having characters actually craft items....at all. The impression is that the PCs are only intended to acquire magic items that the DM allows us to find, and that we should rarely (if ever) craft items ourselves. So the concept of an Artificer class is out. It's gone.

Take note that these rules make the creation of most magic items so monumentally vague and inconvenient, that this logically means that finding most magic items is nearly impossible. There's no precise formula for crafting a +3 weapon, or any other item at all. The DMG only makes vague inferences, under "Crafting A Magic Item", on page 128:

Quote from: 5e Dungeon Master's Guide"To start, a character must have a formula that that describes the construction of the item. The character must also be a spellcaster with spell slots and must be able to cast any spells that the item can produce. Moreover, the character must meet a level minimum determined by the item's rarity, as shown in the Crafting Magic Items Table."

There's more vague nonsense like that (if you want to craft a Wand of Magic Missiles, then you probably need to be able to cast the Magic Missile spell), but it doesn't go too much further in detail beyond that.

Multiple casters (that meet the minimum caster level, and that theoretically possess the right spells) can speed up the time it takes to enchant magic items, but not enough for it to reasonably matter. Two casters will halve the enchantment time, and three casters will decrease the enchantment time down to a third. If your character crafts a magic item, he makes progress in 25 gp increments per day, until the total cost is paid. So a "rare" magic item that costs 5,000 gp to craft.....takes 200 days (6 months + 20 days) to enchant. It's a gruelingly slow and unfun process, like having your teeth anally extracted. But that's the system.

The most rare magic items take the longest time to enchant. "Legendary" items like Sovereign Glue, Universal Solvent, Vorpal Swords, Spheres of Annihilation, or Swords of Answering take a VERY long time to enchant:

20,000 days= (54 years + 9 months + 20 days)

Here's the total list. I didn't include sentient magical items, because imbuing an item with sentience does not affect the enchantment time in any way whatsoever. There are a few "legendary" sentient magic items, but I don't include them because.....who cares? Weapons like Blackrazor, Moonblade, Wave, and Whelm are practically treated like artifacts, and literally take approximately 55 years to enchant. So here's the list:

Common Items [4 days to enchant]

(1.) Potion of Climbing [consumable, one use item]
(2.) Potion of Healing [consumable, one use item]
(3.) Spell Scroll (cantrip) [one use item]
(4.) Spell Scroll (1st-level spell) [one use item]

Uncommon Items [20 days to enchant]

(1.) Adamantine Armor
(2.) Alchemy Jug
(3.) Ammunition +1
(4.) Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location [requires attunement]
(5.) Bag of Holding
(6.) Bag of Tricks
(7.) Boots of Elvenkind
(8.) Boots of Striding and Springing [requires attunement]
(9.) Boots of the Winterlands [requires attunement]
(10.) Bracers of Archery [requires attunement]
(11.) Brooch of Shielding [requires attunement]
(12.) Broom of Flying
(13.) Cap of Water Breathing
(14.) Circlet of Blasting
(15.) Cloak of Elvenkind [requires attunement]
(16.) Cloak of Protection [requires attunement]
(17.) Cloak of the Manta Ray
(18.) Decanter of Endless Water
(19.) Deck of Illusions [34 cards, usually missing 1d20-1 cards, cards cannot be reused]
(20.) Driftglobe
(21.) Dust of Disappearance [1 pinch of dust]
(22.) Dust of Dryness [1d6+4 pinches of dust]
(23.) Dust of Sneezing and Choking [1 pinch of dust]
(24.) Elemental Gem [must break to use, 1 charge and then useless]
(25.) Eversmoking Bottle
(26.) Eyes of Charming [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(27.) Eyes of Minute Seeing
(28.) Eyes of the Eagle [requires attunement]
(29.) Figurine of Wondrous Power [Silver Raven, can be used up to 12 hours, cannot be used again for another 2 days]
(30.) Gauntlets of Ogre Power [requires attunement]
(31.) Gem of Brightness [50 charges, then useless]
(32.) Gloves of Missile Snaring [requires attunement]
(33.) Gloves of Swimming and Climbing [requires attunement]
(34.) Gloves of Thievery
(35.) Goggles of Night
(36.) Hat of Disguise [requires attunement]
(37.) Headband of Intellect [Intelligence 19, requires attunement]
(38.) Helm of Comprehending Languages
(39.) Helm of Telepathy [requires attunement]
(40.) Immovable Rod
(41.) Instrument of the Bards (Doss Lute) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(42.) Instrument of the Bards (Fochlucan Bandore) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(43.) Instrument of the Bards (Mac-Fuirmidh Cittern) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(44.) Javelin of Lightning
(45.) Keoghtom's Ointment [1d4+1 doses, then useless]
(46.) Lantern of Revealing
(47.) Mariner's Armor
(48.) Medallion of Thoughts [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(49.) Mithril Armor
(50.) Necklace of Adaptation [requires attunement]
(51.) Oil of Slipperiness [consumable, one use item]
(52.) Pearl of Power [requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(53.) Periapt of Health
(54.) Periapt of Wound Closure [requires attunement]
(55.) Philter of Love [consumable, one use item]
(56.) Pipes of Haunting [3 charges per day]
(57.) Pipes of the Sewers [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(58.) Potion of Animal Friendship [consumable, one use item]
(59.) Potion of Fire Breath [consumable, one use item]
(60.) Potion of Hill Giant Strength [Strength 21, consumable, one use item]
(61.) Potion of Growth [consumable, one use item]
(62.) Potion of (Greater) Healing [consumable, one use item]
(63.) Potion of Poison [consumable, one use item]
(64.) Potion of Resistance [consumable, one use item]
(65.) Potion of Water Breathing [consumable, one use item]
(66.) Quiver of Ehlonna
(67.) Ring of Jumping [requires attunement]
(68.) Ring of Mind Shielding [requires attunement]
(69.) Ring of Swimming
(70.) Ring of Warmth [requires attunement]
(71.) Ring of Water Walking
(72.) Robe of Useful Items [4d4+12 patches, becomes nonmagical when used up]
(73.) Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 [requires attunement by a Warlock]
(74.) Rope of Climbing
(75.) Saddle of the Cavalier
(76.) Sending Stones [1 charge per day]
(77.) Sentinel Shield
(78.) Shield +1
(79.) Slippers of Spider Climbing [requires attunement]
(80.) Spell Scroll (2nd-level spell) [one use item]
(81.) Spell Scroll (3rd-level spell) [one use item]
(82.) Staff of the Adder [requires attunement by a Cleric, Druid, or Warlock]
(83.) Staff of the Python [requires attunement by a Cleric, Druid, or Warlock]
(84.) Stone of Good Luck (Luckstone) [requires attunement]
(85.) Sword of Vengeance [cursed, requires attunement]
(86.) Trident of Fish Command [3 charges, regains 1d3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(87.) Wand of Magic Detection [3 charges, regains 1d3 charges per day]
(88.) Wand of Magic Missiles [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement]
(89.) Wand of Secrets [3 charges, regains 1d3 charges per day]
(90.) Wand of the War Mage +1 [requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(91.) Wand of the Web [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(92.) Weapon +1
(93.) Weapon of Warning [requires attunement]
(94.) Wind Fan
(95.) Winged Boots [can be used up to 4 hours, boots regain 2 hours of flying capability for every 12 hours not in use]

Rare Items [200 days (6 months + 20 days) to enchant]

(1.) Ammunition +2
(2.) Amulet of Health [Constitution 19, requires attunement]
(3.) Armor +1
(4.) Armor of Resistance [requires attunement]
(5.) Armor of Vulnerability [cursed; requires attunement]
(6.) Arrow-Catching Shield [requires attunement]
(7.) Bag of Beans
(8.) Bead of Force
(9.) Belt of Dwarvenkind [requires attunement]
(10.) Belt of Hill Giant Strength [Strength 21, requires attunement]
(11.) Berserker Axe [requires attunement]
(12.) Boots of Levitation [requires attunement]
(13.) Boots of Speed [requires attunement]
(14.) Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals
(15.) Bracers of Defense [requires attunement]
(16.) Brazier of Commanding Fire Elementals
(17.) Cape of the Mountebank
(18.) Censer of Controlling Air Elementals
(19.) Chime of Opening
(20.) Cloak of Displacement [requires attunement]
(21.) Cloak of the Bat [requires attunement]
(22.) Cube of Force
(23.) Daern's Instant Fortress
(24.) Dagger of Venom
(25.) Dimensional Shackles
(26.) Dragon Slayer [sword, requires attunement]
(27.) Elixir of Health [consumable, 1 charge then useless]
(28.) Elven Chain
(29.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Bronze Griffin) [can be used up to 6 hours, then cannot be used again for another 5 days]
(30.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Ebony Fly) [can be used up to 12 hours, then cannot be used again for another 2 days]
(31.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Golden Lions) [created in pairs (2), each can be used up to 1 hour, then cannot be used again for another 7 days]
(32.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Ivory Goats) [created in sets of three (3), Goat of Traveling has 24 charges and uses 1 charge per hour, when charges used up, cannot be used again for another 7 days; Goat of Travail, can be used for up to 3 hours, then cannot be used for another 30 days; Goat of Terror, can be used up to 3 hours, then cannot be used for another 15 days]
(33.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Marble Elephant) [can be used up to 24 hours, then cannot be used again for another 7 days]
(34.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Onyx Dog) [can be used up to 6 hours, then cannot be used again for another 7 days]
(35.) Figurine of Wondrous Power (Serpentine Owl) [can be used up to 8 hours, then cannot be used again for another 2 days]
(36.) Flame Tongue [requires attunement]
(37.) Folding Boat
(38.) Gem of Seeing [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(39.) Giant Slayer
(40.) Glamoured Studded Leather
(41.) Helm of Teleportation [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(42.) Heward's Handy Haversack
(43.) Horn of Blasting [each use has 20% chance of causing horn to explode, dealing 10d6 fire damage, and becoming useless]
(44.) Horn of Valhalla (Silver) [2d4+2 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days]
(45.) Horn of Valhalla (Brass) [3d4+3 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days]
(46.) Horseshoes of Speed
(47.) Instrument of the Bards (Canaith Mandolin) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(48.) Instrument of the Bards (Cli Lyre) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(49.) Ioun Stone (Awareness) [requires attunement]
(50.) Ioun Stone (Protection) [requires attunement]
(51.) Ioun Stone (Reserve) [requires attunement]
(52.) Ioun Stone (Sustenance) [requires attunement]
(53.) Iron Bands of Bilarro
(54.) Mace of Disruption [requires attunement]
(55.) Mace of Smiting
(56.) Mace of Terror [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(57.) Mantle of Spell Resistance [requires attunement]
(58.) Necklace of Fireballs [1d6+3 beads]
(59.) Necklace of Prayer Beads [once bead's spell is cast, it cannot be used again until the next dawn, requires attunement by Cleric, Druid, or Paladin]
(60.) Oil of Etherealness [consumable, one use item]
(61.) Periapt of Proof Against Poison
(62.) Portable Hole
(63.) Potion of Clairvoyance [consumable, one use item]
(64.) Potion of Diminution [consumable, one use item]
(65.) Potion of Gaseous Form [consumable, one use item]
(66.) Potion of Frost Giant Strength [Strength 23, consumable, one use item]
(67.) Potion of Stone Giant Strength [Strength 23, consumable, one use item]
(68.) Potion of Fire Giant Strength [Strength 25, consumable, one use item]
(69.) Potion of (Superior) Healing [consumable, one use item]
(70.) Potion of Heroism [consumable, one use item]
(71.) Potion of Invulnerability [consumable, one use item]
(72.) Potion of Mind Reading [consumable, one use item]
(73.) Quaal's Feather Token
(74.) Ring of Animal Influence [3 charges per day]
(75.) Ring of Evasion [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(76.) Ring of Feather Falling [requires attunement]
(77.) Ring of Free Action [requires attunement]
(78.) Ring of Protection +1 [requires attunement]
(79.) Ring of Resistance [requires attunement]
(80.) Ring of Spell Storing [requires attunement]
(81.) Ring of the Ram [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(82.) Ring of X-Ray Vision [requires attunement]
(83.) Robe of Eyes [requires attunement]
(84.) Rod of the Pact Keeper +2 [requires attunement by a Warlock]
(85.) Rod of Rulership [1 charge per day, requires attunement]
(86.) Rope of Entanglement
(87.) Scroll of Protection [one use item]
(88.) Shield +2
(89.) Shield of Missile Attraction [curse, requires attunement]
(90.) Spell Scroll (4th-level spell) [one use item]
(91.) Spell Scroll (5th-level spell) [one use item]
(92.) Staff of Charming [10 charges, regains 1d8+2 charges per day, requires attunement by a Bard, Cleric, Druid, (93.) Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(94.) Staff of Healing [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Bard, Cleric, or Druid]
(95.) Staff of Swarming insects [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(96.) Staff of the Woodlands [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Druid]
(97.) Staff of Withering [3 charges, regains 1d3 charges per day, requires attunement by a Cleric, Druid, or Warlock]
(98.) Stone of Controlling Earth Elementals [1 charge per day]
(99.) Sun Blade [requires attunement]
(100.) Sword of Life Stealing [requires attunement]
(101.) Sword of Wounding [requires attunement]
(102.) Tentacle Rod [requires attunement]
(103.) Vicious Weapon
(104.) Wand of Binding [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(105.) Wand of Enemy Detection [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement]
(106.) Wand of Fear [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement]
(107.) Wand of Fireballs [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(108.) Wand of Lightning Bolts [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(109.) Wand of Paralysis [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(110.) Wand of the War Mage +2 [requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(111.) Wand of Wonder [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(112.) Weapon +2
(113.) Wings of Flying [can be used for 1 hour, cannot be reused for 1d12 hours]

Very Rare Items [2,000 days (5 years + 5 months + 25 days) to enchant]

(1.) Ammunition +3
(2.) Amulet of the Planes [requires attunement]
(3.) Animated Shield [requires attunement]
(4.) Armor +2
(5.) Arrow of Slaying
(6.) Bag of Devouring
(7.) Belt of Fire Giant Strength [Strength 25, requires attunement]
(8.) Belt of Frost Giant Strength [Strength 23, requires attunement]
(9.) Belt of Stone Giant Strength [Strength 23, requires attunement]
(10.) Candle of Invocation [requires attunement]
(11.) Carpet of Flying
(12.) Cloak of Arachnida [requires attunement]
(13.) Crystal Ball [requires attunement]
(14.) Dancing Sword
(15.) Demon Armor
(16.) Dragon Scale Mail [requires attunement]
(17.) Dwarven Plate
(18.) Dwarven Thrower [requires attunement by a dwarf]
(19.) Efreeti Bottle
(20.) Figurine of Wondrous Power [Obsidian Steed, can be used up to 24 hours, then cannot be used again for another 5 days]
(21.) Frost Brand [requires attunement]
(22.) Helm of Brilliance [requires attunement]
(23.) Horn of Valhalla (Bronze) [4d4+4 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days]
(24.) Horseshoes of a Zephyr
(25.) Instrument of the Bards (Anstruth Harp) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(26.) Ioun Stone (Absorption) [requires attunement]
(27.) Ioun Stone (Agility) [requires attunement]
(28.) Ioun Stone (Fortitude) [requires attunement]
(29.) Ioun Stone (Insight) [requires attunement]
(30.) Ioun Stone (Intellect) [requires attunement]
(31.) Ioun Stone (Leadership) [requires attunement]
(32.) Ioun Stone (Strength) [requires attunement]
(33.) Manual of Bodily Health [study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Constitution by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(34.) Manual of Gainful Exercise [study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Strength by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(35.) Manual of Golems
(36.) Manual of Quickness of Action [study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Dexterity by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(37.) Mirror of Life Trapping
(38.) Nine Lives Stealer [1d8+1 charges, becomes ordinary sword +2 when charges are used up, requires attunement]
(39.) Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments
(40.) Oathbow [while your sworn enemy lives, you have disadvantage on attack rolls with all other weapons, requires attunement]
(41.) Oil of Sharpness [consumable, one use item]
(42.) Potion of Flying [consumable, one use item]
(43.) Potion of Cloud Giant Strength [Strength 27, consumable, one use item]
(44.) Potion of (Supreme) Healing [consumable, one use item]
(45.) Potion of Invisibility [consumable, one use item]
(46.) Potion of Longevity [10% cumulative chance of aging you 1d6+6 years, consumable, one use item]
(47.) Potion of Speed [consumable, one use item]
(48.) Potion of Vitality [consumable, one use item]
(49.) Ring of Regeneration [requires attunement]
(50.) Ring of Shooting Stars [6 charges per day, requires attunement outdoors at night]
(51.) Ring of Telekinesis [requires attunement]
(52.) Robe of Scintillating Colors [3 charges per day, requires attunement]
(53.) Robe of Stars [requires attunement]
(54.) Rod of Absorption [can absorb 50 levels of energy, then becomes nonmagical]
(55.) Rod of Alertness [requires attunement]
(56.) Rod of the Pact Keeper +3 [requires attunement by a Warlock]
(57.) Rod of Security [cannot be used again until 10 days have passed]
(58.) Scimitar of Speed [requires attunement]
(59.) Shield +3
(60.) Spell Scroll (6th-level spell) [one use item]
(61.) Spell Scroll (7th-level spell) [one use item]
(62.) Spell Scroll (8th-level spell) [one use item]
(63.) Spellguard Shield [requires attunement]
(64.) Staff of Fire [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(65.) Staff of Frost [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(66.) Staff of Power [20 charges, regains 2d8+4 charges per day, requires attunement by a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(67.) Staff of Striking [10 charges, regains 1d6+4 charges per day, requires attunement]
(68.) Staff of Thunder and Lightning [+2 weapon, additional properties can be used once per day, requires attunement]
(69.) Sword of Sharpness [requires attunement]
(70.) Tome of Clear Thought [study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Intelligence by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(71.) Tome of Leadership and Influence [study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Charisma by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(72.) Tome of Understanding[study for 48 hours for 6 days to increase Wisdom by 2 points, manual regains its magic 100 years later]
(73.) Wand of Polymorph [7 charges, regains 1d6+1 charges per day, requires attunement by spellcaster]
(74.) Wand of the War Mage +3 [requires attunement by a spellcaster]
(75.) Weapon +3

Legendary Items [20,000 days (54 years + 9 months +20 days)]

(1.) Aparatus of Kwalish
(2.) Armor +3
(3.) Armor of Invulnerability [requires attunement]
(4.) Belt of Cloud Giant Strength [Strength 27, requires attunement]
(5.) Belt of Storm Giant Strength [Strength 29, requires attunement]
(6.) Cloak of Invisibility
(7.) Crystal Ball of Mind Reading [requires attunement]
(8.) Crystal Ball of Telepathy [requires attunement]
(9.) Crystal Ball of True Seeing [requires attunement]
(10.) Cubic Gate
(11.) Deck of Many Things
(12.) Defender [sword, requires attunement]
(13.) Efreeti Chain [requires attunement]
(14.) Hammer of Thunderbolts [need Belt of Giant Strength and Gauntlets of Ogre Power to fully use it, requires attunement to fully use it]
(15.) Holy Avenger [requires attunement by Paladin]
(16.) Horn of Valhalla (Iron) [5d4+5 Berserkers, can be used up 1 hour, then cannot be used for another 7 days]
(17.) Instrument of the Bards (Ollamh Harp) [requires attunement by a Bard]
(18.) Ioun Stone (Greater Absorption) [requires attunement]
(19.) Ioun Stone (Mastery) [requires attunement]
(20.) Ioun Stone (Regeneration) [requires attunement]
(21.) Iron Flask
(22.) Luck Blade [requires attunement]
(23.) Plate Armor of Etherealness [requires attunement]
(24.) Potion of Storm Giant Strength [Strength 29, consumable, one use item]
(25.) Ring of Djinni Summoning [requires attunement]
(26.) Ring of Air Elemental Command [5 charges per day, requires attunement]
(27.) Ring of Earth Elemental Command [5 charges per day, requires attunement]
(28.) Ring of Fire Elemental Command [5 charges per day, requires attunement]
(29.) Ring of Water Elemental Command [5 charges per day, requires attunement]
(30.) Ring of Invisibility [requires attunement]
(31.) Ring of Spell Turning [requires attunement]
(32.) Ring of Three Wishes [3 charges, then useless]
(33.) Robe of the Archmagi [requires attunement by a Sorceror, Warlock, or Wizard]
(34.) Rod of Lordly Might [requires attunement]
(35.) Rod of Resurrection [5 charges, regains 1 charge per day, requires attunement by a Cleric, Druid, or Paladin]
(36.) Scarab of Protection [provides advantage on saves vs spells, 12 charges, can expend 1 charge to turn a failed save against a necromancy spell or Undead creature into a successful one, destroyed when last charge expended]
(37.) Sovereign Glue [1d6+1 ounces]
(38.) Spell Scroll (9th-level spell) [one use item]
(39.) Sphere of Annihilation
(40.) Staff of the Magi [50 charges, regains 4d6+2 charges per day, requires attunement by a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard]
(41.) Sword of Answering [requires attunement by a creature with the same alignment as the sword]
(42.) Talisman of Pure Good [non-good creatures take radiant damage when touching it, good Cleric or Paladin can use it as holy symbol, 7 charges (can be used to destroy target), talisman destroyed when charges used up]
(43.) Talisman of the Sphere [requires attunement]
(44.) Talisman of Ultimate Evil [non-evil creatures take radiant damage when touching it, evil Cleric or Paladin can use it as holy symbol, 6 charges (can be used to destroy target), talisman destroyed when charges used up]
(45.) Tome of the Stilled Tongue [requires attunement by a Wizard]
(46.) Universal Solvent
(47.) Vorpal Sword [requires attunement]
(48.) Well of Many Worlds [once opened, cannot be reopened for 1d8 hours]

I'm tired, so.....to be continued.

Edit: All of the one use items (usually consumables)....such as scrolls, oils, and and potions have half the creation cost, and half the enchantment time.

Well you forgot to halve costs and times for Consumables (so eg healing potion is 50gp & 2 days) but yes it is pretty bad and seems designed to prevent Rare+ items being made. Xanathar's has some more practical guidelines.

IME 5e makes Uncommon items too cheap & easy to make, while the x10 per rarity makes Rare+ items increasingly too expensive, and ridiculously slow to make. The x5 per Tier used in 4e works well in 5e, so that's what I went with. Also consumables should IMO only be 1/5-1/4 cost of permanent items.

Here's what I use in a typical campaign:

 Typical Item Purchase Costs & availability
Common: 200gp-1000gp; 75%; consumable 40gp-200gp
Uncommon: 1000gp-5000gp; 15%; consumable 200gp-1000gp
Rare: 5000gp-25000gp; 3%; consumable 1000gp-5000gp
Very Rare: 25000gp-125000gp; 0.6%; consumable 5000gp-25000gp
Legendary: 125000gp-625000gp; 0.12%; consumable 25000gp-125000gp
Consumables cost 1/5 as much
Crafting costs 1/2 as much
Fast Sale value is 10% to 100% of Typical Item Cost.
Commissioned items cost 100% to 200% of Typical Item Cost; usually 110%-140%.

So eg crafting a Legendary Consumable might be as low as 12,500gp. Using 25gp/day that's still 500 days, but I normally allow Wizard Towers, Druid Groves etc for Tier III-IV PCs to act as a power focus giving crafting at x10 listed rate, getting that down to a more practical 50 days. I'd typically make crafting a Legendary permanent item take the traditional Year & a Day, 366 days.

In many cases a DMG Rare item is only very slightly better than, or even functionally the same as, an Uncommon item; eg Cloak of Protection vs Ring of Protection; so I felt the top of a Tier cost ought to be the bottom of the next Tier's cost, which fits with the Value listings on page 135.

As the x5 per Tier comes from 4e (as does any Commissioned items costing 110-140% of base price), having crafting cost 1/2 the typical purchase price comes from 3e. I set the scales so that PCs are generally only buying or crafting items of a Tier lower than their own. I do often allow adjustments to items, eg reforging a sword or refitting armour, for 10% of the cost to create the item.

Another approach rather than crafting be 25gp/day, x10 in power focus, would be to double the rate per higher Tier, ie
Level  Crafting Rate/day
1-4       25gp
5-10     50gp
11-16   100gp
17-20   200gp

I generally do like the idea that crafting powerful items takes significant time, rather than 4e's 'make anything in 1 hour' approach, and that it should be cheaper than simply buying the item.

Quote from: S'mon;1109779Well you forgot to halve costs and times for Consumables (so eg healing potion is 50gp & 2 days) but yes it is pretty bad and seems designed to prevent Rare+ items being made. Xanathar's has some more practical guidelines.

Hold it. Where in the 5e DMG does it say that consumables can be created with half the time and half the price? I can't find that anywhere.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1109783Hold it. Where in the 5e DMG does it say that consumables can be created with half the time and half the price? I can't find that anywhere.

You're right it doesn't say it on page 128-129 of the DMG. But DMG crafting keys off item cost/value and Consumables cost/value is half permanent - eg DMG page 135 'the value of a consumable item such as a potion or scroll is typically half the value of a permanent item of the same rarity'. You could ignore that for crafting if you wanted.

You'll note that the potion of healing in the phb can be bought for 50gp, not 100gp. Albeit it can be made with a herbalist's kit for 25gp, crafting at 5gp/day (looks like that's 5gp of final retail value/day, ie 10 days per potion).

They did realise their crafting rules were borked, and the revised system in Xanathar's is a lot more practical.

So equivalent casters can add up to the denominator in the fraction of: Craft Time/# of Caster?

Yeah, I can live with that. Ten 17th+ lvl Casters with 500k+ GP can craft a Legendary in 5.4x-ish years? Yeah, I can absolutely live with that setting. Sounds good to me!

Little Shop. Little Shop o' Magic!

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1109774For reasons that escape me, nobody seems to tackle this issue......and everyone just pretends that the 5e crafting system works. Quite frankly, it doesn't work at all. Not even a little. We'll start with examining the system for magic item creation in 5e, since we have to begin....somewhere.

For freaks sake you do not need to copy paste the damn DMG!

Actually it works just fine. Your "its too slow" is someone elses "allmost just right". Its meant to be slow so PCs cant do exactly what you and others want them to do. Churn out magic items at breakneck pace. Which the rules allow you to do anyhow right there. "You are free to adjust the costs to better suit your campaign." golly gee willikers! The nerve of them to allow you to make it easier if you want! :rolleyes:

A small note. Not sure what print run you have. But in older ones like mine it is missing a entry noting that potions and other consumable magic items like scrolls cost half the listed to make. That was added into later printings.

QuoteCrafting a Magic Item (p. 129). The first sentence under the Crafting Magic Items table now reads, "An item has a creation cost specified in the Crafting Magic Items table (half that cost for a consumable, such as a potion or scroll)."

So potions, scrolls and some of the odd "use and lose" items, like the bag of beans I think, cost less and take less time to assemble.

Yes, at the higher end the crafting time takes a bit too long using that system. But there are various ways of mitigating it or playing with the problem. First off is... Get Help! Every person on the project shortens the time. Which makes sense as these are the big projects. This fits some adventures in D&D where a group or cult has gathered to craft some high end item.
The other is to play this problem up. Its going to take a lifetime to make this thing? Start researching life extension magics, items, potions. Or start researching becoming a liche. This is actually the stated reason why some became a liche in the first place. To finish their masterworks or finish researching some spell.

Xanithar's guide changes crafting and both shortens the overall times, while adding tasks that need to be done to get the materials. It is quite a bit faster I believe. I can dig out the book and do a quick rundown.

And lets be clear. In AD&D magic item creation was overall really fast.
AD&D's system was bare bones basic and the DM had to make stuff up on the fly with very few guidelines for materials. You often needed to be one better than title level in your class. You usually needed to be of a class that can use the item if it is not a weapon or armour or potion. Several items were beyond the capacity of PC.
To make a potion you needed to be a MU level 7 with the assist of an alchemist, or level 12 on your own. And you needed a lab outfitted, and some special ingredients. Potions cost their EXP value in gold to make (or 200 if lacking a value) and tool 1 day per 100 exp (round up)
Scrolls could be made starting at level 7 by most caster classes and needed special paper + special inks. No outright gold cost was listed. But it takes 1 day per level of the spell. There was also a chance to botch the attempt.
Magic item creation was a bit more esoteric. You needed the enchant item spell and often the permanency spell unless a cleric or druid was making the item. But once finished the creator had to rest 1 day per 100 exp value if the item. The infusion process seems pretty quick. But the crafting of the housing item seems to be very dependent on how long it will take an artisan to manufacture the shell as it were. Assuming one is not using something on hand allready. This was the most open ended of the processes and the least explained. In a pinch you could probably enchant a magic sword on the spot. But would be practically helpless for a few days thereafter.

2e's system is overall similar to AD&Ds. But adds a few more loose guidelines and a failure chance for crafting magic items. But was alot more freeform than AD&D.

I don't understand why it's broken?

Yeah it takes forever, but it's supposed to. 5e isn't 3e. Magic items are supposed to be super rare events. It wouldn't make sense if you could just sit at home and make them, and moreover, that fact encourages you to go out and adventure and pull it out of dangerous dungeons. So it's good!

Now if you want to make it faster, you can. Some settings are more magic item friendly, and for that, they've also made the Artificer class. So there's clearly some support there, but it's setting dependent.

Frankly, the bigger problem I have in 5e is every single player wanting to make every single magic item from scratch in like 2 days -- and the long crafting time helps put a damper on that.

It makes it so creating a magic item becomes more of a quest if you want to do it faster, instead of just churning it out.

Honestly, from reading the above, it is a quick and dirty guideline dial. That's fantastic! You can start crafting basic consumables from 3rd lvl on, which is excellent for those campaigns that care.

And the chart is easily expressed, in simple bases like GP or Days. Want more or less cost? Just move the decimal place accordingly. I am sure a high magic game can shift the Day decimal left a few spots; similarly a low money game can shift the GP decimal left a few spots. Easily modulated! Wunderbar!

edit: But I should not lawncrap your complaint. What exactly do you want to do with Magic Crafting that this structure prevents easily adjusting to?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110039I don't understand why it's broken?

Yeah it takes forever, but it's supposed to. 5e isn't 3e. Magic items are supposed to be super rare events. It wouldn't make sense if you could just sit at home and make them, and moreover, that fact encourages you to go out and adventure and pull it out of dangerous dungeons. So it's good!

Now if you want to make it faster, you can. Some settings are more magic item friendly, and for that, they've also made the Artificer class. So there's clearly some support there, but it's setting dependent.

Frankly, the bigger problem I have in 5e is every single player wanting to make every single magic item from scratch in like 2 days -- and the long crafting time helps put a damper on that.

It makes it so creating a magic item becomes more of a quest if you want to do it faster, instead of just churning it out.

Personally I don't think time or cost are the best limiting factors to make it very difficult or impossible for everyone to do at home.  I think better limiting factors, in order, are:

1. Rare components.  If it needs the blood of a unicorn harvested during a full moon, the DM can just make it so they don't encounter unicorns, much less at a full moon, and suddenly it's impossible for them to make.  If the DM wants them to be able to make it, here comes the unicorn prancing around during the full moon.  Such things can also make for Fantastic story arcs, both in finding it, and in dealing with how to get it- do you kill the unicorn and risk the wrath of all denizens of the forest and the nature gods, or do you try to convince it to donate some blood in a non-lethal fashion?  How do you even obtain the blood then, and what must you do in return?

2. Knowledge.  If no one knows how to make them, and it's not just a generally available feat, then it's outright impossible unless they find a rare source of knowledge or someone willing to teach them, and the DM is again in control of that.  It also again opens up quest hooks regarding the obtaining of that knowledge and certainly opens up potential avenues of conflict with those who might want that knowledge once they have it, and what others are willing to do to obtain it.  The only downside with this is it opens up the possibility they Will sell that knowledge or otherwise exploit it once obtained, but there are certainly possibilities for that as well (one time use tomes or scrolls, or knowledge which literally scours itself from your mind upon the completion of the creation) if that is a problem.

3. Situational or environmental constraints.  This has been alluded to in the first entry, but if something must be done on a particular solar or lunar schedule, on a nexus of energy, during an alignment of the planets, so on and so forth, it makes it so that there's certain opportunities to achieve the results which might even be able to be planned for or researched, and can set limitations in that way.

The reason I like those ideas better is because then, if there's some great need, the crafting of items can be done in response to it reasonably.  It's not "Oh, there's some great threat to the world, this orb of annihilation, to have a chance we need a talisman of control, let's start cracking on that and about 54 years from now we'll have a shot".  Or alternately "Well I guess we'll get a whole mess of NPCs that will create the item to save the world.  You can help too if you want and be one of the 10 or 100 people involved, if it's important to you".  Instead, it's "well we need the heart of an ancient dragon and we need it before the celestial alignment on the next winter's solstice, we had best get moving fast", and imho it's far MORE of an impetus to adventure.

This also means that the DM can set lower requirements or more readily obtained materials to make items more readily available.  When instead you ask the DM to ad hoc on cost or time to scale up magic accessibility, they can very easily accidentally misjudge and outright break their own game, forcing difficult conversations as you take away the PC's cool toys.  This is especially reinforced by the seemingly arbitrary and capricious scaling of rarity, which means certain things are WAY more rare than they have any right to be, and certain items of far greater power are far, far more common.  When you can instead say "sure sovereign glue is legendary but that's because it requires dehydrated grey ooze, and wow you got a whole mess of them in the dungeon of the tower you made so you could make buckets of the stuff", and kinda adjust the rarity on a per-item basis, it's less difficult to mess up and easier to fix it if you do, in my opinion.

I'm not a fan of super common magic item crafting, but I respect that everyone finds fun in different ways, and I must agree I find this system makes it wildly impractical for those who Do enjoy it, and doesn't achieve its goals for those who Don't want it to occur as elegantly or in as easily modular of a fashion as it could or imho should.

Quote from: S'monYou're right it doesn't say it on page 128-129 of the DMG. But DMG crafting keys off item cost/value and Consumables cost/value is half permanent - eg DMG page 135 'the value of a consumable item such as a potion or scroll is typically half the value of a permanent item of the same rarity'. You could ignore that for crafting if you wanted.

You'll note that the potion of healing in the phb can be bought for 50gp, not 100gp. Albeit it can be made with a herbalist's kit for 25gp, crafting at 5gp/day (looks like that's 5gp of final retail value/day, ie 10 days per potion).

They did realise their crafting rules were borked, and the revised system in Xanathar's is a lot more practical.

Thank you. I completely missed that section. I struggle with this, because this book has been written and organized in a highly counterintuitive manner. It's frustratingly bad. The DMG makes a vague statement, under "Rarity", on page 135:

Quote from: 5e Dungeon Master's Guide"Suggested values are provided in the Magic Item Rarity table. The value of a consumable item, such as a potion or scroll, is typically half the value of a permanent item of the same rarity.

However, I don't think that you can create a Potion of Healing non-magically, by using an herbalism kit. The herbalism kit description says this, on page 154 of the Player's Handbook:

Quote from: 5e Player's Handbook"The kit contains a variety of instruments such as clippers, mortar and pestle, and pouches and vials used by herbalists to create remedies and potions. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to identify or apply herbs. Also, proficiency with this kit is required to create antitoxin and potions of healing."

So this means that we do need proficiency with an herbalism kit, in order to craft and enchant Potions of Healing. But that doesn't necessarily translate into being able to do this non-magically. There's nothing in the book that says that.

I haven't read the Xanathar book yet. :cool:

Quote from: Sacrificial LambFor reasons that escape me, nobody seems to tackle this issue......and everyone just pretends that the 5e crafting system works. Quite frankly, it doesn't work at all. Not even a little. We'll start with examining the system for magic item creation in 5e, since we have to begin....somewhere.

Quote from: Omega;1109847For freaks sake you do not need to copy paste the damn DMG!

I didn't copy and paste that list. I typed it up by hand. The reason why I typed this up, is because there is no such organized list, broken down entirely by rarity.......in the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide. No such list is there. It's hard to be truly aware of how idiotic the crafting system is, if you don't break everything down into separate sections for item rarity, creation cost, minimum caster level, and enchantment time.

Quote from: OmegaActually it works just fine. Your "its too slow" is someone elses "allmost just right". Its meant to be slow so PCs cant do exactly what you and others want them to do. Churn out magic items at breakneck pace. Which the rules allow you to do anyhow right there. "You are free to adjust the costs to better suit your campaign." golly gee willikers! The nerve of them to allow you to make it easier if you want! :rolleyes:

No. The entire 5e crafting system is objectively horrible. There is absolutely no way that your 11th-level Wizard is going to spend the next five-and-a-half years of his life, sitting in a dark room for 8 hours a day......crafting and enchanting a single suit of leather armor +2. It's never going to happen, not even if you have multiple Wizard friends of equal or higher level......because nobody wants to spend months or years, crafting a single and unremarkable magical item that cannot even be sold for profit, and that is only marginally better than a non-magical item.

These crafting rules are at cosmic levels of stupid. :mad:

Quote from: OmegaA small note. Not sure what print run you have. But in older ones like mine it is missing a entry noting that potions and other consumable magic items like scrolls cost half the listed to make. That was added into later printings.

Quote from: Crafting a Magic Item (p. 129). The first sentence under the Crafting Magic Items table now reads, "An item has a creation cost specified in the Crafting Magic Items table (half that cost for a consumable, such as a potion or scroll)."

My Dungeon Master's Guide was printed in 2014, so my book does not have this errata. The section in parentheses, that halves the costs of "consumables" does not exist in my book. No wonder it looked so stupid. Granted, most of the 5e crafting system is still obscenely stupid, but that errata halving the cost for a consumable makes things slightly less vomit-inducing.

Take note that this errata creates a situation where if we ignore the cost of an herbalism kit (5 gp), then that means that spell-caster vendors who sell Potions of Healing will spend 50 gp on creation costs.....and then sell their product for 50 gp (as it's listed in the PH, pg 150). Well, how do you make a profit selling an item for the same exact amount of money it cost to create it?

Answer: You can't.

Quote from: OmegaSo potions, scrolls and some of the odd "use and lose" items, like the bag of beans I think, cost less and take less time to assemble.

False. "Consumables" are one-shot items, but a Bag of Beans can be used multiple times....therefore, a spellcaster would have to pay the full creation cost of 5,000 gp. In fact, it would take 6 months and 20 days (200 days total) to craft and enchant a Bag of Beans, as it is classified as a "rare" item. And even if you have a couple other spellcasters to help you, the truth is....that absolutely nobody is going to spend 8 hours a day for the next couple months.....enchanting a goofy random magical item that might kill the owner, and has only three to twelve uses.

Who would bother creating this?

Answer: Nobody.

Quote from: OmegaYes, at the higher end the crafting time takes a bit too long using that system. But there are various ways of mitigating it or playing with the problem. First off is... Get Help! Every person on the project shortens the time. Which makes sense as these are the big projects. This fits some adventures in D&D where a group or cult has gathered to craft some high end item.
The other is to play this problem up. Its going to take a lifetime to make this thing? Start researching life extension magics, items, potions. Or start researching becoming a liche. This is actually the stated reason why some became a liche in the first place. To finish their masterworks or finish researching some spell.

No help you receive will ever be enough to mitigate the headache of creating most of these largely weak and limited use items. Making a profit isn't even a goal in crafting magic items, since you can almost never financially profit from any magic item that you create. If you want to sell a magic item, then you roll percentile dice. The tables for this are in the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide on page 130:

Quote from: 5e Dungeon Master's GuideSalable Magic Items

Rarity________Base Price_________Days to Find Buyer_________d100 Roll Modifier*

Common______100 gp______________1d4____________________+10
Uncommon____500 gp______________1d6____________________+0
Rare_________5,000 gp_____________1d8____________________-10
Very Rare_____50,000 gp____________1d10___________________-20

* Apply this modifier to rolls on the Selling a Magic Item table.

Selling a Magic Item

d100 + Mod._________You Find...

20 or lower__________A buyer offering a tenth of the base price
21-40______________A buyer offering a quarter of the base price, and a shady buyer offering half the base price
41-80______________A buyer offering half the base price, and a shady buyer offering the full base price
81-90______________A buyer offering the full base price
91 or higher_________A shady buyer offering one and a half times the base price, no questions asked

When you look at these tables, you can see that it's virtually impossible to make any profit whatsoever selling magic items. It ignores all rules of supply and demand, and makes no logical sense.

Quote from: OmegaXanithar's guide changes crafting and both shortens the overall times, while adding tasks that need to be done to get the materials. It is quite a bit faster I believe. I can dig out the book and do a quick rundown.

And lets be clear. In AD&D magic item creation was overall really fast.
AD&D's system was bare bones basic and the DM had to make stuff up on the fly with very few guidelines for materials. You often needed to be one better than title level in your class. You usually needed to be of a class that can use the item if it is not a weapon or armour or potion. Several items were beyond the capacity of PC.
To make a potion you needed to be a MU level 7 with the assist of an alchemist, or level 12 on your own. And you needed a lab outfitted, and some special ingredients. Potions cost their EXP value in gold to make (or 200 if lacking a value) and tool 1 day per 100 exp (round up)
Scrolls could be made starting at level 7 by most caster classes and needed special paper + special inks. No outright gold cost was listed. But it takes 1 day per level of the spell. There was also a chance to botch the attempt.
Magic item creation was a bit more esoteric. You needed the enchant item spell and often the permanency spell unless a cleric or druid was making the item. But once finished the creator had to rest 1 day per 100 exp value if the item. The infusion process seems pretty quick. But the crafting of the housing item seems to be very dependent on how long it will take an artisan to manufacture the shell as it were. Assuming one is not using something on hand allready. This was the most open ended of the processes and the least explained. In a pinch you could probably enchant a magic sword on the spot. But would be practically helpless for a few days thereafter.

2e's system is overall similar to AD&Ds. But adds a few more loose guidelines and a failure chance for crafting magic items. But was alot more freeform than AD&D.

I'm not gonna get into the AD&D crafting system right now, but I might create another thread for that.....at some point in the near future. AD&D had large numbers of magic items and you could craft stuff more quickly. The AD&D magic item crafting system had massive flaws though, but I'll delve into that another time.

I'll just say (for example) that AD&D had a somewhat sensible magic weapon and monster hierarchy. You needed a +1 weapon to injure a gargoyle, a +2 weapon to injure an Earth Elemental, a +3 weapon to injure an Iron Golem, and so on. That type of thing doesn't exist in 5e, where there is largely no reason to create any weapon other than a +1 weapon or a Weapon of Warning. If you make it a slashing weapon, coated in adamantine (for fighting golems)....then all the better. But otherwise, most other magic weapons in 5e are not worth your money or your time.....if you engage in a cost benefit ratio analysis.

I mean, who would spend five-and-a-half years enchanting a Frost Brand sword that is only marginally better in combat than a regular sword?

Answer: Nobody.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110085The entire 5e crafting system is objectively horrible.

Yeah, no shit. You could've just opened with that and saved however much effort you've put into these posts.

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110084Personally I don't think time or cost are the best limiting factors to make it very difficult or impossible for everyone to do at home.  I think better limiting factors, in order, are:

1. Rare components.  If it needs the blood of a unicorn harvested during a full moon, the DM can just make it so they don't encounter unicorns, much less at a full moon, and suddenly it's impossible for them to make.  If the DM wants them to be able to make it, here comes the unicorn prancing around during the full moon.  Such things can also make for Fantastic story arcs, both in finding it, and in dealing with how to get it- do you kill the unicorn and risk the wrath of all denizens of the forest and the nature gods, or do you try to convince it to donate some blood in a non-lethal fashion?  How do you even obtain the blood then, and what must you do in return?

2. Knowledge.  If no one knows how to make them, and it's not just a generally available feat, then it's outright impossible unless they find a rare source of knowledge or someone willing to teach them, and the DM is again in control of that.  It also again opens up quest hooks regarding the obtaining of that knowledge and certainly opens up potential avenues of conflict with those who might want that knowledge once they have it, and what others are willing to do to obtain it.  The only downside with this is it opens up the possibility they Will sell that knowledge or otherwise exploit it once obtained, but there are certainly possibilities for that as well (one time use tomes or scrolls, or knowledge which literally scours itself from your mind upon the completion of the creation) if that is a problem.

3. Situational or environmental constraints.  This has been alluded to in the first entry, but if something must be done on a particular solar or lunar schedule, on a nexus of energy, during an alignment of the planets, so on and so forth, it makes it so that there's certain opportunities to achieve the results which might even be able to be planned for or researched, and can set limitations in that way.

The reason I like those ideas better is because then, if there's some great need, the crafting of items can be done in response to it reasonably.  It's not "Oh, there's some great threat to the world, this orb of annihilation, to have a chance we need a talisman of control, let's start cracking on that and about 54 years from now we'll have a shot".  Or alternately "Well I guess we'll get a whole mess of NPCs that will create the item to save the world.  You can help too if you want and be one of the 10 or 100 people involved, if it's important to you".  Instead, it's "well we need the heart of an ancient dragon and we need it before the celestial alignment on the next winter's solstice, we had best get moving fast", and imho it's far MORE of an impetus to adventure.

This also means that the DM can set lower requirements or more readily obtained materials to make items more readily available.  When instead you ask the DM to ad hoc on cost or time to scale up magic accessibility, they can very easily accidentally misjudge and outright break their own game, forcing difficult conversations as you take away the PC's cool toys.  This is especially reinforced by the seemingly arbitrary and capricious scaling of rarity, which means certain things are WAY more rare than they have any right to be, and certain items of far greater power are far, far more common.  When you can instead say "sure sovereign glue is legendary but that's because it requires dehydrated grey ooze, and wow you got a whole mess of them in the dungeon of the tower you made so you could make buckets of the stuff", and kinda adjust the rarity on a per-item basis, it's less difficult to mess up and easier to fix it if you do, in my opinion.

I'm not a fan of super common magic item crafting, but I respect that everyone finds fun in different ways, and I must agree I find this system makes it wildly impractical for those who Do enjoy it, and doesn't achieve its goals for those who Don't want it to occur as elegantly or in as easily modular of a fashion as it could or imho should.

That I can agree with -- that's how I balance it myself.

Basically if the players do absolutely nothing, I say "sure you can craft it, but it'll take 50 years."

If they ask for a way to speed it up, that's when I bring in the special components and knowledge and so forth.

So the way I use it is as an enabler. "You better go look for these rare components and quest or it'll take forever!"

Xanathar's Guide to Everything has simpler crafting rules (well, shorter time) that incorporates this somewhat, but it still probably is too long. On the other hand it changes the setting a lot if anyone can crank out a legendary item in a few weeks...

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110084Personally I don't think time or cost are the best limiting factors to make it very difficult or impossible for everyone to do at home.  I think better limiting factors, in order, are:

1. Rare components.  If it needs the blood of a unicorn harvested during a full moon, the DM can just make it so they don't encounter unicorns, much less at a full moon, and suddenly it's impossible for them to make.  If the DM wants them to be able to make it, here comes the unicorn prancing around during the full moon.  Such things can also make for Fantastic story arcs, both in finding it, and in dealing with how to get it- do you kill the unicorn and risk the wrath of all denizens of the forest and the nature gods, or do you try to convince it to donate some blood in a non-lethal fashion?  How do you even obtain the blood then, and what must you do in return?

2. Knowledge.  If no one knows how to make them, and it's not just a generally available feat, then it's outright impossible unless they find a rare source of knowledge or someone willing to teach them, and the DM is again in control of that.  It also again opens up quest hooks regarding the obtaining of that knowledge and certainly opens up potential avenues of conflict with those who might want that knowledge once they have it, and what others are willing to do to obtain it.  The only downside with this is it opens up the possibility they Will sell that knowledge or otherwise exploit it once obtained, but there are certainly possibilities for that as well (one time use tomes or scrolls, or knowledge which literally scours itself from your mind upon the completion of the creation) if that is a problem.

3. Situational or environmental constraints.  This has been alluded to in the first entry, but if something must be done on a particular solar or lunar schedule, on a nexus of energy, during an alignment of the planets, so on and so forth, it makes it so that there's certain opportunities to achieve the results which might even be able to be planned for or researched, and can set limitations in that way.

The reason I like those ideas better is because then, if there's some great need, the crafting of items can be done in response to it reasonably.  It's not "Oh, there's some great threat to the world, this orb of annihilation, to have a chance we need a talisman of control, let's start cracking on that and about 54 years from now we'll have a shot".  Or alternately "Well I guess we'll get a whole mess of NPCs that will create the item to save the world.  You can help too if you want and be one of the 10 or 100 people involved, if it's important to you".  Instead, it's "well we need the heart of an ancient dragon and we need it before the celestial alignment on the next winter's solstice, we had best get moving fast", and imho it's far MORE of an impetus to adventure.

This also means that the DM can set lower requirements or more readily obtained materials to make items more readily available.  When instead you ask the DM to ad hoc on cost or time to scale up magic accessibility, they can very easily accidentally misjudge and outright break their own game, forcing difficult conversations as you take away the PC's cool toys.  This is especially reinforced by the seemingly arbitrary and capricious scaling of rarity, which means certain things are WAY more rare than they have any right to be, and certain items of far greater power are far, far more common.  When you can instead say "sure sovereign glue is legendary but that's because it requires dehydrated grey ooze, and wow you got a whole mess of them in the dungeon of the tower you made so you could make buckets of the stuff", and kinda adjust the rarity on a per-item basis, it's less difficult to mess up and easier to fix it if you do, in my opinion.

I'm not a fan of super common magic item crafting, but I respect that everyone finds fun in different ways, and I must agree I find this system makes it wildly impractical for those who Do enjoy it, and doesn't achieve its goals for those who Don't want it to occur as elegantly or in as easily modular of a fashion as it could or imho should.

I agree with much of  this. To make crafting fun, I think rare ingredients are a must - the PCs have to go out and get them. And I like the special timings too, and the example of the winter solstice deadline. I'm not so keen on the finding knowledge bit; I dont mind if the PCs basically do their own research.

Definitely prefer these kinds of approaches to it costs 50 bajillion gold and will take 70 years (don't bother). And I loathe the idea of "let's get 20 sorcerers onto this to make it quicker"... UGGHH.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;1110085T
However, I don't think that you can create a Potion of Healing non-magically, by using an herbalism kit.

Well you can under Xanathar's page 130, where all it takes is herbalism kit proficiency, 25gp and 1 day. I'm not sure if it's explicit anywhere in the PHB or DMG.

BTW re item list, there is one by rarity at http://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/magic-items/

One thing about 5e is it tends to be based on a "make of it what you will" approach, not a 3e style process-based approach. They expect the GM to do what makes sense to the GM. So eg IMC if you want to make a profit crafting items, you are probably doing it on commission with a buyer lined up, and nearly all Uncommon items. You're probably living a Comfortable lifestyle off that. Or, when I read the PHB & DMG on potions of healing, I settled on a wizard-3 or cleric-3 needs 2 days to make 1 for 50gp, but anyone with healer's kit prof can take 10 days to make 1 for 25gp. Xanathar's 25gp & 1 day looks too generous to me since it enables a net profit of 25gp/day for any herbalist with sufficient demand, when the economic system is based around the mundane DMG figures of 2.5gp/day profit.