Creating Magic Items
Recharging & Creating Magical Items
This material (HL86-95 & SM100-115) is generally compatible with the rules for creating magical items presented in the Book of Artifacts; this system is a little simpler but doesn’t give the DM as much control over how difficult items are to make. (add in also HL69, BA107-129, BA130-136)
Requirements
Character Level
Wizards can create potions and scrolls at 9th level. Specialists in the school of Alchemy may brew potions at 6th level, but must use special procedures to do so. They may use the standard procedure after reaching 9th level or continue to use their special process. Geometers (specialists in the wizard school of Geometry) have a special ability to create spell scrolls beginning at 4th level and protection scrolls at 7th level. When a Geometer reaches 9th level, he may instead use the normal scroll creation process if he so desires.
Priests can create scrolls at 7th level and potions at 9th level.
Any spell the character knows (or has access to, in the case of a priest) can be placed on a scroll, or the character may attempt to create a protection scroll.
Both wizards and priests must be at least 11th level to create any kind of magical item other than a potion or a scroll. Wizards are also limited by the spells required to actually create the item (enchant an item, permanency) and any other appropriate spells. Priests, on the other hand, do not cast spells to create items, but instead use a consecrated altar. Warriors and rogues cannot create magical items, even if they have spell-casting ability.
Priests and wizards can use spells on scrolls, stored in items, or cast by other characters to get the spells necessary to create magical items.
Who Can Make Which Items?
No character can make a magical book, libram, manual, tome, or artifact.
Only priests of the indicated race can create racial items, such as boots of elvenkind and girdles of dwarvenkind
Mages can make any other item if they meet the level requirements and have the necessary spells.
Priests and specialist wizards can make only those items that they can use. A cleric, for example, cannot make a magical long sword, unless it is part of that deity’s portfolio. A Transmuter cannot make a wand of fire, which employs evocation magic. Specialist wizards, however, receive a +5% bonus to their success chances when creating items that possess abilities from their school of specialization.
Standard vs. Nonstandard Items
A character isn’t limited to duplicating magical items that appear in the DMG. He can choose to devise completely new magical items, tailored to his own needs and tastes. Some may be simple variants of existing items—for example, there’s no reason a ring of displacement wouldn’t work as well as a cloak of displacement. Other items can incorporate powers never before seen in a magical item. Generally, variant items suffer a –5% penalty to the final success check, and nonstandard items suffer a –10% penalty.
Recharging Magical Items
Items that possess charges, such as most wands or rods, can be recharged. Some item descriptions name the particular class and level of character that can recharge the item. If the description does not specify the level required to recharge then any character that can create the item can recharge it, as long as the character can also cast the highest level spell simulated or cast by the item. Mages can also recharge items usable only by fighters or rogues. For example, the highest level spell incorporated in a wand of fire is wall of fire, a 4th level spell, therefore, if the wizard knows wall of fire, it’s the requirement to enchant an item that is the pressing issue in this case. The spell used to provide a charge must duplicate or nearly duplicate the item’s power. If no spell duplicates the power, the character must research a new spell or cast some combination of spells that resembles the power. If the item has multiple functions, the spell must duplicate the item’s most powerful function. For example, it takes a cone of cold spell to recharge a wand of frost.
If the character can use the appropriate spells, an item can be recharged by simply casting enchant an item and then making a saving throw vs. spell to see if the spell takes. Priests spend a week praying at their consecrated altar to recharge their items. Once the preparatory spell or ceremony is complete, the character has 24 hours to create charges. Each spell used requires its normal casting time (not 2d4 hours per spell level as required by the enchant an item spell). Success is automatic, and the character can place as many (or as few) additional charges into the item as he likes. However, he may never overcharge the item by placing more charges into it than it could have at its maximum. For example, a ring of the ram can hold as many as 10 charges at one time, so it can’t be recharged past that limit.
When the initial enchantment fades, the character can prepare the item again, but every time an item is prepared to receive charges it must save vs. spell at the caster’s level with a –1 penalty. If the save fails, the item falls into useless dust.
Working Space
Add in Castle guide info, and/or chart of size & cost
A wizard needs a laboratory to make magical items. The laboratory must have at least 500 square feet of floor space; more is preferable. Basic furnishings and supplies cost 5,000 gp, and the character must spend an additional 500 gp a month to keep the laboratory properly equipped. Wizards require an alchemical laboratory or a forge to brew potions; require access to any kind of laboratory (alchemical, forge, or research) in order to blend the ink for scrolls; and require a well equipped forge to create other items. A wizard may need to expand his library in order to obtain the texts and tomes needed for research.
A priest must create magical items on an altar specially dedicated to his deity. There is no basic size requirement, although a deity whose portfolio includes magic might impose one. An item to be enchanted must fit on the altar, so it benefits the priest to make the altar as large and sturdy as is practical. The minimum cost for building the altar and properly consecrating it is 2,000 gp. The altar requires no special maintenance, but only the priest who performed the consecration can use the altar to enchant items—no other creature can use it while the priest lives. If the altar is defiled, the priest must consecrate it again. Before consecrating the altar, the priest must please his deity with some extraordinary service connected with the deity’s portfolio or sphere of control. A deity of wisdom, for example, might look favorably upon a priest who writes a book of philosophy or who solves a mystery using superior judgment instead of divination spells.
After the service is complete, the priest must pray and meditate over the altar for one week. The vigil occupies all the character’s waking hours. If interrupted, the vigil must be started over again.
Creating the Item
Every item that is to be imbued with magic must be of the finest quality, specifically created for the purpose of placing enchantments upon it. An item must be created from one or more special materials, each of which must undergo a certain number of special processes. A character creating a sword, for example, must first commission a rare and unusual blade to be crafted. A regular sword from the local smithy cannot become a sword +3 frost brand. Creating a magical item is not a matter of picking up a few household articles and muttering an incantation.
The process chart lists the materials and processes various types of items require. Some of these are more difficult to complete or acquire than others, as explained in the notes to the table. The process chart gives the suggested number of materials and processes each item requires as well as a few suggestions. It is up to the DM to decide exactly what materials and processes are necessary. The character does not automatically know what the requirements are.
Gathering all the necessary materials can take a lot of time. Ideally, the DM should create a series of adventures that allows the character to obtain everything. The character is free to get help from any other character who can be persuaded to join the hunt.
Enchanting the Item
Wizards generally begin with the enchant an item spell to focus their magical energy and then cast additional spells to create the enchantment. If the item has a power that duplicates or closely resembles a known spell, that is the spell cast to create the enchantment. If the item has an effect that does not duplicate a known spell, the wizard must either research a new spell or cast some combination of spells that approximates its effects. The DM must decide which spells are necessary. See the enchant an item spell description and the Notes to Table 23 section for more details. Most items also require a permanency spell to complete the enchantment.
Wizards lose a point of Constitution when casting the permanency spell most magical items require. Priests do not normally suffer this loss, but the DM can rule that the long process that a priest must undertake is so physically taxing that it drains a point of Constitution. This loss applies only to items that would require a permanency spell if a wizard created the item.
Priests do not have the enchant an item spell, and they must petition their deities to instill power into their items. The procedure is described in Chapter 10 of the Dungeon Master Guide.
