Creating Magical Items
No mage will ever gain fame powering up items because there is far more respect for the mastery and skill it takes to create new spells and new magical devices. Certainly no mage will ever impress his peers with a title like Theobard, the Mighty Recharger; better it should be Theobard the Ingenious, Theobard, Master of Thunder and Lightning, or Theobard the Mystic Craftsman. At least these are impressive cognomens that reflect honorably upon the wizard.
Of course, making magical items has a purely practical side, too. What is made can be used, and this is more often the motive for creating magical goods. Most the wizard or priest creates for personal use, but there are reasons to make magical items for others. Many are made to be given as gifts or bribes. The gift of a long sword +2 won't hurt when seeking the local baron's permission to build a wizard's tower or when smoothing over that embarrassing problem when the laboratory explodes in the center of town. Magical items can also be used to pay taxes. In fact, clever kings insist wizards pay in magic. Making magical items for friends and companions is an act of generosity and kindness. It also strengthens the adventuring party, especially since a spellcaster cannot do everything personally.
Of course, a wizard also could do it for money—and some do. (This is unthinkable to a devout priest, except perhaps for those devoted to a deity of wealth or greed.) There are few customers, though, who can pay enough to cover the time, effort, materials, and risk required to create a magical item. A permanent magical item can take months of continuous effort (no adventuring allowed). Worse still (for mages), the permanency spell sucks away life and vitality. Few wizards are willing to drain their own lives for the sake of a few coins. Those who are willing are often driven by pathetic motives. If a wizard needs to raise cash, there are easier and far less debilitating ways to do so.
Ultimately, there is one often overlooked reason for creating magical items—ego. Whether they like it or not, wizards and priests are mortal, and with death their names eventually fade. The few who have escaped the oblivion of time did so by giving their names to wonders of arcane craft. Some, through their spells, are known only to other spellcasters; a satisfying, perhaps, but less than universal recognition. It is only by the creation of wondrous and great magical items that a wizard can hope to achieve true fame. Even the common folk have heard of such devices as Bucknard's everfull purse and Keoghtom's ointment.
Setting Up Shop
Before a spellcaster can even begin making magical items, there are a few prerequisites that must be met. The spellcaster must be of sufficient level and must have a place to work. Without these basic needs fulfilled, it is impossible for the spellcaster to even hope to create any magical item.
Level Requirements
A player cannot simply announce that a PC wizard (or priest) intends to start making magical items. Spellcasters have to attain specific levels before even the most basic fabrication can begin. Lower-level spellcasters are still working at their studies or devotions, gaining the skills, knowledge, and insights needed to master the tricky business of artificing magic. The level requirements are summarized on Table 4: Level Limits for Fabrication.
Once a spellcaster reaches the required level, it is assumed the necessary skills have been gained through research and study to create the listed group of magical items. The character is not limited to known magical items within that group but can try to create any item so long as it falls within that category. For example, Feran, a priest, is now able to make potions. He is not limited to the potions listed in the rule books—he could try to make unique potions, such as a potion of trap finding or an oil of silence. The knowledge of potion brewing immediately allows him to undertake his own experiments.
Of course, merely being of the minimum level is no promise of ability. Most powerful magical items require high-level spells, with the levels needed to cast them well above the minimums required to create items.
Table 4: Level Limits for Fabrication
| Magical Item | Minimum Level Wizard: | Minimum Level Priest: |
|---|---|---|
| Scroll | 9 | 7 |
| Potion | 9 | 9 |
| Other Item | 11 | 11 |
The Wizards Laboratory
Integral to the process of wizardly fabrication of magical items is the mage's laboratory. This is more than a mere workshop. It also must serve at times as a forge, study, distillery, cloister, greenhouse, observatory, incubator, and even prison. Within its walls, the wizard must be able to deal with virtually any contingency, from quelling a rampaging elemental to dissipating the toxic fumes of strange orchids.
A basic laboratory must have at least 500 square feet of floor space—a 25-foot x 20-foot room. It is a good idea to have a larger space so that valuable equipment can be stored well out of the potential blast radius of one's latest experiment. It is best if the furnishings are simple (several large tables, bookcases, cupboards, chairs and stools) and sturdy; wizards have a way of spilling caustic fluids or starting accidental fires. A small furnace of some sort is absolutely necessary, as many preparations require rare elements to be melted and mixed with other exotic ingredients. Any wizard who plans to make magical weaponry or armor had best install a forge where these larger items can be heated and hammered. It is possible to do this work in a blacksmith's shop, if the smith can be convinced to give up his shop for weeks at a time.
With all the heat, fumes, and smoke, ventilation is important. The easiest solution is to have several large open windows. If these are well-placed, they can serve as a simple observatory, too. Celestial sightings are important to many arcane processes, a fact that helps to explain the tendency of wizards to build their laboratories in towers.
Most wizards must assemble sizable libraries (books of calculations, formulae, celestial movements, herbals, and more), and it is common to sequester these in a safe corner of the laboratory, far from flame and possible explosion. Well-to-do wizards may keep a separate library to lessen the risk, but they must still consult books in the midst of their work. At least one small bookcase is handy.
Finally, there is always the need for a large, clear floor space. Elementals must be summoned and diagrams drawn. These take space, and doing them in the laboratory attracts less attention than working on the front stoop.
A room and its furnishings are not all that the wizard needs. There are a large number of smaller tools and devices necessary to complete the laboratory. Each must be made with careful precision by skilled craftsmen, often using rare or unusual materials. The minimum cost of outfitting a laboratory is 2,000 gp (for potions only) or 5,000 gp for a complete set-up. There is no point in spending any less, for the character will always discover some vital piece of equipment is missing, even if it is only used it once and then stuck on a shelf to gather dust. This cost pays for beakers, retorts, distilling coils, copper kettles, alembics, scales, weights, mortars, crucibles, herbs, armillary spheres, tongs, ladles, bottles, charts, rare earths, exotic waxes, candles, aromatic oils, chalks, and more. Once these goods are obtained, the wizard must pay 10% of the original cost every month just to maintain and replace tools and basic materials.
The Priest's Altar
Compared to wizards, the needs of priests are far simpler, a point most priests make with pride. Their efforts, unencumbered by needless paraphernalia, highlight the divine superiority of priestly power. They do not need to mix, distill, or transmute magical power; prayers and devotion are sufficient.
Jealous wizards claim that priests are bound by needs even more rigid than their own researches. Where wizards can blend, distill, and experiment, priests must perform ceremonies involving elaborate trappings and rigid rituals to achieve the same effect. The truth is that neither group is as free as they claim or as hide-bound as the other believees.
Before magical items can be created, a priest must first prepare a specially consecrated altar to the appropriate deity. It must be prepared by the same priest who will later use it—one priest cannot "borrow" the altar of another (and especially not one of another faith!) to make magical items. Size and space are only important in their relation to the deity's needs. Feronelle, a priestess of a god of knowledge, could create a personal altar in the small library of her house. Talafar, a druid, needs to build his in at least a garden, if not deep in the woods themselves.
The first step in preparing an altar is selecting an appropriate site. The altar can always be part of a larger temple or the priest can step up a personal altar elsewhere. This might be a chapel in the keep, a grove in the deep woods, or even a small table in one's study. For these personal altars, the location must reflect the nature of the deity. Suggested locations are given on Table 5: Deities' Altars. Others can be devised by the DM or proposed by characters.
Table 5: Deities Altars
| Area of Control | Suggested Altar |
|---|---|
| Age, time | Clock tower, sundial |
| Agriculture | Field, orchard, barn |
| Air | Rooftop |
| Beauty | Bath |
| Chaos | Moveable |
| Children | Nursery, orphanage |
| Cold | Glacier, snowfield |
| Courage | Arena |
| Craft | Workshop |
| Creation | Field, spring |
| Death, destruction | Graveyard, battlefield |
| Disease | Swamp |
| Earth | Cave |
| Fate, fortune | Gambling den |
| Fire, heat | Smithy, fire pit |
| Food, hearth, home | Kitchen |
| Friendship | Tavern |
| Healing | Sickroom |
| Heavens, night | Observatory |
| Hunt | Forest |
| Justice | Prison |
| Love | Garden |
| Madness | Wasteland |
| Magic | Wizard's laboratory |
| Mercy | Almshouse |
| Morning | Facing east |
| Nature | Grove |
| Oceans | Ship |
| Order | Royal court |
| Pain | Torture chamber |
| Poetry, writing, music | Library, theater |
| Prophesy | Library |
| Protection | Fortified tower |
| Royalty | Palace |
| Sun, light | Open to the sky |
| Thieves, deception | Thieves' guild |
| Trade, contracts | Marketplace |
| Travel | Gates |
| Truth | Maze |
| Vengeance | Crossroads |
| Vice | Den of iniquity |
| War | Armory, castle |
| Wealth | Counting house, mint |
| Weather | Open to the sky |
| Wine | Vineyard |
| Wisdom | Library |
| Women | Nunnery |
The suggested altars are not always specific sites. Some only require that a condition be met, such as the priest of a morning deity setting an altar at an eastern window. Others require sites not likely to be found in a typical priest's dwelling. The priest of a vengeful god is going to have to make special arrangements to have an altar at a crossroads (an ill-omened location). Sometimes arrangements can be made with owners or officials—the followers of gods of justice are allowed to maintain altars at local prisons in exchange for their help and services, for example. Owners of gambling dens are usually willing to rent out a small alcove that a priest can dedicate to the goddess of fortune. (Of course, the owner might become upset if the deity is too generous in answering her petitioner's pleas.)
Whatever the site is, it does not have to be extraordinary. Any serviceable location that meets the requirements should do. Still, a choice location certainly reflects well on the priest.
The site must be specially consecrated before it can be used. This requires exacting rituals to invoke the deity's attention. While the rituals vary depending on the deity beseeched, all require the expenditure of at least 2,000 gp. This money is spent on materials needed for the ceremony—special vestments, candles, chalices, and the like. The necessary rituals take at least one week to perform. During these rituals the priest cannot be called away to other duties. At the end of each week, a check is made to see if the power's favor is gained. The chance of success is a percentage equal to 5 times the character's level, plus an additional 5 for every consecutive week spent in prayer. A 7th level priest who spends 5 weeks in devotion would have a 60% chance of success [(7 x 5) + (5 x 5) = 60]. The priest automatically knows when these prayers have been heard.
Even after the prayers, the consecration is not complete. The deity's attention has been gained, but the priest's devotion must now be proven. The priest must surrender something of value or perform a special quest, whichever is demanded by the deity. The DM decides what must be given up or what quest will be undertaken. Effort should be taken to match the demand to the nature of the power. A healing goddess might require the priest to go among the poor and heal one hundred of the sick. A war god might instruct his priestess to go to the court and chastise the king for cowardice. A god of wealth might ask for the character's gem of flawlessness (assuming the character has one). Only after this demand has been met is the altar finished.
Once the altar has been consecrated, it remains so unless it is defiled or the priest who created it dies. Just what might cause defilement is left to the DM's discretion. (Holy symbols of a rival deity are quite likely to be effective in this case.) The altar has an aura of the deity's blessing that functions as a permanent bless spell with a radius of 10 feet. This only benefits priests and devout worshippers of the deity, however. This aura can be temporarily broken by a dispel magic spell.
Approval
The last prerequisite of making any magical item applies to the player, not the player character. Before a player character can begin work on any device, the player must have the DM's approval. The item, with all its powers and limitations, must be described to the DM, preferably in writing. This gives the DM a chance to consider the item's effects and make adjustments if needed. Furthermore, it gives the DM a chance to figure out what the PC must do to create the desired item.
Players seeking approval for an item must remember that the DM has the right to say yea or nay. The DM can ask for changes in the name of play balance or fun and can outright veto the project as being too powerful. DMs considering player requests should remember to be flexible. Look for ways to accommodate the player's desires without ruining the campaign. Be cooperative, not antagonistic. Offer improvements and refinements to make the item better.
Standard vx. Nonstandard Magical Items
Whenever a character wants to create an item, the DM must determine if the item is standard, nonstandard, or semistandard. This classification is important to the creation process since it will affect the time, resources, and difficulty needed to create a magical device.
Standard items are those already known in the campaign world. Normally this includes all magical items described in the DUNGEON MASTER'" Guide and the Tome of Magic, but the DM can rule that seldom-found devices fall under the nonstandard classification. Standard devices also include simple variations on an existing item. A ring of magic missiles that functions just like a wand of magic missiles can be classed as a standard item. Since the effects of standard items are already well known in most games, there is little difficulty in approving these. In these cases, the DM needs to decide just how the item is made, not whether it is balanced. A standard magical item is also somewhat easier to make than a unique item, since there exist formulae and texts to advise the player character on the needed procedures.
Nonstandard items lie at the other end of the scale. These are typically original items, magical devices that have no counterpart in any of the rule books. Items that deviate greatly from the standard description are also nonstandard. For example, a wand of frost that gains charges by absorbing spell levels (like a staff of power) is a nonstandard item. The DM can also rule that seldom-discovered magical items are nonstandard, such as the iron bands of Bilarro. The DM should consider these items carefully, since their powers may have unforeseen consequences on the campaign. For the player character, nonstandard items are harder to make since there are no guides or formula books to help the character. In this case the character is working in a void.
In a few instances, the DM can position an item between standard and nonstandard. The item is very similar to a standard item, but has enough differences to make it questionable. It is perfectly legitimate to classify such items as neither fish nor fowl but somewhere in between. For convenience, such items are termed semistandard. A wand of disbelief—one that affects illusions similar to a wand of negation's effect on other wands—could be classed as a semistandard item. It would function in the same manner, but has enough differences that it cannot be called standard. For the character, there may be texts that help with the work, but only some of it. The rest must be discovered by the spellcaster.
Difficulty Ratings
Making a magical item is not an easy task. While most players and DMs know this, there is always a question of just how difficult it is. How much time and effort should a player character spend to create a potion of fire resistance? Is creating a short sword +1 harder than making a ring of spell storing?
To help the DM answer these questions, every magical item can be assigned a difficulty rating, a number that measures the comparative effort needed to create that device. A potion of fire resistance has a lower difficulty rating than a ring of spell storing. A scroll with one spell has an even lower difficulty rating.
The difficulty rating is used to fix the amount of time needed to create the magical item, the cost of the components, and the chance that the item will be successfully created. Items with high difficulty ratings take longer to make, cost more, and, when all is said and done, are more likely to result in failure. On the plus side, items with high difficulty ratings are usually quite potent, as befits the powerful forces needed to bind the magic together.
The difficulty rating of an item is based on many factors, including the number of times the item can be used, how many spells must be used to create it, what processes must be followed to make the item, and whether the item is standard or nonstandard. Every factor is assigned a numerical rating or multiplier, and by totaling these, the item's difficulty rating is calculated.
Number of Uses
All magical items can be divided into five categories of use: single-use, limited-use, rechargeable, permanent, and multiple-use items. These classifications progressively increase the difficulty rating of the item.
Single-use is just what it says—the device is consumed the instant it is used. Lacking any permanence once their stored magic is activated, these items tend to be the least difficult to make.
Limited-use items are those that can be activated several times or are simply created in a larger quantity, thus allowing several applications. This increases the difficulty over a single-use item, but since the item is eventually consumed, it falls below the rechargeable category.
Rechargeable items are those that can be used more than once and can have power restored to them. While these items technically have a fixed number of uses, recharging can make them near-permanent. Thus, they are more difficult to make than disposable items, but not as hard as truly permanent devices.
Permanent items are those that have constant magic, usable over and over again. Such items are hard to make, not only because of their difficulty ratings (which tend be quite high), but also because of the need for permanency spells to bind the magic.
The most difficult items of all tend to be multiple-use items. These are devices that combine several different categories of use. A rod of terror is both a +2 weapon (permanent use) and is a non-rechargeable device (limited-use). The rod's difficulty would be increased by both usages, making it even more difficult to create than either a permanent or limited-use item.
Examples of Use
Single-Use Items
- Potion of flying
- Oil of disenchantment
- Scroll with one spell
- Scroll of protection from cold
- Rod of cancellation
- One bean from a bag of beans
- One pinch of dust of dryness
Limited-Use Items
- Potion of extra-healing
- Scroll with several spells
- Any ring of wishes
- Rod of resurrection
- Wand of negation
- Gem of brightness
- Necklace of missiles
Rechargeable Items
- See Appendix A
Permanent Items
- Ring of chameleon power
- Staff-mace
- Ring of chameleon power
- Cloak of the bat
- Sword +1
Multiple-Use Items
- Rod of smiting
- Rod of terror
- Beaker of plentiful potions
- Deck of many things
Spells
Another factor that affects the difficulty of an item is the spells needed to create it. Every spell cast, whether it be the intended final magic or merely part of the process to shape and contain that magic, increases the difficulty of the spell.
The difficulty factor of a spell has nothing to do with any other requirements the spell might pose. In this respect, a magic missile is just as difficult as the enchant an item spell, although the latter is a far more taxing and time-consuming spell for the wizard to cast. Casting times, material components, and the like must still be followed for the spell to work.
Materials and Procedures
The construction of every magical item requires physical materials and processes, be they hand-forging exotic steel into a blade, distilling an infusion of herbs and fluids for a potion, weaving spider silk into cloth, or whatever. The steps required to make a magical item also increase the difficulty because there are more chances for something to go wrong— and affec t the materials needed—in the process.
In certain instances, processes sometimes manage to create more processes, thus increasing the item's overall difficulty. To make a long sword +3 frost brand, the DM decides the wizard needs to mix an alloy of steel and powdered remorhaz blood, hand-forge the blade in a 1,000-fold technique, quench it in polar snow, and etch magical runes into the surface before casting the spells. However, these procedures in turn make new difficulties, for the steel must be heated in a forge filled with ice that burns and then hammered on an anvil carved from glacial ice.
The number of processes needed is calculated from the difficulty factors as explained in Calculating Item Difficulty, below. The Item Particulars section lists suggestions for materials needed to make an item and steps a player character might have to perform.
Calculating Item Difficulties
Using the categories described above, the DM can calculate the difficulty rating of any item. This is the DM's task—it is not the purview of the player. Players can give a suggested difficulty rating when they describe the item (and many DMs will appreciate this thoughtfulness), but the DM has the final say on the matter.
The first step is for the DM to decide what spells are needed to create the item. This should include those spells necessary to prepare the item, create the magical effect, contain that effect, and every spell used to create a charge. (Because each spell adds one point to the difficulty, spellcasters often make wands and other charged items with a minimum number of charges and then later add more through the less demanding recharging process.) Each spell used is 1 point of difficulty, regardless of spell level.
To this is added the difficulty factor for the usage of the item, as listed on Table 6: Usage Ratings. If the item is a multiple-use device, the factors of all usages that apply are added together. The usage difficulty is added to the current total from spells.
Table 6: Usage Ratings
| Usage | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Single Use | 2 |
| Limited Use | 3 |
| Rechargeable | 5 |
| Permanent | 10 |
Finally, if the item is nonstandard, the total is multiplied by 2. If it is semistandard, the difficulty increases by 10 or is multiplied by 2, whichever is less. There is no multiplier or increase in difficulty for standard items.
This total is the base value for creating the item, which determines the special materials and processes that must be used to make the magical item. Dividing the base value by 10 (fractions rounded up) determines the number of special processes that must be taken to prepare the item before any spells are cast.
These processes add to the difficulty factor of the item. Each step adds 1 point to the item's difficulty rating. In rare instances, this can create more processes, if the difficulty increases to the next decimal order. When this happens, it means the spellcaster must do another process, usually on the materials, to ready them for the final shaping.
For example, a wizard wants to create a ring of spell storing. The DM decides that the following spells must be cast: contingency and Tenser's transformation (since wizards lack the priest's imbue with spell ability spell), along with enchant an item, permanency, and the four spells that the ring will store. The difficulty from spells, then, is 8. Since the item is rechargeable, the usage difficulty is 5, but the item is standard, so no modifier is applied for this. The item's base difficulty is 13. Two special processes are required and each process adds 1 to the total difficulty rating, for a final difficulty score of 15.
But what if the player had proposed a ring of spell storing that absorbed matching spells cast at it? For spells, the DM might add steal enchantment to those already listed, making the difficulty rating from spells now 9. The item is still technically rechargeable, so the DM does not change the usage and the total becomes 14, but it is clearly not a standard magical item. Since the player specifies that the ring can only absorb an opponent's spells of the same type that it can cast, the DM decides it is a semi-standard item. Since adding 10 is less than doubling, the base difficulty is now 24. Three special process (24/10 = 2.4, rounded up to 3) are needed and the item's final difficulty is 27.
Wizard Specialists
Because they devote themselves to a particular field of magic, wizard specialists gain a +5 bonus to success checks for making magical items within their field, i.e., those magical items that duplicate the spells of their school. Of course, specialists cannot create magical items that duplicate the powers of opposition schools.
Magical Materials
One condition that changes with every magical item is the list of materials the player character must use to make the item. A wizard cannot make a bastard sword +2 with an ordinary blade. The vessel for this magic must be special or the magic won't take. Part of the DM's job is to choose a list of materials the player character must assemble.
The first question, of course, is how many items should the player character be required to get? Too few will make the task too easy, and too many will make the player frustrated and unhappy with the DM. In general, the number of separate components should reflect the complexity of the task. Therefore, as a guideline, one special material is required for every 5 points of the final difficulty, rounding fractions up. For the ring of spell storing in the example above, three different materials would need to be shaped into the ring before it was ready. The more difficult modified ring would need six special materials.
Knowing how many things are needed does not answer the question of what they should be. What is needed to create a magical ring? Since this is magic, it could be anything, purely and simply. However, it is best for the atmosphere of the game when these components at least seem logical. In making a ring of water walking, it hardly makes sense for the wizard to gather a gold ring, five cockatrice feathers, a pinch of vampire dust, a piece of glacial ice, and a hair from a living hill giant. What do these things have to do with walking on water? It would be far better if the character needed a silver ring, a piece of sea-green turquoise, the scale of a flying fish, some water touched by a giant water strider, and the skin of a water snake. These items at least have some relation to the desired effect—silver for the foamy waves, turquoise for the color of the water, and so on. The guidelines below will help in preparing necessary lists.
- The total value of the materials needed should be equal to 100-1,000 gp x the difficulty rating.
- Choose some items based on the property of contagion. This means that anything that was once part of or touched by a thing retains some of the properties or connections to that thing. The scale from a medusa's snaky hair might be needed to create a potion of flesh to stone. The medusa has the power to turn men to stone, therefore her scale would magically contain some of that power.
- Choose other items based on the property of similarity. Here, items that look alike in form or have similar properties are magically connected. A ground diamond might be needed to make dust of stoneskin. Diamonds are hard, just as flesh transformed by the spell is hard.
- Choose some items that are perishable. This prevents the spellcaster from just stockpiling magical ingredients for later use.
- Select the items with adventuring in mind. A character needs element X to make her magical ring. Far better to send her and her friends off on a daring search for element X than to let her find it at the market.
- For particularly difficult items, choose at least one item that is inherently impossible or nonexistent. Then, do not explain how to get it. The player character must discover a means to collect the impossible item. Most often this will require a special spell to bring about the results. A periapt of proof against poison could call for a gem hatched from a poisonous snake's egg. Clever wizards might look for a way to polymorph the unhatched insides of the egg, thus fulfilling the condition.
When choosing these materials, there are two other caveats to bear in mind, both more complicated than simple guidelines. These problems could be called butcher shop mentality and magic supermarkets.
Butcher Shop Mentality. It is easy, from the guidelines above—particularly the laws of contagion and similarity—to justify the body parts of nearly every monster as useful for magical item creation. Making a scroll of stone to flesh? A cockatrice feather quill would be quite handy. Forging armor of etherealness? Where did I put that jar of phase spider blood? This kind of butcher's bill could go on and on.
Some of this is certainly appropriate. After all, tracking down and slaying a rare and fearsome monster in order to complete a magical item is not a bad reason to adventure. When player characters start treating monsters as things to be skinned, bottled, pickled, and plucked, then there is a problem; the DM has let the situation get out of hand. At this point, adventuring is a euphemism; "harvesting" is a better, if more callous, description for what the player characters do.
There are several ways to prevent this attitude from taking root. First, the DM should vary the types of materials spellcasters will need, so that not all are plucked or drained from living things. A stone to flesh scroll might need a chip from a sculptor's waste pile. Armor of etherealness could be made just as well with a bottle of ethereal air taken from that plane. By building a variety of material needs, players (and their characters) are never certain of what is necessary and what is not.
Of course, there are those who will still solve this question by taking tissue samples of everything in sight. It might be useful and it might not, but the character is prepared. If it becomes necessary to foil these characters, make the materials needed things the adventurer cannot, or should not, kill—a hair plucked from the beard of Zylos the dwarven king, or a red dragon's scale, freely given. Placing conditions on the materials ("freely given," "plucked by a virtuous maiden," "by the light of the moon," etc.) renders randomly gathered materials all but useless.
Magic Supermarkets. Another thing to avoid in a campaign world are magic shops— either places that sell finished magical items or those that sell magical supplies. The reason to avoid the first is relatively obvious: If characters can buy the magical items they need, why make them? This effectively kills a whole source of potential adventures, not something that helps build a colorful and interesting campaign.
What is the harm of stores that just sell the materials—eye of firedrake or vampire grave mold? Again, if a character can buy eye of firedrake, there's no need to adventure for it. The minute a player character decides to make a magical item, the DM has a starting point for a whole host of adventures, which is what the game is all about. Why give these up?
Besides, grocery shopping for magical supplies is not exactly a medieval concept. Grocery and general stores stocked with everyday goods would be a foreign idea to a medieval knight. Instead he would rely on local craftsmen, farmers, peddlers, market fairs, and a handful of merchant importers. Supplies would be haphazard, making it impossible to buy things "off the shelf."
Consider what a freeman in a small village has to go through just to make sausages. He can't go to the grocery store and buy a pound of sausages or even a pound of meat because there isn't a grocery store. First he has to raise a pig and fatten it up. He and his kin have to butcher the pig, dress it out, grind the meat, prepare the casings, pick the herbs for the seasoning, stuff the sausages, and smoke or salt them for storage. Since sausage is in a lot more demand than esoteric materials, the spellcaster's job cannot be the easier one! Allowing characters to find everything in stores isn't fantasy adventuring, it's going to the mall in funny robes.
Ultimately, creating a magical item should be an intimate and personal experience for the spellcaster. The player character needs to be involved in every step of the process, from finding just the right ash-wood rod to casting the last spell that binds it all together. Getting the items does not have to be difficult, but the player character should have to make some effort for every piece. Perhaps only coal from that strange outcropping in the hills and tin from the local mines are needed, but the PC has to get each item separately. There is no one place that has everything that is wanted.
The materials needed to create the item obviously vary quite a bit. Potions and swords are vastly different things; even potions of water breathing and fire resistance would hardly use the same goods. Suggested components, based on difficulty rating, are found in the sections appropriate to each magical item.
Success and Failure
Even if all the materials, steps, and spells are gathered, performed, and applied, success is not guaranteed. There are many chances along the way for the character to make some small, virtually unnoticeable error—a line drawn badly here, a syllable mispronounced there. Therefore, after the character has completed everything, the DM secretly rolls percentile dice to see if the spellcaster's efforts were successful.
For every item, the chance of success starts with a base value. This value varies according to the item made and the character's class. Whatever the number, it is improved by adding the character's level and worsened by subtracting the item's difficulty rating. In some cases there may be additional bonuses or penalties, either as explained under Item Particulars or as set by the DM. After the final number is figured, the roll must be equal to or less than it to succeed. Otherwise, the whole process is a failure.
With most failures, all that is left is a lump or puddle of inert, nonmagical material charged with crude energies that render the item useless. The materials used to create the item a spoiled and cannot be refashioned for another try. The spellcaster must start over from scratch.
Should the die roll be 96 or greater, the spellcaster has not just failed, but has accidentally perverted and twisted the process to create a cursed magical item. The magic is there, but now it works in detrimental ways. An intended long sword +1 becomes a long sword -1, a bag of devouring is created instead of a bag of holding, and so forth. When a cursed item is created, the item detects as magical and the spellcaster has no idea that there are any flaws. Only by using the device does the error become apparent.
Item Particulars
The range and nature of magical items are such that each has its own special needs and requirements. These include varying amounts of research time, materials, processes, and even chances of success. The sections that follow present rules and guidelines for the general classes of magical items. Some of this appears in the DUNGEON MASTER'S Guide under Treasure and Magical Items; it is restated here for clarity and convenience. In instances where the rules differ, those given here should take precedence.
In most cases, the information applies equally to both wizards and priests, particularly in relation to materials. However, the methods for creating the same item may vary substantially from one class to the other. Each section presents general information first, followed by any special notes that apply to only one character class.
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