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Introduction:

It has always been my goal, with regard to the World of Therra, that magic retain some of the exoticism and mystery associated with such games as Runequest and avoid the overt magic-as-commodity feeling that many D&D worlds have, especially, for example, worlds like The Forgotten Realms.

While there is certainly nothing inherently "wrong" about a world like Toril where even lowly fighters walk around with +1 longswords and people talk about "AN apparatus of Kwalish" as opposed to "THE apparatus of Kwalish", there are some inherent disadvantages. First, since D&D basically puts an upper limit of +5 on most magic items, the more common you make magic items of +1 to +3 the less valuable a +5 weapon seems. Second, at higher levels, the player characters get to a point where they view even powerful magic items as junk. Statements like "Oh…what…another +3 longsword? Ho hum!" are not unheard of in Forgotten Realms campaigns.

It has been my goal to ensure that magic never becomes a commodity and remains a thing that is both precious and a little bit mysterious.

An Economic View of Magic:

As a person of finance and an accounting major in college, I tend to take an economic view of things. I certainly do with magic. In Therra, the availability of magic must make sense economically.

There are basically two forms of magic in D&D. The first, temporary items, includes potions, scrolls, wands, and any other magic item that gets used up eventually. Temporary magic items present much less of an economic problem than do permanent magic items because they don't tend to accumulate in vast numbers over long periods of time.

Permanent magic items present the main economic problem with magic items. In 2nd edition AD&D permanent magic items were far too common given the onerous requirements to craft them. To make a +1 longsword in 2nd edition required Enchant an Item and Permanency. That meant you had to be an 16th level wizard and lose a point of CON! All for a +1 sword? And given that you basically had to go through the same process to make a +5 sword, there was no rational explanation why anyone would ever craft a low powered permanent magic item in 2nd edition. If an 16th level wizard is going to lose a CON, then by the gods it had better be a really good sword! Further, why use a Permanency and Enchant an Item spell to get a +1 sword when you could probably simply use only the Wish spell and just wish for a +1 sword?

Temporary items were little better. While potions and scrolls could be made by 7th level wizards with no onerous requirements beyond the too high level requirement, wands and charged items still needed Enchant an Item, which meant you had to be a 12th level wizard. All that for a Wand of Magic Missiles?

So, in 2nd edition, unless you could somehow justify an ancient era where 16th level elven wizards were everywhere, you couldn't even justify most magic items being made except for potions and scrolls. For this reason, in my 2nd edition campaign, I actually lowered the level requirements and removed the spell requirements.

Now, along comes 3rd edition, and they seem to have corrected the problem of 2nd edition item creation. Boy have they! Too much if you ask me. Now, suddenly, the creation of a +1 longsword goes from needing an 16th level wizard and 1 Con to a 5th level wizard and 2 days. A potion goes from a 7th level wizard and weeks to any level wizard and 1 day.

So while in the world of 2nd edition there would be almost no magic items at all, the world of 3rd edition would make them much too common.

Let's look at the issue of a 5th level wizard with the feats Brew Potion and Craft Magic Arms and Armour. This guy gets his hands on 375 gold pieces. He knows the Haste spell. So he decides to go into business. Working 200 days a year (far less than a 5 day work week) he brews 200 Haste Potions. He sells each one of these, netting a 100% profit of 375 gp per potion or 75,000 gp per year. He then takes those 75,000 gp and decides to craft 29 longswords +1. The cost in materials is 38,135 gp and it takes 58 days, effectively filling in the remainder of his 5 day work weeks for the year. At the end he has 29 magic swords which sell for 67,135 gp.

Under 3rd edition economics, any 5th level wizard who works a normal 5 days per week will earn an income of 104,000 gp per year. Needless to say, this is broken.

But that's only the beginning. You now also have 29 longswords +1 out in the marketplace. Assume Therra is a very low magic world. There are only 100 wizards of 5th level or greater in each nation, and 20 nations in Therra. That's potentially 2000 wizards each churning out 29 longswords and 200 Haste potions per year. That comes to 58,000 longswords +1 per year and 400,000 Haste potions per year. Now…in and of itself that's a lot of Haste potions. But at least they are consumables! Those +1 magic swords aren't going anywhere. Especially in 3rd edition where it is much harder to lose magic items. Therra has a 5,000 year history. Even assuming 50% attrition rate, that'd be, as of the date of the Riverine Campaign 142.5 million longswords +1 in the world. Yep. That's right. The economics of 3rd edition magic basically state that every man, woman, and child gets a +1 weapon (and a couple of Haste potions)!

And remember, that's with a VERY conservative estimate of the number of wizards, the ignorance of the fact that other classes can forge magic items, and the assumption that half of them are destroyed.

Now, what would actually happen, of course, is that supply would quickly outstrip demand, and the 100% profit margin would be undercut. You would eventually end up with wizards making a normal profit on these magic items, which is fine, but you would end up also with cheap and plentiful magic items in every shop on every street corner. Magic items as fast food. Magic as a commodity. Not good.

The Solution:

The solution is to make magic item creation more of a ritual. This accomplishes two things: 1) it keeps the creation of magic items exotic and mysterious, and 2) it limits their influx into the game. I have no problem with party wizards crafting magic items for personal use of the party. I DO have a problem with: 1) the party being able to get powerful permanent magic items much more readily by staying at home than by adventuring, and 2) the party trying to start a magic selling business.

Can you sell your magic items? Yes. But the process should be much more akin to a great painter selling a painting than a clerk selling hammers at a hardware store. Selling a magic item should be about selling the blood, sweat, and tears of the wizard who made it…the work of an artist. Obviously, temporary items should be less so, and permanent more so.

In the end, I personally felt that the level of magic in my 2nd edition campaign was good. Certainly, by the end of the campaign, the party did not want for magic items. A glance at the character sheets can show that…and several of those characters had been stripped of magic by Dispels and failed saving throws. Everyone had a plethora of potions and scrolls and so many wands that many of them went unused. And the characters had enough permanent magic items to make each character interesting and with neat choices as to what to use in a given situation. But, at the same time, you had a party of 14th level characters who would have killed for a nice +2 suit of banded mail. No one was tossing magic aside or being blasé about it. That is exactly the balance I wanted to strike. And I want to try for about the same level in 3rd edition.

Magic Creation in 3rd Edition Therra:

Players are ENCOURAGED to pursue magic creation in the 3rd edition campaign. But such efforts should be invariably directed towards equipping fellow party members. Any attempts to mass produce and sell magic will invariably cause me to close whatever rule loophole is allowing it, so players should simply avoid trying.

Even 1st level characters should feel free to brew a couple of potions or scribe a few scrolls. You will not be able to spend 12 days, 24 XP, and 300 gp and expect to walk out with 12 potions however. Time will move much more quickly in this campaign, and as such, the player characters will have far more down time to craft things between adventures, and I do not want the PCs marching into every adventure with 50 Cure Light Wounds potions.

In addition, the inclusion of exotic components is a great vehicle, in and of themselves, to spur scenarios and adventures. Need the yolk from a giant eagle egg to make a Potion of Flying? Great! There's an adventure. Travel to the Aynayjor Mountains, deal with wandering monsters and perhaps surly dwarves. Climb a peak and wrest the eggs from the clutches of the mother eagle.

So, here are the actual rules for Item Creation in Therra:

General:

All magic items require the same level, spells, gold and XP cost as listed in the rules. There is no set standard selling price for magic items since they are not sold enough to form a commodity basis and to set prices. A magic item will sell for whatever it can be sold for and depend on the local wealth of the neighbourhood and the need for the magic being sold.

Potions:

All potions require a recipe. Such recipes always have at least one exotic ingredient in them that reflects the nature of the brew. As an example, a Potion of Flying recipe might require the yolk from an egg of a giant eagle. Most exotic ingredients cannot be purchased or acquired from stock sources. They must be acquired from their natural state. Thus, one should not expect to find, even in the largest of cities, someone selling giant eagle eggs. Any circumstances where such a thing is buyable should be regarded as a rare and fortunate happenstance. Most potions require one such exotic item. Higher level potions can require more powerful and rare ingredients. By higher level is meant a potion with a higher level spell in it. Exotic ingredient requirements do not vary by the level of the caster.

Potion recipes vary incredibly even for the same potion. One recipe for a Potion of Flying might call for the giant eagle egg, but another might need the scale from a dragon or perhaps the blood of a pixie. Often, with body parts, evil recipes specify parts from good creatures and vice versa.

Potions also require a laboratory and usually other ingredients that can be purchased in large cities but are not usually simply at hand. Such items include chemicals, reagents, catalysts, powders, etc.

The recipes then usually require at least 1 week to brew. In general, potions take 1 week per spell level to brew. This means a 3rd level spell potion takes 3 weeks to brew. Please note that taking 3 weeks does not mean the maker is stuck for 3 weeks. In many cases the brew must set for weeks at a time and can be unattended. The actual raw commitment is generally half the time required to make it.

Example:

Fedaric sees that the party has only 1 cleric and worries about his own health on dangerous adventures. So he determines, with 2 weeks available to him, to brew some potions. Using Curinax' laboratory, he wishes to brew a Protection from Evil potion and a Mage Armour potion, both at 1st level of casting. He spends 4 XP and 50gp for materials and gets to work. The Mage Armour potion recipe in Curinax' library specifies a rune covered and polished tortoise shell of unblemished quality, ground up into a powder. The Protection from Evil potion recipe specifies a bit of blood of an evil outsider. Fedaric has a bit of both. He starts both potions. Each takes 1 week and since the raw time commitment of a potion is half its completion time, he can start one, and then halfway through, start another. This means in 1.5 weeks Fedaric will have a Potion of Protection from Evil and a Potion of Mage Armour. As the amount of each exotic ingredient required is fairly small, the single tortoise shell and the blood from a single evi outsider will provide material for many more such potions (perhaps 20 or so).

By this system, a dedicated potion brewer should be able to possibly brew 2-3 potions for the party between adventures.

Scrolls:

Scrolls work exactly as in D&D 3.5.

Wands:

Wands are fairly ubiquitous in Therra. In 3rd edition wands cannot be recharged.

Wands require an exotic ingredient related to their power. This is usually needed in more quantity than with a potion and the power of the spell being placed into the wand determines the power needed for the exotic ingredient. Wand creation involves specific directions (a recipe, if you will) and the creation of one wand may vary from recipe to recipe. In general, the actual form of the wand often must correspond to the wand's function. Thus a Wand of Fireballs might need to be fashioned from volcanic crystal or some such. Generally, the exotic ingredient required to make a wand involves its structure. Only rarely may a wand be of any form desired, in which case the exotic ingredient would then be put inside the wand or perhaps the wand bathed in the ingredient.

Wands generally take 7 times longer to craft than in standard 3rd edition. This means many wands may take upwards of 7-12 weeks to craft. While that is indeed a long time, consider that for that cost you are getting 50 casts of a decent level spell to bring with you. The minimum craft time for any wand is 1 week.

Staves:

Staves are less common than wands, but they are still, as temporary magic items, somewhat more prevalent in Therra than are permanent items. Staves generally require several exotic components, usually combining exotic structural components for the actual making of the staff, and components to be infused into the making process. If a staff has multiple powers that are not closely related, then separate sets of exotic components might be needed.

Staff creation generally takes 7 times longer to craft than in standard 3rd edition. The minimum craft time for any staff is 1 week.

Other Items with Charges:

Making other items with charges is possible. Any item that is one-use or has charges and cannot be recharged may generally be made as per the 3rd edition rules with a time factor of 7 times longer than in the rules and with a 1 week minimum. This also holds true for charged magic weapons and armour. For example, you could design a Large Steel Shield that gives no bonuses to AC but the wielder can cast a Shield spell out of it. Such an item would essentially be a "wand" and would involve primarily the same concepts as creation of a wand or staff and would have 50 charges. An item that is one use can essentially approach potions in its creation process.

Other Similar Items:

There are a variety of other items for other classes that duplicate the above temporary magic items. For example, Druidic infusions mimic scrolls. In these cases, the creation rules will tend towards whichever of the above items most duplicates the functionality of the item being crafted.

Permanent Magic Items:

More than anything, these items involve a considerable effort on the part of the crafter to create. The process of infusing powers into an object permanently basically involves inundating the item with forces of potency with a duration and intensity such that the very nature of the item is infused with that potency. Because of this, creation of permanent magic items takes a long long time. Item creators should view creation of permanent magic items as a work of art. An artist can work on a painting for months or even years before it is finished and the same holds true of permanent magic items in Therra.

In general, all of the standard rules apply. The item costs the same in raw materials. A forge or lab must be present. The item must be a masterwork or suitable example of its type as per the rules. The caster must have the requisite spells available and spend the proper XP.

In addition, creation of each item has a ritual (or recipe, if you will) to create the item. The exact details of each ritual are best devised individually for each item, and PCs wanting to obtain such knowledge will have to go on adventures or trade or coerce a learned person into divulging such knowledge. Usually, these rituals are held in secret by crafters and not shared openly.

Every ritual requires at least one exotic component. Usually this represents a power or ability associated with the component. If an item has separate abilities, it will likely need a separate component for each. However, an item with a tight set of related abilities might only need a single component. The component is usually an entire set of something and once used loses its potency and cannot be re-used. In many cases, the nature of the component is only part of its importance. Also important might be how the component is obtained and under what circumstances.

Every ritual requires a long amount of time. The basic conversion is that it takes 1.5 months for each day of crafting time required by the 3rd edition rules. This means that an item valued at a market price of 12,000 gp will take 1.5 years to craft. By this method, creation of a longsword +1 would take three months to make. In our economic example presented previously, that would mean, over the course of history in Therra, 6.6 million longswords +1 could have been churned out. If you also now take into account the exotic components necessary, you now get an indeterminate but at least manageable figure to explain why longswords +1 are both not entirely rare, but also not entirely ubiquitous.

By this system, yes very powerful magic items will take years to craft. That is how it should be. Does that mean the crafter is out of the game for years? No. At the very most the time required for active involvement is no more than half that time, generally spread over the life of the ritual. Some rituals might require even less time, often just occasional tending.

If an item has several unrelated powers, then the time to craft will be the sum of its powers. However, if an item has a tight group of related powers, it is possible to reduce the crafting time by merely taking the most powerful of the group of abilities and calculating the time to craft that, with an addition of +1 month for the other related abilities. The purpose of introducing this related power benefit is so that player crafted magic items will "make sense" as opposed to being a collection of unrelated neato powers.

Creating Multiple Magic Items:

Because of the long creation times, it is more likley that item crafters will wish to create multiple items. However, the complications of crafting and the fact that actual magical energy needs to be invested into the creation (this is why all Item Creation feats require caster or manifester levels, it is not simply a result of following a recipe, there is actual magic involved).

As a general rule, a crafter can work on as many items simultaneously as allowed by the following:

Each item has a level value equal to the minimum level requirement to gain the feat to craft the item. So, for example, a Wondrous Item has a level value of 3 since it requires caster level 3 as a prerequisite. A crafter can craft as many items with a total level value equal or less than his caster level. Thus, a 9th level wizard could craft 3 wondrous items simultaneously. Different types of items can be combined in this way. So a 9th level caster could work on a wand (5th level requirement) and a wondrous item (3rd level requirement) simultaneously. If the wand finishes before the wondrous item, he can work on another wand simultaneously to the wonrdous item. The only limit is that at any given time, in total, the level value of the items being made cannot exceed the caster level of the crafter. Caster level refers to caster level in a single class (or prestige classes that add to caster level). So a Wizard 7/Cleric 4 has a caster level of 7, not 11.

If an item can only be crafted by a certain class, then that class' caster level is the determinant. In the case of a person crafting some items that are class specific and others that are not, use the caster level of the class relating to the class-specific items. In the case of a multiclass caster forging different class-dependent items simultaneously, use the lowest caster level of any of the class-specific items to determine the maximum. In the case of psionics, manifester level works the same as caster level.

Note that the reference to items that can be crafted by a certain class refers to a specific reference in the prerequisite of the Item Creation feat, not merely the fact that a given item being crafted might be related to or involve the spells of a given class. Thus, Brew Potion is a feat available to any caster, so even brewing a barkskin potion is not considered a druid-specific item.

Examples of class-specific Item Creation feats include Scribe Martial Script and Inscribe Rune.

So a Wizard 7/Psion 2 would craft psionic items as a level 2 manifester. If he tried to craft a psionic item and a non-psionic item, he would be limited as if he were a level 2 manifester.

In addition to this, there is another limit to the number of items that can be crafted simultaneously. This limit is defined as the ability bonus of the ability score that is the "prime requisite" of the caster whose levels are being used to set the maximum above. "Prime requisite" is defined as that ability score that determines the DC of the caster's magic. Thus, for a cleric the prime requisite would be Wisdom, while for a sorcerer it would be Charisma. Even those without a bonus can craft 1 item at a time.

So, Argush, a Wizard 9/Cleric 4 with a 22 Int and a 14 Wis could brew 3 potions at once (level 9 wizard divided by level 3 value for Brew Potion). He could, however, only inscribe 1 rune at a time, Inscribe Rune requires a divine caster to learn the feat, and his divine caster level is only 4. He could inscribe a rune and craft a talisman though.

New Items or Self Research:

Player characters can devise new magic items or their own recipes with some research and some successful skill rolls. Spellcraft, Alchemy, and Knowledge (arcane) are all potentially useful spells for researching new magical formulae, recipes, or rituals.

EXAMPLE:

Fedaric wishes to create a weapon of great power for Kirawyr the fighter. He spends several months doing research amongst Curinax' library using his Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcane) skills and devises what he believes is a successful recipe to make the weapon he wants. The weapon is called a Leonine Longsword and it is designed around the theme of Lions.

Assume Fedaric desires to craft a longsword +1 with the ability to grant its wearer a +2 morale bonus to saves against fear and the ability to utter a roar once per day which will act as a Bless spell at 7th level to all friends within the area of effect of the sword and a Bane spell (reverse of Bless) at 7th level to all foes within the area of effect of the sword. Finally, the wielder of the sword gains a +2 enhancement bonus to STR when the sword is held.

Since lions are known for bravery, strength, and their roaring, all of these comprise a single tight group. As such, the time to craft the blade will be equal to 3 months for the +1 aspect, and then a number of months equal to the most valuable power of the 3 plus two additional months for the other two abilities. Let's assume the most valuable is the STR enhancement at 4,000 gp. The total time to craft the blade is then 3 months + 6 months + 2 months = 11 months.

First, Fedaric must obtain a masterwork longsword of flawless design. He must then inscribe the proper runes along its length. The blade must then be wielded by someone and used to make the killing blow in a leonine creature of power (a large lion, a manticore, a griffon, a chimera). The blade must cut cleanly and be left stuck in the slain creature. Blade and creature must then be returned to Fedaric. Fedaric must then skin the beast and enscribe runes of power over the flayed skin. He must then draw the blade from the beast and paint the runes on the blade with the blood of the beast. The blade must then be wrapped in the flayed skin.

Every night of the full moon, the blade must be removed from its wrapping and the runes retraced with the very same blood of the beast slain. The blade must then be rewrapped.

Every seven days powdered bone of the slain beast must be sprinkled over the wrapped blade at midnight out of doors and magic words intoned over the blade.

Upon the 11th month on the same day that the beast was slain, the sword must be drawn and the flayed skin cloven with a single stroke. This will end the ritual and seal the imbuance of powers into the sword.

As you can see, in the end Fedaric will have produced a damned fine blade useful for the party. It will have taken almost a year to produce, but Fedaric need only make sure that he is available every 7 days and on the full moon to tend to the process. This means while Fedaric cannot go on long adventures, he need not remove himself from the campaign for 11 months. In addition, since the pace of adventuring in this campaign is likely to be much much more leisurely than the last campaign, that same 11 months that might have taken 2 years of real time in the last campaign might easily take 1 or 2 sessions in this campaign.

Conclusion:

I hope from the above you now have a clearer idea of how I intend to run magic creation. I also hope the requirement for material components and the increased time do not deter characters from choosing to craft magic items. I know, in the example of the Leonine Longsword, I would certainly have my character craft a blade like that even if it did take 11 months to make.

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