Labyrinths & Liontaurs
Contents
Notes

Magic Item Creation

Return to the main magic item page.

To create magic items, crafters use special lore and talent to push magical energy into mundane items. Enchanted in this way, these items increase PC power, add flavor, open new play options, and help players make their characters more real, so that their PC concepts develop to match their vision and goals. To get the perfect piece of gear, sometimes the best way is to make it yourself. To achieve true magic mastery, sometimes you need to become a magic crafter.

Construction Requirements

Making a new magic item requires investment. Crafters invest feats, time, wealth, and, for long-lasting items, their own personal energy in an item's creation. Sometimes they use special magical ingredients, too. This investment comes at a cost, but some players decide the results are worth it.

Feats

The magical lore of item creation is represented in game by enchanter tree feats (and related others). The right feat is essential, as detailed below. Each of the four listed feats is a prerequisite for the one above it. (Craft Construct is not a prerequisite for any feat.) In general, each one is taken at a higher tier than the one above it. (Exception: Craft Construct, again. Also, the Wizard's Enchantment School's "Magical Crafter" Arcana allows early access to enchanter tree feats.)

Note that spell casting ability is not a requirement for taking and using these feats. Each feat grants all the magical lore needed to craft magic items. So long as the other requirements, as noted below, are invested, no casting is required (though it can help!).

Time and Workspace

Item creators need a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work. At home, a dedicated workshop is ideal. On the road, an outdoor campsite will not do! You need a private room in an inn, or a secure shelter, or a similar safe space.

Time spent crafting includes a minimum of an hour per day and a maximum of eight hours per day. If you are engaging in other activities, such as adventuring, a maximum of four hours per day is allowed. This refers to enchantment time; the time to craft the mundane item before it is infused with magic follows the standard rules as given in the Craft skill. Time needed depends on the type of item being crafted:

*Time is rolled secretly by the game master.

This required time cannot be decreased in any way, and, aside from divine intervention or wish-like spells, there is no way to squeeze more crafting into a day. Also, a character can work on only one item at a time. If you start work on a new item, all materials used on the under-construction item are wasted.

Gems

Gems are created when magical energies condense into crystal form. Being valuable as well as beautiful, they are used basically as currency in most lands when large amounts of coins would be cumbersome. Gems are not themselves magical, but they can be used to infuse magic into a magic item. The lore you gain by taking enchanter tree feats reveals to you the necessary art of incorporating gems into your creations, unlocking their hidden potential. Sometimes gems are set into an item, and sometimes they are ground to a powder or dissolved as part of the craft process. When a magic item set with jewels is broken or used up, any incorporated gems become dull and cracked, obviously worthless now.

Every magic item has a specific value given in gold pieces (gp). This is the price for you to buy one, and if you sell a magical item, this is also the amount you can expect to receive in payment. Half of the value/price is also the required cost, in gems, needed as part of the enchanting process. There is no alternative to the necessity of using gems in making magic items.

Other monetary costs: In addition to gems, some items require an expenditure of gold in crafting the mundane component of the item, as with the cost to make masterwork weapons, shields, and armor. Game masters may require other masterwork items, such as manacles or musical instruments, to be bought or made at a cost separately counted apart from the usual enchantment spend in gems. For most other items, however, this extra expense can be ignored without damaging the game.

Life Energy

To make a magic item that lasts indefinitely, crafters must invest their life energy into the effort. This is represented by a direct loss of experience points. The amount of experience points required is given in the "construction requirements" given as part of the item's description. However, it can be calculated as one tenth of the cost (in gems) needed to construct the item. (Thus, that's one twentieth of the value of the item.)

If the expenditure of experience points would place a creator below the required xp total for their current level, they cannot attempt to create the item. You can't lose a level in making an item.

You must use your own experience points for this purpose — no substitution or contribution from any other creature or source is allowed.

Note that consumable items, which do not last indefinitely, require no experience points to craft. After they are used up, they cease being magical. A creative game master may rule that consumable items lose their magic over very long spans of time, even if they have not been used. The idea of decaying consumables and their "expiration dates" is left to these game masters as options they can explore through house rules.

Spells

An item's construction requirements may list a specific spell, or an item may replicate a spell (as do potions, scrolls, and wands). When a spell is required, the easiest way to satisfy the requirement is for the crafter or an ally to cast that spell once per day that the crafting continues. A spell-like ability that replicates a required spell can be used instead. If the spell is not available, a special ingredient or the use of a skill may be substituted.

A game master may allow a crafter to use a similar spell in place of a required spell, especially if the substitute is more powerful. For example, it seems fair to allow the use of consecrate in place of bless in making a Candle of Invocation.

Note that when you cast a required spell, your caster level must be equal to or higher than the caster level of the item. It would take a crafter with caster level 10 to cast bless or consecrate in making that candle, because the item description for the Candle of Invocation lists "CL 10th."

If a required spell has a costly material component, then the material component must be used each time the spell is cast, that is, daily during construction. Skills and special ingredients cannot be used to substitute for these spells (see immediately below), unless the ingredient is a magical core.

A character can work on only one item at a time. If a character starts work on a new item, all materials used and XP spent on the under-construction item are wasted.

Skills

If a spell is not available, a crafter with ranks in a relevant skill can use that skill to enchant the item. The game master's role is to determine the required skill. For example, a game master may allow Use Rope skill ranks to substitute for the casting of a Rope Trick or Animate Rope spell. Here are a few more examples.

The number of ranks required to replicate a spell is equal to the item's caster level (CL). It would take a crafter with nine ranks in the Use Rope skill to substitute for the casting of a Rope Trick spell in the creation of a (CL9) Handy Haversack.

Special Ingredients

If a spell is not available, another option is to use a special ingredient to enchant the item. An ingredient is usually a monster part, most often fur or ivory or teeth or bone or hide. Some monsters have magical cores; a magical core can always be used to substitute for all the required spells an item requires. Sometimes plants or nonliving materials may be used. Parts of people never work in magic item creation, and only certain monsters are useful.

If a monster's subtype matches a required spell's descriptor, any ingredient from that monster can be substituted for the spell. A phoenix feather substitutes for a Fireball spell in making a CL10 Necklace of Fireballs (fire aligned). A lock of angel hair substitutes for a Gift of the Liontaurs spell in making a Lionstone (good aligned).

Some monster types substitute for spells of certain schools.

Note that summoned creatures are not useful for this purpose, since their physical forms are sent away when the magic that summoned them expires (or when they die).

The power (challenge ranking, or CR) of a creature required to replicate a spell must be equal to (or greater than) the item's caster level (CL). It would take a CR7 ghost's ectoplasm to substitute for the casting of a Fear spell in the creation of a (CL7) Drums of Panic item (necromancy aligned).

When spells are required to construct an item, you must cast the spell each day in which crafting takes place. When you substitute a special ingredient, you must possess the material or item throughout the entire process, and the ingredient vanishes on the last crafting day.

Successful Item Creation

If all the requirements detailed above are met, then the item is created.

However, there is always a five percent chance that the new item will be cursed. Note that the crafter never chooses the curse; the game master determines (usually randomly) the nature of the curse.

If your caster level — or your skill ranks — or the CR of your special ingredient — is less than the CL of the item, then the item is still created, but for every point of difference that you fall short of the required item CL, there is an extra 5 percent chance that the item will end up cursed.

Off-Menu Magic Items

Inspired by other games, by literature, and by your own desires, you can imagine and then create magic items that do not exist in the Labyrinths & Liontaurs rules. Care must be taken, however, to avoid breaking the game with overpowered options. These crafting rules are intended as guides, because the vast range of potential magic items and ways to make them preclude covering every possibility. In general, make a new item like an existing item. For example, if you wish to make an item that boosts a skill, look to existing similar skill-boosters as a model.

A fundamental rule for adding off-menu items to the game is that the game master has the power to edit, revise, or outlaw the item after it is created, if it proves disruptive or unbalanced. Honestly, this is true for any addition to the game, whether a custom race, a new feat, or an invented spell.

All that said, there are definite guidelines you should use in creating brand new items.

Rule: Numeric Boost Items

When magic items give enhancement bonuses, such as bonuses to attacks, saving throws, and ability scores, these bonuses are always enhancement bonuses and must never exceed +4. Items that grant a bonus to a single skill must never exceed +8; items that grant a bonus to two related skills must never exceed +4 and +4. There may be a scattered few exceptions in the existing rules: The game designer says, "Do as I say, not as I did in those rare cases."

Items that provide a numeric boost as their exclusive or primary power are always medium or major items. When designing a new item, keep in mind that magic items that do not deliver numeric bonuses are easier to make.

Setting New Magic Item Value

Consumable items: Potions, wands, and scrolls are valued by formula, and there is no room for leeway. That makes setting the value easy. Setting the value of other consumable items is tricky. The best way to do so is to compare the new item to existing consumable items.

All other items: The value of long-lasting items (permanent items and casting items) is simple, and it is based on item type:

The cost to craft an item is half its sale value. There is no experience point cost for a consumable item; long-lasting items require 1/10 the craftng cost in xp, which is 1/20 the sale value.

Labyrinths & Liontaurs is an indie tabletop role-playing game based on the d20 System and the Open Game License. I stand on the shoulders of storm giants.

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