Crafting Magic Items.
Creating a magic item requires more than just time, effort, and materials.

It is a long-term process that involves one or more adventures to track down rare materials and the lore needed to create the item.

Potions of healing and spell scrolls are exceptions to the following rules. For more information, see “Brewing Potions of Healing” later in this section and the “Scribing a Spell Scroll” section, below.

To start with, a character needs a formula for a magic item in order to create it. The formula is like a recipe. It lists the materials needed and steps required to make the item.

An item invariably requires an exotic material to complete it. This material can range from the skin of a yeti to a vial of water taken from a whirlpool on the Elemental Plane of Water. Finding that material should take place as part of an adventure.

The Magic Item Ingredients table suggests the challenge rating of a creature that the characters need to face to acquire the materials for an item. Note that facing a creature does not necessarily mean that the characters must collect items from its corpse. Rather, the creature might guard a location or a resource that the characters need access to.

Magic Item Ingredients

If appropriate, pick a monster or a location that is a thematic fit for the item to be crafted. For example, creating mariner’s armor might require the essence of a water weird. Crafting a staff of charming might require the cooperation of a specific arcanaloth, who will help only if the characters complete a task for it. Making a staff of power might hinge on acquiring a piece of an ancient stone that was once touched by the god of magic — a stone now guarded by a suspicious androsphinx.

In addition to facing a specific creature, creating an item comes with a gold piece cost covering other materials, tools, and so on, based on the item’s rarity. Those values, as well as the time a character needs to work in order to complete the item, are shown on the Magic Item Crafting Time and Cost table. Halve the listed price and creation time for any consumable items.

Magic Item Crafting Time and Cost
*Halved for a consumable item like a potion or scroll

To complete a magic item, a character also needs whatever tool proficiency is appropriate, as for crafting a nonmagical object, or proficiency in the Arcana skill.

If all the above requirements are met, the result of the process is a magic item of the desired sort.

Complications.
Most of the complications involved in creating something, especially a magic
item, are linked to the difficulty in finding rare ingredients or components needed to complete the work. The complications a character might face as byproducts of the creation process are most interesting when the characters are working on a magic item: there’s a 10 percent chance for every five workweeks spent on crafting an item that a complication occurs. The Crafting Complications table provides examples of what might happen.

Crafting Complications
d6 Complication
1 Rumors swirl that what you’re working on is unstable and a threat to the community.*
2 Your tools are stolen, forcing you to buy new ones.*
3 A local wizard shows keen interest in your work and insists on observing you.
4 A powerful noble offers a hefty price for your work and is not interested in hearing no for an answer.*
5 A dwarf clan accuses you of stealing its secret lore to fuel your work.*
6 A competitor spreads rumors that your work is shoddy and prone to failure.*
*Might involve a rival

Brewing Potions of Healing. Potions of healing fall into a special category for item crafting, separate from other magic items. A character who has proficiency with the herbalism kit can create these potions. The times and costs for doing so are summarized on the Potion of Healing Creation table.

Potion of Healing Creation

This message was last edited by the player at 21:40, Mon 07 May 2018.