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Ts_
 
PostPosted: Tue, Jan 26 2016, 0:32 AM 

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Hey!

I've been trying to understand how the creation of magical items (beyond scrolls,wands) works in terms of PnP-Lore and Amia customs.

PnP-wise, from what I've gathered:

You need the right Item Creation feat, like Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Forge Ring or Craft Wondrous Item.
Then you gather the materials and cast some spells.
The process takes days to weeks, namely 1 day / 1000 gp of value of the item to be created.
There are some calculations and you pay money and XP for this.
For items from sourcebooks, the required steps to make such a weapon might already be given. ("Craft X, spell a and b, n gold, m xp.")

What else is there to this canonically?

Amia customs:

Gather the materials.
Roleplay casting some spells, use nifty words.
Take screenshots.
The Item Creation feats don't exist (with probably a few exceptions), but the skills used for the MCS and/or job system jobs are a substitute.
XP loss is not a thing, but DCs are usually needed, the amount mostly depending on mechanical power.

So, what I was wondering:

* Can any spell be used in the creation of an item (in principal)? It seems so from the few examples from source books that I have.
* How close do the spells have to be to the desired enchantment?
* Are those spells actually cast or are they somehow consumed in the process?
* What about divine magic? Does it follow the same rules or would such items be more blessed than enchanted? Are "blessings" of items just a different name for enchantments done by divine casters?
* A Cleric with infinitely many different spells at their disposal should have an easy time enchanting things in various wondrous ways, shouldn't she?
* Enchantments seem to profit from "sympathetic" links between the materials used and the desired enchantment. Is this true? Expensive or rare materials are somehow inherently better, too, correct?

Thanks!
Ts

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Dark Immolation
 
PostPosted: Tue, Jan 26 2016, 2:10 AM 

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You've got the gist of it with the P&P and Amia-specific stuff. For the rest, I think we've well-established there are no particular rules, only general ideas and guidelines used in past requests and such. So I'm mainly answering from my own thoughts and experiences here.

Quote:
* Can any spell be used in the creation of an item (in principal)? It seems so from the few examples from source books that I have.


I don't see why not. Some may be harder or unwieldy to put onto an item. Others may have little to no purpose on being on some types of items. For instance, enchanting Ironguts onto a piece of wearable equipment like a belt or such probably would give the wearer resistance to poison. Enchanting Ironguts onto a rock or sphere or any item that can't be worn and isn't actually going to cast the spell might make less sense. You make a trinket that casts the spell to represent the benefits you get while carrying it, cool. But otherwise, it doesn't really do anything to try to make the rock itself resist poison.

Quote:
* How close do the spells have to be to the desired enchantment?


The closer, the better most likely. Most requests I've seen and I've done have gone off of basic sympathetic magic. "Like affects like." If you want a ring to make you stronger, imbue Bull's Strength into it. Alternatively, you can say there's a specific recipe for the thing you want to create. I recall doing a quest for a DC item I was crafted long, long ago, and I had to find something like Myconoid wood as part of the components, along with some other peculiar stuff. The actual item had nothing to do with trees or myconoids, but it was just said that the particular recipe for what I wanted to do called for them. So there's are your two options. I personally go for the former, because it's easier to reason why X gets you Y. But mainly, as long as you're not making pulls like casting Eagle's Splendor onto an item and requesting a bonus to Intelligence because it "makes you look smarter," I don't think anyone will find fault with what you do. It's mainly the power of enchantments where that comes in, ICly and OoCly.

Quote:
* Are those spells actually cast or are they somehow consumed in the process?


Not sure if I understand. You mean is the spell cast onto an object temporarily, or if it actually goes into the item? I could see either. Maybe an item needs to be under the effect of Prestidigitation before you can imbue a certain quality onto it. Maybe Prestidigitation actually becomes an element of the item. Like the other thread asking about dragon stuff, it's mainly whatever you can reason. Lore is less often an issue than the end and mechanics from what I've seen.

Quote:
* What about divine magic? Does it follow the same rules or would such items be more blessed than enchanted? Are "blessings" of items just a different name for enchantments done by divine casters?


There's nothing that says they'd have to be different. Divine magic still plays by many of the same rules as arcane magic: components(physical and ritual), spell resistance, counterspelling, etc. I could totally see people thinking they might be different IC though, but that's purely flavor. In any case, there's no reason divine enchanting couldn't be just involved as arcane enchanting. Dusting off scrolls, performing ancient rites and rituals to appease the god. It's probably more involved than simply holding up a sword to the sky and hoping for the best.

Quote:
* A Cleric with infinitely many different spells at their disposal should have an easy time enchanting things in various wondrous ways, shouldn't she?


Despite what NWN shows you, there's nothing that guarantees a cleric is familiar with all the spells they have access to. After all, how would a cleric know upon reaching 4th level spells that they can now petition for Hammer of the Gods. Maybe the god just tells them, sure. Alternatively, and more to my thinking, they're taught the prayer from their superiors, or discover it now on their own, or maybe the god finally decides to answer the prayer for the spell that had previously been ignored.

That is all to say "not necessarily" in response to your question. If they're not familiar to the spell, they might not even be aware of all the things they can enchant... but given how most clerics will just "know" all their spells on Amia, similar to how most Wizards end up knowing "all" spells short of DC requested ones, sure, once they are proficient enough, why wouldn't they be. If you know you can ask your god for all these different blessings, then perhaps you're familiar enough with the spells to know how they can be applied to items as well.

Quote:
* Enchantments seem to profit from "sympathetic" links between the materials used and the desired enchantment. Is this true? Expensive or rare materials are somehow inherently better, too, correct?


Sympathetic magic is, again, the basis of many crafting methods. It's just easier to understand and explain than trying to have everyone memorize a dozen specific properties to items and random monster guts.

Rarer and more expensive generally seem more powerful, yes, but I see that more as a gameplay and gameworld thing than anything that has a specific reason. If you could craft +5 Armor with nothing but a bucket of rainwater and a handful of hay, then every common farmer in the world could produce glorious full plates no sweat. In my mind, rarity and expensive is more a way of transferring worth to the final product, more than any particular power in the components themselves. It goes back to the sympathy thing. This bit of gem is exceptional, ergo the ring I craft using it must be exceptional too. Alternatively, perhaps the enchanter can make up for the quality of the components. Maybe an epic mage using a regular rabbit's foot can make just as powerful item as a novice using a paragon dire rabbit's foot. *shrug* Experts can do more with less.

It again ends up being more an issue of mechanics than lore. Can you make +5 armor using an Adult Dragon's hide? Probably. Might +5 armor be easier to create in practice and easier to get passed if you manage to find and use an Elder Dragon's hide? Yeah, probably. Will you be getting +10 Armor solely based on the fact you managed to get and use a Great Wyrm's hide? Very unlikely. It's a balance between what you have, how you use it, and what you actually want mechanically.

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Ts_
 
PostPosted: Tue, Jan 26 2016, 18:23 PM 

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Wow, awesome reply, thanks!

Dark Immolation wrote:
Ts_ wrote:
* Are those spells actually cast or are they somehow consumed in the process?

Not sure if I understand. You mean is the spell cast onto an object temporarily, or if it actually goes into the item? I could see either. Maybe an item needs to be under the effect of Prestidigitation before you can imbue a certain quality onto it. Maybe Prestidigitation actually becomes an element of the item. Like the other thread asking about dragon stuff, it's mainly whatever you can reason. Lore is less often an issue than the end and mechanics from what I've seen.

I like the idea of spells supporting the enchantment.

The question stemmed from me wondering how one could cast a self-only spell onto an item, and if that really is a casting of the spell. The enchantment could involve instead a slow drawn-out version of the spell that "imprints the pattern" of the spell onto the item, but doesn't actually cause the spell effect. Even though that's not a casting (I think), you would have to reproduce the precise workings of the spell to do so, that's why you need a spell slot for it. (Or, you know, magic.)

Re: divine enchantings
Dark Immolation wrote:
It's probably more involved than simply holding up a sword to the sky and hoping for the best.

As you say, regular enchanting plays a role. But holding a sword to the sky after a good old-fashioned blood bath seems like a staple of divine enchanting in fantasy worlds, not necessarily in the Realms. So would this always be pointless (or a direct divine intervention) because the spells are all that matter and they say nothing about requiring gods?

Dark Immolation wrote:
Despite what NWN shows you, there's nothing that guarantees a cleric is familiar with all the spells they have access to. After all, how would a cleric know upon reaching 4th level spells that they can now petition for Hammer of the Gods. Maybe the god just tells them, sure. Alternatively, and more to my thinking, they're taught the prayer from their superiors, or discover it now on their own, or maybe the god finally decides to answer the prayer for the spell that had previously been ignored.

Cool, I wasn't aware of that, but that makes totally sense.

Again, thanks!
Ts

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Dark Immolation
 
PostPosted: Tue, Jan 26 2016, 19:41 PM 

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Yes, you can use spells that are self-only in crafting. You can't target anything with them for mechanical reasons of course, but for crafting purposes you can do things like "channel" the spell over or through it. Even in the P&P wondrous item list there are several items that require personal range spells to be created, like Disguise Self, Overland Flight, and Ethereal Jaunt.

Quote:
But holding a sword to the sky after a good old-fashioned blood bath seems like a staple of divine enchanting in fantasy worlds, not necessarily in the Realms. So would this always be pointless (or a direct divine intervention) because the spells are all that matter and they say nothing about requiring gods?


I wasn't saying that a god couldn't just bless or create a magic object just out of the blue. I meant if a cleric were to go about enchanting an item, or even asking the god to enchant an item on their behalf, they probably have to do a bit of component gathering or ritual preparing like a mage would too. Or, like your example, the god can do it as a reward or even send the person on a quest before they send the blessing. What I mean to say is that there's nothing that guarantees divine crafting being any easier, by just asking a god to do any number of things, and nothing else.

I wouldn't say it is pointless. There are still divine-only spells that could be used in crafting that an arcanist wouldn't have access to, and that naturally leads to items that only divine crafters could make. But if an item requires Protection from Elements and doesn't really specify anything else, then it probably doesn't matter if a Ranger, Druid, Cleric, or Mage casts it, no. I'm sure the method and IC ritual can change based upon which class goes about it, but I don't think the source really matters that much.*

*Caveat being, using spells from scrolls, potions, and wands gets tricky. I think in PnP it's okay, but then PnP those items work a bit differently and actually store the caster level, which is often an important issue in crafting with spells. I've never really seen anyone try to craft with scrolls and such for largely that same reason, and also because I imagine it kind of cheapens the idea of it, given how utterly easy it is to find a scroll of just about anything in our setting. It might work, and it might not. These items store a pre-canned spell that triggers and happens exactly as it was cast. This may not always be what's needed in crafting, given you have to channel through objects sometime, or do this or that little thing differently to bend the magic around an item. The activator of the magic item probably has less control over the spell than a caster would, so that could lead to some difficulty or outright impossibility of crafting items that require subtle touches and variations. At worst, it just doesn't work, at best, it could be like trying pick your teeth with a nail gun.

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Luckbringer
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jan 30 2016, 7:19 AM 

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If you can get a copy of Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, its probably the best example of how to enchant magical items in FR that a lore book has. It explains the ritual (something to do with gems) and base spells involved. He also has descriptions of the materials which can be used and hints of what types of items they could be used for. Wood, metals, gems etc. Materials are just as important as the spells themselves. They should match the outcome. For example iron is effective at holding protective magics, so a ring of protection would be better to be made from iron than gold.

As for clerics and crafting magic items, I would think there are a few possible ways. They could be a boon from their god, since gods have the ability to create magic items at will. Or they could be crafted as a mage would craft them, through spells and rituals. Or though a mix of both of the above, by the cleric channelling the power of the god into the item using an elaborate prayer ritual. This could require the appropriate setting to the god, such as taking place under the light of a full moon for a priest of Selune to create a silver sword of warewolf killing. The item itself would be one capable of furthering the god's cause hence the silver sword. A god may not give their support for an item which would counter their goals or be too far unrelated to their interests. I.e. A priest of Shar making robes of light would be a no go etc.

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Dergaii
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jan 30 2016, 12:02 PM 

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Dark Immolation wrote:
Quote:
* Enchantments seem to profit from "sympathetic" links between the materials used and the desired enchantment. Is this true? Expensive or rare materials are somehow inherently better, too, correct?

Sympathetic magic is, again, the basis of many crafting methods. It's just easier to understand and explain than trying to have everyone memorize a dozen specific properties to items and random monster guts.

Rarer and more expensive generally seem more powerful, yes, but I see that more as a gameplay and gameworld thing than anything that has a specific reason. If you could craft +5 Armor with nothing but a bucket of rainwater and a handful of hay, then every common farmer in the world could produce glorious full plates no sweat. In my mind, rarity and expensive is more a way of transferring worth to the final product, more than any particular power in the components themselves. It goes back to the sympathy thing. This bit of gem is exceptional, ergo the ring I craft using it must be exceptional too. Alternatively, perhaps the enchanter can make up for the quality of the components. Maybe an epic mage using a regular rabbit's foot can make just as powerful item as a novice using a paragon dire rabbit's foot. *shrug* Experts can do more with less.

It again ends up being more an issue of mechanics than lore. Can you make +5 armor using an Adult Dragon's hide? Probably. Might +5 armor be easier to create in practice and easier to get passed if you manage to find and use an Elder Dragon's hide? Yeah, probably. Will you be getting +10 Armor solely based on the fact you managed to get and use a Great Wyrm's hide? Very unlikely. It's a balance between what you have, how you use it, and what you actually want mechanically.


I do not fully agree with the idea that a rarer item is needed for higher enchantments solely for a gaming mechanic. From a game development perspective it makes sense and is probably the origin of such, but I also think there is a lore base to support this. I like to compare required items and the spells imbued to the baby toy where you have blocks of different shapes and have to pass them through the right hole to get them in the container.

It explains why some items cannot be used to contain certain spells. They do not have a matching shape. Let's compare the items with the shape the blocks have to go through while the blocks themselves are the spells/magical effects that have to go through.

Let's say a +10 armor is the shape of a serrated circle block as indicated to the right. While a +5 armor is just a completely round circle block. It's harder to make/manipulate the serrated circle block, just as it is harder for a spell caster to use a spell that creates a much stronger effect.

The elder dragon hide is a circular hole while the great wyrm is a serrated circle hole. It is possible to imbue the great wyrm hide both with +5 as +10 armor. You can insert the circle shape both
through the circle hole as the serrated circle hole. However you cannot enchant an elder dragon hide with +10 armor. The edges of the serrated circle block, representing the more intricate magic, will not pass through the regular circle hole.
Image

So for me it does make sense that rarer items (more expensive items) are intrinsically better for some spells. Some spells, they might have the wrong shape for other spells.


Luckbringer wrote:
If you can get a copy of Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, its probably the best example of how to enchant magical items in FR that a lore book has. It explains the ritual (something to do with gems) and base spells involved. He also has descriptions of the materials which can be used and hints of what types of items they could be used for. Wood, metals, gems etc. Materials are just as important as the spells themselves. They should match the outcome. For example iron is effective at holding protective magics, so a ring of protection would be better to be made from iron than gold.


Just a note that Volo's guide is 2nd edition. I think most things can be transferred to 3.5 but some reservation might be needed.

You also mention iron is better at holding protective magics. Could you indicate where you got this from? This ties directly to my character's research/studies at the moment and I am looking for any sources that could direct me an ooc level to get the most correct results.


 
      
Luckbringer
 
PostPosted: Mon, Feb 08 2016, 8:08 AM 

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You know I looked for the source which my memory may have plucked this from but I can't find any references in my notes about it. I thought it was from Volo's but sadly not. It may have just been plucked from no where so I wouldn't take it as given. I did a bunch of research into metals for my dwarf, I think I dug through every FR source book, campaign setting, dragon mag to find details about their properties and uses. Unfortunately it is very limited and very inconsistent.

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Xenos
 
PostPosted: Sun, Feb 14 2016, 8:58 AM 

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Luckbringer wrote:
Volo's Guide to All Things Magical


How do i not have this one.. Google! AWAY!

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