What do you want out of your items? Does your GM allow custom items or just stuff out of the book? What kind of spells is your sorcerer good at?
A direct damage spell is almost always useful even if they're not always optimal. (They get used on many items, can be made into traps or mines or the like if you can do custom stuff, almost always at least a moderately useful combat fallback.)
It also depends on what item creation feats you have. Wands of mage armor are useful at lower levels, but not as useful for wondrous items. Protection from evil is another such spell.
As others stated a bit more information is required.
In general:
1. Everything with at least a duration of 1 min/caster level
2. Everything where DCs don't matter much
... because on magic items generally DCs and CLs are much lower than what you will eventually be able to use.
Buddahcjcc, crafting back in 3.5 didnt have a check at all. Thus, no failure rate. When Paizo instituted a check they did so with the (stated) intent that there should almost never be a failure.
- Gauss
Because if they didn't someone would ask why.
What this amounts to is a skill tax. Pay the tax and you do not have failure. Do not pay the tax and you could risk failure. When I design a crafting character I make sure I pay the tax so that I can craft items without failure.
- Gauss
Also, non-casters with Master Craftsman (and sometimes even casters) can still overextend themselves. If you just need an 11 on the die, you'd probably still make the roll rather than wait another level (or whatever) and then you might roll a 1. But yes, it's been stated that crafting is, in general, supposed to be easy.
Again though, do you (or does the GM) allow custom magic items? That makes a fairly big difference. Color spray is a good spell, but I don't recall any items from the books that use it. On the other hand, if you can make custom items, a 1/day color spray mine (bomb, glove, whatever) is potentially useful.
Wondrous Items are insanely gray areas. I just built a Wizard 7 (universalist) with Craft Construct, Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, and Scribe Scroll. I've just gone through a week-long process over emails w/my GM trying to sort out how much it'd cost to add spells to homunculi.
The book states use comparable items to the custom Wondrous item you want to make; start there to determine cost. Once you have that either modify the pricing from there or calculate costs from scratch using a couple different other sources for said costs.
My advice? Stick to swords...
ARE there any rules to custom magic items? My GM is letting my friend craft me an item that allows me to cast enlarge person once per day on myself but we cant figure out how much itll cost to make or how long it will take based on said said base price.
Enlarge person for 1 minute 1/day would be 400 gp (caster level [1] * spell level [1] * once per day [1/5] * 2000 gp) as long as it's taking up a slot on its own. It'll usually take 1 day to craft assuming you aren't travelling or what-not. What parts are you having trouble with?
Everyone says the crafting table is messed up, but I've found that it's really more that there are a few specific spell combinations that cause issues (CLW being the biggest/most common) and just about everything else works pretty well.
Edit: Just a side note, but the way the math works out, each minute of enlarge person is worth 400 gp up to 4000 gp where it becomes the same price as unlimited use if your GM lets you get away with that.
@My Dad's crossword glass: I think where I fall down is in the effect paid for. The item you describe should enlarge me for 1 minute...but the spell's effect is for me or others. Should this item then be able to ensorcell others?
Or take an attack spell. In a sword, if you apply Scorching Ray you get Flaming. If you put that in bracers, you get a 1/day laser. Or take Summon Monster spells. The RAW on the spell is that it is a Full Round action to cast, yet using a wand is a Standard action, allowing you to summon a monster faster with this implement.
You see, each time I go to make a custom magic item, my GMs take these little tweaks as their cue to subtly curtail the power of my magic item. What I THOUGHT was going to be a constant use Make Whole effect ends up being a once-every-10-minutes constantly working Make Whole effect. Its not a MAJOR drawback, which is why I didn't protest that much, but it may mean the difference between one of my constructs surviving or my having to suffer 2d10 damage and re-construct my homunculus.
@ the OP: frankly, at least when designing custom Wondrous Items, my policy is to send my current GM an email. In the body of that missive I simply detail what I want the final effect to look like and act like. I then ask him to tell me what I need to do to make that happen. For example: I want a homunculus to help me with my performances at storytelling and puppet shows. I want it to be able to add special lighting, sounds and perhaps create minor pyrotechnics and fogs like my show was a Broadway production. How do I get from Craft: Sculpture to that final product?
I wouldn't have a problem with allowing an enlarge person 1/day work exactly like the spell. Very often though, it's not something people care about (for that kind of spell), plus you can always hand the item around as needed.
For major reductions in usefulness (such as use-activated make whole to every-10-minutes make whole) I'd give some kind of cost reduction or some bump in usefulness in other ways. Then again, a constant effect instantaneous spell is the one exception to my "make any item you want" rule (but use-activated would be fine).
Basically, I price things by estimating the spell level of the final effect. For enlarge person, reducing it to personal range wouldn't lower its level any. For make whole, restricting it to once every 10 minutes is getting close to a level reduction.
Edit: But yes, emailing the GM is the best way to sort things out, and starting with the desired end result and working backwards makes better items as well.