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The thing is, it isn’t in the rules. The rules are vague with magic item creation in general as well as contradicting one another in more than one area. It is why crafting of magic items has sparked a lot of threads. The rules on it needs a lot of clean up, IMO.

However, I did quote and link you to a post from SKR, and I would consider any post from a developer as RAW, especially one from Sean.

I'll quote the relevant section again, emphasis mine:

Sean K. Reynolds wrote:

For many items, the CL provides no benefit except resistance to dispel attempts. A bag of holding is an example of this... its powers aren't based on CL. Thus, the wiz17 could make his bag at CL 9th (the default), CL17th (his own CL), or anything in between.

Fair enough - I will accept that this was the designer's intention behind the wording.

No, no, no. I'm not making an assumption. I'm giving an EXAMPLE. The only ASSUMPTION I made is one that I assumed you were actually asking for an example of "why wouldn't they take the break" and I gave you one. I realize that there are other styles of game.

Well, there being an example of a situation where the party would not agree to wait doesn't make it any less of a problem. In the general case it is in fact completely feasible, that a party would be willing to wait a few months, both in character and out of character.

If a GM is letting players go far beyond the wealth per level guidelines with other loopholes or whatnot, that's a bigger problem than worrying about them exploiting downtime. Yeah, it is a bit of a cheap argument to end with, but it is all up to the GM to handle such things.

I would prefer not to punish players for coming up with ways to earn more money. I do not enforce wealth per level guidelines, and in fact, if they are to hold, would expect the game system to support them, as in it would be difficult (but not impossible) for PCs to get hold of that much money.

My problem is not a 3rd level caster creating a Hat of Wishing or similar. My problem is that such a caster, in a party of 3rd level characters, and within means of such a party, might be able to create items duplicating the effect of any 3rd or 4th level spells, usable by any member of the party. Such an advantage would make the party somewhat more powerful than their level indicates, say one level better, which in turn might allow them to gain wealth in line with a higher level party. Such wealth might then be used to create yet more powerful items and so forth, and so forth. I see the lack of access to powerful magic as one way that the rules limit how much wealth PCs can get their hands on.

The CL of an item is determined (for Magic item creation) is the spells that are involved with the item, not what is listed in the book. The CL listed next to the item is for GM’s to use as a quick reference when giving the item out.

However, when crafting the item, the CL can be determined by the character making the item.

For example, if I am a 15th level Wizard and I wanted to craft those Boots of Teleportation, I could set my level up to 15th level if I so wished. I wouldn’t be forced to put it at CL 9.

Can you point me to the actual place in the rules, where it says this? Because in the PRD it says "For potions, scrolls, and wands, the creator can set the caster level of an item at any number high enough to cast the stored spell but not higher than her own caster level. For other magic items, the caster level is determined by the item itself. "

What you described sounds very much like the rule "for potions, scrolls and wands", if the rules were the same for wondrous items (and other magic items?), then why the distinction? Also, what you just wrote doesn't seem to fit the phrase "is determined by the spell itself". I'm pretty sure my players wouldn't buy this interpretation.

Wizards says, "I want to spend 6 months crafting!"

Rest of the party says, "Screw that, we want to fight in more dungeons!"

Next three sessions: Wizard is crafting while the rest of the party is going to fight in a dungeon.

Fighter, "Man that dungeon was fun!!"

Or:

Party says: "OK."

But let's say that the party does go along with it and they all take the break together. Why shouldn't they do it? Because while the heroes of the world are taking a break, the evils of the world take over and are now unstoppable or they destroy the world all together. Or maybe if they are already well known, they will be attacked during their break. Either way: Game Over. Sorry. I wouldn't think any GM would allow such...

First of all, you're making a huge assumption here, that the party is a group of fanatics on a HOLY MISSION, who will relentlessly fight evil, with no regard for anything else, like for example enjoying their lives or for that matter doing anything else apart from adventuring. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's not the only campaign model supported by Pathfinder. In fact, Pathfinder lets players choose alignments for their characters and they do not have to choose "good".

Second, you are describing a campaign, where a new world-threatening evil arises immediately after the previous one has been defeated, and only the PCs can save the world. Again, I'm not saying that's the wrong way to do it, but I, for one, do not run my game like this, and if I were a player, it would make impossible any suspension of disbelief. For me, this might only work in a slapstick style game.

In fact, in my campaign PCs frequently take downtime, whether they craft magic items or not. In fact, adventures are mostly relatively short periods of time between downtime periods that take weeks or even months: this is in fact how I explain away leveling up: it's not up to what happens in game sessions, PCs use downtime to practice, gain knowledge, do research, learn spells etc.

Bottom line is: it would be a huge flaw of the system, if it forced the style of campaign where PCs don't take downtime, just because of broken item creation rules. I can't see that being the intention of these rules and would rather be inclined to see these rules as broken.

Actually, the biggest limiting factor is not the money required, but the time. It will take 1,526 days or a little over 4 years to craft the 5 times a day version and 2,806 days or over 7 and a half years for the unlimited one. And that's only if they work on the item every single day and do little else. Worrying about a PC crafting anything this ridiculous is pointless. As far as I know, there is no way within the Pathfinder rules to speed the crafting process beyond 1000 gp per day. Otherwise, I guess a rich NPC could chain an adept or low level wizard to a work station if you are worried about the integrity of an imaginary world, but really? What if the crafter dies before he finishes the item? That is a lot of money to risk.

But why would they die, if they're not old and they're well guarded? And even if they do, then for someone investing a couple of million in the Hat of Wishing, it should be feasible and reasonable to take precautions like creating an item with a few charges of True Resurrection beforehand.

The other thing no one ever talks about in these threads is creation time. I don't know about the rest of you, but my party is rarely willing to take a 6 month break from adventuring so the party wizard can huddle in his lab and make one magic item.

In the time it takes the lone wizard to make the item, the remainder of the party had raided 6 or more dungeons, gained a half dozen levels, and found piles of magic items and treasure probably much better than the wizard could create.

But you're talking in-game time here, not real time. In real time taking a 6 month break just means saying "6 months pass" and subtracting the cost of living (which are not significant compared to the cost of the item itself). If the players think the item is worth the money, why wouldn't they take the break, given that they will gain the half dozen levels and find the same magic items over the same number of game sessions, but having the item will increase their chances of actually suriviving these dungeons?

Yes, they could... but that is not a factor of the enchanting system but a factor of the loopholes. One of the classic ways was the old "flesh to Salt" spell. Buy a pig, cast "flesh to salt" on pig, sell salt. But a GM should keep an eye on the economy of the world.... He should stop people from buying ladders, cutting then in half and selling them as 2, 10 ft poles at a profit.

Crafting magic items is NOT the way to riches though it may allow another means of using "wealth tricks".

I did not necessarily mean getting rich by selling the items, though that would be one way of raising some capital. The issue is that access to high level spells and effects like raising ability scores effectively without limit gives a caster and his party additional means of earning money, whether through crime, hiring themselves out at going rates for a higher level characters, fighting more powerful monsters etc. Hence the reason that higher level spells can only be cast by higher level characters.

Yes, it's a loophole. A massive, glaringly obvious loophole introduced by the errata to the magic item creation rules. I was hoping that maybe I'm mis-reading it and there are some additional restrictions that make it impossible, but apparently not.

The question that remains is whether this was the intended effect of this errata, or an unfortunate side-effect? If this was intended, what was the rationale? Does this not unbalance the game as much as I think it does?

As for flesh to salt, I don't really see it as a loophole. Sure, you can make some money that way. But this can easily be worked around by roleplaying and applying common sense: do this in a small community, and you can maybe sell the salt from the first pig, but then everybody has enough salt to last them for years and nobody's interested in buying more. Go to a larger community, and they will already have a wizard supplying them with salt, and possibly some or other kind of guild rules preventing outsiders from dumping goods on the local market (or possibly making them pay "fees and taxes" for the privilege). And in the end it seems a reasonable assumption, that it's possible to make _some_ money if you know magic.

Also, a Monkey's Paw of Three Wishes (according to my calculations) might cost under a hundred grand - not much more than the cost of casting the spells itself. The difference being that it takes a 17th level Wizard to cast the spells, but any caster with enough money the craft feat may attempt to create the item.

Since the COMPONENT part which is the most expensive does not change you are looking at 1,387,700 for 5 times a day or 2,653,000 for unlimited.
Either way if there is that much gold floating around your game at low levels (and I consider less then 20 low level for that amount since reccomended weath by level for 20 is under 1 million) you have bigger problems then the enchanting rules.

I could see though how relatively relatively low level characters could come into the posession of substantial amounts of money by crafting various wondrous items, which duplicate powers of other spells, and making creative use of them.

Not to mention the impact of this on the game setting: with caster level limitations, the supply of magic items would be limited by the availability of high level spellcasters. As the rule stands, wealthy people and institutions should be able to make these effectively just by throwing money at them.

I understood that to mean that if a 3rd-level caster made a pearl of power, he'd make a CL <= 3 pearl of power; he could not make a CL 17 pearl (and the DC is set based on the desired CL of the item; for most items, the CL doesn't matter too much).

The rule says "For other magic items, the caster level is determined by the item itself." The item, not the caster: this sounds to me, like the CL of a wondrous item would be whatever the book says it is, regardless of the creator's level. Can you show me the rules that back your interpretation?

If the rules are what I think they are, this brings up another uncomfortable question: what items exactly does "Craft Wondrous Item" allow you to craft? Are you limited to the ones in the book, or can the character come up with their own? Because if you can, then this allows a relatively low level spellcaster to create items which replicate results of any spells. And not only that, but they can be replicated in items that can be used by anyone and have unlimited charges (with perhaps the only limitation being the number of uses per day). After all, if you can make Boots of Teleportation, why not Hat of Wishing?

To summarize, a level 5 wizard (with enough money...) can attempt to make a Belt of Giant Strength +6, which is only a CL 8 item in the first place. For comparison, a +1 flaming sword would have a caster level of 10, and for that the caster level WOULD be a prerequisite.

Hi, I'm having some problems understanding item creation rules myself, somewhat related to this question. Do I understand correctly, that e.g. in order to create a scroll of teleport, you need to have access to the teleport spell, but you can create boots of teleportation without either access to teleport spell, or even being high enough level to cast it, just by taking +5 to your DC? That is provided you have the time, the money, the Craft Wonderous Item feat and are able to make the roll?