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I can see a case for narrowing CWI a bit, but I'd like to do it by shifting some of its workload into other item creation feats; particularly Forge Ring. You can't really wear all that many rings, and they're very expensive; it's a pretty marginal feat. Meanwhile CWI covers nearly all the slots.
I think it's worth considering to expand Forge Ring into Forge Jewelry (neatly matching Craft: Jewelry!), and put amulets, circlets, crowns, gems and maybe some talismans in there. Bracelets too I suppose, and maybe a few others. Maybe it'll be best to make a list of which magic item slots fall under the Jewelry heading and which ones in the CWI heading.
That said, I disagree with the idea that fighters should be making their own magic weapons. For a couple of reasons;
1) They're not magic users. They shouldn't be making magic items. Elves reforging swords in LotR? A lot of them were magic users (Elrond, Galadriel obviously using magic).
2) "Wizards do it all" is absurd; over half of the core+base classes are casters and can take item creation feats. Clerics are probably more suited for Craft Magic Arms & Armor anyway, especially if they're interested in Constructs, since those tend to run heavily on divine spells. If the wizard is making all the magic items, why are the sorcerer, magus, alchemist, druid, cleric, inquisitor, cleric, ranger, witch, oracle and bard not pulling their weight?
3) I disagree with the "every class should be self-sufficient in everything" theory. The game is cooperative in nature. You work together to fill up the gaps in each others' capabilities.
A lot of people overlook the fact that you don't have to make the items you enchant yourself. I understand the desire to houserule this, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea;
1) Wondrous Items are a very broad category; crafting all those different items is annoying. The end result is a wizard using Crafter's Fortune and his high Intelligence and maybe a Fabricate and Masterwork Transformation to bypass this obstruction, so it's actually punishing the other classes.
2) If you find an awesome weapon, say the family heirloom masterwork sword that's got five pages of background, you can't enchant it. So you stash it in the attic and make a new magic masterwork sword so you can enchant it. I don't think this is better for the flavor of the game.
The misunderstanding is between the conditions where you're allowed to Take 10 and Take 20.
Take 10 represents taking a deep breath, concentrating, and performing a routine task; something you're good enough at that you can do it without risk if there aren't any adverse circumstances. Everyone uses Take 10 to drive to work every day; it's when the weather turns ugly that you start rolling (and risk failure).
Take 20 represents trying it 20 times, until you get it right. You can't Take 20 if whatever you're doing has a cost or danger, because you'd be paying that cost 20 times, or suffering from that danger the first 19 times, until you get it right the 20th time. (Which could get you in trouble with crafting magic items and WBL.) You also can't Take 20 on things that you can't retry (like Knowledge checks, under normal circumstances).
So you can Take 10 on crafting magic items. You can Take 10 on things that have bad consequences if you fail, like tightrope walking; but only if you can concentrate on them (nobody shooting at you while tightrope walking).
See this is what I dont understand. You say the costs I cite dont exist. Now I dont know how your table works, but the materials for crafting? The spell scrolls? The ink to scribe them in my spellbook and the time to study them and scribe them? I actually had to cross those gold piece amounts off my character sheet.
Those are all already built in to the 50% crafting cost and the token cost of writing a spell in a spellbook; for example, the 250gp to add a fifth-level spell to the spellbook includes the cost of ink. You don't pay extra for them separately.
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3. You should have to be proficient in a weapon or armor to craft that weapon or armor. Will this mean Wizards will have less ability to craft weapons and armor. Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not in my opinion. At least not if you are making it easier for the other classes to craft for themselves if they choose.I really don't see the need to eliminate what is a classic fantasy paradigm, the wizard enchanting a sword he can not wield for a chosen champion who can.
Instead of complicating Craft Wondrous Items, I find a far more elegant method of control by requiring that the would be enchanter obtain, research, or steal a formula for each kind of item they wish to make. This leaves a nice chokehold gateway in which the DM can keep a measured control over the magic crafters in his game world.
This goes back to the other discussion on adding quests to do things, aka material component "Macguffin"
I like it conceptually, I don't think it can be part of a system. At least I can't figure out how to make it part of one unless you have several books of side quests.
As to classic trope, I think that is far less classic than the great blacksmith trope, which is far less common when generic wizard X with one feat becomes the better than the greatest non-casting blacksmith AND armorer in the world.
Why is the wizard also a master craftsman? Aren't they supposed to be reading books and stuff?
As to downtime. Most adventurer start in their late teens and early 20s.
Unless you are planning on being epic before you hit 30, there will likely be some downtime in there somewhere...
However, there may be instances of several levels going by (even in published AP's) without more than a day or two of actual downtime, while in other cases months or years can go by without levels being gained (even in published AP's).
So while there usually is some restriction and some allowance, the amount is very much unknown to players that don't want to have the adventure spoiled. They won't know if they'll be able to craft only three scrolls in as many levels, or spend three months crafting everything they could remotely need.
While many feats are circumstantial, few are as hard to know about beforehand.
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As to classic trope, I think that is far less classic than the great blacksmith trope, which is far less common when generic wizard X with one feat becomes the better than the greatest non-casting blacksmith AND armorer in the world.
Why is the wizard also a master craftsman? Aren't they supposed to be reading books and stuff?
Pathfinder really doesn't do the whole "great blacksmith" thing.
Part of it is that the quality of an item's craftsmanship is just measured in "Is it masterwork? (y/n)", and masterwork is cheap, pretty much just used as a prerequisite for making it magic, and has its effect overridden by even the most basic of magical enhancements.
Meanwhile, Craft doesn't scale well enough to let even the best craftsmen do things particularly well. I once tried to create the best 20th-level crafter possible (without using Fabricate, Soul Forger Magus, or Amazing Tools of Manufacture), which included cheese like an Int bonus from a succubus, an identical assistant force-feeding Crafter's Fortune extracts, and a choir of nineteenth-level bards inspiring competence around the clock, and it still took them 20 weeks to make mithral platemail - which a wizard could do in six seconds and any sixth-level character with Amazing Tools of Manufacture could do in under a week (because for some reason Pathfinder decided that characters' items should be more special than the characters themselves).
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@Khrysaor - Or maybe I'm pointing out that getting most of the magic items for half price (not to mention access to all of said items, regardless of how far from Absalom you are...) is worth a bit more than a single feat.
A bonus feat at that, for wizards.
Will that make your crafter wizard have to invest more in feats? Yes.
Is that a bad thing in my opinion? No.
@Ilja - That is true, but let us remember this is a single feat that allows you the ability to craft most of the items in the game. Even if you can't find a town big enough to have an item of that price or value.
Breaking it out into two or even three feats puts it on more reasonable par with "Forge Ring"
I think it'd be fair to have the casters be masters of enchanting far beyond the crafters, if the crafters where masters of mundane crafting far beyond the wizards.
That isn't the case, however, since there's only two grades of crafted stuff - normal and masterwork. And anyone untrained of average skill (or even below average skill if she has access to good tools) can make masterwork stuff - it's only a DC20, so given time and a few tries, anyone can make it. And that's as good as they get.
Spells like Fabricate just adds insult to injury.
Now, if there was something that could only be done by mundane crafting, the situation would be different. One could consider doing some or all of the following:
- Changing enhancement bonuses to be non-magical, basically upgraded versions of masterwork. DC would increase based on bonus (25+enhancement bonus*enhancement bonus?) and price would remain as it does now. Craft magic arms&armor would only allow special abilities.
- Causing special materials to increase crafting DC.
- Reducing time required exponentially based on skill ranks. Something like increasing DC by +10 also doubles GP progress and can be done multiple times (stacking exponentially).
If there was a huge difference between a master smith with +30 Craft and a caster with minimal investment and +10 Craft, and the master smith could do a lot of things the wizard couldn't, then there wouldn't be much harm in the wizard being the best at enchanting since both have their niches.
I haven't tested using such rules in-game though, but might be worth considering.
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The fallacy of counting Rings and spells as magic item costs is bad, too.
A Ring of Sustenance is good for EVERYONE. No need to be carrying food and water. As chipper at 10 PM as at 10 AM. 2 hours of sleep, nearly impossible to ambush...or interrupted while regaining spells. EVERYONE in your party can use the Ring.
OH, and those benefits give you extra down time. bonus!
As for the spells...come on, you're a freaking wizard. Collecting spells for nominal price in your Blessed Books is what you do. And according to the rules, you can copy spells for much less then buying scrolls, and copying them to a Blessed Book is cheaper then a normal spellbook. Hey, WOndrous Item rides again! Save you money!
Tiny Hut helps crafting during downtime...and also means you are protected against ALL MANNER OF INCLEMENT WEATHER WHILE TRAVELING. Clearly, a horrible thing for a wizard and his party to have. The fact it can be used for Crafting is just cool beans.
Masterwork Transformation is annoying, but all it means mechanically is that you always have access to a masterwork item if needed. Since you aren't saving money, it's a wash with Crafting. Effectively, magic saves you time, which is a fair thing for magic to do.
Fabricate could be seen as much the same, but the problem is Fabricate saves you money, and there's no effective limit on how much money it saves.
HOWEVER...there's nothing in Fabricate that says you can make Masterwork items. Note that ALL SPECIAL MATERIAL ITEMS ARE MASTERWORK. Thus, all mithral/silver/cold iron/adamantine gear are impossible to Fabricate.
Which doesn't make the fact you can make 1500 gp of full plate from 500 gp of components in six seconds pretty damn unfair.
The truly unfair thing that I think grates on people is that there is no other task quite as productive with any downtime anywhere as magic item construction, and there is nothing like spells and spellcasters using specific spells to maximize their downtime productivity. That just rankles. Until that is equalized, there are going to be complaints.
==Aelryinth
This ones funny. I want to make one of those mundane +3 magic compound longbows. Please don't bring another system you think is broken into a discussion of a system you think is broken. First, they are systems independent of each other. Second, either of these being broken is opinion not supported as the popular vote by the player base.
No, it's not a magic bow. A +3 composite bow as in, a bow that allows you to add +3 of your strength modifier to damage with it.
And the systems are related as they show how different crafting follows very different premises, undermining some characters to the benefit of others. Not surprisingly, it's the mundanes that get the shaft even about crafting mundane items and the magic-users are once again empowered.
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And spellcraft combined with a single bonus feat allows them to craft the majority of items in the game.
Double the feat investment for a fighter gets them the ability to invest in craft skills for a very specific item type. A skill that unlike Spellcraft, has very little application to anything other than crafting that one item.
Oh, and the fighters primary ability score doesn't give them extra skill points.
See the difference?
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So don't compare the wizard and fighter then.
Compare the barbarian and druid. Or the warrior and the adept. Or whatever.
The fact remains:
- Casters invest one feat and one skill rank per level to craft any items covered by that feat.
- Non-casters invest two feats and one skill rank per level to craft a very specific subset of items covered by that feat. They also more often have to meet a high DC as most casting requirements are spells.
Casters clearly have much easier access to enchanting than not. Whether that is a problem or not is a matter of opinion, but trying to deny it and saying access is equal or close to equal is just stupid and/or dishonest.
EDIT: Also, casters can craft from level 1. Non-casters can craft from level 7 earliest, unless doing some very specific multiclass combo I don't know about, which might bring it down to 5.
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All a fighter gets are bonus feats. That is the class feature.
Wizards get spells. Why is it not absurd that a single feat mitigates the need to learn how to actually need crafting skills?
Exactly.
Either the trope of the "Worlds greatest craftsman made" is < Generic Wizard cast "X" or it isn't.
My solution allows one trope without losing the other.
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Um. Having the potential of crafting a whole bunch of things, even at half price, is not the same as having a whole bunch of things. That's like saying that because I can buy pretty much every book on Amazon for much cheaper than the local bookstore, I have pretty much every book. I didn't even have to take the feat Buy Books From Amazon! So overpowered.
I still fail to see what's so terrible about taking a feat for a time delayed +1 to a few stats that requires additional time down the road to keep. Power Attack gives a pretty equivalent bonus (focused into damage, rather than an all around bonus) and scales automagically as the character levels.
I also find it a bit odd to want to further split up all of the crafting feats. Conventional wisdom on these forums and many of the class guides already say that Craft Wondrous Item is the only crafting feat worth considering. Depending on party make up, you might have a case for Craft Magic Arms and Armor. But that Quicken Rod you want? Not worth the feat -- you're better off buying it. Is it not telling that Treantmonk's Wizard guide doesn't particularly recommend spending your Wizard BONUS feats on crafting?
That's not even accounting for the fact that the marginal benefit of crafting feats decreases the more of them you have. Sure, you have the ability to craft a wider variety of items, but you can only craft one thing at a time regardless. You are still primarily limited by money and time, even if you have all of the crafting feats. Power Attack is just as useful if you have Greater Vital Strike as it was at first level.
I'll agree that the mundane crafting system is broken. In fact, that seems to be the prevailing opinion on these forums, even by a number of people that think magical crafting is just fine (I know Ashiel posted in favor of the current magic item creation system in the locked threads, and has also posted a number of threads in Homebrew about fixing the Craft system). Mundane crafting being broken has absolutely no effect on the validity of the magical crafting system. Yes, it should be fixed, but changing magic item creation will do no more to help that than rewriting the rules for 5 foot steps.
Martial classes are using a feat to be treated as if they have a caster level. Otherwise they can't even qualify to make magic items because they have no ability for magic. Why is this deemed a worthless feat.
It's not that it's worthless, it's that it's unnecessarily restricting. Take improved initiative, one of the best feats in the game. Consider if it had:
Prerequisite: Proficiency in all martial weapons.Then consider if the following feat was made:
Initiative Training
Prerequisite: Base Reflex +3
Benefit: For the purpose of taking the improved initiative feat, you are treated as having martial weapon proficiency. Also, you gain a +2 bonus to profession (cobbler)
Would that be a worthless feat? Honestly, not really. +4 to initiative might very well be worth two feats. Would it be really restrictive compared to the current system? YES. Would a lot of people think it's bad design to have a feat which has as main purpose to allow you to take another feat? YES. That's what's called a feat tax.
The problem I keep reading is this narrowly focused subset thing. Take a craft or profession that provides a broader benefit. And just because you can make everything doesn't mean you will make everything. If you take a profession that covers the things you need where's the argument?
Well what if you don't? What if there's no profession or craft that covers all your needs?
There is no skill that covers all items, thus, spellcraft IS more allowing.It will require some extra reading on the non casters part to determine the appropriate profession that will help them. Profession tanner will cover belts, body, chest, feet, hands, head, headband, shoulders, wrist. The only ones missing are eyes and neck.
Not really, no. Profession (tanner) won't really cover anything I can think of off the bat, though craft (leather) would cover some. Although, only those that are of leather. You could create boots of springing, but not a cloak of resistance (which is explicitly made out of fabric) nor a howling helm (made of bone). Meanwhile the caster spends one feat less, has access four levels earlier, and can craft all those as well as universal solvents, feather tokens et cetera.
Casters should have an easier time making magic items. They can cast spells and understand magic far better than a martial class. Why would they not have an easier time?
That is a valid point of view. However, you seem to be arguing that there isn't a large disparity. Saying "casters have far easier to craft magic items and that's fine" and implying "casters and martials are quite close to each other in terms of accessability".
Your edit is a little arbitrary as well.
How so? You seem to agree with my edit. Casters have access to crafting 6 levels earlier (scribe scrolls for everyone, brew potion for alchemists and witches), and the specific feat 4 levels earlier.
That's about 1/2-1/3 of an AP.
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I wouldn't discount other things such as move full speed in Plate armor, weapon training that bumps them above the other martial classes in the to hit department, etc. Fighters in Pathfinder DO have other features besides bonus feats.
Weapon training is pretty much just more bonus feats, except you have to spend them on extra copies of weapon focus / specialization. So they get, uh, full speed in platemail. That sure is... almost a class feature?
Fighters are constrained enough by "You hit good with your chosen weapon" being their only real class feature; they shouldn't have a further restriction of "...provided you can beg a wizard to make your chosen weapon shiny enough."
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Just about every problem with crafting magic items goes away when you make the caster level a non-bypassable prereq.
Alternately, just about every problem with crafting magic items goes away if you don't allow people to "take 10" on the spellcraft roll.
Either of those simple fixes plugs lots of holes.
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Remember that Master Craftsman only applies to one Craft skill, not to everything the related magic item creation feat could possibly cover. A fighter who wants full benefit of Craft Magic Arms & Armor needs to take max three skills (Craft Weapons, Craft Bows, and Craft Armor) and take four feats (Master Craftsman [Weapons], Master Craftsman [Bows], Master Craftsman [Armor], and Craft Magic Arms & Armor). Four feats and three maxed skills on a class with minimal skill points is expensive; this is more than just a couple of levels delay.
Actually, even that isn't allowed, since I've just noticed that Master Craftsman has no language saying you can take it multiple times. Your non-caster can never craft both her own magic swords and her own magic bows, or her own magic axes and her own magic armor, or her own magic shields and her own magic belts. The game does not permit it no matter how much you invest, short of dipping five levels in a caster's class.
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I wouldn't discount other things such as move full speed in Plate armor, weapon training that bumps them above the other martial classes in the to hit department, etc. Fighters in Pathfinder DO have other features besides bonus feats.All a fighter gets are bonus feats. That is the class feature.
It's the context of the comment that mattered.
Feats are to Fighters as Spells are to wizards.
That the wizard gains crafting ability isn't balanced by how many extra feats the fighter gets.
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[qoute=Roberta Yang]"...provided you can beg a wizard to make your chosen weapon shiny enough."
Its true. Making these non casters dependent on spellcrafters to make their magic items sure does make them weak and impotent. Reduced to begging even. Horribly imbalanced. I know as a crafting wizard I've never needed a DPS or a Meatshield in any of my adventures. Yep. Me and my cleric buddy. Taking on the world.
I guess the best fix is to let everyone craft magic items. Then we can give the healing feats to the barbarian and the fighter as well and before you know it we're playing 4e!
I think master craftsman by itself is very easy to fix. I think it could be like this:
Master Craftsman
Prerequisites: Any craft or profession 5 ranks
Benefit: Pick one craft or profession skill that you have at least 5 ranks in. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. This feat applies to items that can be crafted with the chosen craft skill or items commonly used in the chosen profession (up to DM adjudication). You may craft such magic items as if you had the appropriate feat and a caster level equal to your ranks in that skill. You cannot use this feat to create any spell trigger or spell activation items. In addition, you gain a +2 bonus on all checks
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Every time it applies to a new skill.
I don't think anyone said craft wondrous items should be split into a three feat chain, just three different feats. Something like, craft jewelry, craft clothing, craft misc or similar.
Is there a balance reason master craftsman needs to be the way it is or is it just that you like it the way it is? You say it's for balance reasons but I've seen no argument as to how anyone would become that much more powerful if it simply allowed you to craft magic items instead of just allowing you to take item creation feats.
And the difference between feat taxes such as master craftsman and feat taxes such as power attacks is that they work in very different ways. Basically, there's two kind of feats that get labeled feat taxes, and I think we've talked past each other a bit on this.
1. A feat that enables an option that is so good everyone (or everyone of a specific, common tactic) wants to take it from an optimization standpoint. Power attack falls into this, as does weapon finesse, and leadership. Some people see the large amount of TWF or Vital Strike feats as a bit feat-taxy.
These are the kind of feat taxes that you mention above and not what I'm talking about. Basically, I think most of these feats aren't really feat taxes at all.
- A feat that does nothing or very little by itself and is mostly a prerequisite. Endurance is a feat often mentioned, master craftsman is another, some people consider combat expertise a feat tax in most cases.
That's the kind of feat tax I'm talking about. A feat that _by itself_ gives a benefit that is so small you'd never spend a feat on it other than for flavor, or that is extremely build specific but that enables decent, balanced feats that a lot of other characters would want. And that's what I meant with Initiative Training above - while the feat allows you to take another feat that is very good, it by itself doesn't do anything, making it a tax.
It's very obvious in a case such as Master Craftsman or my Initiative Training above, because a lot of other characters can get the end feats of the chain without taking the prerequisite.
I think this kind of feat taxes are bad design. Pure bad design. If something is too good for a single feat - split it between two feats, each doing something. If something isn't too good for a single feat - allow it as a single feat.
What I was saying is switch up the requirements and such and get rid of Master Craftsman and the Spellcraft to craft.
Basically a Level 3 Rogue, Fighter, or Expert can get Craft Magic Arms & Armour and Craft whatever Weapon, Bow, or Armour they need as long as they have the Skill.
But I also use variant skill set up.
I increase the Number of Base Skill Ranks every class but INT based Casters get (Exception is the Magus which is also increased). I combine Jumping, Climbing, & Swiming into Athletics(STR) and combine TWF and Vital Strike into scaling Feats.
From a Gamist point of view the I believe the current crafting system is in need of work. From a Simulationist point of view it works ok, and from a Narrative perspective the rules are fairly detached from story telling.
The options available for non casters when it comes to crafting are very poor. Spells and spell casting ability are required to produce valuable items and any item in a timely fashion. The problem is very similar to the why play a rogue when x class does everything the rogue does but better arguments.
If you play in a game that spans a long period of time in the game world you are essentially penalized for being unable to craft. The opposite is true as well if you have no down time and the campaign takes place over a month crafting feats can be a total waste.
I personally believe the rules would work better as a whole if players could only create consumable items and permanent item creation was handled by the GM as a quest.
I agree that some work could be done on the crafting system.
I feel that Craft Wondrous Item is definitively the most rewarding crafting feat to take.
I would address this by collapsing together other feats however not dividing Craft Wondrous Item.
As for Master Craftsman, in my opinion it would be a good idea to leave it narrow in scope but reduce it to only one feat not two and make it available at the level that a caster could become a crafter of that item type.
Anyway here are my ideas for crafting house rules. Please any comments or feedback would be appreciated.
Master Craftsman only allows you access to the 2 feats. It doesn't give you the feats for free.
Master Craftsman only allows you access to the 2 feats. It doesn't give you the feats for free.
What I meant was something like this.
Master Craftsman
Your superior crafting skills allow you to create simple magic items.
Prerequisites: 5 ranks in any Craft or Profession skill.
Benefit: Choose one Craft or Profession skill in which you possess at least 5 ranks. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of qualifying for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. You can create magic items using these feats, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item. The DC to create the item still increases for any necessary spell requirements (see the magic item creation rules in Magic Items). You cannot use this feat to create any spell-trigger or spell-activation item.
Normal: Only spellcasters can qualify for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats.
Master Craftsman V2.0
Your superior crafting skills allow you to create simple magic items.
Prerequisites: Special See text
Benefit: Choose one Craft or Profession skill in which you possess at least 1 rank. Choose one magic item crafting feat. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. You are treated as having that magic item crafting feat. You must have ranks equal in your chosen skill equal to the caster level requirement of the selected magic item crafting feat to select said feat. Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of crafting magic items associated with your chosen skill and magic item crafting feat.
You can create magic items using this feat, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item. The DC to create the item still increases for any necessary spell requirements (see the magic item creation rules in Magic Items). You cannot use this feat to create any spell-trigger or spell-activation item.
Normal: Only spellcasters can qualify for magic item crafting feats, and are required to obtain those feats before crafting any magic items.
I think I am being turned to the idea that magic item creation in and of itself needs a fix (as well as to Adamantine Dragons position that magic items themselves are the cause of the problem)
Some things I would implement to the crafting rules and magic items themselves:
1) Magic items should be removed from the inherent progression of the game completely. Especially in terms of the Big 6 magic items. The bonuses gained from these items should instead be made apart of the inherent progression of the game. Basically, Characters should simply get these bonuses as apart of leveling up. (How this interacts with DR would be another interesting notion. It could mean that items would need special properties again in order to get through said DR, or one could implement the notion that fighters and other martial classes gain abilities that allow their attacks to bypass DR as a class feature.)
2) Remove the necessity of spells and feats in crafting magic items, and instead make ones ability to craft magic items dependent on the craft skill themselves with set DCs based on the item being created.
3) Organize and consolidate the craft skills themselves (Bows and weapons should not be separate categories).
4) Reorganize the Wealth by Level chart for PCs to account for players no longer needing the big 6 magic items.
The basic idea behind all of this is that a character wouldn't need anything more than a +1 Sword and instead of enchanting or replacing it so as to keep up with the numbers in the game the have the ability to apply enchantments themselves, regardless of class, in response to what is thrown at them in the game. SO, say a fighter gets a +1 sword and early in the campaign they are facing a lot of undead so they make a crafting check and put a holy enchantment on the sword. Then later the campaign turns and the fighter has to face down some dragons instead so they put Bane on the sword and apply it specifically against dragons. Now we have a +1 holy dragonbane longsword that instead of advancing based solely on the numbers of the game has instead grown based on the characters personal story, which in my mind at least is far more entertaining thing to encourage.
Easiest solution to the crafting imbalance of non casters...
Is level dip. 3-5 levels in a caster class and there's your craft wondrous item! Sure you didnt invest skillpoints in spellcraft so you suck at it but news flash. You're supposed to suck at it. Who do you think you are? Janeway? No man is an island. The journey to perfection cannot be an internal journey alone! You stick with being the slashy or the shooty and let the spellcrafters do the spellcrafting as the gods intended. You want to make magic items it'd help if you had any experience or background in oh, I don't know. Say... Magic?
If it is clearly so imbalanced as a single feat then go get it! You want the advantage but you dont want to have to give up anything for it.
"If noncasters wanted to be able to do interesting things why don't they play casters instead?"
Paranoia RPG: "If commies hate being commies then why would they rather die than stop being commies"