Material costs for crafting magic armor and weapons - subsumed?

[Wycen]

I thought I knew how to value, in terms of gold pieces, magic armor and magic weapons. And by extension, I thought I knew the rules for crafting these items, specifically the cost. But I have never before actually taken Craft Magical Arms & Armor and attempted to craft an item from scratch or improve upon an existing set of armor or weapon. Craft Wondrous Items always got the attention.

In my current game I have a desire to craft a suit of armor from scratch so I read the rules. Closely. Which is why I use the term "from scratch" because I believe that might be a slightly different cost calculation. Which caused me to dig through the forums searching for other threads about this.

I want to use the right terminology, but I suspect based on recent conversations with my group about magic item creation that some terms will be mixed which is why the magic item creation rules need to be overhauled, but I digress.

If I make a +1 dagger, (from scratch, lets us ignore the mundane crafting portion of this exercise) is the construction cost 2000 + 2 (dagger cost) + 300 (masterwork cost)?

Or, 2000 + 1 (half market price) + 150(half market price for masterwork)?

Or maybe just 2000 as the text seems to indicate the cost is subsumed in the base price, which for a +1 magic weapon is 2000.

I don't know why the construction cost would be different for mundane versus magic, but then again, we never calculate the cost of the cloak involved in a cloak of resistance, etc. At least with the groups I play with.

Thanks for any input.

[Lifat]

The price really depends.
Crafting the masterwork dagger yourself costs 1/3 of 302 gp, assuming that you don't fail your craft checks to badly (there is a risk of ruining some of the materials and thus heightening the cost).

Making a +1 dagger out of a masterwork dagger costs 1/2 of 2000 gp, because the 2000 gp is the cost of the magic, and when you do it yourself it costs half. Again you have to roll a check to see if you succeeded.

So if you create the +1 dagger COMPLETELY from scratch then it is 1100,67 gp.

If you buy a masterwork dagger and then turn it into a +1 dagger, then it costs 1151 gp.

If you make a masterwork dagger and then pay to have it turned into a +1 dagger, then the price will be 2100,67 gp.

If you buy the entire thing from a vendor, then it costs 2302 gp.

These are of course the standard RAW prices, assuming you don't ruin portions of the materials by failing your checks to badly and it also assumes no haggling of any kind

[DonDuckie]

I don't agree it's possible to buy the dagger at cost, even as part of crafting/enchanting.

So first you either buy or craft the dagger, and then you get it enchanted by either doing it yourself or paying another to do it.

[The Shining Fool]

DonDuckie wrote:

I don't agree it's possible to buy the dagger at cost, even as part of crafting/enchanting.

So first you either buy or craft the dagger, and then you get it enchanted by either doing it yourself or paying another to do it.

I agree.

My math would be:

Make a +! dagger completely from scratch - 1,100 GP, 67 SP
Buy a masterwork dagger and make it into a +1 dagger - 1,302 GP
Make a masterwork dagger and pay to have it turned into a +1 dagger - 2,100 GP, 67 SP
Buy the whole thing - 2,302 GP

In other words, everything Lifat said, except for the second line.

[Wycen]

I knew "from scratch" would come back to haunt me, but I completely forgot the base price = market price, but is halved for construction. GRRR!

If it were just one item that would be ok, I could move on and not worry about it. But, I also want to put a value on the dozen or so inferior and unused item in the party treasure so we can put that potential gold value to use. Cloaks and rings are easy but the weapons and armor are all different.

Wait a second... if we sell items for half value... then the construction cost is effectively the sell value... maybe?

[Lifat]

DOH! My mistake. I never meant to imply that you can buy the masterwork dagger at half price. My second line should OF COURSE be 1302 gp.