I like crafting and I want to encourage my players to craft more so I am thinking if i ditch the crafting feats and use all skills and spell components instead. lookin for thoughts on how to make it work. thinking making it 75% of the price to keep it a little more even.
has anyone done this before?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I totally ditched the crafting feat structure in my last campaign and made it entirely skill based. To limit the PC's so that they didn't just craft all the things I had every magic item require a schema (recipe) and a special focus component.
I gave out schema and focus items as quest rewards. Want a +1 flaming sword well go on a mini quest to get the heart of a fire drake and go convince the crotchety old Dwarf to give you a copy of his schema.
As the party reached higher levels I allowed the spellcasters (a paladin and a magus) to begin to research in their downtime to develop new schema obviously based on their characters particular focuses and abilities, the paladin discovered the disruption weapon enchantment which requires blessed silver and the Magus discovered twilight armor enchantment which requires spider silk from a phase spider or liquid moonlight.
Actual crafting was done with time and a skill check (I made a craft(magic) skill but think that was unnecessary), failure resulted in half the cost of the raw materials being lost and a 20% chance of destroying the focus item.I left the cost of magic items the same, though I think I will change up the economy in my next campaign but that's neither here nor there.
Overall it worked great for me and I think I will do something similar next time. It allowed me to have the party have access to some custom gear without imposing a heavy feat tax on one character.
I like crafting and I want to encourage my players to craft more so I am thinking if i ditch the crafting feats and use all skills and spell components instead. lookin for thoughts on how to make it work. thinking making it 75% of the price to keep it a little more even. . . .
*blink*
I've been having this same thought lately. Eliminate the feat tax. Keep other requirements, such as caster level and spell access. UMD checks can still skip some requirements. Give a 25% discount instead of the 50% discount to even out so many 'free' feats.
Even if you just ditch the feats and keep the other requirements, it's a boost, but it encourages everybody to craft. Its not just for the x2 loot, but because they can. A fighter that makes his own sword? Very fun. (Yeah, it could just be an adamantine sword, but I like to think you could keep a single weapon and just level it yourself, which in this game would be giving and improving the enchantments.) UMD rogues would become a lot easier as they fake up their own scrolls and wands. Casters don't feel forced into a(nother) niche.
All in all, it sounds fair. If you want it a little more complicated, or to add a little more flavor, adding the enchantment templates, like Bardarok suggested, would plug in just fine. Just don't make them much more complicated than the existing requirements, else you traded a feat tax for an item tax.
Seriously considering allowing anyone to use the crafting feats without the feat.
Just not letting anyone go through character creation using them.