
Justin Fritz 56 |
The end of the Spell gem section goes into crafting a spell gem, however it never completes the process for crafting. I could not find the final steps in the spell section of the book.
My over all question is what do you need to do to craft a spell gem, is there a process or ritual?
How much time do you need to craft it?
How much are the materials?
What materials are needed aside from the materials of the spell it self?
What is the cost to craft, the book gives the cost to buy but I would think crafting a component would be a little less due to the time it takes to make vs just walking into a shop and saying "that one" or else what is the point?
How do you craft the Large spell gem?
What proficiency is needed aside from the class, i.e. do you need to roll a dc based on spell level, spell gem size, and you caster level or is there one tied to a skill?
PHB on crafting a spell gem:
To craft a spell gem, you have to know the spell
you’re encoding into the gem. If a spell requires
expensive materials as part of its casting (such as raise
dead), you must provide those while crafting the gem, and
the gem’s price is increased by the price of the components.
You can create larger, compound spell gems with multiple
spells in multiple lattices, with a price equal to the total price
of all spells stored within it. Such spell gems can be used to
cast only one spell at a time.

Justin Fritz 56 |
That answered most of the questions, thank you but I still have issues, mostly with the point of it. Because at that point why would you craft your own spell gems. The point they go to in the crafting section is to customize the equipment you want to create, that's fine for things like weapons, armor, and other random equipment. However a consumable that cannot be customized past packing more of them into one larger thing seems like a waste of the players time and credits or is there something I missed? Would they intentionally create a crafting system that is useless?

Hithesius |

The crafting system is no longer useful as a way of saving money, no. That is not the same as being useless, even for consumables. If your campaign gives you regular access to merchants, if they consistently have whatever you're looking for, and if you have time to shop whenever your supplies are running low, then the crafting system will not be particularly useful. The ability to craft your own supplies nearly on demand becomes more useful if any of those assumptions are false.
It is an alternative supply source. Whether it is useful depends on how reliable the normal supply is.

Dragonchess Player |

The Starfinder crafting rules give everybody with ranks in Engineering and/or Mysticism something "useful" to do when traveling through the Drift: Turning UPB (and/or unwanted items) into equipment.