So I'm brain storming a setting where the knowledge on how to make magic items has been lost (with the possible exception of Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion). Any items that exist will found in ruins/dungeons or traded by people who make a living finding magic items (ie. adventurers).
However, I'm aware that straight up banning an entire category of feats is extreme. So I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts, advice, or alternative ideas.
A compromise I have tinkered with was requiring each item to have a known "blueprint" before it could be made. This would require research, study of an existing identical item, or such.
People often ban the entire class of "item creation feats" because they can effectively allow you to double your wealth, which causes more balance issues than almost every other feat.
But the blueprint idea is a good one too. Something like this is basically how PF2 does it- you can't make something without having the formula to create it. Do a lite version of the PF2 rarity system where certain formulas are just generally available but other ones can't necessarily be found (without questing for them, or perhaps at all.)
The alternative rules for Auto Bonus Progression solve the problem Pathfinders assumption of certain items being available. This would work well with what you are going for.
I would probably add wands to the list of what can be created. Basically allow low powered consumable items to be able to made, but no powerful or permanent items. This way any magic items are special. This will keep the basic balance of the game intact, but make the setting a little more interesting.
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The item creation feats were a surprisingly massive change to the system when 3e D&D introduced them and their presence and expectation of being able to convert found items efficiently significantly changed how players interacted with magic items.
I heartily endorse keeping them out of a game. You might want to spend a bit more time and effort, however, making sure you sprinkle about items well-suited to the PCs in return.
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Perhaps Merchant Divine/Arcane houses closely guard the secrets, requiring for your game A feat chain such as from Agents of Evil before they can take a Craft Feat or if a PC tries to be from a Merchant Family, only learn the crafting feat of the Family in question (I'd throw Scrolls and Potions into this as well, since Cleric's don't start with Scribe Scroll)
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I did something very similar for a game. Magic item creation feats had been all but lost because some time ago because of a significant magical calamity. Magic items that existed before that event still functioned, but afterwards it was impossible to create new magic items (or to teleport any distance greater than a dimension door). It just wouldn't work. Before the event, magic had been everywhere so there were plenty of ruins to go delving through for the party.
It worked out pretty well, with a steady supply of old relics for magic gear. Of course, the eventual plot of the campaign revealed that the source of the problem was a great magical barrier encircling the entire planet. When the party brought the barrier down, it was once again possible to create magical items.
But then they learned why the barrier had been created in the first place - as a way to protect it from an inter-planar war that had been ravaging worlds left and right. And the planet just happened to be in a key strategic location.
Anyways, an alternative would be to remove crafting as feats, allow anyone to be able to do it, but also remove the crafting discount entirely.
The alternative rules for Auto Bonus Progression solve the problem Pathfinders assumption of certain items being available. This would work well with what you are going for.
Automatic Bonus Progression works well with some classes/class features and poorly with others, and thus it only works for some groups.
The item creation feats were a surprisingly massive change to the system when 3e D&D introduced them and their presence and expectation of being able to convert found items efficiently significantly changed how players interacted with magic items.
I heartily endorse keeping them out of a game. You might want to spend a bit more time and effort, however, making sure you sprinkle about items well-suited to the PCs in return.
Before 3E any caster could create magic items. The upsurge in players crafting magic items wasn't from feats introduced to create magic items, but rather from magic items consuming gold instead of XP. Nobody made potions, wands, or consumable magic items back then because you'd find lots of them and they cost you xp to make. If you made a lot of consumables you fell behind other players and you had nothing to show for it. At least if you made a really cool magic item you knew that you might be behind a level but it was all for that item. For the larger items characters would even refuse to level up so they would have enough xp to create the item.
I think you're mistaking 3e for pre-3e. Magic item creation was fuzzily defined before with all sorts of fancy, DM-based requirements in materials (should the DM choose to push that). It was fuzzy enough that relatively few players bothered to craft magic items. Plus it generally required higher levels.
It was 3e's item creation feats that cost XPs, though gold was usually a far greater limiting factor. The fixed and stable system, plus the general ease of getting the feats at lower levels, led to a sea-change in dealing with magic items.
I've recently started banning item creation and crafting feats from some of my games. Some players just try to break the game with those feats and there are times that I don't want to deal with it.
If you don't want crafting in your game, just make sure everyone is aware ahead of time and you will be fine.
There is no problem with not allowing those crafting so long as all are aware ahead of time so they do not waste resources.
I played AD&D2e since around 1983. I never made the switch over to 3e, 3.5, etc. But then, I stopped playing in 1988 or so and only recently came to RPG's with PF. So I came from the bias (AD&D2e) that magic items creation was reserved to 12+ level or so wizards. And what wizard becomes 12+ level with the goal of being a magic-item factory?
I embraced the PF way of doing it, but still find it hard to wrap my mind around a fighter that can craft Celestial Armor or a Sword of the Planes with an investment of only a single trait, a single feat, and putting ranks in Spellcraft.
So like many, I houserule crafting.
So I'm brain storming a setting where the knowledge on how to make magic items has been lost (with the possible exception of Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion). Any items that exist will found in ruins/dungeons or traded by people who make a living finding magic items (ie. adventurers).
However, I'm aware that straight up banning an entire category of feats is extreme. So I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts, advice, or alternative ideas.
For my games I removed the crafting feats, but this is because I allow for crafting without feats (but there is no reduced cost in creation vs purchasing at the market). This was purely a balance on power because crafting feats can unbalance a party if downtime is not tightly controlled. And rather than doing that I just tell my players you can craft it yourself without feats, but not cost savings. The benfit in self crafting is that you don't have to find the item you want on sale in the market.