Our New Rules for Crafting Magic Items in D&D 5e

We discuss our concept for an action forward crafting system. No Downtime, no skill checks, no gold. Kill cool monsters, harvest their epic parts, build amazing magic items.

TIME STAMPS

00:00 - Intro
03:32 - Introducing Crafting
13:08 - Creating a New System
16:49 - The Recipe
20:21 - Harvesting Components
29:28 - The Workshop
34:14 - Creating the Magic Item
36:57 - The Ghost Sight Bow
45:13 - Final Thoughts

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[maxximumgaming]

The first time my party crafted their own items was after killing a Bullette, they made +1 Shields for their Warriors (Fighter and Paladin). They harvested a couple of the scales then headed to a Dwarven fortress that they had encountered before, bribed the Master Smith with some strong booze that they had to get from an Elven tavern back in the capital city, and by the time they got back, the shields were waiting for them. Essentially zero downtime. I have always loved crafting quests in my games and use them regularly.

[Franimus]

Initial thoughts on workshops:
Common - adventurer's tool kit
Uncommon - any semipermanent or village workshop
Rare - any permanent workshop in a large city (one per duchy)
Very rare - one per nation
Legendary - one per continent or world
Artifact - one in the entire setting, and probably unique to the item being crafted.
With the caveat of needs to be the right kind of workshop/toolkit.
And that you may need to do a favor quest like clearing the iron mines in order to unlock a workshop, or upgrade the workshop, or use the workshop more than once, etc.

[joshuadudley]

Some cool ideas there definitely. A few things I’m not crazy about though:
1. finding recipes. What you can make is at the mercy of what you find the recipe for. That feels just as random as what magic item drops. I think recipes should be researched in an arcane library. You know you want something, go to a library (that may be hard to get to like the forge), and spend a day researching the recipe.
2. The exclusive focus on monster parts. It feels a little gruesome, and as a player, if I killed a monster that wasn’t part of a recipe, I’d want to harvest something, just in case it’s on a future recipe. And then I’m carrying around a bag full of dead monster body parts. Gross. Some monster parts feels right, but mixed in with other kinds of ingredients. Eg. Water from a specific magic spring, or a kind of rare magic crystal that you need to get from an evil wizard, etc.

[TheDeplorableNeanderthal]

Seriously… trademark this idea and sell it to Wizards of the Coast… this should be part of ALL D&D. Well done. 👏

[lazytommy]

i love the mind that you both have for this game. inspirational, informative and dedicated.

[jordansturdivant]

I think a quick way to save the economy is to it make so that magic items made with animus instead of the normal arcane crafting method can only be attuned by the person who collected the animus, or someone who was present at the time of collection.

[snacksmoto]

At ~11:00 when it is talked about having to roll a skill check after all the effort has been put in and a failure introduces a flaw, I've always preferred the method of a baseline success is already guaranteed. Instead, the skill check, with appropriate bonuses acquired from gameplay, specialized tools, higher CR materials, etc, has the potential for an improved success if it fits thematically. The improved success might have a small beneficial quirk or you get a bit more powerful potion.

[unboundsoul]

Potential idea for getting parts and animuses (animi?): expertise in a relevant tool allows you to get two "pulls" from a monster, as your expertise allows you to salvage more of the monster's carcass. Skin for leatherworker, alchemist's or poisoner's kits for blood, maybe gemworkers tools for earth and gem elementals or constructs!

[Davolicious]

I'd be okay with skill checks when crafting, on condition that a low roll is still a success, but high rolls give extra or better bonuses, within reason.

[jeremeyshriner]

I like keeping a skill check, but less as a pass/fail check. But more as an extra stuff or basic layer. I.e. if you're trying to make an item and roll bad, you get the most basic version of that item, but if you roll high you get a stronger version.

Basic illustration: making a magic sword: if rolling low, like total of 5, +1 sword with the extra damge being fire instead of the same type of damage, but a 13-15 might have bonus fire damage like 1d6 or the like, and if you get 20+ total maybe it goes to fire burst and does AOE damage on a crit.

[axellis]

What you can add is something that a lot of video games add to prevent the trading of unique items, a mechanic like 'Spirit Bound' = Can only be traded between members who were present at the time of items creation (Ideally just the party, but it also opens the idea of the party POTENTIALLY trading with an NPC under unique circumstances)

[morisonwow]

In our campaign, the cleric had to reforge two parts of a legendary hammer in Moradins forge and when they started the challenge, the party was attacked by the forge guardian and when they broke that it's cor was an Efreeti but attacked the party and became the burning heart of the weapon, making it a sentient hammer.

[thomasford]

I really love the idea of legacy weapons!! Weapons that get stronger as the game progresses through whatever mechanism. Or weapon that gets stronger as a set much like the hammer of giants with the gloves of orge and the belt of giants. And a bunch of abilities are unlocked.

But either way I love your work and look forward to supporting the Kickstarter!

[Immudzen]

This crafting system looks really cool. I think I will see what I could do to incorporate something like this in my games.

[TwilightRose]

Love you guys! You put so much thought into everything you do... Much respect!!

[KyleRayner]

A friend is playing an alchemist in my new campaign and sent me this. I really love the system, especially because the shopping is the hardest/most boring part for me as a DM who hates economics.

[helpmeliv]

I remember a few years back, Arcadia 8 had an article on Monstrous Components by V.J. Harris which had rules for harvesting monster parts to use as spell components which modify the effects of a spell (eg. casting Darkvision with a devil's eye as a component lets you see through magical darkness). Might be fun to use those rules (or something similar) in addition to the crafting rules since it gives another use to the items you harvest.

[chrisg]

My Goliath Barbarian Rune Knight has gotten to craft many cool items during our campaign. It's one of my favorite mini game things to do in DnD. She's made a Dragon Bone Maul, a Unicorn Horn Spear, and a Dragon Maul Halberd, to name a few. 😁

In my other campaign, my Deep Gnome Artificer has made some awesome stuff, too. Got to make a special mounted weapon attachment for my Steel Defender Golem. So dope.

All of these things were made from monster parts or Tinker parts I found while adventuring. 😊

[DrenDor]

My player who just loves collecting monster parts will love this, I will try to start to implement this at our next session as a play test on a trial basis and see how it runs for us!

[jwmmitch]

I personally LOVE the idea of getting creative with the monster parts after the fight. Like taking the hide of a Displacer Beast to make a cloak. I'm playing in a campaign where we just killed a Bone Devil and thinking I could make a poison weapon with the stinger, or maybe use the femur for my gnome's quarterstaff or something.