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A summary in brief of 3rd Edition magic item creation.
Magic item pricing is a matter of accounting. An item costs three things: gold, XP, and time. The amount of gold pieces an item costs is based on what materials you use and what abilities you combine with the item. To accurately price created magic items you need two resources: The Player's Handbook and The Dungeon Master's Guide.
To create a magic item you must be a spellcaster with the proper feat (PHB: Chapter 5: Feats, page 77). The expense of hiring a spellcaster for item creation is not included in this guide.
Cost of Materials: All the components that go into an item's creation relate to a value in gold pieces. When calculating the cost of item creation, the first figure is the cost of raw materials. The cost of materials varies. There are long lists of equipment and material prices in the PHB (page 95-114; tables are on pages 96, 98/99, 104, 108, 110 and 114).
Create a master list of all the materials you will need. You have to buy all the pieces before the process can start. You must record the cost of everything. Imagine you are writing a recipe, list out the ingredients and how much each costs. Armor and weapons must be masterworked to be granted any magical properties. Costs for masterworked items are in the PHB (page 114; Table 7-9).
Enhancement Bonus: To make a piece of armor or a weapon with an enhancement bonus, the creator must be of a level at least three times the enhancement bonus. So to make a +1 Short Sword, you need:
- to have a masterwork sword {310gp}
- and be a 3rd level spellcaster
Adding Abilities to an item: Weapons and armor must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have abilities added, and therefore must also be masterworked. Ability costs are based on this formula: bonus squared (means "times itself") x base price of the item you are adding the ability to.
Spell-effect abilities are different. They are tallied like this: Spell level (the highest level used) squared x N {where N equals a cost based on use (found on page 242 in the DMG; Table 8-40)}. There are a few variations but they are not too hard to figure out. They are also in the DMG (page 242; Table 8-40).
To strictly add a weapon Ability (look to DMG page 185; Table 8-15), find your weapon type on Table 8-10 (DMG page 184). In the case of this example, a +1 Short Sword, it costs 2,000 gp. Total expense for this simple +1 Short Sword:
- 300 gp for masterwork quality
- 10 gp for Short Sword
- +2000 gp for the ability
- So the total is: 2,310gp
XP expense: Take the total cost of the materials and Abilities. 1/25th of that value in gold pieces is the amount of experience (XP) the item's creation requires. The XP cost cannot be spent beyond the point where the spellcaster creating the item loses a level. In the example of the +1 Short Sword, the XP cost is calculated like this:
1/25 XP (or 0.04) x 2310 (gp) = 92 XP
Length of Time: How much time an item requires for creation is spelled out at the end of each Creating Item category in the DMG (pages 243-246). Every 1,000 gp of expense you spend on materials requires one day of work to create an item. If you spend 10,000 gp on a magic item, it takes ten days to create it. This does not add to the cost of creation. You take the total cost of creation and divide by 1,000. The total equals the number of days creation takes.As in the case of the +1 Short Sword example: 2310/1000 = 2.31
Round down the result. Creating the weapon in this example takes two full days.
Reducing the Costs: The costs of item creation are based in meta-thinking. They are set up to allow free-thinking fantasy creations but keep those creations balanced. Sometimes an otherwise balanced item is simply prohibitively expensive to create. To allow the creation of such a special item, there are previsions in the DMG (page 243, "Behind the Curtain") to reduce the expense of item creation. By placing limitations, such as skill requirements (reduces cost by 20%) or specific alignments for use ( 30% reduction) can help keep item creation cost lower.
Multiple Spell Effects: Calculating costs can get confusing when multiple spell effects are being included in the creation of a single item. This is probably intentional. A balanced magic item is limited in its capability. Making a single item that can do the work of five should be expensive and hard to design.
To determine the cost of creation, the highest level spell included is the first multiplier. The second multiplier is the caster level of the spell caster crafting the wondrous item. Its use (Single Use, Charges, Command Word or Use-activated) determines the cost rate increase. Do the same process for each spell effect included in the item. Add them together.
Artifacts:These are items that cannot be created by characters. They are the domain of the DM and are inherently unbalanced. Creating these types of items does not require a close account of costs for creation. It is helpful to list the abilities, spell effects and other traits in game terms so the artifact can be applied fairly by DM's.
Determining Caster Level: This one is fairly simple. Generally, the spellcaster must be at least the caster level of the level spell they are casting. The most difficult part of determining which caster level you'd like for your item's creation is knowing how powerful you want the spell effect. In the Player's Handbook, under the class descriptions for each of the spellcasting classes, is a table for each class' spell progression. Determine what class spell effect you are using. Go to that classes table to determine what level caster your item would require for creation. Spellcasters that can create magic items are Bards (PHB page 27; Table 3-4), Cleric (PHB page 30; Table 3-6), Druid (PHB page 34; Table 3-8), Sorcerer (PHB page 49; Table 3-17), and Wizard (PHB page 52; Table 3-20). Rangers and paladins also cast but are not usually known for item creation. Their tables are also in the PHB in Chapter 3.
Closing Reminders: As it says in the DMG (page 243, Behind the Curtain) "The formulas {for item creation} are only a starting point... items require at least some DM judgement calls." Keep that in mind when creating an item, it helps keep the expense and efforts of magic item creation in perspective. There is a reason the rules for item creation are in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Designing and creating a magic item is essentially the responsibility of the DM to moderate. When developing an idea for a magic item, it is helpful to keep that balancing view of what it is you are trying to create.
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