Crafting Magic Items
On Garn, magic items are special and not common to every
society, having stories to them (think Sting from the
Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, a simple enough
magic weapon but with a detailed history).
As such, my preference is for characters to "encounter"
magic items in their adventures than to simply create
(or even buy) them.
Nonetheless, I can get behind the niche character who
is a magic forger, aspiring alchemist, or a character
whose life goal is to make the most powerful weapon or
most protective piece of armor possible or simply the
quirky (or not so quirky) inventor type.
These characters should be as rare as the magic items
of Garn, a rare talent who endeavors to make items (as
opposed to a MMO style everyone just takes a crafting
skill approach and makes their dragon armor, etc).
Aside from the special talent required, once you get
into creating rare items, I have decided the process is
more complicated, both in gathering materials and in
the process of creating the items as well (I think most
things should lead to adventure and this is just another
avenue to adventuring for a specific purpose).
So the following homebrew rules and effects are
included in my campaign for creating magic items that
are rare or greater in rarity.
The Process
The process of creating rare and more powerful magic items requires time and dedication, as well as materials that are not common except maybe in the largest cities of more magical peoples such as elves or tucked away in the vaults of the local House of Knowledge location. The DM determines the area the materials can be found in or the quest required to gain the material item such as a special gem needed to put into an inlay in the item, etc.
Items that are very rare and legendary generally require searching for or even questing for special materials to create them and artifacts tend to be made by deities, archfey, demon lords, and creatures of similar power, with materials and secret rites only known to them.
Once you gather the materials, you and any helpers begin the process of creting the item as detailed in the DMG. Items that are very rare or legendry can only have one helper at most who must, of course, be proficient in the Arcana skill.
Halfway through the process time, you make an Intelligence (Arcana) check to create the item according to the Advanced Magic Item Creation table. If you have at least one helper, you roll with Advntage. If you succeed then you proceed to take the rest of the time and finish the item successfully, if you fail and the materials are destroyed you must start over, if the check results in a cursed item then you contiue to mke the item, your character not aware of the curse.
Advanced Magic Item Creation
Magic Item Creation Results
Item Creation Results
The process of creating magic items can have unexpected results, both for ill and for unexpected better than expected results.
-
Arcane Explosion. The item, itself explodes in a 20 ft. radius not only destroying the materials but causing each creature in the area to make a DC 15 Contitution saving throw or taking 18 (4d8) force damage plus an additional 2d8 force damage for each level of rarity of the item past rare.
-
Severe Cursed Item. The item identifies as the item intended to be created but is actually a detrimental cursed item of the DM's design. If creating a sword, the sword may do damage to the wielder instead of the target for example, a shield may give attacks against you advantage and look like a target to others, you might get a bow that shoots you in the back, and so on.
-
Failure But Items Salvaged. You cn restrt the process, only losing the time spent so far in creating the item.
-
Standard Cursed Item. The item functions as the intended item but comes with either (roll 1d2) 1. Wild Magic Qualities. When you use the item roll a d20 and on a 1 roll on the Wild Magic Table or 2. the item comes with curse determined by the DM. An Ioun Stone may increase your AC but also has a low chance of increasing a nearby enemy's AC by 2 now and then as an example.
-
Special Features. The item has one or more additional features determined by the DM. A +3 Scimitar may also do additional lightning damage for example. Having more than one special feature may increase this lightning damage or may add another feature completely.
