One-Page Crafting Supplement
For D&D 5th Edition, by Tales of Hermes - Version 1.0 (Oct 12th 2022)
| Non-Magic | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Very Rare | Legendary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CR Range | - | 1-3 | 4-8 | 9-12 | 13-18 | 19+ |
| Crafting & Harvesting DC | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
| Crafting Cost* | 1/4 the item's cost | 50 gp | 200 gp | 2,000 gp | 20,000 gp | 100,000 gp |
| Crafting Time in workweeks* | 1 per 50 gp | 1 | 2 | 10 | 25 | 50 |
*Costs in time and price are halved for consumables like potions, scrolls and ammunition.
The Five Steps of Crafting
Ingredients
Acquire an ingredient that has a semblance of the power you want your magic item to have. This item can come from the entrails of a monster, be a spell scroll, or come from a magical mineral, plant or liquid. When harvesting such an item use the Crafting & Harvesting DC based on the CR of the monster as seen in the table above to see if you manage to successfully acquire the ingredient without complications.
An ingredient is not needed for the crafting of non-magic items.
Tools
Acquire a set of tools with which you have proficiency and which could logically be used to craft this item.
Rarity & Features
Specify the rarity and features of your magic item, these could be one of the abilities the monster had from which you harvested the item from, or an existing magic item from an official source (like the Dungeon Master's Guide) that has a thematic link to the monster.
Magical Crafting
To shorten the time needed to craft an item, the crafter can spend a number of spellslots. The level of the spellslot used is the amount of days chipped of the crafting time. If the remaining time is zero or less, you create the item within 1 hour.
A workweek in most worlds consists of five workdays, each with eight work hours per day.
Time
Spend the time needed to craft the item either by yourself or together with someone with the same tools and proficiency. Dividing the time needed by the amount of creatures working on it. Wizards (and other book-using spellcasters) can, instead of crafting a scroll as their specified magic item, write the spell down in one of their spellbooks.
You do not need to continually work on the item, but can instead do it in intervals (it is recommended to work on the item at least one hour each time).
Harvesting Complications
| Failure | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1-5 below the DC | If possible, you gain a crafting component with a rarity of one tier lower than expected. |
| 6-10 below the DC | If possible, you gain a crafting component with a rarity of two tiers lower than expected. |
| +10 below the DC | If possible, you gain a crafting component with a rarity of two tiers lower than expected, and you cause a negative effect to occur like a spell or feature the creature had access to when alive. |
If the harvested component is of the rarity 'Non-Magic' or lower, give the harvesting creature an item with the gold value equivalent to the crafting cost of an item with the rarity of the crafting component the creature would have gotten had it succeeded its harvesting check.
Crafting Complications
| Failure | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1-5 below the DC | You fail in crafting your item, but manage to salvage all crafting component. |
| 6-10 below the DC | You fail in crafting your item, and lose a quarter of the gold cost spend in the crafting. |
| +10 below the DC | You fail in crafting your item, lose a quarter of the gold cost spend in the crafting, and cause a negative effect to occur like a spell or feature the monster had access to when alive. |
The cost of purchasing a magic item is usually twice its crafting cost. Inexperienced sellers (like most Player Characters) have a hard time to sell it for more than crafting cost though.*