- Type of feat
- Item creation
- Prerequisite
- Caster level 3rd.
- Required for
- None
- Specifics
This feat grants the ability to craft a wide variety of magical items, such as amulets and rings.
Crafting magic items through the use of this feat requires a magical workbench. The character places the appropriate Essences and gems, along with any base materials (such as iron ingots, wooden planks, or leather hides) into the magical workbench's inventory, then activates the enchantment by casting the correct spell on the workbench. Provided the character is of at least the minimum required caster level, the item is created.
Recipe books, containing the required caster level, gold piece cost, Essences, gems, spells, and materials to create various magic arms and armors can be found throughout the game. Further formulae may be discovered by the determined artificer.
- Use
- Selected.
Note that this Feat does not enable a character to Craft Magical Arms and Armor. Also, Craft Trap, Craft Weapon, Craft Armor, and Craft Alchemy are technically separate from enchanting magical items, and are based on Skills rather than Feats. Other Feats that create magical items are Craft Wand, Scribe Scroll, and Brew Potion.
Gameplay Notes[]
Currently, the classes that can use this feat are: Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Spirit Shaman, Warlock and Favored Soul. Spell-like abilities CANNOT be used to craft items. Although PnP rules state that the Blackguard and Assassin have real spell books, NWN2 treats their spells as spell-like abilities. As such, these PrC classes CANNOT utilize this feat for their 'spells'.
Spells cast by Paladins and Rangers are considered to be half of their class level (e.g., a 10th Level Paladin casts Eagle's splendor as a 5th level caster). This may affect their ability to craft items.
Spells from items, wands, and scrolls can be utilized with this feat to create magical items. However, there are a couple caveats to this that will impact this ability. They are as follows:
- The caster level of the crafter is used if the spell is one that the crafter can already produce themselves regardless of the caster level of the item in question. Thus, even if the item can produce a level 12 effect, if the caster is only level 6 and the item requires a level 8 effect to create, the item will not be able to be created.
- The item's caster level, not the creator's caster level, is used to determine success or failure of item creation.
- If the creator must have the use magic device skill in order to use the item, the caster level is capped at level 10.
Thus, in the official NWN2 campaign, Elanee could use a wand of Barkskin to craft an Amulet of Natural Armor +4 (caster level 12) if she was also at least 12th level. Bishop could not use the wand to craft at level 12 because his highest possible level is Ranger 20 and Rangers levels are halved for casting spells (level 10 maximum in this case). Grobnar (with his high Use magic device skill) could not craft the amulet either because the 12th level wand would be capped at level 10 and the amulet requires a level 12 caster to create it.
MotB Gameplay Notes[]
Crafting in MotB no longer requires the use of the magical workbench. Crafting recipes in MotB are also different. Crafting recipes are listed on these new essences and are no longer found in books. The crafter no longer needs to utilize gems or multiple distilled essences. Instead, various essences are dropped by creature that are killed. The essences dropped are typically too weak in and of themselves to be used for crafting (Volatile Essences). However, they can be combined into useable essences (Brilliant and Pristine Essences).
All recipes are basically the same for each essence power level (Brilliant and Pristine) and only differ in the strength of the enchantment. For example, using a single Brilliant Earth Essence and the Melf's Acid Arrow spell with a weapon enchants the weapon with 1d6 Acid bonus damage.
In MotB, creatures drop essences automatically. These essences do not need to be distilled. They can be combined, converted, or separated using the Alembic carried by the first NPC that joins your party (Safiya). See the crafting recipes section for details on the exact combination of spells, essences and feats needed to make a particular item. Caster level requirements are as follows:
- Level 12: 1 Brilliant Essence (+2 items, 1d6 elemental damage, and weak enchantments)
- Level 15: 2 Brilliant Essences (+3 items, 2d4 elemental damage, and basic enchantments)
- Level 18: 3 Brilliant Essences (+4 items, 2d6 elemental damage, and moderate enchantments)
- Level 21: 4 Brilliant Essences (+5 items, 2d8 elemental damage, and strong enchantments)
- Level 24: 1 Pristine Essence (+6 items, 3d6 elemental damage, and very strong enchantments)
- Level 27: 2 Pristine Essences (+7 items, 4d6 elemental damage, and powerful enchantments)
- Level 30: 3 Pristine Essences (+8 items, 5d6 elemental damage, and epic enchantments)
MotB also permits as many as four (4) enchantments to be crafted onto items. However, pre-epic level caster (level 20 and below) are limited to no more than three (3) enchantments. When the caster reaches level 21, they can add the last enchantment.
Like NWN2, MotB crafting will upgrade previous enchantments on items (replace them) if they are of the same type (e.g., fire damage 1d6 can be upgraded to fire damage 2d6). However, if the item already has the maximum enchantment level on it for the caster's level, it cannot be upgraded. For example, a 21st level caster trying to upgrade a +3 Adamantine Acidic Weapon may upgrade either the +3 or the Acidic damage (or both). However, if he adds fire damage to the weapon prior to attempting the other upgrades, the game will kick back a "too many enchantments" error message and the item won't be able to be upgraded or enchanted any further.
- MotB uses the crafter's TOTAL character level instead of caster level to determine if an item can be crafted. For example, a level 5 Wizard / level 12 Fighter that has the Craft Magical Arms and Armor feat can craft a magical sword with a Brilliant Fire Essence to produce a sword with a +1d6 Fire damage bonus. The essence states that you must be caster level 12 to do this. However, this Wizard can perform the creation just fine because the system uses character level, not caster level to determine success.
- This is caused by the OnModuleLoad script k_mod_load setting the CAMPAIGN_SWITCH_CRAFTING_USE_TOTAL_LEVEL flag to TRUE. Setting this flag to FALSE would cause the game to use the caster level instead of the character level for crafting.