Requirements

To create a magical item, a character needs the appropriate level of skill, a suitable place to perform the work, the correct materials and processes to complete the item, and often the enchant an item and permanency spells.

Character Level

Wizards can create potions and scrolls at 9th level and other items at 11th level, provided that the necessary spells are available.

Priests can create scrolls at 7th level, potions at 9th level, and other items at 11th level.

Warriors and rogues cannot create magical items, even if they have spellcasting ability.

Priests and wizards can use spells on scrolls, stored in items, or cast by other characters to get the spells necessary to create magical items.

Who Can Make Which Items?

No character can make a magical book, libram, manual, tome, or artifact. Artifacts are a campaign-shaking occurrence, reserved to the discretion of the DM. Magical writings that increase levels and ability scores are likewise unbalancing.

Racial items, such as boots of elvenkind and girdles of dwarvenkind, can be created only by priests of the indicated race. High-level elf priests, for example, can create cloaks of elvenkind. If the Exceeding Level Limits optional rule (from the DMG) is not in play, only NPC demihuman clerics who have achieved the maximum level can make these items.

Mages can make any other item if they meet the level requirements and have the necessary spells.

Priests and specialist wizards can make only those items that they can use. A cleric, for example, cannot make a magical long sword, and a transmuter can’t make a wand of fire, which employs evocation magic. Specialist wizards, however, receive a +5% bonus to their success chances when creating items that possess abilities from their school of specialization. For example, a transmuter gets the bonus when creating a wand of polymorphing.

Working Space

A wizard needs a laboratory to make magical items. The laboratory must have at least 500 square feet of floor space (20 x 25 feet), and more is preferable. Basic furnishings and supplies cost 5,000 gp, and the character must spend an additional 500 gp a month to keep the laboratory properly equipped.

A priest must create magical items on an altar specially dedicated to his deity. There is no basic size requirement, although a deity whose portfolio includes magic might impose one. An item to be enchanted must fit on the altar, so it benefits the priest to make the altar as large and sturdy as is practical. The minimum cost for building the altar and properly consecrating it is 2,000 gp. The altar requires no special maintenance, but only the priest who performed the consecration can use the altar to enchant items—no other creature can use it while the priest lives. If the altar is defiled, the priest must consecrate it again. Before consecrating the altar, the priest must please his deity with some extraordinary service connected with the deity’s portfolio or sphere of control. A deity of wisdom, for example, might look favorably upon a priest who writes a book of philosophy or who solves a mystery using superior judgment instead of divination spells.

After the service is complete, the priest must pray and meditate over the altar for one week. The vigil occupies all the character’s waking hours. If interrupted, the vigil must be started over again.

Approval

Characters who have the required skills and equipment are not necessarily free to begin churning out magical items as they see fit. The DM must approve any new magical item that enters the campaign. The player should explain exactly what powers the proposed item will have. In the case of items already described in rule books, this is simply a matter of having the DM review the description and decide if the item is appropriate to the campaign. Once approved, the player is free to have the character begin work.

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