[RPG] Combining both Magic and Psionics in the same Craft feat

craftingdnd-3.5emagicmagic-itemspsionics

So, let's say we've got a character with a Craft Wondrous Item or Craft Universal Item feat, and said character for some reason can both cast spells and manifest powers.

So, said character crafts several magic or psionic items, and then he thinks – maybe he can use both sources for crafting with the same feat? That would certainly make his life a lot easier.

Of course, I'm not talking about "Imprint Stone" or "Craft Wand" or some other type of item where we're basically dealing with predetermined spellcasting that usually requires you to have Use Magic Device/Use Psionic Device – I'm talking about the items that have less obvious effects, like Universal/Wondrous items, Rings, [maybe] Rods and such. As far as can I remember, Spell-Like abilities CAN be used for crafting purposes, and psionic powers often use similar rulings to those.

So, can you, while possessing only one type of Craft feat, use both types of spellcasting for said Craft feat?

Best Answer

In the default magic–psionic transparency rules, these feats are separate; in fact, all feats are separate:

Though not explicitly called out in the spell descriptions or magic item descriptions, spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items that could potentially affect psionics do affect psionics.

Notice how feats are not included in that list.

As far using psionic powers to produce magic items or vice versa, Magic Item Compendium does discuss this on page 232. It basically says that someone who has Craft Universal Item and a psionic power similar “enough” (DM’s call) to the spell required by a wondrous item can craft that wondrous item (though it would technically be a universal item with the same effect). Likewise with Craft Psionic Arms & Armor and magic weapons and armor.

But in neither case can someone craft an item that replicates a spell using a “similar” power—it has to be that exact spell in psionic form, or no dice. So you can create a necklace of fireballs with energy burst, but there just is no way to create a brazier of commanding fire elementals with psionics because there is just no psionic power that can summon fire elementals like summon monster VI or summon monster VII can.

And in both cases you are still using a psionic power with Craft Universal Items or a spell with Craft Wondrous Items. And since you need a pretty exact match for spell- or power-replicating items, you could not craft that brazier of commanding fire elementals with Craft Universal Items, even if you did also know summon monster VI and summon monster VII—because those are still spells, and thus you need Craft Wondrous Items to use them. Likewise, you couldn’t create something that uses astral construct with Craft Wondrous Items, even if you know astral construct—because you would need a spell to go with Craft Wondrous Items, and that spell would have to match astral construct—no such spell exists.

You can take the Chameleon Crafting feat, as pointed out in Hey I Can Chan’s answer, to fix this problem, but that is only valuable if you have more than one crafting feat (i.e. if you have Craft Magic Arms & Armor and Craft Universal Items, but not if you have only one). Even then, it seems rather tax-y.

However, it is worth noting that in Pathfinder, Dreamscarred Press eliminated these differences altogether. In their version, no Craft Universal Items or Craft Psionic Arms & Armor feats exist, rather they printed updates to Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms & Armor to cover psionic items. This corroborates with your intuition that there really is no need for separate feats here, and confirms that there are no problems letting one count for the other (or just having one feat for both in the first place).

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