Craft Raw Materials
That's what adventurers call it; normal folks call this mining or logging.
Ask the DM if this is acceptable first, but the argument goes, though the game doesn't say raw materials can be crafted, raw materials must come from somewhere, and scrounging in the wilderness is as good a place as any to get them. All it takes is time.
The Pathfinder Craft skill says
- Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
- Find the item's DC from Table: Craft Skills.
- Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost.
- Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week's worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.
If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.
Progress by the Day: You can make checks by the day instead of by the week. In this case your progress (check result × DC) should be divided by the number of days in a week.
Thus items costing less than 3 sp consume raw materials costing 0 sp. So the character crafts raw materials 2 sp at a time by spending 0 sp. The DM must determine the DC for crafting raw materials, but a reasonable house rule simply makes the DC equal to the DC of crafting the actual item (because were it easier folks wouldn't buy raw materials).
Example
Gulliver Robinson's ship sinks and he washes up on a deserted island. After a few years, he realizes he'd like not to be trapped on a deserted island any longer. He wants to craft a
rowboat. A rowboat costs 50 gp. The DM determines that a rowboat is a typical item as per the Craft skill, but as the island is deserted (except for Gulliver Robinson, obviously), no one is available to sell him raw materials. He must make his own.
Gulliver Robinson's tracking his progress by the day. He needs to craft the raw materials for his rowboat first. He spends 1 day trying to gather 2 sp of raw materials. He is saddled with improvised tools and but his Intelligence 14 gives him a Craft (shipbuilding) skill bonus of +2. He takes 10 on his Craft (shipbuilding) checks, as 10 guarantees success.
He spends day 1 taking to to make 1 Craft (shipbuilding) check. He spends 0 sp to purchase raw materials. He takes 10 on his Craft (shipbuilding) check. He multiplies his check result (10) by the check's DC (10) to get 100 and divides that 100 by 7 for progress by the day for 14 sp, so Gulliver Robinson can make 8 Craft (shipbuilding) checks per day, making 2 sp of raw materials each check, therefore making 16 sp of raw materials per day.
It'll take about 11 days to craft the raw materials for a rowboat, whose raw materials cost 166 sp.
(By the way, if Gulliver Robinson takes 10 on his Craft (shipbuilding) checks to craft the rowboat he'll be done in 5 weeks.)
With base price being defined as how much the item is priced in the store, and not the discounted cost for crafting the item.
Correct.
Items you can buy from the store usually have a CL listed.
For example, the Ring of Invisibility has a CL 3rd, so a player would need to take a DC 8 spellcaster check to successfully craft the item.
No, oddly enough. The crafter of the item sets its caster level, from a minimum of whatever it takes to cast the requisite spells (or other requirement listed for the item), to a maximum of the crafter’s own caster level. Since caster level typically costs money, increases DCs, and so on, most crafters use the lowest caster level possible for the item.
The caster level listed with items is the “typical” caster level for that item, where “typical” is more-or-less just something the authors made up. For most items, it is the minimum (e.g. that ring of invisibility, requiring as it does the 2nd-level invisibility spell, which has a minimum caster level of 3rd), but there are exceptions (e.g. sovereign glue, which has an absurd listed CL of 20th, despite only really requiring 3rd for make whole).
From what I can gather, the cost to craft a magical item with multiple abilities costs the full price for the most expensive bonus, then 1.5 times the price of each additional bonus.
Correct.
It is worth noting that D&D 3.5, upon which Pathfinder is based, added a rule in Magic Item Compendium that certain, basic sorts of bonuses do not incur this premium. For instance, making your ring of invisibility also include a deflection bonus to AC (à la ring of protection) would not cost extra (just the cost of ring of invisibility plus the cost of ring of protection), because deflection bonuses to AC were one of the “generic” bonuses you could have on rings. Other examples included enhancement bonuses to ability scores, resistance bonuses to saving throws, etc.
This change allowed for characters to get their critical math fixes, while still allowing them to get “fun” and interesting items. It led to a much smoother game that penalized characters less for being responsible and buying the critical, but boring, +number items.
I will admit that Paizo not only has not ported this rule, but adamantly opposes it with its recommendations. Paizo considers it important that characters pay extra for combining such items. I will state flat-out that they are quite simply wrong. This attitude massively, and unnecessarily, shafts the classes that were already weakest. I cannot more strongly recommend that you ignore them on this issue.
Lets say I want to craft a Ring of Invisibility and also enchant it with Magic Aura so that it registers as a non-magical ring.
Your example is done correctly.
- Does adding the Magic Aura effect to the Ring of Invisibility increase the final Caster Level of the ring, and thus the DC spellcaster check? If so, by how much? Just 1 since I used Caster Level 1 to add the effect, making the ring a CL 4th with a DC 9 spellcaster check?
Caster level requirements are minimums, so use the highest minimum as the overall minimum of the item. In this case, magic aura requires CL 1st and invisibility requires CL 3rd, so the ring requires CL 3rd. You could craft with a higher CL (requiring a higher DC), which would make the ring more resistant to dispel magic et al.
When you upgrade a magical item or add additional abilities to an existing magical item, do you take a DC spellcaster check at the end of the crafting time? The rules do not state this outright and I've not been able to find an answer.
- If you do, do you use the CL of the new ability for the check? With the example for adding Invisibility to a ring of protection, would the DC of the spellcaster check be that of the CL of the ring of Invisibility (3rd), or something else?
The DC would be based on the item’s CL, whatever it is. At a minimum for this ring, 3rd.
Does the CL of the item increase when upgrading an item? Bracers of Armor has a CL 7th regardless of the strength of the enchantment bonus. Would upgrading the bonus from +1 to +3, or +1 to +5, still use a DC 12 spellcaster check?
If you were correct about bracers of armor requiring CL 7th regardless of enhancement bonus, you would be correct. I believe there may be some examples where this would be the case.
However, the bracers of armor do not require CL 7th. Rather, they require that
creator’s caster level must be at least two times that of the bonus placed in the bracers, plus any requirements of the armor special abilities
Best Answer
In theory, yes.
The lich template is the only source I found that says the phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create. Since the crafting cost is usually 50% of the market price, I suppose this means that a lich's phylactery has a theoretical base price of 240,000 gp.
According to the rules on magic item creation, crafting a magic item normally takes 8 hours per 1000 gp in the base price, working up to 8 hours per day. This would translate to 1 day per 1000 gp in the base price. This also assumes you aren't adventuring and have sufficient space and concentration for crafting.
So a base price of 240,000 gp would normally require 240 days. This time can be reduced:
In most cases, this means you can craft at double speed, i.e., complete the phylactery in 120 days.
Additionally, if you (and an ally) both have the Cooperative Crafting feat, then you can double the speed again, i.e., complete the phylactery in 60 days.
It's when you begin. The material cost is determined by your caster level, and the material cost is paid when you begin crafting.
Therefore, the item uses the caster level of the crafter when they began making it.