Chapter Six
When You Can’t Find the Right Thing: Custom Work
A spellcaster who sells magic items may be open to doing custom work. A party who contracts a caster to make a certain item within a normal timeframe for an item of that rarity should expect to pay approximately the normal price if nothing special is needed for the creation; as noted in Chapter Five, some spellcasters may accept a small discount for a commission paid up front, but not a dramatic one. If an item of value is required, the spellcaster will charge appropriately if they have it (double its value), or require the party to acquire it if not.
Remember: Material components for a spell must be consumed each day when creating a magic item that duplicates said spell. Ergo, if you determine that a spell required for an uncommon item has an extra consumable cost, that needs to be paid twenty times, or twenty of that item needs to be supplied. An item which does not replicate a spell, but which you determine requires a special component (e.g. some part of an ogre for Gauntlets of Ogre Strength), only needs one of that component.
Here are a few easy options you can use to differentiate magic item makers in your world.
As mentioned, a caster who is paid up front for a commission may slightly reduce the cost (the PCs should have to negotiate for this, unless you have a reason for the creator to throw a discount at the group, like they might walk away and the caster isn’t very good at negotiating). The most logical low end for this negotiation is the base value of the item as opposed to the price on the price list. Thus, an uncommon item might cost 2,300 gp instead of 2,500 gp, and a rare would be 37,000 instead of 40,000. Adjust these as you feel appropriate, but remember that prices below these start cutting into the estimated value of the spellcaster’s work.
A caster might be able to get a colleague to help make a commission on a one-off basis. Because they would be finding someone to help reduce the time the PCs have to wait for their item, it’s less likely a discount would be offered—in fact, the cost might be increased (see below).
In more populated areas, especially cities which act as trading hubs and bring people in from numerous different lands, there might even be magic shops where multiple casters regularly work. This would allow you to play substantially with creation times. For example, if five casters work together, the group might be able to get one to make an item for a normal cost with a normal wait time, or they could pay more to work on their commission at a higher rate for the expedited service.
Expedited service sounds cool, but what should they charge? Isn’t that part of your system?
Remember, the system isn’t about the numbers, per se. It’s about determining the incentives of the people in your world, and then applying numbers that make the most sense based on those incentives. So, let’s discuss the rationale of capable of providing expedited service before we talk prices.
Let’s take the shop with five casters. For the sake of this example, let’s assume all of them are at least 6th level (so they can all work on a rare item). They live in a reasonably big city and receive commissions from time to time, but they don’t have any currently in progress. They may have other items they’re working on for the shop’s general inventory, but a magic item doesn’t require the days spent on it to be consecutive, so they could pause those projects if necessary. The party comes in and wants a Belt of Dwarvenkind for the halfling who wants to be tougher and have a proper beard.
What would be the levels of service provided, what would be the costs, and why do those costs make sense?
If the party is in no rush and is willing to wait the full creation time, their commission will be normal price. 40,000 gp.
The casters could offer to have it done in half the time for a small premium. By having two people work on it, the belt would be done in 100 days instead of 200, and the casters would still have three more of them to work on other commissions. It’s an easy way for them to make extra money on the commission, so they only bump the price to 50,000 gp. After all, double the speed at only a 25% increased cost is a good deal.
If a third caster joins in, it means the shop only has two more to work on other commissions that might come in, or other projects they’re trying to finish. However, commissions of this value will be rare just about anywhere, so it’s still generally good for them to add people to the job. They decide a fair price is 70,000 gp. It’s still a good deal if the party needs it sooner rather than later—1/3 the base creation time at less than double the cost.
Once a fourth caster joins in, substantial diminishing returns come into play. Going from one caster to three cuts over four months off the creation time (200 days to 67); adding a fourth only reduces it by 17 more days, and the shop then only has one more person to take a commission. Now it’s in the casters’ interest to ensure the party makes it worth their time to add another person to the job. 100,000 gp.
If all five of them work on it together, they not only can take no commissions, they can’t work on anything else for nearly six weeks until the job is done. Considering it’s only ten fewer days than the four-caster price, the party has to make it worth their while. 140,000 gp, possibly more (150-160k) if the casters think they can get that out of the group.
Here’s a table that shows the multipliers used to reach the above prices:
# of Casters
Cost as % of Base Price
1
100%
2
125%
3
175%
4
250%
5
350%+
If you feel like these prices are too high (or too low) for faster service, go ahead and change them. The point here is not to set the rate for everyone, but to show a line of thinking that would impact how a magic shop might handle pricing commission work. In this case, the more casters that work on a job, the more the price goes up at each level, because more people are being taken away from other work.
If you think that’s the right approach for a shop in your game, but the price jumps are too big, you might use this table instead:
# of Casters
Cost as % of Base Price
1
100%
2
110%
3
125%
4
150%
5
200%+
Or, if you think the biggest jump should come when the most days are cut off the time (ie. at the start), you might use this table as a way to push characters into hiring all the casters at once:
# of Casters
Cost as % of Base Price
1
100%
2
175%
3
220%
4
240%
5
250%+
With this system, if a group is willing to pay an extra 30k to cut the first 100 days off the creation cost of a rare item, they might easily pay another 30k to cut another 60 days off and have it done as fast as possible.
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These examples assume five casters in a shop in order to give a broad example of motivations for why prices might be set in different ways. Of course, there are numerous different ways a shop with multiple casters might be set up. Most of them would be smaller; a partnership of two spellcasters is probably most likely. In that case, is it correct for them to add 25% to the cost of an item if they both work on it? Perhaps. Maybe they’ll charge the normal price because having them both work on a commission is one of the ways they sell their services. Maybe they’ll charge more because everyone in the shop is working on one project for that length of time.
What if it’s a shop with three wizards and a cleric? How are their prices affected if only the wizards can work on something, or only the cleric, or all four? Or, perhaps your world has a shop so big it’s more like a magical supermarket, employing twenty neophyte wizards and possessing a near-assembly line quality in the back half of the undoubtedly sizable building. That would likely have a dramatic effect on the overall supply of available magic items and, most likely, their prices.
But all of that is for you to decide. There are far too many permutations to cover. Hopefully this chapter gives you some ideas on how to offer custom work that’s reasonably priced and makes sense for all involved.