Item Crafting in The Temple of Elemental Evil
A how-to guide - Part Three
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crafting Armor:
Armor crafting works much the same as weapon crafting. You need:
1. A craftable item in the crafter’s inventory.
2. Enough money.
3. Enough excess experience for the crafter.
4. In some cases, a minimum caster level and a spell (though you’ll shortly see why this doesn’t matter).
The first thing to note is that the two non-pure enhancements that can be added to armor in ToEE don’t seem to work, so I won’t even bother listing the requirements for them here. Don’t ever put them on. They won’t help, and since they’re buggy you’ll just be asking for unexpected issues to arise.
The pure enhancements, as with weapons, have a maximum value of +3.
The other big thing to know about armor crafting is a bug you can exploit. Any magic shield and most magic armor you find that is not +3 already can be made into a +3 for free. This includes the suits of elven chainmail that are scattered around the game. These have an armor value of 5 and a max dex of 4 (hereafter written as 5/4) plus anywhere from a +1 to a +3 on top of that, making them range from 6/4 to 8/4. Those not already 8/4 can be made 8/4 for free. Another example is Lareth's magic breastplate: normally a +1 for a value of 6/3, it can be made 8/3 for free.
To do this, simply put the item in the crafter's inventory and craft. You'll bring up the menu and when you pick the armor or shield, it'll have all the pure enhancements on the bottom of the menu appear as if they've been applied already (they're present and grayed out in both the left and right windows). If you cancel, nothing will happen, but if you click create instead, the armor or shield will be made +3, and at no cost to you. Thus, for a character with a high dex, as soon as you get to Emridy Meadows, you've got access to a piece of armor that's as good as or better than pretty much anything else you'll find the rest of the way. It's LIGHT, making it ideal for rogues, barbarians, and rangers, and great for tumbling in. Even +3 full plate is only 11/1, which is the same total exactly so long as you're not flat-footed (plus it reduces your movement and prevents you from tumbling, etc.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crafting Wondrous Items:
Making Wondrous Items is slightly different from crafting arms and armor in that you don't need to have any item in your inventory and in that an already existing item cannot be further enchanted. If you have +2 gloves of dexterity, you can't make them +6. You have to make a brand new +6 pair (leaving you the +2 pair to either sell or use elsewhere).
You need:
1. Enough money.
2. Enough excess experience for the caster.
3. In most cases, a spell.
4. In some cases, another attribute (being elven, having a CL of 8, etc.).
The requirements for each item are listed clearly in-game, so I won't put them here. If one of the requirements is printed in red, it means you have failed to meet that requirement.
ALL craftable wondrous items in ToEE are listed here, so if it's not on the list, it can't be crafted (at least with your current mod/patch setup), though it may still be possible to spawn the item you're looking for with the console. Grayed-out items are those that cannot be made by your crafter at the current time, and selecting them will typically show you in red where you're lacking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crafting Rods:
Making rods works just like crafting wondrous items, except you need the craft rod feat and apparently the CA&A feat as well. There are, however, only three rods available without further modding: the staff of striking, the rod of the python, and the rod of the viper. The requirements, like those for wondrous items, are listed clearly. Again, there are only three, and they are not particularly spectacular items. The feat, therefore, isn't so great.
Items with charges (including rods and wands) cannot be recharged in ToEE. Once it's used, it's used.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crafting Staves and Forging Rings:
The temple.zip fix added the option to craft staves and to forge rings, but did not create files for any staves or rings. Thus, there's nothing to craft: the list is empty. The feats were left out by the designers, who were working on a game that was to have a level cap at 10, but with temple.zip you are able to take characters all the way to level 20, and so it was foreseen that modders would want to make crafting staves and rings a part of their mods. Moebius2778 (author of the fix) thus added the feats purely to accommodate future modding. Without that modding, they are useless. You are able to take the feats at level 12, but you will not be able to make anything with them. Mods adding staves and rings to forge abound, however, so if you wish to make these things, it should not be hard to locate the necessary files and/or learn how to make your own. The modders at
www.co8.org are particularly adept in this department. A single post there can be a strong first step into the modding community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crafting Wands:
No item is needed. Experience, money, and the requisite spell are all that's required. The wand will reflect the level of the caster at the time of the crafting. Thus, if you are 7th level and make a wand of fireballs (which does 7d6 damage), and then gain three levels to become a 10th level caster, the wand will remain a generator of 7th level, 7d6 fireballs, and will not increase in power with you. If, however, you then make a new wand, it will be a 10d6 one, in accordance with your level. Wands found are assumed to be the minimum level necessary to cast the spell (e.g., 5th level for a wand of fireballs = 5d6).
Wands can only be created for spells of 4th level or lower (though your personal caster level can of course be much higher). Thus, you can have a wand of ice storm, but not a wand of cone of cold (and the wand of chain lightning - a 6th level spell - that can be found in the temple should not exist).
According to 3.5, you are supposed to expend additional experience and/or money, if the spell you are putting into a wand has an experience cost and/or an expensive material component. In ToEE, though, this is not the case. Clearly, this can work to your advantage. A wand of identify, for instance, will carry multiple uses of the identify spell, which, if cast normally from spell slots, would each cost 100gp due to their expensive material component. To craft that wand in ToEE costs the same as it does to craft a wand of any other first level spell (around 330gp and 30xp). This alone will save you money. On top of this, the right merchants will buy a wand from someone with a good appraise score for nearly twice what it cost to make it (650gp or more), and, best of all, they'll pay this price even if you've used up most of the charges. So, by saving the last charge or two, you can actually profit from identifying items, losing only about 30xp for each wand. Many new mods have changed this, so don't be surprised if you can't do it with another configuration. It was high on many a modder's list of things to fix.
Wands in 3.5 are supposed to have 50 charges when new, but in ToEE, they appear to have more on the order of 20. Wands cannot be recharged.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scribing Scrolls:
Again, no items are necessary. You need only the feat, the spell to be put on the scroll, and the money and experience to spare. In D&D and ToEE, when you find a scroll (or wand), it is assumed to be the minimum level necessary to cast that spell (5th level for a fireball scroll). When you create the scroll at a higher level, though, the spell will reflect your increased power. As scrolls stack in the inventory, though, the computer may have trouble sorting out which ones have which level. I am at present unsure what putting two scrolls of differing levels of the same spell into one character's inventory will do (although my guess is it will make a stack of 2 with the level equalling that of the scroll that was originally in the inventory; but this is speculation).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brewing Potions:
Like Scrolls, potions require only experience, money, and the requisite spell. Not all spells can be turned into potions. The full list of possible potions is displayed. A potion not on the list cannot be brewed in your version of ToEE. Potions are another area where modders have done some work. Don't be surprised if your configuration results in potions with exobinant costs in gp or xp if the spell it effectively casts has a expensive component or an experience cost.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linear Mode
