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Crafting Equipment and Magic Items

Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 235
Rather than buying mass-produced, mass-marketed equipment, characters with the right skills can construct their own equipment. This takes time, and due to the economies of scale enjoyed by multisystem corporations and shops with dedicated construction machines and drones, it does not save you any money. However, it allows you to acquire exactly what you need, as long as you can meet the construction requirements.

A player character can create all the items presented in this chapter as long as he has the skills, materials, tools, and time needed to construct it. He must have a number of ranks in the appropriate skill equal to the item level of the item to be created. For weapons, armor, vehicles, and technological equipment, the appropriate skill is Engineering. For magic fusions and magic items, the appropriate skill is Mysticism. For hybrid items, you must have the required ranks in both Engineering and Mysticism. For drugs, medicinals, and poisons, the skill can be either Life Science or Physical Science. For any food or drink, the appropriate skill is Life Science. For computers, you can use either Computers or Engineering, and you can construct a computer with a tier equal to half your ranks in the skill. For items that are not considered any of these categories (such as most clothes, tents, and so on) either Engineering or Mysticism can be used. At a GM’s discretion, an appropriate Profession skill can be used for a narrower range of items. For example, a character with Profession (weaponsmith) might be able to make technological, hybrid, and magic weapons and weapon fusions, but no other items.

Crafting items requires you to have access to tools and a workshop or similar space. Most starships have an appropriate area set aside, and such space can be rented at the same price as lodgings in major cities (with the size of the lodging being equivalent to the size of the workshop, which limits the size of items that can be constructed and how many people can work on a single item at one time). Creating an item normally has a base time of 4 hours. If your number of ranks in the appropriate skill to craft an item exceeds that item’s level by 5 or more, you can craft that item in half the base time. If your ranks exceed the item level by 10 or more, you can create the item in onequarter the base time. Objects larger than a Medium creature take twice as long to craft for each size category larger.

To create an item, you must have UPBs with a total value equal to the price of the item to be created. At the GM’s discretion, you can scavenge similar items for parts, allowing 10% of the scavenged item’s value to count toward the UPBs needed. Even magic and hybrid items are created using UPBs, as the Mysticism skill is used to form the materials into runes and specific implements for rituals utilized in the creation of magic devices.

Custom-built equipment has a few advantages over massproduced items. If you have a skill that allows you to repair an item you crafted, you can do so in half the normal time. When determining the hardness, Hit Points, and saving throws of an item you have crafted, treat its item level as if it were 2 higher. (For more about calculating these values, see Breaking Objects on page 409.)

Archives of Nethys

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Crafting Equipment and Magic Items