Red Text in Crafting Screen

For the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, my 8th level wizard is getting options highlighted in red (namely, Frost and Shock) when I try to enhance a weapon. They highlight in white for a Venom Dagger and I can give the dagger one of those two enhancements, but only if I do not first give the dagger a +2 enhancement. For weapons that I have already enhanced (Longsword +2 +3, Masterwork Heavy Mace +1 +2 +3, Otis’ Longsword +2 +3, and Lareth’s Staff of Striking +3), the red highlights appear and I can’t enhance any of them with Frost or Shock.

I think my party can cover the cost ($153,000 in inventory).

I’m wondering if the number of enhancements an item can hold is limited. Or maybe the number of enhancements is limited by the level of the caster.

Can anyone tell me what’s happening? :blank:

 

Does your crafter have enough excess experience?

 

Thank you, Lord Plothos. I think that may be it. She just went up to level eight and has only a few hundred XP above 28,000.

Usually a game will pop up a bubble that advises the player of such things. Not this time. :doh:

 

True, ToEE could be clearer in places. The grey and red texts do have different meanings, so once you figure out what they are it's pretty clear, but that's not much comfort when you have no idea what they mean.

Anyway, the crafter's excess experience is listed at the bottom of the crafting window, while the experience needed is listed up at the top, so they're pretty easy to compare. I guess they thought the red text would lead you to connect those dots, but of course if you don't see the little box at the bottom you're out of luck.

 

Okay, I think I should have examined that screen more closely. I will now. Thank you for the good answer. :twitch:

 

I have now looked more closely at the Craft Magic Arms and Armor screen. For my Venom Dagger, after I click it over to the right-hand side of the screen and click the blue arrow for either Frost or Shock (highlighted in white), the screen tells me that my wizard needs 3000 gold for the Enhancement Cost and 240 XP for the Experience Cost. She can afford that. When, however, I do this for any of the other weapons I mentioned, the Enhancement Cost and Experience Cost both equal zero. No amount of mouse-clicking on any part of this screen will change that.

So I have no idea what I need to craft enhancements on those other weapons, except thanks to you, Lord Plothos, I am encouraged to think I just need to wait until my wizard has more available XP.

The CMAAA screen is not merely vague as to the meaning of its colors of text and what is needed to craft something; it is downright stingy. (Nor can I find anything in the manual or the in-game Help system that is helpful in this matter.) If this were an adventure game instead of an RPG, the screen could be used as a puzzle.

 

Each additional enhancement costs more experience. For example, to add Frost to an unenchanted dagger costs 240 xp. To add Frost to a +1 dagger will cost more. To add Frost to a +2 dagger will cost even more than adding it to a +1 dagger. I am unsure of the exact costs, and can't check since I have no saved games with high enough level characters. I too wish the CMAA screen was more informative. Just wait until you get more experience.

 

If you want to see a breakdown of how much crafted items should cost, you can find that info here:
http://d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#tableWeapons

Each enhancement adds some point value to the total "effective enhancement level" of the weapon (+1 for +1, +2 for +2, +3 for +3, +1 for flaming, shock, frost, +2 for holy, axiomatic, any burst, etc.). Total all the effective enhancements for the weapon, and find that total on the table. This is the weapon's market value. The cost to create it is half this value in gold plus 1/25 the value in experience.

Example: Making a +3 shocking burst weapon is making a weapon with an effective enhancement of +5. That's a 50,000 gp list price. Starting from just a masterwork weapon, then, that'd cost you 25,000 gp and 2,000 experience.

 

I think this number is off, actually. I think this would be the cost of adding frost to a +1 dagger. (240x25=6000=the difference between a +1 EEL and a +2.)

But the general point is right. Adding to pre-enchanted items will cost more.

 

Thanks for the link and the info. I fairly certain the xp cost was wrong, but I had no way to check it quickly. I was just using that value as an example.

 

Thank you for the precise information and the informative link.