How does a Dedicated Wright carry the process of item creation through to completion?

Question

A Dedicated Wright (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 285) has the following supernatural ability:

Item Creation (Su): A dedicated wright can perform the daily tasks related to item creation on behalf of its master. The master must meet (or emulate) all the prerequisites to create the desired item normally, and pays the gold and XP cost himself. The only cost a dedicated wright can help with is time. The master spends 1 hour initiating the process, channeling spell prerequisites into the dedicated wright, and paying the XP cost to make the item. He may then leave, allowing the wright to carry the process through to completion.

As well as the following skills and feats:

Skills: Craft (any) +7, Craft (any) + 4
Feats: Skill Focus (Craft)

The exact mechanics of the Dedicated Wright carrying the process through to completion, though, are unclear to me.

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Were the master to craft the item, then every week (or every day), the master would perform a Craft with a DC determined by the item being crafted, possibly augmented to allow a faster progression, and bearing the risk of ruining half the raw materials should they fail the skill check.

In the above description of the Item Creation (Su) ability of the Dedicated Wright there is, however, no mention of a Craft check at all:

• Does the Dedicated Wright have to perform a Craft check at all when working on behalf of its master?

• If so, does the Dedicated Wright uses its own Craft skill; possibly crafting an item its master does not possess the skill for?

• Or on the contrary, does the Dedicated Wright uses its master's Craft skill; possibly crafting faster should its master have a better skill check? And may the master artificially increase the DC (by increments of +10) to speed the process up?

• Or is it that the Dedicated Wright can only work on creating Magic Items, which are crafted at the rhythm of 1 day/1,000 gp¹ regardless of Craft skills?

I would appreciate if someone could clarify the above for me.

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¹ Except for potions, which are normally brewed in a day.

Answer 1

Item creation here means magic item creation

The question's third bullet is the most accurate: A dedicated wright working on a magic item typically completes 1,000 gp of work on that magic item per day (unless it's a potion in which case 1 day's always enough), regardless of the wright's ranks in Craft skills or its total Craft skill modifiers.

The description of the supernatural ability item creation of the dedicated wright implies magic items by its inclusion of terms like prerequisites and XP cost, but this reader agrees that the ability should go ahead and just state that absolutely clearly up front. Relying on newer readers to already know that item creation is shorthand for magic item creation and not pedestrian crafting is a pretty bold assumption on the part of the wright's author.

Presumably, the creator of a dedicated wright (Eberron Campaign Setting 285) could task the creature with crafting a mundane object like an arrow, full plate, a longsword, a signet ring, or a spell component pouch, but the wright will craft such a mundane item only according to its Craft skill check results… and outside its specialty, those results may be quite low. Further, to do so a dedicated wright needs the same amount of time, needs the same tools and kind of work space, and consumes the same amount of raw materials as would any other worker. A dedicated wright's supernatural ability item creation doesn't affect its ability to craft mundane equipment, mechanical traps, normal structures, normal vehicles, or other nonmagical items.

(A DM may let a dedicated wright—a construct without the need to eat, hydrate, or sleep—work tirelessly, completing mundane items in only 2/3 or 1/3 the normal time as it ceaselessly works each day 2 or 3 8-hour shifts; this is supported by the Main FAQ exchange beginning, "If a character doesn’t need to rest or sleep, can he spend 24 hours a day crafting items…?" (64). Note that some take issue with the FAQ.)

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Note: Feel free to replace every occurrence of magic above with psionic if that's your jam; Magic of Eberron describes, for instance, the psionic artificer (42–3). Also, if considering a dedicated wright, you might also be interested in this question.