What stops you from crafting items such as wands with Shadow Evocation/Conjuration/Shades?

Question

Since Wish/Limited Wish can indeed be used to craft items(Can you craft magic items using Wish instead of the required spell?)

What stops me from creating a wand of fireball with the help of the spell Shadow Evocation to mimic the spell instead? (or a staff since Shadow Evocation is a 5th level spell and that might not work on a wand)

There might not be RAW solutions to this, but if I ever allow this I'll treat the wand as a Shadow Evocation (fireball) with the same limitations, but what about Wondrous items that require a certain spell to be crafted? Wish does work per RAW since it provides the prerequisites of the item.

I guess I should just not allow it, much simpler that way.

Answer 1

A big factor that stops items from being crafted from shadow evocation is cost. Assuming a 10th-level caster, the cost of a wand of fireball is 22,500 gold. The same wand with shadow evocation costs 37,500 gold. Additionally, the shadow evocation wand allows for an additional saving throw to further reduce damage, though the saves are 2 higher for being a 5th-level spell.

Of course, wands and potions are typically limited to 4th- and 3rd-level spells, respectively, so without special permission from a dungeon master, it would not be possible to create a wand of shadow evocation fireball at all.

Also, note that in no way does shadow evocation imply that it "duplicates" or "is like" a spell. Instead, it says that the effect is "a quasi-real, illusory version" of a spell, And as such it would not be legal to substitute for magic item creation. It would require a new magic item that used the new version of the spell.

Answer 2

Nothing, but what you cast is what you get. Your shadow evocation-as-fireball isn’t the same as fireball (while wish-as-fireball is the same, well, the same as fireball heightened to 9th level). Your wand would cast shadow evocation-as-fireball, and therefore only deal 20% damage if disbelieved.

Answer 3

A shadow spell remains that shadow spell when that shadow spell is triggered

On Casting Time, in part, says, "You make all pertinent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect" (Player's Handbook 174). That and so forth, in this DM's opinion, includes for the 5th-level Sor/Wiz spell shadow evocation [illus] (PH 277) and similar spells which spell the spell's effect will duplicate.

Thus, until a shadow evocation spell (and any similar spell) comes into effect, it's still that shadow evocation spell, and if the shadow evocation spell's instead triggered and not cast—as spells are when they're tapped to create magic items—then the shadow evocation spell never comes into effect and whatever spell the caster would've picked to duplicate had the shadow evocation spell come into effect therefore can't be used to duplicate another spell prerequisite but, instead, only the shadow evocation spell itself. (Were this not true, a magic item creator would struggle mightily to create magic items that have as a prerequisite the shadow evocation spell!)

For example, a wizard that's prepared the spell shadow evocation yet not the spell fireball wants to create a wand of fireball by meeting the fireball spell prerequisite of that wand of fireballs with the spell shadow evocation. That wizard can't trigger the spell shadow evocation to meet the fireball spell prerequisite, though, because

The act of working on the wand [and other magic items] triggers the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting during each day devoted to the wand’s creation. (That is, that spell slot is expended from her currently prepared spells, just as if it had been cast.) (Dungeon Master's Guide 288 et al. and here)

(Note that in the above the slot's expended as if the spell'd been cast and not that the spell's been cast therefore the slot expended!) In other words, until the shadow evocation spell comes into effect, the shadow evocation spell is not another, different spell but the actual spell shadow evocation. This makes the shadow evocation spell (or another similar spell) technically ineligible for meeting magic item spell prerequisites except when a magic item has as its prerequisite the spell shadow evocation (or another similar spell).