Being the "creator" of many circlets of spell-eating without downtime

Question

So, this is kind of a silly question but bear with me.

My character's a power-hungry wizard. I've figured that he could use the Circlet of Spell-Eating cursed item to get stronger. Forcing people to wear it and imprisoning them etc. There are two problems with that, however. We don't have much in the way of down-time in our campaign and I don't really want to take a feat (Craft Wondrous Item) for something that may never be realized.

Is there a way for my character to be considered the "creator" of an item without, well, creating it?

Answer 1

In D&D 3.5e, the wish spell can create any magical item. Pathfinder removed that ability from the “safe list” of wish effects, though, so ask your DM which version is in play in your game. Even with the Pathfinder version, it might still be possible as “greater effect,” but beware the dangers of using those—your DM will probably make you regret it, especially if they explicitly denied using the safe version from 3.5e. Even in 3.5e’s case, while the text of the spell explicitly uses the word “create” to describe what wish is doing, the subject of that verb is wish—not the caster. It is unclear if the caster has actually created the item, and is thus its “creator,” or if it is wish itself that is the item’s creator. Becoming the creator of a magic item (created by wish or not) might be a plausible thing to ask for as a “greater effect” in either system, but again, that’s extremely dangerous.

So far as I know, the 3.5e wish is the only spell capable of instantaneously creating a magical item. The true creation spell in 3.5e only handles non-magical items, and Pathfinder doesn’t even have that spell (despite its appearance on d20pfsrd.com—that would be the 3.5e version of the spell, copied from a 3.5e Paizo product, and not actually a Pathfinder spell). Instead, Pathfinder caps at major creation, which definitely doesn’t handle magic items. Searching d20pfsrd.com’s spell filters, nothing relevant turns up (I only searched on the sor/wiz list, but if it was going to be anywhere it’s almost certainly going to be there).

Beyond that, the only option I am aware of that might apply is Eberron Campaign Setting’s dedicated wright, which is a special homunculus that has the following 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.

^{(Eberron Campaign Setting pg. 285)}

This description doesn’t clearly indicate who is the “creator” of the item, but since the master provides most of the resources and initiates the process, and further has a magic bond to the dedicated wright anyway, there’s a pretty good case to make for the master being the creator (or, at least, co-creator, which the circlet of spell-stealing doesn’t really handle).

Answer 2

There seems to be an exploit involving the "timeless" trait:

If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

You can create a plane with this trait using create greater demiplane. Then, if you go to the plane and cast time stop, the time stop will last until you dispel it.

While in time stop:

You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time, but you can affect any item that is not in another creature’s possession.

so, assuming you have all the material components you need, it appears you could do all the crafting you wanted.

This would still require taking the Craft Wondrous Item feat, though.