So I am playing a ranger. I took leatherworking as a craft thinking it fit well with the backstory that I made a living hunting and trapping and so forth in my early years. We are about to face some dragons I believe. I know I should not be counting my dragon scales till there dead, but I looked up Dragonhide. It says that a armorsmith can make hide armor, or if it is large enough banded and full or half plate and so on. Here is my question. I assumed when I took the skill that it would allow me to make things like leather and hide armor. Do I qualify for this or is this a case where a armorsmith and an armorsmith only gets to craft the item. I am really hoping I get to make my ranger a hide shirt out of dragonhide.
DM's call. I'd either say yes, or let you switch out the ranks to armor smithing.
Yeah I love the idea of getting a bunch of stuffed magical creatures to adorn the tavern or keep at a later date. It is the transporting the corpse to the tools to get it stuffed or whatever that gets crazy. Back in 3E we faced a white dragon that was medium sized I think at 1st or 2nd level. We got it back to town, but that gets harder as the dragons get larger. Still to this day all of our parties that visit that town get to have drinks at the Frosty Dragon Inn part owned by my now retired character.
I would allow craft (leatherworking) to make leather-based armor. There is no logical reason to deny that use of the skill. Besides, craft (armorsmithing) implies that there is a lot more actual "smithing" going on than there would be in making leather armor.
By RAW making armor requires armor smithing. Not leather working. This bit me on a character where I took craft: woodworking and tried to make a bow. Nope, you need craft: bow to make a bow.
By RAW anyway. Your GM may allow this. Mine did not.
I can even see the logic here. Making armor is not just shaping leather. Armor is a very specific thing, which requires very specific knowledge about how to not just shape and assemble leather, but how to protect against damaging attacks.
I had a 3.5 character (half-fang dragon warforged) who made a belt/codpiece out of fire giant penis. Craft Taxidermy rocks.
T. M. I.
The SRD does not say one way or the other what exactly craft leather makes. This might be me rembering 3e but I thought leatherworking allowed leather armors and that armorsmithing was metal armors. That was what I was assuming in this case as well. When I researched Dragonhide it mentioned craft armor. Making leather armor might be different than a belt, but it has more incommon with a belt than leather armor does with full plate.
Gnome, I'm not sure I agree. Working with dragon scale is actually probably more akin to working with metal than working with cow hide. Or at least if you extrapolate dragon scale from reptile scales.
Anyway, if you find anything that says you can make armor with leathercrafting, then I rescind my comment. I haven't seen it. But I'd be more interested in finding something that says you can make bows with woodworking.
Making a bow with woodworking seems far more reasonable to me than making armor with leather crafting. I mean a bow is a stick with a string attached! Geebuz!
I guess I was thinking dragonhide like gatorskin. I am totally cool with dragonhide being something that only armorsmiths can work with, my wonder is why is the options to make from it hide armor rather than a mettalic armor.
I think there was a simplification of the skills that is working against me here.
As for the bow. Don't they have a boyer/fletcher skill. Either way if I was your DM I would just rase the DC and still give you a shot;)
My GM allowed me to move my skill ranks to craft: bow, so it wasn't a huge deal, but it did bother me because I had my concept built around a general woodworking character who also made bows.
But since I was trying to make a masterwork bow, he was pretty strict about the rules.