What skill and DC for writing poetry?


Rules Questions

The Exchange

I have a character who writes poetry about his encounters, I wanted to make them have an actual value since he is a little shallow and very competitive (order of the cockatrice).

I seem to be blind and cannot find a rule for this, how do I find out the DC and cost? Should I use profession or perform instead?

Thanks for the help.


In general, if you make something, it's Craft, not Profession.
That said, I could also make a case for Perform (oratory), I guess.

In my home game, you'd simply use Linguistics, but that's not typical and probably won't be allowed in a straight Pathfinder game.


I would go with profession since that is used to make money, and is a service oriented skill. Using the profession skill to see how much money you can make is a good way to judge how good you are.

Craft is more about objects, not ideals.

PS:The perform skill is what I would use for a home game.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Treat it as you would any other perform skill.


Kirth Gersen wrote:

In general, if you make something, it's Craft, not Profession.

That said, I could also make a case for Perform (oratory), I guess.

The craft skill comes in when you need to create a single item with a definite market price and little variation on quality or quantity. A lot of profession turn out a product, like gardener, brewer, woodcutter or fisherman to name a few.

I think profession (poet) would work better than Craft (poem), but I'd be tempted to fold it under perform (oratory) for simplicity sake. I know that good interprets aren't necessarily good composers and vice versa, just like not all good craftsmen are good administrators of their workshop, but I think we can afford this abstraction for the game.

'findel

Dark Archive

maybe linguistics roll?


Laurefindel wrote:
I think profession (poet) would work better than Craft (poem), but I'd be tempted to fold it under perform (oratory) for simplicity sake.

I like profession better, personally.

He's not making money by performing his poetry (reading it to crowds) he's creating a poem that then has value when sold.

Profession makes that work by having the character work to sell his poetry, rather than just applying a GP value to a poem which he can copy and reproduce for the cost of paper, ink, and time.

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