In our current campaign, we have a need to craft a handful of talismans, made from remorhaz scales. We already have the scales (go team!) so it's just a matter of figuring out a reasonable DC and total value so I can determine how long each one will take. I'll be doing the crafting, and have ranks in Craft (sculpture) and will be picking up Craft (jewelry) for this.
This wouldn't be anything sophisticated or intricate—just a sort of tribal talsiman—but it should look good, be difficult to reproduce, and the assembly process should not damage the scales beyond what's needed to hold everything together. My gut tells me that this would be a "high quality item" using the crafting table, so a base DC of 15. So that just leaves a base value.
I'm thinking it might make more sense to tackle the problem backwards, since this isn't really an item that has intrinsic value. By working backwards, I mean, make a rough guess at how long it should take to make one assuming you succeed on all your crafting checks. The Craft skill writeup doesn't specify how long you work each day, but I would assume that it's an 8-hour day.
I want to say a week sounds right. But maybe that's too long, since 40 hours is a lot of time.
Anyone want to offer an opinion?
Dot for pondering and maybe adding things later. Sorry, I got nothin' for now!
The crafting rules don't really reflect making art very well. (actually, the crafting rules don't really do anything very well, but that is another matter.)
Basically, I would come up with how much I wanted them to be worth when done (keeping it reasonable) and then use that for the calculation. Either a DC of 15 or 20 would be reasonable for making 'fine art'.
If your GM will let you use the unchained Crafting rules instead (the differences are in your favor), jewelry is 'Complex' (DC 20). Though if you're trying to reduce counterfeiting I suppose you could deliberately fit them into 'Intricate' (DC 25).
What will you be able to hit with Craft(jewelry) by taking 10? Your speed increases (in unchained) with every 5 you beat the DC by.
I'll ask my GM about the unchained rules. I do like what they have done there. We've pulled in some elements from unchained already, so we have a precedent for that.
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I agree if you want the jewerly to be difficult to reproduce you should set a higher dc such as 20 or 25.
The cost could really be anything, is this jewelry going to be dipped in mithral and encrusted with rubies?
To set lower bound I'd give a value to your raw ingredients, the remorhaz scales.
Unfortunately nothing is listed for that, but you can look through the special materials to get an estimate http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/special-materials/
But these descriptions are all over the place and not everything lists a nice gp/lb. Is it as valuable as griffons mane at 50gp/lb or shark skin 5gp/lb?
Maybe most similar in CR to bulette. Using leather bulette armor 20 lbs for 50gp a third is raw material, so about 16gp or 17 per pound. If your pendant is 1oz the lowest cost would be 3gp total, using about 1gp worth of raw materials. A heavy 1/lb medallion would be 48gp.
OK. I will set the DC at 20, minimum, for this and consider upping it to 25. It won't be intricate jewelry, but it would be a good idea to encrust it with some small gem stones. We actually have a lot of tourmalines right now, and that seems like a good use of them. This would also help with the "difficult to reproduce" aspect.
For estimating the material cost, the Unchained rules put dragonhide at 75 gp/lb for pure raw materials. Dragonhide seems like a reasonable approximation for this use, so for a 1 lb talisman that would be about 37 gp, 5 sp.
OK. I think this is the right approach. So now, just figure the cost of the small gems and I'm done.
Thanks! This has been really helpful!
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Mundane crafting, unlike magical crafting is 1/3 the total. So at 75/lb the medallion sell value should be 225gp.