Hello! First post, and i have some questions that i hope will finally be answered. I've been looking into crafting rules in pathfinder and boy, i feel Paizo doesn't really like player-crafted items much, at least judging by how the rules are set up.
Im going to play a 'crafter' character in the next campaign, a dwarf wizard/cleric that will be a master crafter able to create almost any item the party might need, but im not sure if i get the crafting rules right. Without further ado, im going to sum up what i learned by reading the rules and the occasional forum posts about item crafting in Pathfinder. There it goes:
Mundane item creation
Let’s say our barbarian's last encounter with a rust beast costed him his axe, so im going to make him a new one. Crafting a mundane greataxe goes like this:
1. gotta find the item's price in silver, so 200sp(20gp).
2. Find the item's craft DC, that's 15 for martial melee weapons.
3. Pay 1/3 of the item’s price for the raw material cost. That's 6gp.
4. Make the craft check, let's say my craft skill in weapons is 6. I pass the check by rolling 14, so 14+6=20. Now i multiply the check result by DC, so 20x15 = 300. That's more than the sp cost of the axe, i was able to craft it in one week without any problems.
Masterwork item creation
If i want to create a masterwork axe, i need to create both the axe and a masterwork component. Masterwork component costs 300 for weapons, so that's 3000sp, craft DC is 20. I need to pay 100gp for raw components. I make a roll and let's say i got lucky with natural 20. That's 26x20=520. That's 520sp out of 3000, so i worked a week and i completed only a 1/6 of the masterwork component. This sucks, but if i understand the rules right, that's how it works. But that's without any bonuses to crafting speed, so i guess that gets better with the right feats and tools.
Magic item creation, this is where stuff begins to get out of hand.
Now let's get into magic item creation. Let's make our barbarian a +1 Flaming Greataxe. For that i need:
1. Minimum caster level of 3 to turn the masterwork greataxe into +1 greataxe, Fireball or Flamestrike or Flame blade spell, and Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat.
2. Determine the item's cost. According to the table, the enchancement to +1 costs 2000gp. Total item cost is 2320.
3. Gotta pay up 1000gp (half the price) of raw materials for the enchantment.
4. Crafting a magic weapon requires 1 day for each 1,000 gp value of the base price, but you can only work for 8 hours a day. Guess that means i need 6 days to craft the magic weapon.
5. Finally a spellcraft DC check of 5 + caster level of the item. Im not sure what "caster level of the item" specifically means, but again, i GUESS, it's the CL required to cast the needed spell. In the case of Fireball, that's 6. So the DC is 11. Failing this check either breaks the weapon, or makes it a cursed item. I roll 12, my friend barbarian can now rage with a flaming axe. Creating magic armor, rings and other items follows the same rules.
Did i get all the rules right?
