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Just wondering what everyone thinks about brewing, yes the end result is always fun to drink, but would you label it as a Profession or Craft?
I always thought craft as is it would require some skill to make a good ale, I always had it as a Craft skill. So then a failed batch would taste less like ale and more like watered down swill.
Just looking for your thoughts on this.
Thanks in advance.
I use the actual occupational terms for the various crafts and professions as skills, so I needn't draw an artificial distinction. Both sets of rules are useful, but they sometimes overlap, and I'm not going to nitpick about which skill allows you to do which.
So when I'm GMing, the "Brewing" skill works as a craft or a profession, depending on your number of ranks and the opportunities you've roleplayed yourself into.
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I would second what Krensky said.
Craft can be used for someone who prepares meals, brews mead, tans hides, etc.
Profession is used for someone who is running a business, doing something along those lines.
On the other hand, Elves of Golarion lists 'Professsion (cook)' as a requirement to craft magical foods, so there's precedent in the rules to just run brewing as a Profession check.
Just wondering what everyone thinks about brewing, yes the end result is always fun to drink, but would you label it as a Profession or Craft?
I always thought craft as is it would require some skill to make a good ale, I always had it as a Craft skill. So then a failed batch would taste less like ale and more like watered down swill.
Just looking for your thoughts on this.
Thanks in advance.
I'd rule it as a profession, just for the fact that one cannot simply brew a mug of bear - one brews a batch. Orders for grains have to be taken at a particular time of the year. Fermentation takes a lot of time and not much work while happening. Even a master brewer cannot brew a beer faster only because its profession skill is higher (or because he rolled particularly high)... Also, brewing isn't something you can put on the shelf and go back to it after a week or two and catch-up where you left it.
So in my book, definitively a profession skill.
'findel
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I would say it is a profession skill. Profession (Brewer). Like Profession (Cook), it creates a temporary device that mostly has an RP effect. (Unless you're trying to get someone drunk.) A Craft skill would create something that's longer lasting or has some combat effect.
No! You can't use the Mona Lisa as an improvised weapon!
Here's how I treat it. YMMV.
Generally, if you produce a physical product, it is a Craft skill. If you provide a service, run a business, or mostly order around subordinates (working with people is Wis thing, not an Int thing), then its a profession skill.
Food, especially any kind with a shelf life of more than a couple days (like beer), is a physical product. (A sandwich is debatable, since it can't be traded as a commodity, so its more likely a 'service' than a 'product'.)
So I'd say beer is a Craft skill. (Craft(Brewing).) Running a large-scale brewery might start to overlap with Profession(Brewmaster).
Yes, this means that many craftsmen need two skills to run their business. And why not? There are plenty of skilled craftsmen in the world who can't manage to run their business at a profit, or who have a business partner to 'handle the books', so I think that this is perfectly reasonable.
Here's how I treat it. YMMV.
Generally, if you produce a physical product, it is a Craft skill. If you provide a service, run a business, or mostly order around subordinates (working with people is Wis thing, not an Int thing), then its a profession skill.
Food, especially any kind with a shelf life of more than a couple days (like beer), is a physical product. (A sandwich is debatable, since it can't be traded as a commodity, so its more likely a 'service' than a 'product'.)
So I'd say beer is a Craft skill. (Craft(Brewing).) Running a large-scale brewery might start to overlap with Profession(Brewmaster).
Yes, this means that many craftsmen need two skills to run their business. And why not? There are plenty of skilled craftsmen in the world who can't manage to run their business at a profit, or who have a business partner to 'handle the books', so I think that this is perfectly reasonable.
I concur. This is how we run it in our game.
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I would say it is a profession skill. Profession (Brewer). Like Profession (Cook), it creates a temporary device that mostly has an RP effect. (Unless you're trying to get someone drunk.) A Craft skill would create something that's longer lasting or has some combat effect.
No! You can't use the Mona Lisa as an improvised weapon!
I definitely recall seeing several 3E NPCs with ranks in Profession (Brewer) and/or Profession (Innkeeper).
It would depend on what's being brewed. For most things, I'd put it as Proffesssion, though if it's alchemical I'd put it under Craft (Alchemey).
Here's how I treat it. YMMV.
Generally, if you produce a physical product, it is a Craft skill. If you provide a service, run a business, or mostly order around subordinates (working with people is Wis thing, not an Int thing), then its a profession skill.
Food, especially any kind with a shelf life of more than a couple days (like beer), is a physical product. (A sandwich is debatable, since it can't be traded as a commodity, so its more likely a 'service' than a 'product'.)
So I'd say beer is a Craft skill. (Craft(Brewing).) Running a large-scale brewery might start to overlap with Profession(Brewmaster).
Yes, this means that many craftsmen need two skills to run their business. And why not? There are plenty of skilled craftsmen in the world who can't manage to run their business at a profit, or who have a business partner to 'handle the books', so I think that this is perfectly reasonable.
I'm not sure if I'd agree on that one. In principle, you'd be right; the craft skill result in a product rather than a service. But given the crafting guidelines, brewing does not work well with the RAW.
If brewing was to be craft skill as opposed to a profession skill, one could easily brew a few mugs worth of beer in a single day (since beer is cheep), while brewing a whole barrel would taken longer (since the total value is higher). In reality, we know that quantity is mostly limited by your installations, since fermentation time is the same for a quart or 50 barrels. Also, the same mug could be brewed even faster if the brewer had more ranks in craft-brewing.
While mechanically sound, this model does not work well with the realities of brewing, which involves both time and constant supervision.
Most crafts produce independent items, which may take more or less time to create depending on their market price and their creator's skill. In the case of brewery, its (mainly) the quality of the product that will affect its market price, not the amount. That seem to fall better under the profession rules.
'findel
Brewing feels more like profession to me. Yes there is a product but it is the result of a batch process. The skill of the brewer has almost nothing to do with the time it takes to produce a batch. Similar to profession farming, the skill relates to the quality of the final bulk product and not the amount of time to produce it. That said I could see applying the master work rules to the brewing process. There is a world of difference between what a group of college students produce and world class brew master.
Doug
Brewing feels more like profession to me. Yes there is a product but it is the result of a batch process. The skill of the brewer has almost nothing to do with the time it takes to produce a batch. Similar to profession farming, the skill relates to the quality of the final bulk product and not the amount of time to produce it. That said I could see applying the master work rules to the brewing process. There is a world of difference between what a group of college students produce and world class brew master.
Doug
Mmmm.... Masterwork homebrew.
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Making beer would be a Craft, running a brewery would be Profession.AND
this means that many craftsmen need two skills to run their business. And why not? There are plenty of skilled craftsmen in the world who can't manage to run their business at a profit, or who have a business partner to 'handle the books'This is the manner in which I run things.
given the crafting guidelines, brewing does not work well with the RAW.
If brewing was ...
SNIP
... In reality, we know that ...
SNIP
While mechanically sound, this model does not work well with the realities of brewing
In my experience, neither the Craft nor the Profession RAW function "realistically", and in fact I'd argue that they are both definitely broken. Then again, this is a game about adventuring, and not mercantilism, so I suggest the RAW be thrown aside and DMs wing this part of their games as they feel the situation and the role-playing dictate.
FWIW,
Rez
I concur absolutely. The RAW is really great for a game, but suck when you try and apply real world situations to them. I wouldn't even try that.
My personal way of dealing with this is to figure what is the intent of the skill.
A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something. If nothing is created by the endeavor, it probably falls under the heading of a Profession skill.
While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.
so for me, the intent is that if you are creating something tangible you use Craft, if you are doing a job then you use Profession. And as stated above, sometimes that requires both Craft and Profession to do whatever you might be trying to do.
Krome has ranks in Craft (Jeweler) and Profession (Shopowner) to make and sell jewelry. Just because he can make amazing jewelry does not mean he can make a living selling jewelry.
Orders for grains have to be taken at a particular time of the year. Fermentation takes a lot of time and not much work while happening. Even a master brewer cannot brew a beer faster only because its profession skill is higher (or because he rolled particularly high)...
Laurefindel makes a convincing point, at least in a fantasy medieval setting.
In our world, it's easy to run to Liquor Barn and pick up a couple pounds of malt, hops, and yeast, and Craft a batch of beer.
In a world where brewing supplies have to be made from locally produced agricultural product. it is far more complicated.
Barley must be malted. This requires that barley seeds must be harvested, sprouted, and then dried quickly enough to prevent molding.
Yeast cultures can't be dried, but must be passed down from batch to batch without infection. Yeast strains specific to specific types of beer (such as wheat beer) must be individually preserved.
Specific beers can only be brewed at specific times of year: maibocks are brewed in spring, lagers are aged in near-frozen tanks through the winter, most ales are brewed in the cool weather of fall.
Of course, some of this is modern: medieval brewers didn't understand yeast or microbiology, and often used local wild yeasts. Malting was a primitive process that often involved roasting and smoking, so nobody had the pale malts needed to make light lagers. Consequently, beers tended to be much darker and sweeter than modern types, often sour from bacterial infection, and people liked to spike their ale with a jigger of lant (stale urine).
Using Craft(beer) implies that a brewer can buy all their raw materials from others. With the amount of malt and hops involved, it's easy to expect specialized malthouses and hops or gruit farms offering malt and hops for sale on the open market. Yeast is more difficult, but it's not hard to imagine a brewer culturing strains from unfiltered medieval beer or using wild yeast.
Brewing takes some specialized equipment, as well:even a small 5-gallon batch requires a large kettle, lautering equipment, some kind of wort chiller, fermentation tun(s), and bottling equipment. Making beer on any kind of commercial scale requires a small factory or specialized space and equipment worth some hundreds of gold pieces.
Some things, like golem making or using minor creation require specific Craft checks to make specific things: it's in the rules. But there's no reason in the rules (that I can see) why you would want to make a Craft(beer) check instead of a Profession(brewer) check to make beer.
A reasonable houserule would be to make all Craft checks into Profession checks.
EDIT
So then a failed batch would taste less like ale and more like watered down swill.
A failed batch would probably be either starchy, bitter, and nonalcoholic, or fruitly sour with vinegary bacteria. The latter you can sell at three times the price as a "lambic".
Pisswater pale lager is actually the most technically demanding beer style, requiring massive factories with staffs of biochemists and microbiologists.
Craft and Profession would have been good skills to merge in Pathfinder, so you could craft a golem with Profession(sculptor) or make a suit of armor with Profession(armorer).
It's always struck me as weird that the de facto way of handling a ship or boat of any kind is with a Profession(sailor) check.
What I hate about "Profession" is the way people blithely fit everything they can imagine into it (and often for characters who just happen to have high Wis scores). Therefore, I try to restrict Profession skills to things that cannot possibly be fit under any other category whatsoever. Otherwise you open yourself up to the following:
DM: "Make an Acrobatics check."
Dwarf's Player (Dex 6, Wis 16): "I have Profession (acrobat)!"
Later:
DM: "This calls for a Diplomacy check."
Half-orc's player (Cha 3, Wis 14): "I have Profession (diplomat)!"
Having microbrewed a lot of beer IRL, I unequivically use brewing as a Craft skill in the game. Making Budweiser, as essentially a factory process, might well be a Profession, but they don't typically have automated production lines in Golarion that I know of.
For the same reasons, I use Knowledge (law), and maybe a bit of Perform (oratory), rather than copping out with Profesion (lawyer). Etc. Ideally, they'd eliminate "Profession" entirely and just make some obvious skills instead: Sailor, Farmer, etc.
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Yes the grain orders have to be taken at certain times of the year etc etc etc.
A jeweler has to order his diamonds, a shoemaker has to order his leather, a blacksmith has to order iron. So what. The supply doesn't come in like modern times, it comes in with the trade caravans a few times a year.
How about this instead. For Brewer how about we change the rules that instead of a check each week for Profession you make a check twice a year, after all that batch has to sit and ferment and you can't speed up the process with a good check after all. See THAT is much more realistic. Really you can't use Profession for Brewer because it says you can make the roll every week. As has been stated beer takes more than a week to process, so obviously we can't use Profession.
So, neither Profession nor Craft applies to brewer because it does not exactly fit the RAW.
Therefore we all need to add a new skill to the game call Brew Beer. Under the description I'd say you make a roll once a year to place your order of grains. Another roll once a year to assemble your equipment. A third roll per year to actually mix everything. And a fourth and final roll to supervise the fermentation period. The average of the four rolls is used to see how much money you can make.
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Having microbrewed a lot of beer IRL, I unequivically use brewing as a Craft skill in the game. Making Budweiser, as essentially a factory process, might well be a Profession, but they don't typically have automated production lines in Golarion that I know of.
I would think that almost every town in Golarion would have an ale conner or other alcohol production expert in town. Microbrewers would definitely have the craft version, but I think that most masters would be professionals.
I make the lists for skills pretty clear at my table too. If there is a skill that can already cover it, you cannot take a profession in that skill.
Oh, and you cannot take Profession (acrobat) because as far as I can tell its actually a perform :P, at least looking at 3.5 rules.
Yes the grain orders have to be taken at certain times of the year etc etc etc.
A jeweler has to order his diamonds, a shoemaker has to order his leather, a blacksmith has to order iron. So what. The supply doesn't come in like modern times, it comes in with the trade caravans a few times a year.
How about this instead. For Brewer how about we change the rules that instead of a check each week for Profession you make a check twice a year, after all that batch has to sit and ferment and you can't speed up the process with a good check after all. See THAT is much more realistic. Really you can't use Profession for Brewer because it says you can make the roll every week. As has been stated beer takes more than a week to process, so obviously we can't use Profession.
So, neither Profession nor Craft applies to brewer because it does not exactly fit the RAW.
Brewing can hardly be compared with being a goldsmith or a jeweler.
For one thing, there is a necessary minimum time to create any amount of beer (or wine, whiskey etc) that is totally independent of the craftsman / professional's skill. A good jeweler makes a gold ring in three days while the neophyte takes a week to create the same ring (as the craft rules). This can hardly be apply to brewery.
I'm no brewer, but lets assume that a batch of beer takes a year to mature. The jeweler in the meantime, can achieve to finish an average of 20 golden rings (the jeweler took 10 all year long...)
By mid-year, the jeweler has completed 10 rings. Meanwhile, the brewer is still working on the the same batch (and probably preparing next year's brew). The main difference resides in that it does not matter how many "units" the brewer has prepared; the preparation time remains the same regardless.
In that regard, brewing is similar to farming. One cannot go to the farmer and ask him to grow a potato overnight, even if the cost of a single potato would allow the farmer to "craft" a bunch of them in a single daily check. Samewise, the farmer should not reply "Oh, you meant a CART of potatoes! Then it will take a bit more time to grow. Come back in a week!"
True, the Craft and Profession skills do not reflect reality accurately. But between Craft and Profession, I believe that brewing fits the later better.
As far as I know:
If what you offer is a product, you require a Craft.
If what you offer is a service, you require a Profession.
Now, if you want your brewer to make a honest living out of his trade, he might also need ranks in Profession: Merchant in order to bypass that crappy rule stating that PCs can only sell things at half-price.
As far as I know:
If what you offer is a product, you require a Craft.
If what you offer is a service, you require a Profession.
Now, if you want your brewer to make a honest living out of his trade, he might also need ranks in Profession: Merchant in order to bypass that crappy rule stating that PCs can only sell things at half-price.
I think this is overly simplistic. However, I not so much against brewery being craft skill anymore, so bear with me...
So, what is considered a product then? A tangible, physical thing? If so, a potato is a product. Milk is a product. Grain is a product. An apple is a product. A fish is a product, A horse is a product. In a slave-driving society, a soldier could be a product...
Yet none of these can be "crafted", but it takes a professional to provide these products to the consumer. So product does not necessarily equals craft...
Then some of these products can be processed: milk can be turned into cheese, grapes into wine and in the case brought by the OP, grain into beer. Obviously, it takes skill to create these by-products, and the greater the skill, the better the quality. Whether this falls in the category of the craft skill or profession skill has its pros ans cons.
If we forget about the notion of products vs services for a second, the main difference between the Craft skill and the Profession skill is the following:
- Craft works off Intelligence
- Craft is based of the unit value of the item. The higher the value, the longer it take to complete.
- Craft requires an initial investment (half the item's market value)
- Craft has a DC. If you do not beat the DC, to make no progress. If you miss the DC by 5 or more, you ruin half our initial investment.
- Craft's mechanics function on a weakly (or daily) progress. The higher the skill check result, the faster it goes.
- Profession works off Wisdom
- Profession turns out a weekly income, the rest is just fluff...
As far as brewing beer goes, I'm no expert, but logically, I can observe the following:
Craft works off Intelligence
I'd be fine with that. Brewing is chemistry, one need to be smart(ish) to be good at it.
Craft is based of the unit value of the item. The higher the value, the longer it take to complete.
Beer is brewed in batch. The "unit" of a batch is arbitrary at best, but the PHB does give us something to work with: 1 gallon of ale = 2sp. Yet, given the fermentation and maceration time required to make beer, it sounds kind of silly that a master brewer will brew a gallon in less time then an untrained commoner. We could see it the other way around: the master brewer would brew MORE beer in the same amount of time. Yet, quality has not been factored in. Masterworkmanship for extra 150 gp (or +100 gp?, or +50 gp?). perhaps...
Craft requires an initial investment (half the item's market value)
This one makes kind of sense. However, most brewery would grow their own grains. Manifacturing is a very modern concept. As a matter of fact, winemakers were not factories buying grapes, they were grapes farmer making a product out of their crops.
Craft has a DC. If you do not beat the DC, to make no progress. If you miss the DC by 5 or more, you ruin half our initial investment.
This is where I can agree with the brewing being a craft. I can see how a brewer could "mess-up" its batch. Yet, I prefer the "roll is higher = beer is better" philosophy rather than the "roll is failed, beer is not ready, roll is succeeded, beer taste the same no matter what"
Craft's mechanics function on a weakly (or daily) progress. The higher the skill check result, the faster it goes.
This one is silly. A gallon of ale (2 silver pieces) would be brewed in less than 1 day for most brewer, or in 2 days if brewed by a untrained character with an INT of 10.
Profession works off Wisdom
I'd be Ok with that just as well. Brewing takes patience, some common sense and a bit of intuition.
Profession turns out a weekly income, the rest is just fluff...
I have absolutely no problem with this, but it seems that a lot of us do.
The only issue with that is if a player asks: "I'd like to brew a barrel of ale for our expedition. How much will it cost me, and how long would it take?"
In which case, the answer is more likely to be silly, such as 4 sp and [player rolls] 2 days...
The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a merging of craft and profession into 1 skill. This way, a weaponsmith could just be content with earning his living, until time actually comes into account and the craft sub-system is used...
'findel
Exactly. Craft and Profession are game abstractions that help give us the sense of a functional, independently operating economy and allow PCs to interact with it in a rough, abstract way.
But it's not a good idea to peer too closely at them or think that they can explain the entire functioning of the economy without a healthy dose of Rule 0.
Brewing: Craft or Profession? Whichever makes your game more imaginative and fun.
Or, "Stop worrying about the rules and get back to playing the game!"
I would humbly submit that the presence of Craft: Poison would indicate that brewing should be a Craft skill. It is a narcotic after all...
"I can earn 10 gp a week using my Profession(poisoner) skill!"
Brewing: Craft or Profession? Whichever makes your game more imaginative and fun.
can't argue with that one!
Or, "Stop worrying about the rules and get back to playing the game!"
... and yet sometimes rules have to be questioned for the game to become even more enjoyable. After all, it kind of the point to switch from 3.5 to pathfinder.
This discussion has been enlightening, and forced me to reconsider pre-conceived ideas. I don't know, I enjoyed it while it lasted...
Otherwise, nothing personal mr. Spalding. Of all poster you're usually one with whom I can agree the most ;)
'findel
I treat Craft and Profession as largely interchangeable. The determining factor has to do with what they provide for their customers. If the character primarily provides a service, it's profession. If the character primarily provides a product, it's a craft.
The way I see it, either skill provides the character with the basics necessary to get along in their jobs. I don't see the need to order materials for a brewer as being any different from that of an armorer, carpenter, or swordsmith. They all have to buy and manage materials too. Nor do I see the need to allow the beer to sit and ferment as any different. Wood often has to be seasoned, leather has to cure, all sorts of crafty jobs require time or the actions of 3rd parties like yeasts or chemical reactants in various amounts for the preparation of materials.
For me the question is do they produce something tangible as their primary customer-based focus? If so, they use the Int-based Craft skill. If they produce more intangible service, they use the Wis-based Profession skill.
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Craft and Profession would have been good skills to merge in Pathfinder, so you could craft a golem with Profession(sculptor) or make a suit of armor with Profession(armorer).
It's always struck me as weird that the de facto way of handling a ship or boat of any kind is with a Profession(sailor) check.
Well, WFRP does have the Trade skill which covers both crafts and professions... I think that would have been a good and elegant solution, but I'm not sure if it should be derived from INT or WIS.
I agree with Ross' interpretation. While I certainly have ranks in Craft (brewing), I don't have the knowledge required to actually do it as a business ( Profession (brewer) ).
While we are at it: Appraise skill. That one drives me nuts.
This is one that could probably be rolled into a different skill, such as profession or craft in that area of expertise.
In some cases... but mostly I like having one skill that lets me say, "Hmmm, this is the '54, isn't it? Excellent vintage!" and also say "These 'diamonds' are worthless glass, my dear" and also say "This might be the lost painting from Thaladius the Gifted... it's worth a fortune!" -- without needing to be an expert winemaker, jeweler, and painter myself.
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In some cases... but mostly I like having one skill that lets me say, "Hmmm, this is the '54, isn't it? Excellent vintage!" and also say "These 'diamonds' are worthless glass, my dear" and also say "This might be the lost painting from Thaladius the Gifted... it's worth a fortune!" -- without needing to be an expert winemaker, jeweler, and painter myself.
Don't kill me for this but...
Profession (Aficionado)...
>:)
This is one that could probably be rolled into a different skill, such as profession or craft in that area of expertise.In some cases... but mostly I like having one skill that lets me say, "Hmmm, this is the '54, isn't it? Excellent vintage!" and also say "These 'diamonds' are worthless glass, my dear" and also say "This might be the lost painting from Thaladius the Gifted... it's worth a fortune!" -- without needing to be an expert winemaker, jeweler, and painter myself.
Yeah but my thing is anyone with the appraise skill can do this, even if they nothing about the subject in question. Say an expert on herbalism that just happens to have ranks in appraise telling you the magical properties and value of a ring.
Yeah but my thing is anyone with the appraise skill can do this, even if they nothing about the subject in question. Say an expert on herbalism that just happens to have ranks in appraise telling you the magical properties and value of a ring.
Essentially, he's an expert on herbalism who "just happens to have ranks" (i.e., is also an expert) in Knowledge (value and properties of random crap). How is this different from an herbalist who just happens to have ranks in Knowledge (geography), or in Acrobatics for that matter?
Or, another way of putting it, maybe he's an expert appraiser who just happens to have ranks in herbalism... ;)
I usually give a +2 bonus to the PC's Appraise check if the object in question can be made with a Craft skill they have ranks in.
I usually give a +2 bonus to the PC's Appraise check if the object in question can be made with a Craft skill they have ranks in.
Makes sense to me. Alternatively, I'd also let people substitute a Craft (weaponsmith) check to appraise a sword, if they didn't have Appraise -- the character lacks a wide encyclopedic knowldge of the values and properties of various things in general, but he knows enough about weapons in particular to guess their value and/or properties.