As a player, I take issue with items which are prohibitively time-consuming to craft. Craft (Alchemy), as an extreme, shines most in this argument.
Let's look at Tears of death. Craft DC is 22, and the cost is 6,500 gp. Normally, the maximum time to create the item - assuming no failure - would be (65,000 / (22 * 22)) = 134 weeks. Even if you increase the DC by 10 to speed up production, the maximum time is 63 weeks. What player in his right mind will expend 2,167 gp, and 1 year + change for a single-use poison? In all honesty, I can't think of a villain - save perhaps a red dragon with all the time in the world and a vendetta against a player's grandmother - who has two years to burn on making a poison.
As another example, let's look at crafting full plate. At a cost of 1,500 gp, the maximum time to create a set of full plate armor would be 42 weeks, assuming no failure. Want masterwork? Add another 7 weeks, for a total of 49 weeks. Again, most humans don't have a year to waste, which kind of makes the craft skill useless.
I've always taken pride in my characters who craft their own arms and armor. It adds a sort of flavor to the character that they painstakingly etched runes or script or symbols into their perfect, shimmering blades. For a weapon, I can certainly understand the time-consuming process of making one's own masterwork weapon. Even though it would take about 3-7 weeks to make the sword, it was worth it to have a blade I could call my own.
What to do, then, about prohibitively expensive items to craft? Does anyone have suggestions for house rules to increase the usefulness of craft / profession skills at higher level?
What to do, then, about prohibitively expensive items to craft? Does anyone have suggestions for house rules to increase the usefulness of craft / profession skills at higher level?
Well, there are always "custom feets" that you and your DM can work with...Here's a suggestion:
Power Crafting
PreReq: Craft (any) 5 ranks
Benefit: When crafting an item, use the items GP value for the item instead of the SP value when determining how much of the item you have completed in one week.
Improved Power Crafting
PreReq: Power Crafting, Craft (any) 10 ranks
Benefit: Assuming you have the appropriate tools, an appropriate area to work with, and can dedicate at least 8 hours of your day to completing your item, you perform one weeks worth of crafting in one day.
As a player, I take issue with items which are prohibitively time-consuming to craft. Craft (Alchemy), as an extreme, shines most in this argument.
Let's look at Tears of death. Craft DC is 22, and the cost is 6,500 gp. Normally, the maximum time to create the item - assuming no failure - would be (65,000 / (22 * 22)) = 134 weeks. Even if you increase the DC by 10 to speed up production, the maximum time is 63 weeks. What player in his right mind will expend 2,167 gp, and 1 year + change for a single-use poison? In all honesty, I can't think of a villain - save perhaps a red dragon with all the time in the world and a vendetta against a player's grandmother - who has two years to burn on making a poison.
As another example, let's look at crafting full plate. At a cost of 1,500 gp, the maximum time to create a set of full plate armor would be 42 weeks, assuming no failure. Want masterwork? Add another 7 weeks, for a total of 49 weeks. Again, most humans don't have a year to waste, which kind of makes the craft skill useless.
I've always taken pride in my characters who craft their own arms and armor. It adds a sort of flavor to the character that they painstakingly etched runes or script or symbols into their perfect, shimmering blades. For a weapon, I can certainly understand the time-consuming process of making one's own masterwork weapon. Even though it would take about 3-7 weeks to make the sword, it was worth it to have a blade I could call my own.
What to do, then, about prohibitively expensive items to craft? Does anyone have suggestions for house rules to increase the usefulness of craft / profession skills at higher level?
Yah you need to houserule it. Try adamantine full plate. No wonder only dwarves make them. Noone else would be able to lift it because of age penalties by the time they finished it. I would set a time on the item it takes X days no failure to creat a light weapon, it takes X weeks to create a medium armor, no failure.
Yeah... that's just wrong... and there I was liking the crafting rules ...
I just made some lousy math here and the Adamantite Full plate mentioned earlier would take like 3 and a half years, with a really really good crafter.
This is exactly why I posted in the House Rules board... RAW provides for insane crafting times for some items.
Right now, we're running a Forgotten Realms conversion campaign, so craft is based on a tenday basis. As per RAW, daily progress is measured in cp per day. Maybe a tiered structure would be appropriate:
Special: If you have 5 or more ranks in a Craft skill, your daily progress is equal to the product of your check and the DC, in sp. If you have 10 or more ranks in a Craft skill, your daily progress is equal to the product of your check and the DC, in gp. If you have 15 or more ranks in a Craft skill, your daily progress is equal to the product of your check and the DC, in pp.
That way, it's based on the player's skill and dedication to the Craft. After all, the opportunity cost of 15 skill points in Craft is exceptionally high, especially for low-skill classes or players with lower Int scores. A master alchemist at 15 ranks, therefore, could craft the aforementioned poison in 2 days.
I'll run it by my GM to see what he thinks.
I think that becomes a little extreme.
I think that becomes a little extreme.
Not necessarily. Think about all the things 15th level characters can do.
- A 15th level rogue can sneak attack for 28 damage, plus 2 strength damage, plus 8 bleed damage, and (with the right feats) can feint in such a way that the enemy loses its dex bonus for 1 round.
- A 15th level wizard can transmute into a Huge dragon.
- A 15th level draconic sorcerer can fly at will.
- A 15th level monk gains the death touch.
- A 15th level fighter wears full plate as comfortably as others wear chain shirts.
It only seems natural that an artisan craftsman who has plied their trade and treats their tools like a fighter would his weapons - that is, to say, as an extension of himself - has learned routines and methods of efficiency that cut down on crafting time.
While most experts will never acquire as many levels as a PC would, this therefore allows for a degree of lucubration for the more advanced smiths and alchemists. Plus, think of the legends:
"Word on the street is that there is a gnome in the Docks District who sells his alchemical expertise to the highest bidder. I've only heard rumors, but he works with such alacrity that he charges just for the privilege to watch him work. Tanglefoot bags and thunderstones fly out of his shop like they were pastries. But the legend is his alacrity with poisons. For a hefty bag of coins, he can get you any poison within a tenday, made from scratch in his own secondary laboratory, secreted away in a basement."
I understand the Idea, and I do like it, don't get me wrong.
But something that would take normally 3 years for a normal guy to do, taking 3 days is extreme for me, you know?
Also, think about the consequenses of such an act, this would make many high level artisans (and PCS) be TOO rich. I didn't do the math, but how long would it take for a guy like that to make a Fullplate adantite armor for instance? And take about "mass production" it would be at least, odd, you know?
I don't think that the rule as it is is good, but I think that way of solving it is extreme. A guy would take easily a month at least to build an armor like the one I mentioned. Understand my point of view?
By the rules u proposed it would take 2 days to make such and armor btw.
What I generally do is double the gp per week if the character is dedicated crafting (IE: Sitting in town and crafting in a lab/smithy/etc).
That's usually not until level 10 or so. By then, it get's very very easy to get bonuses.
10 Ranks
3 Class Skill
2 Intelligence
2 Masterwork Tools
2 Aid Another (someone else helping)
1 Guidance
So, a level 10 person could take 10 each week and get a 30. And that's not giving them anything else that could boost, like feats or anything that boost your skill (Say Focus (Crafting) or Master Craftsman, or anything else). Assuming the DC is lower than that, say the 22 for the poison above, you'd get :
Set your DC to 30. Take 10. 30 x 30 = 900sp. Even under the existing rules that would take 72 weeks. Way too long of course, but if you double the sp, that's 31 weeks (about 8 months). Now, that's a long time to make a poison. But, you are also paying 2,166gp for the ingredients, and selling it for anywhere from 3250 to 6500 gp. That's a huge profit for a level 10 expert NPC. Not so much a PC adventurer, but then, most of the equipment in the books is made by NPC's.
One other thing I allow is, if you have a ring of sustenance, and you are dedicated crafting in a town, you can do two sets of crafting per day (two 8 hour stints). Which again doubles the effect, dropping it to 16 weeks to make the poison. Again, not a bad haul, even for a level 10 character (4 months for 6500gp).
Granted, for the poison, it's almost certain no-one is going to make that in my game. They'll buy it from a level 10 adept instead. What they will do is enchant a +3 sword instead. And usually they do it incrementally, not all at once (+1, then +2, then +3).
I understand the Idea, and I do like it, don't get me wrong.
But something that would take normally 3 years for a normal guy to do, taking 3 days is extreme for me, you know?
Also, think about the consequenses of such an act, this would make many high level artisans (and PCS) be TOO rich. I didn't do the math, but how long would it take for a guy like that to make a Fullplate adantite armor for instance? And take about "mass production" it would be at least, odd, you know?
I don't think that the rule as it is is good, but I think that way of solving it is extreme. A guy would take easily a month at least to build an armor like the one I mentioned. Understand my point of view?
For this, I will assert the "Alienware counterargument." Just because it can be mass-produced with high profit margin on a per-sale basis doesn't necessitate high overall profits. At some point, supply will outpace demand, and then the revenue stream will dry up.
I do see your point. Basically, I'm going from one extreme to another.
There is, however, the consideration of supply and demand. As a PC, you can generally sell items for half the value. You make items at 1/3 the value, so you stand to earn 225 gp from crafting a masterwork full plate - assuming you never fail by 5 or more. But the market for full plate armor isn't going to be very large. Even the richest of nobles might outfit only their guard-captain with a full plate armor, whereas the rest will make do with chain shirts or scale mail. Adamantine is a rare enough metal that the materials themselves should generally be an adventure in themselves to find enough ingots to make a suit of full plate. Even so, with the exception of a ceremonial set in a crystal display case for royalty, only adventurers will be able to afford to purchase said items.
If it was a GP per day basis, it would take about 46 days to make a full plate out of adamantine, plus an additional day for the masterwork component. Much better improvement over 3 years, and still prohibitively time consuming enough to alleviate mass-production.
*PS* We could also further stagger out the craft requirements to, say, 7 ranks for sp per day, and 14 ranks for gp per day. That, or feats with the above prerequisites (Improved Craft, Greater Craft), even though I still don't like the idea of burning feats to make a skill useful. Bluff is useful without Improved Feint at any level.
What I generally do is double the gp per week if the character is dedicated crafting (IE: Sitting in town and crafting in a lab/smithy/etc).
That's usually not until level 10 or so. By then, it get's very very easy to get bonuses.
10 Ranks
3 Class Skill
2 Intelligence
2 Masterwork Tools
2 Aid Another (someone else helping)
1 GuidanceSo, a level 10 person could take 10 each week and get a 30. And that's not giving them anything else that could boost, like feats or anything that boost your skill (Say Focus (Crafting) or Master Craftsman, or anything else). Assuming the DC is lower than that, say the 22 for the poison above, you'd get :
Set your DC to 30. Take 10. 30 x 30 = 900sp. Even under the existing rules that would take 72 weeks. Way too long of course, but if you double the sp, that's 31 weeks (about 8 months). Now, that's a long time to make a poison. But, you are also paying 2,166gp for the ingredients, and selling it for anywhere from 3250 to 6500 gp. That's a huge profit for a level 10 expert NPC. Not so much a PC adventurer, but then, most of the equipment in the books is made by NPC's.
One other thing I allow is, if you have a ring of sustenance, and you are dedicated crafting in a town, you can do two sets of crafting per day (two 8 hour stints). Which again doubles the effect, dropping it to 16 weeks to make the poison. Again, not a bad haul, even for a level 10 character (4 months for 6500gp).
Granted, for the poison, it's almost certain no-one is going to make that in my game. They'll buy it from a level 10 adept instead. What they will do is enchant a +3 sword instead. And usually they do it incrementally, not all at once (+1, then +2, then +3).
Generally speaking, you can't expect much of a profit for a poison - let alone market value - assuming you can even find a buyer. Only shady individuals will purchase it in the first place, and if the PCs offer, they are inviting discounts by blackmail.
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I understand the Idea, and I do like it, don't get me wrong.
But something that would take normally 3 years for a normal guy to do, taking 3 days is extreme for me, you know?
Also, think about the consequenses of such an act, this would make many high level artisans (and PCS) be TOO rich. I didn't do the math, but how long would it take for a guy like that to make a Fullplate adantite armor for instance? And take about "mass production" it would be at least, odd, you know?
I don't think that the rule as it is is good, but I think that way of solving it is extreme. A guy would take easily a month at least to build an armor like the one I mentioned. Understand my point of view?
No, I think it's quite fair.
I mean, if we assume that a rogue starts sneak attacking while the crafter starts crafting, the rogue will have done...7358400 total sneak attack damage, 525600 strength damage, and 2102400 bleed damage over the course of the crafting.In only 3 days, however, it becomes 20160 damage, 1440 bleed damage, and a measly 5760 strength damage. I can easily see someone being able to craft a potion that might kill someone, given the same amount of time and resources.
Especially when you consider all this being done to our test subject, Meepo the kobold.
(In all seriousness, 3 years is just flat out stupid. That has to be a typo.)
I'd just have the party quest for items to make the crafting faster. not altogether too out there to have the party find relevant materials in their line of work, either. It would be kinda crazy if the crafter had to craft wyvernhide boots out of some special thread, and not make use out of the 30 or so wyverns he slew over breakfast.
Especially when you consider all this being done to our test subject, Meepo the kobold.
Quick aside... one of our 3rd edition dragon disciples came to be worshipped by a cult of kobolds led by Meepo. That was about 10 years ago.
*EDIT* sorry, must've been around the time of Sunless Citadel. So about 6-7 years ago...
The crafter's best friend.
5th level spell, Fabricate.
The crafter's best friend.
5th level spell, Fabricate.
Well and good, but how many experts will have access to a 9th level wizard who would be willing to use that spell on a regular basis? Even if they hired the services of a wizard, the base cost is 450gp. Hardly worth it for lesser items.
Fabricate also does nothing for alchemical substances.
I've come to the conclusion that alchemy, and specifically poisons, are in a class all by themselves.
Here's a couple of houserules I've devised, which should suit the needs of both my group and my GM's group:
- RAW requires that you increase the DC by 10 if you wish to cut the crafting time. Instead, the PC can choose the DC of the craft check, provided it exceeds the DC of the normal craft. The increase must be declared before the first roll, and cannot be changed throughout the entirety of the crafting process.
- The player's progress is further multiplied the player's total bonus (if positive) in the relevant craft skill. For adamantine full plate, a player with a total bonus of 20 in this skill would require 10 tendays to craft using RAW expedited crafting.
- For alchemy, a player can work on a number of items at a given time equal to half his total bonus, albeit at a -2 penalty to his check result. That way, it's worth a character's time to craft Tears of death. Using the above rule, it would still take him 4 tendays to craft the poison with a +20 bonus, but he'll have multiple doses in stock.
Thoughts?
A friend came up with a REAL issue. Try using your rules and making a simple item, let's say a Buckler. See how it goes.
A friend came up with a REAL issue. Try using your rules and making a simple item, let's say a Buckler. See how it goes.
I did see that. Normal Craft time is 13 days. RAW expedited crafting is (1500 cp / (21 * 21)) = 4 days (plus 16 days for masterwork). Using the above exception, assuming 20 ranks in Craft (Armor), taking 10, and expediting as per RAW, the craft time would be (1500 cp / (21 * 30 * 20)) = 58 minutes (assuming an 8-hour work day). Meaning he could crank out 8 bucklers in a day. Not only is that unrealistic, it does indeed break the game. If we only use the first rule, the same character could make a single buckler in 2 days. Masterwork component still takes 16 days.
I guess there needs to be a minimum threshold for which to apply to these circumstances. Minimum construction time 1 day.
I still think 42 days is a lot of time for a freakin' poison. I bet Snape would've had it ready in a couple days...
I think there is a problem, but it's based on game balance vs real world. The reason the poison takes so long is the cost, and the cost is to keep everyone from using it all the time. The problem is, the poison costs so much because it's illegal, not because it's expensive in and of itself. Some of that cost is more expense in making it (paying off guards to look the other way, paying extra for ingrediants off the book, etc). The problem is, you wouldn't make a single dose of poison anymore than you'd make a shotglass of moonshine during prohibition.
I think the way to address this is to reduce the price for crafting purposes if a majority of the price is due to illegality of the underlying product, or if it's due to scarcity of product.
So, modify crafting as follows :
Illegal Items: Illegal items cost far more than the production time put into them, this is for the clandestine nature of production and procurement, and also for the risk involved in trafficking in them. For purposes of crafting, reduce the crafting time of such things as poisons by 80% to determine crafting time. For example, Tears of Death costs 6,500gp and requires a DC 22 to craft. To make a batch, a character pays (6,500/3) = 2,166gp to make the poison. The maximum time required to make the batch of poison is 6,500*10= 65,000sp * 0.20 = 13,000sp/22*22 = 27 weeks, or just under 7 months. A more reasonable number might be to set the DC to 30 to speed up production, and so the maximum time would then be 13,000sp/30*30 = 14.4 weeks, or 3 and a half months.
Rare Ingredient Items: Some items are not difficult to make, but require rare and hard to find ingredients (such as adamantine, mithral, or dragonhide). For such equipment, reduce the price for purposes of crafting only by 60%. An item crafted from rare materials will still take longer than one made from common because of the extra care needed to ensure the raw materials are not ruined. For example, an Adamantine fullplate costs 16,500gp. To craft it however, you would reduce the price to 16,500*0.4 = 6600gp. The DC to craft would be 25, so the maximum time it would take would be 66000/(25x25) = 110 weeks, or 2 years and a couple of months. Again though, only a true master should attempt making such armor, so a more reasonable DC might be 40 (only attempted by a master armorsmith), and would take at maximum 66000/(40x40) = 41 weeks, or just over 10 months.
Both of these result in long crafting times, but they are much more reasonable for the real work involved.
I certainly can agree with that for non-alchemical items.
Poisons are just an odd duck when it comes to creation, however. Even in the real world, crafting poisons never takes more than a couple of weeks, because they are made of proteins that can break down over time, and therefore lose potency. On top of that, a crafter should never have to focus on a single dose of poison at a time. In reality, drow poison and tears of death would take about the same amount of time to create, although the level of knowledge needed to craft the former pales in comparison to the latter.
Poisons: Poisons are concocted from various proteins in a delicate balance, and must be crafted in haste to preserve their potency. When crafting poisons, automatically add 10 to the DC to craft the poison. Acquiring the ingredients for poisons is both expensive and time-consuming, and requires a minimum of one week (or tenday in my campaign) to gather the ingredients. The process of brewing a poison then takes one additional week, regardless of the price of the poison. At the end of the week, make a single Craft (Alchemy) check at a DC equal to the poison's Fortitude save + 10. Success yields one dose of the poison. Failure means the materials are ruined, and the crafter must purchase new ingredients. If the crafter rolls a natural 1, the crafter accidentally exposes himself to the poison and must save normally. The crafter may concurrently work on additonal doses of poison equal to his intelligence bonus, if positive.
Nice work on the rare ingredient items, by the way. I like it better than my idea.
Poisons: Poisons are concocted from various proteins in a delicate balance, and must be crafted in haste to preserve their potency. When crafting poisons, automatically add 10 to the DC to craft the poison. Acquiring the ingredients for poisons is both expensive and time-consuming, and requires a minimum of one week (or tenday in my campaign) to gather the ingredients. The process of brewing a poison then takes one additional week, regardless of the price of the poison. At the end of the week, make a single Craft (Alchemy) check at a DC equal to the poison's Fortitude save + 10. Success yields one dose of the poison. Failure means the materials are ruined, and the crafter must purchase new ingredients. If the crafter rolls a natural 1, the crafter accidentally exposes himself to the poison and must save normally. The crafter may concurrently work on additonal doses of poison equal to his intelligence bonus, if positive.
Nice work on the rare ingredient items, by the way. I like it better than my idea.
Thanks, feel free to yoink it. I'd add that, for poisons, as you have it above, that you can make up to 10 doses at a time with no increase in DC, only an increase in cost of materials (just as easy to make a flask of poison as it is a vial, if you have enough components).
Thanks, feel free to yoink it. I'd add that, for poisons, as you have it above, that you can make up to 10 doses at a time with no increase in DC, only an increase in cost of materials (just as easy to make a flask of poison as it is a vial, if you have enough components).
That makes sense. I'll put it into consideration.
With the flask versus the vial, it depends greatly on what it is you're processing and whether it works better as a batch process or on the smaller scale.
Generally speaking, the crafting rules need to be tossed out the window with their GP value basis for time/difficulty because they don't make any sense: a silver ring is not ten times as difficult to make as a copper ring, and a gold ring is not ten times as difficult as a silver ring.
What's generally best is to just set a crafting basis on the intricacy of the craft and then just tack on surcharges for scarce ingredients, and whether that scarcity is based on rarity, exoticism, legality (ranging from taxes and tariffs to outright bans), or sheer demand for the raw materials.
I mean, look at the hypothetical copper ring. It's worth whatever the value of the metal is plus whatever value there is for the craftsmanship. If move the decimal place one over, the value of the common metal, copper, becomes the semiprecious metal, silver. Do it once more and you get gold, the precious metal. And if you go one more, you can have platinum, the absurdly precious metal.
Do the same with local, semi-local, foreign, and exotic for calculating import/export values.
With legality, go with legal, regulated (ie. taxed), misdemeanor illegal and felony illegal.
And then finally with basic demand: available in the marketplace, out-of-stock but more on order, none available from public dealers but does exist in private hands (who aren't interested in selling but wouldn't say no if offered 100 times the regular rate), highly desirable but not available from any source and those favored few who do have whatever it is wouldn't part for it for 1000 x the going rate.
Looking at that, it's pretty easy to reverse engineer the prices for all sorts of things and get the crafting time and difficulty down to something reasonable.
Looking at that, it's pretty easy to reverse engineer the prices for all sorts of things and get the crafting time and difficulty down to something reasonable.
I agree completely for everything non-magical.
Unfortunately, the rules were put in for magical stuff to keep people from popping out a +4 sword every other week. :(
Previously, this was also handled by costing XP, another detriment to creating. Now, I agree, the XP needed to go, it penalized the magic guys for making things for the non-magic guys.
But removing it, and then cutting down on build times, seriously unbalances things. I think for anything non-magical, a set time works, and then add on the ability to craft faster based on the DC vs Check roll as is now. Then have MW triple the normal time.
But, for magic, there needs to be a uniform 'minimum time' and 'maximum time' based on the caster level, is my feeling. So, time to craft a magic +2 sword is <craft time of MW sword> + <time to imbue +1 magic> + <time to imbue from +1 to +2 magic>. Then allow the crafting checks against that base time, and not against gold. Always use the minimum CL needed to make the item, or the CL the maker chooses, whichever is higher, to determine the time.
Looking at that, it's pretty easy to reverse engineer the prices for all sorts of things and get the crafting time and difficulty down to something reasonable.I agree completely for everything non-magical.
Unfortunately, the rules were put in for magical stuff to keep people from popping out a +4 sword every other week. :(
Previously, this was also handled by costing XP, another detriment to creating. Now, I agree, the XP needed to go, it penalized the magic guys for making things for the non-magic guys.
But removing it, and then cutting down on build times, seriously unbalances things. I think for anything non-magical, a set time works, and then add on the ability to craft faster based on the DC vs Check roll as is now. Then have MW triple the normal time.
But, for magic, there needs to be a uniform 'minimum time' and 'maximum time' based on the caster level, is my feeling. So, time to craft a magic +2 sword is <craft time of MW sword> + <time to imbue +1 magic> + <time to imbue from +1 to +2 magic>. Then allow the crafting checks against that base time, and not against gold. Always use the minimum CL needed to make the item, or the CL the maker chooses, whichever is higher, to determine the time.
Oh, I was only suggesting this for non-magical stuff. For magical stuff, the enchantment should take extra time, unless you're a Master Craftsman, in which case I'd just rule that the mundane crafting goes on at the same time as the enchantment, and the whole finished item is done whenever the longer time period is up.
Wizards who are going to make items, if they haven't just had the base item made by someone else, will simply use Fabricate and then start the lengthy work of enchantment.