Crafting Arrows


Rules Questions


How many arrows do you make with a craft check?

And how many master worked arrows are made with a craft check?


jyster wrote:

How many arrows do you make with a craft check?

And how many master worked arrows are made with a craft check?

Personally I ignore the minimum time of 1 per day and go with craft check result / unit cost.

As such, arrows cost .5 SP per arrow or 1 GP/ 20). I assume that a bowyer/fletcher can make x number of arrows equal to their craft check result.

Masterwork arrows are 6 GP/60 SP per arrow so you could make your craft check.

Technically making arrows is probably closer to the timeframe suggested by masterwork arrows (fletching an arrow is a fairly complex and time consuming task) but having an overly efficient form of crafting it probably not too horrible ;)


I don't know if it's quite as complex as you imply Vuron. I have a friend who can fletch and set the head in about 20 arrows in an hour, yeah they take a few days to set, but the ones I've fired have always flown true.

(now, finding appropriate sticks and shaving them when and where necessary, that would add to the time, but honestly I could easily see a skilled fletcher fletching 100 good quality (not masterworked of course, but good quality none-theless) arrows a day with nothing for materials other than glue and twine.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

I don't know if it's quite as complex as you imply Vuron. I have a friend who can fletch and set the head in about 20 arrows in an hour, yeah they take a few days to set, but the ones I've fired have always flown true.

(now, finding appropriate sticks and shaving them when and where necessary, that would add to the time, but honestly I could easily see a skilled fletcher fletching 100 good quality (not masterworked of course, but good quality none-theless) arrows a day with nothing for materials other than glue and twine.

Are you talking putting synthetic "feathers" on a pre-made composite shaft? Or are we talking tying on real feathers with sinew to a dowel and attaching a pre-made arrowhead?

I was basing my assumptions on gathering appropriate branches, using some sort of hand lathe to turn the wood, before getting to the final assembly.

I'm also not exactly clear if a bowyer/fletcher in D&D is actually making the metal arrowhead or purchasing them from a metalsmith. I'd assume that in primitive stone cultures it would be the fletcher actually shaping the flint arrowhead.


Since costs and times listed for crafting items include everything from the preparation of the materials to the final packaging, I'd suppose that you could lower the time spent by increasing the cost. Instead of having to collect the wood yourself, you could buy straight sticks. Instead of hunting the ducks, you could buy feathers from hunters. Instead of smithing your arrowheads, you could buy them from smithies.

...but I haven't seen this in the rules.


jyster wrote:

How many arrows do you make with a craft check?

And how many master worked arrows are made with a craft check?

PFcore p149 says:[q] The masterwork quality adds 300 gp to

the cost of a normal weapon (or 6 gp to the cost of a single
unit of ammunition)[/q]

Which strongly suggests that you make 50 arrows at a time.


What do you guys use for a DC for crafting arrows? 5, for simple item?

Dark Archive

cr0m wrote:
What do you guys use for a DC for crafting arrows? 5, for simple item?

Yeah that is what we have been using.


Carbon D. Metric wrote:
cr0m wrote:
What do you guys use for a DC for crafting arrows? 5, for simple item?
Yeah that is what we have been using.

According to the Craft chart on p. 93, they have a craft DC of 12.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Louis IX wrote:

Since costs and times listed for crafting items include everything from the preparation of the materials to the final packaging, I'd suppose that you could lower the time spent by increasing the cost. Instead of having to collect the wood yourself, you could buy straight sticks. Instead of hunting the ducks, you could buy feathers from hunters. Instead of smithing your arrowheads, you could buy them from smithies.

...but I haven't seen this in the rules.

Er... No it isn't cost cover : Pay 1/3 of the item’s price for the raw material cost.

For an arrow the raw material is not a duck but duck's feathers that fit for making an arrow... Same with wood...

How many arrows :

By rhe rules you need 10 SP for 20 arrows, maening you have to spend 4SP for 20 arrows crafted and you can make :

- For 8 days of works D20+skills*DC (12 in this case) in SP.
- For one day divide by the number of days in a week (I assume 8 even if it's 7 in reality :p ) so the formul become : (D20+Skills*DC)/8 SP.

Example : The DC for arrows is 12 (by raw), you have 5 in fletching skill and you take 10 on the roll :

For 8 days : 10+5*12=180SP -> 18*20 -> 360 arrows for 120SP in raw materials.
For 1 day (8 hours of work) : 360/8 = 45 arrows for 15SP in raw materials.
For 1 hour of work : 45/24 = 1,8 (rounding down by rules) 1 for 4SP of raw materials.

You can make more arrows if you upgrade the DC to 12 to 17... About 2 arrows per hour I think... ;)


I believe availability of materials would alter the DC and nothing more. A well supplied town/fletcher would have access to blank shafts, fletchings and points as well a plentiful supply of "consumable" materials such as sinew and therefore wouldn't need as much time accumulating the needed materials as a fletcher attempting the same task in a barren wasteland with little access to such materials. Even with that said, the number of arrows that are able to be crafted in a said amount of time does not change much aside from the availability of materials. If you have access to 20 arrows in materials then you can make 20 arrows just as quickly in a town that can supply the materials or in a barren wasteland. Remember that the check is to see if one can succesfully craft such an item, not if he/she can supply the materials to craft it.

Loengrin seems to have the correct formula for the amount of arrows that can be crafted in a given period of time, although I don't see how an increase in DC can increase the number of items crafted concidering the increased DC means an increase in difficulty but that might be a simple flaw in the overall concept of crafting.


Okay, full disclosure in that I have not specifically looked up crafting rules in pathfinder as I haven't played a chapter with enough crafting for time required to actually be measured, so I'm going off my 3.0/3.5 knowledge here. I'm assuming it's still the same, but disclaimer in case it's one of those stealth changes I missed.

The time required to craft is dependant on the overall price and the DC of the check. The higher the DC, the more progress you make. A common houserule we had back in my day was that you could voluntarily raise the DC of your checks in order to speed up crafting, meaning a very skilled crafter (aka, someone that can take 10 for a higher check) can craft an item much faster than a newbie and still have the same quality item.

Might want to check with your GM and see if they'll let you do the same. Makes crafting things like arrows or other things you need in bulk much faster and easier.


Loengrin's math is off for the 1 hour check.
"For 1 day (8 hours of work) "
"For 1 hour of work : 45/24 " should be "For 1 hour of work : 45/8" or 5 arrows per work hour(not calendar hour) after rounding down.
With the optional DC increase it would be 10 per hour.


Robodon wrote:

Loengrin's math is off for the 1 hour check.

"For 1 day (8 hours of work) "
"For 1 hour of work : 45/24 " should be "For 1 hour of work : 45/8" or 5 arrows per work hour(not calendar hour) after rounding down.
With the optional DC increase it would be 10 per hour.

I doubt anyone really cares about the his math anymore. Seeing as how it was from 5 years ago.


This came up in my Rituals topic.
Gathering and shopping raw materials can soak up the extra days so a normal batch can take 10 in one day. You cannot take 10 for masterwork.

Fire arrows, that are capped with rags and pitch, would cost double in time and money.

Using your broken arrows to build new ones would probably save you some time and money. I would go with half for simplicity. You would require twice as many broken arrows to make the amount of whole arrows you want.

Ducks are always losing feathers, and they go full molt about once a year, so you need not harm any ducks. Needing to eat is a more valid excuse for hunting a duck. Your animal companion wolf will probably hunt ducks without any encouragement.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

As a general rule of thumb, I assume that you craft items in the quantities you can normally buy them. For example, crossbow bolts are sold in units of 10 - so that's how many you'd craft with a check. Arrows are more commonly units of 20, so...


Goth Guru wrote:

This came up in my Rituals topic.

Gathering and shopping raw materials can soak up the extra days so a normal batch can take 10 in one day. You cannot take 10 for masterwork.

Um.... Why? Are you distracted or threatened when you make your arrows? Or.... *gasp* ... GM wants a Dramatic Momemt!

/cevah


Cevah wrote:
Goth Guru wrote:

This came up in my Rituals topic.

Gathering and shopping raw materials can soak up the extra days so a normal batch can take 10 in one day. You cannot take 10 for masterwork.

Um.... Why? Are you distracted or threatened when you make your arrows? Or.... *gasp* ... GM wants a Dramatic Moment!

/cevah

Because the core rulebook says so.

The GM can turn around and correct the rules for greater believability.


Quote:

Because the core rulebook says so.

The GM can turn around and correct the rules for greater believability.

Specify a page number or provide a link to the PRD. Because I can find nothing in either the Craft skill itself, the description of Take 10 mechanics, or the description of masterwork items that prohibits Taking 10 on masterwork item construction.


It was the second printing, but I'll look again.

edit: The masterwork component has a DC of 20. I didn't think it through that time.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Crafting Arrows All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.