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How do you determine how much something costs when you only know the DC of the item, and what craft you'll need? Unfortunately not everything gets listed under the craft table, or has a visible price under Goods, but these items do fall under "very simple item", "typical item", and "high-quality item" for DC 5, 10, and 15, respectfully.
Just an example from thin air, a carpenter is asked to build a table and chair set for a couple's anniversary, a set of wooden spoons, and a salad bowl. They don't know how long it's going to take him so they give him a month's notice. How long does it take for him to make them, and how much do they owe him?
Let's add to that. The couple's daughter's birthday is coming up so the carpenter's wife, who is good at weaving and sewing, is asked to make a new dollie for the little girl. Again, how long and how much?
I'm asking because the PCs are starting to ask for random stuff. One PC is actually an adult with a child's mind, and she likes dollies. Another PC has come to learn that he's a little heavy for most chairs and beds, and is looking to get a carpenter to build him his own living room set which will support his weight.
Have you asked them what 'quality' of the item they want made is? Higher quality takes more time and costs more.
The trick is that the economic system of D&D is 'imperfect' and abstracted. The DM needs to take into consideration things like "Are these people buying items like rich people, poor people, or the middle class", and that means defining what the economic system is, the average wage, the variations of cost for certain basics or commodities, and the general health of the overall economy, etc.
Yet you don't have to be an economist to go into the gory details and mechanic of how everything works. Simply pick a number, despite the fact that certain items may seem ridiculously expensive when compared to other items that you are used to in a modern economy.
Better yet, ask the players what they want to spend. Treat it as a budgeting issue on their part and not as you having to come up with a price for each and every item they can name. This way they cannot 'object' and try to haggle with you over price; you've already cut to the chase and determined how much they are willing to spend.
You can even let them know that they could spend 'less' and still be OK. Abstracting it this way is probably best, and you can always tell them that, "If they spent a little more, then they'll get exactly what their character wants."
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How do you determine how much something costs when you only know the DC of the item, and what craft you'll need? Unfortunately not everything gets listed under the craft table, or has a visible price under Goods, but these items do fall under "very simple item", "typical item", and "high-quality item" for DC 5, 10, and 15, respectfully.
Just an example from thin air, a carpenter is asked to build a table and chair set for a couple's anniversary, a set of wooden spoons, and a salad bowl. They don't know how long it's going to take him so they give him a month's notice. How long does it take for him to make them, and how much do they owe him?
Let's add to that. The couple's daughter's birthday is coming up so the carpenter's wife, who is good at weaving and sewing, is asked to make a new dollie for the little girl. Again, how long and how much?
I'm asking because the PCs are starting to ask for random stuff. One PC is actually an adult with a child's mind, and she likes dollies. Another PC has come to learn that he's a little heavy for most chairs and beds, and is looking to get a carpenter to build him his own living room set which will support his weight.
Think how much an item might cost in materials and how difficult to make. A Carpenter can take 20 on a craft to make a table or a stronger chair because, well he's a carpenter and he's probably made a number of tables chairs in his time. Sewing up a dolly to a reasonable seamstress isn't exactly hard. LOL I can do it and I'm not even trained in sewing.
Mundane items of this kind should be relatively easy and quick to make and materials and profit included should not be excessively expensive to the PC.
What Marcus said except for the "take 20" part. That should be take 10 + MW tools + a couple of helpers to "aid another."
Take 20 assumes that you fail multiple times before success. It can only be used in situations where there is no penalty for failure. Take 20 is used in situations like bashing down a door or searching a square. The only consequence for failure is...failure. You can keep throwing your shoulder into the door until you succeed.
Take 10, on the other hand, assumes you give an average effort in order to avoid failing. Climbing a cliff (as per the example in the rule book) is a situation where failure has a penalty (falling) beyond just not succeeding.
The easiest way to determine whether Take 20 is appropriate is to assume you roll 19 ones before rolling a single 20. Falling off the cliff 19 times is...bad.
In the case of craft, taking 20 would mean you lose 1/3 the cost of the item 19 times (a penalty for failure). It would also take 20 times as long.
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Take 20 assumes that you fail multiple times before success. It can only be used in situations where there is no penalty for failure. Take 20 is used in situations like bashing down a door or searching a square. The only consequence for failure is...failure. You can keep throwing your shoulder into the door until you succeed.
Take 10, on the other hand, assumes you give an average effort in order to avoid failing. Climbing a cliff (as per the example in the rule book) is a situation where failure has a penalty (falling) beyond just not succeeding.
The easiest way to determine whether Take 20 is appropriate is to assume you roll 19 ones before rolling a single 20. Falling off the cliff 19 times is...bad.
In the case of craft, taking 20 would mean you lose 1/3 the cost of the item 19 times (a penalty for failure). It would also take 20 times as long.
Hmm I often wondered about that rule, I took it to mean that by taking 20 you automatically succeeded (providing the DC was not excessively high and you had enough skills in craft to achieve the required result)and had then time to do so. I didn't take it to mean that you failed 19 times out of 20. I reasoned that with adequate supplies, tools and time one could create a table with no failure. I made a table, took a little longer to do than a trained carpenter and it had none of the beautiful bells and whistles, but it worked and now I have a functional table, I considered that taking 20 (i.e. taking my time to make sure I succeeded.) BTW this didn't cost me any more in materials.
Whenever someone takes additional time I usually grant a +2 to +4 bonus to reflect the extra care, but that's not quite the same thing as taking 20, which is, after all the absolute very best that a character can possibly do.
I should point out that not everyone will agree with my explanation of the difference between take 20 and take 10, but I think I'm on pretty solid ground rules wise. YMMV, tho.
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Whenever someone takes additional time I usually grant a +2 to +4 bonus to reflect the extra care, but that's not quite the same thing as taking 20, which is, after all the absolute very best that a character can possibly do.
I should point out that not everyone will agree with my explanation of the difference between take 20 and take 10, but I think I'm on pretty solid ground rules wise. YMMV, tho.
Fair enough. I tended to think of it in an adventuring situation where you're hard pressed for time in some situation. But when you have the time and the skill you can do it automatically. But there are skills that failure can have consequences so take 20 might not be desirable or possible. You are probably right in your interpretation of the rules though so I will defer to your opinion on this one.
Hmm I often wondered about that rule, I took it to mean that by taking 20 you automatically succeeded (providing the DC was not excessively high and you had enough skills in craft to achieve the required result)and had then time to do so. I didn't take it to mean that you failed 19 times out of 20. I reasoned that with adequate supplies, tools and time one could create a table with no failure. I made a table, took a little longer to do than a trained carpenter and it had none of the beautiful bells and whistles, but it worked and now I have a functional table, I considered that taking 20 (i.e. taking my time to make sure I succeeded.) BTW this didn't cost me any more in materials.
But look at all the DCs for crafting types of item. For a functional table, I'd make that a DC 5 or DC 10 max. So you already can take 10 and make a simple table, even if you have 0 experience in that area.
On the flip side, crafting an exotic weapon is a DC 18, and making something masterwork is a separate DC 20.
So if you let everyone be able to take 20 with no penalties, then even level 1 farmers would be able to craft masterwork exotic weapons (among other things), given that they just have a little time to do so.
That's just not right.
Hmm I often wondered about that rule, I took it to mean that by taking 20 you automatically succeeded (providing the DC was not excessively high and you had enough skills in craft to achieve the required result)and had then time to do so. I didn't take it to mean that you failed 19 times out of 20. I reasoned that with adequate supplies, tools and time one could create a table with no failure. I made a table, took a little longer to do than a trained carpenter and it had none of the beautiful bells and whistles, but it worked and now I have a functional table, I considered that taking 20 (i.e. taking my time to make sure I succeeded.) BTW this didn't cost me any more in materials.
You are half right in being able to take 20 in crafting the table. You have unlimited time with no threats or distractions. However, there can also be no chance for failure, which there is for crafting. As stated per the core rule book (pg. 87) if you fail a crafting check by 5 or more, you ruin half of the raw materials and have to pay for them again.
So for that reason, you cannot take 20 as then you would basically be bypassing that chance for a failure. So you do have to roll.
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Hmm I often wondered about that rule, I took it to mean that by taking 20 you automatically succeeded (providing the DC was not excessively high and you had enough skills in craft to achieve the required result)and had then time to do so. I didn't take it to mean that you failed 19 times out of 20. I reasoned that with adequate supplies, tools and time one could create a table with no failure. I made a table, took a little longer to do than a trained carpenter and it had none of the beautiful bells and whistles, but it worked and now I have a functional table, I considered that taking 20 (i.e. taking my time to make sure I succeeded.) BTW this didn't cost me any more in materials.But look at all the DCs for crafting types of item. For a functional table, I'd make that a DC 5 or DC 10 max. So you already can take 10 and make a simple table, even if you have 0 experience in that area.
On the flip side, crafting an exotic weapon is a DC 18, and making something masterwork is a separate DC 20.
So if you let everyone be able to take 20 with no penalties, then even level 1 farmers would be able to craft masterwork exotic weapons (among other things), given that they just have a little time to do so.
That's just not right.
I agree, but the OP said they wanted items that functioned and the people they would go to I would imagine would be skilled in the said craft anyway. So all I was saying that for mundane basic things working out costs, time and profit would not be an insurmountable task for any reasonably talented GM to do. My examples were advice on what I could achieve, not being skilled in said craft, and the results would never be masterwork but they would serve the purpose. So if said characters came to me as an unskilled craftsman in these areas I would charge accordingly (i.e. very little). If they wanted exceptional craftsmanship they would need to find a better craftsman.
But a good carpenter and a good seamstress could do a good job of simple things such as chairs, tables and in the latter case dollies. So I felt that for such things were bread and butter to these people. They aint masterwork and they aint magical. So why would someone who'd a msde a functional deal table for example, many times fail to do so in his own workshop and with plenty of time and all his tools. To me that's just not right.
Finally if you read a later post I made I accepted MynameisJake's understanding of taking 20 and deferred to him on it.
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Hmm I often wondered about that rule, I took it to mean that by taking 20 you automatically succeeded (providing the DC was not excessively high and you had enough skills in craft to achieve the required result)and had then time to do so. I didn't take it to mean that you failed 19 times out of 20. I reasoned that with adequate supplies, tools and time one could create a table with no failure. I made a table, took a little longer to do than a trained carpenter and it had none of the beautiful bells and whistles, but it worked and now I have a functional table, I considered that taking 20 (i.e. taking my time to make sure I succeeded.) BTW this didn't cost me any more in materials.
You are half right in being able to take 20 in crafting the table. You have unlimited time with no threats or distractions. However, there can also be no chance for failure, which there is for crafting. As stated per the core rule book (pg. 87) if you fail a crafting check by 5 or more, you ruin half of the raw materials and have to pay for them again.
So for that reason, you cannot take 20 as then you would basically be bypassing that chance for a failure. So you do have to roll.
As I said, I deferred to MynameisJake's take rather than my own on taking 20, but I still think that certain mundane items would have far less chance of failing by a skilled artisan. Maybe a GM could house rule that if a certain item is so straightforward to make then it's fail chance ought to be much less than a fail of 5 below the crafting check.
I'm not arguing the Core rules are wrong, or that your interpretation of them is wrong but think maybe of this. I take a branch of wood and whittle away the bark and give it a coat of varnish. It serves me as a functional walking stick. It might not be a fine quality walking stick and it might break sooner than a craftsman who specializes in making walking sticks. Nevertheless there is no reason why a 0 level peasant couldn't take 20 to do it without fail. The GM needs to be intelligent when thinking through this rule. Crafting certain items may easily be a take 20 because of their simplicity, whereas complex or masterwork items would be disallowed from taking 20. Just my take. The core rules are as they are, but I do think its the GM's call in situations like the above.
You are confusing the merit of the effort with the difficulty of the job. A peasant could make a stick for walking by taking 10. Likely its a dc2 or dc3 action.
Option 1 - Plough ahead - roll. They can still fumble maybe cut themselves etc... But it's done in a _minimum_ of time.
Option 2 - Take 10 - Free of distractions you plan your approach and since you don't need to roll no mistakes etc... but your roll result is 10 + your perhaps nonexistant woodworking skill. Because the DC is below 10 you will always succeed with a bit of planing and adequate resources.
You can't take 20, but more importantly, 20 won't help you more than 10. The job is too easy.
Now if you wanted to make a Faberge Egg DC35 you could still only take 10. You better have at least 15 Craft Faberge Egg.
You can't take 20 on a craft check because you must succeed with your materials or start again.
Check out the SRD on the actions:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm
Sheeeeesh, people, he gets it. He said so. He understands the rules. No need to pile on.
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You guys haven't helped yet. Maybe kind of when you mentioned the materials, but I have no idea where I can find wood, straw, cloth, sewing kits, thread, etc for the item.
I asked, how do you determine how much something costs when you ALREADY only know the DC of the item, and what craft you'll need? Unfortunately not everything gets listed under the craft table, or has a visible price under Goods, but these items do fall under "very simple item", "typical item", and "high-quality item" for DC 5, 10, and 15, respectfully.
I'm looking for the price of that table and chairs set, and that doll for the little girl. But there isn't any, and I don't know how long it'll take because said price doesn't exist for me to divide by 100 copper to know how many days it'll take.
For items not listed, you have to make up numbers. 20lbs. of firewood costs a copper, a 200lb. cart costs 15 gold. A table is somewhere in between. A square yard of canvas is a silver, silk is 10 gold. Off the cuff, I'd call the doll 1 silver, and the table/chairs at 5 gold.
As others have said, you get what you pay for. If you want a doll sewn from sackcloth with a smile stitched on and stuffed with straw you will pay a lot less then if you want one made from silk that comes with 3 different dresses. Same with the table. If you just want a table to plunk your bowl of gruel down on, it's not going to cost much.
Most of the time we just toss a reasonable number out and see if it makes sense. If you want something nice, use a larger number. "Here's your gift! (I spent 10 gold to buy it)" generally gets you better results then "Did you know what you could buy with a silver piece?"
You can't take 20 on a craft check because you must succeed with your materials or start again.
We always played that taking 20 assumes you roll everything from a 1 up to a 20. There are times I'd allow it for craft checks. If you have Craft:pie and want to cook for the king's feast, you can take a 20. First, you are going to pay for 20 pies. You are going to spend the time baking 20 pies. The best one is going to be served to the king. The next few will go to the high table, and on down the great hall. The ones you got the 1's and 2's on feed the kitchen help after the burned parts are cut off, or go to slopping the pigs.
Yep - you'll just have to make it up. One good way is to look at today's prices, and divide by 10 for GP value. A really cheap table.. 5-10gp. A really sturdy nice one? 40gp, more for very fancy.
A doll shouldn't be more than 1gp unless it's very elaborate (silk with three dresses could get there).
TIME (in weeks): Take the cost (in silver pieces), divide by the DC, and then divide by 10+modifier in the skill. [That's for taking 10 on the check.] So a 20 gp table with a +8 skill = (200 / DC 15) / (10 + 8) = 0.7 weeks or 5 days.
We always played that taking 20 assumes you roll everything from a 1 up to a 20. There are times I'd allow it for craft checks. If you have Craft:pie and want to cook for the king's feast, you can take a 20. First, you are going to pay for 20 pies. You are going to spend the time baking 20 pies. The best one is going to be served to the king. The next few will go to the high table, and on down the great hall. The ones you got the 1's and 2's on feed the kitchen help after the burned parts are cut off, or go to slopping the pigs.You can't take 20 on a craft check because you must succeed with your materials or start again.
This for taking 20. Though it depends a bit on what kind of item. If you can rework the same item (like a sword), then only failures by 5 would incur the additional 1/6th cost (half of materials).
Longwinded example for MW weapon:
Let's take 1 rank, class skill, 1 int, and MW tools, with a helper for +9. Need a 7 to hit DC 16 to avoid paying more. So you pay 1/3 to start, + 1/6 *6 weeks of failure = 4/3 the cost of the weapon spent after taking 20 weeks. You have now completed 20*29 = 580sp or 58gp of work (almost 1/5th!). 83 more weeks spent like that will net you a total cost of just over 2000gp to make a 300gp weapon.
Of course, if you're just trying to *succeed*, instead of actually taking 20 to get a wonderful perfect 29 craft check weapon, it's much easier.
You can't take 10, because that only gets you 19, but you succeed 50% of the time, and lose money only 30% of the time. So on average it will take you twice as long, and still cost you a bundle, but far more doable. Average success = 20*24.5 = 49gp per week (or two weeks), so just over 12 weeks to complete. Failure in 30% of those = 3.6*50gp + 100gp to start for a total of 280gp. Congratulations - you saved money after 3 months of work!
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You guys haven't helped yet. Maybe kind of when you mentioned the materials, but I have no idea where I can find wood, straw, cloth, sewing kits, thread, etc for the item.
I asked, how do you determine how much something costs when you ALREADY only know the DC of the item, and what craft you'll need? Unfortunately not everything gets listed under the craft table, or has a visible price under Goods, but these items do fall under "very simple item", "typical item", and "high-quality item" for DC 5, 10, and 15, respectfully.
I'm looking for the price of that table and chairs set, and that doll for the little girl. But there isn't any, and I don't know how long it'll take because said price doesn't exist for me to divide by 100 copper to know how many days it'll take.
Use your imagination. There are enough items included in the Core rulebook to get you going as a basis. It's your game. Straw is cheap and softwoods are cheaper than hardwoods. Rare hardwoods are even more expensive. It depends on how common the materials are in the place your PCs live. If they live near a large deciduous woodland then chances are there will be a plentiful supply of wood at good prices. If they live in a desert then wood will have to be imported and will cost that much more.
If you are thinking of enough straw to stuff a dolly, then I guess the cost would be a fraction of a copper piece. Hardly worth worrying about, so for game purposes you could rule that the item costs nothing, unless your characters live in a town where there is no animal fodder and the animals are dying from lack of winter sustenance. C'mon, you're a GM, you shouldn't even have a problem with this. Or tell you what? Pay me a sum of money and I'll write you a text categorizing prices of all the mundane materials you can think of and the rules needed to adjust them due to market availability.
We always played that taking 20 assumes you roll everything from a 1 up to a 20. There are times I'd allow it for craft checks. If you have Craft:pie and want to cook for the king's feast, you can take a 20. First, you are going to pay for 20 pies. You are going to spend the time baking 20 pies. The best one is going to be served to the king. The next few will go to the high table, and on down the great hall. The ones you got the 1's and 2's on feed the kitchen help after the burned parts are cut off, or go to slopping the pigs.You can't take 20 on a craft check because you must succeed with your materials or start again.
+1. An excellent compromise/interpretation. Well done.
We always played that taking 20 assumes you roll everything from a 1 up to a 20. There are times I'd allow it for craft checks. If you have Craft:pie and want to cook for the king's feast, you can take a 20. First, you are going to pay for 20 pies. You are going to spend the time baking 20 pies. The best one is going to be served to the king. The next few will go to the high table, and on down the great hall. The ones you got the 1's and 2's on feed the kitchen help after the burned parts are cut off, or go to slopping the pigs.You can't take 20 on a craft check because you must succeed with your materials or start again.
Now that's a great way to do it and it makes complete sense as well as being balanced.
Good job.
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Agreed. Awesome post.
Actually, I was thinking about coming up with some sort of lazy mans guide for this kind of thing.
Basically, convert what the player wants to current analogues.
We have tables, and chairs.
You can get a folding chair for 10 bucks.
A table set for 120 or so, which includes 4 chairs, and the table itself.
Now, I might spend 10 dollars for a mid-class meal. *yes, I'm using the bread basket technique*
that's 3 sp for a common meal on pg 158.
So the conversion tells me the table will cost 3gold 6 silver.
Every 10 dollars *american* is equivalent to 3 sp.
Note though, that while you'll get a decent table, it'll be a decent table for that time. It's not going to ornamental, but it won't be hewn, uneven craftsmanship either.
Not only do you need to convert the cost, but the quality. Anyhow, I've used that a few times while running games to pull together a *reasonable* price for something random.
For dolls, you could be buying the cheap knock-offs for 5 bucks each, or the crazy expensive porcalein dolls for 100+bucks each.
your bargain-bin doll then, and we're talking about an actual doll, not a corn husk with eyes, would cost you 1s 5copper to 3silver.
Yes, there'll be times when this breaks down, but it works fine for most simple items.
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Well the dolls won't be around that much. You're going to want ones that last forever, but there's also the cheap knock-offs, and I'm looking for both. One silver seems pretty reasonable for a doll that's just going to end up as kindling.
I would highly suggest a source from 2nd Ed. D&D for cost of items, like you are looking for.
The book is called "Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue" I use it frequently in my 3.5 edition games.
For your "doll" example... a fabric doll (think sock monkey) runs about 3 silver. A porcelain doll runs about 2 gold....
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Well the dolls won't be around that much. You're going to want ones that last forever, but there's also the cheap knock-offs, and I'm looking for both. One silver seems pretty reasonable for a doll that's just going to end up as kindling.I would highly suggest a source from 2nd Ed. D&D for cost of items, like you are looking for.
The book is called "Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue" I use it frequently in my 3.5 edition games.
For your "doll" example... a fabric doll (think sock monkey) runs about 3 silver. A porcelain doll runs about 2 gold....
Funny. A buddy of mine said such a thing didn't exist for 2nd.
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Funny. A buddy of mine said such a thing didn't exist for 2nd.Well the dolls won't be around that much. You're going to want ones that last forever, but there's also the cheap knock-offs, and I'm looking for both. One silver seems pretty reasonable for a doll that's just going to end up as kindling.I would highly suggest a source from 2nd Ed. D&D for cost of items, like you are looking for.
The book is called "Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue" I use it frequently in my 3.5 edition games.
For your "doll" example... a fabric doll (think sock monkey) runs about 3 silver. A porcelain doll runs about 2 gold....
Here you go...you can buy your own copy now:
http://www.amazon.com/Auroras-Whole-Realms-Catalog-Forgotten/dp/1560763272