Craft: Jewelry?

[Erik Freund]

I have a PC who is taking ranks in Craft:Jewelry, mostly for background / RP-reasons. But she would like, if possible, to get some mechanical use out of it. Not being an overly experienced player, she's deligated that implementation to me, her GM.

In a pinch, I'll let her substitute the skill for Appraise with regard to Jewelry-like items, but I'm hoping for significantly more than that.

Does anyone have any good rules for this lying around? Someone's got to have homebrew rules for Craft:Gemcutting, as that was a popular 2nd ED NWP, and those two skills would have a ton of cross-over. I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

One idea I'm having is to try and convert the Craft Wonderous Item and Craft Ring feats into skill-form somehow. (with wonderous items being limited to those that are jewlry-like, of course)

I'm open to other, wilder, ideas as well. If I can find someway to hand out various gems or precious metals as treasures that are mechanically interesting to her, that would be awesome. I'm a bit inspired by Diablo II, though I'm not sure how far I should run with that idea.

A little background: this is the Kingmaker AP, and she is a Dwarf from House Garess in Brevoy. She grew up in a human city, her father effectively being a diplomat for the merchant clan that lived in the mountain. She has learned the family trade: jewlry making. But when I say "jewlry" I don't mean delicate little trinkets, but the awesome stuff you'd expect of a Dwarf. Class-wise, she's a Rouge for now, but might dip Fighter in the future.

[Deidre Tiriel]

If she picks up Craft Wonderous or Forge Ring, she can use her craft: jewelry skill instead of spellcraft for creating items. This is benaficial in the sense that she can use masterwork tools to get a +2 to the craft check, which isn't possible with spellcraft.

[EDIT] RAW, she would have to be a caster or pick up Mastercraftsman, then pick up a crafting feat.

[StabbittyDoom]

Deidre Tiriel wrote:

If she picks up Craft Wonderous or Forge Ring, she can use her craft: jewelry skill instead of spellcraft for creating items. This is benaficial in the sense that she can use masterwork tools to get a +2 to the craft check, which isn't possible with spellcraft.

[EDIT] RAW, she would have to be a caster or pick up Mastercraftsman, then pick up a crafting feat.

By RAW that feat doesn't let you use Craft for anything but Arms and Armor and Wondrous. Sounds like house-rulin' time!

My recommendation:
Appraise (as you mentioned)
Master Craftsman (Jewelry) (house-ruled to allow rings/amulets)
Craft Ring / Wondrous
Let her do craft checks to try to increase the value of gems found a little bit (like 10-20%).
Maybe a minor diplomacy bonus on higher end jewelry (+2 circumstance) when dealing with nobles.

[Deidre Tiriel]

don't forget about jingly belts, circlets, bracelets, earrings, anklets, and random piercings! Of course, only the belts, necklaces and circlets would be slot-priced. All others would be more expensive as they are off-spot.

For animal companions, I allow rings to be used as earrings.

[Cpt_kirstov]

StabbittyDoom wrote:

Deidre Tiriel wrote:

If she picks up Craft Wonderous or Forge Ring, she can use her craft: jewelry skill instead of spellcraft for creating items. This is benaficial in the sense that she can use masterwork tools to get a +2 to the craft check, which isn't possible with spellcraft.

[EDIT] RAW, she would have to be a caster or pick up Mastercraftsman, then pick up a crafting feat.

By RAW that feat doesn't let you use Craft for anything but Arms and Armor and Wondrous. Sounds like house-rulin' time!

My recommendation:
Appraise (as you mentioned)
Master Craftsman (Jewelry) (house-ruled to allow rings/amulets)
Craft Ring / Wondrous
Let her do craft checks to try to increase the value of gems found a little bit (like 10-20%).
Maybe a minor diplomacy bonus on higher end jewelry (+2 circumstance) when dealing with nobles.

Bonuses identifying prized jewels (Crown jewels, jewels once owned by nobility the character is familiar with) depending on how your group plays with this being kingmaker, this could lead to your jeweler finding out about a plot by one of the nobles of the kingdom that pays with a ring or necklace.

bonuses in identifying counterfeit jewels (which could lead to bonuses in diplomacy - people like people who 1 help them or 2 appreciate what they spend lots of money on.

decorating ceremonial arms and armor - gold filigree?

regional, religious, racial and superstitious beliefs about different jewels/Stones/precious metals.

[Majuba]

StabbittyDoom wrote:

By RAW that feat doesn't let you use Craft for anything but Arms and Armor and Wondrous. Sounds like house-rulin' time!

No house-rule required - check page 552 of the core rulebook, craft (jewelry) is specified as an acceptable skill check for rings.

[StabbittyDoom]

Majuba wrote:

StabbittyDoom wrote:

By RAW that feat doesn't let you use Craft for anything but Arms and Armor and Wondrous. Sounds like house-rulin' time!

No house-rule required - check page 552 of the core rulebook, craft (jewelry) is specified as an acceptable skill check for rings.

That presumes you are allowed to take Forge Ring, which requires a caster level. Master Craftsman supplants this caster level requirement ONLY for Craft Wondrous and Craft Arms and Armor.

If they already have (or will have) the required caster level, then by all means (though funny enough I never noticed that alternate skills were allowed without feat).

[Majuba]

Good point.

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

I think a reasonable house rule for Master Craftsman would be to have it qualify you to take any two (2) item creation feats. Like this:

Craft (jewelry): Craft Wondrous Item & Forge Ring
Craft (alchemy): Brew Potion & Craft Wondrous Item
Craft (blacksmith): Craft Magical Arms and Armor & Craft Wondrous Item

Or you could just open it up to whatever seemed reasonable. It would hardly seem a big problem if someone with Master Craftsman: Craft (woodcarving) picked up Craft Wand, Craft Rod, and Craft Staff.

If you don't do this, you just have people shoehorning everything into Craft Wondrous Item anyway. Do you want a Wand of Knock or a Chime of Opening? What's the difference again precisely?

It gets even sillier when you enforce the RAW and make it so that a dwarven master craftsman with Craft (jewelry) could legally make a blinged-out sword which grants wishes (a luck blade) but can't make a ring that grants wishes, at least following the letter of the RAW.

[StabbittyDoom]

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

I think a reasonable house rule for Master Craftsman would be to have it qualify you to take any two (2) item creation feats. Like this:

Craft (jewelry): Craft Wondrous Item & Forge Ring
Craft (alchemy): Brew Potion & Craft Wondrous Item
Craft (blacksmith): Craft Magical Arms and Armor & Craft Wondrous Item

Or you could just open it up to whatever seemed reasonable. It would hardly seem a big problem if someone with Master Craftsman: Craft (woodcarving) picked up Craft Wand, Craft Rod, and Craft Staff.

If you don't do this, you just have people shoehorning everything into Craft Wondrous Item anyway. Do you want a Wand of Knock or a Chime of Opening? What's the difference again precisely?

It gets even sillier when you enforce the RAW and make it so that a dwarven master craftsman with Craft (jewelry) could legally make a blinged-out sword which grants wishes (a luck blade) but can't make a ring that grants wishes, at least following the letter of the RAW.

+4 Billion %

That is all.

[ItoSaithWebb]

Sounds more like a Profession to me because crafting jewelery requires a lot of different skills.

[StabbittyDoom]

ItoSaithWebb wrote:

Sounds more like a Profession to me because crafting jewelery requires a lot of different skills.

I didn't think that's what it was based on.

I thought anything that made something was a Craft and anything that's a service is a Profession.
But, then, when I double-check myself it seems that Profession is just a vocation. Then again, Profession doesn't say you can actually craft stuff using it. That's probably to prevent Profession (Blacksmithing) from doing the job of both Craft (Armor) and Craft (Weapon).
Bah, silly ill-defined skills.

[VikingIrishman]

ItoSaithWebb wrote:

Sounds more like a Profession to me because crafting jewelery requires a lot of different skills.

Anything that produces an item is a Craft, anything that provides a service is a Profession. Someone who makes poisons and other alchemical items would have ranks in Craft (alchemy), whereas someone who runs a shop that sells poisons and other alchemical items would have ranks in Profession (apothecary).

There IS a lot of crossover here, but this is the general rule.

[Tom Baumbach]

Erik Freund wrote:

Does anyone have any good rules for this lying around? Someone's got to have homebrew rules for Craft:Gemcutting, as that was a popular 2nd ED NWP, and those two skills would have a ton of cross-over. I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

I have some homebrew Craft (gemcraft) rules, but they were made mostly to supplement the arcane reliquary, so it may not be what you're looking for.

[Harrythefish]

I know this is a old thread but I was just thinking of making a character who is a jeweler/gem cutter and I saw a huge flaw in the system in the core book.
Problem
I find a gem worth 500 gp and use it for the base material.
I use that gem to make a 1000 gp item (2 times the cost of the base item)
I take the 1000 gp gem as material to make a 2000 gp gem, rinse wash repeat, my 500 gp gem could at the end of a life of a Gnome who was obsessed with it be worth more than the entire planet....
Artistic items (jewelry gems paintings ect. need new rules.)
As it is under the current rules a 5000 GP crown take a person with 10 skill on average 166 weeks to make, and if you have to roll (not take 10) you will fail enough that it would take more in raw material than the cost of the item being made.

The material cost of the mona lisa, is less than 100$ easy, I am pretty sure if sold on the open market it would be worth more than 300 bucks. Artistic items should have prices based on DC and quality of items. Cheap paint makes cheap artwork, tin necklace is poor quality etc.

You can take 10 when crafting

DC = complexity + artistic quality.

Complexity artistic quality
5 Simple 5 Functional
10 Medium 10 Average
15 Hard 15 Good
20 Advanced 20 Superior
25 Expert 25 Excellent
30 Extreme 30 Incredible

Complexity
Easy: Cast item, single focus drawing with subject present.
Medium:cast item with simple embellishments, drawing with depth or color
Hard: interlocking pieces, detailed or complex image
Advanced: complex interlocking pieces, lifelike detailed images.
Expert: super fine details, intricate multi locking objects,
Extreme: an item with no room for error: the empire states building but made from glass.

Quality is set by the crafter, This is the variable that makes a painting of the sky a 10 dollar picture or a 1000 dollar picture.

Time to make the item is one week. you can modify the DC as below.
DC x 2 = 1 hour
DC x 1.5 = 1 day
DC x 1 = 1 week
DC x 1/2 = 1 month
DC x 1/3 = 1 Year
DC x 1/4 = 10 years
For every +5 you make the DC by reduce the time by the next lower category. IE: you take the 1 month modifier and roll 10 over the DC, you would take 2 week off the time to make.
You must succeed in making the items DC. Fail by less than 5 no progress is made, more than 5 ruin 1/2 for materials and no progress is made.

Material Quality
Poor Material -5 to skill Value 1/2
Good Material Value Normal
Superior Materials -5 to skill Value x2

Base material cost as per the cost of items
50 coins = 1 lb.

Value of item
Base material cost x Quality of materials x DC cost variable (see below)
DC variable cost
10 1/2 Material Cost
15 Material Cost
20 double material cost
25 2.25
30 2.5
35 4
40 10
45 15
50 20
55 50
60 100

Crown= 50 gp of gold, dc=35(complex 10, good quality 15) standard material 1,
Value = 50*4x1= 200 gp for a good gold crown. it would take a professional jeweler (skill 10 take 10) DC35 one month. If he could roll at 13 he could reduce the time by 1 week. (Crowns take time).
Test
a ring is a simple item.
A professional jeweler is skill 10.
to make a plain ring that is just functional is DC 5+5=10
It would take a week normally but he can double the DC to make one a hour. taking 10 he would always succeed. He could pump out 8 rings a day. Lets say the ring is 1/10 of a pound (50/10 =5) so the base materials would be 5 gp. and value from down below is 2.5 go each. Yes he is losing money but they are pretty crude cast items. (a project for a student). If he makes a the same ring but takes his time and makes a nice one, (1 week work) (good quality), the same 5 GP would make him a 10 GP ring, 5 gp profit for the week. If he got some superior materials and just made a average ring, Ring DC 15 but -5 to skill for the materials. Base material cost is 5 gp but it was better godl so lets say 50% more, so 7.5 gp for materials. it works out to 7.5 x 2 for the better materials or 7.5 gp profit, more money for our jeweler but getting hold of the better materials is harder. I have not worked this out on the extremes yet so it might not hold water.

[Kirth Gersen]

Erik Freund wrote:

One idea I'm having is to try and convert the Craft Wonderous Item and Craft Ring feats into skill-form somehow.

What I've done is consolidated all of the item crafting feats (Master Craftsman, Forge Ring, Craft Staff, Craft Wondrous Item, etc., etc.) into a single feat. However, crafting requires X ranks and a successful check against the relevant Craft skill. So if you want to craft magic arms, magic rings, magic cloaks/boots/gloves, and potions, you need only 1 feat, but there are 4 different skills you're needing sufficient ranks in.