I know you probably don't want an answer of this sort, so, sorry in advance:
if you're the DM I think it's okay to fudge the rules and tell your player "yeah, okay, you made it in two weeks. Now don't go trying to make more of them for profit because I'm helping you out here." Most players get it and if he or she tries to make them for profit just say, "okay, you asked for it - BOOM!!! RULES!!!!!"
Sorry again if you wanted a more technical answer but as a DM I would solve the problem in the above way.
Love
-Jeremy
Well, from a "realism" point of view, composite bows took a long time to make if my distant memory of that is still accurate.
The alternatives involve the risk of a d20 roll - by raising the DC by 5 or 10 (or more), he will be able to craft faster. The trick is, "RAW", that die roll has to happen every week...
Now - all that having been said - is there something going on that they can't "winter up" for several months making Profession checks (or otherwise paying for the booze and food they eat up)? Nothing like 4 months of "you can't go anywhere in this here storm until spring thaw" to provide the necessary down time to do stuff like this.
Fluffwise?
If he wants to simply pay full price and say he made it I'm all for that.
Otherwise have someone help him -- each aid other that someone takes is a +2 on his skill check -- also if he has some masterwork tools to help him that's another +2.
four helpers and some masterwork tools is a +10 bonus on his check.
31x21=651
4100/651 = 6.30 weeks.
Saves him a third of the time. Gives the wizard some time to make scrolls, and scribe new spells in his book (did you look to see how long that takes? Eye Opening is my answer).
Also you can simply fast forward.
The crafting rules are full of little bits of oddities. In my opinion most of this type of thing is to prevent PC's from becoming a merchant and basically printing their own money.
They way I house rule it... and it is clearly a house rule. If you are making an item for yourself you can make it at the 1000 GP per DAY rate just like with making magic items. If you are making it for a party member it is at the rate of 1000 GP per WEEK. If you are making to it sell then it follows the base rules.
(Note I have also altered making magic items the same way... for personal use you can make them as per the normal rules... if you are making the item for a party member it is per week. And if you are making it to sell it is per month. But I allow you to make more then the normal 50%.)
Minutia rules such as crafting should never get in the way of a player trying to RP. And a ranger wanting to make his own bow is very fair if he spent the skill points.
Additionally, you can make a habit of chugging a daily potion of crafter's fortune (APG 215). It'll give you a +5 luck bonus to your craft roll, helping you to meet an increased DC as well as resulting in a higher Craft check, thereby increasing the progress made over a week.
Granted, this method is a tad expensive. For a more thrifty approach, have your party wizard learn, prepare, and cast the spell on you each day. If your party lacks a wizard, a level 1 NPC would do just as well; you may have to buy a scroll for the NPC, so the spell can be scribed into his or her spellbook, but it could prove to be a worthwhile investment.
Does anyone else have a way of dealing with this situation?
Has anyone else had this situation come up and have some solutions?
Thanks.
As GM, in this particular instance, I'd just use a RL estimate. If a bow can be made in RL in about a month, then I'd use that and skip the whole sp tracking process, just using a check per week.
My quick and dirty rule was 500 GP of production per week, flat rate, for normal quality items.
To make a masterwork quality item, or a magic item, you needed to make the skill check at the start of the first week of the process. If it succeeds, the item is masterwork. If it fails, the item is not masterwork, and you realize this a week into the process.
For items taking longer than a week, for every 3 steps your die roll exceeded skill DC by, you could add another 300 GP of production to the item in question beyond the flat rate 500 GP. Only if you rolled a natural 1 did you run the risk of ruining your work to date.
(I also went and worked up a table showing how long the item would take to make based on the typical DCs and likely skill levels for this system, and used that to determine comparative prices...but I always hated the Magic Item Wal-Mart Effect.)
Abraham spalding's four assistants and masterwork tools(+10).<---agree
and or wizard casting crafter's fortune(+5), fox's cunning(+2), i encountered a related problem with poison craft. luckily they added the master alchemist feat in the apg. you can also get a diviner to give you an insight bonus(diviners fortune +1/2 levels).
raise the dc by the appropriate number then see where that leaves you. how long did you want it to take? too bad that fabricate is not on the ranger spell list, might be rough to make the "use magic device" rolls on a scroll of fabricate(ultimate crafting shortcut).
The easiest solution is to get a scroll of Fabricate and make several hundred bows, selling off the excess to pay for the cost of the scroll and keeping one for yourself. Should take an afternoon. Here's hoping you are an arcane spellcaster or UMD user.
Of course, there is a risk that you may realize that the Craft rules make no sense and the DnD economy is non-functional.
K is completely right. The craft rules are utterly borked until you get Fabricate, at which point Fabricate borks the entire concept of an economy (not that it wasn't borked to begin with.
The best solution is for your GM to come up with a reasonable number and have you take time off to do it. The other solution is for you to backstory it and say you're whittling the thing and working on it around the campfire as you travel.
semi unrelated
Can you take 10 with craft rolls? There is a steep penalty for failure so it seems unlikey...
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semi unrelated
Can you take 10 with craft rolls? There is a steep penalty for failure so it seems unlikey...
yes you can. dredge the forums, that question comes up a lot. basically losing money isnt a life or death situation so you can take 10. no physical harm happens if you fail taking 10, so you're allowed to do it
The fundamental problem is the classic simulation vs gamist approach. The craft rules are deeply into simulation, trying to mimic what is realistic or accurate. Unfortunately those same rules break down from a gamist viewpoint because they're of limited use to a player.
It's interesting and flavorful to have a PC craft his own gear, be it non-magical armor or a immovable rod.
In my experience, any time you have an ongoing plot players will sense time pressure regardless of if it's real or not. I've played in and DMed a number of adventure paths and strings of modules. Players rarely take more than time to rest because they expect (understandably) that while they're not actively chasing the Bad Guy, he's getting stronger and doing more evil.
To say "I stop and craft a bow for three months" is unheroic. This problem only gets worse at high-level. That 60,000gp magic item? Yeah, you're 13th level but you're going to sit around for two months. Even if the PC adventures during the day, the player now has to track game-days and 60 in-game days frequently takes a long time. The PC will likely have made 17th level by the time they're done crafting.
I don't have a good fix for this that doesn't break simulation. Anything that doesn't break the economy also feels like hand-waving. "Magic items you craft only work for you, but you can make anything given a week." Shrug. "Non-magical items you make are useful only to you and people familiar with you because of quirks in your design style." Shrug.
It's all ugly. For a decade now we just don't craft because the rules are ugly and prohibitive.
There's a reason why bows like that or masterwork weapons are so expensive and why not every idiot warrior you enconter doens't have one.
They take TIME to craft. Logically a good time to do this kind of work is the downtime you get between adventurers, where everyone can go off to work on whatever personal projects or concerns they might have. While everyone may not be a crafter, those looking to purchase a particular kind of item can wind up spending that kind of time tracking it down.
Bows like the one described are practically legendary among the common folk, they're not going to be something commonly seen. Presumably the character who's making this bow will eventually have it enchanted, so this is something that's going to stick with the character for a long time.
A few weeks of time is a fair investment.
To be fair, composite bows are said to take a week to make and months to dry, so the six to nine and a half weeks time frames are not unreasonable. :) As LazarX says, considering that the bow in question is likely to become the character's "primary weapon" - what's a few months ?
raise the dc by the appropriate number then see where that leaves you. how long did you want it to take? too bad that fabricate is not on the ranger spell list, might be rough to make the "use magic device" rolls on a scroll of fabricate(ultimate crafting shortcut).
You can do that? Except for the +10 option, I was under the impression that you couldn't do that.
I don't have a good fix for this that doesn't break simulation. Anything that doesn't break the economy also feels like hand-waving. "Magic items you craft only work for you, but you can make anything given a week." Shrug. "Non-magical items you make are useful only to you and people familiar with you because of quirks in your design style." Shrug.It's all ugly. For a decade now we just don't craft because the rules are ugly and prohibitive.
For this, I recommend the Craft Points variant rules from Unearthed Arcana (a WotC 3.5 D&D product), available in the D20 SRD.
There are some feats required in order to be able to craft Masterwork equipment (which gives NPCs something practical to do with their Feats, and keeps the PCs from becoming constantly better than any NPC specialist), and the point pool allows you to "complete something you have been working on overnight". They are good for campaigns with little or no downtime.
Something I do in general is to allow it as long as they stay within the wealth guide lines.
I as a GM honestly don't care how they got that sword. Mechanically it doesn't really matter 9 times out of 10. Even if it is magical the means of acquiring it doesn't matter so much as the usage of the item.
So if the fighter wants to pay full price for an adamantine +3 Keen Falcata and say that he crafted it late at night blah blah blah blah blah without spending the feats for the master craftsmen feat and what not I'm ok with that.
Bottom line the gold is spent, the player is happy with his fluff and I know what's going on mechanically, and know that it is still balanced.
Basically it's a case (to me) of keep the game balanced, keep the game fun, and try to say yes when you can.
Now for players with the crafting feats, I let them make the items cheaper and have a bit more wealth than normal. Generally the players don't rely completely on self crafted items, so when I hand out treasure I try and make sure what is in the pile is a bit baised in the direction I want the players to split it up. Doesn't always work -- but it does often enough.
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Skip the stage about converting it to silver pieces- I tend to house-rule this to encourage crafting in my games. It means you will make things ten times faster, but if any player tries to abuse it they shall feel DM Wrath (TM).
I just made it so the player progresses a weeks worth of time in a single full day of work instead.
The fundamental problem is the classic simulation vs gamist approach. The craft rules are deeply into simulation, trying to mimic what is realistic or accurate. Unfortunately those same rules break down from a gamist viewpoint because they're of limited use to a player.
The crafting rules may be based on a simulation approach in theory but they don't work in practice because they are hinged on the rule that crafting time is based on GP value, meaning that by the RAW it takes a goldsmith ten times as long to pour molten gold into a lost wax ring mold than it does a silversmith to do the same process--nevermind the fact that in reality, jewelers do both, and will tell you flat out that it takes the same amount of time regardless of the metal you're using. Gold is not 10 x silver is not 10 x copper. Scrap value? Sure. Casting time? No.
I would submit that the crafting rules are actually based on a gamist perspective from the standpoint of the GM who does not want the other rule of "triple your value in X time" applied to valuable materials so that characters with an afternoon to kill, a few ranks in Craft Jewelry, and a reusable ring mold aren't quickly smelting their gold into gold rings which the nearest merchants will automatically offload for 50% of its retail value.
In other words, a single GP can be turned into a gold ring worth 3 GP and sold to a merchant at standard rates for 1.5 GP.
The rule tying crafting times to GP value is a gamist mechanic from the GMs end to apply the brakes to PCs trying to turn a quick buck from the equally absurd "merchants buy all grot for 50% of retail" mechanic.
Once Fabricate comes around, the wizard goes ahead and breaks this mechanic anyway, as does any sensible lower level character who can crunch the numbers and figure out the cost of a Scroll of Fabricate versus a +50% value on any piles of coin they happen to come across.
That doesn't even get into the question of whether you can apply the 3x value mechanic to every step of the crafting process, such that you can spin GP into gold thread at 3x value, then weave the gold thread into cloth of gold at 3x value, then embroider the cloth of gold into gold brocade at 3x value, then tailor the gold brocade into glitzy clothes at 3x value.
Craft spinning, craft weaving, craft embroidery, and craft tailor mean that you can make a 200 GP royal outfit for slightly less that 2.5 GP and all you need to use are the 2.5 GP as raw materials.
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K is completely right. The craft rules are utterly borked until you get Fabricate, at which point Fabricate borks the entire concept of an economy (not that it wasn't borked to begin with.
Well, if you're house ruling other aspects, just house rule the Fabricate spell so that a spellcaster can only have one Fabricate going at a time, just like Contingency or some of the other spells. Problem solved. :)
(Oh, and if the spellcaster dies, the item remains. Only if the spellcaster is raised and then casts Fabricate again does the original one go away.)
As has been noted, the Craft rules are borked. They've been borked from 3.0 through 3.5 and right into Pathfinder. Fortunately, there is a cheap PDF that does something about it: Making Craft Work.
It's $0.99 at Paizo and can be found at DriveThruRPG as well.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
raise the dc by the appropriate number then see where that leaves you. how long did you want it to take? too bad that fabricate is not on the ranger spell list, might be rough to make the "use magic device" rolls on a scroll of fabricate(ultimate crafting shortcut).You can do that? Except for the +10 option, I was under the impression that you couldn't do that.
the reason i phrased it that way "appropriate amount" is because some of the other literature( 3.5) refers to raising in increments of +10, instead of just +10 or +0. in the races of stone compendium in particular i remember a section on magic forges that give the user +20 on craft rolls, and the text suggested raising by multiples of +10 in order to expedite crafting. i didnt want to assume that everyone was playing that way so i just said appropriate amount.
As has been noted, the Craft rules are borked. They've been borked from 3.0 through 3.5 and right into Pathfinder. Fortunately, there is a cheap PDF that does something about it: Making Craft Work.
Well, it's only $.99 but you just landed a sale. I'm normally not very amused by walking to advertising in the middle of a thread, but your product directly targets what is being discussed and your self-promotion was done cleanly, briefly, and without hype. My compliments on self-restraint... that's what enticed me to click the link and check things out. I'll be keeping my eye on your company.
This must be the new cottage industry, come up with your own house rule and get suckers to pay you money to read it.As has been noted, the Craft rules are borked. They've been borked from 3.0 through 3.5 and right into Pathfinder. Fortunately, there is a cheap PDF that does something about it: Making Craft Work.
It's $0.99 at Paizo and can be found at DriveThruRPG as well.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
New heck! Gary Gygax had been doing it for decades.
Craft spinning, craft weaving, craft embroidery, and craft tailor mean that you can make a 200 GP royal outfit for slightly less that 2.5 GP and all you need to use are the 2.5 GP as raw materials.
I think the controlling factor here would probably be the number of customers looking to purchase a 200gp royal outfit. That said, the D&D economy really doesn't make any sense, and crafting mundane items really is very tough for anybody who doesn't have access to Fabricate (or maybe Alchemists for alchemical stuff).
The gold vs silver ring thing is also kind of dumb, but ultimately I think the problem here is more with the style of games which is popular than the craft rules themselves. There's a severe absence of downtime in the lives of most adventurers. I've often seen PCs go from 1st to 10th level in just a few months. Maybe it would be nice for adventurers to get a break once in a while. Some ideas for slowing things down would be requiring PCs to train for a few weeks to gain a level or just spacing out adventures a little more sometimes. Teamwork benefits from 3.5 also required PCs to train for a week or two.
This must be the new cottage industry, come up with your own house rule and get suckers to pay you money to read it.
*insert eye-rolling emoticon here*
I'll be keeping my eye on your company.
Thanks, Anguish. I hope the PDF helps.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
Be nice, Mark has done a lot of good work for the community.
This must be the new cottage industry, come up with your own house rule and get suckers to pay you money to read it.
Mark was kind enough to send me a review copy in a previous thread on this same subject.
It's a good bit of house rules and easily worth 99 cents, assuming you're also willing to pay 99 cents for other things, like iTunes song downloads and iPod aps.
This must be the new cottage industry, come up with your own house rule and get suckers to pay you money to read it.
Those with drive and talent, create and prosper. Those without, say stupid things like this.
@Mark: Entrepreneurship is something to be celebrated. I wish you all the best in your endeavor.
This must be the new cottage industry, come up with your own house rule and get suckers to pay you money to read it.
Those with drive and talent, create and prosper. Those without, say stupid things like this.
@Mark: Entrepreneurship is something to be celebrated. I wish you all the best in your endeavor.
While I don't like his advertising I concur with the ideas here. After all what is D&D and pathfinder beyond someone's house rules that they decided to hawk for a buck (or more -- you get the idea).
While I don't like his advertising I concur with the ideas here. After all what is D&D and pathfinder beyond someone's house rules that they decided to hawk for a buck (or more -- you get the idea).
This. Exactly, precisely what I wanted to express.
Of course, while I was dropping $.99 on the PDF in question, I also slapped $30 worth of minis onto my next shipment, so Paizo wins too.
Anyway, I read the PDF this afternoon. Here's my general comments (not a review proper). It's short. It's simple. It's to-the-point. It's easy to comprehend. It's reasonable. It's work I don't have to do. It's going to be considered the default crafting rule set for campaigns I DM, and I'm going to petition my DM to do the same. Who knows... maybe some day I'll actually FINALLY make a crafting PC.