Gunslinger: The economics of time and money...mostly time

[Barbour Blacksmith]

Ok here are my issue's so far with Gunslinger, for me it all comes down to economics of time and money, take a look and tell me what you think, give us suggestions on what to do and how to overcome problems:

Blackpowder 10GP per:
Realism - Components are cheap and not too hard to get provided alchemy is in prevalence, sulphur would be the hardest to procure, PRODUCTION TIME is the issue however, it should be quick to make a few batches, after all its a recipy not a construction, currently it takes a WEEK for a single shot's worth minimum.... by crafting rules even assuming its a REALLY easy task, say DC10, I have base 10 in craft Firearms, I roll a D20 average a 10 = 100SP worth of work in a week....that's 3 shot's worth, in a week.....I call shennanigans!

Suggested Game Balance - Keep the Cost if you must but DRASTICALLY lower the time it takes to make the stuff!

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Shot 1 GP per:
Realism - Ingredients = Lead, method = casting or finding a 3 story tower and pouring the lead off (which is what shot towers were built for funnily enough!), so tell me why does 3oz of lead cost a gold piece? really? and its not the equipment used costing, thats part of the artisans tools. using the above example it also takes a week to make 30 balls.... why? are they hand carved with elven rune's?

Suggested Game Balance - make it a trivial task to make them, not requiring a roll and taking an hour to make however many you want, i would also suggest that they cost the same as arrows (which by the way needs a straight bit of wood, feathers, needle, cat gut and a good Fletcher...im just pouring boiling lead (melting temp low enough to do on a camp fire) into a damn mould :P) so 1 GP for 20

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Redonculously extended crafting times:
Realism - as Ive said for the shot and Blackpowder it takes inordinately long times to make simple items (I know blackpowder is not simple but it is if you know the recipe and have the components!) My next issue is with the guns themselves, yes they are expensive,there is a good IC justification printed all over the books, they are rare, built by only one place and they purposefully keep production abysmally low as to inflate the prices.....so when I have the skills and tools to do it myself why the hell does it take so long and cost so much! hell I could live with the stupid price if i could still build them in a timely fashion! i.e - I want to upgrade a pistol to masterwork, book Say's you can get someone to do it for twice the price of normal (its rare work) so DM rules that to craft it yourself is also double cost (why? I dont charge me extra for 'rare' work) so I try to carft DC 20 one per week - I average a 10 so it takes me (at lvl 5) 5 WEEKS to make it masterwork...which I will rarely get 5 weeks in any game as plot is happening in that time (Also I fail the roll on a 8 or less! I roll 3 or less and I have to start again and lose all my money) - ok so I increase the DC by 10 to make it one roll per day...I have to be 11th Lvl to reliably do this?! I have to wait for 11 lvls to get a masterwork weapon? - ok so I suck it up and pay someone 600GP to do it for me, I have to go to this other country to get it done? Can i find an 11th level expert to spend 2 weeks making me masterwork stuff? seriously? Oh and dont even think about making your own guns, 10'000SP at a DC of 10 to 20 would take 6 months MIN, and given the amount of roll's you make you are almost guaranteed to fail without being 12th lvl, a musket is no harder to make than a crossbow in real life, I know its a fantasy game but seriously!

Suggested Game Balance - make making your OWN masterwork stuff the usual masterwork cost not double, I would seriously suggest making he things yourself be FAR less Time consuming (If you must keep the huge cost then do so but reduce the time frame required!)

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NOTE: Crafting mundane items is done by taking the finished cost in Silver Pieces as your target number (remember you are only paying 1/3 cost) then rolling and multiplying roll by DC (assuming you passed), keep rolling at 1 per week till you get the target number or fail DC by 5 or more. Increase DC by 10 to make it roll per day.
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[b]**Yes this is a board for the gunslinger CLASS but at the moment the weapons ARE the class, play a gunslinger without them and see how it goes :) there are plenty of discussions on the class feats and so on so I thought I would look at a different aspect.[b/]

[CalebTGordan]

I built an alchemist to be a crafter, and I wonder how long it would take him to make those items.

First, blackpowder shouldn't have a DC 10 to craft for game balance reasons. Alchemists fire is 20, and seeing as there might be uses for blackpowder beyond firearms we are going to need a similar DC for crafting it. I am also certain that it could be created with craft alchemy.

To be perfectly fair, I am going to assume 20, though I wont be surprised if 25 is the real DC.

That is 100 sp and a 20 DC. Assuming the minimum roll, 20 x 20 = 400. That is 1/4th the time, or about two days. For a novice craftsman that would be proper.

My alchemist is a little house ruled, but should still be legal enough as his "Master Artisan" feat came from Dragon Magazine.

His current alchemy check is at +15, so taking 10 would grant a 25.

20 x 25 = 500, and Master Artisan lets me double that so the result is 1000 sp. A class feature also lets him craft alchemy items in half the time. Seeing that 1000gp is already less then a day(dividing results by 7 gives me 143sp), we can assume Fizz Boom completes the task in about half a day.

It could have been faster too. I didn't use the alchemist formula "crafter's fortune," I could have raised the DC by 10, and I could have assumed the best case scenario of a 20. He would be able to craft a single dose in way less then an hour in that scenario.

And I didn't even use masterwork tools!

Okay, so maybe Fizz Boom isn't the best example of crafting, as he is optimized to craft stuff wicked fast. But he should prove a point that things are not as you thought.

As for the gun, I really do not understand what you are talking about with crafting masterwork items and doubling the costs. I must be missing something. The masterwork rules state that you craft the masterwork component separately from the item you are crafting. The target DC is 20 and the target sp is 3000 for a weapon.

I doubt the DC to craft a gun is going to be lower then 20, and though I don't know anything about crafting guns, I can see their DC also being at 25.

Let's assume some best case scenario for an average craftsman. They have a +10 to craft normally, are using masterwork tools, and their local alchemist is going to supply them with potions of crafter's fortune. That is a total of +17. I will be fair and say the DC for the musket is 20. An average roll of 10 would put the weeks work at 27 x 20 = 540. So, in 5 months we will have a musket, 6 if we want a masterwork one. If he somehow pulled off rolling only 20s the entire time, the gun would be done in just over 3 months and a master work in 4. If the craftsman had that master artisan feat I gave to Fizz Boom, half those times.

Yep, you are going to need some time to craft a gun.

Best thing I can suggest is house rule the craft system to allow faster crafting, like lowering the value of the item to better match a time you think it would take to craft a gun. You could also just build your character to be insanely good at crafting, like my character Fizz Boom, who still only crafts guns in less then a month as it is. He doesn't have as many bonuses to non alchemy items.