I've been crunching numbers on how difficult to make this poison would be and it would be some months (maybe even years) to create this poison even with rediculous modifiers.
Black Lotus Extract - 4500 gp, Craft DC 20
Converted into sp = 45000 sp
Lets assume a check of 10 with +40 modifiers = 50. x 20. That result is 1000 for the week.
So... in a mere 44 more weeks, I can have a single dose of the poison. Assuming I ever get +40 to my skill checks...
I've been crunching numbers on how difficult to make this poison would be and it would be some months (maybe even years) to create this poison even with rediculous modifiers.
Black Lotus Extract - 4500 gp, Craft DC 20
Converted into sp = 45000 sp
Lets assume a check of 10 with +40 modifiers = 50. x 20. That result is 1000 for the week.
So... in a mere 44 more weeks, I can have a single dose of the poison. Assuming I ever get +40 to my skill checks...
I think it's assumed that somewhere in the process a wizard wanders by with a Fabricate spell and gets it done instantly.
Also, Master Alchemist goes a long way toward making it more reasonable. You make more doses in the same time period and do not need to multiply the initial cost by 10.
While that is a nice work around, it nearly defeats the purpose of poison making all together.
...looks like ill be UMDing some scrolls of Fabricate..
The short of it being ; it is a near useless skill if you do not have a feat or special ability to make it work.
Alchemist class is really good on that actually.
Here is the first part, Master Alchemist
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-alchemist
You would have a numbers of doses equal to your int mod.
You also have it a bit backwards. the +10 dc is added to dc. So with mod of 40x30 you get 1200 instead. Kinda weird actually. So it would be about 4 weeks.
3rd level alchemist you can cut that down to about 2 weeks.
If you get up to level 18, you will be able to craft any and every alchemical item in one round.
When we figured it out with my alchemist before he got critted.
+20 competence bonus from levels
+20 ranks
+2 from master alchemist
+10 from heart of the fields
+6 (or more) int
+2 from lab
+5 from crafters fortune
+3 class bonus
That's a total of at least +68 mod to create alchemical items... and Not even the max you could have. There isn't anyone aiding me nor skill focus being taken. Nor any magical items that enhance alchemy or int.
The short of it being ; it is a near useless skill if you do not have a feat or special ability to make it work.
Isn't that the way it is with all craft skills though?
The short of it being ; it is a near useless skill if you do not have a feat or special ability to make it work.Isn't that the way it is with all craft skills though?
If you use the skills to craft, most likely yes. On the other hand I often use craft skills to determine what a character might know about some things, mostly as support for the background of a character.
craft, is often way more useful in identifying materials, poisoned individuals, poisonous herbs/plants/creatures and the like. Craft weaponsmithing might allow you to determine the general + enchantment of a sword by handling it for a few rounds or determine the origins of certain weapons and so on..
Still hardly the best skills, it does add to a character's roleplay potential more than anything else and occasionally give a minor benefit.
while yes the posions can be a bit daunting to make, the skills usefulness, like in all games, comes down to the GM.
If the GM doesn't give the proper amount of time, or makes high level scrolls and spells easily available, then yes it is a trash skill. If things are a little more low key however they become invaluable.
I'm currently running a Pathfinder converted Dark Sun campaign, and the initially the players skipped Craft. I'm letting them play through mini-scenarios till they advance to the normall Dark Sun starting point of 4th level, and in these, they have learned, sometimes painfully, the importance of the Craft skill.
personally I find the craft times pretty reasonable, not compared to our "gotta have it NOW" lives we're used to, but I imagine a apprentice blacksmith took awhile to forge a sword or concoct a complicated poison.
One part that does bother me is how do hunter/gather civilizations craft? Or societies that rely on barter? They have no gold to purchase the raw materials with, so by RAW native american tribes can't exist. So I use the making money portion of the Craft skill to allow a character to gather raw ingredients in the amount of the check, which can then be used to provide the 1/3 ingredient cost.
I'm currently running a Pathfinder converted Dark Sun campaign,
Did you convert that from AD&D or 4thEd?
I would be interested in some experience share, if you want to tell.
I'm currently running a Pathfinder converted Dark Sun campaign,Did you convert that from AD&D or 4thEd?
I would be interested in some experience share, if you want to tell.
actually, look up Athas.org, it has a great conversion to 3.x, from there it was pretty easy to convert on into pathfindery goodness. Also using quite a bit from the Dragon and Dungeon magazines that had 3.5 Dark Sun rules in it, plus I have all the old AD&D stuff to boot to pull flavor and setting from.
[threadjack]
as I said earlier I'm running the characters through mini-scenarios, with the goal of leveling them up at the end of each night (sadly, time constraints and other factors have kept this from going as smoothly as planned), kind of like summing up their early lives until they can get to proper Dark Sun starting level of 4th.
I've altered some rules from the weather and environment to really punish the lazy or stupid who try and just walk into the desert to hack and slash (plus the 3.5 book Sandstorm has some good starting points for this, but I didn't like the Heat Protection system as written so I altered that a bit), plus the horrors of Dark Sun will pretty much teach your players not to rush blindly into anything, even like drinking water or eating for instance :-P
the only sticky part that I can see is the LA of the characters of Dark Sun. You can run the standard races as is, but then they lose some of the Athasian flavor that is so important. I went through each race and made them an effective ECL+1 race (mostly giving them an additional +2 to the races major stat, while changing up some of the more theme appropriate abilities for each race). Half-Giant gives me some worries (the Athas.org version is an actual giant, large size +8 str and all that) as it could be abused in a lax DM's game, but the double consumable penalty more than makes them a less than ideal choice in my game; "congratulations! you're +12 to hit and do 3d6+18 damage at first level, now roll to see if you can beat up dehydration...oh you can't...well how much water do you have...really, only that much?...*rolls dice*...well you are now dying of dehydration, sunburn and heatstroke...second character please!"
anyways, I always generate the NPCs and even the monsters I throw in my scenarios, so I can balance the CRs and whatnot, but a standard Pathfinder critter probably ought to have their CR lowered by one if going up against an Athasian anything. Speaking of which, for an Athasian archtype of any of the core creatures, just add spikes and psionics :P
again though, look up Athas.org if you haven't already, it has some really high quality work that makes conversion a breeze.
Am I the only one who sees a jarring dissonance between the extreme and time-consuming difficulty of crafting high quality mundane items and the trivial ease and speed with which casters can make magical items?
It really messes with my sense of immersion in the world, as taken to a logical inclusion, no one would ever bother to learn crafting skills, instead they would all just become casters if they wanted to be able to make things (since there are no limits on who can become a caster).
Another logical consequence would be that masterwork items and other expensive mundane objects would be incredibly rare and much more expensive than they are and magical items would be much cheaper.
IMHO, the crafting rules need a serious scrub in any future PF edition to address this imbalance.
Am I the only one who sees a jarring dissonance between the extreme and time-consuming difficulty of crafting high quality mundane items and the trivial ease and speed with which casters can make magical items?
It really messes with my sense of immersion in the world, as taken to a logical inclusion, no one would ever bother to learn crafting skills, instead they would all just become casters if they wanted to be able to make things (since there are no limits on who can become a caster).
Another logical consequence would be that masterwork items and other expensive mundane objects would be incredibly rare and much more expensive than they are and magical items would be much cheaper.
IMHO, the crafting rules need a serious scrub in any future PF edition to address this imbalance.
except that the wizard still needs the sword to enchant, which unless he can fabricate it (and then still needs a Craft roll) puts him in the same boat. As to anyone can become a caster, you are looking at that from a metagame perspective or from a PC one. Not everyone can become a caster, as proven by that not everyone is a caster. Few if any have the "spark" needed to become a core class (this is why the NPC classes exist).
Personally I see the weaving of enchantments onto an item or weapon in being in the same ballpark of difficulty for the appropriate craftsmen. Meaning a wizard can create a magic item in roughly the same amount of time and taking as much expertise as that a skilled craftsman can make the mundane item with (this doesn't hold completely true at low level item creation).
personally I find the craft times pretty reasonable, not compared to our "gotta have it NOW" lives we're used to, but I imagine a apprentice blacksmith took awhile to forge a sword or concoct a complicated poison.
One part that does bother me is how do hunter/gather civilizations craft? Or societies that rely on barter? They have no gold to purchase the raw materials with, so by RAW native american tribes can't exist. So I use the making money portion of the Craft skill to allow a character to gather raw ingredients in the amount of the check, which can then be used to provide the 1/3 ingredient cost.
Totally, things took a long time - and much of why hunter gatherers like the native americans would still use stone arrowheads is because a more sophisticated economy is indeed to make more sophisticated things.
HOWEVER - you can model native americans using raw. This came up with my Serpent Skull campaign in the context of crafting as a castaway.
Use profession skills.
Rather than earing the GP per week income as coin for working at a shop, apply the value as trade good money equivelents for harvisting them directly from a resource - which are the materials for crafting. So Profession(miner) used on a vein of ore gives you half your check in GP value of raw materials for stone or metal crafting. Profession(tanner) can give you materials for leather crafting. Herbalism for potion or scroll or even magic items. Other materials, likewise.
This synergises well since then the currenlty not very useful professions skills are given more relevance as what you use to harvest materials, craft skills to turn them into goods.
For very expensive items like the OP poison, yea you have to work with your GM. To add realism, this kind of work should be done using a staff of people, not just one distiller. Whole villages used to make chainmail, for example. Everything from master artists to Beer Brewers had apprentices to speed the work.
On the other hand sometimes quality just take time. No way around it taking 40 years to make 40 year old scotch....
This is a serious issue because cost and time of crafting isn't necessarily related.
Say I'm a young dwarven wizard (with some knowledge in metalurgy) and I want a paperweight to hold down my scrolls in the field while I consult them, and a rock just won't do. So I craft a plain cube of lead, 1 inch to the side. I'm not sure what the value of that is, but let's just say it's a few sp, so it takes a few days at most. Seems reasonable (ish).
Now a few years later, I'm a wealthy dwarven wizard and a cube of lead just won't do, it has to be gold. That 1 inch cube of gold weight about 300 g and is worth about 32 gp, ie about a 100 times more than the lead cube. Now I know gold is harder to melt than lead etc, but a 100 times longer?!? Really?!? As long as a crossbow (a far more intricate device than a cube)? Twice the amount it takes to forge a sword?!?
This doesn't work.
A very high skill character can speed things up considerably by adding to the DC of the check (ie trying to work fast). If you take your example and raise the craft DC from 20 to 40, your time would decrease by half... but that still doesn't make the gold cube story make sense.
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I've been crunching numbers on how difficult to make this poison would be and it would be some months (maybe even years) to create this poison even with rediculous modifiers.
Black Lotus Extract - 4500 gp, Craft DC 20
Converted into sp = 45000 sp
Lets assume a check of 10 with +40 modifiers = 50. x 20. That result is 1000 for the week.
So... in a mere 44 more weeks, I can have a single dose of the poison. Assuming I ever get +40 to my skill checks...
This is a bad analysis, because a character with a +40 modifier will be adding 30 to the DC, so when he takes 10 hes testing against DC50, which is exactly what he passes.
Thats 2500 silver pieces worth of poison per week of work.
Not that i'm trying to defend the craft rules. They are pretty dire.
Stuff
For some time now I've hand waved the manufacture of mundane items..Masterwork is more complicated so I still apply crafting to those.
This is a bad analysis, because a character with a +40 modifier will be adding 30 to the DC, so when he takes 10 hes testing against DC50, which is exactly what he passes.
Why or how are you adding +30 to the DC? From what I can see the maximum you can add +10, via the special property of the crafting skill (which I did not include in the example, but would have been prudent):
Special
You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you’ll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check.
Even if you did add the 10, it would still take 30 weeks (or roughly 7 months) without being an alchemist.