I have a player who wants to craft his own armor(joy).
When you make a mithril chain shirt, is the 4,000 gp cost for the mithril halved because the player is making it or is the 4K cost just for the rarity of the material? This is for Kingmaker.
To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.
1. Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the item's DC from Table: Craft Skills.
3. Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost.
4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week's worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.
Okay, so the cost for raw materials is actually 1/3 of the item's price.
It's implied, but never actually stated that the special materials cost is related to both the scarcity of the material and the extra time necessary to work the material.
As for a balance issue, the cost for a mithral chain shirt (Elven Chain) is 5150gp. The raw materials are about 1700gp. However...
According to the above rules, you make one craft check per week to determine how many silver pieces worth of work you get done.
The DC to create Elven Chain is 14 for the armor, but 20 for the masterwork component (the mithral special material is part of the masterwork component).
So, assuming you roll something reasonable like 25 each week. You succeed on the check, and then multiply your roll by the DC to see how many silver pieces worth of work you've gotten done. 25 (roll) x (20 dc) = 500 sp. That's 50gp, or about 1% of the total work necessary.
Which means that the average elven chain shirt represents about 100 weeks worth of work.
Unless your campaign has a LOT of downtime, it's generally easier to just buy the thing at full price.
There is a shortcut: the 5th level wizard spell Fabricate will allow you to simply make one craft check and create items up to 10 cu. ft. of material per level. You still need to pay the raw material cost (which would probably be the ~1700gp).
you need to look up the rules under the craft skill. the half price bit is magic items only. I don't have it memorized other than I think he does his roll x the dc for amount of work then would compare it to 40000 . it will take a bit.
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There's also this spell
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Casting Time see text
Components V, S, M (the original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet of material to be affected by the spell.
A character in one of my previous campaigns took the artifice domain so his cleric could get some selfmade arms and armor.
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Okay, so the cost for raw materials is actually 1/3 of the item's price.
It's implied, but never actually stated that the special materials cost is related to both the scarcity of the material and the extra time necessary to work the material.
As for a balance issue, the cost for a mithral chain shirt (Elven Chain) is 5150gp. The raw materials are about 1700gp. However...
According to the above rules, you make one craft check per week to determine how many silver pieces worth of work you get done.
The DC to create Elven Chain is 14 for the armor, but 20 for the masterwork component (the mithral special material is part of the masterwork component).
So, assuming you roll something reasonable like 25 each week. You succeed on the check, and...
Very spelled out. Thank you so much! I stopped being the rules lawyer of the group when I started to DM :)
Very spelled out. Thank you so much! I stopped being the rules lawyer of the group when I started to DM :)Okay, so the cost for raw materials is actually 1/3 of the item's price.
It's implied, but never actually stated that the special materials cost is related to both the scarcity of the material and the extra time necessary to work the material.
As for a balance issue, the cost for a mithral chain shirt (Elven Chain) is 5150gp. The raw materials are about 1700gp. However...
According to the above rules, you make one craft check per week to determine how many silver pieces worth of work you get done.
The DC to create Elven Chain is 14 for the armor, but 20 for the masterwork component (the mithral special material is part of the masterwork component).
So, assuming you roll something reasonable like 25 each week. You succeed on the check, and...
I'm less a lawyer than I am a librarian. In my group, I tend to say, "here's what the text says." and I make it a point to point out where the rules are to my (and my character's) disadvantage just as much as to my advantage. "Uh, yeah. The big ugly would probably continue ripping into me instead of my animal companion, because he's smart enough to know that if he kills me, he gets a two-fer-one out of the deal, and my defenses suck, besides.... I'll just lie there and bleed out now..."
For the record, Mithril chain shirt is 1100 gp. Mithril chainmail/Elven Chain is 4150 gp.
I find it very reasonable, and much more sensible on the time scale, to separate the added cost of the special material, and not consider it part of the base cost for purposes of taking 1/3 for raw materials, or for the time to craft.
That would make a make a mithril chainmail take about 6 weeks (150 + 150 masterwork @ 50 per week), but cost 4050 (or perhaps 3950 if you take 200gp off the price).
For the record, Mithril chain shirt is 1100 gp. Mithril chainmail/Elven Chain is 4150 gp.
I find it very reasonable, and much more sensible on the time scale, to separate the added cost of the special material, and not consider it part of the base cost for purposes of taking 1/3 for raw materials, or for the time to craft.
That would make a make a mithril chainmail take about 6 weeks (150 + 150 masterwork @ 50 per week), but cost 4050 (or perhaps 3950 if you take 200gp off the price).
Good catch on the price. when I saw his stated price, I assumed that he was talking about the actual elven chain mail, as opposed to the shirt. I'm not sure why I made that assumption.
You're interpretation on which part is material and which is base cost is not unreasonable. I think it would a good thing to present your GM with both options, and see where he is most comfortable. If he doesn't mind you getting a new piece of armor at a deep discount during a few weeks of downtime, then that's his call. If he's more comfortable making the crafting element so prolonged that it's more efficient to pay full price, then again both choices have merit.
(Keep in mind that TANSTAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you end up getting cheap gear, then the monsters will have to be that much harder to fight to keep the challenge enjoyable to all. If your gear becomes unbalanced for you character level, then you become more and more a glass hammer - able to deal damage, but very susceptible to the hits that do get through. Extreme example would be a 1hp commoner in fullplate. Hard to hit, but when that one shot gets through, it will take him down.)