Crafting without magic


Rules Questions

Scarab Sages

I am not sure how this particular scenario works out. Take a fighter lvl 10 with maxed rank in armorer, 14 int prodigy (craft armor weapons) masterwork artisan's tools and the master crafter and craft magic arms and armors (skill at 21). He wants to make a +2 adamantine Ghost touch full plate (76000 and peanuts).

Whats the craft dc? (Im asking because i cant find what Flaming or keen or ghost touch do to the craft DC)

Hes a fighter, how does he put the Ghost touch into it?

Ghost touch is a +3, what does that do to the crafting DC?

Magical items are cited as taking 1 day/1000gp (76 days for the item in question) but regular crafting
works in weeks and is (item worthx10)/(craft rollxCraft DC) (in other words hella long time (something like 115 weeks). Wich is it?

Do I need to craft the masterwork armor first and THEN enchant it?

Horizon Hunters

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Edit: Previous response deleted. I didn't catch the master crafter=Master Craftsman Feat.

Shadow Lodge

OP said "master crafter". What (I assume) he meant was the feat Master Craftsman

Master Craftsman wrote:

Master Craftsman

Your superior crafting skills allow you to create simple magic items.

Prerequisites: 5 ranks in any Craft or Profession skill.

Benefit: Choose one Craft or Profession skill in which you possess at least 5 ranks. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of qualifying for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. You can create magic items using these feats, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item. The DC to create the item still increases for any necessary spell requirements (see the magic item creation rules in Magic Items). You cannot use this feat to create any spell-trigger or spell-activation item.

Normal: Only spellcasters can qualify for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats.

Horizon Hunters

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

However.... this may help.

Magic Item Creation

Those effects (flaming, ghost touched, etc) are continuous and would increase the cost of the item and the length of time to create. If I am not mistaken, it doesn't add to the DC.

Horizon Hunters

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
anthonydido wrote:
OP said "master crafter". What (I assume) he meant was the feat Master Craftsman

Ahh... I see. My bad.

Shadow Lodge

Ok, Lets break this out because this will actually be made it two parts.

Adamantine Full Plate: Full Plate-$2000+Adimantine-$15,000=17,000 but only $5,666 to make

So the first thing he needs to do is spend time making $17,000 of non-magical armor. This is done buy:
Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).170,000 Silver
Find the item's DC from Table: Craft Skills. In This case 19

Then he makes the craft check. This takes one week. Lets say he gets a 30. Then multiply 19 and 30 to get 570sp. That is not the needed total value so he needs to continue, week after week until he gets to $17,000 He can accelerate this by adding 10 to the DC to increase how munch he gets. Assuming an average accelerated craft and 30 check it will take him 195 weeks to make the armor.

This is all very cumbersome and I would recommend letting him craft it in less than 3 years.

+2 Ghost Touch - 25,000 but only 12,500 to make
This magic is much simpler (I know WHY OR WHY IS MAGIC EASIER!):
Determine the DC: In this case the base DC is 5+15 because that's the higher of +2 armor or ghost touch. Then we add modifiers: in this case we ad +5 because he is missing one prerequisite (the ability to cast eternalness) so the total DC is 25.

Then crafting time for the magic is 1000gp a day. In this case 13 days(based on crafting cost). At the end he makes a single check. Success means the armor is done, Failure means half the components are wasted and fail by 5 is a cursed item.

In the end it will cost him just of $18,166 and a about 3 years to make. and be worth $42,000. I am not sure where you got the $76,000 price.


Seriphim84 wrote:

Ok, Lets break this out because this will actually be made it two parts.

Adamantine Full Plate: Full Plate-$2000+Adimantine-$15,000=17,000 but only $5,666 to make

Fullplate only costs 1500gp. Making it out of adamantine increases the cost by 15,000gp, to a total of 16,500gp. Costs 5,500gp to make.

Quote:

+2 Ghost Touch - 25,000 but only 12,500 to make

This magic is much simpler (I know WHY OR WHY IS MAGIC EASIER!):
Determine the DC: In this case the base DC is 5+15 because that's the higher of +2 armor or ghost touch. Then we add modifiers: in this case we ad +5 because he is missing one prerequisite (the ability to cast eternalness) so the total DC is 25.

+2 Ghost Touch armor actually has a minimum caster level of 17th, not 15th. An items caster level is whatever is necessary to cast the prerequisite spells, and Ghost Touch requires the 9th level spell Etherealness (so the listed caster level for ghost touch armor property in the book is wrong).

So the DC is 5+17=22. An additional +5 is added as you don't have the required spell (Etherealness), which brings the DC up to 27. The cost is correct (25,000gp, or 12,500gp to do it yourself). However, it takes 1 day for every 1,000gp of the items base price, not the items crafting price. So thats 25 days to make, not 13.

Shadow Lodge

Thanks for the catch on the full plate.

The caster level for an item or item effect is defined in the item. Ghost touch says it is 15. It is not based on what level you can cast the spell.

It still takes 13 days. I said crafting price but that is the same as base price. The base price is half of the market price so my time stands.

Edit: But thanks for double checking my numbers!

Scarab Sages

I assure you, i meant master craftman.

Thank you Seriphim, looks like i got the price of my armor mixed with my shield (+2 with acid,cold fire and lightning res).

More importantly this reveals that i cant make this armor because my caster lvl is not high enough (caster lvl=ranks in crafting per master craftman feat so Effective CL=10)

So it would take 19 weeks to make the adamantine full plate ( taking 10=31 at accelerated rate DC29)

I must have rolled a 1 in my perception since i completely missed that part of magic item creation even tough it was right there in the core book in what should have been the first section i should have read.

Thank you all for the help


Pretty close, Seriphim884.

Crafting magical items takes 1 day per 1,000 gp of the "Base Cost" which is equal to the sale price, not the craft price.

Also, isn't full plate only 1,500 gp? Total price is 16,500 gp (165,000 sp)

I don't think you accounted for accelerating in your formula. Your blacksmith should have multiplied his average roll as DC 29 x his average roll of 30.

Using your averages but upgrading them for accelerating, assuming masterwork tools, and letting the blacksmith "Take 10" so his result is 33 each week. 29 x 33 = 957 SP per week. Which gets him down to a much faster (/sarcasm) 172.4 weeks...

Now for a bit of a tangent:

One good argument I have heard is that the rules don't specifically say that you must include special materials when you calculate the item's price in SP. For example, there is a good argument that making a silver longsword is no harder than making an iron one. Might even be faster since silver is softer and easier to work. The rule specifically says to "Find the item's price in SP. For the sake of the Adamantine Full Plate, the item's price could just be assumed to be the full plate. In support of this argument, notice that making it out of Iron the DC is 19, and making it out of adamantine is DC 19. Same DC. That seems to suggest that it rally is not harder to make. Which also suggests that there is no reason for it to take 10x longer to make it.

This, of course, is debatable. The rules could have said "Find the base item's price in SP without including special materials" but they don't, so it's easy enough to argue that you must include the base price and the special materials. It can certainly be argued either way, but I favor this interpretation because it means that people don't have to devote 1/10 of their entire adult life to crafting a single item.

Note that this doesn't alter the fact that it still requires 5,500 GP in raw materials before starting the project.

Using this suggestion gets the time down to 16 weeks. Manageable. Much better than nearly 4 years. But again, it requires a rather loose interpretation of what the rules mean by "find the item price in SP".

Shadow Lodge

Important note Cymric. The caster level of an item does not determine if you can make it. It only sets the DC. Your can in fact enchant do what you want to do.

As to how long the full plate would take depends largely on the GM. If you go strait by the book you have to meet the full market price in crafting time 165,000sp but it is vague and a GM could rule it would take the time to meet the crafting cost of 55,000sp but either way you are looking 61 to 183 weeks to make. I would just buy the armor premade and enchant it yourself. That or talking to you GM to let you craft in gold pieces.


DM_Blake wrote:

One good argument I have heard is that the rules don't specifically say that you must include special materials when you calculate the item's price in SP. For example, there is a good argument that making a silver longsword is no harder than making an iron one. Might even be faster since silver is softer and easier to work. The rule specifically says to "Find the item's price in SP. For the sake of the Adamantine Full Plate, the item's price could just be assumed to be the full plate. In support of this argument, notice that making it out of Iron the DC is 19, and making it out of adamantine is DC 19. Same DC. That seems to suggest that it rally is not harder to make. Which also suggests that there is no reason for it to take 10x longer to make it.

This, of course, is debatable. The rules could have said "Find the base item's price in SP without including special materials" but they don't, so it's easy enough to argue that you must include the base price and the special materials. It can certainly be argued either way, but I favor this interpretation because it means that people don't have to devote 1/10 of their entire adult life to crafting a single item.

Well... It's not 1/10 of a person's adult life if that person is a dwarf, elf, or gnome. :)

I specifically house rule the same as you describe just for clarification but I also include the masterwork cost when calculating crafting time. I also let Cooperative Crafting stack more than once to cut the crafting time to 1/3rd or even 1/4th the time if you have more than one assistant. Usually that really only applies to specialized crafter NPCs since PC adventurers would rather spend their feats elsewhere.


Investing in UMD and buy some scrolls might help with the creation, or you can get assistance from a caster for that part of the creation process.

I use the day job checks from the society field guide myself for crafting (slightly modified).


Seriphim84 wrote:
It still takes 13 days. I said crafting price but that is the same as base price. The base price is half of the market price so my time stands.

Incorrect.

Quote:
Magic supplies for items are always half of the base price in gp. For many items, the market price equals the base price. Armor, shields, weapons, and items with value independent of their magically enhanced properties add their item cost to the market price. The item cost does not influence the base price (which determines the cost of magic supplies), but it does increase the final market price.

Magic item creation price is half the items base price. Market price and base price are the same for most items.

Quote:
The creator also needs a fairly quiet, comfortable, and well-lit place in which to work. Any place suitable for preparing spells is suitable for making items. Creating an item requires 8 hours of work per 1,000 gp in the item's base price (or fraction thereof), with a minimum of at least 8 hours. Potions and scrolls are an exception to this rule; they can take as little as 2 hours to create (if their base price is 250 gp or less).

Magic item creation time is based on the items base price, which is very specifically said to be the items market price (in most cases).


DM_Blake wrote:
One good argument I have heard is that the rules don't specifically say that you must include special materials when you calculate the item's price in SP. For example, there is a good argument that making a silver longsword is no harder than making an iron one. Might even be faster since silver is softer and easier to work. The rule specifically says to "Find the item's price in SP. For the sake of the Adamantine Full Plate, the item's price could just be assumed to be the full plate. In support of this argument, notice that making it out of Iron the DC is 19, and making it out of adamantine is DC 19. Same DC. That seems to suggest that it rally is not harder to make. Which also suggests that there is no reason for it to take 10x longer to make it.

One entry that may belie that position is under Dragonhide Armor...

Dragonhide Armor wrote:
Dragonhide armor costs twice as much as masterwork armor of that type, but it takes no longer to make than ordinary armor of that type (double all Craft results).

It seems to infer that the Craft check cost of making the item includes the cost of the material, since here it tries to nullify it by doubling the result in order to allow for it "not to take longer than ordinary armor".

Sounds like three years it is unless you can get your hands on Amazing Tools of Manufacture which allows you to do 2,000 gp worth of work for one hour a day.


DM_Blake wrote:

Using your averages but upgrading them for accelerating, assuming masterwork tools, and letting the blacksmith "Take 10" so his result is 33 each week. 29 x 33 = 957 SP per week. Which gets him down to a much faster (/sarcasm) 172.4 weeks...

I've got to admit, I never quite understood the crafting math:

957sp times 172 weeks = 164,604sp or 16,460 gp. 172 weeks to save 40gp??

Shadow Lodge

Oh thanks, that must be a house rule that our group has been using and I never bothered to double check. That's quite interesting.


Deylinarr wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:

Using your averages but upgrading them for accelerating, assuming masterwork tools, and letting the blacksmith "Take 10" so his result is 33 each week. 29 x 33 = 957 SP per week. Which gets him down to a much faster (/sarcasm) 172.4 weeks...

I've got to admit, I never quite understood the crafting math:

957sp times 172 weeks = 164,604sp or 16,460 gp. 172 weeks to save 40gp??

No, that's just for calculating the time.

The cash that actually changes hands on this particular item (if a NPC made it and sold it) would be that he spent 5,500 GP in raw materials to acquire the adamantium. Then he spent 173 weeks creating the armor and now can sell it for 16,500, which means he will make 11,000 GP for his trouble. That's quite a bit of cash, a tidge over 9gp per da - compared to the CRB rate for a trained hireling at 3sp per day, that's 30x the going rate.

If a PC is willing to invest this time, say, he has several years between adventures, he can save 11,000 GP by crafting this item.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Crafting without magic All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.