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Ignoring spells, potential realism and crochety in-fighting, I don't think you need to re-tool the crafting rules or create new feats. Go back up-thread to the reference to Ultimate Campaign and the shop bonus from that book. Now add apprentices...an army of them.
I had a few PCs at first level save a Dwarven town. The dwarves, in return, promised masterwork items for everyone by the time they reached their home town. They decided on the scenic route and told the dwarves they'd be back home in 4 weeks.
During that time the Master Smiths oversaw dozens of apprentices and journeymen apiece. Hundreds of man-and-dwarf-hours went into the mundane crafting of four masterwork items including a Sm Steel Shield, a light crossbow, a set of studded leather armor and a scimitar.
By the time they got home, the dwarves were waiting proudly for them with the items. Not a jot of Fabricate was used. The equipment was ready to go and well made; they still have these items now at level 5 (though with some improvements).
My point is: in a fantastic world fantastic things can and should happen. If you're shooting for realism, play a more realistic game. Otherwise accept that a single Forge Father, with a dedicated smithy can marshal 10 - 20 apprentices into the space or adjoining outdoor space to all work the same item. Now I didn't use these, but you can easily accept the following to justify the GM fiat the OP hates so very much:
- Mending spells used liberally here and there to correct mistakes
- Magical lighting, environmental controls and regular food and drink to provide 3 work shifts
- A Lyriakian or other spells to reduce Fatigue
- Outsourcing
- Unique boons given to the smithy in the same way they are often granted to the PCs for heroic/exceptional work
Seriously, why is crafting by PCs SUCH a thorn in people's sides? Yes, it takes A LONG time to make an item all by your lonesome. If you're a PC, at level 1, and you want to make a suit of platemail by yourself (not even masterwork) it'll take you forever. So...instead of being such a typical power-gamer noodge, put on your FLUFF hat and think:
Does this town have any master crafters? Oh yeah; in adventure one, in the background of the town, the GM mentioned that ferris who was known for fine chain work. I go to her and ask her if I can use her forge, work w/her team. I'll barter some of my gold to pay for the usage and I already bought the raw materials for the work.
(roleplaying ensues...imagine that!)
The GM tells you that, because of your reputation saving the children from the goblins and also because you're willing to pay her for her and her staff's time, the ferris agrees. You now are working as one of 5 other apprentices in a dedicated forge, not out of some stupid brazier on the side of the road. The ferris works the chain linking at the hinges while you and your wizard friend collaborate on the finer details and joinery. The other apprentices hammer out plates, shaping and sculpting the metal. Your wizard buddy uses Mending to fix mistakes and lends his own hands, an unseen servant, a familiar AND a mage hand where useful. In a matter of a couple weeks you have a FANTASTIC new suit of platemail and, as a boon, the ferris surprises you with a masterwork component: a coat and coil of extremely fine chain to pad the armor's effectiveness while actually distributing weight more evenly.
Seriously dudes...
Actually:
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10 for having a forge and working in it (Ultimate Campaign)
Where in Ultimate Campaign does it say that? I see where you can spend 1 point of Labor to get a +2 to a Craft check (p. 84), but you have to have the capital. A Forge room gives you a +10 to generate gp or Goods, but that's not the same as crafting a specific item, AFAICT.
You can also spend capital to boost a skill check by up to 5, per the box on p. 81, but I'm not sure how that's supposed to interact with the Craft Mundane Items procedure on p. 84.
Also not sure if p. 84 is intended to limit you to just spending 1 pt to get a +2, or if it's limited by settlement size (in which case, if you had enough Labor points and were in a metropolis, you could spend 65 Labor and get +130 to your check!).
Arguing about whether the Craft check comes to 30 or 50 is completely missing the point.
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Burn (Ex) A creature with the burn special attack deals fire damage in addition to damage dealt on a successful hit in melee. A creature affected by the burn ability must also succeed at a Reflex save or catch fire, taking the listed damage at the start of its turn for an additional 1d4 rounds (DC 10 + 1/2 the attacking creature's racial HD + the attacking creature's Con modifier). A burning creature can attempt a new save as a full-round action. Dropping and rolling on the ground grants a +4 bonus on this save. Creatures that hit the monster with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the monster's burn attack and must make a Reflex save to avoid catching on fire (see page 444 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook). Format: burn (2d6, DC 15); Location: Special Attacks and individual attacks.
You want to be the weapon smith that craft a epic katana single handedly? Well, you produce them at the speed of the single weapon smith producing a katana, from 1 to 3 in a year.
If you want to simulate a weapon smith shop, the people in it (generally NPC) will have the feats to collaborate.
Fact and fiction, the forging of a masterwork weapon isn't something that is done overnight unless we are speaking of semi-divine characters or creatures using magic.
But aren't mid-level Pathfinder characters already crafting at heroic speed? They can make a suit of masterwork plate mail in a tenth of the time a real-world armourer would have taken. It's just the adamantine that's the problem.The problem is more on a base level. Take a look at this example smith, a person who's dedicated a huge amount of their study and life to smithing.
1st level expert
+1 rank in Craft
+3 class skill
+1 Int modifier
+2 masterwork tools
+3 Skill Focus
Total +10 ModifierTheir craft check taking 10 is 20. Working on a suit of plate mail (DC 19), they do 380 sp of work every week. The cost of a suit of plate mail is 1,500 gp, or 15,000 sp. This means it will take an expert smith with masterwork tools almost 40 weeks to create a single suit of mundane plate armor.
A novice level 1 blacksmith with unimpressive intelligence and no assistants can produce a single suit of plate mail in about the same amount of time a real-world expert blacksmith (and his assistants) could have done.
@Reecy :
Even better : walk to miner to buy adamantine.
Cast Fabricate.
HAZZAAHH
Armor done in 20 min walk, with a 5th level spell and without any chance of problem (as you can have with Wish)
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Actually:
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10 for having a forge and working in it (Ultimate Campaign)
Where in Ultimate Campaign does it say that? I see where you can spend 1 point of Labor to get a +2 to a Craft check (p. 84), but you have to have the capital. A Forge room gives you a +10 to generate gp or Goods, but that's not the same as crafting a specific item, AFAICT.
You can also spend capital to boost a skill check by up to 5, per the box on p. 81, but I'm not sure how that's supposed to interact with the Craft Mundane Items procedure on p. 84.
Also not sure if p. 84 is intended to limit you to just spending 1 pt to get a +2, or if it's limited by settlement size (in which case, if you had enough Labor points and were in a metropolis, you could spend 65 Labor and get +130 to your check!).
Sorry, you are perfectly right, I noticed the error today, decidedly too late to correct it,
The +10 is for the earning income when you control your shop.The benefit line is different and the bonus way lover it it exist at all
ARTISAN’S WORKSHOP
Earnings gp, Goods, or Influence +10
Benefit counts as masterwork artisan’s tools for one Craft skill
So at most a +2, and probably it don't stack with masterwork tools.
Arguing about whether the Craft check comes to 30 or 50 is completely missing the point.
Sure, but cooperative crafting doubling the output matter.
A novice level 1 blacksmith with unimpressive intelligence and no assistants can produce a single suit of plate mail in about the same amount of time a real-world expert blacksmith (and his assistants) could have done.
A real world blacksmith could make armor in 5-8 weeks, from what I've read.
A 1st level expert is not a novice blacksmith. He's an average blacksmith. With Skill Focus he's above average.
@Drachasor : exactly. And you didn't buy 25000gp of diamond dust...
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The text of Aid another don't say that only 1 person can help the main character. It say that "The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis as well." but crafting is generally one of the activities where you can get several people working at the same project.
As already pointed out Cooperative Crafting help with mundane crafting. Players can scoff it as it don't help in combat, but the option is there for the people that normally craft in the game world.
I may have overlooked this, but where does it state that you add the cost of a special material to the crafting cost for progress per week?
(I understand paying the 1/3 price of the special material for raw materials)
I may have overlooked this, but where does it state that you add the cost of a special material to the crafting cost for progress per week?
(I understand paying the 1/3 price of the special material for raw materials)
ITs in the rules.
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.
Special materials add to the price of the item. A suit of heavy mithral armor adds 9000gp. So mithral full plate has a price of 10,500gp.
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.
The amount of work done must equal the price of the item in order to finish making it. And since the special materials add to the price of the base item, they also affect how long the item takes to make. The rules would have to say something along the line of "For items made from a special material, use the base items price to determining crafting progress, not the price of the special materials added to the base items price." Or something.
As already pointed out Cooperative Crafting help with mundane crafting. Players can scoff it as it don't help in combat, but the option is there for the people that normally craft in the game world.
How much time do you need to wait to take it ?
9 levels.And you need a very good mundane crafter, that have feats and skills almost exclusively centered on crafting, and optimized to take the feat as fast as possible.
Remember that at this level, wizard can create mundane items in seconds, where your smith at the same level, that is optimized in the craft, and have every single feat to reduce the time, will take several months to do the same, with assistance.
Do you see a problem ? I do.
Google how long it takes to craft chain mail or full plate.I am bemused everytime someone attempts to use the "but it works this way in real life!" argument, in a game where most of the mechanics do not follow real life.
This is particularly true when you consider that crossbows do not function like in real life, nor do bows, or any number of things.
It seems to me that the designers are cherry picking certain elements that they feel should be "realistic" without any regards to how it works in gameplay (i would like to see the designers craft something in an actual playtest campaign for example) while allowing other, non-magical elements to be unrealistic for some unknown purpose.
I think theres something wrong when feedback threads about how broken an aspect of the game is always degenerates into a designer using one liners about realism or just dead silence from all paizo staff, instead of working together with the players to collect, analyze and respond to feedback.
This thread would have been a perfect place for Paizo to find out how players in general feel about the crafting rules and bounce off ideas off them, but as a whole, the only feeling i get from Paizo is a sense of "CBF" (please correct me if i am wrong and Paizo is watching this thread with interest and having internal discussions about how to proceed further).
I fully agree, the current crafting rules are way to fast. Making things should take time. The making of magic items is even more ridiculous. (A character can create a +1 item in a days work.)
The problem we have is instant gratification. People expect to be able to get what they want NOW. Things take time to be made, whether it be a sword or a computer. Only fantasy worlds, with a few exceptions don't have factories and assembly lines.
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Its not really just 'instant gratification'. Its, being able to /actually/ do things within a campaign's period of time.
Google how long it takes to make a Decanter of Endless water, or a Ring of Sustenance.
Also..
Crafting a Mundane item - Oh its perfectly okay it takes years to build the suit of armor, like he said earlier 2 years or so. Maybe Co-op Crafting to reduce its time to 1 year or so?
Magic item crafting Lets look at this item
Now it starts off at 200,000 gp. That is less than a year before we even get anywhere, doing non-stop crafting.
Wizard Dwarf with a Valent familiar
His favored class bonus gives him +200 gp worth of work done per day.
Arcane builder to take 1/4 of the time away. So.. assuming an 8th level wizard accelerating his crafting speed.
150 Days/ (2*2)2
Without the dwarven racial, 38 days.
We're looking at 19 days of work (18.75)
at level 13, it'll take 13 days.
At level 18, 10 days.
That is actually pretty interesting. Even though more can be done, after 8th level, the racial's effect kinda.. fades.
I am bemused everytime someone attempts to use the "but it works this way in real life!" argument
Even more so when they are wrong about the way real life works. The claims that a suit of plate took an armorer years to make is something that has promulgated in D&D fandom but doesn't seem to have any basis in reality.
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Seriously? Okay.
This game is a poor model of reality, in almost every aspect. People can literally fall from orbit, get up, and run off to do whatever they please with no lasting injury. They can do this by level 10.
People can jump, with no assistance, higher than it is possible for anyone on this earth to do so.
One of my characters (a Barbarian, level 14) can lift a literal ton (give a few hundred pounds, I can't get Mythweavers to cooperate but it's more than a ton) over his head and hold it there indefinitely.
All of this achieved with little to no magic. The magic, obviously, shatter this completely.
Telling someone to calibrate their expectations to reality for another aspect is, therefore, a little jarring.
If it were for game balance reasons, I can understand that. If it's for pretty much anything else, it makes sense. But citing reality when your whole game is built on unreality at a base level (after about level 5 on a minor scale, and 10 on a major) is a mite odd.
Multiply the result squared to the DC for more exponential scaling.
Seriously? Okay.
This game is a poor model of reality, in almost every aspect. People can literally fall from orbit, get up, and run off to do whatever they please with no lasting injury. They can do this by level 10.
People can jump, with no assistance, higher than it is possible for anyone on this earth to do so.
One of my characters (a Barbarian, level 14) can lift a literal ton (give a few hundred pounds, I can't get Mythweavers to cooperate but it's more than a ton) over his head and hold it there indefinitely.
All of this achieved with little to no magic. The magic, obviously, shatter this completely.
Telling someone to calibrate their expectations to reality for another aspect is, therefore, a little jarring.
If it were for game balance reasons, I can understand that. If it's for pretty much anything else, it makes sense. But citing reality when your whole game is built on unreality at a base level (after about level 5 on a minor scale, and 10 on a major) is a mite odd.
Basically this.
Anything you can do, magic can do better. Magic can do anything better than you. And that's because whenever Steve wants to play a legendary fighter who is also a legendary blacksmith, people start going "Well in reality..."
Steve the level 15 Fighter has no place in our reality, so if Steve the level 15 Fighter wants to hammer out a suit of adamantine fulllate in a single night, Steve can. Really why conform your fantasy game to reality?
Its not really just 'instant gratification'. Its, being able to /actually/ do things within a campaign's period of time.
Google how long it takes to make a Decanter of Endless water, or a Ring of Sustenance.
Also..
Crafting a Mundane item - Oh its perfectly okay it takes years to build the suit of armor, like he said earlier 2 years or so. Maybe Co-op Crafting to reduce its time to 1 year or so?Magic item crafting Lets look at this item
Now it starts off at 200,000 gp. That is less than a year before we even get anywhere, doing non-stop crafting.
Wizard Dwarf with a Valent familiar
His favored class bonus gives him +200 gp worth of work done per day.
Arcane builder to take 1/4 of the time away. So.. assuming an 8th level wizard accelerating his crafting speed.150 Days/ (2*2)2
Without the dwarven racial, 38 days.
We're looking at 19 days of work (18.75)at level 13, it'll take 13 days.
At level 18, 10 days.
That is actually pretty interesting. Even though more can be done, after 8th level, the racial's effect kinda.. fades.
That is the definition of instant gratification. The most (I think) expensive craftable item can be made by one person in a week and half.
My gaming groups must be strange, with the exception of a campaign with a different GM and a couple campaigns that died early, our campaigns span years of game time. Plenty of time to get things made.
Its not really just 'instant gratification'. Its, being able to /actually/ do things within a campaign's period of time.
Google how long it takes to make a Decanter of Endless water, or a Ring of Sustenance.
Also..
Crafting a Mundane item - Oh its perfectly okay it takes years to build the suit of armor, like he said earlier 2 years or so. Maybe Co-op Crafting to reduce its time to 1 year or so?Magic item crafting Lets look at this item
Now it starts off at 200,000 gp. That is less than a year before we even get anywhere, doing non-stop crafting.
Wizard Dwarf with a Valent familiar
His favored class bonus gives him +200 gp worth of work done per day.
Arcane builder to take 1/4 of the time away. So.. assuming an 8th level wizard accelerating his crafting speed.150 Days/ (2*2)2
Without the dwarven racial, 38 days.
We're looking at 19 days of work (18.75)at level 13, it'll take 13 days.
At level 18, 10 days.
That is actually pretty interesting. Even though more can be done, after 8th level, the racial's effect kinda.. fades.
That is the definition of instant gratification. The most (I think) expensive craftable item can be made by one person in a week and half.
My gaming groups must be strange, with the exception of a campaign with a different GM and a couple campaigns that died early, our campaigns span years of game time. Plenty of time to get things made.
My gaming group just shrugs its shoulders, turns the caster and says, "So... we'll wait a few rounds here..."
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Its not really just 'instant gratification'. Its, being able to /actually/ do things within a campaign's period of time.
Google how long it takes to make a Decanter of Endless water, or a Ring of Sustenance.
Also..
Crafting a Mundane item - Oh its perfectly okay it takes years to build the suit of armor, like he said earlier 2 years or so. Maybe Co-op Crafting to reduce its time to 1 year or so?Magic item crafting Lets look at this item
Now it starts off at 200,000 gp. That is less than a year before we even get anywhere, doing non-stop crafting.
Wizard Dwarf with a Valent familiar
His favored class bonus gives him +200 gp worth of work done per day.
Arcane builder to take 1/4 of the time away. So.. assuming an 8th level wizard accelerating his crafting speed.150 Days/ (2*2)2
Without the dwarven racial, 38 days.
We're looking at 19 days of work (18.75)at level 13, it'll take 13 days.
At level 18, 10 days.
That is actually pretty interesting. Even though more can be done, after 8th level, the racial's effect kinda.. fades.
That is the definition of instant gratification. The most (I think) expensive craftable item can be made by one person in a week and half.
My gaming groups must be strange, with the exception of a campaign with a different GM and a couple campaigns that died early, our campaigns span years of game time. Plenty of time to get things made.
Not really instant gratification. If you noticed, that is done by someone who isn't adventuring.
Most games I've played its always on the road with constantly being a wandering murderer. Even games that I was suppose to be rebuilding a kingdom.
Making Craft Work is outstanding. It addresses your concerns very well, and only costs 99 cents. I'm not usually a buyer of third-party material, but this was the best $1 upgrade to Pathfinder I've ever seen!
While this, again, does not address the core flaws with the official pathfinder rules I would also like to point out that this 3rd party product is awesome.
As it points out the major flaw with crafting is that its all based on dollar value and not complexity, which this 3rd party product attempts to remedy. And while not perfect it is a huge improvement in my opinion.
One of the better $1s I have spent on RPGs.
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I fully agree, the current crafting rules are way to fast. Making things should take time. The making of magic items is even more ridiculous. (A character can create a +1 item in a days work.)The problem we have is instant gratification. People expect to be able to get what they want NOW. Things take time to be made, whether it be a sword or a computer. Only fantasy worlds, with a few exceptions don't have factories and assembly lines.
I cant tell if you are trolling or not.
But its not instant gratification. You know why? Because this is what happens in reality :
Player : I want to craft full plate.
DM : Okay how long does it take
Player : X months
DM : Okay time for a timeskip. So X months later you have your full plate...
The exact same thing happens when crafting magic items, only the rest of the party doesnt sit around for several months waiting for you to finish.
Its honestly irrelevant how realistic the crafting time is. Nobody plays pathfinder for realism. This is a game designed around vigilantes roaming the countryside and killing bad guys for loot and xp. This is also why a video game where your character dies in the first 5 seconds of combat would sell very very poorly...sure its realistic, but its not fun.
I also dont see why people insist on cherry picking things to be realistic about and then handwaving their favored options. Its very very biased. You point to things like crafting and say "oh look! realism! its good!" then you quietly ignore things like falling damage rules or crossbows being worse than bows.
I honestly cannot believe paizo staff spend hours and hours designing options that are realistic but which NOBODY uses in actual games without house rules. Then they go in threads and complain they have massive workloads...
No, I am not trolling. And I have no problems with your solution of "it's n months later and you are finished making your item." It's not about realism either. I do believe that it is about "instant gratification." People want their stuff NOW, not later. It's that way in the real world too, look at Amazon's theoretical drone delivery system.
It is simply that in my opinion in a fantasy setting things should take time to be made. Swords and armor aren't stamped out of sheet metal with huge machines. Creating permanent magic items are the results of weeks, months, or years of casting spells, implanting enchantments and components. The Mirror of Life Stealing should be the crowning point of an enchanters career, not something tossed off in a weeks work.
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agree with everything except...
adamantine fullplate
Gotta tell you, adamantine is darn near one of the worst choices for armor. It doesn't stack with nearly any class DR's which are much more common nowadays. It's incredibly expensive, especially for the tiny amount of DR it does give.
Mithral is much better. Everyone can use up to +3 Dex modifier thanks to belt of perfection and honestly, achieving higher speeds (or in the case of fighter achieving full speed earlier) is much more beneficial.
Here is a thread about creating Mithral Full Plate under ideal circumstances. A fun read.
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I honestly cannot believe paizo staff spend hours and hours designing options that are realistic but which NOBODY uses in actual games without house rules. Then they go in threads and complain they have massive workloads...
You are all the players? As you aren't, please, speak for yourself, not for me or other players.
I use the crafting rules. And yes, especially at high level, there can be years of peace before the players character combat skills are needed again.
Your game is atypical to what is generally assumed. Look at how APs are designed, rarely do you have any real downtime that lasts even a month or two, barring Kingmaker, certain bits of Runelords, and scattered pieces of a few other APs.
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Your game is atypical to what is generally assumed. Look at how APs are designed, rarely do you have any real downtime that lasts even a month or two, barring Kingmaker, certain bits of Runelords, and scattered pieces of a few other APs.
Several APs have a 1 year hiatus between the first and second module. Even without that home campaign can have a very different pace. Saying "It work that way because the APs tell a story that is meant to be resolved in a few weeks so a 'normal campaign' campaign work that way" is trying to force all people in a single mold.
Look Ultimate Campaign. Most of the book is dedicate to activities that require week, months or even years to be completed. If the "normal campaign" was meant to be "20 levels in 20 weeks" there would be a need for that book?
Google how long it takes to craft chain mail or full plate.This is a quite unfriendly response. Are we not allowed to ask how and if game mechanics relate to how things work in reality ?
If you want to know how long it takes a nonmagical character to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor, it is perfectly appropriate (and friendly) to tell the person to do an internet search to find out how long it takes a nonmagical real-life Earth person to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor. As it turns out, the times to create nonmagical armor in the game is pretty close to how long it takes someone to craft similar armor in real life.
The game at its basic level is attempting to model reality, so players can have a reasonable expectation of what their characters can do. Can I move across the room and open that door in the next six seconds? Can I jump over this 10-foot pit with a running start? Can I climb this tree? How far can I walk in a day? How long does it take to craft chainmail? Because the game is attempting to simulate reality, you can use reality as a benchmark for these questions.
And rather than including times, ranges, and explanations for everything you could possibly do (such as "what is a shovel used for?" and "how long does it take to dig a 5 x 5 x 5 hole with a shovel?"), if the game doesn't tell you something, the expectation is that you can draw on your own knowledge of the world--or, if you aren't knowledgeable in that area, look it up in a book or on the internet.
So whether your question is "can my character survive by eating only sugar?" or "how long does it take to craft chainmail?," the answer is available to you in the real world.
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If you want to be all verisimilitudinous, a high-level wizard would need to both spend years mastering his spells and years laboriously crafting masterwork armor by hand just to develop the skills needed to magically produce armor. I imagine such individuals are about as common as people in the real world who have both an MD and a PhD.
I think most people who are reasonably good at their jobs, over a lifetime, hit 4th level or so, with most of the really amazing people between 6th level and 8th level. I think the Craft rules work pretty well, until you get to about 6th level. At that point, it would be nice to have some abilities equivalent to fast stealth, Whirlwind Attack, and []raging leaper[/i], in terms of departing from real world people easily accomplish.
Google how long it takes to craft chain mail or full plate.This is a quite unfriendly response. Are we not allowed to ask how and if game mechanics relate to how things work in reality ?
If you want to know how long it takes a nonmagical character to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor, it is perfectly appropriate (and friendly) to tell the person to do an internet search to find out how long it takes a nonmagical real-life Earth person to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor. As it turns out, the times to create nonmagical armor in the game is pretty close to how long it takes someone to craft similar armor in real life.
The game at its basic level is attempting to model reality, so players can have a reasonable expectation of what their characters can do. Can I move across the room and open that door in the next six seconds? Can I jump over this 10-foot pit with a running start? Can I climb this tree? How far can I walk in a day? How long does it take to craft chainmail? Because the game is attempting to simulate reality, you can use reality as a benchmark for these questions.
And rather than including times, ranges, and explanations for everything you could possibly do (such as "what is a shovel used for?" and "how long does it take to dig a 5 x 5 x 5 hole with a shovel?"), if the game doesn't tell you something, the expectation is that you can draw on your own knowledge of the world--or, if you aren't knowledgeable in that area, look it up in a book or on the internet.
So whether your question is "can my character survive by eating only sugar?" or "how long does it take to craft chainmail?," the answer is available to you in the real world.
This is fine, great even when we are talking about what a level 1-6 nonmagical person can do. I meet lots of those everyday and sure it's going to take Steve from the office a long time make a suit of ringmail he's level 2, maybe 3 at most.
The problem is when you attempt to model what a level 10+ nonmagical user can do. I haven't met anyone in life or read about anyone in history who was more then level 8 (at absolute most). And this is the point where "what an ordinary person is capable in our reality" as a defense breaks down to this. A level 15 person doesn't *belong* in our reality. We're talking about a person who can jump from a plane and shrug it off, who can swing his sword so fast physics should get offended and blot him out, who can out perform every athlete, and out fight every martial artist that our world has ever produced, simultaneously without breaking a sweat.
That guy isn't part of our reality... so why would you argue the time it takes him to craft a suit of ringmail should be restrained by our reality? He's not Steve for Pete's sake. So can you understand why some of us might find it odd that the rules restrict a Level 15 person to what Level 2-3 Steve is capable of?
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Google how long it takes to craft chain mail or full plate.This is a quite unfriendly response. Are we not allowed to ask how and if game mechanics relate to how things work in reality ?
If you want to know how long it takes a nonmagical character to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor, it is perfectly appropriate (and friendly) to tell the person to do an internet search to find out how long it takes a nonmagical real-life Earth person to nonmagically create a suit of nonmagical armor. As it turns out, the times to create nonmagical armor in the game is pretty close to how long it takes someone to craft similar armor in real life.
The game at its basic level is attempting to model reality, so players can have a reasonable expectation of what their characters can do. Can I move across the room and open that door in the next six seconds? Can I jump over this 10-foot pit with a running start? Can I climb this tree? How far can I walk in a day? How long does it take to craft chainmail? Because the game is attempting to simulate reality, you can use reality as a benchmark for these questions.
And rather than including times, ranges, and explanations for everything you could possibly do (such as "what is a shovel used for?" and "how long does it take to dig a 5 x 5 x 5 hole with a shovel?"), if the game doesn't tell you something, the expectation is that you can draw on your own knowledge of the world--or, if you aren't knowledgeable in that area, look it up in a book or on the internet.
So whether your question is "can my character survive by eating only sugar?" or "how long does it take to craft chainmail?," the answer is available to you in the real world.
I've talked to several people over the years who handcraft full plate armor by themselves, using the old smithing methods.
In general, they all give me the same answer on how long it takes: "3-7 days, depending on complexity." Internet searches for what people who actually do it by hand confirmed the same time frame.
What do the historians actually say? They have no idea how long it took; most of the time, armor was produced by a shop, with each person working on a single piece and then passing it on. This allowed those shops to produce hundreds or thousands of pieces of armor in a very rapid fashion (one of the sites I found referenced 6000 sets of armor produced in six months in preparation for a war; this means 250 suits of armor produced every week).
The problem with the Pathfinder system? By my math, those people producing the full plate inside a week are getting a roll of 834 on their craft check. Considering these are real, average people in the real world... that's a pretty epic failure at replicating real life on this issue.
I don't mind the crafting times based on balance issues. That's fine, and it's okay for a game to break from reality to deal with balance issues. But to argue realism, you need a system that is getting results real people are getting. Pathfinder isn't getting anywhere close to realistic results on armor crafting.
Several APs have a 1 year hiatus between the first and second module. Even without that home campaign can have a very different pace. Saying "It work that way because the APs tell a story that is meant to be resolved in a few weeks so a 'normal campaign' campaign work that way" is trying to force all people in a single mold.
Look Ultimate Campaign. Most of the book is dedicate to activities that require week, months or even years to be completed. If the "normal campaign" was meant to be "20 levels in 20 weeks" there would be a need for that book?
Not so much "forcing people into a single mold" as pointing out that, at the very least, the people who write adventures for Paizo have laid out pretty consistent assumptions fro the average adventure in the rules.
-Downtime is rare. Lengthy downtime is even more rare.
-Teleport, flight, Divinations, and other magics are assumed to be things available to every party by the latest level they are available to Core classes.
-The average party is 4 people, with a class make-up of a "Fighter-type", a "Sneaky-type", a Divine caster, and an Arcane caster (Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard being the stereotypical allotment).
-The expected method for stat allocation is 15-20 PB.
And a few others that aren't as clear cut.
What this tells me is that these are the "norm" the game assumes. And that is what the games is sort of based around, balance wise. The game isn't made to handle characters with 25+ PB, 5+ characters, and so forth.
It isn't meant to handle large amounts of downtime in the same vein.
Ultimate Campaign is the outlier here, more of an acknowledgement that a lot of people DON'T run their games this way, and that this is A-OK, not a refutation of everything else pointing towards that.
None of this limits your table, my table, or Joe Schmoe's table. It just puts a handle on the parameters of discussion for things like this, gives everyone a baseline for discussion, a bit of common ground.
Because when everyone starts going "Well, at my table..." the conversation can go only one of a few ways.
-It falls apart (there's nothing to discuss, everyone has a completely different baseline they're arguing from) and the thread dies.
-It turns into an assertion of superiority ("Well if you just did it MY way you wouldn't have any issues!")
-It turns into a massive, confusing argument where nobody has a clear handle on what everyone else is talking about, and eventually the thread is locked without accomplishing anything of value.
Much simpler, and much more productive to establish a baseline. And the trends given in official materials are generally the best ones to stick to there as far as determining things that are broken.