Very few people care about crafting realism. They are primarily interested in how the game plays. People do not play pathfinder, a game about travelling around the world killing bad guys for loot/xp for realism.
Seriously, i don't know why you don't understand this simple concept.
If you don't care about crafting realism, and you're not playing PFS (where you can't really craft anyway), just hand-wave it. Crafting takes 1 round. Done.
If you don't care about crafting realism, and you're not playing PFS (where you can't really craft anyway), just hand-wave it. Crafting takes 1 round. Done.Very few people care about crafting realism. They are primarily interested in how the game plays. People do not play pathfinder, a game about travelling around the world killing bad guys for loot/xp for realism.
Seriously, i don't know why you don't understand this simple concept.
He's got a point there.
Now is it realistic for high level characters to be crafting so slowly?
Also, why is crafting time based on price and not craft DC or some other more relevant factor? You know since you guys are making craft DCs for these items you might as well give them some sort of man-hour value where your craft check determines your efficiency.
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If you don't care about crafting realism, and you're not playing PFS (where you can't really craft anyway), just hand-wave it. Crafting takes 1 round. Done.Very few people care about crafting realism. They are primarily interested in how the game plays. People do not play pathfinder, a game about travelling around the world killing bad guys for loot/xp for realism.
Seriously, i don't know why you don't understand this simple concept.
Well, I do care about some realism, up to a point. Which is why the 'realisim' of the thing is also a pain as it gets in the way of realisim of the crafting skills. (See previous examples I had talked about earlier with more expensive ink being harder to write with than cheap ink.)
There's also a whole lack of being able to avoid the cost itself. Like I'd love to be able to go around and collect fire beetle guts to try and make alchemist fires. Perhaps even develop and design more powerful alchemist fires. (Or whatever it is.)
Back when Paizo made the dragon magazines, there was one that had a wonderful article on crafting mundane gear and all sorts of mundane enhancements that you put onto them. Like giving a sword a serrated edge, or forging your armor in a certain way to lower its weight.
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Now is it realistic for high level characters to be crafting so slowly?
Also, why is crafting time based on price and not craft DC or some other more relevant factor? You know since you guys are making craft DCs for these items you might as well give them some sort of man-hour value where your craft check determines your efficiency.
We inherited the crafting system from D&D 3.5. When creating the Pathfinder RPG, we had higher-priority fixes to make, like "barbarians have little to differentiate two characters of the same class" (likewise for rogues), "combat maneuvers are cumbersome," and so on. In an ideal world, we would have had more than just a few months to make emergency fixes to the more heavily-used parts of the game, and could have fixed a lot more.
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.I dont think you know what instant gratification is. Instant gratification only relates to time in the real world.
Timeskipping 100 ingame years to make your elven sorcerer the most powerful mage in the kingdom is exactly the same as the DM looking at you and telling you that you level up 20 times in one session. It takes exactly the same IRL time and the player is instantly gratified in both cases.
If you were a DM and a player came to you and said "I want to be the most powerful X in the land, but i don't want to play through a whole campaign of adventuring, i want it now. But don't worry if it's not realistic because we can just do ad assume that my character earned all that power over an adventuring career." would you seriously think that he doesn't want instant gratification?
No, I know what I am saying. If players want to skip a year of game time while crafting, learning spells, whatever that is fine. The complaint I am seeing is that the players want to be able craft a suit of plate armor in a one day of game time, they want to make their +10 Hackmaster between encounters. They want their stuff instantly in game time.
We inherited the crafting system from D&D 3.5. When creating the Pathfinder RPG, we had higher-priority fixes to make, like "barbarians have little to differentiate two characters of the same class" (likewise for rogues), "combat maneuvers are cumbersome," and so on. In an ideal world, we would have had more than just a few months to make emergency fixes to the more heavily-used parts of the game, and could have fixed a lot more.Now is it realistic for high level characters to be crafting so slowly?
Also, why is crafting time based on price and not craft DC or some other more relevant factor? You know since you guys are making craft DCs for these items you might as well give them some sort of man-hour value where your craft check determines your efficiency.
Hence people's call for errata.
Most likely if you guys do anything the change would have to be limited to the craft skill description.
Actually, the first thing you do is change Fabricate, which completely obviates any Crafting rules.
Then you are free to change the Crafting rules.
==Aelryinth
I'm actually fine with fabricate. There is a long standing tradition of a single spell being worth 40+ ranks in a skill.
Fly to acrobatics
Air walk to acrobatics
Charm animal to handle animal
Charm person to diplomacy
Alter memory to bluff
Fabricate to craft
Invisibility to stealth
Polymorph to swim and climb and acrobatics
Alter-self or disguise self to disguise
What's great about all these is that they stack with skill ranks.
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There is a long standing tradition of a single spell being worth 40+ ranks in a skill.
Fabricate can craft mithral fullplate in six seconds. To craft one set of mithral fullplate in a week without Fabricate, you would need a Craft (Armor) bonus of over +310. Assuming that the Craft skill is based on an eight-hour workday with weekends off, mundanely crafting mithral fullplate in six seconds would take a bonus of more than +50000.
Yes, strictly speaking "50000" is in the set of numbers that are greater than 40, but saying it's merely more than 40 hardly does it justice.
Really, the problem isn't just that magic does it so well, it's that trying to do it mundanely is so slow as to be useless, with the magic alternative just adding insult to injury. At least with those other examples, it is possible to Climb things sometimes without Fly, even if Fly is easy and much better - but unless your GM timeskips forward half a decade you won't be crafting that mithral fullplate on your own.
One way or another i am very happy that this kind of discussion (specially a so civilized one) exists. Like said before, you cant craft in PFS anyway, so we can houserule it as we seems fit.
We could now focus on what everyone thinks could be a good solution?
That would take some math(since as costs increases exponentialy, an exponentially solutions seems adequate) and brains, but i would like to seem some progressions, like an lv 1, lv5, lv10, lv15 and lv20 crafter and how he would fare crafting items on our ideas...
anyone wanna give some ideas on this format? We can discuss them and try to remedy any incoerenses that arises :)
I'm not sure I see the problem here...
OK, so a nearly-real-world realism for crafting is impractical for adventurers who are much too busy saving the world and don't have time to settled down and spend weeks or months in a forge making some armor. So what? In the real world, I'm a software engineer but I'm much too busy with my job, my family, and my girlfriend to settle down in a machine shop and build computers by hand, so I pay someone else to do it. What's wrong with that, IRL or in Pathfinder?
OK, so 9th level spellcasters can invalidate mundane crafting. So what? Most Golarion towns and villages don't have 9th level casters invalidating their local blacksmiths and carpenters. The really big communities that do have 9th level casters, those casters might have better things to do than open up a weapon store and sell fabricated arms and armor. If some 9th level caster wants to do that with his time and magic, so what? Let him. My PCs might buy that guy's armor, or might by armor made by the master smith - my PCs don't care if some mage made the armor in a day or some smith made the armor in a year - it's the same armor for the same price and my PC will buy it from whoever is selling it.
OK, so a 9th level PC spellcaster can find a way to use magic to create things instead of using mundane crafting. So what? That same spellcaster can avoid other mundane stuff like riding a horse to the next town or sailing a ship to the next continent or using a rope to climb a cliff or using his own eyes to look for traps, etc. Besides, we already agree that 9th level characters are usually too busy to spend a year in a forge making armor, so doesn't his ability to spend a minute making the same armor solve that problem anyway?
What exactly is the problem here? Is the only problem that "We want our low-level characters to spend days making things that real-world crafters need months to make."? That sounds unrealistic and impractical, and it also sounds like it would be a workaround for WBL issues too (if a suit of adamantine full plate is worth 16,500gp and can be made for 5,500gp of materials in just a few weeks, then a PC crafter could easily earn 11,000gp every time he has a few weeks of downtime - that might be a bit much, don't you think?) By 9th level, a spellcaster can make that kind of cash in a few minutes any time he wants, which is already bad enough, but now we're complaining that we want characters of EVEN LOWER LEVEL to be able to destroy the WBL system through mundane crafting?
Or is the complaint that "Adventuring to save the world is not fun enough, we want to have our characters sit at forges all day."? Really? I doubt that's it. But if it is, then just go on an adventure once every year or two and craft armor in your massive downtime.
I really just don't get the problem here.
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That is understandable, but then why is your reaction defending it with "google how long it takes to make armor"?
Hence people's call for errata.
I'm quoting the above two comments because the answer is basically the same:
Because there is strong resistance within the company of introducing "incremental design via errata" to the game. If something flat-out doesn't work, we want to fix it. But if something works pretty well, or works at lower levels but starts to break down at higher levels, we don't want to redesign that system and print it in the next book as if it were errata.
Why? Because (1) the change isn't merely fixing an error, it's introducing a new design concept, (2) doing so means that someone using the earlier, valid, version of the rule is playing differently that the later, also valid, version of the rule, and (3) changing one rule system can have unexpected consequences in other rules systems, which would then require additional errata and FAQs about the changes.
So... why is my reaction "google how long it takes to make armor"? Because at low levels, the rules pretty accurately reflect how long it should take you to make something out of "raw materials" (which aren't defined). Things get weird at level 10 or whatever, and you really need to push the limits of what a real craftsperson can do (because I don't think we have any real-world master blacksmiths who we can agree are level 10 or higher, and therefore can't really accurately gauge how fast they can craft something), yet by the time you're level 10 you're well into a high-fantasy campaign, and a level 10 PC (who has over 60,000 gp worth of gear) who wants to craft a mundane suit of armor is very, very unusual.
So... why don't we make errata for the crafting rules? Because we don't want to change sometimes-bent-but-not-broken parts of the rules via errata... especially if it's not something that has a significant impact on most campaigns.
Honestly, I think if you were to introduce "incremental change by errata" into the game it would be best suited to things like this: Stuff that is "bent but not broken" and has little effect on the average campaign.
Big sweeping changes to core things that majorly affect the game can alienate some users, especially ones who fro whatever reason cannot or do not know about errata.
But the small things like this, that don't overall affect the game, and can increase playability of certain under-utilized rules for some players? Seems like a prime candidate.
That is understandable, but then why is your reaction defending it with "google how long it takes to make armor"?Hence people's call for errata.I'm quoting the above two comments because the answer is basically the same:
Because there is strong resistance within the company of introducing "incremental design via errata" to the game. If something flat-out doesn't work, we want to fix it. But if something works pretty well, or works at lower levels but starts to break down at higher levels, we don't want to redesign that system and print it in the next book as if it were errata.
Why? Because (1) the change isn't merely fixing an error, it's introducing a new design concept, (2) doing so means that someone using the earlier, valid, version of the rule is playing differently that the later, also valid, version of the rule, and (3) changing one rule system can have unexpected consequences in other rules systems, which would then require additional errata and FAQs about the changes.
So... why is my reaction "google how long it takes to make armor"? Because at low levels, the rules pretty accurately reflect how long it should take you to make something out of "raw materials" (which aren't defined). Things get weird at level 10 or whatever, and you really need to push the limits of what a real craftsperson can do (because I don't think we have any real-world master blacksmiths who we can agree are level 10 or higher, and therefore can't really accurately gauge how fast they can craft something), yet by the time you're level 10 you're well into a high-fantasy campaign, and a level 10 PC (who has over 60,000 gp worth of gear) who wants to craft a mundane suit of armor is very, very unusual.
So... why don't we make errata for the crafting rules? Because we don't want to change sometimes-bent-but-not-broken parts of the rules via errata... especially if it's not something that has a significant impact on most campaigns.
Sir most respectfully, from a long term (+20 years gammer).
Is the reason why that it does not have a signifcant impact BECUASE its kinda broken?
It's not broken (I described it as bent-but-not-broken). It's just that at higher levels, it's not practical.
For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant. Also, the low-level character doesn't have any reason to be supernaturally fast at crafting, so having the crafting rules attempt to model real-world crafting times works fine.
At higher level, crafting is impractical and doesn't have a significant impact on the game because by the time you're 10th level, you have plenty of gold and magic items, and can just buy finished full plate for 1,500 gp and not worry about spending the time crafting it yourself to save 1,000 gp. You also probably have a lot better (and more profitable) things to do that sit around in town for weeks to craft your own full plate just to save gold.
Could we justify speeding up crafting for a person with 10 or 20 ranks in a Craft skill? Sure. Do we know what a fair acceleration value is? No. Could we come up with an acceleration value that would satisfy most people? Perhaps. But some people will think it's implausible for the rank 20 master crafter working like mad for 1 day to finish a suit of full plate; some people will point out that a wizard of the same level could use accelerated crafting to make a 6th-level spell scroll in just 8 hours. Different expectations.
Again, we're talking about "how long should it take a level 10 or 20 adventurer blacksmith to craft a suit of full plate?" To which the answer probably is, "more time than any other level 10 or 20 character wants to spend not-adventuring."
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That is understandable, but then why is your reaction defending it with "google how long it takes to make armor"?Hence people's call for errata.I'm quoting the above two comments because the answer is basically the same:
Because there is strong resistance within the company of introducing "incremental design via errata" to the game. If something flat-out doesn't work, we want to fix it. But if something works pretty well, or works at lower levels but starts to break down at higher levels, we don't want to redesign that system and print it in the next book as if it were errata.
Why? Because (1) the change isn't merely fixing an error, it's introducing a new design concept, (2) doing so means that someone using the earlier, valid, version of the rule is playing differently that the later, also valid, version of the rule, and (3) changing one rule system can have unexpected consequences in other rules systems, which would then require additional errata and FAQs about the changes.
So... why is my reaction "google how long it takes to make armor"? Because at low levels, the rules pretty accurately reflect how long it should take you to make something out of "raw materials" (which aren't defined). Things get weird at level 10 or whatever, and you really need to push the limits of what a real craftsperson can do (because I don't think we have any real-world master blacksmiths who we can agree are level 10 or higher, and therefore can't really accurately gauge how fast they can craft something), yet by the time you're level 10 you're well into a high-fantasy campaign, and a level 10 PC (who has over 60,000 gp worth of gear) who wants to craft a mundane suit of armor is very, very unusual.
So... why don't we make errata for the crafting rules? Because we don't want to change sometimes-bent-but-not-broken parts of the rules via errata... especially if it's not something that has a significant impact on most campaigns.
It's not broken (I described it as bent-but-not-broken). It's just that at higher levels, it's not practical.
For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant. Also, the low-level character doesn't have any reason to be supernaturally fast at crafting, so having the crafting rules attempt to model real-world crafting times works fine.
At higher level, crafting is impractical and doesn't have a significant impact on the game because by the time you're 10th level, you have plenty of gold and magic items, and can just buy finished full plate for 1,500 gp and not worry about spending the time crafting it yourself to save 1,000 gp. You also probably have a lot better (and more profitable) things to do that sit around in town for weeks to craft your own full plate just to save gold.
Could we justify speeding up crafting for a person with 10 or 20 ranks in a Craft skill? Sure. Do we know what a fair acceleration value is? No. Could we come up with an acceleration value that would satisfy most people? Perhaps. But some people will think it's implausible for the rank 20 master crafter working like mad for 1 day to finish a suit of full plate; some people will point out that a wizard of the same level could use accelerated crafting to make a 6th-level spell scroll in just 8 hours. Different expectations.
Again, we're talking about "how long should it take a level 10 or 20 adventurer blacksmith to craft a suit of full plate?" To which the answer probably is, "more time than any other level 10 or 20 character wants to spend not-adventuring."
I do not mean to be rude when I say this, but would you please make up your mind?
You argue realism in one post... as many of us have discussed, the crafting system doesn't even come close to that. Level 10 blacksmith? They should take 3 days to make a suit of full plate, around a week to make a longsword, and generally figures like that for non-fancy weapons. That's according to people who actually make them in real life. That proves the system is incapable of matching realism on the issue, as it is not getting anywhere close to the timeframes actually seen in real life.
You then turn around and argue game balance, pointing out that a lack of realism is necessary for it.
Which one is it?
Both of those post are perfectly consistent with each other...
So... why don't we make errata for the crafting rules? Because we don't want to change sometimes-bent-but-not-broken parts of the rules via errata... especially if it's not something that has a significant impact on most campaigns.
Guys, this is pretty much /THREAD
Unless you can convince SKR that crafting is so broken as to be toxic to a large portion of PF games played, he is not budging.
You argue realism in one post... as many of us have discussed, the crafting system doesn't even come close to that. Level 10 blacksmith? They should take 3 days to make a suit of full plate, around a week to make a longsword, and generally figures like that for non-fancy weapons. That's according to people who actually make them in real life. That proves the system is incapable of matching realism on the issue, as it is not getting anywhere close to the timeframes actually seen in real life.
I think you have some of your information wrong.
Let's assume a level 1 apprentice blacksmith, with 1 rank in Craft. He has a +3 class skill bonus and a +1 Int bonus. No Skill Focus. That gives him a +5 to Craft checks.
Say he wants to make a longsword. Longsword is a martial melee weapon, so the DC is 15. It's price is 15gp, so that's 150sp.
The craft rules say you make one check a week, and multiply your check result by the DC, and if that equals the sp cost of the item, it's complete. Our apprentice can take 10 on his Craft check for a total of 15; multiply 15 by the DC of 15 to get 225sp, which is greater than the 150sp cost of the longsword, so the apprentice easily creates a longsword, without chance of failure, within a week. He could even make checks by the day, dividing his sp result by the number of days in a week, achieving 32.1sp per day of progress, which means he can actually complete a sword in 5 days (32.1 x 5 = 160sp, which is greater than 150sp for a longsword).
So of course a level 10 blacksmith can complete a longsword in a week, because a apprentice can. And with 10 ranks, +3 class skill bonus, and just a +1 Int bonus, his total is +14, which means with Take 10 his result is 24, so his weekly check is 24 x 15 = 360sp, which is double the sp value of the longsword, so he's finishing it in half the time (or making two longswords per week). Even faster if he has Skill Focus (which gives him +6 for having 10 ranks, for a total of +20, Take 10 gives him 30, weekly check is 30 x 15 = 450sp, which is 3x the longsword value, so it's done 3x as fast or he's making 3 per week).
Yeah, things get crazy with more expensive items (like full plate, and poisons, and don't get me started on how the poison costs are way too high).
But you can't complain that the rules don't allow a level 10 blacksmith to craft a longsword in a week... because they do.
Really, the problem isn't just that magic does it so well, it's that trying to do it mundanely is so slow as to be useless, with the magic alternative just adding insult to injury. At least with those other examples, it is possible to Climb things sometimes without Fly, even if Fly is easy and much better - but unless your GM timeskips forward half a decade you won't be crafting that mithral fullplate on your own.
But, ultimately, fabricate doesn't matter. It's there to enable PCs to do what they do without the rigmarole of reality killing the buzz. That's what it's for and its use is entirely optional. If you don't want to use it and have the smith make the armor with his own hands because that's what he wants the story to accomplish, then do that instead. If you want to be on a tight timeline, then crafting your own armor with any eye on realism won't work - use fabricate. The two stories - tight timeline, magnificent personal crafting - are really incompatible. One has to make narrative space for the other.
You argue realism in one post... as many of us have discussed, the crafting system doesn't even come close to that. Level 10 blacksmith? They should take 3 days to make a suit of full plate, around a week to make a longsword, and generally figures like that for non-fancy weapons. That's according to people who actually make them in real life. That proves the system is incapable of matching realism on the issue, as it is not getting anywhere close to the timeframes actually seen in real life.I think you have some of your information wrong.
Let's assume a level 1 apprentice blacksmith, with 1 rank in Craft. He has a +3 class skill bonus and a +1 Int bonus. No Skill Focus. That gives him a +5 to Craft checks.
Say he wants to make a longsword. Longsword is a martial melee weapon, so the DC is 15. It's price is 15gp, so that's 150sp.
The craft rules say you make one check a week, and multiply your check result by the DC, and if that equals the sp cost of the item, it's complete. Our apprentice can take 10 on his Craft check for a total of 15; multiply 15 by the DC of 15 to get 225sp, which is greater than the 150sp cost of the longsword, so the apprentice easily creates a longsword, without chance of failure, within a week. He could even make checks by the day, dividing his sp result by the number of days in a week, achieving 32.1sp per day of progress, which means he can actually complete a sword in 5 days (32.1 x 5 = 160sp, which is greater than 150sp for a longsword).
So of course a level 10 blacksmith can complete a longsword in a week, because a apprentice can. And with 10 ranks, +3 class skill bonus, and just a +1 Int bonus, his total is +14, which means with Take 10 his result is 24, so his weekly check is 24 x 15 = 360sp, which is double the sp value of the longsword, so he's finishing it in half the time (or making two longswords per week). Even faster if he has Skill Focus (which gives him +6 for having 10 ranks, for a total of +20, Take 10 gives him 30,...
Real-world apprentice-level sword making is typically two weeks for a shorter sword, up to three for the longer ones (like a longsword). Apprentices are not supposed to attempt anything more complicated than that. In general, it's accepted that no apprentice can make a longsword in any time less than that and that an apprentice should not even try to make it in a shorter amount of time.
I know I had not made it obvious in my post, and I apologize for that. The implication was in including it with the short amount of time that full plate also has in real life. I admit it was incredibly subtle, and I again apologize for that. I sometimes go far too subtle with what I am saying.
I will admit the system is mostly balanced from the perspective of the players buying things as it is written. A player generally should not be wearing the best armor type in the game straight out of the gate. So I can see the game balance perspective because full plate, poisons, and such are elements that, in the hands of low-level PCs, could quickly create balance issues at first level with how CR appears to be currently formulated. At high levels, this creates some minor issues, but those are issues that in general can be safely ignored (which is why the lack of errata doesn't surprise me; you have more important issues to fix than something that, really, works perfectly for the levels where it matters the most).
I just don't see the realism argument as being a good one due to the number of instances just within the gear list that realism doesn't quite match up to game mechanics.
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So... why don't we make errata for the crafting rules? Because we don't want to change sometimes-bent-but-not-broken parts of the rules via errata... especially if it's not something that has a significant impact on most campaigns.Guys, this is pretty much /THREAD
Unless you can convince SKR that crafting is so broken as to be toxic to a large portion of PF games played, he is not budging.
Bit of a shame really. Cause it would be nice to have a whole crafting thing done up. So I could set up quests and the like to go and find stuff like a silver thread of moonlight bathed in the tears of the weeping queen.. Or possibly build a cool mundane long sword with serrated edges and a poison dispensing handle
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I see your point, but:
1) We start with realism as a baseline for low-level characters because we know what normal, unexceptional humans are able to do in real life. If a low-level human in the game can't do something that a comparable person can do in real life, we have a problem.
2) The use of item category (such as "martial melee weapon") and price to determine the crafting time and DC is a shorthand intended to cover the standard items in a very small amount of space. In an ideal world, every item would have its own crafting time and DC listed as part of its description, but we didn't have the time or the space to do that in the Core Rulebook. So you get some weirdness like full plate taking half a year.
However, the game also doesn't define what the "raw materials" to make the item are. Are the "raw materials" for half-plate... metal ingots and leather, which you have to pull into wire to create your own rings to create mail, and other metal you have to hammer into buckles, and other metal you have to shape into plates, and leather bits you have to cut into your own straps? Or are the "raw materials" a box of premade rings, a box of premade buckles, a box of one-size-fits-most plates, and a box of leather straps, which you piece together and assemble a complete suit? If you think it's the former, the long crafting times aren't that unreasonable. If you think it's the latter, giving a "discount" on the crafting time is a reasonable house rule.
(We ran into something with the Star Wars d20 rules... people thought it took too long to create a blaster from raw materials... until we pointed out that the rules weren't talking about assembling a finished barrel, finished power source, finishing handgrip, finished energy regulators, and so on... it was making those components out of base materials, like metal, wood, plastic, and leather.)
Given the fact that these threads pop up at a decent rate, and you seem to have given it some thought, maybe "Ultimate Crafting" could be a future book idea? =)
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Given the fact that these threads pop up at a decent rate, and you seem to have given it some thought, maybe "Ultimate Crafting" could be a future book idea? =)
based on what what he's said in other threads, it would need to be a few years before that could come out, even if they have thought of it. To be honest, I was hoping Ultimate Equipment was going to cover some of it.
Seems there is also now dragon crafter feats out there..
Real-world apprentice-level sword making is typically two weeks for a shorter sword, up to three for the longer ones (like a longsword). Apprentices are not supposed to attempt anything higher than that. In general, it's accepted that no apprentice can make a longsword in any time less than that and that an apprentice should not even try to make it in a shorter amount of time.
I know I had not made it obvious in my post, and I apologize for that. The implication was in including it with the short amount of time that full plate also has in real life. I admit it was incredibly subtle, and I again apologize for that. I sometimes go far too subtle with what I am saying.
I will admit the system is mostly balanced from the perspective of the players buying things as it is written. A player generally should not be wearing the best armor type in the game straight out of the gate. So I can see the game balance perspective because full plate, poisons, and such are elements that, in the hands of low-level PCs, could quickly create balance issues at first level with how CR appears to be currently formulated. At high levels, this creates some minor issues, but those are issues that in general can be safely ignored (which is why the lack of errata doesn't surprise me; you have more important issues to fix than something that, really, works perfectly for the levels where it matters the most).
I just don't see the realism argument as being a good one due to the number of instances just within the gear list that realism doesn't quite match up to game mechanics.
That isn't entirely true. In a city in Germany, I don't remember which one, in order to become an apprentice Armorer the person had to submit a full suit of armor they had made. They then spent the next 4 years as an Apprentice, then 4 years as a Journeyman, then became a Master.
One thing that many people here seem to be forgetting, is that with the exception of very small towns, that blacksmith shop or armorers shop is going to have a large number of people working in it. One quote that I saw was 1 master, 1 clerk, 1 yeoman, 9 hammermen, 3 millmen/polishers, 3 locksmiths, 2 laborers and occasional apprentices.
A big problem is that with the inherited price scheme, all the prices are seemingly random, usually very high. Here is a list of prices from an armor shop in 1540: A Breastplate £1, Coat of plates £4, Harness for Field £8, Undecorated Garniture £12.6. So a Breastplate would be 50 silver in Pathfinder. Exactly what the others are in terms of Pathfinder is questionable, but the most expensive is under 650 silver.
I see your point, but:
1) We start with realism as a baseline for low-level characters because we know what normal, unexceptional humans are able to do in real life. If a low-level human in the game can't do something that a comparable person can do in real life, we have a problem.
2) The use of item category (such as "martial melee weapon") and price to determine the crafting time and DC is a shorthand intended to cover the standard items in a very small amount of space. In an ideal world, every item would have its own crafting time and DC listed as part of its description, but we didn't have the time or the space to do that in the Core Rulebook. So you get some weirdness like full plate taking half a year.
However, the game also doesn't define what the "raw materials" to make the item are. Are the "raw materials" for half-plate... metal ingots and leather, which you have to pull into wire to create your own rings to create mail, and other metal you have to hammer into buckles, and other metal you have to shape into plates, and leather bits you have to cut into your own straps? Or are the "raw materials" a box of premade rings, a box of premade buckles, a box of one-size-fits-most plates, and a box of leather straps, which you piece together and assemble a complete suit? If you think it's the former, the long crafting times aren't that unreasonable. If you think it's the latter, giving a "discount" on the crafting time is a reasonable house rule.
(We ran into something with the Star Wars d20 rules... people thought it took too long to create a blaster from raw materials... until we pointed out that the rules weren't talking about assembling a finished barrel, finished power source, finishing handgrip, finished energy regulators, and so on... it was making those components out of base materials, like metal, wood, plastic, and leather.)
You have a very good point. I had some quibbles, but my common sense stepped in and reminded me they're minor items that don't matter.
After all, it's just a game. Well, for me, at least. I understand that, for game designers, it's also a job... and you have to deal with people like me all the time, so I kinda envy your patience.
That isn't entirely true. In a city in Germany, I don't remember which one, in order to become an apprentice Armorer the person had to submit a full suit of armor they had made. They then spent the next 4 years as an Apprentice, then 4 years as a Journeyman, then became a Master.
I was talking about modern day people making it on their own, using old-style tools and methods, by themselves.
I brought up earlier that these were usually shops... and that they could manage outputs in the hundreds every week.
1) We start with realism as a baseline for low-level characters because we know what normal, unexceptional humans are able to do in real life. If a low-level human in the game can't do something that a comparable person can do in real life, we have a problem.
I agree with this. This is good. 1-3rd level model realism pretty decently. I approve.
Though it doesn't model it very well (and I say this as someone who kind of likes the crafting system despite it having issues). As others have pointed out, making a non-MWK suit of plate mail does not take months. Days is more like it.
Yet not only does it require you to basically skill focus and a set of masterwork tools (14-15 + 3 + 2 = +10) to take 10 to craft Plate Mail, it takes over 41 days to craft a mundane suit of armor.
Crafting has never worked. It just doesn't. Not at high levels. Not at low levels.
(We ran into something with the Star Wars d20 rules... people thought it took too long to create a blaster from raw materials... until we pointed out that the rules weren't talking about assembling a finished barrel, finished power source, finishing handgrip, finished energy regulators, and so on... it was making those components out of base materials, like metal, wood, plastic, and leather.)
It's funny that you should mention the SWd20 game, because one of the things I recall a friend of mine saying back in the day was how great it was that the Craft skill in SW wasn't useless. And in truth, it is a more robust system even though the basic mechanics actually work very much the same (check x multipler = progress vs price), but it also split things into complexities, gave different prerequisite tools, and perhaps most importantly allowed cooperative crafting.
It also was your Check Result x Skill Modifier. This meant that your crafting speed got much faster as you advanced. Crafting results were also by day instead of by week. For example, with a +5 modifier you can take 10 for 15 * 5 = 75 credits / day. But if your skill modifier was +10, you got 20 * 10 = 200 credits / day. As your modifier grew (through ranks, ability scores, feats, tools, etc) so too did the progress you made per day. So every level you put 1 rank into your craft skill, you were increasing both the check result AND the multiplier by +1.
So a 1st level dude might have gotten 200 credits/day done. But a 10th level with a +20 is getting 600 credits/day done. The DC was irrelevant to the crafting speed as well (it was based on tech level). So if a blaster pistol costs 500 credits (and it did), the +5 guy gets it done in 6 days. The +10 guy gets it done in 3. The +20 guy gets it less than 1.
Further, you actually combined the progress of multiple people working together. So if you have a crafter with two helper droids or apprentices, you would pool their total results together during the process. Which means if you have multiple 1st level craftsmen, you you could combine their work on the same item. In D&D/PF, you get "aid another" which is a joke. :P
That means that you could take those 75 credit guys, and if you have 4 of them working on the blaster, they can complete it in 2 days (75*4 = 600 credits).
While this system itself still isn't truly perfect (it still bases crafting time on the value of the item foremost for example; though d20 modern's craft [visual art] or [writing] are good places to begin working on rules for art objects), it's much better and was actually usable. My brother used the Craft skills extensively during our time playing SWd20. It was pretty much his thing. He wore armor and jetpacks made out of salvaged pod-racer pieces, created bombs, modded his weaponry on the ship between planets, etc, etc.
For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant.
It takes a low-level character 42 weeks to craft non-masterwork standard fullplate. Hopefully you have a spare 294 days to save that 1000gp.
For comparison, a third-level caster (comparable because even hitting the +9 needed to craft fullplate will take effort at first or second level) can save 500-1000gp per day crafting shiny things. If you want crafting to be slow as hell at low levels (and by extension at all levels), why not make a +2 Headband take two years to craft (as it would at the mundane Craft rate of progress)?
For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant.It takes a low-level character 42 weeks to craft non-masterwork standard fullplate. Hopefully you have a spare 294 days to save that 1000gp.
For comparison, a third-level caster (comparable because even hitting the +9 needed to craft fullplate will take effort at first or second level) can save 500-1000gp per day crafting shiny things. If you want crafting to be slow as hell at low levels (and by extension at all levels), why not make a +2 Headband take two years to craft (as it would at the mundane Craft rate of progress)?
Of course the caster doesn't need a full plate. Hope he likes you? The upside is your probably going to get a full plate eventually one way or another if you actually intend to wear a full plate, just sucks you have to wait for it while the other kids found their stuff pretty easy. Heck, the wizard could make himself a really fancy outfit long before you could make yours, and he's not exactly as in need of a suit of armor as you.
I dont know.....
I try to play crafters, and it seems that it is broken.
If it is "not practical" then who is making the loot that the characters find, and why are they making them....
Bit of a shame really. Cause it would be nice to have a whole crafting thing done up. So I could set up quests and the like to go and find stuff like a silver thread of moonlight bathed in the tears of the weeping queen.. Or possibly build a cool mundane long sword with serrated edges and a poison dispensing handle
Yeah an "ultimate Craftsman" type of book with advice on how to accomplish stuff like that, among others would be fantastic. But i can understand the audience for such a book would most likely be sub par :-/
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It doesn't even have to give like total instructions, but rather guidelines on how to do these things. Especially making things along the way even when you're in situations where you can't get to civilization. Like stuck on an island.
As currently, even if you're stuck on an island and surrounded by bones, you generally can't make bone weapons due to not having a place to buy 1/3 the cost in supplies.
Yeah an "ultimate Craftsman" type of book with advice on how to accomplish stuff like that, among others would be fantastic. But i can understand the audience for such a book would most likely be sub par :-/
Bit of a shame really. Cause it would be nice to have a whole crafting thing done up. So I could set up quests and the like to go and find stuff like a silver thread of moonlight bathed in the tears of the weeping queen.. Or possibly build a cool mundane long sword with serrated edges and a poison dispensing handle
I betcha the audience would increase exponentially if it included the constantly asked for Artificer class in it.
For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant.It takes a low-level character 42 weeks to craft non-masterwork standard fullplate. Hopefully you have a spare 294 days to save that 1000gp.
Why is only one person working on the armor? Traditionally, pieces of the armor would be worked on by multiple people - all eventually contributing to the whole suit. Where's the smith's apprentices, journeymen, and other subordinates? And are they being used to "aid another" and generate +2 (each) on the initial craft or are they getting their own rolls to work on components that can contribute to the whole suit? For complex products, and full plate should certainly count as complex products, that strikes me as a pretty decent way to go about getting it done faster - and adds to the simulative aspect of the rules.
As currently, even if you're stuck on an island and surrounded by bones, you generally can't make bone weapons due to not having a place to buy 1/3 the cost in supplies.
Unless you realize that you've got the 1/3 cost in supplies just lying around. You're just picking the value up off the ground rather than paying cash for it. Is this really a hiccup in the rules? Or is it a hiccup in someone slavishly sticking to the letter of the rules?
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Unless you realize that you've got the 1/3 cost in supplies just lying around. You're just picking the value up off the ground rather than paying cash for it. Is this really a hiccup in the rules? Or is it a hiccup in someone slavishly sticking to the letter of the rules?
As currently, even if you're stuck on an island and surrounded by bones, you generally can't make bone weapons due to not having a place to buy 1/3 the cost in supplies.
Kinda what I mean there. Some Dms are a little slavish to the rules and would be like "You need to spend money to do that."
Course we've also got a guy who is kinda the reverse.. He's played minecraft and stuff so much he thinks we have to go dig holes in the ground and work on digging up the ore to be able to craft.
Why is only one person working on the armor? Traditionally, pieces of the armor would be worked on by multiple people - all eventually contributing to the whole suit. Where's the smith's apprentices, journeymen, and other subordinates? And are they being used to "aid another" and generate +2 (each) on the initial craft or are they getting their own rolls to work on components that can contribute to the whole suit? For complex products, and full plate should certainly count as complex products, that strikes me as a pretty decent way to go about getting it done faster - and adds to the simulative aspect of the rules.
Per the rules, you can only have one assistant helping as you describe in a more substantive way than Aid Another. Even then the assistant needs to have a specific feat, which as a prerequisite requires them to also have at least one magic item creation feat.
So now your first-level character trying to save a buck on their (non-masterwork!) armor is also seeking out and paying wages to specialized ~casters~ (because of COURSE you need casters) in order to get your mundane armor in "only" five months. Woohoo.
Per the rules, you can only have one assistant helping as you describe in a more substantive way than Aid Another. Even then the assistant needs to have a specific feat, which as a prerequisite requires them to also have at least one magic item creation feat.
Per what rules? I'm not seeing anything under Craft that would indicate that you can only have one assistant. What's the source? Even aid another doesn't specify a limit, though it says there may be one.
Cooperative crafting certainly could speed things up by improving the craft check and doubling the value produced - which is better than either aid another or having another crafter make component pieces with a separate roll. I could imagine journeymen and master-level craftsmen working in a single franchise would be well-advised to invest in the feat.
Why is only one person working on the armor? Traditionally, pieces of the armor would be worked on by multiple people - all eventually contributing to the whole suit. Where's the smith's apprentices, journeymen, and other subordinates? And are they being used to "aid another" and generate +2 (each) on the initial craft or are they getting their own rolls to work on components that can contribute to the whole suit? For complex products, and full plate should certainly count as complex products, that strikes me as a pretty decent way to go about getting it done faster - and adds to the simulative aspect of the rules.For a low-level character, the gp cost between buying full plate for 1,500 gp and crafting it yourself for only 500 gp is very significant.It takes a low-level character 42 weeks to craft non-masterwork standard fullplate. Hopefully you have a spare 294 days to save that 1000gp.
The problem is twofold.
One, a single person can indeed make a suit of full plate without spending 41+ days doing so.
Two, having helpers doesn't change much. In the core crafting rules, you have aid-another. All participants work on the same item at the same time. Ironically, you will actually end up working SLOWER this way, because unlike in SWd20, you do not pull the overall craft check results.
So let's make a suit of plate mail with not 3 apprentices (because they cannot reliably hit the DC 19 to actually aid-another) but with 3 equally trained smiths with masterwork tools (also +9 to their checks).
Our lead smith takes 10 for 19.
Our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd assistant roll with a 55% chance to give the lead smith a +2 bonus to his check. This adds an average of +3.3 to the check result (because I'm generous, I'm going to round up to +4).
So our team gets 23 * 19 = 43.7 gp worth of gold per week.
We managed to cut the time spent to make the full plate from 41 days to 34 days.
If we had the four equal leveled professionals simply making the armor on their own, we'd produce 4 sets of plate mail in 41 days, which is four times as efficient in terms of making armor. So it takes longer to make armor with more help, relative to the amount of time you could just make the armor alone.
Now if we used the Star Wars d20 method, the result would be drastically different. As follows.
1. We set the DC to craft the armor based on complexity/tech level (DC 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc). We decide that the complexity level is DC 15 (not very complex but something that's going to take some practice).
2. We make our check result. Our master smith takes 10 for 19. We multiply the result by our skill modifier for 171 gp per day.
3. We have our apprentices take 10 for 12. We multiply the result by our skill modifier for 24 gp per day. We have 4 apprentices so the total is +96 gp per day.
4. We complete the plate mail in 5.6 days. The apprentices themselves have no realistic hope of making the armor themselves, but they can assist the master by contributing to the speed of his work, using his take 10 of 19 to ensure that the project is done correctly.