I have a few questions regarding Craft (Alchemy), and a small rant probably so please bear with me:
Why is it that a spellcaster can craft a 7000gp item w/ a permanent bonus in one week and it may take more than one week to create an antitoxin that is only worth 50gp and a one use item? Compare that to Brew Potion which is only 2 hours for any potion under 250 gold.
What happens if my first week of progress for an antitoxin (value 500sp)is a total of 400sp, then I get the same roll the next week, can I use that extra 300sp toward another batch of antitoxin or something else?
Even with only one alchemist lab (CRB) how many items can be crafted? In Ultimate Equipment an Alchemist Lab room it says up to 3 people can use it. If it takes one week or more to create one item how is it that shops can exist?
It just seems extremely unbalanced overall. The guys in my party have been able to craft numerous magical weapons and wondrous items and in the same time period of a couple months of downtime I was able to create just a few vials of antitoxin.
Any ideas/advice would be greatly appreciated. I know about the Master Alchemist feat, I'm just looking for any other thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
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you can only craft magic items after taking a feat.
take the feat master alchemist
Prerequisite: Craft (alchemy) 5 ranks.
Benefit: You receive a +2 bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks, and you may create mundane alchemical items much more quickly than normal. When making poisons, you can create a number of doses equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) at one time. These additional doses do not increase the time required, but they do increase the raw material cost.
In addition, whenever you make alchemical items or poisons using Craft (alchemy), use the item’s gp value as its sp value when determining your progress (do not multiply the item’s gp cost by 10 to determine its sp cost).
pick up a familiar. have it take the use archetype that gives it cooperative crafting as a bonus feat.
coupled with swift crafting from 5 or so levels of alchemist, you now make a number of alchemical items equal to your int mod, in (1/10 x 1/2 x 1/2) the normal time. dont forget to cast crafters fortune for the extra +5
now make opium, and break the economy (its super easy with this build)
My suggestion, Master Craftman and Craft Wondrous Items feats instead of Master Alchemist.
Well... the why is because Magic. The slightly longer why is because they don't want anyone to just do Alchemy.
Alchemists are the only class that can do much of anything with Alchemy. Without the class features they get, it is not a feasible option for any PC. Even Alchemists take a few levels to get good at doing it.
At level 1, you gain a bonus to craft checks that grows as you level, which directly affects amount made per crafting period.
At level 3, you gain Swift Alchemy, which cuts the crafting time in half.
At level 18, you can make any alchemical item in a full round.
Add to this Master Alchemist at level 5.
I've assumed, per the prevailing (though still contested) idea that one can take 10 on craft checks.
Lets say you want to make a vial of alchemical fire, DC 20 and costs 20gp. At level 5, you have a craft alchemy score rank of 5 (ranks) + 5 (level) + 3 (trained) + 4 (int mod) + 2 (lab) = 19. You take 10 (instead of rolling you can choose the straight 10) giving you a total of 19. 19 * 20 (craft DC) = 580 sp worth of work in a week.
Now you take item value, 20gp * 10 = 200 sp. You can make one every 2.4 days. Cut that in half from Swift Alchemy = 1.2 days of crafting time to make one vial of alchemist fire. That sucks. But there are a few things we can do.
First, add 10 to the DC to make it faster. Assume from here we've got a +21 check to ensure passing the improved DC. In our above example, you can easily do that and still take 10, giving you a 31 vs a 30 dc. The calculation is 31 * 30 = 930 sp in a week. 200sp for a vial with Swift Alchemy means 0.75 days per vial! You did it in under a day (6 hours in fact)! For one vial... hmm...
But wait! Here's the best part. Master Alchemist!
It says you use the item's value instead of multiplying it by 10. You also gain +2 on the check. So as above (with a 33 check): 990 points in a week but only 20 points to craft the item... so now we have 68 minutes / 2 from alchemist double speed = 34 minutes. You make one vial in a bit over half an hour. And that is just by taking 10 with no chance of failure.
In five levels you'll have another +5 level +5 skill +1 (or more) int mod. That gives you a 32 + taking 10 = 42. You can craft 44 * 30 = 1320 in a week, so 188.57 per day. At 8 hours of crafting a day, you can do 23.57 points an hour.
Best way to handle Swift Alchemy is to cut the value of an item in half. The alchemist fire is thus worth 10 points, so you can get it in 25.5 minutes. Quite an improvement over 6 hours. Too bad this is level 11 and who needs vials of alchemical fire at this point in their career. There are more useful items, such as anti-toxin and the instant clotting items, but yeah...
Alchemy kind of sucks by the time you can use it quickly.
... When making poisons, you can create a number of doses equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) at one time. These additional doses do not increase the time required, but they do increase the raw material cost.
coupled with swift crafting from 5 or so levels of alchemist, you now make a number of alchemical items equal to your int mod, in (1/10 x 1/2 x 1/2) the normal time. dont forget to cast crafters fortune for the extra +5...
You can only make extras of the item when you're doing a poison. Something like alchemist's fire is still just 1 use per crafting.
Specifically for poisons: Poisons can either be pointless or incredibly potent. Thus, they're priced appropriately so that not everyone can get access to it.
Pathfinder 'handles' the issue in the same ways they handle alchemical items and guns: Base a class around it and then give them huge reductions in crafting costs; or make it a feat. Or some combination of both.
Although it's third-party, I use the Making Crafting Work document from Spes Magna Games.
I probably should've specified: I'm a Rogue 6/Shadowdancer 1 who has 5 ranks in Craft Alchemy (total bonus +12). We are in an area rather remote and a budding (still being built) small town so many items magic and otherwise are extremely hard to come by which is why I took the ranks so I can make stuff we normally can't get. It just doesn't seem fair that a +2/+3 bonus magic item can take less time than a tanglefoot bag if I don't roll great. I will probably end up taking Master Alchemist at 9th level but I'm just trying to find a way to balance the system.
Tossing in my $0.02. It's true that "because magic!" is a perfectly valid answer. Giving a spell-casting class that took the feat to create a certain kind of item the capability to eventually make their own +5 greatsword or Headband of Mental Superiority is fine and balanced because, A) their class let's them trade some normal capabilities for spells, B) they used up a feat, and C) because they're still spending a lot of time and money on it. Also, Alchemists rules and deserve cool stuff (completely not biased).
Now, that said, the Craft skill is kind of nuts in how it ends up working. Take the example of a level 5 expert with a total of +15 to his Craft(bowyer) skill (he took Skill Focus as a feat). A longbow costs 75 gp and has a craft DC of 12. Not a masterwork one, just a regular longbow. Assuming he takes 10 while fast-crafting (+10 to DC, total roll of 25 for the week), that's 25*22=550 sp worth of work in 7 days. So, it will take this expert 10 days to make this single item. That's 80 hours of labor by an expert in his field when using what is assumed to be workable, quality materials in a safe and appropriate environment without significant distractions and with the right tools for the job.
That is crazy. Mundane crafting shouldn't eclipse magical crafting, it shouldn't even begin to have that capability. However, this kind of system is not at all conducive to encouraging players to take the Craft skill and a major reason why I'm putting together a house-rule for accelerated mundane crafting that meets more realistic guidelines. Right now, it's something along the lines of making work per week in gp instead of sp, like Master Alchemist does. But anyways, Milliken, your concerns aren't invalid, it's just that Paizo carried over 3.5's crafting system as a measure of respect for tradition and that old thing left a lot to be desired.
A Cleric trades what, exactly? And getting phenomenal power in general isn't much of a trade. Further, crafting feats are more powerful than regular feats, so there's an imbalance there.
They are not trade-offs when you are just getting something better than what any other character would get.
I don't know, a higher BAB? More skill points? Better weapon proficiencies? Access to mutagens, bombs, and infusions? Challenge? Hide in Plain Sight? Just because it's magic, doesn't automatically make it win over a non-magical element. Also, yes, crafting feats are nice, but if your party is constantly on the move and not able to take 8-hour crafting days, your progress will be pretty severely impeded. My alchemist in our Carrion Crown game learned that the hard way post book 3.
This is a setting with magical creatures, mythic heroes, and where NON-MAGICAL acts can break the laws of physics. A 1st level character can break the Olympic Record in the long jump. So why exactly are you trying to hold any character to a real-world standard here? It's especially ridiculous if they've gained a few levels.
But see, that's exactly my point! A real world-analog expert in bow-making would have this done in a couple days, yet the game rules for the same on Golarion or whatever under Pathfinder make it considerably slower. This is in a fantastical setting where some people are expected to do the impossible without aid of magic at times, where the supernatural can be part of a day-to-day routine in the smallest, least busy of hamlets out in the woods. So, why does an expert bowyer need weeks to accomplish with his Craft check what should be a fairly quick task?
You do know that we are talking about D&D, right? With your own attitude that magical crafting should win over non-magical crafting, exactly when do you think that magical stuff shouldn't win? Shouldn't magical jumping beat non-magical? Shouldn't magical fighting beat non-magical? Etc, etc, etc?
Let's see, when shouldn't magic win? Hmmmmm...oh, I know, when the squishy wizard is backed into a corner by a golem and he doesn't have any spells prepared that'll affect it. Or when Invisibility doesn't let the sorceress off the hook with her terrible stealth check because some critter has True Sight or something similar. Or when the witch is grappled by an opponent who's really good at it and suddenly her concentration check to cast anything at all has very low odds of working. Or when the summoner gets poisoned or paralyzed because his class doesn't have a good Fort save and something to counter-act these effects isn't on his spell-list. Or when the mystic theurge isn't that quick on the draw because he put all his feats in magic item creation, meta-magics, and spell focus/penetration, so that rogue with the +15 initiative over his measly +3 easily beat him and threw six high sneak attack daggers into his flat-footed face. I could go on, but I trust this makes my case. There are plenty of times when magic will not win the fight for you. It's not the be all and end all source of power in the game, it's just really handy and cool to have.
The crafting rules are poor, but I also see no reason why the magical crafting should automatically be superior as you said.
I explained that already. The caster actually has the spells necessary to create magical items. Plus, they spent their precious feats on it. Also, it's still a lot of money out their pocket and time out of their life. I'm all for giving mundane crafting a bump in speed, but the cleric who sacks feats he might want to use to make himself more badass in order to make potions, armor, and ability score boosting items for his friends should see some more benefit for the sacrifice. It seems only fair.
if your party is constantly on the move and not able to take 8-hour crafting days, your progress will be pretty severely impeded. My alchemist in our Carrion Crown game learned that the hard way post book 3.This applies to magical and non-magical crafting alike though, and it's only half-speed so it's not like it's a show-stopping difference either.
Actually, it's 25% normal speed, since it's assumed you're only getting 4 hours total in and working at half efficiency. But basically, I made this point to show that magical crafting is not this assembly line of constant awesome-sauce. Simply because you took special feats to make cool toys, real-world concerns aren't gonna let you go and get any more hours in than the guy in the party who's relying on just his Craft ranks and some tools.
If you want to double your crafting time while adventuring you can probably get away with doing it while the party is sleeping if you get a ring of sustenance.
That would work, but what we did was funnier. The alchemist and ranger used left-over infusions of Lesser Restoration to go nights without sleep in order to craft. See, we were poor at first and either couldn't afford those rings or always got to the shop right as the last one was sold, it seemed. Anyways, the alchemist was quite at night, but the ranger's repeated hammering and otherwise loudness while crafting meant people had to either drink themselves to sleep, put in earplugs, or just wait and sleep in the wagon on the road during the day here and there. If the ranger wasn't such a darn good cook, he would have been in serious trouble with the living buzz-saw of a two-weapon fighter we had and the always dangerously-high and/or angry cleric.
At least nothing TOO lethal tried to ambush the party at night during those times.
Crafting in D&D has always been horridly imbalanced, across the board. It needs a serious overhaul. Specifically, crafting magical items should be available to casters and non-casters alike. Non-casters should not need a feat tax (master craftsman) just to be on par as a caster.
Craft Wondrous Item is FAR too broad of a category, and worth more than any other feat in the game for a wizard or cleric for the sole reason that you immediately get most of your support items at half cost.
Perhaps add a way to use special materials to replace spells, so a cloak of displacement might require a hide of a displacer beast INSTEAD of Blur, etc. That flaming sword might require "fire salts" added to the forge, and quenched in fire giant blood, etc. The rules can even be somewhat generic, to allow a DM to easily adjust it for their campaign.
I truly wish non-casters could compete with casters for crafting magical items. Dwarven smiths in literature have a reputation for crafting legendary weapons and armor (as well as other things), but the system makes that nigh impossible, unless your also playing a caster, which is also against the racial stereotype (granted, I do love playing dwarven wizards).
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Non-casters should not need a feat tax (master craftsman) just to be on par as a caster.
Even worse, a non-caster with Master Craftsman is not even on par with a caster after spending an extra feat.
Master Craftsman only allows you to craft items using one craft skill. A caster with Craft Magic Arms & Armour can make swords, bows, and armour all using the Spellcraft skill. A Master Craftsman has to pick whether he can use Craft (Weapons), Craft (Bows), or Craft (Armour) to make magic items, which means he can only make about 1/3 of the variety of items that the caster can even after the feat tax. Similarly, Craft Wondrous Items can involve Craft (clothing), (jewelry), (leather), and a handful of other skills. And since the Master Craftsman can only take Master Craftsman once and only apply it to one skill, they can't even take ranks in multiple craft skills to make a wider variety of items. And that's on top of higher DCs for lacking spell pre-requisites.
Non-casters should not need a feat tax (master craftsman) just to be on par as a caster.Even worse, a non-caster with Master Craftsman is not even on par with a caster after spending an extra feat.
Well, as a prepared caster anyways. A sorcerer or oracle is likely going to have almost as tough a time with crafting due to the limited nature of their spell selection. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Personally, I still think the crafting capability granted by Master Craftsman should rank you a bit below the magic item crafting capability of even a spontaneous caster. Reason being, it's still awesome that sufficiently focused dude with hammer + forge + much banging + time = magic stuff!
Master Craftsman only allows you to craft items using one craft skill. A caster with Craft Magic Arms & Armour can make swords, bows, and armour all using the Spellcraft skill. A Master Craftsman has to pick whether he can use Craft (Weapons), Craft (Bows), or Craft (Armour) to make magic items, which means he can only make about 1/3 of the variety of items that the caster can even after the feat tax. Similarly, Craft Wondrous Items can involve Craft (clothing), (jewelry), (leather), and a handful of other skills. And since the Master Craftsman can only take Master Craftsman once and only apply it to one skill, they can't even take ranks in multiple craft skills to make a wider variety of items. And that's on top of higher DCs for lacking spell pre-requisites.
Huh, I completely missed that Master Craftsman can only be taken once. Well, I need to re-evaluate my stance on this matter a little bit, as that feat is in need of some revisions either officially or via house-rules.