If you could read past the title, I commend you and invite you to read on under the provision that you should probably have me brought behind the barn and shot for my orthographic wrongdoing.
In the absence of aids like fabricate in pathfinder, crafting breaks down if you ever try to make anything remotely valuable. Assuming an NPC craftsmen, for example, with maybe a +13 rating (+3 class, +3 Rank, +3 Skill Focus, +2 ability, +2 Mwk Tools), you're looking at something like 24 weeks for a mithral shirt. This would seem fine for an NPC except that it only represents a profit of (1100/2-1100/3)/24 = 1100/(6*24) = about 7.5 gold per week. This is less than he'd get exploiting profession checks with an equivalent modifier, with the added burden that he has to put money down on the investment and he (nominally in this case because of taking 10) risks failure and ruining his materials. So it's bad for NPC craftsmen.
However, it's worse for adventurers who want to occasionally dabble in crafting. They simply can't devote half a year (or much, much more) to crafting their own goods. An extreme example is the alchemist, who, despite being able to make multiple more powerful explosives for free each day, requires multiple full days of work to make a single alchemist's fire until the party level is high enough for them to have lost their utility. If he ever tries to craft a decent poison, he might as well wait for retirement before using it.
I know there's a master alchemist feat. It makes one type of crafting tolerable. What I intend to propose should make at crafting attractive enough to warrant a dip rank or two.
A Modest Proposal: Log-Scale Crafting
Pay 1/3 raw materials up front. Make a craft check daily.
A successful Craft Check enables you to make one progress increment, equal to your craft modifier or half the remaining cost, whichever is higher.
- Failure by 4-: makes no progress
- Failure by 5+ means pay 1/2 raw materials cost again, double progress (in gold) required to finish.
- For each 5 by which you beat the craft DC, make one more progress increment.
Example: Assume we have an L3 Armorer. 3 Ranks, Masterwork tools, Int 14, Skill focus. Modifier +13. He wants to make Masterwork Plate Armor. Since the Masterwork DC and the base Armor Craft DC are similar, we'll roll them together. 1650. Up-front cost 550. Taking 10, he makes one progress increment "tic" per day. 1650->825->413->207->104->52->26->13->0. 8 Days. If he's following the same resale rules the PC's are, he sells for 825 for a profit of 275.
Example: Assume we have a PC who dabbles in smithing. 1 rank, 13 int, and we'll assume he can at least borrow masterwork tools. Modifier +6. He can't do anything masterwork without risking that he'd never finish for flubbing so frequently, but he can at least go for a breastplate. Cost 200, pays 67 up-front. One tic per day if he takes 10. 200->100->50->25->13->7->4->0. 7 Days.
Note: The system penalizes low modifiers: You can't reach for DC's beyond your modifier+10 because you have no guarantee you'll ever finish. On the other hand, if you can push a modifier through the roof (like alchemists and their alchemy), you can start to turn out mundane, less expensive items at a pretty ridiculous clip.
Example: Assume L6 Alchemist, No Skill Focus, Int 18. Full ranks in Craft (Alchemy). Modifier 3+6+3+4 = 16. He can never fail to make Alchemical Fire by more than 4, so he does not risk ruining progress. Rolling normally, if you do the math, he makes one (two with swift alchemy) per day instead of the one (two with swift alchemy) per week he'd make under the current system.
The main benefit of this system is making crafting viable in terms of long-term time economy for PCs; it is now very possible to create simpler items in days off during adventures (i.e. rope and cheaper alchemicals could be fashioned in a day) and more complex items in the weeks between adventures (e.g. Mithral Plate would take 11 days at a +10 modifier instead of 5 years)
Full Disclosure: This idea was developed for use with an E6 campaign, where an L3 NPC smith is roughly equivalent to "Master Smith", and an L6 NPC smith would be "Smith of the GODS." The halving figure is calibrated towards this, and could be changed to any other multiplier on (0, 1) to accommodate a different range of crafting modifiers. We only have one crafter, an alchemist, in the campaign currently, and it's been useful for him to be able to concoct alchemicals on a daily basis in downtime without seeming ridiculous. So far.
Medieval and simulated medieval armor shops and other craftsmen did NOT work alone. Those shops would have anywhere from 10 to 20 or more people working in them. The Mastercraftsman is going to have journeymen and apprentices aiding him in making what ever it is he is making. The apprentices are working for a pittance, usually room & board and a few coppers, the journeymen for a salary.
So that armorer with his assistants makes that Mithral shirt in 10 days. Voluntarily adding 10 to the DC and an average of +10 from his assistants. Not the 24 weeks you have. That gives the armorer a gross profit of over 18 gold per DAY, of which he has to pay his 5 or 6 workers and himself. Even if he pays them 2 gold per day and has 6 workers, that leaves him with a profit of over 44 gold per week and his employees each making 14 gold per week.
If you can get your hands on it the 2nd edition D&D warrior Handbook had some great tables listing the time to craft various items including. We modified these a bit when we played 2nd edition. Realistic? No, but we wanted the game to move along.
The bellow is what we used for 2nd edition. You can tell by the weapon speed (am I the only one who misses weapon speed?). We had a crit system in place so if you crit on a crafting check we had a chart you could roll on and good things ensued. I can post the chart if you wish.
Converting it to PF is on my too do list.
We broke down crafting down into 4 types
Poor: Poor quality weapons are shabbily made. They look bad, and like the flawed weapons described above, they break on a natural attack roll of 1 to 5. They don't hit as well (this is a penalty to the attack roll) or do as much damage (penalty to the damage) as their average-quality equivalents. Poor crafting might be used when time is an issue. Maybe the player needs to outfit a group of villagers with weapons but he only has a week. If a player rolls a critical success when crafting a poor item the item in question gets moved up to average quality.
Poor
* Skill check +5
* ½ construction time
* A missed roll makes the item useless.
Average: Average quality weapons are not especially notable; they get the job done, they're reliable, and they're inexpensive. Average quality is what you might see given to a military outfit. If a player rolls a critical success when crafting a Average item the item in question gets moved up to fine quality.
Average
* Skill check
* Standard construction time
* A roll missed by 5 drops the quality to poor. A roll missed by more than 5 means the item is destroyed and unusable.
Fine: Fine quality weapons are very well-made, a worthy weapon for an adventurer. They also cost twice that of average weapons. Enchantments are typically made on weapons of at least Fine quality. When crafting an exceptional item the player needs to determine one aspect of its creation he is trying hard to focus on. He can choose from a +1 to hit, +1 to damage, or a –1 to speed. This bonus is not magical; it comes from improved balance, sharpness, etc. If a player rolls a critical success when crafting a fine item he/she gets to roll on the critical success chart.
Fine
* Skill check –3
* Standard construction time X 2
* A roll missed by 1-5 drops the quality to average. A roll missed by 6-10 makes the item poor quality. A roll missed by 11 or more renders the item useless.
* Player must declare what ability he would like this item to have.
+1 to hit, + to damage or -1 to speed
Exceptional: Exceptional quality weapons are like fine weapons, but they may have multiple bonuses depending on how much time the player spends on the item in question: They might be +1 to attack rolls, +1 to damage and –2 speed. Each additional bonus must be rolled for. However the crafter may add his margin of success into his/her next proficiency check. It takes much more time to craft an exceptional weapon. Each additional bonus the crafter is attempting adds days to the crafting. The additional days are based off the average construction time. Please note the example below. A failed roll is days waisted. They are very expensive as only the finest of materials are used. This type of weapon is reserved for items worthy of a lord or King. If a player rolls a critical success when crafting a exceptional item the item they are granted a +5 on there next roll. In addition the player may roll of the critical success chart.
Exceptional
* Skill check –5
* Standard construction time X each bonus the crafter is trying to achieve. Roll for each one.
* For the 1st initial crafting stage a roll missed by 1-2 drops the item down to fine. It can be worked no further. A missed roll of 3-5 drops the quality to average. A roll missed by 6-10 makes the item poor quality. A roll missed by 11 or more takes the item down to quick quality. A fumble reders the item useless
* Crafter may add the margin of success from his/her last roll to the next profic-iency check
* Player must declare what ability he would like this item to have. +1 to hit, + to damage, or-2 to speed
Weapon Type Poor Average Fine Exceptional
Arrowhead 30/day 20/day 10/day 2/day
Battle Axe 2 days 4 days 7 days 15 days
Hand Axe 1 day 2 days 4 days 7 days
Dagger 1 day 2 days 4 days 7 days
H. Crossbow 4 days 7 days 15 days 30 days
L. Crossbow 3 days 5 days 10 days 20 days
Fork, Trident 4 days 7 days 15 days 30 days
Spear, Lance 2 days 4 days 10 days 20 days
Short Sword 4 days 7 days 15 days 30 days
Long Sword 5 days 6 days 20 days 40 days
Sword 7 days 15 days 30 days 60 days
What you have looks really interesting. I like how you incorporated failure into the cost and time.
Medieval and simulated medieval armor shops and other craftsmen did NOT work alone. Those shops would have anywhere from 10 to 20 or more people working in them. The Mastercraftsman is going to have journeymen and apprentices aiding him in making what ever it is he is making. The apprentices are working for a pittance, usually room & board and a few coppers, the journeymen for a salary.
So that armorer with his assistants makes that Mithral shirt in 10 days. Voluntarily adding 10 to the DC and an average of +10 from his assistants. Not the 24 weeks you have. That gives the armorer a gross profit of over 18 gold per DAY, of which he has to pay his 5 or 6 workers and himself. Even if he pays them 2 gold per day and has 6 workers, that leaves him with a profit of over 44 gold per week and his employees each making 14 gold per week.
Except that adding 10 to the DC only gets you to progressing about 90gp (30 result * 30 DC / 10 sp/gp) per week, so it'll take 12 weeks instead of 25. To make a mithral shirt in 10 days under the old rules, you need a modifier of about +90 (90*90/7=1100, result's in sp, so 110 gp/day).
The accelerated crafting rules, for a more reasonable single DC increase, only get you about a halving of time, and your scenario tacks on overhead for the craftsman. Yes, he pays a pittance, but when your profit margin is about 1/6th of the item's final price, you're feeding and housing however many people on 15 gp/week. More importantly, for campaigns where the players are crafting, it adds a lot of paper logistics that certain DM's (like yours truly) and certain players (like those of yours truly) don't want to deal with.As I said, the main thrust of the idea is to make crafting viable for players, who don't necessarily have 12 weeks and the means to house and feed four or five workers during said time. If I were to change anything about the system, it'd probably just be tinkering with the multiplier.
Edit: On second thought, there is a strong case to be made for increasing the DCs of certain items/materials. Having a +10 modifier, 6000 gold, and two weeks should not entitle one to mithral/adamantine full plate. I think the main thrust here is that some special materials should be harder to work than your typical masterwork component, and procurement of rarer materials might need to factor in.
In other news, I'll be posting a custom poisoncraft system soon that tries to generate formulas for the cost/craft DC of poisons that generates poisons nearly equivalent to those in the core, but also allows augmented versions if you've got the money and skill to handle it.