Crafting Adamantine arrows: what's the DC?

[Krodjin]

I have a question about Crafting special materials, specifically Adamantine, but the question holds for any material that has the “masterwork” component built into the cost (i.e. Mithral).

So the cost of the special material includes the masterwork cost, but the Craft skill states that you are supposed to create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item. The masterwork component even has its own cost and a DC (DC 20) which may be different than the item you are crafting.

What cost and DC would you use to craft Adamantine arrowheads for example?

Mundane arrows have a cost of 10sp for 20 of them or 0.5sp for 1, and a craft DC of 12.

Adamantine arrows have a cost of 600.5sp for 1 arrow with a craft DC of what? 20 or 12? Or something else?

[Krodjin]

Okay, I'll bump this back to the main page in hopes of getting some insight!

Maybe someone can let me know if I'm on the right track with the following examples;

Let’s say my character has a +10 Craft Skill. If he takes 10 on the check his result is 20 for 1 weeks worth of work and he pays 3.3sp in raw material cost. He succeeds at the check so we multiply 20 x 12 = 240. Since that is 24 times the cost, he has made the 20 arrows in 1/24th the amount of time? Let’s use the progress by the day formula to make it easy: 240/7= 34.3. Since that is still more than enough let’s just say he can spend a day (or part of a day) crafting 20 mundane arrows for 3.3sp. Seems reasonable and I think I followed the formula correctly.

Let’s use the same parameters for making a single Adamantine arrow (price in sp = 600.5) and use the higher DC of 20. So he takes 10 on the check and has a final result of 20. He meets the DC. He succeeds. 20 x 20 is 400. We haven’t equalled the price yet so we record the result and carry on for week 2. It’s the same as last week but because he’s doubled the price of the amount outstanding we’ll say it takes him 1.5 weeks and cost 200.17 silver pieces to make 1 Adamantine arrow.

Does that seem right? That's a long time to spend crafting...

If you've taken the time to read both of these posts and are bored enough to comment, I'll thank you in advance.

I'll go check the SRD for some form of alternative for adamantine arrows; maybe there's a 'weapon blanche' or something that mimics the effect...

[KainPen]

adamantine is considered master work, so the DC is 20 same as all master work items but for special mat is the requirement from the start becasue they can't be anything but master work. So don’t treat as separate component because it is not. Works hastily add another 5 to the dc so you can get it done a little faster. Higher the dc the faster you craft.

mundane item crafting rules take forever, and are complained a lot about on these boards, your best bet for crafting anything made out of special mats is wizard with 5th level spell fabricate. Alchemy and poison crafting is fixed only for alchemist class, but is still slow process for every other class. There lots of traits and feats to give you bonus to this craft check, and reduce the cost of crafting making it go a little faster, but without a work shop and a dozen helpers it take forever.

I would not even worry about weapon blanche they are a waste of time and money, by the time you run into stuff with enough Dr adamantine to matter, you should have a +4 weapon and go right thought it. don't add anything extra to weapon, save money get +5 and never have to worry about most dr ever again.

[Krodjin]

Thanks KainPen.

The arrows aren't actually for my PC... We're spending time in Magnimar and my character, who is a devout follower of Erastil (mechanically a Zen Archer), was going to craft a bunch of arrows (and a few Adamantine arrows) for the rest of the worshippers of Erastil that volunteer their time patrolling the streets of Magnimar.

So it's mainly an RP thing I'm doing during "down time".

So "time" is really my only constraint... It would take a lot less time if the DC for adamantine arrows was higher (say DC 32 [12 +20])... Granted I couldn't take 10, but my modifier is high enough that I wouldn't need to roll much higher than that...

[Cevah]

KainPen wrote:

Works hastily add another 5 to the dc so you can get it done a little faster. Higher the dc the faster you craft.

Right idea, wrong number.

Accelerated Crafting wrote:

You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check.

I wish you could choose the DC, then you could craft as fast as possible without risk by making the DC at your Taking-10 value. Sigh....

Ice is the only special material that is not an added cost. Adamantine, Mithral, and such that say they are masterwork will be DC 20 for the special material cost, and DC whatever for the mundane cost.

I see the special materials that list themselves as including the masterwork component as being all masterwork component that because of the expensive raw material has a different masterwork cost than normal.

On to the calculations:
Common Arrow is 20/gp. One is 5sp.
Craft DC 12 * Skill 20 = 240 sp worth / week.
240 sp / 5 sp = 48
Craft is 48 common arrows / week or ~6.86 / day or 1 hour and 10 minutes per arrow.
Adamantine adds 60gp. That is 600 sp.
Craft DC 20 * Skill 20 = 400 sp worth / week.
400 sp / 600 sp = 2/3.
Craft is 2/3 special arrow per week, or 10 days, 4 hours per arrow.
Total time is 10 days (at 8 hours each), 5 hours, and 10 minutes.
Total cost is 1/3 * 60.5 = 20.1667.

If you add Crafter's Fortune with its +5 Craft skill, the numbers total 8 days, 4 hours, and 8 minutes. for a savings of almost 30% of your time. [It is actually better, as you can now accelerate the mundane crafting to save 28 minutes!]

Get your bonus to 30 for accelerated crafting of the masterwork and it becomes 4 days, 5 hours, 45.4545 minutes. This is over 70% savings in time.

/cevah