Crafting adamantine? Is this right?

[a shadow]

I have a player who wants to craft adamantine full-plate and below is what I've gathered from the Crafting rules. Are my calculations correct?

We have 4 steps:
1) Find the item's price in silver.
16,500gp = 165,000sp

2) Find the items DC from the table.
The Craft DC is 10+armor bonus = DC 19.

3) Pay 1/3 of the item's price in raw materials.
16,500 * .33 = 5,445 gp

4) Make a Craft check. Ok- this is where I'm lost...
According to the rule, you make a Craft(armor) check against DC 19.
If the player Takes 10, they get a 27.
This check result succeeds so multiply it by the DC (27 * 19 = 513).
513 represents a single WEEK worth of work.
If 513 exceeds the price of the item in sp (165,000) then the item is completed. It doesn't.
So after one week of work, there is still 164,487 worth of work to go.

So with a weekly Craft (armor) check of 27, it will take my player 321 WEEKS worth of work to complete this single item.

Does that sound right? Am I missing something?

[Adjule]

That sounds about right. Or you can get a 9th level wizard (or cleric with the Artifice domain) with the Fabricate spell and can have it made in about 1 minute.

Many threads have been made about the absurdity of the craft rules. There's a 3pp book, I can't remember who published it, called "Making Craft Work" or some such, which was supposed to improve the rules. Not sure, as I don't have it.

[ryric]

It takes a very long time to make expensive things. The craft system works ok for things in the 10-50 gp range, and is somewhat impractical for expensive things. It's also very off for small, expensive things like jewelry.

But really, you are looking at probably the most difficult to work material in the game, adamantine, and making a set of full plate armor with it. You've got a decent smith with a +17 bonus, but he's working alone. Give him just one helper apprentice and he can take the option to add 10 to the DC, letting him make 847 in weekly progress and shaving over 2 years off the project.

Let's look at a really good smith: +30 isn't unreasonable for a high level smith with Skill Focus. Give him a small army of 20 apprentices. Give him masterwork tools. Now he has a +72 to his check. 82*29 = 2378 in weekly progress. This guy finishes it in 70 weeks. If the GM allows the +10 DC to be applied more than once (a very common houserule) he can make 82*79 = 6478 per week, which makes the super-armor in 26 weeks. Still a very long time, but we are talking about probably the most difficult armor project imaginable.

[reyyvin]

a shadow wrote:

I have a player who wants to craft adamantine full-plate and below is what I've gathered from the Crafting rules. Are my calculations correct?

Does that sound right? Am I missing something?

sort of.

First, there is the base armor of 1500 gp.

There is also a "masterwork component," which is DC 20. All adamantine armor/weapons are masterwork, so the entire 15k for the adamantine may be at the higher DC.

The player can also voluntarily increase the DC by 10. They can also employ apprentices to aid them (aid other action). They cost money, but if you get a huge workshop going, your player can get it done much faster. DC 30 and 10 aids = 30*37= 1110, which is twice as fast.

This is why you buy your fancy armor; adventures should be questing, not stuck at the forge.

or get a caster to use Fabricate

remember, adamantine is an extremely hard, extremely dense metal... much more difficult to work with then normal steel.

In "real life," suits of full plate armor took quite a long time to make; this varied considerably based on location (how many apprentices a smith was allowed) and other commissions. Work for some parts was often subcontracted, so a suit of armor may have been "crafted" by several smiths, each contributing a piece, which in turn may have been made by their apprentices...

**edit** doh, ninja

[Oterisk]

The feat Cooperative Crafting can double the amount you can craft in a mundane way. Since anyone can get it as long as they have one rank in a craft skill and an item creation feat, this makes the most effective way below level 9 and fabricate to make mundane items is to be level 7 and take leadership. I imagine that the doubling works like other multiples and simply adds the multiplier. Two assistance would triple your speed, three would quadruple it.

[Paul Zagieboylo]

Adjule is right. When Wizards of the Coast originally designed these Craft rules for D&D 3.0, they didn't really expect anyone to use them, ever. As a result, they... don't really work. At all. Ever. Paizo didn't change it because in the early days of Pathfinder they wanted to stay as compatible as possible, and this utter failure of a craft system isn't, in the long run, especially important to adventurers, except for gnomes using the Master Tinker alternate racial trait.

The pamphlet Adjule was trying to remember is indeed "Making Craft Work", by Spes Magna Games, and you can buy it right here on Paizo from http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ffg?Making-Craft-Work. It's only 8 pages, but on the other hand it's only one dollar. It's not perfect, but it's better than the built-in system. This may seem to be damning with faint praise, and it is, but still, worth a read.

[Xexyz]

Adjule wrote:

Many threads have been made about the absurdity of the craft rules. There's a 3pp book, I can't remember who published it, called "Making Craft Work" or some such, which was supposed to improve the rules. Not sure, as I don't have it.

I never realized the crafting rules were this illogical. So something that's more difficult to make takes less time to make?

I know Pathfinder's a combat adventure game and not a production simulation, so I'll take it with a grain of salt that the crafting rules will be imperfect, but more difficult items taking less time to complete is a pretty big and basic error.

[Scythia]

Adjule wrote:

Many threads have been made about the absurdity of the craft rules.

This thread illustrates the absurdity particularly well. Literally ideal circumstances, and every possible bonus.

[a shadow]

Thanks for all your replies.

Wouldn't it make more sense to craft a magical +1 adamantine full-plate then?
The base cost is 17,500 gold pieces.
So to craft that it would take 17 days but a non-magical version is approximately 300 weeks... Perfectly logical...

[Paul Zagieboylo]

No, because in order to craft the magical item, you must first have the mundane masterwork item fully made. The "magical crafting time" is just for the enchantment. In this case it still takes the 6 years or so to make the ordinary thing, and then a couple more weeks to enchant it.

[a shadow]

Seriously? I think I've been running this whole crafting thing all wrong...

Craft Magic Arms and Armor should probably be renamed to Enchant Arms and Armor...

[shadowkras]

IMO, the +15000 gp for adamantine shouldnt get calculated into the formula like that, they need a special rule for crafting with special materials.
That extra cost isnt related to how hard it is to handle, but the rarity of the material.

[Kirth Gersen]

a shadow wrote:

Craft Magic Arms and Armor should probably be renamed to Enchant Arms and Armor...

Renamed, maybe, but not to that. Enchantment includes [charm] and [compulsion] spells, both of which are mind-affecting. Arms and armor tend to be mindless, and hence cannot be charmed or compelled -- i.e., cannot be enchanted.

That said, I personally think the smithing or whatever and the magically imbuing really should be combined. For one thing, it would encourage people to invest in Craft skills.

[maouse]

...and now you know why only Dwarves craft items out of sky stone... seriously, this is not even something Humans are supposed to be able to work. I really have no problem with it taking YEARS for a mere mortal to craft something out of space ship skin in the age of iron (and barely steel). On the other hand, you can pray to the dark dwarven gods and maybe the Anvil out of the player's guide will "come to you" and "help you" craft something (at the low low cost of your mortal coil).