I'm making one of my first characters that uses a craft skill for more than just flavor and I had a few questions about how it all works.
1) Would you recommend it? A feat for a crafting skill is kind of costly but half price magic items seems well worth to me.
2) Whats the rule on upgrading things with craft? i have +1 bracers and i can make +2 for 2k from scrap so what if i just make my +1 into +2 do i still pay 2k or less?
3)What would you rule on if crafting was interrupted? like after 3 hours of crafting i get attacked and have to stop would i still lose half my mats as a failure or would it just count as 3/8 hours of work done?
4)Would I have to be in a town to craft or would I be able to carry the supplies to craft with me?
5)Do I need any special tools for crafting them? I saw craft alchemy had an alchemist table does craft Wondrous have something similar?
6)Do I take any penalties while crafting? This is mostly Aimed towards perception as my character is ideally crafting while keeping watch.
7)Would I be able to craft while under the effects of the Keep Watch Spell or would the crafting cancel the spell?
8)Is taking 10 allowed, Would taking 20 waste half my mats?
9)Do I need to take the craft feat and the craft skill? If not what would I level up to make higher dcs?
Any tips or ideas about taking this would also be appreciated since I'm still figuring everything out, thanks.
1) Would you recommend it? A feat for a crafting skill is kind of costly but half price magic items seems well worth to me.
a few feats and your entire party gets a good discount on all their special stuff. that's for you to decide.
2) Whats the rule on upgrading things with craft? i have +1 bracers and i can make +2 for 2k from scrap so what if i just make my +1 into +2 do i still pay 2k or less?
you take the difference of the price of the two items, and use that as your crafting base cost. so like a +1 weapon = 2k, a +2 weapon = 8k, so upgrading from +1 to +2 is a cost of 6k, which is halved to 3k.
3)What would you rule on if crafting was interrupted? like after 3 hours of crafting i get attacked and have to stop would i still lose half my mats as a failure or would it just count as 3/8 hours of work done?
ask GM, I'd go 3/8 progress.
4)Would I have to be in a town to craft or would I be able to carry the supplies to craft with me?
ask your GM, as travel is based on 8 hours of travel, 8 hours of derping around, and 8 hours of rest. you could easily use your derping around time to craft.
5)Do I need any special tools for crafting them? I saw craft alchemy had an alchemist table does craft Wondrous have something similar?
there is no craft wonderous item skill,
The most common Craft skills are alchemy, armor, baskets, books, bows, calligraphy, carpentry, cloth, clothing, glass, jewelry, leather, locks, paintings, pottery, sculptures, ships, shoes, stonemasonry, traps, and weapons.
I believe all magic crafting uses spellcraft. and yes, every skill has a toll you can use, and a masterwork version. craft and a few others specifically need tools though I believe.
6)Do I take any penalties while crafting? This is mostly Aimed towards perception as my character is ideally crafting while keeping watch.
possibly a unfavorable conditions modifier, if your GM is being pedantic, but otherwise none specifically.
7)Would I be able to craft while under the effects of the "Keep Watch" Spell or would the crafting cancel the spell?http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/k/keep-watch
I'd say no, it seems to suggest keeping watch is all you can do.
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Most of your questions are answered in the Magic Item Creation Section of the PRD but I'll help answer here too for your convenience (it can be alot to sort through for sure). Sorry in advance, this is a massive post.
1) Would you recommend it? A feat for a crafting skill is kind of costly but half price magic items seems well worth to me.
This tends to be very campaign-dependent. Because of the whole "adventuring caster only puts in 2 hours of progress" thing that Brf mentioned, any big expensive stuff is going to take a long time to make if your campaign doesn't have much/any downtime. If it's the kind of adventure where you rush right from one thing to another, you might want to consider Brew Potion or Scribe Scroll, but you'll find for more expensive stuff in that kind of campaign the item you're making will be outdated by the time you finish making it (that 4k bracers of armor +2 will take 16 days to make, which in non-stop no-travel instances you could have gained two or three levels).
On the other hand if you're in a campaign where you travel for long periods of time or, even better, have days to weeks of straight-up downtime between adventures, making all your own magic items effectively doubles the amount of money your party has, which can arguably turn out to be a better feat investment than many combat feats.
2) Whats the rule on upgrading things with craft? i have +1 bracers and i can make +2 for 2k from scrap so what if i just make my +1 into +2 do i still pay 2k or less?
As Band said, it's the difference between the current item and the item you're upgrading it into. In your specific instance, it would cost you 1.5k.
3)What would you rule on if crafting was interrupted? like after 3 hours of crafting i get attacked and have to stop would i still lose half my mats as a failure or would it just count as 3/8 hours of work done?
That unfortunately is not mentioned in the crafting rules and so would be up to GM interpretation. Realistically you could say that you either go with whatever progress you made and can continue later in the day, or that the time is wasted and you lose the materials you used for that time/day (anywhere between the 37.5 for that 3 hours in the field at half progress to 500 for a dedicated day of work in town).
4)Would I have to be in a town to craft or would I be able to carry the supplies to craft with me?
Brf's note is correct. You can carry supplies with you to craft but you only work for 4 hours a day, during random breaks in the action, and it only counts for half as much (for 2 hours and 250g worth of progress per day). Your GM could rule for realism's sake that you have to buy your materials in town before deciding on a project should you be heading out and working in the field, although other GMs simply don't care enough, similar to stocking up on expensive material components for spells such as Raise Dead.
5)Do I need any special tools for crafting them? I saw craft alchemy had an alchemist table does craft Wondrous have something similar?
No special tools are needed nor exist by RAW, though if you happen to have a craft that'll help with that particular item, using the masterwork tools for that skill will give you a bonus on your final skill check.
Remember that Craft Wondrous Items is a feat, not a skill. The skill you use for crafting any magic item per the rules is Spellcraft, DC 5+item's CL, made at the end of the crafting time. You are also allowed to use another craft skill that your GM deems is appropriate to that item. While the other crafting feats are pretty easy to determine (craft: weaponsmith for magic weapons, alchemy for potions), wondrous items are far too varied to fall under any one skill--conceivably every listed craft could be used for a few of the wondrous items throughout all the published books, but none could be used for all of them. Just stick with Spellcraft and you'll be fine.
6)Do I take any penalties while crafting? This is mostly Aimed towards perception as my character is ideally crafting while keeping watch.
This isn't mentioned specifically in the crafting rules, but it wouldn't be entirely out of line for your GM to say that crafting on your watch to count as "Creature making the check is distracted" in the perception rules, which increases the DC of perception checks by 5. There are ways to help yourself out in that regard (although less common since from your link looks like you're a magus) such as an Alarm spell or having a familiar to stand watch with you.
On a side note, if you do decide to get yourself a familiar and you want to go with the magic item creation route, I would highly suggest giving it the Valet familiar archetype. From the get go this lets it give you a +2 on your craft check at the end of item creation as well as doubling your progress every day. Arguably, because it gains all the item creation feats and skill ranks you do it could do a fair amount of your item creation for you (keeping in mind since its intelligence will be a negative modifier for awhile it won't be able to make very powerful items on its own).
7)Would I be able to craft while under the effects of the Keep Watch Spell or would the crafting cancel the spell?
The description of the spell is somewhat vague so it'll be up to GM interpretation. If I were GM'ing I would rule that you would be allowed to use it for crafting, thus being able to put in the total 8 hours but still having the half progress for crafting while being out adventuring (and remember regardless of how much free time you have you can only work on it for 8 hours per day). However, I do know I tend to be very generous with rulings as a GM, and I wouldn't argue if a GM ruled that crafting counted as too "strenuous" for the spell.
8)Is taking 10 allowed, Would taking 20 waste half my mats?
Taking 10 is allowed, taking 20 is not. Reasoning: Taking 10 is allowable any time you are not in a particularly stressful situation (such as combat), and crafting *requires* you to be in a non-stressful environment. Taking 20 is not allowed any time there is a definite consequence for failure--in this case, failing to create the item (or creating a cursed item if you fail badly enough) and losing materials. Even if you could, remember that taking 20 means taking 20 times as long. If you're out adventuring during your crafting process, do you really want to take 320 days to create those +2 bracers of armor?
9)Do I need to take the craft feat and the craft skill? If not what would I level up to make higher dcs?
Guess I already covered that. You need the Craft Wondrous Item feat (or other magic item creation feat if you're going to make weapons, armor, etc) and the Spellcraft skill, DC5+item's CL--it mentions the item CL in its description. Also, each magic item generally requires one or more spells in its creation, listed in the Construction section at the bottom of each item's description. Note that you can make the item without having that spell prepared (yes, prepared not just known, unless you're a spontaneous caster) but it increases the DC by 5.
Any tips or ideas about taking this would also be appreciated since I'm still figuring everything out, thanks.
My main suggestion is, if you do go with the item creation, pump up your Spellcraft skill like crazy. You should always be taking 10 instead of rolling to make sure that you don't waste thousands of gold on a single crappy dice roll, so it's easy enough to look at the CL and any requirements you don't have to figure out the DC and whether or not you'll make it at your current skill. If taking 10 will beat the DC by 5 or more, remember there is also the option to double your progress by increasing the DC by 5. If you combine this with my previous Valet familiar suggestion, this means you make 1k worth of progress per day while out adventuring or 4k worth per day during in-town downtime. Yes, by the wording of their descriptions, they do stack--technically one halves the time required while the other doubles your progress speed.
If you know ahead of time you're going to be making something you're a few points shy of making the skill check for, it may be worth it to grab a scroll of Crafter's Fortune or two (or better yet, ask your party wizard to cast it on you, should you have one). It costs you 25 gold for the first-level spell, but saves you thousands when compared to buying the item from a store. Of course, if you're making the DC already, you can always use this to do the speed-up option. Remember that the skill check only has to be made at the very end of the crafting process, so you can have the spell cast on you on the last day for it to take full effect (though the speeding-up +5 to DC option has to be picked at the beginning of the process).
Alright thanks for all the help and advice, really cleared a lot up for me.