Repair DC for masterwork

[x PolloDiablo x]

I feel dumb asking this but my group had an argument last night about the actual DC to repair a characters masterwork heavy mace. He argued it was a DC of 12 and I said it was a DC of 20.

His argument:"You can repair an item by making checks against the same DC that it took to make the item in the first place." So since the weapon is a DC 12 to make before anything else it should be a DC 12 at a cost of 62.4 gold.

My argument: since the masterwork is now a part of the item as a whole (To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished.) making one item that it would be the highest DC since you must fix not only the base components but the masterwork ones, i.e. the whole item. So should be a DC 20 at 62.4 gold.

Looked high and low and couldn't find one answer that said it definitively so came here for the answer.

[Joey Cote]

Since the masterwork is part of the weapon, made into the weapon at the time of creation, I would say that the DC is 20 and the cost would be 1/5th of the total value of the weapon. But mend fixes this infinitely easier.

[alexd1976]

Or have one of the casters use Mending on it...

Faster and free.