A few questions about crafting

[applecat144]

For the first time I'm trying a character that will be able to craft weapons and armors, as I wanted to play this and figured out it would be helpfull for the party to have someone able to create usefull gears.

My character isn't only a craftman as he's now a level 6 human gunslinger with most of his feats directed toward combats. However he got +4 int which allows to pick up some skills after you maxed perception and acrobatics. My forging skills are now maxed and I have master craftsman and masterwork tools to give me together a +4 bonus so for a level 6 character I don't think I can do much more.

But my concern is about the rules of crafting weapons and armors, and more precisely the time it takes to do so.

According to the rules I can find online this is how it works.

Quote:

The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check result, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

Find the item’s price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
Find the item’s DC from Table: Craft Skills.
Pay 1/3 of the item’s price for the raw material cost.
Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.

Let's say, to make an exemple, that I want to craft a Rapier that is 20 gp.

20 gp is 200 sp. We'll assume I have collected the materials. According to the table the DC for a martial weapons is 15, so I roll my dice for one week of work. Let's say I roll 10 (average) and add my bonus (+15) so the result is 25. I succeeded, so now I multiply the DC by my check result : 15 x 25 = 375 which is more than 200 so I successfully made the rapier in roughly 4 days of work.

Am I right ? Is it how it works ?

If yes, then here come the troublesome part :

Quote:

You can make a masterwork item: a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield, see Equipment for the price of other masterwork tools) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials.

Now assuming that everything I've made before was right, imagine that I instead want to make a masterwork rapier.

The price of a masterwork rapier is 320 gp which makes for 3200 sp, DC is 20 so again we'll assume I roll average (10) and add my bonus of +15 to make a 25.

25 x 20 = 500, so in one week I made a progress of 500 over 3200 which is roughly 15%. In other words, to create a "simple" longswords (so before even thinking of being able to enchant it) it'll take me more than 6 weeks !

And this is for a single, simple weapon of only one party member. If someone wants a crossbow it'll take me half a year to make it. I know that making a sword can't be done between 2 tea sips, but high quality blades such as katanas were made in hours or a day or two. Even the ulfberht that's probably the best analogy "masterwork" took "only" a few full days of work to a man that made one for the first time.

So taking months to make such crafts doesn't make much sense to me, despite being undoable in campains in which time is an important factor which is very common. So did I miss something, am I doing it wrong or is it really how it works ?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Sadly that's pretty much how it goes for mwk weapons/armor. Things will be somewhat faster (and cheaper) if your GM will let you use the Unchained crafting rules, but the moral of the story is still that you should buy mwk stuff and enchant it yourself; enchanting goes at a reasonable clip.

[LordKailas]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

Sadly that's pretty much how it goes for mwk weapons/armor. Things will be somewhat faster (and cheaper) if your GM will let you use the Unchained crafting rules, but the moral of the story is still that you should buy mwk stuff and enchant it yourself; enchanting goes at a reasonable clip.

QFT

Alternatively, you can have the spell caster in your group use the spell masterwork transformation. In this way you will be able to still build everything from scratch, but it cuts out the insanely long crafting time associated with masterwork items.

Something to keep in mind, the masterwork portion is treated as it's own separate item by the crafting rules. So, if you were making a masterwork rapier you effectively are making two items. The sword at a DC 15, trying to reach 200sp and the masterwork component at a DC 20, trying to reach a pool of 3,000sp.

[Meirril]

If you want to speed it up a little, then invest a feat in cooperative crafting.. This will let you work with another player or NPC to make things faster.

If you want to make things MUCH faster invest in Leeadership instead and convince the GM to give you a cohort that have cooperative crafting instead.

Before you pick up the leadership feat talk the party into investing in a base. Ask the GM how much it would be to buy what amounts to a Forge with an attached building that can be used for housing. If you have cleared out any kind of castle in the campaign that is perfect. You can build a forge inside of any kind of building or reasonably comfortable and decently located dungeon. Investing in a few beds, some continual flame torches, a large amount of food, and some advertising should allow you to claim the +2 bonus for having a base and let you gain followers with craft: weapons and armor. They might even be gunslingers since you are.

Unfortunately the followers can't qualify for cooperative crafting. They would need to pick up a crafting feat first and craft arms and armor requires 5th level. If the GM wanted to give it to you its possible that the followers could pick up craft wonderous item at 3rd level and retrain their first level feat into cooperative crafting, but that is a stretch. If they did do it that way, it would give you access to craft wonderous item as long as its made with the same crafting skill you use.

That may lead you to think the followers are useless, but you can use them to boost your skill. Each follower with the same skill can Aid Another to give you a +2 bonus. The GM needs to say how many followers can help but you should be able to get at lest a few for a mundane bonus to skill.

If your GM was totally into the idea of allowing anything, your first level followers could be Human Gunslingers with Create Poppet, Cooperative Crafting and craft: weapons and craft armor. But this is such a edge case it would be silly. But maybe if you advertized that you were going to work on a Golum Foundry that aims to produce Cannon Golem you might actually get these guys to show up...

[Azothath]

Well... it's a game. Adventurer's go out and adventure. NPCs generally do the crafting of mundane items and works of art.

Making mundane items is what PCs do at first level to save some cash or make some money. It's when 10 gold pieces is a lot of money. It also takes a lot of "downtime" and is more detail than most want to get into. GMs and the game have to have that "downtime"(when you are not adventuring) so you can schedule your activities and get something done.
However it IS rewarding for Wizards who can use magic and save on some magic items that are hand crafted. Masterwork Transformation and Fabricate can save casters a ton of time. You still will need the skill ranks to make masterwork or high value items with Fabricate.

Leadership is the long workaround in a home game.

Simulacrum and similar spells are just as good.

Vanities are a way in Organized Play to save a tiny bit. The ideas though are useful for home games that want to use a wide brush.

[Meirril]

Funny story, when playing Kingmaker a friend of mine playing his first non-caster in a long time complained about not being able to make magic items.

Then I pointed out Master Craftsman to him. 2 feats later he was churning out +1 swords from his forge and made his own gear. Each spell prerequisite is easy to cover with an extra +5 to what is already a low DC.

[Cevah]

Meirril wrote:

If you want to speed it up a little, then invest a feat in cooperative crafting.. This will let you work with another player or NPC to make things faster.

If you want to make things MUCH faster invest in Leeadership instead and convince the GM to give you a cohort that have cooperative crafting instead.

Before you pick up the leadership feat talk the party into investing in a base. Ask the GM how much it would be to buy what amounts to a Forge with an attached building that can be used for housing. If you have cleared out any kind of castle in the campaign that is perfect. You can build a forge inside of any kind of building or reasonably comfortable and decently located dungeon. Investing in a few beds, some continual flame torches, a large amount of food, and some advertising should allow you to claim the +2 bonus for having a base and let you gain followers with craft: weapons and armor. They might even be gunslingers since you are.

Unfortunately the followers can't qualify for cooperative crafting. They would need to pick up a crafting feat first and craft arms and armor requires 5th level. If the GM wanted to give it to you its possible that the followers could pick up craft wonderous item at 3rd level and retrain their first level feat into cooperative crafting, but that is a stretch. If they did do it that way, it would give you access to craft wonderous item as long as its made with the same crafting skill you use.

That may lead you to think the followers are useless, but you can use them to boost your skill. Each follower with the same skill can Aid Another to give you a +2 bonus. The GM needs to say how many followers can help but you should be able to get at lest a few for a mundane bonus to skill.

If your GM was totally into the idea of allowing anything, your first level followers could be Human Gunslingers with Create Poppet, Cooperative Crafting and craft: weapons and craft armor. But this is such a edge case it would be silly. But maybe if you advertized that you were going to work on a Golum Foundry that aims to produce Cannon Golem you might actually get these guys to show up...

Actually, Brew Potion and Scribe Scroll are bonus feats at 1st level for some classes. Wizards get a bonus feat at 5th, so they could get Craft Magical Arms and Armor, and the regular 5th level feat of Cooperative Crafting. No retraining needed.

@OP:
Generally, making stuff is quite slow, and so is relegated to NPCs.

/cevah