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I tried to open a cafe in downtown Absalom. Spared no expense! Hired some of the best coffee brewers in all of Avistan too. One is even purported to be a dragon slayer! Now, five days into my new business, it's looking like I'll have to shut my doors. Alas, it was a wonderful dream, but it's looking like it will never be more than that.
If only those damned brewers didn't take four days to make a fresh pot of coffee I might have had something here!
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In fairness, it takes 3-4 years for a coffee plant to start bearing fruit, so 4 days isn't that long in a relative sense. Also, and this is a big benefit over Earth coffee, once you actually make the coffee for your cafe it won't spoil, so I recommend you get staff to start making it a week before you open and you'll be good to go on Opening Day.
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You should have hired alchemists, not dragon slayers.
BRB, I'm going to sketch a "Barista" research field so you can get perpetual infusions with coffee.
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Realistically though, "four days to make coffee" is like the step of "you got a stack of fresh coffee berries off of a boat that just came in- turn that into coffee".
Between removing the pulp of the cherry, drying the beans, hulling, polishing, roasting, and cooling that could realistically take four days.
Making coffee from beans that were already processed and roasted isn't really crafting a cup of coffee, any more than "hafting a previously prepared spearhead on a previously prepared stick it will fit on to" is crafting a spear. The person who forged the blade, and cut and sanded the wood already did the vast majority of the work.
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You should have hired alchemists, not dragon slayers.
BRB, I'm going to sketch a "Barista" research field so you can get perpetual infusions with coffee.
Bloodeye Coffee is typed as a poison (all drugs are) so you can make perpetual bloodeye coffee with toxicologist (or any research field with the feat - Tox just makes ones with higher DCs). Only problem is that it only lasts until the end of your turn, so you have to feed them the coffee or they have to shot it instantly if you have enduring alchemy..
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Cafe Latte - Item 1
[Uncommon] [Alchemical] [Consumable] [Elixir]
Source Your Local Barista
Price 3sp 5cp
Usage Held in 1 hand; Bulk L
Activate 1 minute (Interact)
This rich and fragrant brew gives you a new found zest for life and places you in a perky mood. You gain a +1 status bonus on any checks related to remaining awake, keeping watch or working over long periods for up to 3 hours.
Saving Throw Fortitude (DC 11); Onset 1 day; Stage 1 Addiction (3 days); Stage 2 stupefied 1 and you become irritated if you haven't drunk Cafe Latte within the past 4 hours (3 days); Stage 3 stupefied 1 and drained 1 and extremely irritable and nervous unless you have drunk Cafe Latte within the past 4 hours.
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Making a pot of coffee to serve customers as a player character in a Cafe is Earn an Income, not Crafting :P
If you aren't a player character, you don't play by the same rules.
Next time, hire NPCs!
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...is this another thread treating the rules for PCs crafting things as if they are meant to also represent literally all things which can be construed as crafting across the entire setting despite the game explicitly not being that kind of simulation-based design?
Fun.
It's weird that they can put them together more than once every four days.
But seriously, I'm with you, this complaint over every minor item and how they relate to crafting is getting tiresome.
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Amusingly, turning raw coffee cherries into coffee appears to take several days (one to two of soaking, then a few days of drying).
So the Crafting rules seem to have gotten this one spot on. Or more than close enough for government work, anyway.
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This is why you don’t hire friends and family.
"Don't brew coffee like my brother!"
"And don't brew coffee like my brother!"
This is why you don’t hire friends and family.
Hiring them is way faster than crafting them. ;)
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Repeat after me
The rules -clap- are an abstraction -clap- not a simulation -clap- because simulations -clap- don't make for engaging balance -clap-
Seriously, the earn an income activity exists for a reason. I am so sick of people giving crafting flack, where 90% of the time it will be used it is well balanced and rewarding.
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Seriously, the earn an income activity exists for a reason.
And its amazing and flexible.
Player - "Hey, I can make permanent Illusory Objects now! I wonder if I can run around town making awesome illusory signs for everyone - can I make some gold doing that?"
GM - "That sounds like an Earn An Income activity to me. Because it's not exactly a trade skill, I'll even let you roll your Casting associated skill for it if you like - and we'll say it's a settlement level +1 task for two weeks as everyone is eager to get in on the action, and no one wants to be left out."
Boom, Earn an Income with Arcana. Simple, balanced, and trivial to resolve.
I've also allowed players to Negotiate better prices on goods sold (using Diplomacy), run cons on nobles (Deception), and provide dissertations and lectures as a guest speaker at local temples (Medicine).
Earn an Income is great.
Repeat after me
The rules -clap- are an abstraction -clap- not a simulation -clap- because simulations -clap- don't make for engaging balance -clap-
Seriously, the earn an income activity exists for a reason. I am so sick of people giving crafting flack, where 90% of the time it will be used it is well balanced and rewarding.
Using hyperbole the opposite way doesn't really help your case that much.
While I agree that a level 12 character who is a Master Crafter needing 4 days, a formula, and full price cost to create a level 2 item (like full plate) is on the preposterous side, it is both RAW and RAI; crafting's big advantage is to not have to rely on a Ye Olde Magick Shoppe to get your items. Even for basic items like rope or torches, these things are true.
But let's use a more apt example. Our level 12 character wants to make an Adamantine Bastard Sword and be able to etch some +2 Greater Striking Flaming Wounding on it. It makes sense, this is probably not something you find everyday adventuring. There are many components to this item. They need formulas for the following items:
-Adamantine Bastard Sword (which is uncommon)
-+1 Potency rune
-+2 Potency rune
-Striking rune
-Greater Striking rune
-Flaming rune
-Wounding rune
To craft each of these components requires 4 days and paying full price (or supplying relevant materials), not to mention having the formula for all of these things. Oh, and checks must be made for each of these as well, or the days are wasted. These can be fixed with the Inventor feat, though this costs a lot of additional time and gold, and the Assurance feat, which can make some of the components faster, but also be ineffective on others.
The weapon in question, an Adamantine Bastard Sword, is especially difficult as it is an uncommon item, and therefore an uncommon formula. Furthermore, it is a higher crafting DC, meaning feats like Assurance may not be applicable, and it's the most expensive component (though not the only expensive one) of the completed item. Lastly, it takes additional time to combine all of the runes onto the weapon, I believe one day per rune.
Assuming straight successes across the board, this takes 34 days to assemble. With Assurance, it reduces it to 25.5 days. If you have to acquire formulas for everything, it can take several months for the item to come together, perhaps more if you fail checks to craft or etch runes. At that rate, you'd be better to just out level it or find it while you're adventuring instead of get it crafted.
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Sorry for the obfuscation. I was trying to insert a bit of humor into it.
I intended for this thread to be a discussion on the Crafting rules, not the Earn An Income rules. I have no issues with the latter.
They need formulas for the following items:
-Adamantine Bastard Sword (which is uncommon)
-+1 Potency rune
-+2 Potency rune
-Striking rune
-Greater Striking rune
-Flaming rune
-Wounding rune
You can skip the lower rune formulas. You don't need the +1 potency rune formula to get the +2, and you don't need the striking rune formula before getting the greater striking rune formula.
In fact, someone with a greater rune, may not be capable of creating a lesser rune.
It's one of the many things about 2E crafting that breaks verisimilitude.
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Sorry for the obfuscation. I was trying to insert a bit of humor into it.
I intended for this thread to be a discussion on the Crafting rules, not the Earn An Income rules. I have no issues with the latter.
As I and others mentioned, I think the crafting rules are fine on the subject of things like coffee, at least for the most part. 'Crafting' coffee would be Crafting the dink from truly raw materials, and as the link I posted indicates that taking four days is entirely plausible.
Just making coffee from pre-Crafted coffee beans would be Earn An Income instead...which is where that whole tangent started.
Now, crafting magic items is another matter and another subject, but also not super relevant to coffee per se.
Except, even having a crafter in your party doesn't really help due to the formula requirements (especially for uncommon+ items) and time constraints.
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-Adamantine Bastard Sword (which is uncommon)
-+1 Potency rune
-+2 Potency rune
-Striking rune
-Greater Striking rune
-Flaming rune
-Wounding rune
I'm pretty sure this is just wrong.
+2 Potency and Greater Striking Runes are entirely separate from +1 Potency and Striking runes on a mechanical level which means if you're making this sword from scratch you can just forego those lesser ones. Mating this 5 items rather than 7, and the whole process significantly quicker.
Now, in practice, you probably will know the +1 Potency and Striking Runes if you know the higher level ones, but upgrading from them is optional, not required (you can also just etch the +2 and Greater Striking to start with), and thus the actual item creation requirements are less severe than you're saying they are.
You also don't need to transfer them if you just put them on the item to start with, which saves yet more time.
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20 days of downtime actually doesn't seem that unreasonable for a big upgrade you'll be using for a while, in all honesty.
Pretty sure there's a formula for +2 greater Striking, given the item tables.
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Sorry for the obfuscation. I was trying to insert a bit of humor into it.
I intended for this thread to be a discussion on the Crafting rules, not the Earn An Income rules. I have no issues with the latter.
The issue is that the two activity are inherently related.
Crafting Items is now extremely specialized in its benefits, allowing primarily for access to items which you dont have access to via straight up purchase, or for reproducing hard to find or uncommon items by breaking them down for their Formula.
It is also useful for a number of adventuring skill checks, if APs are any guide.
Earn an Income has replaced many of the old applications of crafting when it comes to creating value or making money - and is likely the applicable activity in any case where the crafting rules fail to do what you want them to, such as brewing coffee or even making small, mundane items.
If you want to use Earn an Income to make money and use that money to pay for item - and then say "I made these" - the rules police aren't going to kick in your door. That's perfectly legit and almost entirely within the guidelines/spirit of the rules as presented.
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The crafting rules definitely have their place, but I also think it's fair to say that they can be immensely unsatisfying for someone who wants crafting to be a big part of their character.
The way speed is a fixed constant is pretty unsatisfying. A level 1 witch can, with a feat, craft 6 potions in the time it takes anyone else to make four. But they can never craft a single potion faster and even a level 20 witch can't make a basic level 1 potion any more easily than they could at first level (or any more easily than they can make a fancy level 20 elixir). It's weird that no matter how ornate or simplistic an item is, it always takes the exact same time to craft no matter how skilled you are.
The way raw materials work is pretty unsatisfying. You just have money go into the void and produce an item. There's no real concept of harvesting materials or being able to produce items more cheaply by using more raw ingredients.
The way you make crafting cheaper is... not bad but kinda weird. You finish making an item, then retroactively make it cheaper to craft by spending additional days doing... something? It's kind of a bizarre concept.
The lack of agency is pretty frustrating. Crafting can be useful, but it's only ever as useful as the GM is willing to let it be. Now, you could argue that's true of pretty much the whole game and you'd be right, but imo there's a unique quality to the way the GM needs to go out of their way to enable crafting, especially considering all crafting actually does is mitigate those very same circumstances again.
Given all that I can see why it can be really frustrating for someone who envisions crafting as a big part of their character concept to deal with 2e's rules.
TBH, 2e crafting is best with a GM who's willing to play very fast and loose with the crafting rules, to the point where I wonder if that was sort of the intent from the beginning to not be particularly strict with that subsystem. It makes a lot more sense if the GM is just judiciously willing to handwave a lot of circumstances and issues away, in a way that's not really true for most of the rest of the rules.
Pretty sure there's a formula for +2 greater Striking, given the item tables.The two are listed as separate Runes, so I think they're separate Formulas. Still, it's not nearly as bad as Darksol's making it out to be.
I mean, at worst you can just craft a weapon with it and shift them over, can't you? Might cost you a bit more, but if you're rushing for time that cuts off 4 days.
-Adamantine Bastard Sword (which is uncommon)
-+1 Potency rune
-+2 Potency rune
-Striking rune
-Greater Striking rune
-Flaming rune
-Wounding runeI'm pretty sure this is just wrong.
+2 Potency and Greater Striking Runes are entirely separate from +1 Potency and Striking runes on a mechanical level which means if you're making this sword from scratch you can just forego those lesser ones. Mating this 5 items rather than 7, and the whole process significantly quicker.
Now, in practice, you probably will know the +1 Potency and Striking Runes if you know the higher level ones, but upgrading from them is optional, not required (you can also just etch the +2 and Greater Striking to start with), and thus the actual item creation requirements are less severe than you're saying they are.
You also don't need to transfer them if you just put them on the item to start with, which saves yet more time.
I thought you had to have the previous rune rank on your item (+1 to get +2, and so on) to outright etch higher tier runes on your equipment, based on the descriptions of fundamental runes and upgrading them.
I will concede that it is quicker if you etch directly, but given that the item is uncommon, you would have to add in the time/resources needed to be able to craft it in the first place, which would result in about however long it would take to etch into runestones first.
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I thought you had to have the previous rune rank on your item (+1 to get +2, and so on) to outright etch higher tier runes on your equipment, based on the descriptions of fundamental runes and upgrading them.
No, it says you can do it that way, not that you must. You can also just apply the higher version directly.
I will concede that it is quicker if you etch directly, but given that the item is uncommon, you would have to add in the time/resources needed to be able to craft it in the first place, which would result in about however long it would take to etch into runestones first.
I mean, the 'time/resources' are finding somebody with an Uncommon formula (and some Adamantine, thematically). That's completely at GM discretion, but in my games I'd certainly allow it as a Gather Information result...which is to say it'd probably only take a few days, since Adamantine is one of the more generally available Uncommon options, or possibly as a quest reward (which is to say, in game terms, no time at all since the quest would inevitably have normal XP and loot).
I highly doubt two weeks of downtime is standard to find an Uncommon item option. I'd expect it to be either perfunctory (the aforementioned Gather Information), quest locked, or unavailable entirely. Not just 'that takes you two weeks of downtime'.
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Might I suggest joining the Pathfinder Society and working your way up through the Ranks to becoming a Venture Captain...
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Price 3sp 5cp
Or about tree fiddy
I mean, the real issue is that crafting is turning raw materials into a final thing. If we're talking about smithing, the raw materials are "bars of steel, assorted woods, soft metals, and leathers" and the final material is "a sword with a hilt, grip and pommel".
If we're talking about coffee, the raw materials don't look like this they look like this. Making coffee from the former shouldn't even require a roll (it's just abstracted as a "do your job" check as per "earn an income"), making the latter into coffee involves crafting.
It's just like how you wouldn't require a crafting roll to make dinner when you already have things that were processed into easier to use ingredients like "flour that has been milled" or "meat that has been dried" or "rice that has been cut, threshed, and dried". The person who boiled/evaporated (depending on climate) away the seawater to make the salt you put in your soup did the crafting, less so the chef.
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Using hyperbole the opposite way doesn't really help your case that much.
What hyperbole? I didn't use ANY hyperbole. 90% of crafting scenarios in PF2e won't be crafting low cost level 0 items for people, and in those situations the abstracted crafting system works well and is balanced as to give a benefit without breaking the system.
Crafting in PF2e works well for the following reasons.
- Skillfeat access to crafting magical and alchemical items
- A single craft skill that lowers the amount of investment required
- A choice between access (pay out full price) or discount (work for half price) that scales better as you get to higher levels or for people who get moderate amounts of downtime (especially as you are explicitly allowed to break up crafting over multiple days or multiple downtime days)
- Purchasing restrictions means that when you hit levels 9+ you might not easily just buy what you want, inventor feat and breaking down formulas really helps here, especially for uncommon or rare items where you couldn't normally buy multiples (for reverse engineering not inventor).
- Rune transferring requires someone to A) have the required tier of crafting B) the formula. While this isn't necessary for a party as NPCs can handle it too, it is a huge boon if you aren't going to be around huge cities or master craftsmen, or just want to transfer things a little earlier. (the party is very thankful to my group's crafter as a result of this)
- Scroll crafting is both easy to do and very quick as you make scrolls of lower level spells at higher levels. Giving cheap and fast access to utility spells (the spellcaster doesn't have to be the crafter either, just there to cast the spell)
Crafting, is very rewarding in PF2e despite not being a way to break the economy or make income reliably outside of the standard earn income task. It hooks into a lot of game elements and is extremely well supported imo.
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I mean, the real issue is that crafting is turning raw materials into a final thing. If we're talking about smithing, the raw materials are "bars of steel, assorted woods, soft metals, and leathers" and the final material is "a sword with a hilt, grip and pommel".
If we're talking about coffee, the raw materials don't look like this they look like this.
If we're starting with berries still on the vine for the coffee maker, wouldn't it be more appropriate for your analogy to give the blacksmith a cow, a tree and an unharvested ore vein?
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If we're starting with berries still on the vine for the coffee maker, wouldn't it be more appropriate for your analogy to give the blacksmith a cow, a tree and an unharvested ore vein?I mean, the real issue is that crafting is turning raw materials into a final thing. If we're talking about smithing, the raw materials are "bars of steel, assorted woods, soft metals, and leathers" and the final material is "a sword with a hilt, grip and pommel".
If we're talking about coffee, the raw materials don't look like this they look like this.
What do you want the outcome of this question to be? People to suddenly be like, "These abstracted rules for simplifying and codifying a complex task really don't work!"
I was also upset by the idea that I carefully explained to my GM that I swung the sword with my left hand where the bandit had an eyepatch and he didn't give me any bonuses!
What do you want the outcome of this question to be?
There's no outcome I'm fishing for. I'm just asking. Relax.
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If we're starting with berries still on the vine for the coffee maker, wouldn't it be more appropriate for your analogy to give the blacksmith a cow, a tree and an unharvested ore vein?
I mean, what roll would you have someone make to create processed lumber? Or to make flour out of wheat? Because those sound like Crafting checks to me, and if that's the case so is making coffee beans out of coffee cherries.
Being a blacksmith is a somewhat different category of Crafting, but I think making ingots of ore would also be Crafting.
I mean, what roll would you have someone make to create processed lumber? Or to make flour out of wheat? Because those sound like Crafting checks to me, and if that's the case so is making coffee beans out of coffee cherries.
Being a blacksmith is a somewhat different category of Crafting, but I think making ingots of ore would also be Crafting.
I think the better question is, in a non simulationist heavily abstracted heroic fantasy game. Is it worth making them roll for those tasks at all? Isn't it better to as a GM do what the book suggests and "create an activity", adding a proficiency requirement if you feel it necessary.
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How about an example that's a little less silly?
Crafting a chair from a chunk of wood.
IRL I can do that in less than a day without powertools.Unless I want to turn it into some fancy schmancy work of art, then maybe 4 days is right.
And it's not Earn an Income, if I'm making it for myself.
It's easy enough to use the Earn an Income table to work out how long it would take to make to sell and then just use that, but then why not just use those rules for all crafting?
Again, not what the crafting rules are for, and the reason you don't use the earn an income rules for all crafting is because it would break with how expensive magical items are. And those prices cannot easily be reduced without then changing the wealth curve in weird ways.
It is an abstracted system designed to best work with the most common uses of it in play.
Don't look at the bulk rules if the crafting ones bother you.
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Hilariously, in PF2 it is currently not legal to make a chair since there's no listed 'chair' item. The same is true of many basic items because PF2 is not a home improvement focused game.
But yes, for something like that I'd agree that the rules just shouldn't be un-abstracted like that. I'm not sure that's always true for something like '10 lbs of coffee' or '40 lbs of steel' or the like. Creating something like that from raw materials as a trade good seems within the realm of things a PC might want to do, and the rules seem to support decently well.
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but then why not just use those rules for all crafting?
Because Crafting offers marginal benefits relating to being able to obtain items that would otherwise be unavailable due to circumstance :)
Its not about making Chairs, its about being able to take a single +2 greater striking khopesh and outfit your entire party with +2 Greater Striking weapons of their choice, including the halflings third generation ancestral hoopak, without access to a settlement of appropriate level to just buy those.
And thats not a terribly uncommon scenario in most campaigns.
The rules don't need to cover the manufacturing of chairs, as such is utterly irrelevant for the scenarios the rules are designed to cover.
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The rules don't need to cover the manufacturing of chairs, as such is utterly irrelevant for the scenarios the rules are designed to cover.
HOWEVER, all this drama suggests that for common, basic items, a crafting minigame akin to the various skill challenges might be good to iron out. I'm not sure what kind of game would be useful to stick them into, but I'd have thought running a circus performance would be hard to fit in, and I was certainly incorrect there.
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Personally, it's the 4-day minimum rule that most strongly breaks verisimilitude for me. It shouldn't take 4 days to brew a single potion (not even coffee), scribe a scroll, draw a map, or fletch an arrow.
It really should be a 1-day minimum, with caveats for extraordinarily simple or bundled items (which can be made in tens of minutes or hours).
I also think the rules regarding formulas could be clarified as well. Things like how much of spell scrolls can a single formula cover (do I really need one formula for every spell at every level it can be cast?), or does having a high level formula (like greater striking) allow you to make the lesser versions (striking, in this case). There are so many ambiguities with formulas and crafting, that every table I've been to plays it differently.
Personally, it's the 4-day minimum rule that most strongly breaks verisimilitude for me. It shouldn't take 4 days to brew a single potion (not even coffee), scribe a scroll, draw a map, or fletch an arrow.
Its probably in place to prevent the trivial fabrication of "silver bullet" type items overnight or the course of one day - a four day minimum means it requires a significant amount of time to produce a specific item. An amount of time greater than most dungeons or challenges are going to wait for you to brew up the perfect response to...
Crafting is not intended to be the solution in those cases - flexibility that strong is in the realm of class features.
I agree that more clarification would be helpful for formulas, and the availability thereof.