I think that while I feel that Consumables by their very nature of only having brining their value if their initial value is destroyed, means there is reason to consider that manufacturing of a consumable by someone can be easily justified as something that could be expedited, especially with the concept that the initial raw materials have to be spent, which means, their sale should always be at a best a break even. Making consumables makes sense as a role playing investment.
Fundamentally, the batch rule just saved you the four days of prep time you lost with the old rules. With the remaster pulling that down to one or two days depending on the use of a Formula, it reduces how much making things in batch saves you, but it can certainly still be seen to provide a time saving.
I think the fact that mundane consumables are frequently made in batches of 10 helps to identify that the Intent of the rules is not for the investment of additional time into the crafting reducing the materials cost for that batch by that multiple.
I honestly believe the system went overboard on nerfing crafting due to the prior systems well known investment glitches, and people's tendency to believe that people should be able to sell their crafted items at-will for 100% rather than 50% or less. If people didn't consistently waffle on that rule, I think the developers would have been more willing to provide more incentive to make standard consumables, and rely less on daily free consumable subsystems.
Ravingdork is correct that people should be able to feel like their choice to invest in crafting abilities should feel like they can get something from that choice, and the system is a bit bare in that respect, without specific accommodations from the GM which would honestly be as easy to ask for without the investment as it would be with it. That can be viewed as a weakness of the system as it appears. Even with the 10x multiplier which I express seems to show that it was not the Intended way to read the system, fails to provide the thing that people who seem to argue it breaks.
The claim it allows someone to earn more money is false, as at most, no matter the multiplier, at any amount of time, it grants them the ability to Break Even on their investment (and loose all their invested time) as at most they will be selling the items for 50% of list, which was how much they had to invest to start the crafting.
At most, it would mean that it would allow a crafter making something at a 10x factor, to craft an item, and use that item, at only 50% + (50%/10) or approximately 55% cost. Simply put, I don't think ability allowing a fighter to pay half price for arrows would come close to breaking the bank anywhere since it is materials that don't build up. They range from having 0 value (once original cost is taken into consideration), to the situational value that your effective use of that item gives you at the time it is use.
Keep in mind it isn't' hard for a first level alchemist to be producing some potential of 15gp of consumable items every day to be used, for absolutely free via their 'reagents' ability. This is because consumables only have actual value 'if they are used', and they are priced higher than most would typically be ale to afford, save for specific circumstances. So really, making consumables more affordable to someone who should be able to make them, really isn't breaking the actual system. So it could take a first level alchemist more than a month to make an extra set of alchemical items that they are allowed to make and use for free without any multiplier applied. I think that the fact that baseline, a character class is being expected to use over a month's worth of consumable materials in one day to do their job, it seems quite clear that Consumable items are intended to be a cost/expenditure not something to be viewed as something if produced that is somehow comparable to a permanent item.
So Ironically, I think I've shown myself that even 10x is less impactful than I'd even originally thought to myself. I still suspect that it was not intended the the designers to be used as a multiplier. However, we can see that a player can be expected to burn through more consumables in a single working day than a month of downtime could produced normally, from raw materials.
So yes, batch crafting does save time. But not as much time as simply going to the store and buying it which is always cheaper in both time and money, and only reliant on the GM making it available. In the remaster, common items are now much easier to come across the ability to make oneself, without relying on GM's explicate approval. The time tax on creating/crafting your own item has also been significantly cut, compared to the prior rules. Since the remaster cut the crafting time tax significantly, it also cut the value you get from crafting in batches a little, but it is still there so you still get a benefit from the batch.
If you do decide to tweak consumables crafting, keep in mind that as long as you maintain the rule of selling items at 50%, and the requirement to have 50% invested in materials, it is likely you won't end causing that much of a problem to WBL, or create some economy glitch by allowing the player to make some of their own consumable for themselves, or even other in the party.
Or at least that is how it looks from this side of the table, when I look at the various factors.
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The entire crafting rules and that cost reduction finishing, are written without that batch possibility, only discussing the single-item craft.
If you then read that blurb, and choose to invoke said batch rules, you do as they instruct.
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There really is no way to invoke that batch blurb, and somehow get to a 4x multiplier.
Agreed.
And the part of the batch crafting: "you must complete the batch all at once." isn't saying that you work on them all in parallel and somehow get to apply your downtime days to all of the items in multiplicative fashion. It is preventing you from starting a batch of 4 items, finishing two of them, going on an adventure for a week or two, then coming back and continuing to craft the remaining two items.
You either finish all of the batch, or none of it.
The entire crafting rules and that cost reduction finishing, are written without that batch possibility, only discussing the single-item craft.
If you then read that blurb, and choose to invoke said batch rules, you do as they instruct.
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There really is no way to invoke that batch blurb, and somehow get to a 4x multiplier.
Agreed.
And the part of the batch crafting: "you must complete the batch all at once." isn't saying that you work on them all in parallel and somehow get to apply your downtime days to all of the items in multiplicative fashion. It is preventing you from starting a batch of 4 items, finishing two of them, going on an adventure for a week or two, then coming back and continuing to craft the remaining two items.
You either finish all of the batch, or none of it.
To be clear, you don't lose your batch if you must take a break (you can always resume crafting), you just don't walk away with anything until it is completely done.
My only concern is whether it imbalances wealth and it doesn't because for crafting you have to pay the coin up front. Magic items sell for half-price. So there is no monetary gain, only a time gain. I thought that was the entire point of batch crafting.
Suddenly applying the rules for time on the additional time to cut the cost, but somehow those time rules don't apply to the initial item makes little sense. Somehow you can craft four consumables at once in four days when that normally takes 16 days, but the additional time spent crafting them suddenly takes four times as long? Really? What's the point of batch crafting then? Why is the time for making the 4 items not a problem, but oh no, you want to cut the cost some with your crafting skill investment and suddenly the original rule of four days for each item applies?
How does that make sense?
If you can batch craft 4, then it means you can batch craft four including reducing the cost of each one for each additional day. It's batch crafting. It's the ability to craft four consumable items at a time with all inherent benefits and costs of four time the crafting rate.
They made it very specific for consumables to save time on consumable items because you use them up and they're done.
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but the additional time spent crafting them suddenly takes four times as long?
No, the additional time takes exactly as long as it would for any type of craft.
If you roll a check that says you perform 10g worth of labor, it's not "four times less" just because you really wish it was 40g instead.
You are not making a convincing argument.
Batch crafting is a specialized rule for crafting consumables in batches of four. It breaks the normal crafting rules.
Why would it not apply to every aspect of crafting? Nowhere does it say batch crafting only applies to the initial 4 day crafting. It says you can craft batches of 4 consumables at a time.
That breaks the rules right from the start because it is specific.
Why doesn't the crafting 4 at a time also apply to the roll to reduce the cost? Why would it not allow you to reduce the cost of each consumable by the time spent doing additional crafting since the batch rule is allowing you to craft 4 consumables at a time in every way?
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"I don't understand fungible resources"My only concern is whether it imbalances wealth and it doesn't because for crafting you have to pay the coin up front. Magic items sell for half-price. So there is no monetary gain, only a time gain. I thought that was the entire point of batch crafting.
Suddenly applying the rules for time on the additional time to cut the cost, but somehow those time rules don't apply to the initial item makes little sense. Somehow you can craft four consumables at once in four days when that normally takes 16 days, but the additional time spent crafting them suddenly takes four times as long? Really? What's the point of batch crafting then? Why is the time for making the 4 items not a problem, but oh no, you want to cut the cost some with your crafting skill investment and suddenly the original rule of four days for each item applies?
How does that make sense?
If you can batch craft 4, then it means you can batch craft four including reducing the cost of each one for each additional day. It's batch crafting. It's the ability to craft four consumable items at a time with all inherent benefits and costs of four time the crafting rate.
They made it very specific for consumables to save time on consumable items because you use them up and they're done.
Your response amounts to, "I don't have a good rules argument, so I'm going to use snark."
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Keep in mind it isn't' hard for a first level alchemist to be producing some potential of 15gp of consumable items every day to be used, for absolutely free via their 'reagents' ability. This is because consumables only have actual value 'if they are used', and they are priced higher than most would typically be ale to afford, save for specific circumstances. So really, making consumables more affordable to someone who should be able to make them, really isn't breaking the actual system. So it could take a first level alchemist more than a month to make an extra set of alchemical items that they are allowed to make and use for free without any multiplier applied. I think that the fact that baseline, a character class is being expected to use over a month's worth of consumable materials in one day to do their job, it seems quite clear that Consumable items are intended to be a cost/expenditure not something to be viewed as something if produced that is somehow comparable to a permanent item.
I will take a moment to bring something else in. An Alch's daily items can directly be compared against a Wiz's spells thanks to Spell Scrolls.
It's their daily budget in the exact same way, and said scrolls can even be crafted in batches.
IMO it's not really applicable to compare a class' daily budget of temp items/spell slots to their shop price all that much.
Alch items in particular are subject to rather "default" gp scaling as iLvL goes up, leading to insane prices.
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My only concern is whether it imbalances wealth and it doesn't because for crafting you have to pay the coin up front. Magic items sell for half-price. So there is no monetary gain, only a time gain. I thought that was the entire point of batch crafting.
Suddenly applying the rules for time on the additional time to cut the cost, but somehow those time rules don't apply to the initial item makes little sense. Somehow you can craft four consumables at once in four days when that normally takes 16 days, but the additional time spent crafting them suddenly takes four times as long? Really? What's the point of batch crafting then? Why is the time for making the 4 items not a problem, but oh no, you want to cut the cost some with your crafting skill investment and suddenly the original rule of four days for each item applies?
How does that make sense?
If you can batch craft 4, then it means you can batch craft four including reducing the cost of each one for each additional day. It's batch crafting. It's the ability to craft four consumable items at a time with all inherent benefits and costs of four time the crafting rate.
They made it very specific for consumables to save time on consumable items because you use them up and they're done.
The cost-reduction phase of crafting is already an impossible abstraction.
If the item is ready to be completed and used, it's not possible to spend more time to go back and do it cheaper.
The main thing to remember is that said cost savings is tied to labor days, and the craft being performed is completely irrelevant (which IMO is very smart design).
As Earn an Income is supposed to be very limited and settlement capped, this auto max crafting discount was essentially the devs way to make Crafting more economical than a Bard doing performance, without it technically being better.
It both ties the crafter's income directly into their chosen project for neat RP harmonization, and gives them a monetary justification to keep working.
And again, I am aware that many players think the gp reward for said time was too low, but it is there. Especially now that one can get 2x via rushing.
It has already helped me a good deal as a L8 Alch in Abm Vlts. I've made a heavily discounted batch of Coagulated L3 Alch Fire to keep on my belt and avoid taxing my Reagents, and threw 1 that same session.
I finally got to use some Sovereign Glue to good effect, and I would have lacked the Reagents to make the Solvent to undo the sealed door had I not saved Reagents w/ the hard-crafted bombs.
Batch lets me actually get the 2x discount without hitting the 1/2 price cap that quickly. Without combining the 4 crafts on low level items, it's hard to avoid wasting the discount. And every bit of downtime prep is precious.
Idk the normal income, buy my party is broke as hell, unable to buy a +2 fundamental rune even as a group. 8 gp per day is nothing to sneeze at L8.
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"I don't understand fungible resources"Your response amounts to, "I don't have a good rules argument, so I'm going to use snark."
Yeah, IMO those kinds of reply are decidedly unhelpful to just about anyone.
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Now that rush the finish has established a 2x boost for an extra check, that gives GMs a baseline if they want to further improve crafting income w/ quick homebrew.
Something like "Check the Demand" could do a Gather Information check to give a 1.5x boost to any potential resale of something yet uncrafted, and that could be performed by a CHA character that's a party member of the crafter for some teamplay.
Ttrpgs are whatever the players (GM included) choose to make of it. If they want to expand a bit on crafting to make it more involved and rewarding, that's only a good thing.
Batch crafting is intended to bring parity to crafting consumables. How would you feel if you COULDN'T craft consumables in batches? Would you ever? Especially with 2e's original 4 days prep time per item? Batching is intended to make crafting multiple consumables equitable with crafting other items and Earn an Income
The way you want it to work goes right through parity and out the other side and then some. Instead of crafting a batch of consumables, you want to get to craft many single consumables simultaneously. Forget the question of selling those consumables. We're not talking about that. We mean the value of the crafter's time vs other downtime activities. Why should the crafter's roll be worth 4x as much when they're batching? Why should the alchemist's roll be worth 8x as much? Why would they do ANYTHING ELSE if it was? WHY WOULD ANYONE?
I'm curious: Why would anyone bother with Crafting if your feat and resource expenditure only ever brought you to "parity" with others? That's not parity.
And that's the difference. The people using Earn Income didn't have to expend any character resources. They're using their free Lore from their Background or some other skill that they already had anyways. But to be a Crafter you need to invest in Crafting; to Craft at all you need to invest funds, have a workshop, get some tools; to get ahead you need to get a hold of formulas and buy into skill feats and similar abilities.
The other abilities, such as Earn Income, don't need any of that. So yeah, I think Crafting should pull ahead somewhat.
Maybe we need it to be a little closer to stupidly obvious.
I have yet to meet a player that recognized the benefits you describe, Baarogue, unless they frequented these forums.
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Maybe we need it to be a little closer to stupidly obvious.
I have yet to meet a player that recognized the benefits you describe, Baarogue, unless they frequented these forums.
Dude, I've literally told you about my own experience, and have made a few batches of low L items even in a campaign like Amb Vlts with next to no downtime.
Our party has had reason to detour to Absalom twice, and travel time on the road is a prime opportunity for my lab-in-a-bag to get used for crafting.
Literally any time one is not in a town, crafting is suddenly very good to have. The abstraction of having the crafting materials without planning is a great gimmie to make that happen.
On top of simply being able to GET items without a shop, I can Earn an Income without anyone around to pay me for my time. That's already worth it, and was used before Complex Crafting added the rush the finish.
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Ravingdork, I'm getting to the point where it seems you are having trouble listening / believing / accepting what other people say at all.
I was largely isolated from the pf2e zeitgeist early in the Abm Vlts campaign, and yes, the crafting benefits were obvious enough to influence and help sway my char creation toward Alchemist.
I can't see what's inside your head, only the results that play out here.
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It seems that the benefits of crafting do not meet your expected costs.
If that assumption is true, I encourage you to talk to your GM and see if adjustments can be made. Otherwise, it's kinda hard to help. The rules exist. Maybe even consider a character respec if you are that disappointed w/ crafting.
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I'm curious: Why would anyone bother with Crafting if your feat and resource expenditure only ever brought you to "parity" with others? That's not parity.
And that's the difference. The people using Earn Income didn't have to expend any character resources. They're using their free Lore from their Background or some other skill that they already had anyways. But to be a Crafter you need to invest in Crafting; to Craft at all you need to invest funds, have a workshop, get some tools; to get ahead you need to get a hold of formulas and buy into skill feats and similar abilities.
The other abilities, such as Earn Income, don't need any of that. So yeah, I think Crafting should pull ahead somewhat.
Crafting allows you to Earn Income in the exact same manner as any other Earn Income skill, so in no situation would it ever fall behind.
It also allows you to repair items, identify alchemical items, create items not available in the local market (including higher level), create items when outside of a settlement, and is used as a Recall Knowledge skill.
So yeah, investing in Crafting does more than your background Lore skill. What it doesn't do, is have one player pull ahead in income. Considering how crafters in 1e could gain massively more resources than anyone else in the party - this limitation seems like an intentional design choice in 2e.
Batch crafting is intended to bring parity to crafting consumables. How would you feel if you COULDN'T craft consumables in batches? Would you ever? Especially with 2e's original 4 days prep time per item? Batching is intended to make crafting multiple consumables equitable with crafting other items and Earn an Income
The way you want it to work goes right through parity and out the other side and then some. Instead of crafting a batch of consumables, you want to get to craft many single consumables simultaneously. Forget the question of selling those consumables. We're not talking about that. We mean the value of the crafter's time vs other downtime activities. Why should the crafter's roll be worth 4x as much when they're batching? Why should the alchemist's roll be worth 8x as much? Why would they do ANYTHING ELSE if it was? WHY WOULD ANYONE?
And nah. It amounts to "why bother explaining it to you?" But here I am, trying. Like a chump
No. You simply don't have a good argument. Nothing in the rules for batch crafting in anyway indicates that your rules reading is corrected.
It specifically states you can craft four at at time. It breaks the rules initially by allowing the crafting of four at a time.
You seem to be stating the rules imply that it breaks the initial rule of crafting four items at a time with batch crafting, but the additional rules suddenly require application of individual crafting rules.
That is what you are saying according to your reading of the rules.
Somehow it works like this in your mind because you have magically discerned the intent of the designers:
1. Batch crafting works for consumables for the initial bunch allowing you to craft 4 items in 4 days if you pay full price.
2. But somehow you just know because of reasons given above that "batch crafting" doesn't apply for the additional days crafting the items because it somehow breaks the game for crafting regular items by providing too much of an advantage and you just know this is what the designers mean.
Ok. Then you throw out some final insult because you want things to believe things are written as clearly as you want to see it, when they are not.
Your argument is based on your personal reading for an unclear rule. It would be nice if you could see that and understand that you "wasting time" explaining rules that aren't there like a "chump" is a ridiculous assertion.
I'll stop responding to you so don't you have to waste any more of your time or my time with your explanations that aren't clearly written in the ruleset.
I'll make one last post.
Raving Dork,
Absent a more clear rule reading, batch crafting should apply across the entire crafting process meaning the earned income reduction should apply to all four items as they are being crafted simultaneously.
The rules implication of batch crafting is that a consumable takes less time to craft than a full item. So it would subsequently indicate that the additional time spent crafting would also be reduced to 1/4 thus allowing the reduction in cost of each consumable.
May concerns to watch for:
1. Substantial increases to wealth by level.
Should be that your minimum 50% investment and 50% sale of items should balance out allowing mainly a time advantage which is the primary purpose of batch crafting.
If this imbalances your game in some other way, note it and adjust as needed.
Thank you everyone for your input on the matter.
I am inclined to continue ruling in the manner that Deriven describes, though I think many of you have made strong cases for the opposing interpretations as well. There is some small risk of imbalance, particularly at higher levels, or in games with lots of downtime, but I don't think it's something that can't be managed by even a mediocre GM.
It is clear to me that this is a grey area in the rules that it unlikely to see clarification unless the developers deign it a worthy enough topic to weigh in on themselves.
Feel free to continue discussing it if you wish.
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No. You simply don't have a good argument. Nothing in the rules for batch crafting in anyway indicates that your rules reading is corrected.
It specifically states you can craft four at at time. It breaks the rules initially by allowing the crafting of four at a time.
You seem to be stating the rules imply that it breaks the initial rule of crafting four items at a time with batch crafting, but the additional rules suddenly require application of individual crafting rules.
Here's the blurb again.
You can Craft items with the consumable trait in batches, making up to four of the same item at once with a single check. This requires you to include the raw materials for all the items in the batch at the start, and you must complete the batch all at once. You also Craft non-magical ammunition in batches, using the quantity listed in the Ranged Weapons table (typically 10).
This does not say what you claim.
You are NOT doing 4 simultaneous crafts.
You are doing a single batch craft that produces 4 items.
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There's been plenty of supporting evidence cited, from the rush the finish mechanic that is intended to be an economic boost and explicitly says as much, to the Alch Feat that explicitly says you do not get to boost the finishing process.
There's also plenty of deductive arguments, from the 4x and 10x batch creating perverse incentives, to the clear intent to separate the crafted project from daily labor value of the crafter.
How does one do a x10 batch that isn't just mundane ammunition?
Also, "perverse" is a bit overblown. Incentives, yes, but perverse incentives? Don't kid yourself. They're good. Not great.
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It specifically states you can craft four at at time. It breaks the rules initially by allowing the crafting of four at a time.
That's also all it says. There's no discussion of multiplying gold returns anywhere. It's just not a thing in the books.
For all your talk about clear RAW, that feels like a really significant omission to try to handwave away.
that "batch crafting" doesn't apply for the additional days crafting the items
This thought doesn't really make sense either. There's no concept of batch crafting "applying" or "not applying" in the first place, at no point does it 'turn off' or even really 'turn on' in the first place. It's just a thing you can choose to do
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Also, "perverse" is a bit overblown. Incentives, yes, but perverse incentives? Don't kid yourself. They're good. Not great.
Rush the Finish x batch 10 ammo = 20x Earn an Income.
"Not great."
Also, "perverse" is a bit overblown. Incentives, yes, but perverse incentives? Don't kid yourself. They're good. Not great.Rush the Finish x batch 10 ammo = 20x Earn an Income.
10 bolts or arrows are 1sp, as are most other pieces of ammunition sold in sets of 10.
So you pay 5cp, spend one day to prep (assuming you have the formula), and a second day to craft (assuming you have suitable crafting tools and location). You pay the remainder since you're rushing, which is 5cp.
In the end you get 10 units of ammunition, saved nothing, and wasted two days. You would have been better off going to market and buying the ammo.
You don't get 10 sets of ammo, the batch is set at 10 units because the set comes in a bundle of 10 units. (You're batch crafting 10 units, not 100.)
Even with my simultaneous crafting approach, you don't get fractions of a day during Downtime activities. Crafting anything at all is always going to take at least 2 days.
Aside from rare, more expensive kinds of mundane ammo (which typically require GM permission anyways), what exactly am I missing here?
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Crafting precious metal ammo like silver or cold iron are common and 40gp per 10, and do not require GM fiat.
This same ruling would no doubt be used to get 2x (rush) x8 (Efficient Alchemy) for a 16x discount. If is has not already.
I can no longer assume you are being genuine and engaging in good faith discussion. I believe you are attempting to get the last, knowingly inaccurate word to support the view you already had before going into this, to the benefit of your PFS Alchemist(s).
If I thought my L8 Alchemist could get a 64 gp per finishing day discount, I'd retrain into that Feat in a heartbeat and start w/ an 8x batch of Numbing Tonics.
From all angles, I know that to be an impossible benefit.
If you really, truly can disagree with the dissenting arguments, and see an 16x effective income multiplier as "fine," I don't think you'll find any benefit continuing here. I just hope your GM does a sanity check.
You're welcome to believe what you want about me, Trip.H, but I don't have any alchemist characters in PFS, and though I've made one or two non-PFS alchemist characters for 2e, I've not played any as yet.
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I have a general question that is adjacent to this: Does the crafting time that is spent on creating an item or batch HAVE to be continuous and uninterrupted or can you break it up into smaller chunks? There IS wording in the Crafting rules that after you make the Crafting check you can elect to take additional time to decrease the cost so there seems to be a choice timing here where at the very end of the process you either add the final material cost and have it done or you spend extra time scrimping and pinching pennies to reduce the cost so that suggests to be that there the result of the Crafting Check doesn't actually expire in any meaningful way and as I understand if you decide to put things on hold so you might save money you can later invest the downtime or change your mind to simply and instantly finish the product by using the materials worth X value with and undefined/zero time cost.
If that is the case would it be possible to take a two week break from adventuring as you might occasionally get and cook up 14 individual batches of distinctly different things, put all of them on "extra downtime" hold while reserving the materials you'd need to finish and then simply KEEP all of the unfinished batches as is so that you can instantly finish them by sprinkling the finishing touches on them as you might need them in the moment?
10 bolts or arrows using cold iron or silver are 40gp.
So pay 20gp up front (2gp of which must be actualcold iron or silver), spend one day to prep (assuming you have the formula), and a second day to craft (assuming you have suitable crafting tools and location). You pay the remainder since you're rushing, which is 20gp.
In the end you get 10 units of cold iron or silver ammunition, saved nothing, and wasted two days. You would have been better off going to market and buying the ammo.
If you're not rushing it, you can save as much as 20gp per batch of 10. So, 10gp a day for your trouble, at best for the common special materials. For all that, you also need to deal with increased character resource investments. Though low quality cold iron and silver are only level 2, since you need Expert to craft them, most characters won't be able to do it before level 3. Most characters at level 3 won't be able to earn more than 8sp each day per item though, or 8gp for a 10 unit batch under my interpretation.
Even if your GM grants you access to uncommon or rare materials, you're still limited by your check results, level, and how much material you actually possess during the crafting process.
If the GM only gives you 20gp worth of low quality silver, for example, you can craft up to 200gp worth of low quality units of ammo (potentially saving 100gp) over a lengthy period of time (which would have been better spent adventuring if your sole goal is profit).
It gets worse at higher levels as your earnings can't keep up with the high price of special materials and because you need a greater quantity of high-grade special materials to make the same items.
For example let's assume your GM gave you 6,750gp worth of high-gade adamantine.
A batch of 10 high grade adamantine arrows or bolts costs 13,500gp. So you put down 6,750gp worth of materials (which must be 100% adamantine in this case, unlike the 20% of the lower quality stuff).
You must be a Legendary crafter and be at least 16th-level to even attempt this.
If you rush it, you spend another 6,750gp and make no profit.
If you take your time, you can save as much as 6,750gp, at the best possible rate of 55gp per day, or 550gp under my interpretation. So, anywhere from 13 to 124 days under ideal circumstances and depending on your interpretation of the rules.
And all of it is absolutely under control of the GM, so no matter what, you can never earn more than they're comfortable with you having.
Does the crafting time that is spent on creating an item or batch HAVE to be continuous and uninterrupted or can you break it up into smaller chunks?
You can break it up into downtime days.
If the downtime days you spend are interrupted, you can return to finish the item later, continuing where you left off.
Your other question is trickier,
If that is the case would it be possible to take a two week break from adventuring as you might occasionally get and cook up 14 individual batches of distinctly different things, put all of them on "extra downtime" hold while reserving the materials you'd need to finish and then simply KEEP all of the unfinished batches as is so that you can instantly finish them by sprinkling the finishing touches on them as you might need them in the moment?
I think that since Crafting is a downtime activity any work you do must be one or more days and that therefore there isn't a way to complete things more quickly than that. But I can't point to a rule saying so.
To answer your question Themetricsystem, unless you're playing PFS, I believe you can put batches on hold to finsh later, but you derive no benefit from doing so until all items / the entire batch is completed.
You cannot have bulkless, non-material components suddenly materialize into fully completed items in the middle of an encounter or exploration or anything. You would need to spend a final downtime day in an appropriate location with the appropriate tools and resources in order to complete an object or batch that was previously put on hold.
When Trip says "rush" he doesn't mean complete immediately by spending the remaining value in materials. He's talking about the optional rules introduced in Treasure Vault.
If that's the case, then it sounds to me like it's the optional rule that's the problem.
Is that even compatible with Remaster? Seems to me like it wasn't intended to be used in conjunction with the revised Crafting rules' new times. If it were, it likely would have been reprinted in Player Core or GM Core.
What's more, if one person is arguing an interpretation of a Core rule, and someone else comes in and says "that's broken" while hiding the fact that it's only broken with an optional rule in a supplemental book that not everyone uses and may well be outdated in some respects...then it's likely not the first person who's being disingenuous in their statements.
In the end you get 10 units of cold iron or silver ammunition, saved nothing, and wasted two days. You would have been better off going to market and buying the ammo.
If you're not rushing it, you can save as much as 20gp per batch of 10.
What happened to this not being about money?
I was just mathing it out so that people can see that it's not as big a deal as others were making it out to be.
That was before the idea that they may have been brining in additional optional rules though.
I calculated it and it isn't a monetary advantage. Consumables normally damage your wealth by level compared to martials or those who use more permanent magic items due to the entire cost being paid for a one time use item with a possible save making the item entirely useless.
High level consumables are expensive eating quite a bit of wealth by level.
Allowing a crafter to craft them using the batch crafting rules across the entire process should not provide much of an advantage either in power or wealth by level.
The majority of your casting will still be from your slots.
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I should have commented earlier, but Thanksgiving week has been very busy. Sorry.
I created a thread similar to this back in February 2020: Batch Crafting, fast or slow? It did not reach agreement either. So I used my mathematicial skills and backtracked the initial logic of the Crafting rules out of the numbers involved. And the rules are designed to prevent an abuse that never occurred.
Let us take a straightforward pre-Remaster case of crafting. Imagine that a 2nd-level magical crafter named Arachne wants to make a Hat of Disguise. It costs 30 gp, so she invests 15 gp as raw materials and 4 days of preparation time. She rolls a success on the DC 16 crafting check, so according to Table 4-2: Income Earned she progresses on the remaining 15 gp of value at 3 sp a day. That requires 50 days. Adding in the preparation time, the total time is 54 days.
Back in my Iron Gods campaign, which had no time pressure between modules, my players would spend a month crafting items whenever they could return home to Torch. 54 days is too slow even for those characters.
But suppose Arachne had instead rolled a critical success. Then she would progress at 5 sp a day. Her crafting time would be 30 days plus the 4 days preparation time. That is more feasible.
Arachne is impatient. If she rolls a success on crafting her Hat of Disguise, then she declares it to be a failure. She recycles the raw materials, takes another 4 days of preparation time, and tried again, hoping for a critical success. If she gets a critical success, then her crafting would take 38 days, still faster than 54 days despite the extra 4 days of preparation. And if she rolls a failure or a regular success, then she tries again, hoping for a critical success and a total of 42 days.
This fishing for a critical success is the abuse that the 4 days of preparation time is designed to prevent.
Okay, let me throw in the numbers. 2nd-level Arachne has Int 18, Specialty Crafting in Tailoring, and the Magical Crafting trait. That gives her a +9 bonus to crafting a hat. A roll of 1 (5% chance) gives her a critical failure, a rule of 2 to 6 (25% chance) gives her a regular failure, a roll of 7 to 16 (50% chance) gives her a regular success, and a roll of 17 to 20 (20% chance). The expected number of attempts to roll a critical success is five. That would take on average 20 days. 20 days on attempts plus 30 days crafting is still shorter than 54 days, but it is close. If Arachne lacked the +1 circumstance bonus from Specialty Crafting, then she would need 6.67 attempts on average, so she would expect 26.7 days in attempts on average, for a total of 56.7 days on crafting, slightly longer than 54 days.
The four-day period was selected to that a crafter would gain no advantage or very little advantage in fishing for a critical success.
How does this fit with batch crafting? To balance the 4 days, the crafting numbers require the most expensive item of the crafter's level. Let me demonstrate with 2nd-level alchemical student Gosset (find the pseudonym of William Sealy Gosset for the hidden math joke). He has has Int 18, Specialty Crafting in Alchemy, and the Alchemical Crafting trait, so he has a +9 Crafting bonus for alchemical items. He wants to make one lesser Bravo's Brew, costing 7 sp. He invests 3.5 gp as raw materials and 4 days of preparation time. He rolls a success on the DC 16 crafting check, so he progresses on the remaining 3.5 gp of value at 3 sp a day. That requires 12 days. Adding in the preparation time, the total time is 16 days.
But suppose that like Arachne, he wants to fish for a critical success to shorten the crafting time. If he had a critical success, he would need only 7 days to brew the Bravo's Brew rather than 12 days. Since he also has a +9 bonus to craft a DC 16 item, he would expect that his attempts would take 20 days repeated preparation time on average before he rolled a critical success. Um, 20 days is longer than the total 16 days. Fishing for critical success is ridiculously inefficient when crafting an item that costs much less than the maximum price.
But suppose that Gosset wants a batch of 4 Bravo's Brews. The cost of 4 Bravo's Brews is 28 gp. That is close the 30 gp for an expensive 2nd-level permanent item. On a success, Gosset would need 47 days plus 4 days of batch time to make the batch, 51 days. If deliberately fishing for a critical success, Gosset would need 28 days plus on average 20 days of preparation time, 48 days. Fishing for a critical success is workable on a batch of four; though because it would save only 3 days, it would not be worth the trouble.
That is the reason behind batch crafting. Crafting balance is designed around the price of permanent items. Consumables are too cheap and are over-penalized by preparation time. Grouping consumables together into batches puts them in the proper price range to balance again.
Too bad that preparation time is an awful solution to fishing for a critical success on crafting. It messes up crafting for the players who simply wanted to craft items without fishing for a critical success. The solution assumes that the crafting character has as much downtime as they need for their project, and that the true limit on crafting is the cost of the raw materials. If that is true, the solution works. On the other hand, if the party is under any time pressure, such as knowing that a villain is working on an evil scheme, then the time for the 4 days of preparation time to too costly for plot reasons. It also makes Crafting less profitable than Earning Income by getting a job.
And I had to declare that cooking is a Survival activity or a Cooking Lore activity rather than a Crafting activity, because taking 4 days to make supper would be ridiculous. The ranger Zinfandel in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion would make wondrously delicious food with a Cooking Lore check to gain favor during diplomatic situations.
Now the Remastering has changed the preparation time from 4 days to 1 or 2 days. Sigh. That now enables fishing for critical successes, while still imposing a penalty on players who don't fish for critical successes,
Under remaster rules, preparation time is only 2 days. Thus, Arachne can fish for a critical success to make a 30-gp Hat of Disguise an expected average of 5 attempts, which would 10 days. 30 days of crafting at 5 sp per day after 10 days of preparation is 40 days, faster than 50 days of crafting at 3 sp per day after 4 days of preparation for 54 days overall. For a third option she could work 10 days at an Earn Income job paying 3 sp per day for the cash to buy a formula and spend only 1 day per fishing-for-critical-success attempt. That would be 10 days at the job, 5 days at preparation attempts, and 30 days of crafting for a total of 45 days, but it would give Arachne an advantage on a second Hat of Disguise.
Mathmuse's Homebrew Craft
I made a few attempts before the Remastering to homebrew the Craft activity to fix its flaws. By the time I had invented a workable version, my players had given up on Craft except for transferring runes between weapons.
The fix is very simple; nevertheless, it is non-intuitive. Drop both the preparation time and the critical success from the Craft activity. No-one will fish for a critical success when a critical success gives the same result as a regular success. I talked to my players, and they said that they were not interested in faster crafting from a critical success. If they had roleplayed setting aside 54 days for crafting, then being able to finish in only 34 days due to a lucky critical success is a very minor benefit.
Of course, changing Craft causes a cascade of other changes.
What is the benefit of a formula for a common item when it does not is not mandatory and does not save preparation time? The four common formulas from Alchemical Crafting and Magical Crafting or inventing a common formula from Inventor would become useless. I would houserule that a formula gives a +1 circumstance bonus to the Crafting check. If a player has both the formula and Specialty Crafting feat associated with the item, then the formula turns a critical failure into a regular failure.
Impeccable Crafting would change from. "You craft flawless creations with great efficiency. Whenever you roll a success at a Crafting check to make an item of the type you chose with Specialty Crafting, you get a critical success instead," to spelling out the benefit without mentioning critical success, "You craft flawless creations with great efficiency. Whenever you succeed at a Crafting check to make an item of the type you chose with Specialty Crafting, each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your level + 1 rather than based on your level itself."
If preparation time is zero, and a crafter fails the Crafting check to craft and item and has to start over, then can they start again on the same day? I would alter crafting so that the Crafting check is at the end of the first day of crafting, or at the end of the full crafting time if it takes less than a day.
Thanks for the in-depth analysis, Mathmuse!
I honestly had never considered the notion of crit-fishing with Crafting. I just assumed you got what you got. *mind blown*
I can't find the reference in the RAW that says you're allowed to declare your successes as failures. Can someone hit me with a reference?
- Jee
I can't find the reference in the RAW that says you're allowed to declare your successes as failures. Can someone hit me with a reference?
- Jee
Well, it's not what happens (even if it's written). A player (and character) can just do nothing after initial time, half-cost and a skill check: neither paying the other half, nor continuing crafting. GM can't stop that. What they can stop is considering the result as raw materials of the same cost for the same item. And demanding for example that the only way to continue with that thing is continuing to reduce cost or paying the rest which is RAW. So no new checks for that semi-finished item.
Whether this is a good or a bad strategy I don't know.
Yes it does sound like obeying the rules would fix this exploit quite handily.
If the player wants to salvage half a built thing, post-success roll, that sounds like another X days of deconstructing it for parts (a la the reverse engineering rules, which means quartering the value of the original item since you're disassembling something half-built). Or a sale to a vested interest who if definitely not going to buy it at full (half) price if SHE must then spend X days deconstructing it.
In other words, inherent to the Failure result is the deconstruction of the item. The Success result makes no such promises; you've already glued, welded, sown, and mixed everything you started with.
- Jee
Yes it does sound like obeying the rules would fix this exploit quite handily.I can't find the reference in the RAW that says you're allowed to declare your successes as failures. Can someone hit me with a reference?
- Jee
Well, it's not what happens (even if it's written). A player (and character) can just do nothing after initial time, half-cost and a skill check: neither paying the other half, nor continuing crafting. GM can't stop that. What they can stop is considering the result as raw materials of the same cost for the same item. And demanding for example that the only way to continue with that thing is continuing to reduce cost or paying the rest which is RAW. So no new checks for that semi-finished item.
Whether this is a good or a bad strategy I don't know.
The problem with fixing the crit-fishing exploit is that as far as I know no-one has ever attempted the exploit. My players didn't. Ravingdork said that he never thought of it, and he is quite creative. I thought of it only because I asked the question, "What is the 4 days of preparation time trying to prevent?"
A single extra sentence could guarantee preventing fishing for a critical success. Under the Success result add, "You cannot start again to try for a critical success." The preparation time is overkill.
I might be wrong about fishing for a critical success. The preparation time could have an even more obscure reason to exist. Maybe the Earn Income activity had some job-searching time so Craft gained preparation time to match, and then the developers dropped the job-searching time. That would be similar to the Wounded condition mistake in the Remastered Player Core.