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First off - a common misconception that trips people up a lot. In PF2, Crafting is not a way to increase your character's wealth. The way that the crafting rules work is that you still pay full price for the item in raw materials, with a discount that is applied for extra days of work - at the same rate that those days could be spent on Earn Income. Now, there are ways to fiddle around with things in a whiteroom scenario to get a character that is better - or worse - at getting Crafting discount compared to Earn Income. But in general the two options for spending downtime are pretty equivalent.
Now, if you are wanting to do crafting as part of your character's narrative and flavor, that works reasonably well. Current rules are that you need Trained proficiency in Crafting in order to craft mundane items, and you can craft any common mundane items in two days. You can reduce that to one day if you acquire the formula for the item. The item's formula will also let you craft items of Uncommon or Rare rarity. There are also skill feats that allow you to craft alchemical and magical items at the same day cost as mundane items.
So with nothing but Trained proficiency in Crafting, a place to work, and 30 gp of appropriate materials, you could craft full plate in two days. Having the formula for full plate would reduce that to 1 day. You could also reduce the cost by spending an extra week on it and save 21 sp on the cost (assuming that you succeed at the crafting check). The discount won't ever be more than 50% of the total cost, no matter how much extra time you spend on it.
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There are no rules for players to use to homebrew their own custom items, magical or otherwise. There are some rules for things like a Personal Staff, or Relics which may be able to fill some of that role. There are also guidelines for the GM to use to homebrew magic items.
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Crafting is pretty good if you:
1. Want specific things.
2. Are not in places you can buy those things.
3. Have time in the campaign to do it (though we're talking a couple of days per item, not years).
If its a campaign that isn't constantly time pressed and takes place away from large settlements frequently, crafting is quite helpful as it lets you get things you wouldn't have an easy time getting otherwise. If not, its less so.
It does also let you transfer runes, so if you find a sword with a rune you like but you use a bow, you can move that rune over with crafting.
It's not an essential skill, but every party I've seen with a crafter has benefited from having them at some point.
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Crafting can help quite a bit if the following is true:
1. High intelligence
2. Lots of downtime like in a campaign like Kingmaker where you get months of downtime.
3. No easy access to level appropriate earn income and no skill good at earn income.
Crafting isn't near as good as PF1, but it is better than many think it is. It's great for creating quick batches of scrolls and other consumables. The earn income benefit is based on your roll and skill level rather than the settlement level which means you can make items in a village or metropolis. It doesn't matter. It's one of the few intelligence skills that can give a lot of bang for the buck if you use it well. It can save you money on quite a bit if you have sufficient downtime.
First thing is to remove any expectations from previous D&D/PF RPGs.
Crafting isn't the power-curve breaking therefore-required ability it once had been. But it is what the others have noted: an efficient way to earn money & access items (within normal power levels) that the setting might not provide.
And the Crafting skill itself is necessary in a party with PCs that Shield Block, and useful when repairing items useful to the narrative, like a broken winch or bent key. IMO every party should have a PC with Craft.
First off - a common misconception that trips people up a lot. In PF2, Crafting is not a way to increase your character's wealth. The way that the crafting rules work is that you still pay full price for the item in raw materials, with a discount that is applied for extra days of work - at the same rate that those days could be spent on Earn Income. Now, there are ways to fiddle around with things in a whiteroom scenario to get a character that is better - or worse - at getting Crafting discount compared to Earn Income. But in general the two options for spending downtime are pretty equivalent.
Now, if you are wanting to do crafting as part of your character's narrative and flavor, that works reasonably well. Current rules are that you need Trained proficiency in Crafting in order to craft mundane items, and you can craft any common mundane items in two days. You can reduce that to one day if you acquire the formula for the item. The item's formula will also let you craft items of Uncommon or Rare rarity. There are also skill feats that allow you to craft alchemical and magical items at the same day cost as mundane items.
So with nothing but Trained proficiency in Crafting, a place to work, and 30 gp of appropriate materials, you could craft full plate in two days. Having the formula for full plate would reduce that to 1 day. You could also reduce the cost by spending an extra week on it and save 21 sp on the cost (assuming that you succeed at the crafting check). The discount won't ever be more than 50% of the total cost, no matter how much extra time you spend on it.
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There are no rules for players to use to homebrew their own custom items, magical or otherwise. There are some rules for things like a Personal Staff, or Relics which may be able to fill some of that role. There are also guidelines for the GM to use to...
Great summary.
My hot take to the OP is that crafting is only "good" if your GM doesn't allow you to generally access and purchase items you want to use. If your GM is more the "heres a magical bazaar, go shopping type" it's not very useful. That said, it also doesn't require a ton of investment if your interested in it from an RP standpoint. For my home games because the ROI is basically nil compared to having any other skill that can Earn Income, I let everyone use the associated skill feats if they would otherwise meet the requirements.
The most important thing to know is, you will not get ahead of the WBL curve by crafting relative to your companions. You do have the advantage in that you can craft as long as you have down time, where earn an income requires a location with level relevant things to do. But honestly I find having enough downtime to do either is a bigger issue.
If your interested in crafting for RP reasons, do it. If you're not, you can pretty safely pass.
I would like to second the statement that how good Crafting is is dependent on access to items otherwise.
My group is currently in Age of Ashes. As written, you are consistently behind the curve for magic items because every town you visit is several levels below your party. In this case having a Crafter in the party has been a real lifesaver.
Alternatively, if your campaign has easy access to a large city near or above your level, you don't need a Crafter at all.
Alternatively, if your campaign has easy access to a large city near or above your level, you don't need a Crafter at all.
I would say that the caveat to not needing a crafter at all, is if you have a character that is focused on using shields, as shields need to be repaired practically every combat.
But I would agree with you, that a crafter is not needed by default and the biggest reasons that would change are:
1) Access to magical items/magical bazaar
2) Shield user in group
3) RP
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It is my experience you can exceed the wealth by level with crafting in most campaigns. It is not easy to find a level appropriate settlement in the game, much less travel to it in a reasonable time frame. Someone with crafting is going to be far more effective at earn income than a non-crafter just buying items unless the DM is very generous with providing level appropriate settlements and making travel easy.
Kingmaker is one of the best campaigns for downtime. It also doesn't provide a whole lot of high level settlements unless you are kingdom building real fast of appropriate level.
So crafters can spend quite a bit of their downtime crafting and using extra days to reduce the price by a level appropriate amount even in a village or town.
You can also work with your DM with skills like Inventor or general crafting to make things that may not be on the list, but a DM will work with you to make like high level Apex items.
It makes consumables far, far easier to obtain as they are easy to make, easy to roll a crit success on, and can be made in batches.
You also have more control over the DC of your crafting roll. If you are making a 3rd level scroll at which is a 5th or 6th level DC and you are level 12, you can churn those out very quickly and cheaply because you get to roll against the DC of a 5th or 6th level item while an Earn Income player has to find a place to earn income at an appropriate level then make a DC against that place level to earn income at the same level you would making a DC check for a level 5 or 6 location. Their roll is tougher.
I think even PF2 crafting can allow you to slightly exceed wealth by level easier than a non-crafter with less DM fiat involved. You have to read the rules closely and use them to your advantage.
Is it the huge wealth multiplier of PF1? Nope. Does it allow you to slightly exceed wealthy by level easier than a non-crafter? Yep. Definitely. I did not like crafting a great deal at first because like with all things PF2, I was comparing it to PF1 crafting. But once I learned the crafting rules and how they worked with the system, I found it to be a more worthwhile skill than I initially thought which does allow you to exceed wealth by level and gives you more control over itemization of your character. This can be pretty extreme in high downtime campaigns and pretty weak in low downtime campaigns. It's almost always moderately advantageous to take crafting if you can do it well.
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Thanks for the replies! Its unfortunate that making custom items isn't a thing. I was hoping to combine some items or design my own.
You can make custom items. Just has to get the DM approval like any uncommon or rare item, spell, feat, or anything else in the game.
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It is my experience you can exceed the wealth by level with crafting in most campaigns. It is not easy to find a level appropriate settlement in the game, much less travel to it in a reasonable time frame. Someone with crafting is going to be far more effective at earn income than a non-crafter just buying items unless the DM is very generous with providing level appropriate settlements and making travel easy.
Kingmaker is one of the best campaigns for downtime. It also doesn't provide a whole lot of high level settlements unless you are kingdom building real fast of appropriate level.
So crafters can spend quite a bit of their downtime crafting and using extra days to reduce the price by a level appropriate amount even in a village or town.
You can also work with your DM with skills like Inventor or general crafting to make things that may not be on the list, but a DM will work with you to make like high level Apex items.
It makes consumables far, far easier to obtain as they are easy to make, easy to roll a crit success on, and can be made in batches.
You also have more control over the DC of your crafting roll. If you are making a 3rd level scroll at which is a 5th or 6th level DC and you are level 12, you can churn those out very quickly and cheaply because you get to roll against the DC of a 5th or 6th level item while an Earn Income player has to find a place to earn income at an appropriate level then make a DC against that place level to earn income at the same level you would making a DC check for a level 5 or 6 location. Their roll is tougher.
I think even PF2 crafting can allow you to slightly exceed wealth by level easier than a non-crafter with less DM fiat involved. You have to read the rules closely and use them to your advantage.
Is it the huge wealth multiplier of PF1? Nope. Does it allow you to slightly exceed wealthy by level easier than a non-crafter? Yep. Definitely. I did not like crafting a great deal at first because like with all things PF2, I was comparing it...
Yeah, I am having this same experience in Kingmaker. Being able to "earn" money at a 5th level rate is nice when everyone else is limited to levels 1 and 2. It's important to note a major metropolis will usually only go up to level 10-12. Beyond that you need to start traveling to other planes and stuff to find "level appropriate" items and jobs, though many adventures find a way to hack this for you.
Also worth noting that while the Craft activity is weaker than it used to be, the Crafting skill stronger than ever when actively adventuring. You use it to identify constructs, alchemicals, the value of treasure, or anything more advanced than a bow and arrow. You also use it to repair items and jury rig things. Investing in the skill has more than one benefit.
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It is my experience you can exceed the wealth by level with crafting in most campaigns. It is not easy to find a level appropriate settlement in the game, much less travel to it in a reasonable time frame. Someone with crafting is going to be far more effective at earn income than a non-crafter just buying items unless the DM is very generous with providing level appropriate settlements and making travel easy.
Yeah, I am having this same experience in Kingmaker. Being able to "earn" money at a 5th level rate is nice when everyone else is limited to levels 1 and 2. It's important to note a major metropolis will usually only go up to level 10-12.
Just checking this by putting actual numbers to it. Making sure I am understanding.
At character level 5, your crafting character can be crafting the Armor Potency rune that you are needing and can earn 1 gp per day as discount. While the non-crafters in the party are spending the downtime at the level 1 or level 2 task earning 2 sp or 3 sp per day instead and will have to buy the armor rune at full price afterwards. So after a month (30 days) of downtime, the non-crafters have earned 6 gp or 9 gp while the crafter character has gotten a discount of 30 gp. Towards the price of the 160 gp armor rune.
The non-crafters earned about 4% to 6% of the cost of the rune, and the crafter earned 18% of the cost.
After a month of downtime.
It is certainly better than a kick in the head. I'm not entirely convinced that it breaks the wealth by level curve.
How about at higher levels? A level 18 party. Everyone is looking to get the Armor Potency +3 runes at that level.
Crafter is crafting as a level 18 task at either 45 gp, 70 gp, or 90 gp per day - depending on crafting proficiency investment. So 1350 gp, 2100 gp, or 2700 gp for a month.
Non-crafters are earning income at a level 11 task for probably 5 gp unless they picked up Additional Lore or otherwise have a Lore proficiency past Trained. At which point they are at 8 gp per day. So 150 gp, or 240 gp per month.
The armor rune everyone wants now costs 20,560 gp.
Minimum crafting investment needed gets you 6.5% of the rune.
If for some reason you put Master or Legendary proficiency into crafting instead of a different skill, you can get that up to 10% or 13% of the rune's cost.
Non-crafter minimal investment (probably just their automatically given Lore skill from their background) earns 0.7% of the rune. And Additional Lore bumps that up to 1.1%.
Again, nothing to completely discredit and scoff at. But not a must-pick either.
Again, nothing to completely discredit and scoff at. But not a must-pick either. Edit: And it is going to require spending a pretty valuable character build resource - one of your Legendary skill picks.
That was my conclusion as well.
Like crafting (assuming investment up to master) is better than a lore that doesn't advance past trained, and because you can always craft "at level" items vs lore to Earn Income depends on task levels available to you at your location, yes you're going to make more money. But even when you have a lot of downtime it's going to net you like 1 extra item.
Personally, I've seen some GMs allow for free advancement of Lore/Crafting just as a nice "gift" to players which makes it less of a chore/conundrum to choose to be good at these activities that are mostly for RP. Sure, one month of downtime can give you 5% extra wealth compared to expected.
That's not nothing, but it's not crazy either.
Crafting can give you a nice little discount on something relative to what you'd get via other earn incomes. I'd guess that it's only a few percentage points of difference in total wealth even in high downtime environments like PFS where you have 24 days of downtime/level. I'll probably run the numbers comparinbg an optimized performer, an optimized crafter, and someone who doesn't care about downtime once I get home just because I'm curious now.
So, I tried to run the numbers as mentioned, but unfortunately I ended up with too many variables when doing the calculations for crafting as figuring out how many consumables the crafter would attempt to make (which in turn determines how much the crafter loses if they critically fail) was just too much of a headache. If I had to ballpark the increase in wealth a skilled crafter can get in PFS compared to a meathead that has a -1 intelligence and never goes above trained in the background lore skill, it's probably two or three percent. I think Bards are actually the real kings of Downtime in PFS, as once the storied talent boon is available a bard who maxes out performance will earn on average about 6% more each level than the aforementioned meathead since you don't have to worry about losing gold on critical failures and get to put all 8 days of each downtime period toward actually earning gold.
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It is my experience you can exceed the wealth by level with crafting in most campaigns. It is not easy to find a level appropriate settlement in the game, much less travel to it in a reasonable time frame. Someone with crafting is going to be far more effective at earn income than a non-crafter just buying items unless the DM is very generous with providing level appropriate settlements and making travel easy.Yeah, I am having this same experience in Kingmaker. Being able to "earn" money at a 5th level rate is nice when everyone else is limited to levels 1 and 2. It's important to note a major metropolis will usually only go up to level 10-12.Just checking this by putting actual numbers to it. Making sure I am understanding.
At character level 5, your crafting character can be crafting the Armor Potency rune that you are needing and can earn 1 gp per day as discount. While the non-crafters in the party are spending the downtime at the level 1 or level 2 task earning 2 sp or 3 sp per day instead and will have to buy the armor rune at full price afterwards. So after a month (30 days) of downtime, the non-crafters have earned 6 gp or 9 gp while the crafter character has gotten a discount of 30 gp. Towards the price of the 160 gp armor rune.
The non-crafters earned about 4% to 6% of the cost of the rune, and the crafter earned 18% of the cost.
After a month of downtime.
It is certainly better than a kick in the head. I'm not entirely convinced that it breaks the wealth by level curve.
How about at higher levels? A level 18 party. Everyone is looking to get the Armor Potency +3 runes at that level.
Crafter is crafting as a level 18 task at either 45 gp, 70 gp, or 90 gp per day - depending on crafting proficiency investment. So 1350 gp, 2100 gp, or 2700 gp for a month.
Non-crafters are earning income at a level 11 task for probably 5 gp unless they picked up Additional Lore or otherwise have a Lore proficiency past...
Yep. You break the wealth by level curve, but not by enough to break the game like PF1 where you were breaking it by 50% or so. Your math has brought you to mostly the right conclusion. Crafting breaks the wealth by level curve, but not by such a large amount that you will care if you don't have crafting. It's more a combination of convenience and a minor increase in wealth by level for downtime.
In Kingmaker at higher level with months of kingdom building downtime, I was able to pay 50% for my weapons and such. This gave me a nice boost in wealth by level, but almost everyone ends up the same at the end anyway.
This is due to another factor involved in the wealth by level balancing: magic items can't break the game anyway.
PF2 has what I refer to as layered balancing. That's why it is so hard to break. Even if someone gave you a million gold, about all it would do is let you get the items earlier, but when you all reached level 20 you would all end up the same anyway because you can all invest only 10 to 12 magic items, the magic items cap at a +3 bonus for runes and item bonuses, and you can only wear one apex items.
In PF1 given the magic item rules let you combine a ton of magic items including lots of stacking ability bonuses and such, you could break the wealth by level or magic items could break the game.
But not so in PF2. The magic items regardless of what the amount of gold won't break the game due the limiters. You could have a billion gold and still won't be able to break the wealth by level once you reach level 20. It will all just even out the same for almost everyone due to the way magic items are balanced.
So crafting is more of a mild wealth by level breaker that may allow you to obtain something a little cheaper earlier than your fellow party members, take more advantage of earned income, let you make consumables more freely, and allow you more custom itemization. So you take it for reasons other than expecting to break wealth by level by a noticeable amount which it will not do.
On top of the utility functions every has listed.
I don't know that I'd actually use the words "break the wealth by level curve." But it is a nice little boost above and beyond what loot you find, which remains the most significant driver of weakth.
I don't know that I'd actually use the words "break the wealth by level curve." But it is a nice little boost above and beyond what loot you find, which remains the most significant driver of weakth.
Agreed, plus or minus 15% of WBL isn't going to break anything, but that's the good part.
However, anyone thinking of crafting like it was in PF1 where some people assumed it just meant you effectively double your WBL would be upset at this version.
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I don't know that I'd actually use the words "break the wealth by level curve." But it is a nice little boost above and beyond what loot you find, which remains the most significant driver of weakth.Agreed, plus or minus 15% of WBL isn't going to break anything, but that's the good part.
However, anyone thinking of crafting like it was in PF1 where some people assumed it just meant you effectively double your WBL would be upset at this version.
Double? Don't make me laugh! My savings in 1st Edition were close to 90%, not 50%.
Double? Don't make me laugh! My savings in 1st Edition were close to 90%, not 50%.I don't know that I'd actually use the words "break the wealth by level curve." But it is a nice little boost above and beyond what loot you find, which remains the most significant driver of weakth.Agreed, plus or minus 15% of WBL isn't going to break anything, but that's the good part.
However, anyone thinking of crafting like it was in PF1 where some people assumed it just meant you effectively double your WBL would be upset at this version.
And that is exactly the kind of problem that existed in PF1
I think a lot of the rough edges of crafting were fixed in the remaster. The shorter start up time is nice, but not needing the formula for common items and formulas heightening is a big deal. It used to be formula level was capped by settlement level just like item purchases, which didn't make any sense and severely reduced the value of Crafting as a replacement for full market access.
I think a lot of the rough edges of crafting were fixed in the remaster. The shorter start up time is nice, but not needing the formula for common items and formulas heightening is a big deal. It used to be formula level was capped by settlement level just like item purchases, which didn't make any sense and severely reduced the value of Crafting as a replacement for full market access.
Yeah, the old argument that crafting was good for resource-starved campaigns was made almost entirely moot by the fact that if you couldn't get the item, you probably couldn't get the formula either.
A most welcome change.
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Which was so silly. Sure, small town shops might not have the customer based to stock and sell high level items, but formulas are much cheaper and take almost no storage space.