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More of a fluff-centric rules question, but for those characters whose Craft skill is focused on cooking, can they use Seasoned in place of Specialty Crafting to qualify for Impeccable Crafting?
The Seasoned feat (Player Core, page 262) reads as follows:
"You’ve mastered the preparation of many types of food and drink. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to checks to Craft food and drink, including elixirs if you have Alchemical Crafting and potions if you have Magical Crafting. If you are a master in one of the prerequisite skills, this bonus increases to +2."
The Specialty Crafting feat (Player Core, page 262) reads as follows:
Your training focused on Crafting one particular kind of item. Select one of the specialties listed below; you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Crafting checks to Craft items of that type. If you are a master in Crafting, this bonus increases to +2. If it’s unclear whether the specialty applies, the GM decides. Some specialties might apply only partially. For example, if you were making a morningstar and had specialty in woodworking, the GM might give you half your bonus because the item requires both blacksmithing and woodworking."
The categories for Specialty Crafting include Alchemy, Artistry, Blacksmithing, Bookmaking, Glassmaking, Leatherworking, Pottery, Shipbuilding, Stonemasonry, Tailoring, Weaving and Woodworking. Food & Drink aren't on the list.
At the start, that's no issue. The feats basically work identically to one another, just for different categories of items, so if your preference is to be a great chef, you take Seasoned instead of Specialty Crafting, and improving to Master proficiency with Crafting improves your circumstance bonus in the same way with either feat.
However, at 7th level the Crafting feat Impeccable Crafting (Player Core, page 256) becomes available. The pre-requisites are that you need to be a Master in Crafting, and that you need to have Specialty Crafting. The benefit of the feat is then that: "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."
So, even if you spend an additional skill feat on taking both Seasoned and Specialty Crafting, since Specialty Crafting doesn't include "Food & Drink" or "Cooking" as a category, it would seem that Impeccable Crafting can never apply to crafted items that you're cooking per se. If so, this makes my chef a sad chef.
Any chance the feat is intended (or can be tweaked) to include Seasoned as an alternate pre-requisite? Or is there something game-breaky in the fact that Seasoned potentially applies to elixirs and potions, and automatic Crafting success = critical success for those items would be un-balancing?
Signed,
A-Formerly-Happy-But-Now-Disgruntled-Chef
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Considering the fact that Paizo made the Wandering Chef archetype a thing, I think this could be ground enough to make this another option officially too. The idea is to give us freedom to play the way we want, particularly if the effects are the same either way for the two feats. I'd add this as a suggestion to the Fall Errata post as a potential fix.
I just want to make sure I'm parsing this right:
The difference in the outcome is success vs critical success right.
And more specifically that's:
"Your attempt is successful. Each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your level + 1 and your proficiency rank in Crafting."
vs
"Your attempt is successful. Each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your level and your proficiency rank."
So effectively it just changes how much "value" you generate and progress your crafting by....it seems pretty small to me.
As a Gm I would probably just allow this, but honestly it doesn't seem very valuable to do.
I just want to make sure I'm parsing this right:
The difference in the outcome is success vs critical success right.And more specifically that's:
"Your attempt is successful. Each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your level + 1 and your proficiency rank in Crafting."vs
"Your attempt is successful. Each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your level and your proficiency rank."
So effectively it just changes how much "value" you generate and progress your crafting by....it seems pretty small to me.
As a Gm I would probably just allow this, but honestly it doesn't seem very valuable to do.
Well that's just kind of a value assessment on the Craft activity in general, which is hella variable. Many campaigns it's not a even worth bothering with, but in Kingmaker game where we have 3 weeks pass between every Kingdom Turn and lack shop or Earn income job access comparable to our level, I'm generating some significant cost savings by Crafting my own gear. And for a Master or Legendary craftsman, each level of earn income is like 30-60% increase in those savings. So if Craft is relevant in the first place getting crit successes is meaningfully better.
Yeah, but the difference between a success and a crit success seems like a pretty marginal improvement in the benefit is what I'm trying to get at.
Depending on the exact level the delta in the gold value is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not exactly Earth shattering either if it didn't work.
I mean, as a GM I would let Seasoned count in place of Specialty crafting if a player wanted it.
I guess I was trying to evaluate how much of a difference it would make, assuming it was even useful in the first place (such as the condition you describe where you don't have access to markets to buy things or access to on level jobs to perform to Earn Income).
Yeah, but the difference between a success and a crit success seems like a pretty marginal improvement in the benefit is what I'm trying to get at.
Depending on the exact level the delta in the gold value is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not exactly Earth shattering either if it didn't work.
I mean, as a GM I would let Seasoned count in place of Specialty crafting if a player wanted it.
I guess I was trying to evaluate how much of a difference it would make, assuming it was even useful in the first place (such as the condition you describe where you don't have access to markets to buy things or access to on level jobs to perform to Earn Income).
It all depends on how much downtime you have. There are APs that take place across literal years. Having 3 months of downtime pass between level ups isn't outrageous. Let's look at an example.
A party is supposed to receive 4000gp worth of treasure over the course of leveling from 8 to 9. That's a thousand gold per person. A level 8 expert task generates 3 gold a day, so it they get 90 days over the course of this level that is 270 gold. A 27% increase in WBL is nothing to sneeze at. And if you get a crit success on all those checks you're looking at another 90 gold on top of that. And that's one of the smaller earn income level jumps.
It's a skill feat that would be considered a waste in many campaigns, but when it is relevant it could be very relevant indeed. Whether that means it should be a high priority for Paizo to errata... I dunno.
It's an interesting issue.
Cause as a GM, I'm not big on allowing significant increases/changes to WBL, but I also don't want it to make choosing to invest your skill feats into crafting as something that has no useful return.
The question I end up with is "how much value should skill feat investment return" compared to other options the character could have chosen.
With item levels being relevant, players can't access stuff significantly above their level, so extra wealth isn't as problematic as it could have been in PF1.
In my group, we haven't had a campaign with a lot of downtime for it to generate an issue, so I haven't had to figure out what would be "fair".
I don't think getting 27% more WBL for a couple skill feats is fair, but haven't done enough analysis.
Well, it's not just a couple skill feats. Impeccable Crafting requires master proficiency, plus likely another skill feat like Magical Crafting or Alchemical Crafting. 2 skill increases and 3 feats is a pretty chunky investment for something only relevant during downtime. And that investment only looks significantly better than using the Lore you started with to Earn Income if the campaign limits job levels to below the party level. (And to be fair, most campaigns should eventually because settlement levels only go so high on the material plane.)
... With item levels being relevant, players can't access stuff significantly above their level, so extra wealth isn't as problematic as it could have been in PF1 ...
Item levels are only really relevant for crafting of them. Otherwise, their availability is entirely in the hands of the GM.
Item Level (with emphasis):
Each item has an item level, which represents the item’s complexity and any magic used in its construction. Simpler items with a lower level are easier to construct, and you can’t Craft items that have a higher level than your own (page 236). If an item’s level isn’t listed, its level is 0. While characters can use items of any level, GMs should keep in mind that allowing characters access to items far above their current level may have a negative impact on the game.
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... With item levels being relevant, players can't access stuff significantly above their level, so extra wealth isn't as problematic as it could have been in PF1 ...Item levels are only really relevant for crafting of them. Otherwise, their availability is entirely in the hands of the GM.
Item Level (with emphasis):
Each item has an item level, which represents the item’s complexity and any magic used in its construction. Simpler items with a lower level are easier to construct, and you can’t Craft items that have a higher level than your own (page 236). If an item’s level isn’t listed, its level is 0. While characters can use items of any level, GMs should keep in mind that allowing characters access to items far above their current level may have a negative impact on the game.
Claxon might have meant the steep price increase you see as item level increases. Item level effectively feels like a gate because it's pretty rare you can afford to buy something above your level.
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... With item levels being relevant, players can't access stuff significantly above their level, so extra wealth isn't as problematic as it could have been in PF1 ...Item levels are only really relevant for crafting of them. Otherwise, their availability is entirely in the hands of the GM.
Item Level (with emphasis):
Each item has an item level, which represents the item’s complexity and any magic used in its construction. Simpler items with a lower level are easier to construct, and you can’t Craft items that have a higher level than your own (page 236). If an item’s level isn’t listed, its level is 0. While characters can use items of any level, GMs should keep in mind that allowing characters access to items far above their current level may have a negative impact on the game.
Yes, but GMs are given guidance that generally players should be allowed to access items of their level or lower, and in major cities party level +1. And basically in Absalom only party level +2, but you're right that it is up to the GM, as all things always are.