Help with Master Craftsman

[darth_borehd]

The feat Master Craftsman says you cannot use it to create spell-trigger and spell-activation items.

But there is no such thing as a spell-activation item! I checked.

• 1) Did it mean use-activation item or a spell-completion item? Both could make sense I guess, but I think it meant spell-completion items--which are basically just scrolls.

• 2) Then the next question is that the way it is written, a character with the feat and the other two mentioned can make anything that is a weapon, armor, or wondrous item.

  Could one really use craft (basketweaving) to make a magic sword? Or use craft (bows) to make a magic hat?

  Was it intended that the craft skill used to qualify for the feat also has to apply to the magic item being made? For example, it would make a sort of narrative sense that a really excellent cobbler could make acrobat slippers or a really good blacksmith could make horseshoes of speed

  Or is the thinking that a master craftsman in any kind of crafting could apply his skill to any magic item in the weapon, armor, and wondrous categories?

• 3) Lastly, what about other item creation feats? Could a master carpenter also take Craft Construct to make a wood golem, for example?

[Joynt Jezebel]

darth_borehd wrote:

1) Did it mean use-activation item or a spell-completion item? Both could make sense I guess, but I think it meant spell-completion items--which are basically just scrolls.

I agree. It could have been more precisely worded.

darth_borehd wrote:

2) Then the next question is that the way it is written, a character with the feat and the other two mentioned can make anything that is a weapon, armor, or wondrous item.

Could one really use craft (basketweaving) to make a magic sword? Or use craft (bows) to make a magic hat?

Was it intended that the craft skill used to qualify for the feat also has to apply to the magic item being made? For example, it would make a sort of narrative sense that a really excellent cobbler could make acrobat slippers or a really good blacksmith could make horseshoes of speed

Or is the thinking that a master craftsman in any kind of crafting could apply his skill to any magic item in the weapon, armor, and wondrous categories?

As you say, it is not clear.

I would rule that you can create an item that mostly uses that craft skill then you can use it to make a magic item. Arguably, you can't use
craft (basketweaving) to make a sword so you can't make a roll with that skill.

darth_borehd wrote:

3) Lastly, what about other item creation feats? Could a master carpenter also take Craft Construct to make a wood golem, for example?

Hey great, a question with a clear answer. The answer is no, or at least not with this feat.

The game has a lot of ways you can get to create a kind of magic item w/o having the feat as such.

[Belafon]

darth_borehd wrote:

2) Then the next question is that the way it is written, a character with the feat and the other two mentioned can make anything that is a weapon, armor, or wondrous item.

Could one really use craft (basketweaving) to make a magic sword? Or use craft (bows) to make a magic hat?

Was it intended that the craft skill used to qualify for the feat also has to apply to the magic item being made? For example, it would make a sort of narrative sense that a really excellent cobbler could make acrobat slippers or a really good blacksmith could make horseshoes of speed

Or is the thinking that a master craftsman in any kind of crafting could apply his skill to any magic item in the weapon, armor, and wondrous categories?

Yep, if he has Master Craftsman and Craft Wondrous Item he can make any Wondrous Item (that isn't spell-trigger or spell-completion). Basically he is so good at crafting in general that he might as well have a caster level when it comes to working with his hands!

Which makes sense when you think of it that way. As just a substitute for caster level. A wizard doesn't have to have any knowledge whatsoever about tailoring to make a cloak of resistance. It's not perfect - I personally would have let the Master Craftsman take Forge Ring once they had 7 ranks in their skill - but it's a good addition for low-magic campaign settings.

[Azothath]

see Using (Magic) Items. Spell activation is a general term with 4 subtypes [spl completion, spl trigger, command word, use activated]. Thus in general it takes a standard action that does not provoke (an AoO) to cause a magic item to activate.

→ Master Craftsman feat and from the feat Normal: Only spellcasters can qualify for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. Thus it is a way to open up most crafting to the non-casters. They'll still need access to a caster or scrolls for spells, otherwise higher DCs to craft items getting around requirements.

I agree there's no "spell-activation" term. This means it is general english (or poor technical writing).
 General flub argument: I assume it means spell completion (as spell trigger being another "spell" word is covered). The other meaning would be an item that needs a spell, like charged items, and those are very rare within the three magic item crafting feats. An example would be a sword of spell storing.
 Typo argument: IF you take "spell-activation" as a typo with the hyphen, then the feat only creates [spl completion, command word, use activated] items within the three magic item crafting feats.

[OmniMage]

My take is that master craftsman is a badly designed feat. It is my understanding that the feat allows you to pick one skill, only one skill (there is no option for picking other skills later), to craft magic items. So if you picked craft weaponsmithing as your skill, you would have no reason to pick up craft wondrous items later as you will not have an applicable skill to use it. It is also a feat tax. You need to take it to qualify for other feats you want later, but the feat itself is not that useful.

To simplify things, it is my house rule that you can take craft magic arms and armor and craft wondrous if you have an applicable skill that has at least as many ranks as the caster level needed to take it. So 3 ranks for craft wondrous and 5 ranks for craft magic arms and armor. If you have multiple skills, each will require a minimum number of ranks to use said feats with said skill.

Crafting scrolls, potions, wands, and staves however require actual spell casting knowledge. These items are not something where you can fake it until you make it. Most are too cheap for second tries.

[Diego Rossi]

AoN wrote:

Magic Item Creation

To create magic items, spellcasters use special feats which allow them to invest time and money in an item’s creation. At the end of this process, the spellcaster must make a single skill check (usually Spellcraft, but sometimes another skill) to finish the item. If an item type has multiple possible skills, you choose which skill to make the check with.

...

Creating Magic Armor
Item Creation Feat Required: Craft Magic Arms and Armor. Skill Used in Creation: Spellcraft or Craft (armor).

...

Creating Magic Weapons
Item Creation Feat Required: Craft Magic Arms and Armor.
Skill Used in Creation: Spellcraft, Craft (bows) (for magic bows and arrows), or Craft (weapons) (for all other weapons).

...

Creating Wondrous Items
Item Creation Feat Required: Craft Wondrous Item.
Skill Used in Creation: Spellcraft or an applicable Craft or Profession skill check.

I fail to see how someone can seriously argue that it is possible to use Master Craftsman and Craft Magic Arms and Armor together to Craft (basket weaving) to craft a sword. The rules explicitly say that you need Craft (weapons).

Craft Wondrous Item is where the rules are at their vaguest, but it is still reasonably clear: you need to use an applicable skill.
So Craft (blacksmithing) can't be used to make a magic carpet, but Craft (basket weaving) can be used to make a pannier of holding (this kind of item: gerla).

Yes, you use two feats to make way less than a spellcaster, but you are making magical items without being a spellcaster.
No one forced you to go down that route.
If it is something you really want, the cost is acceptable.
If you want a way to be more powerful, this isn't the route, and trying to bend the rules will only harm your enjoyment of the game.

[Azothath]

Design Chat -

Diego Rossi wrote:

I fail to see how someone can seriously argue that it is possible to use Master Craftsman and Craft Magic Arms and Armor together to Craft (basket weaving) to craft a sword. The rules explicitly say that you need Craft (weapons).

PF1 is just generic and simplistic. If you want to add more refined decisions or details based on what you think is realistic, that is a good area for Home GMs to make home rules. It all depends on what you want in your game. speaking of campaign settings, should I mention FR & The Weave?? lol...

The designers clearly could have directed players to pair Master Craftsman with Craft Magic Weapon and Craft(weaponsmithing) but they did not. That says a lot. Four feats gets you all the crafting a PC/NPC can handle without taking up a Caster class.
I want to add that the Master Craftsman with the magic item crafting feat just lets you make >MAGIC< items, not the masterwork item that you are magically enhancing. You are confusing the two.

One of the problems in PF1 is over-specificity in Feats to curtail interactions and the lack of growth with level. This was outlined above where the Master Craftsman Feat is tied to a single craft skill. Retraining is the RAW way around it - but it certainly is overly costly for a piddling detail. Why not Home Rule to allow the class skill to be changed every even level or add a skill every 3-5 levels... or who cares...
I'm not as permissive as OmniMage who did away with some/all crafting feats... I think they have their place but some are overly specific...

oh, and bending the rules IS my enjoyment and what makes it fun on occasion (you have to keep it reasonably fair and sensible within the bounds of taste).

[Diego Rossi]

Azothath wrote:

I want to add that the Master Craftsman with the magic item crafting feat just lets you make >MAGIC< items, not the masterwork item that you are magically enhancing. You are confusing the two.

Have you read my post and the citations?

I never spoke of crafting the item, but the rules allow you to make a skill check with specific crafting and profession skills to enchant an item instead of Spellcraft.
Even spellcasters can do that, but for them, Spellcraft is generally more convenient.

[Azothath]

Commentary-
Diego, yes, I always read posts several times before responding to make sure I understand what triggered my leagalese "spidey sense" on the first read.
Unfortunately you left out the Prerequisite: Caster Level N for the Magic Item Crafting feats which are only available to casters and why Master Craftsman exists... I prefer links to RAW so I do not have to type out RAW and introduce a mistake.
The optional skill (for magic item crafting) gives casters AND non-casters via Master Craftsman an option (to let us say Craft(baskets)). Which is a Good Thing™.
Unfortunately your first paragraph did not say "magic sword", just sword which is a mundane item. Then you say "... you need an applicable skill" which is in fact optional unless you are crafting a mundane (masterwork) item, enforcing that you are mixing mundane and magic crafting. Adding "I fail to see how..." just draws my attention. So likely it is what you said and how I read it versus what you meant to say. That confusion in interpretation isn't uncommon.

Still, PCs only get so many feats and skill points. So it is about committing character development to magic item crafting and some leveraging of WBL.
I wanted to emphasize that RAW directs players to only need 1(Master Craftsman)+3(magic item crafting) feats rather than a pairing of of 3+3 which is feat overtaxing.

My last comment just shows that we view the game differently and different people enjoy different aspects.

[Belafon]

The problem is the specific wording of the Master Craftsman feat:

Quote:

Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of qualifying for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. You can create magic items using these feats, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item.

There's two ways of reading the bolded line.

1) You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item, even if other skills are normally used.

2) You can only use the chosen skill when creating magic items, which means you can only make magic items which have your chosen skill listed as an option in the chapter on Magic Item Creation.

Neither is provably wrong.

The main reason I believe the first is correct is that if you do limit it to relevant profession checks then it highly encourages legalistic play, especially when it comes to Craft Wondrous Item. Let's assume that we are using interpretation 2 and there are three different players with this feat and Craft Wondrous. The first chooses Craft: Leatherworking and has to debate whether a given item has enough leather to count. The second chooses Profession: Tailor and then argues about where the line between tailoring, cobbling, and jewelrymaking is. And whether you can "tailor" leather goods. The third - a smug rule lawyer - declares that he has chosen Profession: Costumer and therefore just about every wondrous item is fair game for him.

Spoiler:

At which point a fourth player chimes in and suggests Profession: forger. You know - someone who forges items that look like specific magic items. Or in other words, anything.

Every GM is going to rule differently, and the purpose of this example isn't to debate what happens with each of our three players. It's to point out that if we use the first interpretation that anyone can make any of the items no matter what their skill is then there is no debate. It's the clean answer.

[Azothath]

I agree with the first (viewing the chosen skill subbing in for spellcraft) but don't see the (Home Game) harm in allowing another appropriate trained skill.

Due to the practical nature of preplanning involved in PF1 builds characters will have an appropriate skill from the start. Nobody is gonna take craft baskets and then master craftsman...

[Diego Rossi]

Azothath wrote:

Commentary-

Diego, yes, I always read posts several times before responding to make sure I understand what triggered my leagalese "spidey sense" on the first read.
Unfortunately you left out the Prerequisite: Caster Level N for the Magic Item Crafting feats which are only available to casters and why Master Craftsman exists... I prefer links to RAW so I do not have to type out RAW and introduce a mistake.
The optional skill (for magic item crafting) gives casters AND non-casters via Master Craftsman an option (to let us say Craft(baskets)). Which is a Good Thing™.
Unfortunately your first paragraph did not say "magic sword", just sword which is a mundane item. Then you say "... you need an applicable skill" which is in fact optional unless you are crafting a mundane (masterwork) item, enforcing that you are mixing mundane and magic crafting. Adding "I fail to see how..." just draws my attention. So likely it is what you said and how I read it versus what you meant to say. That confusion in interpretation isn't uncommon.

Still, PCs only get so many feats and skill points. So it is about committing character development to magic item crafting and some leveraging of WBL.
I wanted to emphasize that RAW directs players to only need 1(Master Craftsman)+3(magic item crafting) feats rather than a pairing of of 3+3 which is feat overtaxing.

My last comment just shows that we view the game differently and different people enjoy different aspects.

1) I stand corrected; I should have used "enchanting a magic sword".

2) Jason Bulmahn about Master Craftsman.
A "story mechanism", not "more dakka".

3) To me, using Craft (Basket Weaving) to enchant a sword seems the opposite of thematic, unless you are using a rattan sword rattan carpet beater.

[Joynt Jezebel]

Belafon wrote:

The third - a smug rule lawyer - declares that he has chosen Profession: Costumer and therefore just about every wondrous item is fair game for him.

Belafon wrote:

At which point a fourth player chimes in and suggests Profession: forger. You know - someone who forges items that look like specific magic items. Or in other words, anything.

As a literal rules lawyer, someone who has a law degree and practiced law, I really should have thought of these. Also profession (salesman) should work for every conceivable magic item.

And despite having expressed a different opinion earlier I am convinced by your argument that the skill or profession should work for very magic item
to avoid power gaming silliness.