Craft/Time Point Proposal & Discussion

Knight Otu · Jul 28, 2006

Bront said:
Actualy, you round up to 3, and round up in the CP stuff.

Otherwise, that normal dagger costs 0 CP.

Uhm, no. What I've said is directly from the Craft point rules. And regarding the dagger, you may have noticed I said that there is a minimum of 1 CP.

Rystil Arden · Jul 28, 2006

Knight Otu said:
Uhm, no. What I've said is directly from the Craft point rules. And regarding the dagger, you may have noticed I said that there is a minimum of 1 CP.

Fortunately, we aren't using the CP rules, and since our Time Points count as a day each, they would be rounded up (though if it is for a nonmagic item, the crafter may feel free to use the leftover time to make a portion of a second item)

Patlin · Jul 29, 2006

Ferrix said:
Proposal
Characters begin with a single year of craft days (365 days) which are expended when crafting items (magical or not) outside of an adventure at the normal rate. One craft day per 1000gp in the items base price, with a minimum of at least 1 craft day; potions always only take one craft day. See the creating magic items rules here.

Characters gain one craft day per real life day not spent adventuring. Items crafted while on an adventure do not subtract from a characters craft day total, but crafting in an adventure does take up time in the adventure timeline. Please check with your DM and the adventure's judge when crafting an item during an adventure.

Rystil Arden said:
I'm thinking maybe start them with half a year instead of a full year, for a few reasons, including the fact that the people who aren't getting into adventures right away are at least regening craft points.

Knight Otu said:
Eberron days are 24 hours. Seven days make a week, four weeks a month, and twelve months a year (ECS, page 130). Making a year having 336 days (coincidentally, if there was a 13th month, it would be a 364 day year, but I remember Hellcow saying that it wasn't planned that way).

Rather than basing it on a year and having people become confused between Eberron and Earth years, how about starting everyone with 200 crafting days?

Rystil Arden · Jul 29, 2006

Patlin said:
Rather than basing it on a year and having people become confused between Eberron and Earth years, how about starting everyone with 200 crafting days?

I want to start them with 118 days, so we could round that to 125 or 100.

Patlin · Jul 29, 2006

Ok, quick comparison. I expect to be wrong, so jump in and correct me.

LEW craft point rules:
A first level artificer or wizard will start with 650 craft points, assuming no relevant feats. Other characters will start with 150 craft points.
They do not gain craft points by sitting in the inn, but do by leveling.
Crafting a scroll of 2 first level spells costs 5 craft points.
A +1 Long Sword costs 232 craft points
A +4 Belt of giant strength coses 1,600 craft points

Propose LEB rules:
All characters, regardless of feat choices or character class, start with 100 days.
They do not gain days by leveling or while adventuring, but do gain them by sitting in the inn. (1 day real time = 1 day credit?)
Crafting a scroll of 2 sirst level spells costs 1 day.
A +1 Long Sword costs 3 days.
A +4 Belt of giant strength costs 16 days.

Is that right?

Rystil Arden · Jul 29, 2006

Almost. I suspect you may have accidentally hit 3 instead of 2 for the +1 Long Sword, but it only costs 2 days (assuming you purchase the MW Longsword and then enchant it). Everything else you said is correct.

I like the LEB system better for Eberron because the person who is constantly in an adventure and leveling can just craft things during adventure downtime (of which there is a moderate amount in Eberron thanks to all the public transportation), whereas the guy who can't find the adventure can use the regenerated days to keep crafting too. In LEW, the guy on the adventure who keeps leveling gets double benefits (extra CP for leveling as well as time on the adventure to craft normally) and the guy stuck in the inn gets nothing (barring the Job System, which is a different story)

Patlin · Jul 29, 2006

Interesting -- your calculating the time for the longsword as increasing the value of a component by 2,000 gp. I wasn't thinking that deeply and just calculated based on the final price of the item. I probably overcharged the craft points, too... by that theory, the sword should cost 200 craft points.

Rystil Arden · Jul 29, 2006

Patlin said:
Interesting -- your calculating the time for the longsword as increasing the value of a component by 2,000 gp. I wasn't thinking that deeply and just calculated based on the final price of the item. I probably overcharged the craft points, too... by that theory, the sword should cost 200 craft points.

Yeah, the Longsword is usually just purchased by the magic item crafter, but if you want to make that too from scratch, you have to make it using craft skills--it's a component required for the magic item crafting. That's true no matter where you play (unless someone house rules it I guess).

Rystil Arden · Jul 29, 2006

Something else I should say--players are free to mix and match between in-game and out-of-game crafting.

Have two days in the adventure to craft? Then you can finish 2/16 of your +4 Belt of Giant Strength, and later after the adventure, you can cash in 14 craft days to finish it off.

Patlin · Jul 29, 2006

Fair enough, I've never actually crafted a magic weapon so I hadn't put much thought into it.

So, another thought experiment for evaluation purchases.

Joe the Item crafter is completely out of craft days. (Can we call them craft days to distinguish from the craft point system?) He want's to build something truly massive, for sake of example a Staff of Power. Base price is 211,000. Ignoring the possibility that he starts with a masterwork staff (or even a +2 staff) as a component, that would normally take 211 days to build. Joe could be taken out of play for 211 days real time and (after deducting xp and gp from the character sheet) come back with a staff of power. Alternatively, if he was in play and had a 8 hour block of time in the adventure in which he was crafting, he could mark one day of progress toward the staff. Conceivably, he could even do a combination... craft whenever possible while adventuring and then be removed from play in order to finish it off.

He'd save a lot of player time if he could find an adventure in which his character would ride the lightning rail a lot, since in a few sentences a month might pass, but if he got caught up in a 30 round battle taking 3 weeks of real time and 3 minutes of game time he'd get nothing for that period.

If that's all correct, it seems like a workable system to me...