Fix for Craft Skill

Ok...so i've been playing with the Craft skill, because it seems to take a VERY long time to make weapons or armor. I've taken some ideas and complaints I've seen around and put my own spin on them. Please let me know if it makes any sense or even *gasp* works in a reasonable manner.

The basic formula they give in the PHB would remain the same, but what if we took the cost in GP instead of SP, and then used the difference between the check & the DC as the multiplier....

So to craft a long sword it would be as follows: (examples use Weaponsmith skill of my Dwarf)

Long sword Costs 15GP... DC to craft it is 15
with my skill level (+11) I've got to roll over a 4 or over:
So week 1 I roll an 8 (yes I'm actually rolling...sad isn't it) With Mod that's a 19
The amount finished is 19*(19-15)= 76
I only needed to get a 15...so in a week I could make 5 long swords

For the suit of chain we've been talking about it would be:
Cost for Suit: 150 GP DC to Craft 14
Roll: 14 +11 =25
25 (25-14)=275 So a standard suit of chain would be just under a week to make...
add on the MW
Cost: 150 DC: 20
Roll: 12 +11 =23
23 (23-20)= 69
Week 2 Roll: 11+11=22
22 (22-20)= 44
Week 3 Roll: 15+11=26
26 (26-20)=156
So week 3 of MW would finish that bit...total would be 4 weeks of work...


*ponders* ...i think this works...*looks around worriedly*....did i just have a good idea?

anyway let me know if this was really a good idea or if I'm just tired....

Altman said:

*ponders* ...i think this works...*looks around worriedly*....did i just have a good idea?

anyway let me know if this was really a good idea or if I'm just tired....

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Well, it should take a long time to craft items. Perhaps the time they have is a little to long, but I think your is way to short. But that isn't the problem with the craft skill. THe problem is the harder it is to create something (higher the DC) the faster it is to craft because you multiple work completed by that higher DC.

Since I notice that this seems to be your first post, I'd like to say "welcome!"

I agree that the craft process at the moment is unsatisfying. I think using the amount you exceeded the DC by as the multiplier is a good idea - as Crothian says, the existing method bizarrely makes difficult things quicker to make

Have you considered how this would work for building large items - ships and such? Or if a craftsman takes 10 on his crafting (which I tend to assume most NPC experts do for their daily work)? That would probably be a useful additional sanity check.

Cheers

Well Plane Sailing, first thanks for the welcome

So i took a look at the math for both a Sailing ship & a Tower (just to keep all the Unions involved) and had the workman take 10 as per your suggestion.

The Sailing ship took 3 years.
The Tower took bout 7 1/2 years.

Which i figure is about right for a single person, or at least reasonable. In reality building a ship like that takes about 6 months (I got to watch some folks do it a few years ago...they built one about 10 min from where i lived...was quite entertaining) but that would be with more than one person.

Altman, an idea I came up with, wa to have Craft skills that were related, such as Blacksmithing and Armorsmithing, and give a synergy bonus, similar to what Tumble gives to Balance and all those.

DeBhaal said:

Altman, an idea I came up with, wa to have Craft skills that were related, such as Blacksmithing and Armorsmithing, and give a synergy bonus, similar to what Tumble gives to Balance and all those.

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I'd also considered a Synergy bonus of that sort. What I wonder though is how far can you carry that. I have a character with Armorsmithing, Blacksmithing, Metalworking, Weaponsmithing, and Knowledge skills in Weaponry...If I'm makeing a weapon, or a suit of armor how much Is Blacksmithing related? The base set of skills (forging something simple) is the same, but the design differences between a piece of armor, a long sword, and horse shoe is rather impressive.

That however is something I'm quite willing to leave to my fellow GM's... The thing I'm more concerned with is making the craft skill itself function in a more reasonable way. I've made chain mail in the past, and while forging the rings takes a while, "weaving it" is actually quite easy, and the 30-40 weeks it was taking a character to build one is insane...and seems to be the same problem with other things too.

But there we are...thanks for the input.

Originally posted by Altman
I'd also considered a Synergy bonus of that sort. What I wonder though is how far can you carry that. I have a character with Armorsmithing, Blacksmithing, Metalworking, Weaponsmithing, and Knowledge skills in Weaponry...If I'm makeing a weapon, or a suit of armor how much Is Blacksmithing related? The base set of skills (forging something simple) is the same, but the design differences between a piece of armor, a long sword, and horse shoe is rather impressive.

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Then that character ought to be pretty damn good at making weapons!

The differences between them very well might be impressive, but the mechanics are very similar, and its the mechanics that we are working with. Blacksmiths have the skill of folding metals, and Heat-weilding, Cold-Weilding, and everything else. An Armorsmith, has the same knowledge and is abit more refined focused mroe on making Armor, than horseshoes. The same with a Weapon Smith, he had to go through the same(or very similar) training that the Blacksmith went through, but his became more focued later, once he learned what he was better at making, Weapons in this case.

Thanks for taking the time to read my idea though.

Re: Re: Fix for Craft Skill

Crothian said:

Well, it should take a long time to craft items. Perhaps the time they have is a little to long, but I think your is way to short. But that isn't the problem with the craft skill. THe problem is the harder it is to create something (higher the DC) the faster it is to craft because you multiple work completed by that higher DC.

Click to expand...

I think it's supposed to recognize the fact that things that are harder to make (higher DC's) also COST more than things that are eaiser to make.

The question is how proportional are the DC increases to the increases in price? ie. if the DC is only 5 higher, but the price of the item is twice that of the lower DC it sorta evens out.

in theory, at least

joe b.

I've been using this for a long time now for craftsmen and for scholars too - arbitrarily providing additional synergy bonuses for related skills.

A scholar with knowledge(arcane), knowledge(ancient history), knowledge(heraldry), knowledge (ancient languages), profession(scholar), profession(historian) who was asked to research the 1000 year old witch-king identified in some old heiroglyphics could get +10 from synergy bonuses and +5 skill ranks while only being 2nd level.

It always seemed the best way to have true experts who didn't happen to be brilliant fighters with lots of hit points too...

Cheers

I came up with my own version that seems to work well.

Here are the basics.
Every 3 points of DC takes 1 day.
For every 6 points you excede the DC it drops the time needed by 1 day to a minimum of 1.
Masterwork and other such additions add to the orginal DC.

Example
Longsword DC 15 to create. Takes 5 days.
MW Longsword DC 25 (15 base +10 for MW) takes 8.3 days to create.
I also only make my players roll once for each item. So if your makeing a long sword and you get a 31 you make it in 7.3 days. If you where makeing a standard longsword with a 31 you would have finished that sword in a single day.