Full Plate manufacture time

What do other folks do for the manufacture of armor? By the book, full plate will take an obscenely long time to create, on the order of a full year for a skilled armorsmith.

Even refitting a set of captured full plate takes a long time, between 8-20 weeks, again for a skilled craftsman. Far longer if the best you've got is a level 1 smith.

My players have decided that for the one that wants full plate, he's just gonna wait until he can find a magical suit, and let it auto-fit, or enchant a masterwork suit and again, use the auto-fit.

This seems entirely silly to me, but before I tackle it, any stable and solid solutions out there?

Well, for a single person working alone that might be realistic. However I don't think smiths usually worked alone. And I get the idea that level 1 smiths are supposed to be pretty lousy. Which is kind of unfortunate because it's at early levels (I think) that characters will be most interested in creating mundane items, as opposed to magical ones. (Unless they're making something masterwork & then enchanting it.)

Plate takes a long time to make because it's expensive. A simple solution might be to increase the speed of all crafting. You could multiply the weekly progress by a flat amount, or change the time for each crafting check from weekly to every 2-4 days, depending on how fast it should be.

Another option - and I think I've read some rules somewhere online for it - is to allow characters to collaborate. Maybe the smith can hire a bunch of assistants who can help speed things up.

I cast "Fabricate". Done.

I know, that's not what you were looking for, but there it is. Just like in Real Life (tm), if you want to do it the long way you'd have assistant smiths helping out (+2 bonus for each one making a DC 10 check, right?), and it WOULD take a while to make custom-fit plate armor. Of course, that doesn't count your masterwork tools, either.

In a D&D world, though, you'd have the option of finding a high-level caster with the Fabricate spell and some Craft skills (I recommend Shaper Psions), and voila, instant armor. The downside? No assistants, no masterwork tools. I have a 15th-level Shaper, and I make these things all the time.

That being said, the equation still seems a bit off. The reduction in time for having all those assistants, a good smithy, masterwork tools, etc. isn't large enough IMHO.

Many designer people would say that the craft rules are...not very good. They're best for regular items...not for the very low and very high ends of the spectrum.

The reason for this, mostly, is that the price does not only reflect the amount of time spent and the skill involved in making the item. The price also reflects the materials cost and the market demand. In other words, the basic premise of the craft skills are flawed.

As a fudge, you might just revise the cost of the item, or even making two separate costs: Creation Base Price and Market Base Price. That way you wouldn't need to create a new system.

And seriously, you're unlikely to find a universal, simple system. After all, modern economists have been trying for decades....hey, maybe there's a Noble Prize in it for you if you do!

For full plate, you might just revise the creation base price down to, say, 800 gp. (Or less, if you'd like.)

Well, IRL, full plat took a VERY long time to make. But this is fantasy, AND D&D, so a year plus isn't normally acceptable. As a fudge idea, you could make Crafting like magical creation, where the cost is equal to 1/2 the market price. For mundane items, which use 1/3 rd the raw materials, that would cut crafting times by 2/3rds.

But lets say you are in a decent sized city, and you can find a competent smith who isn't back logged with commisions, and can just jump on your project.

7th level Expert

Craft 10 Ranks
INT 14 +2
Skill Focus +3 (Eratta)
MW tools +2
Two Apprentices +4

Total +21
Taking a 10 Check at 31

Crafting DC of 18 (10 + AC bonus)

18 X 31 = 558

15,000 (Cost in SP) / 558 = 27 weeks, or 6 1/2 months. Ugly, but not unrealistic.

Now bump him up to 10th level, add a couple more apprentices, and then use the ELH skill section to bump up the DC by 10. This gives you a total of a 38 check and a 38 DC.

38 X 38 = 1444

15,000 / 1444 = 10 weeks, or 2 1/2 months. All not including Masterwork.

Not bad for 50lbs of inticatley worked metal. You could even cut down the time further by using raw materials as opposed to base price, for a time frame of 2 months and 3 weeks, respectivley.