Crafting Special Materials Takes HOW Long?

[Azaar]

I know I asked this question several months ago, but I find myself asking again, partially due to my own curiosity as well as my DM's curiosity.

From looking at the Craft rules, it takes 4 weeks to make a suit of chainmail (assuming a check result of 25, multiplied by the DC of 15 for crafting chainmail, for 375 sp per week). Yet, if I get mithral and make mithral chainmail (and again, assuming a check result of 25, though I assume the DC will be 20, since mithral automatically makes it masterwork, for a total of 500 sp per week), it takes 83 weeks by the Craft rules in place.

Is it me, or does that seem uncommonly long? Sure, if I'm playing an elven craftsman or running an elven artisan NPC with Craft (armorsmithing), this doesn't seem quite so bad, given the long life span. Even so... should it really take 83 weeks to make a single suit of mithral chainmail, given the above example?

Note: I am aware that I can get a magical item to give me a +10 competence bonus on specific skills like Craft (armorsmithing), take Skill Focus (Craft (armorsmithing)) and stuff like that to cut down on the time, as well as voluntarily add +10 to the DC to speed things up.

I'm more concerned with if I should (using mithral chainmail as an example) take the 4,150 gp price and use that, or if I should just consider it masterwork chainmail and operate off the 300 gp price for masterwork chainmail. The latter option makes far more sense, and leave the cost of the mithral simply as added cost for special materials, rather than spending ungodly amounts of time to make armor (or weapons, or anything else) simply because of the added cost from using a special material.

Thoughts?

 

[Bad Paper]

I am aware that I can get a magical item to give me a +10 competence bonus on specific skills

Wow. I was not aware of that. What magical item is that? A +10 bonus is Epic.

I believe the dominant mindset is that the extra cost for special materials is for labor, so yes, it makes sense that mithral armor takes longer.

If you're going to assume Craft check results, then you should probably adjust them upward. A level 10 expert with Int of 14, masterwork tools, and Skill Focus (craft (armor)) will easily hit a 30. Presumably when someone has found a lump of mithral, they would hand it over to the senior craftsman.

Also, there are various house rules for allowing helpers to chip away at the labor or up the check result (depending on the DM; YMMV), so if that craftsman has a handful of apprentices and helpers who don't fail their checks, you may wind up consistently hitting a check result of 40. In this manner, the manufacturing process becomes viable: adventurers don't have to wait a year for custom orders, and inventory actually gets moved out the door, money comes in, people eat, rent gets paid, etc.

 

[Rackhir]

I know I asked this question several months ago, but I find myself asking again, partially due to my own curiosity as well as my DM's curiosity.

From looking at the Craft rules, it takes 4 weeks to make a suit of chainmail (assuming a check result of 25, multiplied by the DC of 15 for crafting chainmail, for 375 sp per week). Yet, if I get mithral and make mithral chainmail (and again, assuming a check result of 25, though I assume the DC will be 20, since mithral automatically makes it masterwork, for a total of 500 sp per week), it takes 83 weeks by the Craft rules in place.

Is it me, or does that seem uncommonly long? Sure, if I'm playing an elven craftsman or running an elven artisan NPC with Craft (armorsmithing), this doesn't seem quite so bad, given the long life span. Even so... should it really take 83 weeks to make a single suit of mithral chainmail, given the above example?

Note: I am aware that I can get a magical item to give me a +10 competence bonus on specific skills like Craft (armorsmithing), take Skill Focus (Craft (armorsmithing)) and stuff like that to cut down on the time, as well as voluntarily add +10 to the DC to speed things up.

I'm more concerned with if I should (using mithral chainmail as an example) take the 4,150 gp price and use that, or if I should just consider it masterwork chainmail and operate off the 300 gp price for masterwork chainmail. The latter option makes far more sense, and leave the cost of the mithral simply as added cost for special materials, rather than spending ungodly amounts of time to make armor (or weapons, or anything else) simply because of the added cost from using a special material.

Thoughts?

Yes, you are absolutely correct. It takes WAAAAAYYYY to long to craft anything other than the basics if you go strictly by the rules. I once had an archer character of mine craft a +4 mighty Composite bow (800gp IIRC) and it took 3 months.

If you really want to make stuff using exotic materials and you don't have an immortal character with decades to kill, then yes you absolutely need to change exactly how things work.

 

[frankthedm]

Is it me, or does that seem uncommonly long? Sure, if I'm playing an elven craftsman or running an elven artisan NPC with Craft (armorsmithing), this doesn't seem quite so bad, given the long life span. Even so... should it really take 83 weeks to make a single suit of mithral chainmail, given the above example?

Yes. It is completely reasonable that a legendary material take more effort to craft than mundane material. It is no accident long lived races are the only ones patient enough to craft such material.

Note: I am aware that I can get a magical item to give me a +10 competence bonus on specific skills like Craft (armorsmithing), take Skill Focus (Craft (armorsmithing)) and stuff like that to cut down on the time, as well as voluntarily add +10 to the DC to speed things up.

You would be surprised how most people who take issue with special material crafting times conveniently forget these options.

 

[Rackhir]

Wow. I was not aware of that. What magical item is that? A +10 bonus is Epic.

No that's a skill bonus, not a combat bonus. You can go up to a +10 skill bonus without going epic. If you check the SRD there's a number of items that grant a +10 bonus to a skill under wondrous items. Also the Armors can grant a +10 to Hide/Move Silently.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Wow. I was not aware of that. What magical item is that? A +10 bonus is Epic.

Not if it's a competence bonus to a skill. That's...10,000gp? ((Bonus^2)*100)

Skill boosting items that aren't specifically included in the DMG are a common house rule.

Brad

 

[Zurai]

Yes. It is completely reasonable that a legendary material take more effort to craft than mundane material. It is no accident long lived races are the only ones patient enough to craft such material.

If mithral is a "legendary" material, why does it only cost 1,100 gold to buy a mithral chain shirt? Hell, a CL 1 wand costs almost that much. Are wands of cure light wounds legendary?

I would agree that two years is reasonable if the material were actually legendary. Mithral and adamantine don't qualify because they're simply far too cheap. A legendary material isn't something that's covered by the DMG; that's something like the fragments of a shattered sword that once belong to a god, not a mineral that can be pulled out of the ground by any idiot with a pick.

 

[Deset Gled]

If mithral is a "legendary" material, why does it only cost 1,100 gold to buy a mithral chain shirt? Hell, a CL 1 wand costs almost that much. Are wands of cure light wounds legendary?

To a peasant who earns 1sp a day, or a town ravaged by the plague, yes.

Legen - wait for it - dary is all rel - wait for it - ative.

 

[Zurai]

To a peasant who earns 1sp a day, or a town ravaged by the plague, yes.

So a wand of cure light wounds is "a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical."? "A romanticized or popularized myth of modern times."? Because that's what a legend is. Something that might not even exist. If you're using the core rules, even Joe Bob Peasant knows that such things exist. Sure, they'd be rare from his point of view - so rare that the chances of him ever holding one in his hands are virtually nonexistant - but not unverifiable.

Legendary is something completely unrelated to how much a peasant earns. Legendary means that it's something that probably only exists in legends. It's something that is part of the very culture of a nation or people. "Oh, sure, any godsman can make one of those with a little time and a lot of money" isn't a legend. Neither is "The dwarves found another deposit of mithral earlier this month. That's the third in three years!".

 

[Rackhir]

So a wand of cure light wounds is "a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical."? "A romanticized or popularized myth of modern times."? Because that's what a legend is. Something that might not even exist. If you're using the core rules, even Joe Bob Peasant knows that such things exist. Sure, they'd be rare from his point of view - so rare that the chances of him ever holding one in his hands are virtually nonexistant - but not unverifiable.

Legendary is something completely unrelated to how much a peasant earns. Legendary means that it's something that probably only exists in legends. It's something that is part of the very culture of a nation or people. "Oh, sure, any godsman can make one of those with a little time and a lot of money" isn't a legend. Neither is "The dwarves found another deposit of mithral earlier this month. That's the third in three years!".

Legendary might have been a poor choice of words, but you are missing or ignoring his very relevant point that, while 1,100 gold is chicken feed to most mid to high level adventures it will buy 550 barrels or 37 ponys or a banquet for a 110 people, etc.... In other words its a lot of money to "normal" people even in a "normal" D&D world. Just because Bill Gates has enough money to buy a Ferrari every day for a couple of decades, doesn't mean that they aren't rare and expensive cars.