I'm starting to work on a guide to help players create and design houserules, new classes and feats, etc. I plan to start out with some general principles, and then move on to more specific discussion of different features of 4e. I will be posting sections of the guids as aI write them, and feedback is always appreciated.
Section 1: General Principles
1.1. Make sure you understand the problem your houserule is trying to solve, or the role you expect the new rule to play in the game.
This is probably one of the most important principles, and applies to all systems, not just 4e. It is best illustrated by an example. Suppose I'm playing a science-fiction space adventure game, and I come up with the following idea:
"I want a system for characters to research, invent, and build new gadgets."
Now, this is a good starting point. But why do I want this, and how do I expect this role to fit into the game?
Suppose that it's just because the campaign is set at a research lab, and I want the scientists at that lab to have some skill that represents their ability to do research. If the only characters that are going to actually do research are NPCs, then I can decide on the results however I want; I don't necessarily need a new game system.
Suppose it's just because one of my players wants "scientist" in their character background. Again, if I don't expect it to come up in the game, I probably don't need a mechanic for it. I can just let my player write that in their character background, and if there are any skills that that would help with (say, repair) then he could take those skills. But I wouldn't need to "charge extra" for an extra "scientist" skill if it's just background. (And if at some point I think the background would help, then I can always give an ad hoc bonus then.)
Suppose it's because one of my players has a particular idea for a gadget he wants his character to have. Then I could just come up with a price (or whatever the equivalent is in the game's "item acquisition system"), let him pay that, and say that he built it rather than purchased it. Achieves the same objective, uses the same mechanics, no need for new systems.
Suppose it's because my players want to be able to invent gadgets on-the-fly to help them in the game. In that case I should probably introduce some sort of cost for this ability, because I expect it to be useful. Probably some sort of system like "the player decides what he wants to make, I set a difficulty level and cost, the player rolls, and if he succeeds he makes the item" would be sufficient.
Suppose that the research is the main focus of the campaign. Then I want to have a much more fleshed-out system, with meaningful decisions for the players to make at each step of the process. For example "If I add an XYZ amplifier to the design for the laser cannon, then I'll increase the damage by N%, but also increase the amount of energy it uses by M%" or "If I increase power to the PQR device, then that might make the interstellar drive work, but it also might make the ship blow up."
As you can see, different uses for the system mean much more different systems. Lots of times when there are long discussions that don't get anywhere, it's because the precise problem that you're trying to solve has not been clearly defined. Also, if you're posting on the boards for help designing a houserule, the more clear you are about your design goals the more likely you are to get useful advice.
1.2. Remember the cost-benefit principle.
The "cost-benefit principle" is the following:
If an option has a game-mechanical cost but no game-mechanical benefit, then you are penalizing players who take that option.
If an option has a game-mechanical benefit but no game-mechanical cost, then be prepared for your players to take that option at every possible opportunity.
(Also, if there are already existing ways of achieving the same effect, then "costs" and "benefits" should also be considered in comparison to them.)
Going back to the "research" example:
Suppose that you create an additional "research" skill for the game, but that the campaign will never have a use for that skill (say, because the players are all space marines in a war zone, and research has nothing to do with their objectives). Then any character who takes that skill is effectively penalized, because they have less to spend on useful skills. Sometimes this principle is referred to as the "character concept tax."
On the other hand, suppose that one of the things that "research" allows you to do is build more powerful weapons. And suppose the system happens to be set up so that putting more points in "research" to create more powerful weapons gives you a greater net gain in combat ability than putting points in whatever the regular "combat" skill is. Then every character who wants high combat ability will go the former route - it gives them a benefit (more combat ability, and possibly more versatility if they can use research for other purposes) and no cost (because the alternative would be putting the same number of points in "combat" with less gain.)
This principle extends not only to character creation choices but also to every choice that a player makes. For example, suppose you allow players to create items (like clothing) from the carcasses of dead monsters and then sell them. Then be prepared for your players to meticulously butcher every monster they come across, unless you impose some cost to doing so (like strictly enforcing weight limitations on what they can carry, or having another monster come along and interrupt them.)
(Incidentally, even the core D+D game has, IMHO, some of these issues. For example, since there's rarely a cost to using the Search skill, there's a tendency to spend a lot of time searching everything, especially if the DM likes to spring a lot of hidden traps.)
Although this principle may seem obvious, in my experience a lot of times it gets lost because it tends to get conflated with broader issues of "balance" and realism/verisimilitude/roleplaying/etc. versus "balance." As the research example demonstrates, this can be an issue regardless of whether or not "balance" is a goal. In the example, "research-oriented" characters may or may not be "balanced" against "combat-oriented" characters, and such "balance" may not even be a meaningful concept. But if the system has the unintended effect of making "research-oriented" characters better at combat than "combat-oriented" characters, there's no reason for anyone to choose the latter option.
1.3. Keep it simple, stupid.
The D+D rules system is a complicated system, and rules can interact in unexpected ways to produce problems, ambiguities, and potential abuses, as anyone who's looked through the Character Optimization boards on the WotC forums knows all too well. When creating a new houserule, one way to try to limit the likelihood of this happening is to make the minimum amount of changes necessary to achieve your objective, and whenever possible, don't change fundamental elements of the game.
Here's an example. Let's say I am designing a monster who has three different at-will basic attacks and I want him to be able to use two of them during his turn - and possibly the same one twice or two different ones, with possibly a move and/or minor action during the middle. So I write up my monster description like this.
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Part 2: Asking for Help on the Forums
When asking for help about creating houserules on the forums, there are dditional important principles to consider.
2.1. Be clear about your goal.
Yes, this principle was also mentioned above, but it is so important that it bears repeating. In my experience, when a discussion drags on and on without getting anywhere, it's usually because the design goals that are being looked for were never clearly defined. One tendency I see a lot is to cast your problem as a deficiency in the entire game system when what you're really looking for is something a lot more specific. For example, in one discussion, the OP asked for advice about removing at-will magical powers from the game, because he claimed that they limited his choice of "archetypes." Everyone else couldn't understand why he thought that removing at-will powers would increase the number of options, but it eventually became clear that what he wanted had nothing to do with "more options" in general, but rather he wanted a specific option - to bring back the 3.5e "archetype" of "the wizard who has a few limited-use, high-damage spells but has to pull out a backup weapon when he runs out." There's nothing wrong with wanting this, but you have to be clear about what you want. Most of the general "3.5e vs. 4e" discussions have been done to death, so unless you have something new to add, if you focus on what you want for your game you're more likely to reach a conclusion.
2.2. Be clear about what you want from the other posters.
Another pattern I sometimes notice is more subtle - when the OP does have a clear idea what his goal is, but it isn't clear what he wants from anyone else. Sometimes I will see something along the lines of "I want to do X, which we all know isn't in the game because of Y. I don't really care about Y. How do I do X?" Now it's clear what he wants, but it seems like the obvious solution is "Just go out and do X. If you really don't care about Y, there won't be any harm done." So you have to be more clear about what's missing. Do you want rules for X that minimize the damage to Y? Are you just having trouble translating X into game mechanics?
3. Don't dismiss suggestions without explanation.
Sometimes you will get responses like "You don't need a new houserule, existing rule X covers it" or "It seems like this is really easy to solve with Y." Oftentimes people get defensive when they read such comments, accusing them of attacking their goals. However, it's often a symptom of miscommunication. In other words, if someone says "You don't need a new houserule, existing rule X covers it," don't interpret that as "The game's fine as it is, you're wrong for trying to change it," interpret it as "The way you've described your problem, X seems like a simple solution. If X doesn't solve your problem, explaining why not would help us get a clearer sense of the problem, and help us propose better solutions."
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Part 3: Frequently Discussed Houserule Topics
This section will discuss particular topics that are frequently mentioned as topics to houserule, and looks at applying the principles above to those topics.
3.1. Making Combat "Grittier"
Making combat more "gritty" is one frequently dicussed topic for houserules. However, sometimes it's not made clear exactly what "gritty" means.
Is the problem that the fights are too easy, so characters keep winning them easily? In that case, just use tougher monsters.
Is the problem that it takes too many hits to kill a character? This seems to be closer to what people are saying, but even for that you have to think about why that causes a problem.
Is it a problem because it's too easy for characters to run away before they can get killed, so they're never in any actual danger of dying? Then set up scenarios where characters can't easily run away, say because they're trapped in a room or because the monster has some power that stops them from running away.
Is it a problem because it just makes combat last too long? Then one solution might be to just divide everyone's hit points in half. Of course this makes encounters and dailies worth more, soyou might want to reduce the number of those that players get.
Is the problem that it's not realistic that a character has no way of dying by a single attack? Then in that case, you might want to include some sort of critical hit system that provides a small chance of a lot of extra damage on a crit, so that there is a chance of a one-hit kill. Of course, if that happens then you'll want to make sure characters have some way of getting resurrected. Having your character killed by one lucky roll on the first attack of the game may be realistic, but it's probably not much fun for the player involved, unless there's a way for him to get back in the game (even if that means making another character).
3.2. Crafting (and other background skills)
Crafting is another frequently discussed topic, and there are also many reasons that people want to do crafting.
Sometimes, players just want "my character was a blacksmith" in their character background. In this case a possible solution is to just let them say that, and not provide any mechanical cost. If crafting will never come up in the game, there's no harm in doing this. And if it does come up, you can always use DM's Best Friend and give him a +2 or so on any skill check if crafting would help him, for example using a Diplomacy check to win the favor of someone by crafting him a gift. It's unlikely that such bonuses will be abused, since they are relatively small and situational, players won't know in advance what "background skills" could be required, and they're at the DM's discretion anyway. (On the other hand you might want to have a limit on the number of background skills a player has, in order to prevent players from maximizing their bonuses by cramming as many different skill-building activities into their character's "resume" as possible, kind of like many real-life college applicants.) In terms of the "cost-benefit principle," the "cost" here is that you have to write out a more fleshed-out character background in order to get the background skills, and that's probably what you want so you don't mind if everyone does it.
Another possibility is that players want the ability to craft items to get items cheaper. This is a little trickier, because now there is a big benefit, so you have to impose a cost to match. Suppose, for instance, that with a crafting skill, a player could make magical items for half normal price. This means that he can outfit the whole party with twice as many magical items as they could have had otherwise - a lot for one skill training and maybe a skill focus. But aside from the simple balancing aspects, this is the time to go and look at the "why" - why do your characters want this? Do they just want magical items cheaper? In that case, tell them to get in back of the line - every character in D+D wants cheaper magical items. Do they want the ability to acquire magic items through a non-combat challenge rather than a combat challenge? In that case, there's already a mechanic for that - skill challenges. You can set up a skill challenge for crafting a magical item, and maybe add a "crafting" skill to be used in that case. Then you can attach a treasure parcel to that skill challenge just as you attach it to a combat encounter, and if you give out the right number of XP, characters still stay on the level curve, and they get what they want - a way of crafting items.
A third possibility is that players want the ability to play a merchant - one who crafts items to sell for money. In that case, you've basically got the same problem as before - players want to earn money using a non-combat challenge rather than through combat. In this case you could also use a skill challenge, although this one will require more skills than just crafting - maybe diplomacy to convince customers to buy your products or streetwise to source raw materials cheaply. And again, the more emphasis you want on this aspect of the game the more detail you might want in your system. For example, if the entire game is going to be about running a business, you might want to keep track of things like inventory, rent payments, etc. so that players will have more meaningful decisions to make and more strategic options.
Yet another possibility is that you want a "survival" kind of game in which players can't easily buy things like weapons and armor so they have to craft things for themselves. Now things get pretty tricky. Again you have to think about what you expect to happen. If you just have a system where players make a die roll, and if they succeed they craft the item and if not they don't, you might end up with this:
SCENARIO A:
DM: "Roll the die to see if you craft a sword."
Player: "I rolled a 20."
Now the player has the equipment he needs, and the rest of the game proceeds exactly the same way it would have if the crafting was never in place. So you haven't actually gained anything.
SCENARIO B:
DM: "Roll the die to see if you craft a sword."
Player: "I rolled a one."
DM: "Okay, you ruined all your materials and you don't have any more."
Player: "You mean I can't get a weapon for the rest of the game?"
Now the control is still out of the player's hands - a single die roll means he's screwed for the rest of the game, and he had no way of changing it. If the DM lets the player retry, then the player will keep retrying until he succeeds (which will happen eventually) and you're back in scenario A.
What you need here is the ability for players to make meaningful choices. Do you want finding the raw materials to be the key part of the game? Then in that case you want to focus on that, and create a list of what items require what raw materials. After the players have found those materials, a die roll for crafting may not even be necessary - all a failure would mean is that the players have to go back out and find raw materials all over again, and you may not want to do the same thing over and over again. Do you want the players to be rushing on a timer to craft all the weapons they can in preparation for an invasion? Then in that case specific raw material lists may not be necessary, but specific time amounts - and ways for players to affect those amounts, say by creating weaker weapons which will be done faster - would be necessary.
More to come...
Section 1: General Principles
1.1. Make sure you understand the problem your houserule is trying to solve, or the role you expect the new rule to play in the game.
This is probably one of the most important principles, and applies to all systems, not just 4e. It is best illustrated by an example. Suppose I'm playing a science-fiction space adventure game, and I come up with the following idea:
"I want a system for characters to research, invent, and build new gadgets."
Now, this is a good starting point. But why do I want this, and how do I expect this role to fit into the game?
Suppose that it's just because the campaign is set at a research lab, and I want the scientists at that lab to have some skill that represents their ability to do research. If the only characters that are going to actually do research are NPCs, then I can decide on the results however I want; I don't necessarily need a new game system.
Suppose it's just because one of my players wants "scientist" in their character background. Again, if I don't expect it to come up in the game, I probably don't need a mechanic for it. I can just let my player write that in their character background, and if there are any skills that that would help with (say, repair) then he could take those skills. But I wouldn't need to "charge extra" for an extra "scientist" skill if it's just background. (And if at some point I think the background would help, then I can always give an ad hoc bonus then.)
Suppose it's because one of my players has a particular idea for a gadget he wants his character to have. Then I could just come up with a price (or whatever the equivalent is in the game's "item acquisition system"), let him pay that, and say that he built it rather than purchased it. Achieves the same objective, uses the same mechanics, no need for new systems.
Suppose it's because my players want to be able to invent gadgets on-the-fly to help them in the game. In that case I should probably introduce some sort of cost for this ability, because I expect it to be useful. Probably some sort of system like "the player decides what he wants to make, I set a difficulty level and cost, the player rolls, and if he succeeds he makes the item" would be sufficient.
Suppose that the research is the main focus of the campaign. Then I want to have a much more fleshed-out system, with meaningful decisions for the players to make at each step of the process. For example "If I add an XYZ amplifier to the design for the laser cannon, then I'll increase the damage by N%, but also increase the amount of energy it uses by M%" or "If I increase power to the PQR device, then that might make the interstellar drive work, but it also might make the ship blow up."
As you can see, different uses for the system mean much more different systems. Lots of times when there are long discussions that don't get anywhere, it's because the precise problem that you're trying to solve has not been clearly defined. Also, if you're posting on the boards for help designing a houserule, the more clear you are about your design goals the more likely you are to get useful advice.
1.2. Remember the cost-benefit principle.
The "cost-benefit principle" is the following:
If an option has a game-mechanical cost but no game-mechanical benefit, then you are penalizing players who take that option.
If an option has a game-mechanical benefit but no game-mechanical cost, then be prepared for your players to take that option at every possible opportunity.
(Also, if there are already existing ways of achieving the same effect, then "costs" and "benefits" should also be considered in comparison to them.)
Going back to the "research" example:
Suppose that you create an additional "research" skill for the game, but that the campaign will never have a use for that skill (say, because the players are all space marines in a war zone, and research has nothing to do with their objectives). Then any character who takes that skill is effectively penalized, because they have less to spend on useful skills. Sometimes this principle is referred to as the "character concept tax."
On the other hand, suppose that one of the things that "research" allows you to do is build more powerful weapons. And suppose the system happens to be set up so that putting more points in "research" to create more powerful weapons gives you a greater net gain in combat ability than putting points in whatever the regular "combat" skill is. Then every character who wants high combat ability will go the former route - it gives them a benefit (more combat ability, and possibly more versatility if they can use research for other purposes) and no cost (because the alternative would be putting the same number of points in "combat" with less gain.)
This principle extends not only to character creation choices but also to every choice that a player makes. For example, suppose you allow players to create items (like clothing) from the carcasses of dead monsters and then sell them. Then be prepared for your players to meticulously butcher every monster they come across, unless you impose some cost to doing so (like strictly enforcing weight limitations on what they can carry, or having another monster come along and interrupt them.)
(Incidentally, even the core D+D game has, IMHO, some of these issues. For example, since there's rarely a cost to using the Search skill, there's a tendency to spend a lot of time searching everything, especially if the DM likes to spring a lot of hidden traps.)
Although this principle may seem obvious, in my experience a lot of times it gets lost because it tends to get conflated with broader issues of "balance" and realism/verisimilitude/roleplaying/etc. versus "balance." As the research example demonstrates, this can be an issue regardless of whether or not "balance" is a goal. In the example, "research-oriented" characters may or may not be "balanced" against "combat-oriented" characters, and such "balance" may not even be a meaningful concept. But if the system has the unintended effect of making "research-oriented" characters better at combat than "combat-oriented" characters, there's no reason for anyone to choose the latter option.
1.3. Keep it simple, stupid.
The D+D rules system is a complicated system, and rules can interact in unexpected ways to produce problems, ambiguities, and potential abuses, as anyone who's looked through the Character Optimization boards on the WotC forums knows all too well. When creating a new houserule, one way to try to limit the likelihood of this happening is to make the minimum amount of changes necessary to achieve your objective, and whenever possible, don't change fundamental elements of the game.
Here's an example. Let's say I am designing a monster who has three different at-will basic attacks and I want him to be able to use two of them during his turn - and possibly the same one twice or two different ones, with possibly a move and/or minor action during the middle. So I write up my monster description like this.
This may seem innocuous, but if I do this I have just opened up a lot of ambiguity. Dozens of rules in the book are based on the assumption that there are three types of actions: "standard", "move," and "minor." For example, can he ready a "standard action" and then turn it into two "half actions" to make two attacks? Do effects that mention "standard, move, and minor" actions also apply to half actions? If he's dazed, can he still only take one action (so one half action attack) or can he take a standard and then turn it into two attacks? Rather than changing a fundamental rule of the game (like what kinds of actions there are) it might be best to make the attacks standard actions, and have a special power:
And also, don't forget that oftentimes you will have to trade off simplicity for what you want. For example, if you decide that being able to move between the two attacks isn't important enough to justify the extra complexity, you could take out the last sentence in the above.
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Part 2: Asking for Help on the Forums
When asking for help about creating houserules on the forums, there are dditional important principles to consider.
2.1. Be clear about your goal.
Yes, this principle was also mentioned above, but it is so important that it bears repeating. In my experience, when a discussion drags on and on without getting anywhere, it's usually because the design goals that are being looked for were never clearly defined. One tendency I see a lot is to cast your problem as a deficiency in the entire game system when what you're really looking for is something a lot more specific. For example, in one discussion, the OP asked for advice about removing at-will magical powers from the game, because he claimed that they limited his choice of "archetypes." Everyone else couldn't understand why he thought that removing at-will powers would increase the number of options, but it eventually became clear that what he wanted had nothing to do with "more options" in general, but rather he wanted a specific option - to bring back the 3.5e "archetype" of "the wizard who has a few limited-use, high-damage spells but has to pull out a backup weapon when he runs out." There's nothing wrong with wanting this, but you have to be clear about what you want. Most of the general "3.5e vs. 4e" discussions have been done to death, so unless you have something new to add, if you focus on what you want for your game you're more likely to reach a conclusion.
2.2. Be clear about what you want from the other posters.
Another pattern I sometimes notice is more subtle - when the OP does have a clear idea what his goal is, but it isn't clear what he wants from anyone else. Sometimes I will see something along the lines of "I want to do X, which we all know isn't in the game because of Y. I don't really care about Y. How do I do X?" Now it's clear what he wants, but it seems like the obvious solution is "Just go out and do X. If you really don't care about Y, there won't be any harm done." So you have to be more clear about what's missing. Do you want rules for X that minimize the damage to Y? Are you just having trouble translating X into game mechanics?
3. Don't dismiss suggestions without explanation.
Sometimes you will get responses like "You don't need a new houserule, existing rule X covers it" or "It seems like this is really easy to solve with Y." Oftentimes people get defensive when they read such comments, accusing them of attacking their goals. However, it's often a symptom of miscommunication. In other words, if someone says "You don't need a new houserule, existing rule X covers it," don't interpret that as "The game's fine as it is, you're wrong for trying to change it," interpret it as "The way you've described your problem, X seems like a simple solution. If X doesn't solve your problem, explaining why not would help us get a clearer sense of the problem, and help us propose better solutions."
-----------------
Part 3: Frequently Discussed Houserule Topics
This section will discuss particular topics that are frequently mentioned as topics to houserule, and looks at applying the principles above to those topics.
3.1. Making Combat "Grittier"
Making combat more "gritty" is one frequently dicussed topic for houserules. However, sometimes it's not made clear exactly what "gritty" means.
Is the problem that the fights are too easy, so characters keep winning them easily? In that case, just use tougher monsters.
Is the problem that it takes too many hits to kill a character? This seems to be closer to what people are saying, but even for that you have to think about why that causes a problem.
Is it a problem because it's too easy for characters to run away before they can get killed, so they're never in any actual danger of dying? Then set up scenarios where characters can't easily run away, say because they're trapped in a room or because the monster has some power that stops them from running away.
Is it a problem because it just makes combat last too long? Then one solution might be to just divide everyone's hit points in half. Of course this makes encounters and dailies worth more, soyou might want to reduce the number of those that players get.
Is the problem that it's not realistic that a character has no way of dying by a single attack? Then in that case, you might want to include some sort of critical hit system that provides a small chance of a lot of extra damage on a crit, so that there is a chance of a one-hit kill. Of course, if that happens then you'll want to make sure characters have some way of getting resurrected. Having your character killed by one lucky roll on the first attack of the game may be realistic, but it's probably not much fun for the player involved, unless there's a way for him to get back in the game (even if that means making another character).
3.2. Crafting (and other background skills)
Crafting is another frequently discussed topic, and there are also many reasons that people want to do crafting.
Sometimes, players just want "my character was a blacksmith" in their character background. In this case a possible solution is to just let them say that, and not provide any mechanical cost. If crafting will never come up in the game, there's no harm in doing this. And if it does come up, you can always use DM's Best Friend and give him a +2 or so on any skill check if crafting would help him, for example using a Diplomacy check to win the favor of someone by crafting him a gift. It's unlikely that such bonuses will be abused, since they are relatively small and situational, players won't know in advance what "background skills" could be required, and they're at the DM's discretion anyway. (On the other hand you might want to have a limit on the number of background skills a player has, in order to prevent players from maximizing their bonuses by cramming as many different skill-building activities into their character's "resume" as possible, kind of like many real-life college applicants.) In terms of the "cost-benefit principle," the "cost" here is that you have to write out a more fleshed-out character background in order to get the background skills, and that's probably what you want so you don't mind if everyone does it.
Another possibility is that players want the ability to craft items to get items cheaper. This is a little trickier, because now there is a big benefit, so you have to impose a cost to match. Suppose, for instance, that with a crafting skill, a player could make magical items for half normal price. This means that he can outfit the whole party with twice as many magical items as they could have had otherwise - a lot for one skill training and maybe a skill focus. But aside from the simple balancing aspects, this is the time to go and look at the "why" - why do your characters want this? Do they just want magical items cheaper? In that case, tell them to get in back of the line - every character in D+D wants cheaper magical items. Do they want the ability to acquire magic items through a non-combat challenge rather than a combat challenge? In that case, there's already a mechanic for that - skill challenges. You can set up a skill challenge for crafting a magical item, and maybe add a "crafting" skill to be used in that case. Then you can attach a treasure parcel to that skill challenge just as you attach it to a combat encounter, and if you give out the right number of XP, characters still stay on the level curve, and they get what they want - a way of crafting items.
A third possibility is that players want the ability to play a merchant - one who crafts items to sell for money. In that case, you've basically got the same problem as before - players want to earn money using a non-combat challenge rather than through combat. In this case you could also use a skill challenge, although this one will require more skills than just crafting - maybe diplomacy to convince customers to buy your products or streetwise to source raw materials cheaply. And again, the more emphasis you want on this aspect of the game the more detail you might want in your system. For example, if the entire game is going to be about running a business, you might want to keep track of things like inventory, rent payments, etc. so that players will have more meaningful decisions to make and more strategic options.
Yet another possibility is that you want a "survival" kind of game in which players can't easily buy things like weapons and armor so they have to craft things for themselves. Now things get pretty tricky. Again you have to think about what you expect to happen. If you just have a system where players make a die roll, and if they succeed they craft the item and if not they don't, you might end up with this:
SCENARIO A:
DM: "Roll the die to see if you craft a sword."
Player: "I rolled a 20."
Now the player has the equipment he needs, and the rest of the game proceeds exactly the same way it would have if the crafting was never in place. So you haven't actually gained anything.
SCENARIO B:
DM: "Roll the die to see if you craft a sword."
Player: "I rolled a one."
DM: "Okay, you ruined all your materials and you don't have any more."
Player: "You mean I can't get a weapon for the rest of the game?"
Now the control is still out of the player's hands - a single die roll means he's screwed for the rest of the game, and he had no way of changing it. If the DM lets the player retry, then the player will keep retrying until he succeeds (which will happen eventually) and you're back in scenario A.
What you need here is the ability for players to make meaningful choices. Do you want finding the raw materials to be the key part of the game? Then in that case you want to focus on that, and create a list of what items require what raw materials. After the players have found those materials, a die roll for crafting may not even be necessary - all a failure would mean is that the players have to go back out and find raw materials all over again, and you may not want to do the same thing over and over again. Do you want the players to be rushing on a timer to craft all the weapons they can in preparation for an invasion? Then in that case specific raw material lists may not be necessary, but specific time amounts - and ways for players to affect those amounts, say by creating weaker weapons which will be done faster - would be necessary.
More to come...
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This should be requisite reading for anyone wanting to post house rules in a forum.
