FireLance
Legend
Well, first off, the "average" person would not have 14 in a relevant stat. The "average" person would have 10 or 11. The "slightly above average" person would have 12 or 13.Average person can do a fine job of crafting stuff without being high level.
• +2 for 14 in the relevant stat (seems pretty reasonable).
• +5 for skill ranks (we'll say he's level 2).
• +3 for Skill Focus: Profession (whatever).
• +2 for masterwork tools related to the profession.
+12 total. Taking 10, that's a guaranteed success for quite a few tasks. Taking 20, that's a guaranteed success for most everything.
Second, in 3e, crafting requires the Craft skill, not the Profession skill. It's a minor point, but it shows how easy it is to make minor mistakes. If you make a minor mistake and the players notice, it ruins consistency, and hence (according to some arguments) verisimilitude. If you make a minor mistake and the players don't notice, then the effort spent in the failed attempt make it consistent would have been wasted in the first place.
Finally, in the same way that you can't take 20 on a Perform check (as pointed out earlier), you can't take 20 on a Craft check or a Profession check because there is a penalty for failure. I reiterate the point about how easy it is to make minor mistakes.