D&D 5E What do you want out of crafting rules?

[MichaelSomething]

To gain XP from crafting activities.

 

[Minigiant]

I want to craft a bear trap that explodes when triggered.

 

[Morrus]

If I'm reading this right a Potion of Hill Giant Strength is of Uncommon Rarity so costs about 400gp to buy and would require I assume a Herbalist Kit, 200 gold and 2 weeks to brew that potion.
Does anyone know if Brewer's Supplies could be used instead?

Yep plus a hair from a hill giant’s head.

 

[Scott Christian]

I would also add that it would be nice to hear crafting narrated and be part of the story structure, as opposed to just rules.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

There's a few things.

If I'm to pick a feat, an option or have points in a skill related to crafting, just like anything else in D&D, it comes with a mental image, a fantasy, a goal. So, if I do, I'd say that I expect the rules to allow me the following things:

• Allow me to craft a weapon, an armour or something interesting. Crafting the same generic longsword at a 10% rebate is not interesting. It does not gives me a sense that I'm a good craftman, or that I used my expertise to achieve something I couldn't without it. I saved a handful of gold. It can be something small, especially at low levels, but having a weapon that +1 to damage, +1 to hit or an increased critical-range definitely feels good if the reason you got it was because you got a certain expertise.
• Allow me some cool features: repair equipment or weapons, adapt the size of an armor, spend some time crafting stuff during downtime to earn a bit of gold, etc.
• I really liked the knowledge skills in past editions. Obviously, I want to be more knowledgeable about what is related to my craft.

Now, for the actual rules, here's what I'm looking for:

• I'm not interested in going through tables of materials and having to farm them in the game. However, it can be interesting to look for maybe one item that allows you to craft that special item; whether it's something specific or generic.
• Having a mini-game, or a skill challenge to manage to craft the item is fine. But it's difficulty should be inversely proportional to the challenge or gathering the materials or whatever step comes before it. If I easily spend a bit of gold to get generic materials and try it, then it can be a harder challenge. I don't mind trying a few times at different downtimes until I finally get it. If there's stuff to hunt for, or some timesink before the skill challenge, I don't want to have to start over.
• I really like tools, at least as a concept, and I think they're not really interesting in 5E. Maybe having tiers of tools that you can get to allow you crafting better stuff would be another interesting progression.

Translated to actual game moments, I want things like this to happen:

• As we're moving quickly through the forges of an infernal citadel, I stop and ask the DM "Can I take a moment and search for any special blacksmithing materials, or maybe some magic tools?".
• As we have a goal that pertains to entering a forgotten forest guarded by circles of druids, I think to myself that if I we get in their good grace, I'm definitely going to try and get a better Herbalist Kit, they surely have something!
• The last two times I tried to craft my Masterwork Axe, I failed the skill challenge. This time, I'm having a friend help using a skill of their own, so I get advantage and increase my chances!
• I finally manage to craft my weapon. It's at least slightly better than a generic one. I'm encouraged to give it a visual element that's unique and maybe even name it.
• I know that our party will be splitting up for a dangerous mission in a few days. I take some time to craft some handy scrolls with useful spells for the half that won't have my as a wizard with them.

 

[Xeviat]

I want the ability to easily make, price, and balance custom items. Basically, I want 3Es magic items in 5E.

 

[Baron Opal II]

But that's the crux of the problem, tho. We can go for realism, but would the character make use of those rules if it takes them 1 week of downtime to create a dagger?

Why wouldn't they? A week is a really short time to make anything. Especially if you want it to be pretty; people like nice things.

Now, from my perspective, my players often have anywhere from two weeks to three months of downtime for their characters between adventures. That's enough time to make some simple potions, scrolls, mundane items, or special mundane items suitable for enchantment.

For base materials, I don't want to necessarily farm them either. But, if I'm looking to make a spiffy hammer for the cleric, it would be cool to know that I get +0 to my check for the steel at the ironmongers, +2 for that star iron from the pain-in-the-neck wizard we did that one job for, and +? from bog iron that's found in the mire to the north with the creepy hut in the large dead oak tree.

 

[tetrasodium]

If I'm reading this right a Potion of Hill Giant Strength is of Uncommon Rarity so costs about 400gp to buy and would require I assume a Herbalist Kit, 200 gold and 2 weeks to brew that potion.
Does anyone know if Brewer's Supplies could be used instead?

There's alchemy rules suggesting you need at least a +3 proficiency bonus (5th level) to craft Uncommon items still reading.

By default?

Spoiler: xge sez no

5e also goes a step further by practically giving away the proficiency & having no magic item budget baked into the system math. If I had houserules in place to expand that in ways that would make that potion being very available I'd go a different route from @Morrus though. Making it requires dc 12 brewers tool check and 5 pounds of heartstems carved from grade A purple hove leaves and a sizable period of time left distilling in a suitable basement (3 weeks?). During those 3 weeks the cask needs to be turned by 1-2 commoners

• 1 pound of purple hove leaves =2sp5cp
• 1 pound of grade A purple hove heart stems =100gp
• A suitable herbalism check(dc12) can process 100 pounds of purple hove leaves into 1 pound of heart stems over a period of one week.
• Instead of the hair I'd go with a bloodstone extracted from a hill giant being capable of reducing the brewing time from 3 weeks to 2 weeks

It takes a long time to process the leaves but doing so is not very difficult so a follower (likewise with the brewers tool bit) but the size of your distillery would limit how many potions you could be distilling at any one time.

Personally I don't really like one shot consumables with crafting & not sure I'd allow this one but crafting a belt of hill giant strength with body slots or similar in use would probably look very similar with different tools that made more sense & higher prices. There's nothing special in lore or anything about purple hove leaves or heart stem (it got pulled from a book) & sounds fairly magical/exotic. The important part is the massive quantities that make "yes you find a (garden of) purple hove plant(s)" not an instant jackpot with the added benefit of being a good reason why a well stocked supplier might only have a small amount that makes doing some side work to shore up relations with wherever they are grown enough to be a more valuable customer with a larger amount of leaves set aside for you.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm imagining a game mechanic that works like this.

First and foremost, you need time.

• Crafting a consumable item (like a potion, oil, or scroll) can be done as part of a long rest.
• Crafting a permanent item requires one week of downtime.
• Rare and powerful items might require more time, at the DM's discretion.

Next, you need tools.

• Crafting an item requires the proper tools. You want to make potions? You'll need Brewer's supplies. You want to make alchemist's fire? You'll need Alchemist's supplies. Manacles? Tinker's tools. A folding boat? Carpenter's tools. A flying carpet? Weaver's tools. This is strictly pass/fail, you either have the tools or you don't.
• At the discretion of the DM, some items might need more than one set of tools. A mirror of life trapping might need Carpenter's tools or Woodcarver's Tools to build the frame and engrave the runes, Glassblower's Tools to make the pane of glass, and Alchemist's Supplies to apply the silver substrate.

Then you need the formula.

• To make something, you first need to learn how. Being proficient with Brewer's Tools doesn't automatically mean you know how to make a chocolate oatmeal stout, after all. At the DM's discretion, you will need to find the instructions first. You might need a recipe from an NPC's cookbook, or you might need to translate the alchemical formulae from an ancient tome, or you might need the trade secrets passed down from father to son for generations.

Then, you need the ingredients.

• All items require rare and expensive ingredients, which must be purchased from special suppliers. The DM should price these ingredients in such a way to prevent abuse and to preserve the game economy.
• Permanent items should require at least one ingredient that cannot be purchased anywhere for any reason, and will require adventuring to recover. A rare flower, a secret recipe from a master chef, a piece of a dangerous monster, something like that.
• This rare ingredient should vary even between similar items...you might have needed a rare flower for that first flaming sword you made last week, but now you need a rare butterfly to make the second one.
• Basically I never want crafting to become rote, something dismissed out of hand. I don't want it to become "so we set camp and oh yeah, we make another half-dozen invisibility potions just like we did last night and the night before."

Finally, you need a bit of luck.

• Once you have all the ingredients and tools together, you spend the time, and then at the very end, you make a Skill check. Usually Intelligence-based, but exceptions might be made depending on the item.
• If the craftsman is proficient with the tools they are using, they add their Proficiency bonus to the check.
• If the craftsman has an assistant who is also proficient with the tools they are using, they gain Advantage to the check.
• Some items might need more than one check. Like that mirror of life trapping would need a Strength (Carpentry) check or a Dexterity (Woodcarving) check, then a Constitution (Glassblowing) check, followed by an Intelligence (Alchemy) check.
• The DC is selected by the DM to be appropriate to the power level of the item being crafted.
• If the check passes, it's a success! Congratulations, you may add the item to your inventory.
• If the check fails, something went wrong with the item. The DM decides whether this was a complete loss and all time/materials were wasted, or a cursed item was made by accident, or whatever else the story needs.

Anyway, that's kind of how I envision it working. Note the number of times I imply that the DM will decide on a case-by-case basis what is needed and how? That's intentional.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I'm going to take a contrary, and maybe controversial, view. I want crafting to be expensive for the characters and/or the players.

As a GM, I don't want to sit and watch players spend an hour doing crafting stuff, having their characters spend two months making an awesome sword/armor/whatever. *

If crafting is effective (the return is more than the investment) then why would a character even enter a dungeon and risk their life and limb?

There's the dungeon of the snow lich! There's a magic sword entombed with the undead monster!

No thanks, I can make a better magic sword myself.​

That bandit group have thousands of gold. We should raid them.

No, when I finish this armour I can sell it for thousands of gold.​

More technically, I don't want crafting in the game because I don't want an economy in the game, because economies of swords & sorcery worlds are complex. Allowing the players to craft stuff means someone (probably me) has to worry about supply and demand, material costs, inflation, scarceness of resources, etc.

Also, crafting is boring. The LOTR movies didn't show three hours of Aragorn crafting a sword - they showed Aragon out doing exciting stuff while someone else crafted the sword and brought it to him.

The weaponsmiths and alchemists and herbalists are the people the adventurers say goodbye to on their way to having adventures.

_____
* Also, as a GM I don't want to sit and watch players do stuff without me.