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

[MichaelSomething]

Looks like we need a set of rules for crafting magical item that are separate from mundane crafting.

There's a difference between learning leather working to make magic boots versus leather work to make your own brand of speciality handbags...

 

[MGibster]

Some people complain about 5e’s crafting rules. Others think it’s just fine. What do you want out of them?

I think what I'd like most out of crafting rules is to figure out a way to make it useful to the adventure/campaign beyond generating some extra revenue. I don't necessarily mean crafting something that helps with combat. But maybe crafting a Silver Swan automaton with the expressed purpose of impressing an important wizard. Some ideas on how to incorporate crafting into adventures in a meaningful way would be very helpful.

 

[FireLance]

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. *

...

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.

These points would also support the crafting system I prefer, which is a simple, no-nonsense trade gp and downtime for a magic item transaction. It literally takes about as much time to resolve as the DM needs to say, "Ok, you spend 5,000 gp and 10 days of downtime. You now have a ring of free action."

Now, if you don't want give your players more freedom to customize their characters' magic items, that's a separate issue.

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.

I think that's more a character or player issue than a crafting issue. If the cure for the Shadow Plague ravaging the PCs' country is detailed in an old medical text in the lich's library, or if the PCs want to free villagers captured by the bandits, they have reason to embark on the adventure apart from money and magic items.

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.

As an economist myself, I feel you. However, years of exposure to the PH equipment list have desensitized me to the point that it no longer bothers me.

 

[Mind of tempest]

consideration: should not be more complex than most video game crafting system.

 

[hopeless]

Can you enchant say a short sword and a dagger to +1 if you're just a cleric?
Need to double check on what tool kit you'd need mind you!

Uncommon, requires Smith's Tools or proficiency in the Arcana skill?
So needs to be 5th level first?

 

[Ganders]

I'd like crafting rules that allow a character to upgrade items they already have.

A character without crafting would need to sell/trade/recycle their +1 sword and then find a way to buy/loot/acquire a +2 sword, but a crafter could have their favorite items grow with them.

I believe that would be enough of a distinction for RP purposes, and provide some logistical advantage to crafters without overpowering them.

 

[Stalker0]

Mundane Crafting

1) Probably two timeframes: One for consumable type items and one for your more permanent items.
2) Generally reasonable timeframes for making items.
3) I would recommend like healing rules, set some default times (aka downtime) but then allow for a quicker variant for DMs doing the nonstop quest as opposed to the longer campaign style.

Magical Crafting
1) I am fine with GP as your main "ingredient", aka I don't want a lot of granularity and detail. That said, I think adding in the notion of a "special ingredient" would be fine. Aka this magic item requires 2 secret ingredients. If you don't do this, than I would put in a sidebar that drives home the notion that most magic items really are rare for a reason. A PC making a single rare item is fine, a PC mass producing that same item is something the DM should give consideration to.

2) I am fine with costs being due to item category (uncommon, rare, etc) instead of item by item. However, for best results, the item list needs to be reviewed (some classifications are simply not right for the power of the item), and I would add in one level of granularity to give you a bit more control over prices. I think that's enough price points to do the job.

So
Uncommon
Uncommon (Special)
Rare
Rare (Special)
etc

3) What I would like most, are rules and tables for various magical item quirks and personalization. To me crafting is not just about getting cool ability X, its about putting a bit of creativity into the item. Add some tables of ideas to inspire people to really tailor their items, not just in ability, but in form, usability, etc.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I would suggest that crafting magical items for resale needs to be economically unviable: you shouldn't be able to make a meaningful profit from crafting magic items to sell on the open market. There's a lot of ways to do this, but if it's possible you create a big verisimilitude problem where a sufficiently skilled character is better off not adventuring. It could be a number of reasons (genuinely rare ingredients, no one actually has the cash to buy them, etc) but at least one should be present.

In addition to verisimilitude: you don't want a party with a crafter to have more magic items than a party without a crafter, or you create a role that "needs" to be filled by one player or the whole party is weaker. It's a variation on the "the party needs a cleric" problem: the crafting rules need to allow for the fact that sometimes, no one wants to play a crafter.

Having a crafter in the party should matter, but the advantage should be more about control than quantity: a fighter who can make her own magic swords gets exactly the sword she wants, whereas a fighter who needs to buy or loot a sword is more subject to what fate puts in front of her.

Crafting mundane gear for market can and probably should be profitable, just not more so than any other profession with the same opportunity cost.

 

[Dausuul]

As an amateur blacksmith, I can crank out an utilitarian dagger in a week / 30 hrs. The first 8-10 hrs will require a forge, the rest will be filing, drilling, and carving. The first bit I couldn't do on the trail, but the last part would be possible. If you wanted it to be pretty, that would take longer; as long as the actual production of the piece, actually.

So, you're saying the amount of time it takes to make a simple dagger is about 1/6 the time it takes to heal from a broken arm?

 

[el-remmen]

I haven't paid much attention to the mundane crafting rules, but just yesterday I worked on my first "recipe" for a magical item which will appear in the marginalia of a necromancer's spellbook they found).

I wrote it up like this and this is the kind of thing I'd like listed (or at least suggested) for each item:

Creating Bag of Bones (rare) requires:

• a leather bag or satchel of masterwork quality especially made to have the arcane runes for "death" and "spirit" woven on it it (the cost of which is part of the listed cost of the item).
• The bones of 20 soldiers killed in battle and left to rot on the field
• The ashes of a holy text or scroll
• a vial of unholy water
• Be at least 5th level
• Be able to prepare and cast Animate Dead every day of crafting
• 5000 gps in materials

Furthermore, the instructions include guidelines for creating a magical circle for enchanting the item, the ideal times and places for doing this work (the night of the new moon, at midnight, in a graveyard, or ancient battlefield, etc. . )

Lastly, I have increased the GP increment for determining number of days from 25 gps to 100 gps - so it'd take 50 days - but have decided this number of days is modified by your spellcasting ability score modifier for each 1000 in the cost. So, a Wizard with a 16 Intelligence would modify the time by 15 days, doing it in 35. If multiple crafters work on it together only the highest score applies to modifying it, but the total time is halved for each additional person to a minimum of one full day.

In some cases, items have limits as to how many people can work on them at once.