D&D (2024) D&D Beyond Article on Crafting

[Minigiant]

Guys, it's not complicated.

People craft to get things they desire that they don't want to buy or cannot buy.

Why they can't buy it or don't want to buy it is usually due to the DM or setting creator. Either by restricting, justified or unjustified, the item by cost, quantity, quality, or availability,

 

[Xeviat]

Make it a DC 10 (or whatevs) with every point over the DC being cumulated on to reach a specific progress threshold. You make a progress check each 8 hours spent on the project.

Fun fact, the same idea can be used for overland travels or swaying an organization, with different skills and tools.

Thinking on it further, here's my initial thoughts:

Base crafting is DC 10 for common items, 15 uncommon, 20 rare, 25 very rare, and 30 legendary. Crafting an item requires 50% of its cost in ingredients.

For every 8 hours of work, make a check with the appropriate tool; crafting is usually Int, but I could see other stats being used. You make a number of Silver Pieces of progress each 8 hours equal to the item's DC multiplied by your check result multiplied by your proficiency bonus if you are proficient with the tools.

If you fail a crafting check, you make no progress that day. If you fail by more than 5, you ruin an amount of your raw ingredients equal to the item's crafting DC squared in SP.

For example, a common item like a Potion of Healing is DC 10. With a +3 Int bonus and proficiency in herbalism or alchemy tools, you have a +5 bonus. If you get a 15 on your check, you make 300 sp (30 gp) worth of progress. On the second day, you roll a 10, and make an additional 200 so of progress, completing the potion.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thinking on it further, here's my initial thoughts:

Base crafting is DC 10 for common items, 15 uncommon, 20 rare, 25 very rare, and 30 legendary. Crafting an item requires 50% of its cost in ingredients.

For every 8 hours of work, make a check with the appropriate tool; crafting is usually Int, but I could see other stats being used. You make a number of Silver Pieces of progress each 8 hours equal to the item's DC multiplied by your check result multiplied by your proficiency bonus if you are proficient with the tools.

If you fail a crafting check, you make no progress that day. If you fail by more than 5, you ruin an amount of your raw ingredients equal to the item's crafting DC squared in SP.

For example, a common item like a Potion of Healing is DC 10. With a +3 Int bonus and proficiency in herbalism or alchemy tools, you have a +5 bonus. If you get a 15 on your check, you make 300 sp (30 gp) worth of progress. On the second day, you roll a 10, and make an additional 200 so of progress, completing the potion.

I’d make it a bit simpler. Personally I’m a big fan of [dice code] progress on a success, twice that much on a natural 20, half that much on a failure, none on a failure by 5 or more.

We want the baseline to be 10 gp of progress per day, so that should be the mean result of a crafting attempt, assuming average stats - a poor crafter will make slower progress and an expert will make faster progress. I like your DCs of 10 for common items increasing by 5 for each rarity category above common. I’m going to work with common as the baseline, since magic item crafting will likely be the domain of the DMG.

Spoiler

So, assuming proficiency but not expertise, a 16 in the relevant ability score, and advantage on the roll since that’s now standard for having proficiency in both a relevant skill and tool, we have a 9.75% chance of a natural 20 and a 4% chance of a failure, with a 0% chance of failing by 5 or more on a DC 10 check, leaving is with an 86.25% chance of a normal success. So, if we want the average result of our dice code to be 10 we need to solve for 0.8625X + 0.195X + 0.02X = 10. Simplifying, we get X = 1.0775 * 10, or X = 10.775.

We really don’t want players to have much risk of spending more money on materials for a day of crafting than they make on that day, so I’m thinking our dice code should have a floor of 5 gp of progress. That way unless you’re crafting “above your weight class,” you’ll always at least break even from a day of crafting. 1d12+4 gives us the 5 gp minimum and an average of 10.5, very close to our 10.775 target.

Spoilering the math talk, but by my calculations we end up with something the following rule:

To spend a day of downtime crafting, spend 5 gp on materials (4 gp if you have the Crafter Feat) and make a DC 10 check with a set of artisan’s tools you’re proficient with (with advantage if you’re also proficient with a relevant skill). On a success, you can produce any number of common items appropriate for that type of artisan’s tools with a total value of up to 1d12+4 gp, or twice that much on a natural 20. On a failure, you can still produce items with total value of up to half that amount, unless you fail by 5 or more, in which case you fail to produce anything of value that day.

You can work on an item over the course of multiple days, adding together any gp value you did not spend crafting other items together until you reach the total cost of the item you wish to craft. Additionally, any number of characters can work together on crafting an item, provided they all have the necessary tool proficiency to craft the item in question.

 

[KYRON45]

I can buy things IRL.

I do not have the time, space, skill or energy to make things in my real life. But my Fey Pact Warlock who is rebuilding a destroyed community is using his skills as a brewer of beer to make potions. Many "lone swordsman" types in stories make their swords and that is an integral part of their story.

The option to MAKE your own things speaks to a section of the fantasy story, the ownership of it, which excites a lot of people. Because it isn't just a custom item made for your character, but a custom item your character made for themselves.

Iron Man is cooler than War Machine, because War Machine can't make the suit. Iron Man can.

To be fair Tony Stark owns the factories that make the suit. He tells the computer to make it and the factory goes into action. Tony Stark also makes the suit that Rhodes uses. Its not like either of them set up shop in moments between smacking around the bad guys and hammers out their armor by hand in their free time.

I get the appeal of a grizzled warrior who wants to open a tavern some day after his years of grinding away keeping the world safe have made him broken and tired. I just don't see the appeal of a warlock in his prime wanting to start a scented potpourri sachet Etsy page while serving as a minion of the unseelie court.

I'm not saying the crafters of the world are evil and shouldn't do it. I'm just expressing my inability to see the appeal. I also don't get min maxers, baseball and why flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. But as the youngest child in a family of 8 I do get that my opinion counts for little.

Enjoy the game the way you play it.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Crafter, the origin feat. Now that we get to actually look at the PHB, the items they can Fast Craft daily are:
Carpenter: Ladder, Torch (just one? omfg)
Leatherworker: Case, Pouch
Mason: Block and Tackle (just say pulley system)
Potter: Jug, Lamp
Smith: Ball Bearings, Bucket, Caltrops, Grappling Hook, Iron Pot
Tinker: Bell, Shovel, Tinder Box
Weaver: Basket, Rope, Net, Tent
Woodcarver: Club, Greatclub, Quarterstaff

The item works for the day, and then breaks. So this feature does not save this feat. But... it could have, if we were to apply some actual fantasy adventure tinkerer ideas into it! If someone's wasting their origin feat on this, surely the least they could get is a walking automaton to function like a Floating Disk, or a giga-shovel that functions like Move Earth, or create an improvised weapon of any type that you can break over someone's head for double damage, a skeleton key to bypass a lockpicking attempt once...

But instead, we have a feat that looks like it would be at home only in a level zero game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Torch (just one? omfg

Just need a thigh bone and some old rags and it lasts for hours.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Club, Greatclub, Quarterstaff

I use my my leet skills to make a tree branch.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I use my my leet skills to make a tree branch.

I KNOW RIGHT

Those are already the default for improvised weapon counting as an actual weapon, what is there for you to do.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I KNOW RIGHT

Those are already the default for improvised weapon counting as an actual weapon, what is there for you to do.

For my next trick I will craft some firewood.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Leatherworker needs something useful to craft, such as boots, or a surgical support.