Advanced Weapon Crafting

[Kerrick]

I haven't seen the rules from Black Company, I got inspired by some rules I saw from Brood publishing, which only were in regard to Masterwork properties though, and worked a bit from those, extrapolated etc.

Thanks!

Thanks Outcast, I always hated the old crafting rules...

Your system looks good, but it doesn't work with the existing crafting system - that is, you increase the crafting time, but since crafting time is based on price, and there are no price modifications, there's no way to determine exactly how long it should take to make. The modifiers should be to the price, not the crafting time.

Alternatively, you could check out my variant crafting system. I was going to post this link when I first read your post, but I didn't want to spam it. But, since you mentioned hating the old system, I thought you might want to take a look at this - I think it'll work a lot better with what you have in mind, since crafting time is based on the size and complexity of the item, NOT the price.

 

[Clay_More]

Hey Kerrick

I always liked the Masterwork rules you made for Shtar, they make alot more sense to me than the existing rules. You don't mind if I adopt the Masterwork rules a bit more directly than I have now, make the system with those rules implemented?

I saw both Crafting and Masterwork rules from Shtar, both sets of rules are a nice elaboration and refinement on the basic PHB rules. I am personally going for a slightly different set of rules for the Weapons and Armor though, where I make an actual list with all weapons from the PhB and mention a crafting time and DC for each. Its going to be slightly more time-consuming to make, but should have the advantage of being faster to use (just find the item you want to make on the list, and you have the time / DC).

Anyways, thanks alot for your reply Kerrick, good to see that you are still around and writing stuff again.

 

[Kerrick]

I always liked the Masterwork rules you made for Shtar, they make alot more sense to me than the existing rules. You don't mind if I adopt the Masterwork rules a bit more directly than I have now, make the system with those rules implemented?

Have at it - that's why I posted them up on the site.

I am personally going for a slightly different set of rules for the Weapons and Armor though, where I make an actual list with all weapons from the PhB and mention a crafting time and DC for each. Its going to be slightly more time-consuming to make, but should have the advantage of being faster to use (just find the item you want to make on the list, and you have the time / DC).

Might be overly complicated... what about armor? Shields? What if someone makes up new weapons? What about weapons of different sizes (say, a Huge two-handed sword)?

 

[Land Outcast]

Kerrik rises an important point: why not increase the cost? (Or maybe change the formula presented in the PH to determine how much time will be consumed... in other words: instead of having price, time, multiplier/addition, reduce it to price and variable time)

 

[Clay_More]

I agree that the crafting rules will be a bit hard to make up from scratch, but I would think that it gets easier once I get tables done for the weapons, armors and shields, since it becomes a simple matter of locating the item on this list to find crafting DC / Time. What I would need then is another table which mentions the cost increase if you increase the size of the object, and it should work.

I wikified some of the crafting material (great tool btw).

Crafting Rules

Weapon Modifications

Materials

New Feats


I edited the Weapon Modifications quite significantly and added roughly 2 more pages of modifications. I implemented some of the feedback from Drexes and Land Outcast. I am still looking for a way to make Serrated Blade, I don't want it to be so outright powerful that it is a "must have", because historically it wasn't a very popular modification. I was thinking of making it deal damage that is harder to cure, sorta like the Triangular Point modification. Was also thinking of implementing a new type of damage which might be called "Brutal" or something, which I could then use for especially cruel modifications, such as Triangular Point or Serrated Blade.

I am planning to implement a whole lot more Materials and Weapon Modifications, just only started on the material so it will take some time. Also need to finish the crafting lists for Weapons / Armor.

 

[Clay_More]

Okay, I updated the material significantly, the new stuff is all found in the links in the post above. Here's a list of the changes done.

Added rules regarding Weapon Modifications according to Rage King’s suggestion, so a character learns a Weapon Modification for every 4 ranks he has in a Craft skill. Added some feats that gives a character 2 Weapon Modifications, depending on which Craft skill he is specialising in (Bowmaking, Weaponsmithing or Armorsmithing).

Added the following damage types
Cruel
Weakening

Changed the following Weapon Modifications
Serrated Edge – Changed it completely, it now causes Cruel damage.
Triangular Point – Changed it so it causes Cruel damage.
Waved Blade – Increased bonus and crafting time slightly.

Added the following Weapon Modifications
Gem Socket

Added the following Materials
Ankheg Mandible
Arcaenum
Flint
Grol’Arok iron
Tarrasque horn
Tarrasque scale
Turquoise, Imbued

I still have loads of things to do, amongst other things I want to get bronze, copper and other common minerals listed under the materials section. I think it would be a really nice touch for a DM to present special cultures that use weapons of simpler metals or materials than steel, which is also why I added flint to the list already.

I still have loads of things that I want to add when I get the time for it, and I would really love to hear if anyone have any ideas for modifications or materials that I haven't already done, as I want the system to be as complete as possible. So don't be shy, fire away if you have any ideas of suggestions, you don't necessarily need to make all the game stats for your idea, I can do that if I like the idea.

 

[Land Outcast]

Well... how about:

Weapon modification:
Rune (Morale bonus to those identified by that rune)
Inversed Rune (Morale penalty to those who distinguish the rune and are identified by it)

Materials:
Dragon's Fang (Bonus damage)
Dragon's Claw (Attack bonus)
Jade (hum... I'll let you sort this one out)

Just some random thoughts

 

[Kerrick]

Hmm... some comments on the crafting section:

Assigning crafting times seems kind of... artificial, if you know what I mean, but it's an improvement over the existing price-based system. But.. what if the person wants to make an item faster? Can he sacrifice quality for speed? Can a master smith churn out a normal longsword in a fraction of the time it would take a novice?

The base crafting time of an Dagger is 2 days. Since the Dagger is going to be of Superior quality, the crafting time is multiplied by 8, thus becomming 16 days. Making the weapon of Adamantine doubles the crafting time, so the crafting time becomes 32 days. The Fencing Guard modification increases crafting time by 1.5, the Folded Blade modification increases crafting time by 4.0 and the Tashi Edge increases crafting time by 1.5 as well. This means that the modifications put together increase the crafting time by 5.0. The modifications are added together before their net total is multiplied with the crafting time. So the final crafting time of the Dagger becomes 62 days.

I'm confused.. how did you come up with 62 days? We have base time (2 days)*, superior quality (x8, 16 days), and it's made of adamantine (x2, 32 days). So far so good.

Now comes the part where I totally lose you. 1.5 + 4 + 1.5 = 7.0, not 5.0. 7.0 * 32 = 224.

*I think you can do a simple dagger in 1 day, not 2, but that's just IMO.

I still have loads of things that I want to add when I get the time for it, and I would really love to hear if anyone have any ideas for modifications or materials that I haven't already done, as I want the system to be as complete as possible.

We've got a whole ton (a few dozen) of new materials, but it's not posted because I need Ralts to get off his butt and finish it. Most of the stuff is his, and I don't know what they do. I'll e-mail the doc to you.

 

[Clay_More]

Well... how about:

Weapon modification:
Rune (Morale bonus to those identified by that rune)
Inversed Rune (Morale penalty to those who distinguish the rune and are identified by it)

Materials:
Dragon's Fang (Bonus damage)
Dragon's Claw (Attack bonus)
Jade (hum... I'll let you sort this one out)

Just some random thoughts

Well, I already got something very specific planned with the Dragon materials, which will be Dragonscale and Dragonhorn (which includes teeth and claws).

The Runes I think I might be able of finding some use for, as an advancement of the Dwarf Craftsmanship.

Hmm... some comments on the crafting section:

Assigning crafting times seems kind of... artificial, if you know what I mean, but it's an improvement over the existing price-based system. But.. what if the person wants to make an item faster? Can he sacrifice quality for speed? Can a master smith churn out a normal longsword in a fraction of the time it would take a novice?

My idea was to introduce that as Weapon Modifications where you can manufacture weapons quicker by either increasing the craft DC or by making them of lower quality, where they actually get negative modifiers but also decreased crafting times.

I'm confused.. how did you come up with 62 days? We have base time (2 days)*, superior quality (x8, 16 days), and it's made of adamantine (x2, 32 days). So far so good.

Now comes the part where I totally lose you. 1.5 + 4 + 1.5 = 7.0, not 5.0. 7.0 * 32 = 224.

*I think you can do a simple dagger in 1 day, not 2, but that's just IMO.

Thats the problem with the numbers as they are written now, since they increase the base crafting time by a percentage amount, but they all include the starting time. x1.5 isn't an increase by 150%, its a 50% increase. So if I have two crafting modifiers that say x1.5, the increase is in fact 50% from each, 100% in total, which means that the modifier would be x2.0. But I think I might have to rework that to change it into percentages instead to make more sense.

Hmmmm... I agree that you should be able to make a Dagger in 1 day, I'll finish writing up the weapons and then I'll go over the crafting times a bit, might reduce more crafting times than just that of the daggers.

We've got a whole ton (a few dozen) of new materials, but it's not posted because I need Ralts to get off his butt and finish it. Most of the stuff is his, and I don't know what they do. I'll e-mail the doc to you.

I remember that material very well, I used it to base the original rules for Materials on. I actually haven't got it on my computer, so I would love to have it to add the Shtar materials to my list with some modification. If you didn't get my mail, you can send it to Clay_More@hotmail.com

 

[Land Outcast]

You can also hang it here... if it ain't too heavy... just saying...