Alternative Item Crafting system?

[Zachariah]

Hey Guys,
Im looking for another crafting system. One that doesnt envolve XP cost or a character fixed amount of crafting points. Any suggestion?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I drew up one for my campaign. It requires only the craft skill to make an item. The check is against a DC based on the type of item. I did up a (rough) mirror of the list of items in PHB (or is that DMG?) giving items a base time and Craft DC to make.

A more successful check allows the crafter to modify one or more of the 3 basic factors: Time taken to craft the item; Quality of the Item (from poor to master crafted to magical) and Sale Value of the item (which is a multiplier of the basic value of the item.)

It includes options for crafting magical items (replacing minimum caster level with craft skill and necessary magical components.)

Caveats:
It's NOT play tested.
It needs more work (eg. expanded item and material lists, costs for raw material)
It takes no account of any sort of meta-game fairness (nor is it intended to)
It's not rules-lawyer proofed. I wrote for my use in my campaign and I know HOW I intend it to be used.
Oh and it runs to about 2500 words

But feel free to read and borrow any bits you like and please do make suggestions for improvements.

cheers!!

 

[Zachariah]

Thanks alot, i'll check it out for sure.

Gratz,
Zach

 

[iceifur]

Personally, I use a modified version of the RPGA's Eberron stuff for magic item creation:

• Magic item creation no longer requires XP; instead, item creation feats allow you to make items for 75% the normal market price (this replaces the normal cost to create).
  
• The Extraordinary Artisan and Legendary Artisan feats (Eberron Campaign Setting) are removed.
  
• The Exceptional Artisan feat (also from the ECS) reduces crafting times for all items to 75% normal.
  
• The Magical Artisan feat (Player's Guide to Faerun) reduces the cost of making items for which you possess the prerequisite item creation feat to 50% market price (rather than 75%) and the required crafting times for such items to 75% normal (or 50% normal, if you also possess the Exceptional Artisan feat). The Magical Artisan feat can be taken multiple times, and each time it applies to a new item creation feat.

So far, the system has worked out fine. Of course, it's part of my personal crusade to rid the game of XP costs: any spell or ability that would normally have an XP cost instead requires materials worth (XP cost x 5) gp. And, yes, this also applies to psionics (focusing crystals, incense, and etc.).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Hey Icefur.

Have never read any of the Eberron stuff. Does the system still require craft checks and are their benefits for higher craft skills?

Do like the sound of feats to boost/enhance/modify item creation though. Also sounds like your system is nice and imple to understand. WHich is a good thing.

I agree about the XP cost thing being kinda yecch. ALthough I just did a work around IMC: took the idea of ley line/nexus from one of the many splat books out there (sorry can't think of its name and it belongs to a friend who's far away.). Basically it provides a certain amount of XP per month that can be used to create items/work the big spells/etc. Leylines et al. require a KS Arcana to use properly.

DoD

 

[iceifur]

Does the system still require craft checks and are their benefits for higher craft skills?

For magic items, no. Note that the system above was for magic item creation only (no skill checks required). My group hasn't had any real problems with the default system for creating normal (non-magical) items with the Craft skill.

 

[Kerrick]

I've also got a skill-based system. I revamped the basic Craft system, and included mastercrafting rules, then later incorporated magic items into it. We (our group) also have variant materials; I recently (within the last couple weeks) went over the whole thing, made some fixes here and there, and made sure that all the elements worked together properly, but it hasn't been playtested as such.