Blacksmithing question.

[SSuser]

I'm playing a blacksmith/fighter in Kingmaker. We found a masterwork cold iron sickle. Using the craft weapon skill how would you handle crafting it into a masterwork cold iron rapier? They both would consume two pounds of metal. So my question is should I treat the sickle as just raw material and make the skill check rolls for time consumption? Or should I treat the sickle as broken and use a repair skill roll?

Do you have a different idea on how to handle this?

Thank you for your time.

SS.

 

[Scott DeWar]

i would treat it as raw material for the rapier as long as the weight ofthe syclel was at least that of the rapier.

Here are the rules on crafting as per the d20 PFSRD

[sblock=cost and time of crafting]
To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

1. Find the item’s price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the DC on Table: Craft Skills.
3. Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.
4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s worth of work.

If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.

If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week.

If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.[/sblock]

if yoiu have the raw materials then that should equal to 1/3 the total cot of making it. the rest of the cost is the other materials needed to make it, what ever that may be. Take note of the effects of failing by 4 or less or failing by 5 or more.

 

[Friend of the Dork]

I'm playing a blacksmith/fighter in Kingmaker. We found a masterwork cold iron sickle. Using the craft weapon skill how would you handle crafting it into a masterwork cold iron rapier? They both would consume two pounds of metal. So my question is should I treat the sickle as just raw material and make the skill check rolls for time consumption? Or should I treat the sickle as broken and use a repair skill roll?

Do you have a different idea on how to handle this?

Thank you for your time.

SS.

Realisticly, that just doesen't work. First of all if using steel or normal iron a sickle and a rapier would need different kind and qualities of steel (a rapier would have to be alot more flexible for instance, while a sickle could be harder (and thus more brittle). A blacksmith would know some of the various levels of carbon you would want in these items (although admittedly most blacksmiths would not be skilled enough to craft a rapier).

But since this is fantasy cold iron material I'm sure we can handwave all that, but even so you cannot fashion a completely different item out of the same amount of metal. There will always be some wasted material.

What I would do is simply reduce the cost of crafting the rapier down to 10% (instead of the common 33%) of market price, since you can recycle that cold iron.

In any case this is a dm call, but if he says no to option a then this might be a good alternative.

 

[Steel_Wind]

double post

 

[Steel_Wind]

How do you make a cold iron rapier?

First off, iron and "cold-iron" are the same. There is no difference. Cold Iron is simply an iron implement designed to cut. "Cold Steel" implies the same -- and means the same - except in relation to steel.

Iron is Fe without the carbon. Steel is Fe with .3 to 1.7% carbon (and is heated differently depending on the carbon component of the steel).

Now, how do you make a rapier ouf of iron that has no carbon in it and is not annealed? You don't.

There is no such thing -- and no amount of "fantasy" should allow it, either. You want a rapier? It must be steel, not iron.

The rapier is the high-point of sword/knife mettalurgy in Renaissance Europe. It is the functional technological equivalent of the Japanese katana. While there were differences in each in terms of how they were made, the flexibility of both the katana and the rapier was permitted by annealing the steal differently at different locations on the blade. You can't do this with iron and achieve a variable temper on the blade.

What makes a rapier a rapier is not its edge, it is its harder back/core and softer edge, giving the rapier an ability to bend as spring steel.

It's too thin to be made of iron and iron is too inflexible to be fashioned into a rapier. It will snap. Every time.

Sorry. You can't get there from here.

Sometimes a GM needs to say "no." This is one of those times.

 

[Friend of the Dork]

How do you make a cold iron rapier?

First off, iron and "cold-iron" are the same. There is no difference. Cold Iron is simply an iron implement designed to cut. "Cold Steel" implies the same -- and means the same - except in relation to steel.

Iron is Fe without the carbon. Steel is Fe with .3 to 1.7% carbon (and is heated differently depending on the carbon component of the steel).

Now, how do you make a rapier ouf of iron that has no carbon in it and is not annealed? You don't.

There is no such thing -- and no amount of "fantasy" should allow it, either. You want a rapier? It must be steel, not iron.

The rapier is the high-point of sword/knife mettalurgy in Renaissance Europe. It is the functional technological equivalent of the Japanese katana. While there were differences in each in terms of how they were made, the flexibility of both the katana and the rapier was permitted by annealing the steal differently at different locations on the blade. You can't do this with iron and achieve a variable temper on the blade.

What makes a rapier a rapier is not its edge, it is its harder back/core and softer edge, giving the rapier an ability to bend as spring steel.

It's too thin to be made of iron and iron is too inflexible to be fashioned into a rapier. It will snap. Every time.

Sorry. You can't get there from here.

Sometimes a GM needs to say "no." This is one of those times.

Well... no cold iron is not the same as regular iron, not in D&D. And we are talking fantasy here. Cold iron is a special material named after iron because of it's visual appearance. Since it is a fantasy metal there is no telling what kind of weapons can or can't be made of it, and the RAW here is also clear that you can make any sort of metal weapon of it.

Cold steel is just an expression, Cold Iron is something different. You are free to change that with your house rules, but should not try to set them as standard for Pathfinder, because it's not.

You might as wel say that silver is the same as mithral.

 

[IronWolf]

How do you make a cold iron rapier?

...... .......

Sorry. You can't get there from here.

Sometimes a GM needs to say "no." This is one of those times.

I don't see why one couldn't do this. Cold iron in game terms is just iron mined from deep underground known for its effectiveness against fey and demons. Then forged at a lower temperature.

The cold iron section goes on to say that "Items without metal parts cannot be made from cold iron. An arrow could be made of cold iron, but a quarterstaff could not." Short of that it doesn't seem to exclude rapiers in game terms from being crafted of cold iron.

With the amount of alchemists and magic available in the fantasy world I don't see an issue with assuming some of the extra cost for cold iron weapon also includes they alchemy component to make work.

So in my games I would certainly allow this and I don't know of anything within the Pathfinder ruleset that forbids this.

 

[Friend of the Dork]

I don't see why one couldn't do this. Cold iron in game terms is just iron mined from deep underground known for its effectiveness against fey and demons. Then forged at a lower temperature.

The cold iron section goes on to say that "Items without metal parts cannot be made from cold iron. An arrow could be made of cold iron, but a quarterstaff could not." Short of that it doesn't seem to exclude rapiers in game terms from being crafted of cold iron.

With the amount of alchemists and magic available in the fantasy world I don't see an issue with assuming some of the extra cost for cold iron weapon also includes they alchemy component to make work.

So in my games I would certainly allow this and I don't know of anything within the Pathfinder ruleset that forbids this.

Ok, Ironwolf is right, it IS described as a sort of iron with cold forged techniques. In any case you need iron to make steel, and you cannot mine steel. Our conclusions were the same though: Nothing in the rules or the fluff prohibits it from being used to make any kind of metal weapon.