Cleaner, Faster Crafting Rules

[Stalker0]

We all know the problems with the craft rules. My new system is nowhere near perfect, but its fast, easy, and does curb some of the oddities (ie full plate takes nearly a year to make, etc). These rules assume the use of the Take 10 rule, as it makes the most sense from a crafting standpoint.

Crafting Time
Note: The following multipliers are time based, so they follow regular math, not Dnd math. Use all the multipliers that apply.

Base: 5 days
Weapon/Armor/Shield/Craft DC 15 or greater: x 2
less than 1 gp: *
1 gp - 10 gp: x 1/5
11 - 25 gp: x 1/2
26 - 149 gp: x 1
150 - 999 gp: x 2
1000 - 2000 gp: x 5
2000+:#

*For items less than 1 gp, time them as a 1 gp item. You make 1 gp worth of that item in that time. Ex. A hammer is 5 sp. So 1 gp worth of hammer is 2 hammers.
#For items greater than 2000 gp, cut up the project into groups of 2000 gp each and add up the total time. So if 2000 gp of a 10,000 gp project takes 50 days, then the whole project would take 250 days.

Examples: An iron pot is 5 sp, with a craft DC of 10. First upgrade it to 1 gp, which is 2 pots. Time equals 5 x 1/5 = 1 day. So in 1 day, you can make 2 iron pots.

Full plate is 1500 gp, and is armor. Time to make equals 5 x 5 x 2 = 50 days.


Crafting the Item
1 craft check = 5 days of work.
If your craft check is double the required DC, then you accomplished 10 days worth of work in 5 days. If its triple the required DC, then you accomplish 15 days worth of work in 5 days. If the check fails by 4 or less, the crafter wastes 5 days. If the check fails by 5 or more, he wastes half the materials and 5 days of work.
Lesser Materials: +10 DC@
Personal Touch: +5 DC!

@ A master craftsman has learned techniques to maintain the integrity of an item using less materials than is normally required. The crafter only has to pay 1/4 the market price, instead of 1/3.
! Many master craftsman put a personal touch into their work, often a specially designed kind of sword hilt, a specially shaped handle on their pottery, etc. A craft that has such a personal touch can often sell for 110-150% of the normal market price if the crafter is well known.

Ex. Full plate takes 50 days to make. Crafter A has a +10 to his craft check. 10 checks are required, but he takes 10 and gets a 20, which is enough to make the full plate normally. Crafter B is a true master, and has a +20. He decides to make full plate with lesser materials, raising the craft DC to 28. His take 10 is DC 30, so after 50 days he makes a suit, but it only required 375 gp of starting materials instead of 500 gp.

Ex. 2 hammers can be made in 1 day, DC 10. Crafter A has a +5 to his craft check. He takes 10 and gets a 15, a success. This represents 5 days of work, so 10 hammers are made. Now Crafter B has a +10 to his craft check. His take 10 is a 20, which is twice the DC. So one check is actually 10 days worth of work in 5 days. After 5 days, Crafter B has made 20 hammers.

Getting Assistance

An person can try to help the crafter with his craft. A DC 10 craft grants a +2 bonus to the craft check ONLY for the purpose of determining faster crafting, not for checks to determine if the item can be made. A crafter can get an additional bonus no greater than half his craft modifier.

Ex. Bernie the armorsmith is making a chain shirt. He has a +12 craft modifier. He takes 10, which is a 22, good enough to make it normally. Assistance 1 takes 10 and gets a 10, so the craft check increases to 24. Assistances 2 and 3 also helps, and the total check increases to 28. Since the DC for a chain shirt is 14, a 28 makes it twice as fast. However, assistance 4 cannot help, because the best Bernie can get is an extra +6.


And that's it everyone!!

 

[Nifft]

Here's my crafting rules:

The formula is time = sqrt(cost/100) days.

When augmenting, calculate the TOTAL cost and time, then subtract
the PREVIOUS cost and time, to a minimum of one day.


100 GP takes 1 day
400 GP takes 2 days
900 GP takes 3 days
1,600 GP takes 4 days
2,500 GP takes 5 days
3,600 GP takes 6 days
4,900 GP takes 7 days
6,400 GP takes 8 days
8,100 GP takes 9 days
10,000 GP takes 10 days
12,100 GP takes 11 days
14,400 GP takes 12 days
16,900 GP takes 13 days
19,600 GP takes 14 days
22,500 GP takes 15 days
25,600 GP takes 16 days
28,900 GP takes 17 days
32,400 GP takes 18 days
36,100 GP takes 19 days
40,000 GP takes 20 days
44,100 GP takes 21 days
48,400 GP takes 22 days
52,900 GP takes 23 days
57,600 GP takes 24 days
62,500 GP takes 25 days
67,600 GP takes 26 days
72,900 GP takes 27 days
78,400 GP takes 28 days
84,100 GP takes 29 days
90,000 GP takes 30 days
96,100 GP takes 31 days
102,400 GP takes 32 days
108,900 GP takes 33 days
115,600 GP takes 34 days
122,500 GP takes 35 days
129,600 GP takes 36 days
136,900 GP takes 37 days
144,400 GP takes 38 days
152,100 GP takes 39 days
160,000 GP takes 40 days
168,100 GP takes 41 days
176,400 GP takes 42 days
184,900 GP takes 43 days
193,600 GP takes 44 days
202,500 GP takes 45 days
211,600 GP takes 46 days
220,900 GP takes 47 days
230,400 GP takes 48 days
240,100 GP takes 49 days
250,000 GP takes 50 days
260,100 GP takes 51 days
270,400 GP takes 52 days
280,900 GP takes 53 days
291,600 GP takes 54 days
302,500 GP takes 55 days
313,600 GP takes 56 days
324,900 GP takes 57 days
336,400 GP takes 58 days
348,100 GP takes 59 days
360,000 GP takes 60 days
372,100 GP takes 61 days
384,400 GP takes 62 days
396,900 GP takes 63 days
409,600 GP takes 64 days
422,500 GP takes 65 days
435,600 GP takes 66 days
448,900 GP takes 67 days
462,400 GP takes 68 days
476,100 GP takes 69 days
490,000 GP takes 70 days
504,100 GP takes 71 days
518,400 GP takes 72 days
532,900 GP takes 73 days
547,600 GP takes 74 days
562,500 GP takes 75 days
577,600 GP takes 76 days
592,900 GP takes 77 days
608,400 GP takes 78 days
624,100 GP takes 79 days
640,000 GP takes 80 days
656,100 GP takes 81 days
672,400 GP takes 82 days
688,900 GP takes 83 days
705,600 GP takes 84 days
722,500 GP takes 85 days
739,600 GP takes 86 days
756,900 GP takes 87 days
774,400 GP takes 88 days
792,100 GP takes 89 days
810,000 GP takes 90 days
828,100 GP takes 91 days
846,400 GP takes 92 days
864,900 GP takes 93 days
883,600 GP takes 94 days
902,500 GP takes 95 days
921,600 GP takes 96 days
940,900 GP takes 97 days
960,400 GP takes 98 days
980,100 GP takes 99 days
1,000,000 GP takes 100 days

 

[Stalker0]

No offense Nifft, but this thread was not asking for other people's craft rules...but what they thought of my rules.

 

[Nifft]

No offense Nifft, but this thread was not asking for other people's craft rules...but what they thought of my rules.

What?!? Not an invitation to spam MY ideas? How rude of you!

As to yours, well, we never really bother with stuff of that scale. If it's not magic, we don't worry about it that much. I do think that the exponential returns (time squared) that I based mine on are sound, since being occupied for that long has an opportunity cost. Also, it clearly rewards more expensive items -- you earn more per day if you make big ticket items -- vs. the risk of not having a high-end buyer.

In that yours seem to a similar progression, I like them.

-- N

 

[Treebore]

True. But the beauty of Nifts rulres is that you have a ready chart that tells you how many days it will take to make an item of a specific price range, in a couple of seconds. My question is what skill rank is his price list generated at? Those price ranges are rather quick creation times, so I am assuming it is pretty high skill rank.

OF course the formula doesn't use a skill rank, I believe that is square root. Unless the 100 somehow relates to skill rank.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Stalker0, those rules look pretty nifty! I'll have to examine them more closely when I have the time, but I've been looking for alternatives to the regular crafting rules for ages...

 

[Kerrick]

Very nice. It's simple, it's clean, and it looks like it would work very well. Now... how would it work for variant materials, masterwork items, and magic items?

 

[Stalker0]

So far I've checked it with a host of equipment in the book, and so far it works pretty well. Not perfect of course, but you can use the rules to make a simple iron pot or full plate armor, and the results seem "reasonable"

As far as masterwork items go...the rules still apply. The masterwork component of a weapon is DC 20 to make and 300 gp...so it would be 20 days, which I think is pretty reasonable for a truly expertly made sword.

 

[Stalker0]

one bump to see if this is worth a damn.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Is there a mathematical rule behind that little table? The thing that I like best about Nifft's rule is that it had a neat formula. But his method doesn't work for the crafting of ordinary items, and yours does.

The closest I could come was sqrt(value/10). And double if it is armor/weapon DC 15 or higher.

A 300 gp masterwork component would be 10 days, a 1500 gp suit of armor would be 24 days. A 10 gp normal item would be 1 day, of course. 40 gp would be 2 days.