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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 3006475" data-attributes="member: 3051">In my system, each material has:> Categorized in three ways:  CLASS: Hard/Flexible/Soft, which limits what sorts of armors and weapons it can be used for.  You can't make leather armor from steel, no matter how hard you try.  TYPE: Metal/Crystal/Plating/Wood/Bone/Leather/Cloth, which affects the cost multiplier and DC both.  SOURCE: Mundane/Alchemic/Planar, which effects availability (and therefore cost) without adjusting DC> Cost multiplier, which among other things replaces the flat masterwork cost.  It's expressed in gp/lb of raw material.> DC modifier, which also doubles as a "Max Enchantment" stat; if a material is DC +7, it can't hold a total enchantment larger than +7.  (That's "total" meaning pricewise, so +4 keen icy burst would be at the +7 cap).  Several materials explicitly raise or lower this cap.  Since DC modifiers go up to +20ish, the cap doesn't really affect much beyond the lowest levels. (We did this so that people wouldn't just keep enchanting the cheap stuff; powerful magic items should be made from rare materials by default.)> Hardness, which directly translates to HP (1 Hardness = 2 HP per inch of thickness)> General Material bonuses, that apply to any item made from this material.  Typically, these are weight multipliers (Mithral weighs less than steel) or HP multipliers (silver's less durable than its hardness would indicate).  A few materials get bonuses to resist dispels.> Weapon Material bonuses, which stack with any magical bonus.> Weapon cost reductions: a list of enchantments.  If any one of these is on the item, its total enchantment cost is as if it were 1 less.  You can only get this once, even if you put multiple enchantments on the list on the item.  For example, there's one crystal that gives flaming and flaming burst.  So, you can either get flaming for free, or have flaming burst cost +1 instead of +2, but not both.> Armor Material bonuses, which stack with any magical bonus.> Armor cost reductions: just like the weapon one.We did this for 44 materials.  Everything from Bone and Bronze to Dragonscale, Adamantine (not to be confused with Adamantium), and Orichalcum (not the bronzeish alloy).Between the material bonuses and cost reductions, armor and weapons become substantially stronger than before, but the only class really hurt by this was the Monk, and we had totally reworked them anyway.The 3.5E Craft system already does this, to some extent.  The DC of a suit of armor is (10+AC), and simple/martial/exotic weapons are 12/15/18.  For non-military items, Simple items are DC 5, Typical items are DC 10, High-quality items are DC 15, and Complex items are DC 20.This is already a good baseline, I've just tweaked it a bit in my system, with weapons ranging 10-20 depending on complexity, size, etc., but honestly this wasn't really needed.----------------Forgot to add, in regards to the original post:We also redid the Craft equation, since we felt DC was on the wrong side of the equation.  If two items had the same cost but differing DCs, the harder one would take LESS time, so it fell to the DM to make sure cost scaled up faster than DC.The logic we used:> Take the cost, in gp, for the BASE item (that is, the PHB cost, not counting rare materials or masterwork-style modifiers).> Multiply by (DC-10, minimum 1).  Exotic materials modify this one.> Each day, make a Craft check.  Assuming you make the check, the check result (NOT the margin) is the number of gp progress made that day.  Assistants and/or masterwork tools provide the usual +2, and you can Take 10.So, examples:Iron Longsword (DC 15) = 15 * (15-10) = 75.  For a low-level crafter with a +5 Craft bonus, he can finish in 5 days by Taking 10.Cinnabryl Falchion (DC 20, since Cinnabryl is +5) = 75 * (20-10) = 750.  A mid-level crafter with masterwork tools could finish this in a month; while both falchions and longswords are martial weapons, a falchion takes a lot more material, and so takes longer.Adamantium Dwarven Waraxe (DC 27, since it's exotic and Adamantium is DC+9) = 30 * (27-10) = 510.  While it's a tougher material and it's an exotic weapon, it's just a smaller weapon, and so any craftsman that can hit DC of 27 could finish in ~3 weeks.Orichalcum Two-Bladed Sword (DC 38, since Orichalcum is DC+20) = 100 * (38-10) = 2800.  If you're not epic-level with magical assistance, a team of helpers, and two or three months to spare, don't bother.</blockquote>

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