Complex Crafting

As my next setting is going to be a Steampunk one, and as my girlfriend is going to play a science-inclined Wizard in that campaign, I was thinking about the use of Craft skills for the creation of more complex items (such as steampunk gadgets and the more complex black-powder explosives).

For example, IMC a simple black-powder bomb weights 1kg (900gr of this is the powder) and costs 18gp. Under the Craft Skill rules, making an item costs one third of its price in raw materials - 6gp in this case (5.5gp for the powder, 0.5gp for the casing and fuse) - this assumes that the character buys the black-powder. However, a character might want to make the ingredients - especially the powder - himself (especially when adventuring in a more backwards area). I'm thinking about three possible ways for handling the crafting complex items:

1) The easiest - assume that each craft skill (say, Craft (Explosives)) includes the knowledge nessecery to make an item (say, a bomb) from relatively simple components (say, a metal shell, a rope, some oil and the (al)chemical ingredients for black-powder). Making an item from simpler raw materials, however, is more difficult than making it from purchased components - so the DC will go up by +5 or +10.

2) The middle ground - make one roll, but require more than one skill (in our example, Alchemy and Craft (Explosives)); use the skill with the lowest total bonus, but allow for a synergy bonus of +2 if the other skill has 5 or more ranks. When using more than two skills, you could get the synergy bonus from more than one skill (assuming each has 5 or more ranks).

3) The complex approach - set several component items for each complex item; each component would have a market price and a craft DC. The total combined price of all nescery components should be one third of that of a complete item. If you buy the components ready-made, you essentially make a normal Craft skill check to make the complete item. However, you may choose to craft any of the components (or all of them) yourself, paying only 1/3 of the market cost of the component yourself (so you could make a complete item at 1/9 of its market price, but that requires alot of time and several Craft skill checks).

The third option should follow two "rules of a thumb" to keep it managable:
A) Each item should be composed of a small number of components (2-4 in most cases).
B) Each item should have only two "tiers" of crafting, except for rare occasions such as building complex steam-constructs (i.e. sophisticated automatons).

How would you handle this?
 

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Personally I wouldn't make it that complex.

I would say that the 1/3rd cost already takes into account that the skilled player is using their knowledge to try and make the raw materials from scratch and save costs wherever possible.

If you really want them to be able to attempt to further decrease costs to 1/4th but do so at increased DC (+5) but that's a complex as I'd want to make it.
 

I agree that these rules shouldn't apply to causual crafting (as in the average D&D game, i.e. forging a sword), but I'm thinking more along the lines of a tinker character - for which inventive, McGuyver-style crafting is part of the focus. Also, in a steampunk setting, there are some very complex items that could be made.
 

maybe -

2.5; the not so Complex Solution

For Specific Items where Multiple craft checks may be applicable require a character to make two separate checks in each relevant skill and/or posess Ranks in Knowledge: Engineering

i.e. firearms - Carpentry and metalworking - Character must have X ranks in Knowledge Arch&Engineering to attempt Pistol Y ranks for Rifle and Z ranks for Cannon

Teams can meet the prerequisites by cooperation.

hmmm (Ranger/Rogue with Wizard specialist for serious jobs...) :D
 

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