Craft Checks

[Gregor]

Im sure there have been 1 million posts on this topic....but what is one more eh?

I am making a new character, a dwarven fighter with all his skill ranks going into his craft weapons and craft armor skills....nothing like the cliches no? Anyway I was taking a look at how long it would take to craft things and for certain items....it takes AGES. Like maybe I didnt do the calculations correctly, but it looks like a suit of full plate (which when converted to silver = 15000 sp) will take close to 28 weeks to complete assuming I roll a 30 for each check. Does this strike you as a tad long? If I did the calculations wrong, please let me know. I am how you say....stupid.....when it comes to mathemagics!

Also, how have you all, as players and DMs dealt with crafting mundane items? Any different approaches which worked well?

Cheers

 

[dok]

ELH and other considerations...

Coming out of a two+ year campaign with a player playing a craft dwarf, I can offer quite a lot of advice...

1.) Use 'take 10' for calculating Craft skills. Don't roll. You'll thank yourself later.

2.) Use the ELH 'fast crafting' rules for higher level characters. Essentially, you may add +10 or multiples of 10 to the Craft DC. Since you're increasing the DC and DC *Check = progress, you're thus speeding up the crafting time.

3.) Look into having a skill bonus item made for the character. While the 'bonus squared *20' price guideline in the DMG is not the greatest, it works quite well for skills like Craft. If you're looking to get the best edge, consider getting one item that grants a Competence bonus, and another that grants a Sacred Bonus.

4.) Talk with your DM about the availability of special or exotic materials or processes that could be done with Craft, similar to mythral & adamaintine. The Wheel of Time RPG has a higher class of weapon & armor called Masterwork. Other d20 books may have other ideas.