Craft Item Question...

[Cedric]

In the text for crafting an item, it says to multiply the check result by the DC, if you exceed the cost in Silver Pieces, the item is complete. Otherwise, you've made progress towards completing the item, as long as you succeed.

Am I being dense, or does that mean that the harder an item is to make, the quicker you will make it, as long as you succeed?

Cedric

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

Your reasoning is correct.

 

[dcollins]

Except that it's likely counterbalanced by a higher total price.

 

[Conaill]

Yes, the Craft rules reaaly tell you how to "reverse engineer" the crafting time from the price and craft DC.

In reality, you'd get something like Price = DC x Time. However, since items are listed by price, you have to work backwards to figure out the time to craft, using Time = Price / DC.

In other words, if you have two items that have the same market price, but one is twice as hard to craft than the other... they can only have the same price if the harder one takes less time to craft.

It all makes sense, if you look at it backwards!

 

[Spatzimaus]

Unfortunately, it makes some things a bit TOO expensive, depending on how you interpret the rules.

For example, if Mithril and Adamantine add to the cost of the item, do they increase the price for the purposes of this? If so, it's going to take a LONG time to make an 12,000gp suit of full plate. Even if I had a Craft modifier of +20 (giving a Take 10 check of 30), a DC of 20 (masterwork) means 600 sp per week, or 60 gp, so we're looking at 4 years to make it.

As is, to make a suit of normal Full Plate (1500 gp, DC 18) with Craft +10 (giving check 20) would take 42 weeks.

Personally, I'd love to see a Feat that reduced these times for low-magic campaigns, but this whole thing goes away if you use the Fabricate spell anyway. Instead of 4 years, you can make that armor in a couple rounds.

 

[Conaill]

For example, if Mithril and Adamantine add to the cost of the item, do they increase the price for the purposes of this?

No it doesn't. You pay for the material separately, and crafting time only increases as for a MW item.

I do agree that we need some rules to speed up item creation overall though, especially for adventuring PCs. Actually, here's a current thread where I suggest just that!

 

[Damon Griffin]

Yes, the Craft rules reaaly tell you how to "reverse engineer" the crafting time from the price and craft DC.

In reality, you'd get something like Price = DC x Time. However, since items are listed by price, you have to work backwards to figure out the time to craft, using Time = Price / DC.

In other words, if you have two items that have the same market price, but one is twice as hard to craft than the other... they can only have the same price if the harder one takes less time to craft.

It all makes sense, if you look at it backwards!

Still doesn't make sense to me. Oh, I see the math. Nothing complicated there. I understand that if you're going to keep the cost the same, more difficult items have to take less time to make.

But there's the logical flaw. The price should NOT be the same. An item which is harder to make should either drive the price up directly (hey, only a skilled craftsman can do this, so I'm charging more) or increase the amount of time needed to do the job (which would drive the price up.) An item which is easier than normal to make should cost less, either because increased competition from moderately skilled folks forces the craftsman to keep prices low, or because it takes less time to complete.

As written, Craft doesn't make sense, it just exploits a "stupid math trick." Ignoring the math for the moment, try coming up with a rationale that fits this formula. I can make a 1000sp widget at a DC 10 in 100 units of time; how do you explain that superior widgets (DC20) can be made in half the time? What is it about the superior widget, or the process used to craft them, that makes this possible.

Time = Price / DC says "SOMEHOW, the price of superior widgets remained the same as regular widgets; I don't know how, but the end result is that they took less time to make." I want to know how that happened.

 

[Geoff Watson]

As written, Craft doesn't make sense, it just exploits a "stupid math trick." Ignoring the math for the moment, try coming up with a rationale that fits this formula. I can make a 1000sp widget at a DC 10 in 100 units of time; how do you explain that superior widgets (DC20) can be made in half the time? What is it about the superior widget, or the process used to craft them, that makes this possible.

Time = Price / DC says "SOMEHOW, the price of superior widgets remained the same as regular widgets; I don't know how, but the end result is that they took less time to make." I want to know how that happened.

Superior widgets would be more valuable than regular widgets, so they would take longer.

Having a straw man argument by assuming that superior widgets would cost the same as regular widgets is futile. Surely you could think of a better argument than that.

Geoff.

 

[LokiDR]

It takes longer to create a large sphere of gold than a complex lock.

If the finished sphere was going to have the same value as the lock, but the sphere would obviously be easier make, so they have same target but different creation DCs. The lock, higher DC, is made faster.

No, this doesn't make sense. I think the craft rules were created the way they were just to keep PCs from gaining huge amounts of wealth by sitting around and crafting.

On a side note, how do characters create items of art? Say I had a piece of jade and I wanted to carve it into a small statue of a beautiful woman. Can you base the final price off some sort of DC representing how artistic it is? Are there any house rules floating around for this?

 

[Damon Griffin]

Superior widgets would be more valuable than regular widgets, so they would take longer.

Okay, fine. Wooden widgets and stone widgets, then. Assume for purposes of the question that the unspecified function of a widget is such that the widget doesn't do its job any better for being made of stone. That being the case, one widget costs the same as another, whether it's made of wood or stone.

Stone widgets as a general rule should be harder to produce, but under the Craft rules, they're going to take less time to make. Why?