Craft oddity?

[Plane Sailing]

I'm writing some software to calculate craft item costs and times, and I came across something that seems a little strange in the Craft skill rules. I wonder if anyone could enlighten me.

Normally you make craft skill checks each week, and add check*DC to the total progress (as long as you make the DC)

What about if you make checks daily?

Progress by the Day: The character can make checks by the day instead of by the week, in which case the character's progress (result times DC) is at one tenth the weekly rate.

Why would the daily rate be 1/10th the progress rather than 1/7th? Is the default D&D week longer than seven days (because I don't remember seeing anything to that effect).

Making checks by the day is actually more risky than making them by the week, since *every* time you fail by 5 or more you waste some of your materials, and incur extra expense (they don't suggest that you only incur 1/10 the expense if making daily checks).

So, can anyone throw any light on this situation? Why daily craft checks produce 1/10 the progress rather than 1/7?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm writing some software to calculate craft item costs and times, and I came across something that seems a little strange in the Craft skill rules. I wonder if anyone could enlighten me.

Normally you make craft skill checks each week, and add check*DC to the total progress (as long as you make the DC)

What about if you make checks daily?


Why would the daily rate be 1/10th the progress rather than 1/7th? Is the default D&D week longer than seven days (because I don't remember seeing anything to that effect).

Making checks by the day is actually more risky than making them by the week, since *every* time you fail by 5 or more you waste some of your materials, and incur extra expense (they don't suggest that you only incur 1/10 the expense if making daily checks).

So, can anyone throw any light on this situation? Why daily craft checks produce 1/10 the progress rather than 1/7?

That's because it's one sp per week or one cp per day. I think in the generic D&D world, you have 7 days a week. In the Forgotten Realms, you have indeed 10-day-weeks (tendays)

 

[Plane Sailing]

Re: Re: Craft oddity?

That's because it's one sp per week or one cp per day.

But is that from reverse-engineering the 1/10th rate, or is there some reason why it should be less effective to roll each day?

 

[AuraSeer]

I assumed that the daily rates are for when you're working less than a week at a stretch. Say you come back from an adventure on Monday, do a little work on your half-finished suit of armor, and then go out for your next adventure on Thursday. When you're not concentrating on the task for at least a week, you never really "get into the groove," so you don't work at top efficiency.

I don't have any evidence for that explanation, though.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi Auraseer.

I guess that is a pretty good rationale... that it is only for doing bits of work here and there (or when working on really simple and cheap stuff like baskets and torches.

(although taking a glance at the adventurers equipment, I wonder just how a craftsman could turn out sewing needles (5sp) or signal whistles (8sp) in the real world

Cheers

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Re: Re: Re: Craft oddity?

But is that from reverse-engineering the 1/10th rate, or is there some reason why it should be less effective to roll each day?

That's how they wrote it in the PHB:

Progress by the Day: You can make checks by the day instead of by the week, in which case your progress (result X DC) is in copper pieces instead of silver pieces.

I think that's because it's hard to divide a sp by seven, and because noone would roll by the day anyway, if they can roll by the week, reducing the number of rolls and chances of fumbles.

 

[Conaill]

I guess there's also some setup time involved whenever you're crafting stuff. Gathering ingredients, making sure your equipment is in order, clearing some space on your workbench, etc.

(although taking a glance at the adventurers equipment, I wonder just how a craftsman could turn out sewing needles (5sp) or signal whistles (8sp) in the real world

The obvious answer is doing large batches of them: How long do you think it would take you to make just a single needle, start to finish? And how long would it take you to make a batch of 100 needles? Surely less than 100 times the amount it takes to make one needle at a time. That's because in the latter case you're counting in sp per week.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Craft oddity?

That's how they wrote it in the PHB:

Interesting, the SRD (which I quoted originally) doesn't mention copper pieces - hence my query to you.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Craft oddity?

Interesting, the SRD (which I quoted originally) doesn't mention copper pieces - hence my query to you.

Well, 1/10sp and 1cp is the same amount, anyway, and 1/7sp would be 1.42.... cp, and since you cannot have less than 1 cp, and so they rounded down to 1cp (or 1/10), just like in most other cases.

But as long as you have the whole week to spare, you can roll for the silver piece (instead of 7cp) and it's all fine (in fact it's better, since you have less chances for a real bad roll).