Craft or Profession?

[Pagan priest]

However, many of what WE modern-convenience-glutted people would consider "an ingredient" ... a person with craft(cooking) would have had to prepare. We can just buy a bottle of nice, purified olive oil. THEY would possibly have had to press the bloody olives themselves, or at the least, purify it themselves.

We can take down some spices in nice convenient little jars, and sprinkle them in. THEY woudl have to dr the spices properly themselves.

We can use pre-packaged sauces, dressings, and so on. THEY had tomake it all from scratch. UTTERLY from scratch.

Okay, nit picking time. In a general D&D type world, things like purified olive oil, vinegar, and the like would be available for purchase. Only someone living away from a city would make such things. Dried spices would be bought from the spice merchant. Herbs would be dried in the still room of a manor house, in the kitchen of a peasant's house, after they had been picked from the gardin. City dwellers would have to make due with buying such herbs from a vendor.

Things like meats would be available fresh, salted, pickled or smoked... depending on the type of meat and time of year, among other things. Butter or cheese would likely be bought, unless the person kept a herd of cows.

It is only once you start talking about the more complex items, like sauces and such that they have to be made by the chef as needed. No bottled hollendaise from the local market!

 

[pawsplay]

If the final result is judged on its artistic merit, then you use Perform.

I disagree with this criterion. Perform is something you should be able to busk at, or alter attitudes. Aside from aesthetics, art is salable, so it is a Craft.

A great painter probably has really high Craft (painting), as well as 5 ranks or so of Profession (visual composer) for Synergy, Skill Focus (craft - painting), and probably some Feat related to mastercrafting items.

Charisma probably doesn't enter it. Many painters are introverts, and some are just weird (like van Gogh). You don't need presence, just sensitivity, insight, and technique. Intelligence and Wisdom.

By the way, most successful painters are quite intelligent, generally multitalented, and display mathematical and spatial gifts.

 

[reiella]

I'd tend to put Art with Craft...

After looking at OA anyway, where Caligraphy, flower arranging, landscape gardening, painting, origami, and tatooing are considered crafts.

Further, it explains that the use of the artistic craft skills would typically be prime examples of situations where people would almost always Take 20 on the check for (including the increased costs ).

Interesting sidenotes

Also listed in Craft, is stonemasonry, gemcutting, and pottery.

 

[tensen]

I disagree with this criterion. Perform is something you should be able to busk at, or alter attitudes. Aside from aesthetics, art is salable, so it is a Craft.

A great painter probably has really high Craft (painting), as well as 5 ranks or so of Profession (visual composer) for Synergy, Skill Focus (craft - painting), and probably some Feat related to mastercrafting items.

So in other words, an artist like in the major cities of today that sits on the street corner willing to do a characature or spell out your name in odd characters or the like, might get away with using the perform skill.

 

[tensen]

Think about things in a way that might be a tad confusing.

Someone painting the house... doesn't create anything new. Just uses the paints that are there... or perhaps creates the paints as part of the skill. This is a profession.

Someone that is painting a portrait or a scenery that they are looking at. This is perform.

Someone who is creating a piece of art from their head, such as the murals in churchs.. this might be considered a craft... although the craft rules are pretty much out of whack to determine value.


This can be said for several of the types of professions that you would have found in medieval times. Remember though that apprenticeships were pretty specialized if they existed. So it is quite likely that your character would have only learned 1 or two of those types.