Craft rules make no sense at all

[Mistwell]

I was looking in to the craft rules, and they make no sense.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is with an example.

Assume I am trying to make plate mail. The DC for this is 18.

Assume I get a 30 craft check in the first week, and every week (I am taking 10, and I have a +20 to the check).

At this rate, it will take me 27.78 weeks (about 6.48 months) to complete the task.

However, let's INCREASE the DC required to make the plate mail, up to 28 instead of 18.

Now, assuming nothing else changes (same check result of 30 every week), it takes 17.86 weeks (about 4.17 months) to make the same item.

AS THE COMPLEXITY OF THE ITEM GOES UP, THE TIME IT TAKES TO MAKE THE ITEM GOES DOWN.

This is the opposite of what should happen. It should not go faster to make a more complicated item, but slower.

All of this comes from that one simple rule that says your progress is measured by multiplying your check result against the DC, and that is your progress for the week.

Does anyone have more logical craft rules they can propose? Perhaps switching it to multiplying your check result by the greater of your check result or the DC? Anyone have any ideas?

 

[BSF]

I understand what you are saying. Unfortunately, I have no ideas on how to rework the Craft skill so it makes sense. I do think this is a reflection of the games emphasis on combat.

If it makes you feel better, think of it this way. If you want to create a set of full plate, you can ask for it as a rush job. Then, the system actually seems to work correctly.

 

[Fauxargent]

Increasing the DC +10 (as in the Craft Skill description) probably means cutting a few corners without affecting the quality - so it make sense that it is faster. The item being crafted is no more complex.

A genuinely more complex item would cost more and so take longer to make despite the increased DC.

 

[argo]

All of this comes from that one simple rule that says your progress is measured by multiplying your check result against the DC, and that is your progress for the week.

Does anyone have more logical craft rules they can propose? Perhaps switching it to multiplying your check result by the greater of your check result or the DC? Anyone have any ideas?

And that rule is there to reflect the fact that people who are more skilled can finish the same project in less time.

Look at it this way: compare a fairly well skilled blacksmith who has a +8 to his checks with your master blacsmith who has +20. They both take ten on their checks and the fair blacksmith (who barely makes the DC) takes 27 weeks while the master smith voluntairly raises the DC and finishes in only 17 weeks. How did he do it? I wold say that he uses complicated, advanced techniques to work faster. That seems to make perfect sense to me, the DC of the check reflects not so much the complexity of the item as the difficulty of the technique involved int crafting it. Items that are truly more complicated have that reflected in their price wich will affect the ammount of time required to craft them. I have some issues with the craft rules but this isn't one of them.

 

[FireLance]

The main reason why it takes a shorter time to build the more complex item in your example is that both items have the same cost although one is more complex than the other. If the more complex item cost twice the price, you would require about 35 weeks, longer than the less complex item.

Of course, that opens the whole "why should expensive items take longer to make" can of worms, but that a subject for another thread.

If you still feel uncomfortable about the rules, you could use check result x (10 + Craft modifier). That way a more skilled worker will always be able to make stuff faster without the variability of using check result squared.

Greater of check result or DC would not work since check result must be equal to or more than DC for you to make any progress in the first place.

 

[CyberSpyder]

You could, perhaps, use (check result)*(check result - DC)

Of course, that would mean you'd make no progress at all if you only just met the DC, so it might not be the best way.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

This has nagged at me in the past, too. I've not house-ruled it, just because there's not so much Crafting going on in my game that I've needed to.

Someone mentioned "voluntarily" raising the DC ... maybe that's the simplest fix: just allow the craftsman to voluntarily raise the DC as high as he likes (which will usually be to the point where Take 10 makes it).

 

[Gregor]

I feel your pain.

I tried to work out a system that uses the item's weight as opposed to cost in gold pieces. I then also reduced all the DCs by 5 to try and reduce the problem of higher complexity = faster crafting.

So lets see, full plate weighs 50 pounds. Well lets take 50 gold and convert it to silver like we would if we were using the market price of the item. So we're now working with 500 silver pieces. So lets then assume we have a total of 20 on our first attempt, then reference the DC to make the item (was 18, now its 13). So 20 x 13 = 260 silver for the first week. If we roll another 20 then we finish the product in two weeks of full labour.

However, we also enter the problem, in this method, that your PCs will just sit around for a few months, crank out suits of full plate or masterwork weapons and then just sell them off and retire with the riches. Therefore, you could create some prices for the ammount of raw metal you need for each item. Say twice the weight of the item? So use 100 pounds as the weight for platemail. You can rationalize that alot of the metal wont be used, will be discarded or defect. This can spread out the crafting time a little longer. Lets check it out.

We'll use the DC examples you gave in your first post:

100 pounds of material = 100gp = 1000sp
Platemail DC 13 (18 - 5)
Initial Craft Check = 30
Further Checks = 20

1st week (30 x 13) = 390
2nd week (20 x 13) = 260
3rd week (20 x 13) = 260
4th week (20 x 13) = 260

total = 1170. Therefore you finish the platemail in just under a month. I think that sounds pretty good.

Just an idea.

Cheers,

 

[Diirk]

I checked on the possibilty of a lvl 8ish character making a suit of mithril full plate... I figured it worked out that it would take around 5 years ;/

Actually now I think about it maybe I calculated it wrong.. in a morbid kind of hindsight it might actually meant to be 15 ! Oh well, I guess its expensive for a reason, heh.

 

[swrushing]

You have a logic problem in your example.

The Dc is not some number picked out of a vacuum that has no linkage elsewhere.

DC 18 plate costs a given amount. That VALUE is used to determine how much work you need to do. (your cumulative efforts add up to the price.)

DC 28 plate would be very well made plate (insert lots of meanding ramble about craftsmans ship, appearance and so forth.) It should cost MORE and thus need MORE work to get done.

Your problem is you just upped the DC without also adjusting the price. Doing so created your own illusion of a problem.

Using your example...

Just raising the DC does not mean the item is more complex to make, after all, you did not raise the cost or value of the item one bit. You produced the same mail, same sell price, same function. Raising the Dc in this case is more representative in how hard your guy works. he works against Dc 28 day after daym not Dc 18. It would seem logical, if your Gm allowed this type of thing, for the guy working harder to indeed get done quicker.

I was looking in to the craft rules, and they make no sense.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is with an example.

Assume I am trying to make plate mail. The DC for this is 18.

Assume I get a 30 craft check in the first week, and every week (I am taking 10, and I have a +20 to the check).

At this rate, it will take me 27.78 weeks (about 6.48 months) to complete the task.

However, let's INCREASE the DC required to make the plate mail, up to 28 instead of 18.

Now, assuming nothing else changes (same check result of 30 every week), it takes 17.86 weeks (about 4.17 months) to make the same item.

AS THE COMPLEXITY OF THE ITEM GOES UP, THE TIME IT TAKES TO MAKE THE ITEM GOES DOWN.

This is the opposite of what should happen. It should not go faster to make a more complicated item, but slower.

All of this comes from that one simple rule that says your progress is measured by multiplying your check result against the DC, and that is your progress for the week.

Does anyone have more logical craft rules they can propose? Perhaps switching it to multiplying your check result by the greater of your check result or the DC? Anyone have any ideas?