Craft skill...

[Arravis]

Anyone else think that the Craft skill takes an insane amount of time to make anything? At the rates and costs they have in the PHB, craftsmen couldn't even come close to make a decent living. I understand they want to avoid players from plunking down and making swords or create clay jugs all day... but if they want to retire from adventuring and become blacksmiths or potters, that's their business. No reason it should be unrealisticly unprofittable and unrealisticly time consuming. Any opinions on this issue? Anyone know of alternate rules for this?

-Arravis

P.S.: Should I put this in the House Rules forum?

 

[Squire James]

My house rules go something like this:

Whenever someone asks for details on how to make something, I come up with a good-sounding "time to create" for it, and a basic DC needed to make it in that time. The crafter will need an appropriate place to work to avoid a penalty (this can be -2 to -10 depending on what's being made).

I'd have a PC spend 1/4 the market cost for materials and make a Craft check. If it fails by more than 5, the time and money is spent for nothing. If it fails by 5 or less, the time but not the money is wasted. If the roll succeeds, the item is made, and time to create is reduced by 2% per point by which the crafter made the DC. Epic crafters who make the roll by 50 or more whip it up pretty darn fast (plate armor in 50 days... what do you mean you did it in 1 day?!).

The money for materials is pretty much the same regardless, to keep mercantile PC's from getting TOO good a deal. Build for 1/4, sell for 1/4, and buy for market price sounds about right.

 

[DWARF]

i just upped it from silver pieces to gold, and then upped Craft: Poison to Platinum pieces.

 

[Conaill]

Yeah, either switch to sp/day, gp/week, or even gp/day. sp/week is just ridiculously slow - especially for an adventuring PC! You can always make those feats, to reduce the impact on the Crafting economy. (Not that the D&D economic system makes any sense, mind you!)

There's also a house rule that allows a crafter to hurry the production of relatively simple items. This increases the Craft DC as desired to get a proportional decrease in the crafting time. E.g. a high level crafter (skill +20) needs to make a batch of spoons (DC 5). He decides to hurry the manufacture of those spoons, increasing the DC to 20. He can now craft an average of 20x30 = 60 gp/week of spoons, whereas if he took his time he would only be making an average 5x30 = 15 gp/week worth of spoons. (Probably shouldn't allow "take 10" if he's hurrying though.)

 

[Damon Griffin]

Anyone else think that the Craft skill takes an insane amount of time to make anything?

Oh, yeah.

My elven character has a Craft:Bowmaking check of +23 (9 ranks in Craft, +4 INT, and a Knife of the Bowyer from Magic of Faerun that provides a +10 circumstance bonus to Craft:Bowmaking checks). He is about to begin work on an elven masterwork (see The Quintessential Elf) mighty +4 composite longbow with the 'seeking' and 'increased range' masterwork components from Heroes of High Favor: Elves. Market value of this entirely non-magical bow: 1525gp.

After making the appopriate Craft rolls (d20 +23, remember) to complete 15,250sp worth of work, it turns out that if we go by the rules, it will take him 22 weeks to complete this bow.

Remember that 3e is somewhat modern in its assumption that craftsment work an 8-hour day. My DM houseruled that any craftsman who had decent control over his own time could choose to work a 12-hour day for the duration of an important project; he further decided that elves and half-elves could extend that to a 16-hour day in consideration of their lesser sleep requirements (4 hours meditation instead of 8 hours sleep.)

So that cut the crafting time down to 11 weeks. It still annoys me somewhat that the cleric in our party is going to be able to create the following magic rod in 10 weeks (using the magic item creation rules AS IS):

Spell
Level Features Frequency GP Cost
-------------------------------------------------
5 Raise Dead 1/week 2,314
5 Break Enchantment 1/week 2,314
4 Restoration 1/day 10,800
4 Neutralize Poison 1/Day 10,800
3 Remove blindness/
deafness 2/day 10,800
3 Remove Disease 2/day 10,800
2 Remove Paralysis 3/day 6,480
- Det. Poison 1' Rad Unlimited 900
- Det. Curse 1' Rad Unlimited 10,800
------
66,008

It is absurd that a non-magical bow -- as fine as this one is going to be -- should take more than twice as long to create as a rod capable of all of the above functions.

 

[Umbran]

At the rates and costs they have in the PHB, craftsmen couldn't even come close to make a decent living.

When I sat down and worked it out on a couple of test cases, the craftsman earned a decent living - for a 1st level commoner. One does not become rich (at least not adventurer-rich) with craft skills.

They take a long time, yes. But, guess what? Making real objects by hand, using only primitive tools takes a long time.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Re: Re: Craft skill...

When I sat down and worked it out on a couple of test cases, the craftsman earned a decent living - for a 1st level commoner. One does not become rich (at least not adventurer-rich) with craft skills.

They take a long time, yes. But, guess what? Making real objects by hand, using only primitive tools takes a long time.

A good point. They're not supposed to be rich by the standards of a 4th level fighter.

-BG

PS readers of the excellent Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander will remember the wonderful book Taran Wanderer in which our hero considers turning aside a path of glory for a path of a blacksmith, weaver, or potter. None of the crafstfolk had what could be called a high standard of living.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Re: Re: Craft skill...

My elven character has a Craft:Bowmaking check of +23 (9 ranks in Craft, +4 INT, and a Knife of the Bowyer from Magic of Faerun that provides a +10 circumstance bonus to Craft:Bowmaking checks). He is about to begin work on an elven masterwork (see The Quintessential Elf) mighty +4 composite longbow with the 'seeking' and 'increased range' masterwork components from Heroes of High Favor: Elves. Market value of this entirely non-magical bow: 1525gp.

After making the appopriate Craft rolls (d20 +23, remember) to complete 15,250sp worth of work, it turns out that if we go by the rules, it will take him 22 weeks to complete this bow.

Seems reasonable to me. We're talking about a hand-made, composite bow, tested and treated for strength, and with custom made aiming pins and increased range as well. It has a street value (for comparison!) roughly the same as a suit of full plate armor, right? This is a NICE bow, it is worth a small fortune, so 5 and half months of labor seems about right for a single dedicated artisan, taking his time. It's gonna look NICE.

Not fast enough for ya?

Other folks have already said it: Your DM should allow you to voluntarily raise the DC to speed up the crafting times. I am pretty sure this rule appears in the Epic book and I would expect it to appear in the 3.5 revision, as well. With a +23 bonus, shooting for about DC25 or so (right? not looking at my books...) you can safely raise the DC to 33 and take 10.

And don't forget the value of apprentices (check out HOHF: Dwarves) or, to sum up, have another character or apprentice "Aid Another" to give you another +2 bonus. Raise the DC to a full 35.

Twelve and a half weeks. Almost half the time. Take 10, work to your full potential (ie, raise the DC) and get at least one apprentice.

I say the Craft formula is just right.

Wulf

 

[Conaill]

So let's say my alchemist wants to make some alchemist's fire. 20 gp, craft DC 20. Taking 10, I get a craft check of 20 (no silly +10 items here!) That means it'll take me half a week non-stop to craft a simple one-shot item. Meanwhile, any magic user of similar level can toss off several spells that do alot more damage per day - for free.

Sure, the Crafting times may be realistic when it comes to crafting masterwork items. But since when has that been a criterion for D&D? Fact is, it's infeasible and, well, just plain no fun to have to spend weeks and weeks crafting an item, while other PCs can do equivalent things using magic in a day or less. Crafting times are plain ridiculous for an adventuring PC.

While we're on the topic... how about reducing magical crafting to 1000 gp per week?! That would still be 10 times faster than an expert crafter with a 30+ Craft check... Let's see how the magic lovers will react when the shoe is on the other foot...

 

[Sanackranib]

crafting items

for some stuff the times work for others they do not. example my lasher had a roll of 16 leatherworking. making a mighty +4 masterwork whip. would take a couple of weeks. (400 gp + 300 gp) in reality any competent leatherworker would do it in hours or at most a couple of days. afterall its mostly just braiding the leather and keeping it tight then adding a couple of rings and a tip. however you must also consider the resale market it you are allowed to "flood" the market with quickly constructed expensive items. it doesn't do any good to make them if no one can afford to buy them. this is why armorers don't "stock up on full plate".

to some degree I think you just have to use common sence. for most stuff simply changing silver to gold works well enough. for other stuff assuming the pc's get the compontnts themselves then there might be little or no actual cost. in the bow example you pick out your own wood and allow it to season, treat it etc. and for some items the time might go up, or the cost go down. most adventurers arn't gonna open shop, but if everyone isn't traing or you are waiting for items to be crafted then the other PC's should have the opportunity to cover more then just room and board.