Craft skill...

[Shard O'Glase]

how about this insist that all crafters must be either wizards or sor/psions with the fabricate spell/power. That way they say SHAZAM, and the item is instantly made instead of wasting 3 months crafting a masterwork toothpick.(BY the way masterwork costs suck IMO, it should be a multiple based upon the base items cost. A masterwork club and a masterwork two handed sword should have drasitcally different costs and times to create)

 

[Conaill]

Because, Conaill, the rulebook is of finite size, the designers only had a finite amount of time to write it, and it's gotta sell for a reasonably low price. Asking game designers to include everything anyone might ever want is simply unreasonable.

Well, I didn't ask them to include everything. I just wished they had increased the Craft speed by a factor of 7, i.e. Carfting in sp/day instead of sp/week. That is not going to mess up the NPC craft economy. At least no more than it already is .

So, I have two words for you - Prestige Class.

On that topic... I had a chance to leaf through Mystic Eye Games' "Guilds & Adventurers" last weekend. Based on the title, I thought it was going to be just another collection of fairly setting-specific guild organizations. Instead it turned out to contain one of the most elegant efforts at incorporating Craft and other "flavor" skills into an adventuring PC.

The book presents some 30 or so very generic guilds (such as "shipwrights", "alchemists", "armorers" etc.). Each guild has a Guildsman PrC (as well as a Guild Expert NPC class) associated with it, and ranks in the guild correspond to levels in the PrC. Entry requirements are failry low. Whereas otherwise a player might be stuck with taking levels in Expert or Rogue (for the skill points) to fit his character concept, now he can take levels in the appropriate Guildsman PrC and gain some nice abilities (and contacts!) that will actually come in handy for an adventuring craftsman.

 

[Damon Griffin]

Re: craft times

Seriously, you have a point. But that still doesn't solve the problem of it being a story killer. I view crafting jaunts by PCs as intermissions that are unnecessary - I mean, why does the PC have to craft this thing? Are there not people in town that can craft it in the meantime?

There may be more than one answer to this, depending on whether you are talking about using the Craft skill to create a mundane item, or a Craft Item feat to create a magic item. Also on what the campaign economy is like (cash poor, magic poor, whatever.)

The mage in our party is getting ready to craft a Helm of Teleportation. Why do it himself? Because it costs 24,000+ less if he creates it himself, and in our particular campaign, 24000gp is a significant chunk of all the money that character has earned over his entire career. It's not pocket change. He can't afford to say "I can't be bothered to take the seven weeks necessary to make this item myself, I'll just spring for extra 24Kgp and have someone else do it."

This applies even more to our cleric, who has designed a completely new multi-functional rod with a market value of 66,000gp. If she bankrupts herself, she can *just* manage to scrape together one third of that amount. Thanks to some donations from other party members, she won't go broke doing this, but the total contributions are only going to come to the 33K needed for a do it yourself project.

My character, a bowyer, certainly could afford to pay someone to make bows and all his arrows for him. In this case it's a matter of roleplaying rather than an economic thing. Arrows are quickly used up (especially if you're a midlevel character with Rapid Shot, and can fire 3 or 4 a round) and bows are more easily damaged or broken than hammers, swords, etc. Your average melee fighter doesn't need to be a weaponsmith, but anyone who uses a bow as a primary weapon is well advised to take some Craft ranks. It's only prudent.

Now, having taken those Craft ranks, you have to expect the character to use them on occasion. We don't take actual time out of the game to detail bowmaking, it's all done in the background, but the time required is noted, and sometimes other characters are going to have some time to kill.

I don't expect people to spend valuable real world game time describing how their characters go shopping, or spend time on a hobby, or learn a new language. Say you've done it, advance the campaig calendar, and resume adventuring. But I have no patience for players who think their characters have to be actively adventuring 24/7 or their character's time is being wasted. When the mage, the cleric and the bowyer take time out for a project, go find something to amuse youself in the meantime.

 

[pawned79]

This post if for Zogg again,

Hey Zogg, I'm glad you think my character would translate okay into D&D, because he is my 3rd edition D&D character. In fact, my friend (Arravis) is setting up the kitchen table right now to play the Endless Desert game while I type this.

Let me be a little bit more specific to some game mechanics that happen with my character at the gaming table. Our characters at level 1 had NPC levels. Luula has a level in warrior, and Balak has a level in expert. He's got a ton of points dumped into blacksmithing, armor making, weapon making, leather working, gem cutting (which I haven't used yet), amount the other non-trade skills.

Our game is placed in a home brewed 3rd edition game that resembles the Dark Sun world. Balak's cleric casting works like Dark Sun's defiler. Balak has one level in expert, two levels in cleric, a level in fighter, and a level in rogue. Ever single game, I have used my craft skills to make weapons and armor out of various animal parts out of the numerous beetle creatures that infest the desert. As you know from the story, we went into a cursed land to get weapons to fight our war. While we were there, we had a combat against a pair of howlers. We killed one, but the other got away. So, now I’ve taken this howler corpse and put it with my other “trade goods” as I have them listed in my character sheet. When I finish, could you imagine an armor of howler spines? It wouldn’t make too good of a weapon, because they are really brittle, but it would definitely be great for the intimidation roll.

If I were to list every item that I have made using my trade skills, and how many times I’ve done business in the desert for food, and how many times we have not had hard currency and had to bargain item for item, it would be a really long post. Trust me.

Patrick

 

[Draugin]

Demiurgics Handbook

I started the now-called "Demiurgics Handbook" project just because I wanted that my players had a chance to play an artisan or an alchemist.
I always wanted to play a dwarven blacksmith, but what can you do with the basic rules? A dwarven fighter with some wasted ranks in Craft (weaponsmithing/armorsmithing). Woah.

D&D is a class based system, as someone in this thread noticed, so the point is not simply adjusting Craft DCs or time needed.
The point is (and I thought), we need more classes and mechanics for a new "power system" (parallel to magic and psionics).

I'm not talking about Prestige Classes. I mean, if I wanted to be an alchemist, why should I start as a *mage*?

So, I started with the creation of two new core classes, the Alchemist and the Artificer, and with a brand new system of "power", Demiurgics (maybe this won't be the correct translation). This is not magic, but art and technique practised by heroes and legendary people, i.e. PCs. Well, they've got also some cute class abilities (like "extemporary craft").

The Demiurgics system is constructed in a similar way magic and psionics are, but even now it looks very different and it has got a lot of different flavour.
Each compound, opus or device is totally new or presents an original twist to a well known effect (just to tell two of my alchemy favorites, corporeal invisibility and alter ego).
Maybe someone interested in this thread will also like the Demiurgics Handbook (it's not finished, yet).

If someone is interested, I'll post more infos.

 

[Gnarlo]

Definitely gonna check out the Guilds and Adventurers book. I, too, love the Craft skills and such as my old guildmates in EQ can testify to I enjoyed that aspect of character creation from the old Rolemaster and Runequest days that a character had some sort of background to them and had skills relevant to village life, rather than just being a "dwaven defender in training" the first 18 years of their life.

Jasmine Svendotter, age 9: "I'm gonna be a great necromancer when I grow up, and raise a massive undead armor to march forth and spread evil and pestilence throughout the land!!"
Sven: "That's nice, dear, now get your out there in the field and help your brother plant those crops!"

/gnarlo