Craft skills

[Herzog]

Does anyone know of a sourebook (ANY) for 3.5 (or 3.0 for that matter) that provides a little more insight into which craft skill to apply to which (mundane) item creation?

I'm getting very frustrated with my Artificer character. The idea was to have him create magic items, including the base item (staffs, wands, golems, etc.) but the handwaving of the PHB (craft: varies !?!) has already resulted in various instances of 'not having the right craft skill'.

I now have alchemy, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, painting and stonecarving, only to reach the point where I can craft a Homonculus and finding out that I need craft skills like sculpting, metalworking, woodworking, etc. I guess it's only a matter of time before I find out a particular item I like to make requires craft(basketweaving).

If I just had some list of item/craft combinations, I could start assigning skillpoints in a more direct way than guessing....

Herzog

 

[skelso]

I had always been under the impression that you did not need ANY craft skills to create magic items. Sure, if you wanted to make magic sword from scratch, you'd need Weaponsmithing, but in the grand scheme of things, you are better off just buying that masterwork sword, then enchanting it. It takes about 6 game weeks to make a masterwork weapon, but only a couple of days to give it a +1 bonus. Your benefit vs. time ratio improves by staying away from the crafting portion.

Umm, but to answer your question, I don't know of any lists like that outside of the PHB. I'd just pester your DM to make rulings.

 

[roguerouge]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm

"To create magic armor, a character needs a heat source and some iron, wood, or leatherworking tools. He also needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being the armor or the pieces of the armor to be assembled. Armor to be made into magic armor must be masterwork armor, and the masterwork cost is added to the base price to determine final market value. Additional magic supplies costs for the materials are subsumed in the cost for creating the magic armor—half the base price of the item."

"To create a magic weapon, a character needs a heat source and some iron, wood, or leatherworking tools. She also needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being the weapon or the pieces of the weapon to be assembled. Only a masterwork weapon can become a magic weapon, and the masterwork cost is added to the total cost to determine final market value. "

"The creator of a potion needs a level working surface and at least a few containers in which to mix liquids, as well as a source of heat to boil the brew. In addition, he needs ingredients. The costs for materials and ingredients are subsumed in the cost for brewing the potion—25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster."

"To create a magic ring, a character needs a heat source. He also needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being a ring or the pieces of the ring to be assembled. The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the ring. "

"To create a rod, a character needs.... a rod." Same goes for wands and staves.

"To create a scroll, a character needs a supply of choice writing materials, the cost of which is subsumed in the cost for scribing the scroll—12.5 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster."


"To create a wondrous item, a character usually needs some sort of equipment or tools to work on the item. She also needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being the item itself or the pieces of the item to be assembled. The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the item. "

Wondrous items are the most varied, and thus the most difficult to pin down.

Specialize, man! Sometimes having the peons do the grunt work and you do the magic work is the way it goes.

 

[Herzog]

No, normally you don't need craft skills for magic items. You need the 'base' item, and then enchant it.
However, when you want to create the base item as well (because you want to create a 'custom' magic item for instance) you would need the appropriate craft skill(s).

Besides, even if I eventually buy all the base items, I would like to know what craft skills to apply to what items, in case I ever need to build or repair certain items with a character.

I just find it hard to grasp that a system where they specify the weight and cost of various types of rope and lamps couldn't be bothered with adding the appropriate craft skill to these items (with or without DC's).

They way craft skills are handled now, they are completely useless!

oh, ans rogerouge: I'd like to 'specialize' in one or two craft skills, I just would like to know which ones.....

 

[irdeggman]

I'm getting very frustrated with my Artificer character. The idea was to have him create magic items, including the base item (staffs, wands, golems, etc.) but the handwaving of the PHB (craft: varies !?!) has already resulted in various instances of 'not having the right craft skill'.

I now have alchemy, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, painting and stonecarving, only to reach the point where I can craft a Homonculus and finding out that I need craft skills like sculpting, metalworking, woodworking, etc. I guess it's only a matter of time before I find out a particular item I like to make requires craft(basketweaving).

If I just had some list of item/craft combinations, I could start assigning skillpoints in a more direct way than guessing....

Herzog

Just make sure you understand that the only items required to be of masterwork quality before enchanting are weapons and armor (and shields).

My former DM (Still a friend and fellow gamer but I can't play in his game due to his random misinterpretations of written rules and spontaneously made up house-rules) - required a wand to to be "masterwork" before enhancing. He then said that was part of the material costs for making it and that you had to buy one prior to crafting it (magically) or you could make one using pretty much any craft skill that seemed to work (woodworking was the most common, although it could be made of metal or jewlery (like bone) instead). My response was - what is the benefit provided by having a masterwork wand instead of a "regular" one? All masterwork items grant a bonus to their core use because of their "quality".

A wand is by definition a stick and only a stick.

From the SRD:

A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower. Each wand has 50 charges when created, and each charge expended allows the user to use the wand’s spell one time. A wand that runs out of charges is just a stick.

 

[Herzog]

As long as the cost of the masterwork item required is lower than the material cost required to create the item, and is substracted from the total material cost required for the item (effectively replacing (part of) the 'generic' material component cost with a specific component ) I don't see any problem with that.

On the other hand, that would indeed leave a masterwork 'stick' after the wand is depleted.
And leave the question: can that masterwork 'stick' be used as material component for another wand?

Herzog

 

[irdeggman]

As long as the cost of the masterwork item required is lower than the material cost required to create the item, and is substracted from the total material cost required for the item (effectively replacing (part of) the 'generic' material component cost with a specific component ) I don't see any problem with that.

On the other hand, that would indeed leave a masterwork 'stick' after the wand is depleted.
And leave the question: can that masterwork 'stick' be used as material component for another wand?

Herzog

There was no set cost for the masterwork component of a wand (it varied). I had huge problems because:

You either had to make or buy the masterwork wand itself.

This was supposed to be part of the material components consumed - but since there was no set cost for the masterwork component, buying it ahead of time had no meaning. Using different caster levels to make the item also changes the material costs of said item - so what is what cost in this case?

Now for the really big one - what is the benefit that being masterwork quality applies to the wand? What function does a wand have that you can add a bonus to due to its high quality?

The rules for charged magic items specifically state they can not be recharged. You must use the variant rule in the DMG to cover that (but my former DM hadn't looked at that part either).

IMO - when you make a house-rule you need to inform the players ahead of time not after they take a feat that is dependent on the house-rule.

You also need to look at alll of the ramifications of said house-rule (something my former DM routinely failed to do - another of my favorite ones was that elves took extra damage from "cold iron", but he never including a benefit to make up for that "penalty" - it really sucked when an elf couldn't use "metal weapons" (except mithral) becasue of this house-rule, since the damage applied even when holding or wearing said material.) This was a 3.0 house-rule, before the material type of "cold iron" was "defined".

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah, normally, you don't need any Craft skills to make magic items. Just the relevant item creation feat.

Also, the Player's Handbook has a small number of sample Craft skills mentioned in the skill description. It's not a complete list, but an example of how broad or specialized each Craft should be.