Craft vs Profession

[StreamOfTheSky]

IMHO Profession sucks as a skill. If your DM doesnt run a game with ALOT of downtime, its useless. and after a few levels, its doubly worthless. "Woohoo, i rolled a 27! Thats a week of work for...27...gold..pieces...Bah, Lets got kill some ogres or something." At best its great for some RP value, and maybe if you wanted to use the owning a shop rules in DMG2, but other than that, craft is far superior.

Actually, it'd be half that result, for 13 gold pieces Craft and Profession both allow you to make a weekly earning, however craft also lets you make useful things. I wondered about this for a while, since this seems to make craft better. However, I noticed that most Professions mentioned in various books carry some more subtle bonus. It's often a skill synergy, or situational bonuses etc... For example, profession (herbalist) gives you +2 on heal checks. Profession (sailor) gives you a lot of help when on the water (can't remember what exactly). You need Profession (siege engineer) just to fire a catapult. I've never noticed a craft skill giving any sort of bonus, so I assume that is the balance.

The reason I decided on this is because next game I DM, I will let each player pick one craft or profession skill that fits with their backstory. They will get free maxed ranks in this skill as they progress. The balance for any funky profession skills they might pick (vs. a craft skill) will be some appropriate, but small bonus. Profession (cobbler) might give the character a bonus on rolls to continue on a forced march, for example, due to having comfortable, customized footwear.

 

[Lord Wyrm]

Being the Rat Bastard that I am I sometimes advance time in my games.

The players can clear out a dungeon, save the princess, commit genocide on a grand scale, whatever. Then I advance the timeline a year or two. People without Profession find themselves in dire straits fairly quickly, having to sell magic items just to feed themselves. The only player I have ever seen get through a time jump without profession skills and come out better was a Lawful Evil Warlock who installed himself as king over an island chain, I let him make an Int check to avoid the courtly intrigues that might other wise kill him and he rolled a nat 20. I let him have that one and moved along.

 

[Anax]

You can also think about having the Profession skill give a synergy bonus to certain other skills. For example, I'm currently plotting over a character who has ranks in Profession (constable). Having five ranks in this skill might give a synergy bonus to social skills in specific circumstances. (For example: synergy bonus to Diplomacy with law officers, perhaps to Gather Information checks in places where the law has a strong presence, perhaps even Intimidate to petty criminals--stoolpigeon sorts, anyway.)

Other things that could come from this might be the ability to make a Profession check as a sort of ghetto Knowledge check for the area of expertise. For example, I might make a check to have some idea where officers of the law are likely to be found, or to identify the rank of such an officer.

For other professions, well--there are similar things. Profession (sailor) can give social bonuses with sailors and other people involved with the sea. It could also give you the skill needed to sail an ocean-going vessel, and perhaps a bonus to Survival on the open sea. A more stay at home thing like Profession (baker) might give bonuses to Survival to determine whether food is edible or tainted. Profession (merchant) might give bonuses to Appraise. Some of these ideas I've mentioned are clearly more useful to an adventurer than others--but they're all pretty restrictive in scope.

None of these sorts of benefits will be useful in every campaign. But that's really true of all but a small handful of the skills. Still, because they're so very restricted in their utility, I'm inclined to be liberal about where synergy bonuses might apply, and what knowledge-like checks might be available. This keeps you in the realm of "not useful in direct combat, not useful for making things", but makes them less pointless on a mechanics scale than they otherwise might be. On the character development scale, of course, they're quite high up.

 

[Ferrum]

Alot of good info has come up, but not exactly what I was looking for. The heart of the matter is, does a PC with a profession that suggests the crafting of things, such as profession; jeweler, blacksmith, baker, alchemist, etc... actually have the ability to craft those things, or does he need skill ranks in craft: x?

Granted, a few times I've statted up an NPC expert to be a highly skilled craftsman, and in those instances, that NPC had equal ranks in both profession and craft that related to his trade. For PCs, using two skill points per level on two fairly redundant skills is a very high price to pay.

My answer might be to change the skill "Craft" to "Craftsman" and change the description of Profession to be viable only for occupations which require skill, but do not create any marketable items as part of the job. That way a Blacksmith is a Craftsman, and a Sailor is a Professional, and the two would never overlap.

Does that sound reasonable?

 

[DamionW]

Alot of good info has come up, but not exactly what I was looking for. The heart of the matter is, does a PC with a profession that suggests the crafting of things, such as profession; jeweler, blacksmith, baker, alchemist, etc... actually have the ability to craft those things, or does he need skill ranks in craft: x?

Granted, a few times I've statted up an NPC expert to be a highly skilled craftsman, and in those instances, that NPC had equal ranks in both profession and craft that related to his trade. For PCs, using two skill points per level on two fairly redundant skills is a very high price to pay.

My answer might be to change the skill "Craft" to "Craftsman" and change the description of Profession to be viable only for occupations which require skill, but do not create any marketable items as part of the job. That way a Blacksmith is a Craftsman, and a Sailor is a Professional, and the two would never overlap.

Does that sound reasonable?

Sounds reasonable to me. I honestly never heard of a character like yours that took ranks in Profession to cover Smithing. That always seemed a Craft skill to me. Dunno.

 

[Ferrum]

I honestly never heard of a character like yours that took ranks in Profession to cover Smithing. That always seemed a Craft skill to me.

Right, I realize that now. Profession: Smith is a fairly ridiculous idea mechanically, but I was taking my skills based on flavor, and I wanted the character to follow a bit in his father's footsteps. That meant taking up te "profession" of being a smith.

I should have read the skill description a little more thoroughly and realized that running a business is included in Craft. I suppose what really bothers me, is that running a business is explicitly included in the skill that allows you to create items, but the skill that allows you to run a business (which would imply you can create business required items) doesn't explicitly state you are capable of crafting anything.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

Right, I realize that now. Profession: Smith is a fairly ridiculous idea mechanically, but I was taking my skills based on flavor, and I wanted the character to follow a bit in his father's footsteps. That meant taking up te "profession" of being a smith.

I should have read the skill description a little more thoroughly and realized that running a business is included in Craft. I suppose what really bothers me, is that running a business is explicitly included in the skill that allows you to create items, but the skill that allows you to run a business (which would imply you can create business required items) doesn't explicitly state you are capable of crafting anything.

I still think you could have ranks in both. Think of your typical family owned bakery. The baker owns the shop and makes the product he sells. Lets say, arbitrarily, the baker has 16 ranks in Craft: Baking (his cinnamon rolls are exceptional). He also has 3 ranks in Profession: Baker (he has a little understanding of what people want of a bakery, how to buy supplies on the cheap, etc.)

Then take, oh say, Starbucks. Does Starbucks sell baked goods? Well, let's say they do. The CEO of Starbucks has 2 ranks in Craft: Baking (he sometimes makes cake from scratch). However, he has 30 ranks in Profession: Baker (he knows how to market muffins and tea biscuits, he knows that most people like more sugar than salt in... donuts, or whatever) In short, he knows how to make money as a baker, whereas the actual baker knows how to make excellent cookies.

So a particularly industrious baker might have ranks in both.

R from Three Haligonians

 

[irdeggman]

Craft can be used untrained profession can not.

So you can't use a profession skill to craft something. Specifically profession skills don't make anything - IMO that is fairly clear from the write up of the two skills. Profession gives some basic understanding of the crafts involved but not enough to provide any specific benefit to the actual crafting of something.

I am at a loss as to why ranks in craft don't provide a bonus to profession skills.