Crafting adamantium

[Tatsukun]

That's what I figured but I think you forgot to divide the 3050 by 3 so it would cost only about 1016 gp.

Um, why 3? You have to reach the market price, and pay the creation cost (half the market price). So you pay 1,525Gp, then craft until you get to 3,050Gp (or fail a roll and ruin half the 1,525Gp of materials)


So let's assume you are Bob the Living God Bladesmith; Expert 20, lots of other bonuses to Craft for a total of Craft (weapon) +50.

So by taking 10 you get 60. The Craft DC is 20, (60 * 20) = 1,200Sp = 120 Gp / week.

So, Bob the living God Bladesmith takes about 25 weeks to make this blade.

Of course, Bob has it better than his twin, Mike the living God Armorsmith, who is trying to make Mithral Fullplate (market price 10,500). It will take him 88 weeks to make it. But that makes sense, what 20th level character wouldn't work for a year and a half for 5,250 Gp?

Oh, don't forget that the last brother, Dave the 15th level mage, can enchant 88 suits of +1 armor in that amount of time, or three suits of +5 armor and take 13 days off. That +5 armor will net him 37,500Gp. (more than 7 times as much as Bob gets; it pays to be a lower level mage!).

<Rant>

What's sill is that mages can craft at 1,000Gp / week, to match that on a masterwork item (DC 20) Bob would have to make a Craft check DC 500 every week.

Oh, that's right, Bob can add 10 to the DC if he wants, that means the DC would be 334. Still ain't gonna happen!

Craft rules in 3.5 are silly !

</Rant>

-Tatsu

 

[BSF]

I've said it before, and I will say it again.

It is an area where the combat focus of the game really comes to the fore.

Sadly, the focus of the design wasn't on non-combat activities. Not that I necessarily blame the designers for that. The vast majority of players don't want to have a PC that has devoted a significant effort toward crafting. In this case, the few that do are hindered by wonky mechanics. I am unaware of any retreatment of the craft rules by third parties. Anybody else know of one?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Tatsukun: The creation cost for mundane items is 1/3 their market price, not their 1/2, like magic items.

3. Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.

 

[Tatsukun]

DOH ! I wish I had noticed that before my PC spent two years making an Adamantine Greatmaul and Mithral Fullplate!

I say again, DOH!

-Tatsu

 

[Conaill]

I don't think the extra money counts towards creation time ... I remember this topic from when 3e first came out and no higher power really came out and clarified it.

I wouldn't use the extra gp against the creation time, I think it's a bit over the top ... especially when you could create a similiar magic item in a fraction of the time.

I totally agree that expensive materials shouldn't count towards the crafting time. Otherwise a gold sphere would take *way* longer to craft than an identical one made out of lead.

Actually, in 3.0, the special materials section sorta implied that, because they all explicitly stated "is treated as MW for purposes of calculating the craft time" or somesuch. Unfortunately, that language no longer appears in the 3.5 rules! So, at least in 3.5, this common-sense interpretation is no longer supported by the actual rules.

In the case of an adamantine weapon, for example, it's clearly stated that the +3000gp is an "Item Cost Modifier", meaning that this actually increases the market price of the item. And then the Craft rules simply refer to "the item's price" for calculation of crafting time and raw materials. So by the rules as written, the special materials price would indeed have an effect on the time to craft.

If anyone can prove me wrong on this, I would *love* to hear it! This is just one of those cases where they tried to simplify and clarify things in 3.5, and in the process completely screwed up what was already a fairly crippled mechanism...