D&D 4E Crafting... can anyone make anything in 4E?

[GnomeWorks]

4ed DOES have those rules. There's an entire page that's dedicated to eyeballing DCs, and it handles whether those checks are being made with a skill or not.

...one singular page, intended to cover all the bases that were not covered in the 320-page combat-centric PH.

Ahuh.

Really, if your campaign could cope with the dirty bathwater that the old crafting rules were, then you're advanced enough to come up with some new rules if you deem them necessary.

This argument is old and irritating.

If the answer is "write it yourself," then there is no reason to keep with 4e.

On the topic of referring to the lack of crafting rules as a 'gross oversight':
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/6/13/

Thinly-veiled personal attack. Nice.

Stay classy, EN World!

 

[Saeviomagy]

...one singular page, intended to cover all the bases that were not covered in the 320-page combat-centric PH.

Ahuh.

Compared with the previous... oh, look. A paragraph of rules for covering crafting, which didn't work to produce a coherent system. Yeah, sure lost a lot there.

This argument is old and irritating.

If the answer is "write it yourself," then there is no reason to keep with 4e.

No, the argument is that you should, like the 4e designers most likely did, go through a design process.

Step 1. Determine what needs will be filled by a system and compare those with the cost of said system. Determine whether said system is actually worth having and if so, how much time should be dedicated to it.

So far the OP says "I need a crafting system" and "Currently we use the crafting system thusly".

The OPs current system seems to be "the players decide what they can make based on pictures and flavour text, then the 3e rules supply their random numbers and we roll dice a lot and everyone has fun and is happy". I've been asking if the "we roll dice a lot" bit is really needed for the fun.

Thinly-veiled personal attack. Nice.

Eh? "Here is a comic where someone used the word appalling to describe a game score, and the comic makes fun of this fact. I tie it to your use of the phrase 'gross oversight'". Hardly a personal attack. Hardly thinly veiled.

 

[WalterKovacs]

The upcoming item book appears to be creating non-magical rituals in the from of 'recipes' for alchemy. They may similarly describe rules for crafting items in there as well.

In general, they already have rituals for creating magical items and repairing items. Both of those cost gp = items cost. So a crafting 'ritual' would effectively allow someone to by items 'at cost' [instead of at a mark-up]. To modify it from the original ritual and make it less magical, it is a requirement to have access to the right tools and materials.

The crafting rules thus have to be tied to the economy rules. Are things in the book sold as is? Or with a markup? Do you want to make it cheaper to craft than buy? Basically, the 'economy' is decided by the setting. You could make a craft check tied to the ritual [as other rituals are tied to skill checks]. Thus if someone is 'trained', they would be able to craft an item better. The skill check could reduce the cost of the item, making it mirror a negociation system for reducing an items cost if buying from a dealer.

Ultimately though, issues such as economy or crafting mundane items are ultimately up to campaign settings. The reason there are no rules for crafting are:

(A) There is a ritual for creating magic items, that crafts them. So you only lack mundane crafting

(B) There is a ritual for repairing mundane equipment. So, if you needed to replace certain items "on the go" you could basically buy a new one without going back to town

(C) If crafting requires a forge [or something else you can't carry around] ... there will likely be someone selling items [and that can craft for you].

So, ultimately, they lack rules for the PCs making something they could normally buy ... which is ultimately just a different way of buying stuff. [See also: buying magic items vs. crafting them through a ritual]. The DM [and players] determine the 'method' of aquiring items ... but ultimately, they spend the same ammount [more or less]. The most important rules are the cost, and they provide those.

 

[Eluxis]

I'm not entirely sure how true that is. I've heard of groups where combat is probably as rare as crafting is in most campaigns. Granted, they weren't playing D&D, but stilll.

Wow this is probably the silliest counter-argument I've ever seen. Congratulations.

We are talking about D&D, so I'm not sure how what groups that aren't playing D&D do is at all relevant to the conversation. I'm sure combat is as rare as crafting when people are playing scrabble too but you didn't bother to mention that.

The point I was trying to make was that the designers seemed to realize that they couldn't possibly cover every single nuance of role-playing a world in the core release, so they chose to focus on the aspects that nearly every campaign has in common: character development and combat. If you feel like it was a "gross oversight" that they didn't include specific rules for crafting, horticulture, cooking, animal husbandry, basket weaving, dancing, smelting, painting, singing, running your own tavern, building a castle, cartography, calligraphy, sheepherding, or whatever else a particular group may want to focus on - simply don't play the game.

I find it odd that the small minority lamenting the absence of role-playing in 4e also claim to have absolutely no idea how to do it without pages of rules to cover every single detail.

And I can't believe I just got wrangled into debating with an edition troll.

 

[Zil]

I, for one, agree that 4e seems to focus first and foremost on combat (and any rules that don't have an applicable role in combat or social encounters are either glossed over or omitted entirely). However, I have to say, I'm completely with WotC on not including rules for crafting. As it was, 3.x's crafting rules were terrible- they were a waste of skill points, because anybody running through a pre-existing campaign or adventure path would never have the time necessary to make anything, and even if they did, it wouldn't be worth the time and effort to make it when you could just travel to the city and buy it. And the more expensive the items got (at higher levels), the more skewed the crafting system became- especially when you're spending ten to twelve years to craft a single dose of black lotus extract poison.

That's one reason why I have always used the crafting system variant in Unearthed Arcana. It provided a mechanism for players who are rushing through an adventure path or other published adventure series to still use their craft/item creation skills.

 

[Zil]

...one singular page, intended to cover all the bases that were not covered in the 320-page combat-centric PH.

Ahuh.



This argument is old and irritating.

If the answer is "write it yourself," then there is no reason to keep with 4e.

I would have to agree. If crafting is really important to your game (and combat is not) and you don't see what you need in 4E with regard to a crafting system, then perhaps 4E isn't the best system for your game. Any answers suggesting the DM should write the rules themselves is not the answer most DMs want to hear. Most DMs are juggling precious prep hours coming up with adventures, settings, and interesting NPCs that they don't also want to also have to write whole rule subsystems for their game as well (even if 4E makes some of the other prep tasks easier).

I'm sure someone will eventually glom a good craft system on to 4E somehow - maybe even WoTC will do so eventually. But until it's there...

 

[Thasmodious]

If you ignore the faults of the system and where it is weak, then you're just being a fanboi.

Stay classy, indeed.

As I have already said, where you see fault, I see feature. The designers spelled it out clearly that this is what they wanted to do. It is what they did. It is not a fault or weakness of the system that there isn't a subsystem for -insert whatever-. The many subsystems of 3e were responsible for some of the most ridiculous of the RAW abuses, like the "infinite gold exploit" and some of the ridiculously broken combinations that arose from blending the later alternate casting/magic systems with the core D&D magic systems. Subsystems tend to create problems and corner cases, which then need solutions, which then need more solutions...

Carpenter: "Hey, look at this, I just built this nice box, neat huh?"
"It doesn't have apples in it, it should have apples"
"But, what if the person who bought the box wanted to put newspapers or screws in it?"
"That is an invalid response to the lack of apples oversight."
"But you could just put apples in the box if you wanted"
"I shouldn't have to, the box should have been built with apples already inside. Telling me to put apples in the box myself is just an attempt to cover up your own failure to build a box of apples."
"I just thought that a simple, straight forward box would be useful to the widest number of people. All it requires is a little thought to use it for anything you could use a box for. I even included a pamphlet of the many uses of a box"
"Dude, you completely failed at making a box of apples."
"but...but...I wasn't trying to make a box of apples..."
"Exactly!"

The OP didn't come in and ask for advice on how to construct a crafting system, he stated that ...crafting wasn't allowed in 4e...gross oversight...unless he missed it somewhere. Naturally, some people (much like myself), saw a need to explain that you can, indeed, just make it up yourself. That the game is, in fact, designed to give you the room to make up and tweak the game to suit your need, as suiting the needs of every gametype imaginable would be impossible. Many of us even provided advice (skill challenges, DC table) on how the OP might pull off crafting if that was really his intent, rather than yet another inane:

Posted: 1:02 a.m. by barrybarrybarry I can't believe I spent 35 dollars on a cookbook that doesn't have a recipe for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When I buy a cookbook, I expect it to tell me how to cook. And don't tell me to just make a PBJ myself, I'm not some sort of hippy artist pretentious "freeform cook."

 

[Eluxis]

Carpenter: "Hey, look at this, I just built this nice box, neat huh?"
"It doesn't have apples in it, it should have apples"
"But, what if the person who bought the box wanted to put newspapers or screws in it?"
"That is an invalid response to the lack of apples oversight."
"But you could just put apples in the box if you wanted"
"I shouldn't have to, the box should have been built with apples already inside. Telling me to put apples in the box myself is just an attempt to cover up your own failure to build a box of apples."
"I just thought that a simple, straight forward box would be useful to the widest number of people. All it requires is a little thought to use it for anything you could use a box for. I even included a pamphlet of the many uses of a box"
"Dude, you completely failed at making a box of apples."
"but...but...I wasn't trying to make a box of apples..."
"Exactly!"

:

I love this analogy. May I use it when when this argument comes up again? Because it will.

 

[Aloïsius]

I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned skill challenges yet.

So I will: skill challenges.

And which skill do you use in a skill challenge to craft an armor ?

 

[Thasmodious]

And which skill do you use in a skill challenge to craft an armor ?

Arcane - if the suit is to be magical or for special materials of the fey variety or to recall ancient techniques of the Eladrin or other armored magical races that blend arcane and steel (perhaps allowing arcane ritual materials to be used to give a bonus on the next craft based check or all craft based checks)
Athletics - to represent the strength and precision required to put hammer to metal
Bluff/Diplomacy - used to negotiate for materials, counts as a success and reduces materials cost of item crafted
Dungeoneering - "monster" knowledge, recall smithing techniques of Underdark races
Endurance - this skill can be used twice, with two successes representing a feat of endurance in the actual work of smithing that decreases the total time required to produce the item
History - to recall the ancient lessons of the craft of armorsmithing
Nature - to apply your knowledge of the natural armor of the beasts of the wild to aid you in producing quality protective armor or to aid in shaping masterwork materials based on hides, scales or the like
Perception - to apply artistry to the crafted item, to apply "feel" to the techniques
Religion - recall techniques and holy writs on armorsmithing from the more militant religious orders or armored immortal races
Streetwise - put in some effort to track down the best materials and the best deals on those materials, the best forge in town, most capable assistants, etc.


Just to name a few...