Crafting Houserule

[Inchoroi]

I had a thought the other night, just after our session. The party wants to get magic items. Every player loves that part of the game. Since they don't really break anything, I figured, "Sure, why not?" So, they can occasionally find someone able and willing for a price to craft the magic item for them. Problem is..it takes forever. The adventure is on a time-budget, and by the time they get the few items the group wants...the world would have ended already. I know I can fix this, but...I realize that the biggest balancing factor for magic items isn't the cost: Its the time required to make them.

So, since this is a thing that my players absolutely love, I thought up something of a fix at about 3am last night. I was curious, because I'm just spitballing here, whether it's truly necessary and I should just tell them to suck it up, even though they all agree one of their biggest draws to the game is "MAGITECH STUFFS!". This isn't going to address plans at all, however. That's something that I've already handled in game anyway.

Crafting
A character who is proficient in a set of tools may craft items, both magical and mundane, using those tools and a set of materials that have a set price.

Progress on your crafting project proceeds at 5gp worth of progress per day for mundane items, and 25gp per day worth of progress for magical items.

In order to craft these items, the crafter must make an Intelligence + proficiency bonus check against a DC that varies based on the speed with which the character wishes to proceed.

[TABLE="width: 500"][TR][TD]Crafting Progress
5gp/25gp
10gp/50gp
20gp/100gp
40gp/200gp
80gp/400gp[/TD][TD]DC
10
15
20
25
30[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
Success on this check means that your crafting project has been successful, and your item will be completed when your progress equals or exceeds the cost of the item.

If you fail on this check, the time spent to craft the item is wasted. In addition, you must make an Intelligence saving throw against the same crafting DC. If you fail, the ingredients used in the item are wasted and you may not salvage anything worthwhile from the money invested in those ingredients.

New Feat:

Master Artisan
Prerequisite: Proficiency in a tool, Intelligence 13 or higher
You have mastered the use of a specific tool with which you are proficient. You double your proficiency bonus on any check you make when using that tool.

 

[transcendantviewer]

It's a good idea, but don't forget, in home games, players can enlist the help of NPCs to help expedite the time needed for crafting. It costs them more, but they get things done much faster. As for what you've got, I would say to slow things down just a bit. Remove the last 80/400 gold progress option, and shift the difficulty class for the rest of them. I'd recommend letting them auto-succeed on a progress of 5/25 gold each day, make a progress of 10/50 gold a DC 15, 20/100 gold a DC 20, and 40/200 a DC 30. Letting particularly wealthy characters hire workers for the project is perfectly fine. Letting them hire workers and be capable of doing the work twice as fast on their own just starts to get ridiculous. Your players might not break the game with this system, but enact something like this once, and they'll always want it.